M. 1 THE book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. 2 Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his breth- 3 ren; and Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar; and Phares begat Esrom; and Esrom 4 begat Aram; and Aram begat Aminadab; and Aminadab begat Naasson; and Naasson 5 begat Salmon; and Salmon begat Booz of Rachab; and Booz begat Obed of Ruth; and 6 Obed begat Jesse; and Jesse begat David the king; 7 And David the king begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Urias; and Solo- 8 mon begat Roboam; and Roboam begat Abia; and Abia begat Asa; and Asa begat 9 Josaphat; and Josaphat begat Joram; and Joram begat Ozias; and Ozias begat Joa- 10 tham; and Joatham begat Achaz; and Achaz begat Ezekias; and Ezekias begat Ma- 11 nasses; and Manasses begat Amon; and Amon begat Josias; and Josias begat Jechonias and his brethren, about the time they were carried away to Babylon. 12 And after they were brought to Babylon, Jechonias begat Salathiel; and Salathiel 13 begat Zorobabel; and Zorobabel begat Abiud; and Abiud begat Eliakim; and Eliakim 14 begat Azor; and Azor begat Sadoc; and Sadoc begat Achim; and Achim begat Eliud; 15, 16 and Eliud begat Eleazar; and Eleazar begat Matthan; and Matthan begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. 17 So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations. L. 23 And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the 24 son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli, which was the son of Matthat, which was the son of Levi, which was the son of Melchi, which was the son of Janna, which was the son 25 of Joseph, which was the son of Mattathias, which was the son of Amos, which was the 26 son of Naum, which was the son of Esli, which was the son of Nagge, which was the son of Maath, which was the son of Mattathias, which was the son of Semei, which was the 27 son of Joseph, which was the son of Juda, which was the son of Joanna, which was the son of Rhesa, which was the son of Zerobabel, which was the son of Salathiel, which was 28 the son of Neri, which was the son of Melchi, which was the son of Addi, which was the 29 son of Cosam, which was the son of Elmodam, which was the son of Er, which was the son of Jose, which was the son of Eliezer, which was the son of Jorim, which was the son 30 of Matthat, which was the son of Levi, which was the son of Simeon, which was the son of Juda, which was the son of Joseph, which was the son of Jonan, which was the son of 31 Eliakim, which was the son of Melea, which was the son of Menan, which was the son of 32. Mattatha, which was the son of Nathan, which was the son of David, which was the son of Jesse, which was the son of Obed, which was the son of Booz, which was the son of 33 Salmon, which was the son of Naasson, which was the son of Aminadab, which was the son of Aram, which was the son of Esrom, which was the son of Pharez, which was the 34 son of Juda, which was the son of Jacob, which was the son of Isaac, which was the son 35 of Abraham, which was the son of Thara, which was the son of Nachor, which was the son of Saruch, which was the son of Ragau, which was the son of Phalec, which was the 36 son of Heber, which was the son of Sala, which was the son of Cainan, which was the son of Arphaxad, which was the son of Sem, which was the son of Noe, which was the son 37 of Lamech, which was the son of Mathusala, which was the son of Enoch, which was the 38 son of Jared, which was the son of Maleleel, which was the son of Cainan, which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God. Ur to the giving of the Law no personal trait of the promised Redeemer is found. Hope was centred in a narrower circle at each great crisis in the spiritual history of mankind—in a race, in a nation, in a tribe. For the first time, the work of Moses furnished occasion to a special portraiture of Messiah's office. He was to be the mediator of a new Law. To establish an abiding covenant between God and man was declared to be the substance of his work. The Law alone was unable to train the Jews to their appointed work. A kingdom was established, and with it a new conception of Messiah was added. The king, who gave unity and security to the nation, was but a type of the Son of David, whose kingdom should extend in eternal blessings over all the world. The earthly sovereignty of the line of David fell. The chosen people passed into captivity, and under the pressure of national disaster learnt from the teaching of prophets to see in their promised Messiah "the Son of Man," who should sympathize with the sufferings of those whom he came to save as well as to govern. Thus the central belief, in virtue of which Judaism lived, was providentially shaped in the progress of the history of the chosen people. Nothing was lost as the conception of the Redeemer was gradually completed. Each period added something which belongs essentially to the fulness of the conception. And so at last the Lawgiver, the King, the Prophet, the Priest, the Man, are all included in the Christ whom the gospels present to us. B. F. W. THE object of both genealogies of Jesus in the gospels is to show that, according to the flesh, the holy child was lineally descended from King David. This fact was often asserted in our Lord's lifetime, and never denied by the Jews, as they would have been glad to have done had it been in their power. The fact that the descent of Jesus from David could be established by registers, and the presence of two such minute pedigrees as those of Matthew and Luke, evince that the Jews were, up to this time, still careful in the registration of family descents. The division of the whole Hebrew nation into tribes, and the allotment to each tribe, and to every family in each tribe, of its distinct portion of territory, as an inalienable possession, rendered it indispensable that genealogical tables should be preserved. That such registers existed to even a later date is shown by Josephus, who declared that he traced his own descent in the tribe of Levi by public registers; and he expressly informs that, however dispersed and dispossessed his nation were, they never failed to have exact genealogical tables prepared from the authentic documents which were kept at Jerusalem; and that, in all their sufferings, they were particularly careful to preserve these tables, which were renewed from time to time. Since, however, the period of their destruction as a nation by the Romans, all their tables of descent seem to be lost, and now they are utterly unable to trace the pedigree of any one Israelite who might lay claim to be their promised and still expected Messiah. K. The genealogies coincide until David, when Matthew takes the reigning line, whereas Luke takes the younger and inferior line by David's son Nathan. They concur, indeed, in Salathiel and Zorobabel, at the time of the captivity, but then diverge again, and even at the close the difference is maintained; for Matthew makes Joseph the son of Jacob, whereas Luke represents him as the son of Heli, or Eli. He could not have been naturally the son of both these persons; and the essential difference in the two lines of descent allows no satisfactory solution in the idea that Jacob and Heli are different names for the same person. They are obviously two different genealogies from the common ancestor, David. This being the case, there can be little doubt that the genealogy of Matthew is that of Joseph, and the one of Luke that of Mary—the former being the legal and the latter the real genealogy of Jesus. L.—Matthew was writing for the Jews, and tracing his legal descent from David, which legal descent was always reckoned in the male line, and was, therefore, properly traced through the husband of his mother. Luke, composing his gospel for the use of the Gentiles, and intending to prove that Christ was the seed of the woman, necessarily reckons by the line of his mother, Mary, the daughter of Heli. But it was never usual with the Jews to mention the names of females in their genealogies; on this account, Mary is not mentioned here by Luke, but is only intimated or included, when the line is commenced from her father, Heli. J. L.—Indeed, Luke seems to have indicated his meaning as clearly as could be, consistently with the absence of a woman's name in a pedigree, by distinguishing the real from the legal genealogy in a parenthetical remark, "Jesus being (as was reputed) the son of Joseph (but in reality) the son of Heli," or his grandson by the mother's side; for so the ellipsis should be supplied. Furthermore, Mary is always called by the Jews "the daughter of Heli." The conclusion, then, is, that Jesus was, in the most perfect sense, a descendant of David, not only by law in the royal line of kings through his reputed father, but by direct personal descent through his mother. L. L. 38. Which was the son of Adam. Matthew had contented himself with showing Jesus to be the son of Abraham, from whom the Scriptures had taught the Jews to expect that the Messiah would spring. Luke, on the contrary, traces this lineage up to Adam; and thus signifies, among other important truths, that he is the seed of the woman promised to our first parents as the common Saviour of them and of all their posterity, without distinction of Greek or Jew, bond or free. Townson. Chronological Outline from B. C. 4 to A. D. 30, including the Leading Events of our Saviour's Life. | B. C. | Judea. | Galilee. | N. E. Palestine. | Rome. | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 4 A. D. | Nativity. Death of HEROD. ARCHELAUS, Ethnarch of Judea, Samaria, and Idumea. | HEROD ANTIPAS, Tetrarch of Perea and Galilee. | HEROD PHILIP, Tetrarch of Batavia, Iturea, Trachonitis, etc. | AUGUSTUS CÆSAR. | | 6 8 April 9 | Archelaus banished, and Judea annexed to the province of Syria. First Roman Procurator. Jesus at the Passover (12 years). | | | | | 14 26 | PONTIUS PILATE, sixth Procurator. | | | Augustus dies. TIBERIUS, emperor. | | 27 April 9 | Baptism, Temptation. First Passover. | | | | | 28 March 29 | Second Passover at Jerusalem. | First circuit in Galilee. Apostles chosen. Second circuit. | | | | 29 April 16 Oct. 11 Dec. 12 | Third Passover—not at Jerusalem. Feast of Tabernacles. Feast of Dedication. | Third circuit. Circuit in Perea. | Transfiguration. | | | 30 April 5 April 6 April 8 May 17 May 27 | Passover. Crucifixion. Resurrection. Ascension. Pentecost. | | | | # Section 6—The Birth at Bethlehem. M. 18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily. But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins. Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us. 24 Then Joseph, being raised from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife: and knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS. L. 1 And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Cæsar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. 4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, (because he was of the house and lineage of David,) to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. 6 And so it was, that while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. THE birth of Christ most aptly introduces the whole subsequent history of his life, and both his birth and life as aptly represent the spiritual fortunes of his gospel as a great salvation for the world. And the reason why Jesus cannot find room for his gospel is closely analogous to that which he encountered in his birth, viz., that men's hearts are preoccupied; they are filled to the full with their own objects already. It is now as then and then as now; the selfishness and self-accommodation, the want of right sensibility, the crowding, eager state of men, in a world too small for their ambition—all these preoccupy the inn of their affections, leaving only the stable or some by-place in their hearts, as little worthy of his occupancy and the glorious errand on which he comes. And a main part of the difficulty is, that Christ is a grace too great for men's thoughts, and of course too great for their faith—the Eternal Word of God robed in flesh, the humanly manifested love and feeling of God, a free justification for the greatest of sinners and for all sin, a power of victory in the soul that raises it above temptation, supports it in peace, and makes obedience itself its liberty. Such a Christ of salvation fully received, embraced in the plenitude of his gifts—what fires would he kindle, what tongues of eloquence loosen, what heroic witnessings inspire! Is it not true that Christ our Master should begin to be fitly represented by his people—received in his true grandeur and fulness as the Lord of Life, and Saviour of mankind; able to save to the uttermost; a grace all victorious; light, peace, liberty, and power; wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption? Be it ours then so to make room for him, even according to the greatness of his power. H. B. 18. Before they came together.** Though betrothal was virtually marriage, and could only be broken off by a formal “bill of divorcement,” the betrothed did not at once go to her husband’s house. To give her time for preparation, and to soften the pain of parting from her friends, an interval elapsed before the final ceremony; it might be so many weeks, or months, or even a whole year. G.— 19. Her husband. Between the betrothal, or formal agreement to marry, and the actual marriage, the parties became, in the eye of the law, man and wife, and were so spoken of. K.—20. Son of David.** These words would recall Joseph’s mind to the promised seed, the expectation of the families of the lineage of David, and at once stamp the message as the announcement of the birth of the Messiah. 21. From their sins.** It is remarkable that in this early part of the evangelic history, in the midst of prodigies, and the disturbance of thrones by the supposed temporal King of the Jews, we have so clear an indication of the spiritual nature of the office of Christ. One circumstance of this kind outweighs a thousand cavils against the historic reality of the narrative. It bears the internal impress of a message from God, treasured up and related in its original formal terms. A.—The three names of our Saviour—Christ, “the anointed high priest;” Immanuel, “God with us;” and Jesus, “he that saves”—embody the great doctrines of the gospel, that he makes atonement for the past, is our companion in the present, and so delivers us from the power of sin now, and its penalty hereafter. L. A.—This is the name which we engrave in our hearts, and write upon our foreheads, and pronounce with our most harmonious accents, and rest our faith upon, and place our hopes in, and love with the overflowings of charity, joy, and adoration. J. T. 24. If his own dream was to be believed (of which he was able to judge), still more was Mary’s vision credible. The one confirmed and authenticated the other. The usual time for taking her home had already come; and he delayed not to afford her the protection which the formal completion of his marriage with her would supply. Hence, Jesus came to be formally recognized as the son of Joseph; and his early years rested under the shield of a poor man’s honor, until the time came for him to assert the claims of his heavenly parentage. K. L. 1. Taxed. This taxing was an enrolment, or account of the inhabitants and their estates, and was ordered by Providence to verify the truth of ancient prophecies. D.—The taxing is mentioned by Luke, not only to mark the time of Christ’s birth, but to prove that he was born in Bethlehem, and that his parents were at that time known to be branches of the royal family of David. M.—Perhaps the best explanation is, that the design of Augustus was first fully executed when Cyrenius was governor, though the decree went forth and the enrolment commenced ten years earlier. There is abundant reason to believe that an enrolment was actually set on foot shortly before the death of Herod. G. R. 2. Though the home of Joseph and Mary was at Nazareth, the sure word of prophecy had declared that the Christ should be born at Bethlehem, the native place of his royal father David; and this was accomplished by the agency of the Roman emperor. S.—Augustus had ordered a general census of the Roman Empire, partly to obtain correct statistics of its resources, and partly for purposes of taxation. As Judea was then a dependency of the empire, and Augustus probably intended to reduce it entirely to the state of a Roman province, he wished to secure similar statistics of that country, and ordered King Herod to take the census. In performing this duty, Herod followed the Jewish usage, viz., a division by tribes. Joseph and Mary belonged to the tribe of David, and therefore had to repair to Bethlehem, the seat of that tribe. N. 4. The town of Bethlehem is six miles to the south of Jerusalem, a little to the east of the main road to Hebron. A thousand years before it gave the world the thorn-crowned King—the King of the realm of truth, it bestowed upon the house of Israel its royal psalmist and divine hero. Both David and Christ sprung from Bethlehem. Tisch.—It was the scene of the events so touchingly related in the book of Ruth. It was here that the good Boaz abode; and here the foreign damsel—destined to become the foremother of David and of Jesus—gleaned his field. Still earlier, it was here that the beloved wife for whom Jacob had served fourteen years was taken away from him. Rachel, Naomi, Ruth, Mary: a cluster of lovely names connected with Bethlehem, in incidents on which the heart loves to dwell. K.—The little town has an imposing aspect and a commanding site. It stands on the summit of a narrow ridge, which projects eastward from the central mountain-chain of Judah, and breaks down abruptly into deep valleys on the north, east, and south. The steep slopes beneath the village are carefully terraced; and the terraces—clothed with olives, vines, and fig-trees—sweep in graceful curves round the ridge, regular as stairs. Below these slopes, in the bottom of the valleys, are fields whose fertility gave the place its name, “House of Bread.” J. L. P.—Bethlehem stands nearly three hundred feet higher than Jerusalem. It is only a short distance from the edge of the great wilderness of Judah (or Judea), which lies (ten miles in breadth) along the west flank of the Dead Sea. In  Bethlehem this direction fertile valleys are seen for only a few miles, after which is a billowy waste of rocky ridges, their general level declining rapidly toward the deep, steaming chasm of the Dead Sea. Beyond the sea the blue masses of Moab appear. . . . It is worthy of mention that, attractive as Bethlehem is to us—mainly as the Saviour's birthplace—it appears never to have had any special attraction for the Saviour himself. We never find him visiting it from Jerusalem. N. C. B. It is remarkable that the scenes of the most wondrous events in gospel history were never even incidentally alluded to by the sacred writers after the events themselves had transpired. The reason is obvious, and its lesson most instructive. It was not until the first deep and holy impressions of heavenly doctrines began to be obliterated, until sense began to usurp its former ascendancy over spirit, that holy places were diligently sought out, and fitted up as shrines for a mistaken devotion. J. L. P.—Alike in sacred topography and in sacred history, there is a wide, free atmosphere of truth above, a firm ground of reality beneath, which no doubts or controversies concerning this or that particular spot, this or that particular opinion or sect, can affect or disturb. We have still [Bethlehem and Nazareth, Jerusalem,] the Mount of Olives, and the Sea of Galilee; the sky, the flowers, the trees, the fields, which suggested the Parables—the holy hills, which cannot be moved, but stand fast forever. A. P. S.—Great natural objects in Palestine—the knowledge of which helps to confirm our faith, and to illustrate the Scriptures—are capable of being identified; but minute objects which would be almost certain, if known, to be abused to purposes of superstition, are left undiscoverable. God would cut us off from temptations to superstition. Moreover, he would prevent us from localizing a religion which was designed to be universal, from attaching that kind and measure of interest to places which can only properly belong to the facts of which those places were the scene. A. Thomson. 7. In the rude limestone grotto attached to the inn as a stable, among the hay and straw spread for the food and rest of the cattle, weary with their day's journey, far from home, in the midst of strangers—in circumstances so devoid of all earthly comfort or splendor that it is impossible to imagine a humbler nativity—Christ was born. And the gospels, always truthful and bearing on every page that simplicity which is the stamp of honest narrative, indicate this fact without comment. There is in them nothing of the exuberance of marvel, and mystery, and miracle, which appears alike in the Jewish imaginations about their coming Messiah, and in the apocryphal narratives about the infant Christ. There is no more decisive criterion of their absolute credibility as simple histories, than the marked and violent contrast which they offer to all the spurious gospels of the early centuries, and all the imaginative legends which have clustered about them. F.—By the manner of his entrance into this world, Christ hath dignified the estate of infancy, and hallowed the bond which binds the mother to her new-born child. The grave, we say, has been hallowed—has not the cradle also—by Christ's having lain in it? H. Our common era begins in any case more than four years too late; that is, from four to five years, at the least, after the actual birth of Christ. This era was first used in historical works by the Venerable Bede, early in the eighth century, and was not long after introduced in public transactions by the Frank kings Pepin and Charlemagne. R. The throne of the Cæsars, the throne of mere human authority and power, has perished. That name, at which nations trembled, carries no power over the spirits of men. But the empire of Jesus, the empire of pure, undying, self-sacrificing love, will never perish; its sway over the conscience and hearts of men, as the world grows older, becomes ever wider and stronger. He has exalted the spiritual above the material; the empire of love above the empire of power. H.—That Child of Bethlehem, becoming the carpenter of Nazareth, and the companion of fishermen, having in his poverty "not where to lay his head," and publishing his gospel of self-denial to illiterate men, and feeble women and children, proves himself mightier than all empires and all philosophers, and, by a society whose character and weapons are not carnal but spiritual, overturns the defences of human depravity, pulls down the strongholds of Satan, and marches irresistibly to universal and blessed conquest. N. C. B. The Progress of the World—the secular, scientific, and governmental development which mankind has realized since his era—bears witness to the celestial origin, the divine character, power, and mission, of the Lord whom the Gospels present to us. The courses of human history have been changed; the level of moral and spiritual life throughout Christendom has been lifted; society has had more of courtesy, chivalry, liberty in it, in the last eighteen centuries, than had ever been seen or dreamed of before. It goes forward now, with measurable and irresistible motion, instead of whirling round and round, as before Christ it did, in a grand but dreary Sahara dance. It is hopeful, as it was not. Its expectation surpasses now its recollection. Its golden age is not chronicled in the Past, but prophesied, in the Future. Philanthropies are now organized, and enlist wide enthusiasm, of which Athens, with all her intellectual vivacity and her æsthetic training, never thought. Popular education, the sacredness of the family, the social and civil obligations of men, the elevation of woman, the enfranchisement of the poor, all useful and elevating knowledges, inventions, and moral ideas—in all, the race has made such progress in the course of these centuries as never was imagined or foreshadowed until Christ. Justly does Christendom reckon from his birth its years and centuries; for from him, and him alone, has proceeded that new and superior influence which Christendom exhibits. R. S. S. ## Section 7.—The Watching Shepherds. 1. Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, 2 behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. 3 When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with 4 him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, 5 he demanded of them where Christ should be born. And they said unto him, In Beth- 6 lehem of Judea: for thus it is written by the prophet, And thou, Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel. 7 Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, inquired of them diligently 8 what time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that 9 I may come and worship him also. When they had heard the king, they departed; and, 10 lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. 11 And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, 12 they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way. No distant, silent star beckons us, like them, to seek Christ. We have a more sure word of prophecy —a Bible, in which prophets and apostles conspire to bring us to the Saviour; his history is finished; we have not only his manger, but his cross, his tomb. Judea, Samaria, Galilee are imprinted with his famil- iar footsteps; his resurrection and ascension, the gift of the Holy Ghost, the testimony and blood of martyrs, the conversion of souls already without number, all perform that office for us which that solitary star rendered to these wise men. But faith is not in proportion to the amount of evidence. “Prophets teach the Jews in vain; a silent star beckons the Gentiles; they arise and follow.” Still he that seeketh findeth, if he seeks, like these wise men, with all the heart. N. A. THE world had been preparing for Christianity in every way—by Grecian culture, Roman dominion, the Old Testament revelation, the amalgamation of Judaism and heathenism, the distraction and misery, the longings and hopes of the age; but no tendency of antiquity was able to generate the true religion, or satisfy the infinite needs of the human heart. The Greek religion, which aimed only to deify earth- ly existence, could afford no comfort in misfortune, nor ever beget the spirit of martyrdom. The Ro- man religion was stripped of its power by being de- graded into a mere tool for political ends, and by the exaltation of worthless despots to the rank of gods. The Jewish religion, in Pharisaism, had stiffened into a spiritless, self-righteous formalism; in Sad- ducism had been emptied of all its moral and relig- ious earnestness. Expectations of the coming of a Messiah, in various forms and degrees of clearness, were at that time, by the political, intellectual, and religious contact of the nations, spread over the whole world. The Persians were looking for their Sosiosch, who should conquer Ahriman and his kingdom of darkness. The Chinese sage, Confucius, pointed his disciples to a holy one, who should ap- pear in the West. The Western nations, on the contrary, looked toward the East. Suetonius and Taci- tus speak of a current saying in the Roman Empire, that in the east, and more particularly in Judea, a new universal empire would soon be founded. Thus in an age sunk in unbelief and superstition, yet anxiously awaiting for deliverance from its outward and inward misery, appeared the Saviour of sinners. Says Augustine, with as much beauty as truth: “Christ appeared to the men of the aged dying world, that, while everything around them (even that which had once been the object of their enthu- siastic love) had withered away, they should receive through him a new, youthful life.” P. S. The great bulk of the Jewish nation had never returned from Babylon, but remained, in distinct communities, spread over the surface of that em- pire. From Babylon, the Jew had gone through every region of the East, and wherever he went he became a zealous missionary of his faith. Among the Jewish ideas diffused far and near by this uni- versal agency, none would find so easy and wide a circulation as that which, above all others, filled the mind and heart of every Jew in that age—the ex- pected appearance of a great prince, of whom they spoke as the Messiah or “Anointed.” No indication of popular feeling can be more sure than that supplied by the literature of a period; and Jewish literature, from the date of Daniel to the age of Christ, was more and more completely Messianic. The Book of Enoch, the Jewish Sibylline books, the Psalter of Solomon, the Ascension of Moses, the Ascension of Isaiah, the Fourth Book of Esdras, the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan, and other writings of later Judaism, strove to sustain and rouse the nation, in those dark days, by prophetic anticipations of Messianic deliverance. G. 1. Three striking incidents marked the birth and infancy of our Lord: First, the midnight appearance of the angelic host to the shepherds on the plains of Bethlehem, and their visit to the village in which the great birth had that night occurred; second, the presentation of Jesus as a first-born child in the temple, and the testimony there given to him in the prophetic utterances of Simeon and Anna; and third, the visit of the wise men from the east, and the worship and offerings which they presented to the new-born child. Each of these had its special wonders; in each a supernatural attestation to the greatness of the event was given; and, woven together, they form the wreath of heavenly glory hung by the divine hand around the infancy of the Son of Mary. 2. Wise Men; Magi, from the East. The birthplace and natural home of the Magian worship was in Persia. And there the Magi had a place and power such as the Chaldeans had in Babylon, the Hierophants in Egypt, the Druids in Gaul, and the Brahmins still have in India. They formed a tribe or caste, priestly in office, princely in rank. They were the depositaries of nearly all the knowledge or science existing in the country where they lived; they were the first professors and practisers of astrology, worshippers of the sun and the other heavenly bodies, from whose appearance and movements they drew their divination as to earthly events—all illustrious births below being indicated, as they deemed, by certain peculiar conjunctions of the stars above. Both as priests and diviners they had great power. In political affairs their influence was predominant. The education of royalty was in their hands; they filled all the chief offices of state; they constituted the supreme council of the realm. As originally applied to this Median priest-caste, the term Magi was one of dignity and honor. Afterward, when transferred to other countries, and employed to designate all professors of astrology and practisers of divination, as these astrologers and diviners sunk in character, and had recourse to mean imposture, the name of magian or magician was turned into one of dishonor and reproach. H.—The word Magus, or Magi (in the plural), is used by Matthew (who was a Hebrew) in the Persian or national and honorable sense of the term, as given above; while Luke (who, though born in Syria, was probably a Greek, and who wrote for the Roman world) uses the term (Acts 13: 6, 8) in a later and dishonorable sense as an equivalent to sorcerer; for in the Roman world those who practised magic and divination sought credit for their black arts by adopting the honorable title of Magi. The honor paid to these foreigners by King Herod shows them to have been persons of high consideration, persons in royal service at the court of the Parthian kings. The same thing may be inferred from the costly presents which they brought to Bethlehem. The word for the East is twice used, but in the second instance there is a slight change of form, which indicates a change of the sense. When used together geographically, the first of these two forms must point to some country more distant than the second; and the one should be translated “the Far East,” the other “the East.” The latter indicates Babylonia, and the former the high plateau of Persia lying beyond. Upham. Christ was promised as the Saviour and Deliverer of all nations, and proofs of his descent into this world, to fulfil his high mission, were given to the pious Jew, and also to the Gentile. To both were declarations made, while he was yet an infant, of his high official character. The Magi, as well as the shepherds, were brought by divine direction to pay their homage to him, not as to one who had yet to earn the dignity ascribed to him, but who was already invested with it. Such testimonies as these we can only attribute to the Deity; imposture or collusion on his part, during a state of infancy, was a physical impossibility: and it certainly appears impossible to reconcile such evidences with the supposed mere humanity of Christ. G. T.—It is an ignorant conceit, that inquiry into Nature should make men atheistic. No man is so apt to see the star of Christ as a diligent disciple of philosophy. These sages were in a mean between the angels and the shepherds. God would, in all the ranks of intelligent creatures, have some to be witnesses of his Son. Bp. H.—If the shepherds in his immediate neighborhood had the first, the sages from afar had the next sight of the new-born King. Even so still, simplicity first, science next, finds its way to Christ. B. 3. Herod the King. Of three Herods who appear prominently in the pages of the New Testament, the first was Herod the Great, the son of a crafty and wealthy Idumean or Edomite, who, during the reign of the last of the Asmonean princes, attained to great political influence in Judea, securing for his eldest son Phasael the governorship of Jerusalem; and for Herod, his younger son, the chief command in Galilee. Phasael was cut off in a political commotion, but Herod escaped all the perils to which he was exposed, distinguished himself by his address and bravery, showed great political foresight in allying himself closely with the power which he saw was to prevail in Judea as over all other lands, sought and won the personal friendship of Cassius and of Mark Antony, and, mainly by the influence of the latter, was proclaimed King of the Jews. H. Herod was now master of a kingdom which included all the land originally divided among the twelve tribes, together with Idumea. Exclusive of the latter country, the whole was divided into four districts, a clear conception of which is needful for understanding the topography of our Lord's ministry:—1. Judea. 2. Samaria. 3. Galilee, Lower and Upper; extending northward as far as the parallel of Mount Hermon; but shut out from the sea by the narrow strip of Phœnice. 4. Perea, the name of the whole region E. of Jordan and the Dead Sea as far S. as the Arnon (see map, Sec. 12). This fair kingdom had been won by a man of ability, magnificence, and taste; but utterly regardless of his people's most cherished feelings, and insensible to the high destiny of the "Holy Nation." Of his ten wives, we need only notice the offspring of the first five. 1. He married Doris before his accession to the throne; and her only son ANTIPATER was the last victim of his dying father's rage. 2. ARISTOBULUS, his eldest son by Mariamne, the granddaughter of Hyrcanus, was the parent of a large family, and from him were descended the two AGRIPPAS, the first of whom was the "KING HEROD" who slew James and imprisoned Peter; the second, the "KING AGRIPPA" before whom Paul pleaded. 3. After the judicial murder of Mariamne, Herod married another Mariamne, daughter of the high-priest, Simon: her son was HEROD PHILIP, whose marriage with his niece Herodias, daughter of Aristobulus, followed by her divorce of him to marry his half-brother, Herod Antipas, led to the martyrdom of John the Baptist. He is often confounded with his half-brother PHILIP, the tetrarch of Iturea. 4. His next wife, Malthace, a Samaritan, was the mother of HEROD ANTIPAS and ARCHELAUS. 5. By Cleopatra, a maiden of Jerusalem, he had two sons, the younger of whom was PHILIP, the tetrarch of Iturea and the adjacent districts, with Trachonitis. 6-10. His other wives and their children are of no consequence in the history. These complicated relations will be made clearer by the following conspectus of the chief personages with whom the N. T. history is concerned, for the four generations of the family: | Wives. | Sons. | | | --- | --- | --- | | 1. Doris... | 1. Antipater... | Executed by their father in his lifetime. | | 2. Mariamne, grandd. of Hyrcanus II. | 2. Aristobulus... | | | 3. Mariamne, d. of Simon... | 3. Alexander... | Lived as a private person in Rome. | | 4. Malthace, a Samaritan... | 4. HEROD PHILIP I... | | | 5. Cleopatra... | m. Herodias. | Tetrarch of Galilee. | | | 5. HEROD ANTIPAS... | Ethnarch of Judea. | | | 6. ARCHELAUS... | Tetrarch of Northern Perea, etc. | | | 7. HEROD PHILIP II... | | | | m. Salome, d. of Philip I. and Herodias. | | | | B. Children of Aristobulus. | | | 1. HEROD AGRIPPA I... | Named in Acts xii... | King of Judea. | | 2. HERODIAS, married: | | | | (1) Herod Philip I. | | | | (2) Herod Antipas. | | | | | C. Children of HEROD AGRIPPA I. | | | 1. HEROD AGRIPPA II... | Named in Acts xxv... | Tetrarch of Northern Perea, etc. | | (titular king). | | | | 2. BERENICE... | Named in Acts xxv. | | | 3. DRUSILLA, m. to FELIX... | Named in Acts xxiv. | S. | The political and personal relations of Herod were evidently well adapted for the furtherance of a new religion. The rulers of the Jews, since the captivity, had been Persian between B. C. 536-532; Egypt-Greek and Syro-Greek between B. C. 332-142; Asmonean and independent between B. C. 142-63; and under Roman influences since the conquest of Jerusalem by Pompey, B. C. 63. Under Herod (from B. C. 37 to the birth of Christ) the government might fairly be called cosmopolitan. In him the East and the West were united. By birth an Edomite on the father's side, and an Ishmaelite on the mother's, he represented a third great division of the Semitic race by his nominal adoption of the Jewish religion. Yet his life was entirely moulded by conceptions borrowed from the two great Aryan races of the ancient world; his conceptions of policy and government were entirely Roman; his ideal of life and enjoyment entirely Greek. And, in addition to this, he was surrounded by a body-guard of barbarian mercenaries. At no previous or subsequent period could a world-religion have been more easily preached than it was among the heterogeneous elements which were brought together by his singular tyranny. F.—The period when Herod was reigning at Jerusalem under the protectorate of Augustus was chiefly remarkable for great architectural works—especially the rebuilding and decorating the temple—for the promotion of commerce, the influx of strangers, and the increased diffusion of the two great languages of the heathen world. J. S. H. 3-6. Herod was troubled.** He knew the expectation of the Jews; and, so far as he shared it, a man of his temper could not but regard with jealousy and dismay the birth of an heir of David's house, destined to reestablish his father's throne. It was as a temporal king that he beheld him; and hence a rival to be put down and destroyed. The body (the Sanhedrim) which gave this information respecting the place from which the Messiah was to come was the same body which in a later day declared of Jesus: "We know this man whence he is; but when Christ cometh, no man knoweth whence he is." K. 11. In absence of all outward warrant for the act, in spite of the most unpromising appearances, they bow the knee before that undistinguished infant, lower than it bent before the haughty Herod at Jerusalem; bow in adoration such as they never rendered to any earthly sovereign. And that act of worship over, they open their treasures and present to him their gifts: the gold, the frankincense, and the myrrh, the rarest products of the East; an offering such as any monarch might have had presented to him by the ambassadors from any foreign prince. When we take the whole course of these men's conduct into account; when we think of their long and perilous journey with no other object than the making of this single obeisance to the infant Redeemer of mankind; when we look at them standing unmoved amid all the discouragements of the Jewish metropolis; when we attend them on their solitary way to Bethlehem; when we stand by their side, as beneath that lowly roof they silently worship, and spread out their costly gifts—we cannot but regard their faith as in many of its features unparalleled in the gospel narrative; we cannot but place them in the front rank of that goodly company in whose acts the power and the triumph of a simple faith shine forth. H.—Great hall been their disappointment at finding no trace of the child in the royal family at the capital; great was their surprise at being led to the humble lodging of Mary at Bethlehem; but greater still the faith which led them to worship the babe in her arms, and lay their offerings at his feet. Their worship was a sign of the kingly, the divine glory hidden in the child; their gifts were a prophecy of the coming of the Gentiles to his kingdom. J. P. T. The MAGNIFICAT of Mary is the expression of thankfulness for personal favor. The SONG of Zechariah celebrates personal mercy, and regards Christ only as the national deliverer. But the NUNC DI-MITTS of Simeon recognizes in him a light to lighten the Gentiles, as well as the glory of his people Israel. This gospel then is clearly a system of universal truth, at once redeeming and sanctifying all who receive it. Most appropriately, therefore, though the Jews first heard the tidings of the Advent, the first act of worship was paid by Gentiles; whose gifts proved a providential supply to the holy family when escaping from the jealous hatred of Herod, the head of the Jewish nation. J. A. ## Section 10.—Flight into Egypt. Herod's Cruelty. Return to Nazareth. 13. AND when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child, and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to de- 14 stroy him. When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and de- 15 parted into Egypt: and was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son. 16 Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had dili- 17 gently inquired of the wise men. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy 18 the prophet, saying, In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not. 19. But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeareth in a dream to 20 Joseph in Egypt, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go into 21 the land of Israel: for they are dead which sought the young child's life. And he 22 arose, and took the young child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judea, in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither: notwithstanding, being warned of God in a dream, he turned 23 aside into the parts of Galilee: and he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene. ALL wickedness is useless. No permanent good, no solid advantage, was ever secured but by good and righteous means. All the trouble, all the crime, that Herod chose to incur, and for which he brought upon himself most grievous retributions, were utterly abortive with regard to the object he had in view. Had he rendered to the Divine Child the homage he professed to be ready to offer, this would in no wise have endangered his own temporal interests. Christ came to die, and not to reign, or but to reign by dying. Herod's wrath did, therefore, but subserve the real purposes of God. K. The child Jesus was indeed born a king. But it was a king of all the world, not confined within the limits of a province, like the weaker beauties of a torch, to shine in one room, but, like the sun, his empire was over all the world. His kingdom was not of this world; and he that gives heavenly kingdoms to all his servants would not have stooped to pick up Herod's petty coronet; but as it is a very vanity which ambition seeks, so it is a shadow that disturbs and discomposes all its motions. J. T. 13,14. The Word has become flesh, and is now lower than the angels, and even in the cradle he is despised and rejected of men. Already round the manger rages the fury of Herod: and scarcely is he born when already the child must flee! A. T.—The Evangelists furnish none of the incidents of this journey. This silence of authentic history has been actively supplied by legends and traditions, which are interesting as showing what kind of narratives of our Lord's life we should have had, in exchange for the noble simplicity of the gospels, if men had been left to their own devices under the influence of the Oriental and legendary spirit. K.—It is left to apocryphal legends, immortalized by the genius of Italian art, to tell us how, on the way, the dragons came and bowed to him, the lions and leopards adored him, the roses of Jericho blossomed wherever his footsteps trod, the palm-trees at his command bent down to give them dates, the robbers were overawed by his majesty, and the journey was miraculously shortened. They tell us further how, at his entrance into the country, all the idols of the land of Egypt fell from their pedestals with a sudden crash, and lay shattered and broken upon their faces, and how many wonderful cures of leprosy and demoniac possession were wrought by his word. All this prodigality of superfluous, aimless, and unmeaning miracle furnishes a strong contrast to the truthful simplicity of the gospel narrative. F.—How unlike that holy flower of paradise, in the true gospels, which a few simple touches make to bloom in beautiful self-evidence before us! H. B. 15. In Egypt the fugitives were safe. It was, moreover, almost another Judea, for the favor shown to their race by the Ptolemies had induced as many as a million of Jews to settle in the Nile valley; and of the five quarters of Alexandria, with 300,000 free citizens, Jews occupied more than two. They had had a temple of their own at Leontopolis, in the Delta, for about 160 years, though they preferred to go up to that at Jerusalem; the Greek translation of the Bible, which had already widely taken the place of the Hebrew original, had been made in Egypt. Nor would it be difficult for Joseph to find support, as the different classes of Jewish workmen in Egypt were associated in guilds, which maintained those out of employment. G.—The abode of Jesus in Egypt formed a step by which the course of his life was assimilated to that of his people's history, and so fulfilled, in its highest sense, the saying of the prophet Hosea, "Out of Egypt have I called my son." S.—This citation shows the almost universal application in the N. T. of the prophetic writings to the expected Messiah, as the general antitype of all the events of the typical (O. T.) dispensation. A. 16. Among the atrocities which disgraced the later days of Herod, what is called the Massacre of the Innocents (which took place late in the year before, or early in the same year with the death of Herod) passed away unnoticed. The murder of a few children in a village near Jerusalem would excite little sensation among such a succession of dreadful events, except among the immediate sufferers. The jealousy of Herod against any one who should be born as a king in Judea—the dread that the high religious spirit of the people might be re-excited by the hope of a real Messiah—as well as the summary manner in which he endeavored to rid himself of the object of his fears, are strictly in accordance with the relentlessness and decision of his character. H. M.—It was that Herod, whose crimes, committed in violation of every natural feeling, ever urged him on to new deeds of cruelty; whose path to the throne, and whose throne itself, were stained with human blood; whose vengeance against conspirators, not satiated with their own destruction, demanded that of their whole families; whose rage was hot, up to the very hour of his death, against his nearest kindred; whose wife, Mariamne, and three sons, Alexander, Aristobulus, and Antipater, fell victims to his suspicions, the last just before his death. It was that Herod, who, at the close of a blood-stained life of seventy years, goaded by the furies of an evil conscience, racked by a painful and incurable disease, waiting for death, but desiring life, raging against God and man, and maddened by the thought that the Jews, instead of bewailing his death, would rejoice over it as the greatest of blessings, commanded the worthies of the nation to be assembled in the circus, and issued a secret order that, after his death, they should all be slain together, so that their kindred, at least, might have cause to weep for his death! N.—Bethlehem was at that time merely a village, in which the number of infants must have been very small; and it would be extravagant to suppose that more than twenty-five children perished on this occasion, and it is quite possible that they may have been fewer. K. 17,18. Jeremiah, predicting the captivity of Israel, beautifully introduces Rachel their mother crying bitterly in Ramah, when she saw her children driven out of their country slaves to heathens. Therefore Matthew uses the prophet's words in their genuine meaning, when he applies them to the slaughter of the infants. For as in the prophecy so in the history, the mother of the Israelites is figuratively introduced weeping at the calamity of her children; and the figure, as used by the evangelist, has a peculiar beauty which is wanting in the prophet, Rachel being buried in the fields of Bethlehem, where the infants were slain. M. Our assurance is clear, and, as we think, well grounded, that all who die in infancy are saved. Distinguished among them all, let us believe this of those slaughtered babes of Bethlehem. Their fate was singularly wrapped up with that of the infant Saviour. The stroke that fell on them was meant for him; the sword of persecution which swept so mercilessly in many an after-age through the ranks of Christ's little ones was first reddened in their blood. The earliest victims to hatred of the Nazarene—if not consciously and willingly, yet actually dying for him—let us count them as the first martyrs for Jesus, and let us believe that in them the truth of the martyrs' motto was first made good, "Near to the sword, near to God." "O blessed infants!" exclaims Augustine; "he who at his birth had angels to proclaim him, the heavens to testify, and Magi to worship him, could surely have prevented that these should have died for him, had he not known that they died not in that death, but rather lived in higher bliss. H. 19. The history divides itself, at Herod's death, into two portions, which intersect almost without mingling: that of Christ and his Church, and that of the Jews as a nation. The latter belongs rather to the history of the Old Covenant than of the New. It is the story of the last expiring effort of a noble but corrupted and mistaken people to defend their supposed rights against the earthly masters to whose yoke they had already bowed, and against the spiritual Lord whom they resisted because they knew him not. Perhaps the devout student of the spiritual conflict is too often at a disadvantage for want of a comprehensive view of the external relations of the Jewish nation. This distinction is thus insisted on by the eloquent historian of the Jews. S.—The history of the Jews, after the death of Herod (not rightly named the Great) and the birth of Jesus, separates itself into two streams: one narrow at first, and hardly to be traced in its secret windings into the world, but with the light of heaven upon it, and gradually widening till it embraces a large part of Asia, part of Africa, the whole of Europe, and becomes a mighty irresistible river—a river with many branches—gladdening and fertilizing mankind, and bearing civilization, as well as holiness and happiness, in its course; the other at first as expansive, but gradually shrinking into obscurity, lost in deep, almost impenetrable, ravines; sullen apparently and lonely, yet not without its peculiar majesty in its continuous, inexhaustible, irrepressible flow, and not without its own peculiar influence as an undercurrent on the general life and progress of mankind; too often attempted to be cruelly dried up by violent means, or turned into blood, yet still emerging when seeming almost lost, and flowing on, as it still flows, and seems destined to flow. Though the Jewish and Christian history have much in common, they may be kept almost entirely distinct. H. M. 22. Archelaus reigned so tyrannically in Judea, that after two years the endurance of his people became utterly exhausted, and they lodged complaints against him at Rome, in consequence of which at length he was deposed, and banished to Vienne in Gaul, and his dominion made a province of Rome, the government of which was administered by Roman procurators. This was the political situation of Judea during the time of our Lord's ministry. But Galilee remained under the separate government of Herod Antipas for many years—not only nearly the whole period of our Lord's life, but considerably after his death, even to the year 42 A. D., when, being accused at Rome by his nephew Herod Agrippa of a secret understanding with the Parthians, he was deposed and banished to Lyons in Gaul, and his tetrarchy and all his property given to his accuser, who is no other than the "Herod" of the twelfth chapter of Acts. Galilee was obviously the best and safest place for the bringing up of the child Jesus. Herod Antipas, the Tetrarch, though not a good man, was a person of mild disposition as compared with Archelaus, with whom he was, moreover, on terms so hostile that there was not the least likelihood that he would give up the infant Christ into his power. K. 23. Nazareth. The physical geography of Palestine is, perhaps, more distinctly marked than that of any other country in the world. The character of the country from north to south may be represented by four parallel bands—the Seaboard, the Hill country, the Jordan valley, and the Trans-Jordanic range. The Hill country, which thus occupies the space between the low Seaboard plain and the deep Jordan valley, falls into two great masses, the continuity of the low mountain-range being broken by the plain of Jezreel (Esdraelon). The southern mass of those limestone hills formed the land of Judea; the northern, the land of Galilee. Almost in the centre of this northern chain of hills there is a singular cleft in the limestone, forming the entrance to a little valley. Gradually the valley opens into a little natural amphitheatre of hills, supposed by some to be the crater of an extinct volcano; and there, clinging to the hollows of a hill, which rises to the height of some five hundred feet above it, lie, "like a handful of pearls in a goblet of emerald," the flat roofs and narrow streets of a small Eastern town, and that little town is Nazareth. F. Nazareth is twenty miles east of the Mediterranean, and sixteen miles west of the Sea of Galilee. Distant only two miles from Esdraelon, the level of this basin is about eight hundred feet above the level of the great plain, while the hills about it rise several hundred feet higher still. N. C. B.—It is one of the peculiarities of the Galilean hills, as distinct from those of Ephraim or Judah, that they contain green basins of table-land just below their topmost ridges, forming marked features in any view from the summit of Tabor, or farther north from the slopes of Hermon. Such above all is Nazareth. Fifteen gently-rounded hills "seem as if they had met to form an inclosure" for this peaceful basin; they rise round it like the edge of a shell to guard it from intrusion. A. P. S.—From its very position, this unwalled town seems to covet obscurity and seclusion. Unlike Bethlehem and the cities of Judah and Benjamin, perched on the hilltops; unlike Shechem, whose gushing fountains and perennial streams have invited the earliest settlements of man, the site of Nazareth offers no natural advantages. Among the many smaller ridges which crowd round the platform, from which rises the mountain-chain of Lebanon, several here are clustered, forming a wide, natural amphitheatre, the crest of which rises round the basin of Nazareth, as though to guard it from intrusion—"inclosed by mountains as the flower is by its leaves." The town clings to the hill-side, on a steep slope at the northwest of this hollow, unknown and unnamed in the Old Testament—a place that had no history till he came who has hallowed and immortalized it. H. B. T. A broad valley passed a few miles to the north of it, leading from the populous towns of the Lake of Tiberias to the Mediterranean coast. Only four miles north, on the edge of this valley, was Sepphoris, for a time the Roman capital of Galilee, and the largest town in the district. N. C. B.—The distant view of the village is beautiful. Its streets rise in terraces on the hill-slopes toward the northwest. The hills, here and there broken into perpendicular faces, rise above it, in an amphitheatre round, to a height of about five hundred feet, and shut it in from the bleak winds of winter. The flat-roofed houses, built of the yellowish-white limestone of the neighborhood, shine in the sun with a dazzling brightness, from among gardens and fig-trees, olives, cypresses, and the white and scarlet blossoms of the orange and pomegranate. A mosque with its graceful minaret, a large convent from whose gardens rise tall cypresses, and a modest church, are the principal buildings. G.—No great road led up to this sunny nook. Trade, war, adventure, pleasure, pomp, passed by it, flowing from west to east, from east to west, along the Roman road. But the meadows were aglow with wheat and barley. Near the low ground ran a belt of gardens, fenced with loose stones, in which myriads of green figs, red pomegranates, and golden citrons ripened in the summer sun. High up the  Nazareth, from N. N. E.—The distant range of hills is to the S. of the plain of Esdracion. slopes hung vintages of purple grapes. In the plain among the corn, and beneath the mulberry-trees and figs, shone daisies, poppies, tulips, lilies, anemones, endless in their profusion, brilliant in their dyes. Low down on the hill-side sprang a well of water, bubbling, plentiful, and sweet; and above this fountain of life, in a long street straggling from the fountain to the synagogue, rose the homesteads of many shepherds, craftsmen, and vinedressers. It was a lovely and humble place, of which no poet, no ruler, no historian of Israel had ever taken note. W. H. D. # Section 11.—As a Child questions with the Doctors in the Temple. Jerusalem. Mk. 1 THE beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. L. 1 Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip, tetrarch of 2. Iturea, and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene, Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of God came unto John the Baptist, the 3 son of Zacharias, in the wilderness of Judea. And in those days he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins; 4 and saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. As it is written in the prophets, Behold I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. For this is he that was spoken of in the book of the words of Esaias, the prophet, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the 5. Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways 6 shall be made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. And the same John M. 4 had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins, and his meat was locusts and wild honey. 5. Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all the land of Judea, and all the region round 6 about Jordan, and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins. 7. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, and to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, O generation of L. 8 vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance; and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children 9 unto Abraham. And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit, is hewn down and cast into the fire. 10,11. And the people asked him, saying, What shall we do then? He answereth, and saith unto them, He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that 12 hath meat, let him do likewise. Then came also publicans to be baptized, and said unto 13 him, Master, what shall we do? And he said unto them, Exact no more than that 14 which is appointed you. And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely, and be content with your wages. 15. And as the people were in expectation, and all men mused in their hearts of John, 16 whether he were the Christ or not; John answered, saying unto them all, I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance; but one cometh after me mightier than I, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose, whose shoes I am 17 not worthy to bear; he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. 18. And many other things in his exhortation preached he unto the people. HERE is the honest, outspoken boldness of a man of God, and yet one who took broad and noble views of existence and its duties. He advocated no unnatural disseverance of man from his work-day world, as if business and religion were antagonistic and incompatible. He enjoins all classes to return to their ordinary occupations, but imbued with a new heaven-born spirit; seeking that religion should moderate worldly cares, employments, and enjoyments, and leave its sanctifying influence upon all. Macduff. Though he did not claim the credentials of a single miracle, yet, while he threatened detection to the hypocrite and destruction to the hardened, he promised also pardon to the penitent and admission into the kingdom of heaven to the pure and clean. "The two great utterances," it has been said, "which he brings from the desert, contain the two capital revelations to which all the preparation of the gospel has been tending. Law and prophecy; denunciation of sin and promise of pardon; the flame which consumes and the light which consoles—is not this the whole of the covenant?" F. John enunciated the first principles and enforced the first great duties of the gospel; and ere the echoes which he awakened in the hearts of men had died away into silence, a greater than he took up the noble theme, and proclaimed it as with the tongue of a trumpet to an astonished world. J. L. P. Mk. 1. The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, places us at the opening of the mystery of godliness, of the salvation of the world, of the glory which fills the heavens, and of the kingdom which endures forever. The beginning of the gospel (according to this Evangelist) is not found at the birth of Jesus, when the communications of heaven were made to few, and died suddenly into silence; but from the time when John baptized, and when Jesus began to show himself, and "the word of the beginning of Christ" was publicly proclaimed, never again to be suspended till it should have become the word of a completed gospel. The gospel which Jesus preached was a gospel which in its main particulars had yet to be fulfilled, and which could not be fully opened till it had been fulfilled. Considered as fact, the gospel began from the Incarnation, and was completed at the Resurrection; but considered as doctrine, it began with the first preaching of Jesus, and was completed in the dispensation of the Spirit. When the Lord quitted the world, he left the material of the gospel already perfect, but the exposition of the gospel only begun. T. D. B. All the Evangelists set out from the Baptist in introducing the ministry of Jesus, but the differences in procedure are characteristic. Mark, keeping in view the Roman, merely makes the imprisonment of the Baptist the starting-point of a wonder-working ministry of Jesus in Galilee, into the marvels of which he hurries us at once, without even hinting at its prophetic relations. Luke, in tracing for the reasoning Greek the orderly development of the life and work of Jesus, opens with the ministry in Galilee, as the natural sequence of that of the Baptist, but does not emphasize the connection. John, writing for the Christian, sets out with the Baptist, as preparing the way for that private ministry of Jesus in Judea which preceded the public ministry in Galilee, and which, as being directed to the true Israel and dealing with high spiritual themes, is passed over in silence by the other Evangelists, but brought forward in the gospel for the Christian, the spiritual man, as eminently fitted to further its peculiar aim. Matthew, with his eye on the Jew, starts with the public ministry of Jesus in Galilee—which, strictly speaking, could begin only when that of the Baptist, the forerunner, closed—and presents Jesus at once and most prominently in his Messianic character, fulfilling prophecy. D. S. G. L. 1. Herod the Great, in whose day Christ was born, had divided his entire kingdom among his three sons, Archelaus, Philip, and Herod Antipas—Archelaus obtaining Judea, Idumea, and Samaria. In the tenth year of his reign, however, Archelaus was deposed by the emperor, and a Roman governor appointed in his room. The fifth in order of these governors was Pontius Pilate. C. B.—The Roman governors, or procurators, were lieutenant-governors of divisions of Roman provinces, under the governors-general of each province. Occasionally, in smaller provinces, or in districts belonging to a larger province, they took the place of the governor-general, and in that case had in part the command of the troops, and were the judges even in criminal matters, but always in subordination to the governor-general of the province. This was the position of the procurators in Judea and Samaria after the incorporation of these as one district with the province of Syria, on the banishment of Archelaus. G.—Herod Antipas, the brother of Archelaus, was confirmed by Augustus in the tetrarchy of Galilee and Perea, which had been assigned to him by his father's will, and hence he is mentioned in the gospels by the style of Herod the Tetrarch. His whole importance is derived from his two appearances in the gospel history, as first the hearer and then the murderer of John the Baptist, and as taking part with Pilate in the condemnation of our Lord. Herod Philip II. was the son of Herod the Great and Cleopatra, a maiden of Jerusalem. He received as his own government "Batanea, Trachonitis, Auranitis (Gaulonitis), and some parts about Jamnia" (i. e., N. E. Palestine), with the title of Tetrarch. His rule was distinguished by justice and moderation, and he appears to have devoted himself entirely to the duties of his office without sharing in the intrigues which disgraced his family. He built a new city on the site of Paneas, near the sources of the Jordan, which  he called Cæsarea, and raised Bethsaida (in lower Gaulonitis) to the rank of a city under the title of Julias, and died there A. D. 34. He married Salome, the daughter of Philip I. and Herodias, but, as he left no children, his dominions were added at his death to the Roman province of Syria. S. (See Section 9.) 2. The Word of God came. The usual formula for the divine commission of the prophets (Jer. 1:1; Ezek. 6:1). And the effect of the Holy Spirit on John was more in accordance with the O. T. than the N. T. inspiration; more of a sudden, overpowering influence, as in the prophets, than a gentle indwelling manifested through the individual character, as in the apostles and evangelists. A.—Such formulas, of course, are never used when speaking of Jesus, because the divine nature manifested itself in him not at certain isolated moments of his life. He was the one everlasting manifestation of the Godhead—The Word. O. John the Baptist. The true meeting-point of the Old and New Testaments is found in the mission and character of John the Baptist. He is the living link between the earlier and later parts of the Bible. In his personality and in the style of his teaching he seems to belong alike to both dispensations. The manner of his appearance, the sententious severity of his words, remind us of the old prophets; while yet we see in him all that loving personal, intelligent devotion to Christ which is the mark of the Christian saint. J. S. H.—His mission was calculated, in accordance with the office of the law which gives the knowledge of sin, to bring men's minds into that state in which the Redeemer invites them as weary and heavy-laden to come to him. A.—John was a dweller in the wilderness, only that he might thereby become the prophet of the Highest. His nature was full of impetuosity and fire. The long struggle which had given him so powerful a mastery over himself—which had made him content with self-obliteration before the presence of his Lord, which had inspired him with fearlessness in the face of danger, and humility in the midst of applause—had left its traces in the stern character and aspect and teaching of the man. His very teaching reflected the imagery of the wilderness—the rock, the serpent, the barren tree. "In his manifestation and agency," it has been said, "he was like a burning torch; his public life was quite an earthquake—the whole man was a sermon; he might well call himself a voice—the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord." F. 3. Baptism.** Symbolical or ceremonial washing, such as the Mosaic Law prescribed as a sign of moral renovation, and connected with the sacrificial types of expiation, to indicate the internal connection of atonement and sanctification. It was from these familiar and significant ablutions that John's baptism was derived. Baptism (not the baptism) of repentance: i. e., a ceremonial washing, which involved and denoted a profession of repentance, or a thorough change of mind, both of judgment and of feeling, with respect to sin. To (or for) remission, with a view to it or for the purpose of promoting it, not directly or efficiently, but as an indispensable prerequisite. Remission: loosing, leaving, i. e., letting go unpunished, which is essentially the same with pardon or forgiveness. The indefinite expressions of this clause (a baptism of repentance for sins) are not unmeaning or fortuitous, but designed to introduce John's ministry as something new and previously unknown to the reader. The meaning of the verse as thus explained is, that the ancient prophecies were fulfilled in the appearance of a preacher in the wilderness calling the people to repent, and baptizing them in token of their having done so. J. A. A. 3. Kingdom of heaven:** Signifies the gospel dispensation, in which subjects were to be gathered to God by his Son, and a society to be formed, which was to subsist first in imperfect circumstances on earth, but afterward complete in glory. In some places the phrase denotes the state of it on earth; sometimes it signifies only the state of glory; but it generally includes both. The Jews understood it of a temporal monarchy at Jerusalem, which would become, instead of Rome, the capital of the world; and the expected sovereign of this kingdom they learned from Daniel to call the Son of man; by which title they understood the promised Messiah, the Christ, or the Anointed One of God. Both John the Baptist and Christ took up this phrase, and used it as they found it, and gradually taught the Jews to affix right ideas to it. This very demand of repentance showed it was a spiritual kingdom; and that no wicked man, how politic or brave, how learned or renowned, soever, could possibly be a genuine member of it. D.—As to the nature of the Messianic expectation prevailing in this period among the Jews, what can be established with any degree of certainty amounts to the following: The Jews divided the entire history of the world into two principal periods, the present and the future. At the end of the first the coming of the Messiah has place, whose way, it was expected, would be prepared, and his coming announced by Elijah the prophet, who was to appear a second time. The Jews expected him from the tribe of Judah and the family of David (the Samaritans on the contrary from Ephraim), and regarded Bethlehem as the place of his approaching birth. Of an extraordinary birth by the Holy Ghost they seem not to have thought. Anointed with the Spirit of God, and richly furnished with higher powers, he should not only make an end to all religious disputes, and effect a restoration of religion and morals which had so sadly declined, but above all should shine forth in royal dignity. He should deliver Israel from the oppressive yoke of his enemies, yea, he should conquer all the earth for the sake of the chosen people, in order so to found a universal theocratic government. Then should a golden age of peace and happiness dawn, and Jerusalem's temple be the centre of a dominion, of which Israel should enjoy the glory and all the world the blessing. Moral improvement was, especially according to the better disposed, the condition of his manifestation. Hence it was that John's requirement of repentance excited as little surprise as it met with contradiction, and that still at the present day the Jews ascribe the delay of the Messianic period to their transgressions. The representation of the Messiah's person, that prevailed with most, was that he should be a true man, anointed to be a theocratic king, filled with the Holy Spirit, and invested with the most unlimited authority. The earthly-minded multitude expected from his rule freedom, national glory, and sensual bliss: the better disposed hoped also that he would teach them to serve God without fear, that he would also be a light to lighten the Gentiles, and would dispense spiritual gifts. Van O. M. 4-6. The traveller who now wanders along the desolate shores of the Dead Sea, or roams over the bleak hills of Juttah, will see many a figure whose garb and mode of life must remind him of John. Time has not changed, and fashion never modifies the simple costume and manners of those children of the desert. The brown cloak of camel's hair, thrown loosely over the shoulders, is still the principal covering. The leathern girdle is still worn. The wilderness is still their only home; sometimes a tent, and sometimes the canopy of heaven, their only covering. Locusts, too, and wild honey, are still articles of food. J. L. P.—A mysterious intimation had closed the prophetic writings, announcing, from the lips of Malachi, on which the fire of prophecy had expired, a second coming of Elijah. And where, and at what time, and in what form, was he so likely to appear, as in the desert, by the shore of the Jordan, at so fearful a crisis in the national destiny, in the wild garb and with the demeanor so frequent among the ancient seers? H. M. The region round about Jordan. Properly the valley on both sides of the Jordan, from Tiberias to the Dead Sea. The tract near Jericho is so large in proportion to all the rest that it often takes the name. The expression points, however, to John's ministry being carried on on both sides of the river. G.—Went out to him all. That which no doubt drew the whole population in such crowds to the desert shores of the Jordan, was the mysterious yet distinct assertion that the "kingdom of heaven was at hand;" that kingdom of which the belief was as universal as of the personal coming of the Messiah. H. M.—The nation was daily expecting the appearance of "the wise and perfect prophet, who should restore the tribes of Israel, reprove the times, and appease the wrath of God, before it broke out in fury." A prophet, in the Jewish point of view, might reveal the future; but his great characteristic was, that he was the mouthpiece of God, to utter, by resistless impulse, the rebukes or commands of the Almighty, as his ambassador, and the interpreter of his will to men. John realized this ideal. G.—Here was no "reed shaken by the winds," but an inspired soul, liberated from all dread of man, elevated above the influence of selfish passion, and himself schooled to practise the virtues which he demanded of others. G. P. F. The conscience of the masses was roused. It had sunk to sleep under Pharisaic formalism, Roman oppression, and Sadducean indifference. John's voice sounded like a trumpet to alarm them. The  popular excitement spread. Crowds gathered in daily greater numbers from Jerusalem, Judea, and the wide uplands of Perea. It seemed, indeed, as if he were the promised Elias, the herald of Messiah. G. A Tiberius was polluting by his infamies the throne of the empire; a Pontius Pilate, with his insolences, cruelties, extortions, massacres, was maddening a fanatic people; Herod Antipas was exhibiting to facile learners the example of calculated apostasy and reckless lust; Caiaphas and Annas were dividing the functions of a priesthood which they disgraced. Yet the talk of the new prophet was not of political circumstances such as these; the lessons he had to teach were deeper and more universal in their moral and social significance. Whatever might be the class who flocked to his stern solitude, his teaching was intensely practical, painfully heart-searching, fearlessly downright. And so Pharisee and Sadducee, scribe and soldier, priest and publican, all thronged to listen to his words. F. THE VALLEY OF THE JORDAN, from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea, depressed from 650 to 1,300 feet below the level of the Mediterranean, is now called The Ghor. It is filled up to a certain level with alluvial deposit, forming what is often called the "upper plain" of the Jordan valley; and in this the river has hollowed out for itself, during the course of long ages, a "lower plain," varying in width from a quarter of a mile to a mile, and from 50 to 100 feet below the general level of the valley. There are thus two distinct, well-defined plains in the Jordan valley: the upper, generally sterile, and only capable of cultivation where springs or perennial streams afford the means of copious irrigation; and the lower, through which the river pursues its tortuous course, keeping by its occasional overflows certain small tracts under cultivation. Wilson.—The Jordan valley on the east side, between the Lake of Tiberias and the Jabbok, was a paradise of cities and gardens and cultivated fields, and well watered in every part. I have found the ruins of at least a dozen important places between the points just named, which show that in Christ's time there was here a dense population. S. M. Baptized in the river of Jordan. Both physically and historically, the Jordan is the most remarkable river upon earth. The whole valley is just a great rent or chasm in the crust of the earth. At its southern end, along the shores of that mysterious lake, there is the intense heat only found elsewhere beneath the equator; while at its northern end the noble cone of Hermon towers to the skies, and is crowned with perpetual snow. . . . We naturally conclude that the place indicated was close to the wilderness of Judea, which included the whole of that wild region lying between Jericho and Jerusalem. The plain or valley of the Jordan at Jericho is about ten miles wide, and is inclosed on each side by ridges of gray limestone, which rise up in abrupt, jagged masses. A number of great highways, from Hebron, Jerusalem, Bethel, Samaria, and Galilee, converged on the plain of Jericho. Down these the people of those cities and regions would find easy access to the Baptist; and he whose mission it was to give the widest publicity to the Messiah's advent, would doubtless take advantage of such facilities, and preach in the most accessible locality. J. L. P.—The place (five miles N. E. of Jericho) was known as Bethabara, "the house of the ford." Fords do not change in a river like the Jordan; roads are never altered in the East; and this must always have been, as it is now, the place of passage from Jericho to Gilead. At this spot we must place the departure of Elijah from earth, and the preaching of the Baptist. And there is surely a deep significance in the fact that here, as suddenly as the first Elijah disappeared, did the second Elias appear; and where the first dropped his mantle, did the second take it up. And this was the ordinary place of passage for those who travelled from Galilee to Jerusalem by the Jordan route. Here our Lord often crossed with his disciples, when he would avoid passing through Samaria on his way to the temple festivals at Jerusalem. The east bank of Jordan seems always to have been preferred to the western as the route from Galilee. The way was more shaded by occasional trees, and frequent streams intersect the path. These streams are perennial, and over them waves many a palm-tree; while on the other side the palm is all but extinct. H. B. T. M. 7. Pharisees and Sadducees. These two sects, according to Josephus, originated at the same period, under Jonathan the high-priest (B. C. 159-144). The Pharisees took for their distinctive practice the strict observance of the law and all its requirements, written and oral. The religionism represented by the Sadducees was bare, literal, moral conformity, without any higher views or hopes. They thus escaped the dangers of tradition, but fell into deadness and worldliness, and a denial of spiritual influence. While our Lord was on earth, this state of mind was very prevalent among the educated classes throughout the Roman Empire, and most of the Jews of rank and station were Sadducees. The two sects, mutually hostile, are found in the gospels united in opposition to our Lord, the Pharisees representing hypocritical superstition; the Sadducees, carnal unbelief. A. (Read Section 182.) L. 8-17. The language of the Baptist at once fell in with and opposed the popular feeling; at one instant it raised, at the next it crossed their hopes. He announces the necessity of a complete moral change, while he repudiated the claims of those who rested their sole title to God's favor on their descent from the chosen race. But, on the other hand, he proclaimed the immediate coming of the Messiah; and, on the nature of the kingdom, there was nothing which interfered with the prevailing belief in the personal temporal reign of the Son of David. H. M.—The narrow separatism and worthless externalism of the law were to be forsaken, and love to God and their neighbor, and a future baptism of the Holy Ghost, by him who was to come, were to take their place. G. 9. The axe is laid at the root.** Laid there, at hand for immediate use, though as yet no blow has been struck; but laid there also that this sign of what is threatened may avert the fulfilment of the threat. T. 12. The publicans.** The Greek word translated "publicans" describes the inferior officers employed as collectors of the Roman revenue. But the Latin word publicani, from which the English has been taken, was applied to a higher order of men. The Roman senate farmed the direct taxes and the customs to capitalists, who undertook to pay a given sum into the treasury (publicum), and hence received the name of publicani. Contracts of this kind fell naturally into the hands of the richest class of Romans. In the provinces were managing directors, and under them were the actual custom-house officers. The latter were commonly natives of the province in which they were stationed. The Greek word, which etymologically might have been used of the publicani properly so called, was used popularly, and in the N. T. exclusively, of the inferior officers. The system was essentially a vicious one. The publicani encouraged their agents in the most vexatious or fraudulent exactions. By accepting the baptism of John, the publicans gave, at the very beginning of the gospel dispensation, an illustration of the great principle so often taught by Christ, that the sinner, conscious of his guilt, is better prepared to enter the kingdom of heaven by repentance, than self-righteous men who think they need no repentance. S. 16. I baptize. I administer but the external symbol of purification. His it is, as his sole prerogative, to dispense the inward reality. And with fire.** Clearly it is the fiery character of the Spirit's operations upon the soul—searching, consuming, refining. And thus in two successive clauses the two most familiar emblems—water and fire—are employed to set forth the same purifying operations of the Holy Ghost upon the soul. B. 17. Purge his floor.** The Jewish Church, or people, is here compared to a threshing-floor covered with a mixture of chaff and wheat, which should be separated by the winnowing fan of Christ. His doctrines were such as to test the real dispositions of the hearts of men, and to distinguish between the hypocritical and the sincere. The separation to be made is described as preparatory to everlasting rewards and punishments. The phrase of burning the chaff with unquenchable fire is inconsistent with all views of the restoration of the wicked or of their annihilation. D. 18. Preached he unto the people.** It was John's hand which struck the first bold stroke at the root of the strong national prejudice which narrowed and carnalized the expected kingdom of their Messiah. One thing was revealed to him in clearest light, and upon this he spoke with such power: that whatever the future kingdom was to be, it should be one in which force and fraud, selfishness and insincerity, and all sham piety, were to be denied a place; for which those would stand best prepared who were readiest to confess and give up their sins, and to act justly and benevolently toward their fellow-men, humbly and sincerely toward God. You have but the rudiments, indeed, of the true doctrine of repentance in the teaching of the Baptist—the Christian doctrine but in germ; but it is not difficult to see in it the same great lesson as to the inner and spiritual qualifications required of all members of the kingdom of Christ, which was unfolded, at the very beginning of our Lord's ministry in Judea privately to Nicodemus, and publicly to the multitudes on the hill-side of Galilee. H.—He knew that the highest truth of spiritual life was to be given by One that should come after. What he had learned in the desert was contained in a few words: Reality lies at the root of religious life. Ye must be real, said John. "Bring forth fruits meet for repentance." Let each man do his own duty; let the rich impart to those who are not rich; let the publican accuse no man falsely; let the soldier be content with his wages. The coming kingdom is not a mere piece of machinery which will make you all good and happy without effort of your own. Change yourselves, or you will have no kingdom at all. Personal reformation, personal reality, that was John's message to the world. F. W. R. The grandeur of his mission lay in the keen discernment with which he had seized hold of the one ordinance to bring before his countrymen the truth, ever old, yet ever new, that the cleanness, the whiteness of the human heart is the only fitting preparation for the divine presence. This startling note of the universal need for the creation of a new morality, for a "transformation of the mind," struck a chord which had not vibrated since the days of Malachi. A. P. S.—He spoke nothing of Levitical rites or sacrifices, but demanded that the law should be applied to the conscience, and carried out in the life. A spiritual preparation would alone avert the coming wrath. Religion must henceforth be in the heart and life, not in worthless outward forms or privileges. For the first time the great truth was pressed home to the conscience of men that the true kingdom of heaven is in the renewed soul. Everything was new, startling, impressive—the wilderness, the stream, the solemn hills—a prophet appearing, after more than five hundred years. His words, his baptismal symbol, the kingdom he preached, the Messias whom he announced as at hand, the very multitudes assembled, the visible emotion, the evident good effected, the contrition of the most sunken classes—the publicans and harlots—all showed that the whole nation believed in him. G. M. 13 AND it came to pass in those days when all the people were baptized, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him. But John forbade him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him. And he was baptized of John in Jordan. And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water. And praying, lo, he saw the heavens opened unto him, and the Spirit of God descending in a bodily shape like a dove, and lighting upon him. And lo, a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased. And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age. J. 15 John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me; for he was before me. And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. It is as he prays that the Spirit comes, sustaining him under that consciousness of his Sonship to God, which now fills, expands, exalts his weak humanity. And does not our great Head and Representative stand before us here a type and pattern of every true believer in the Lord, as to the duty, the privilege, the power of prayer? Of him, and of him only of the sons of men, might it be said that he prayed without ceasing; that his life was one of constant and sustained communion with his Father; and yet you find him on all the great occasions of his life having recourse to separate, solitary, sometimes to prolonged acts of devotion. His baptism, his appointment of the twelve apostles, his escape from the attempt to make him a king, his transfiguration, his agony in the garden, his death upon the cross, were all hallowed by prayer. The first and the last acts of his ministry were acts of prayer. From the lowest depth, from the highest elevation of that ministry, he poured out his spirit in prayer. For his mission on earth, for all his heaviest trials, he prepared himself by prayer. And should we not prepare for our poor earthly service, and fortify ourselves against temptations and trials, by following that great example? The heavens above are not shut against us, the Spirit who descended like a dove has not taken wings and flown away from this earth. There is a power by which these heavens can still be penetrated, which can still bring down upon us that gentle messenger of rest—the power that lies in simple, humble, earnest, continued believing prayer. H. AT this period the power and influence of John over the public mind were at their height. Jesus, humanly speaking, was but an unknown youth, whose higher character was as yet untried. Yet John cedes at once the first place: in the strongest language he declares himself immeasurably inferior to him who stood among the crowd, unmarked and unregarded. H. M. 13. We should naturally expect to find in Jesus an attitude corresponding to the extraordinary grandeur of the end which he sets before himself, and of the dignity which he claims. But his appearance is simplicity itself. When we first see him it is in the midst of the penitents who come to receive from the forerunner the baptism of repentance: when we first hear him, it is in the midst of the multitudes who are gathered from all parts to hear the new prophet, proclaiming, in language free from all pomp, the blessedness of the humble and the afflicted. Not for one instant does that simplicity forsake him. R. C. The holy Jesus leaves the home of his childhood to return to it no more as his earthly abode save for the few days that preceded the removal to Capernaum. His path lay toward the desert valley of the Jordan, to the neighborhood of that ford, not far from Jericho, to which the multitude flocked from Judea and Jerusalem. There the great forerunner was baptizing; there he had been but just uttering those words of stern warning to the mingled multitude. Around him stood men with musing hearts, doubting whether that bold speaker were the Christ or no, when suddenly, unknown and unrecognized, the very Messiah mingles with those strangely assorted and expectant multitudes, and with them seeks baptism at the hands of the great preacher of the desert. E.—As became the head of this spiritual kingdom, he entered upon his ministry by an act of obedience. In his childhood he received the sign of the covenant, and submitted to the ceremonial purification required by the law. In later years he took part in the sacrificial offerings of the temple worship. So now he is anxious to obey the divine will, not only as revealed by the founder of the ancient institutions, but as revealed by the herald of the new dispensation. He fulfilled all righteousness. “He came to John to be baptized of him.” J. A. 14. I need to be baptized of thee. Hitherto the Baptist had insisted on the purification of all who had assembled around him; and, with the commanding dignity of a heaven-commissioned teacher, had rebuked the sins of all classes and all sects. In Jesus alone, by his refusal to baptize him, he acknowledges the immaculate purity, while his deference assumes the tone of homage, almost of adoration. H. M.—John has baptized many; has seen, and in some sense seen through, men of all kinds; but no one like this had as yet come before him. They have all bowed down before him; but before this Man bows down, in the irrepressible emotion of his own most profound contrition, the sinful man in the greatest prophet. Stier.—The circumstances of their life had entirely separated them. John, as a child in the house of the blameless priest his father, had lived at Juttah, in the far south of the tribe of Judah, and not far from Hebron; Jesus had lived in the deep seclusion of Galilee. F. 15. Our Saviour doth not deny either that John hath need to be baptized of him, or that it is strange that he should come to be baptized of John; but he will needs thus far both honor John and disparage himself, to be baptized of his messenger. He, that would take flesh of the Virgin, education from his parents, sustenance from his creatures, will take baptism from John. Bp. H.—He received it as ratifying the mission of his great forerunner—the last and greatest child of the old dispensation, the earliest herald of the new; and he also received it as the beautiful symbol of moral purification, and the humble inauguration of a ministry which came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil. His own words obviate all possibility of misconception. He does not say, “I must,” but, “Thus it becometh us.” F. 16. As Jesus stepped forth after the baptism on the banks of the river, he stood severed from the past, connected with a new future; Nazareth, its quiet home, its happy days, its peaceful occupations, lay behind; trials and toils, suffering and death, lay before him. He would not have been the Son of man had he not felt the significance and solemnity of the hour. He turns, in the pure, true instinct of his sinless humanity, to throw himself and all his future upon his Father in prayer. And then it is, as with uplifted hands he gazes into the heavens, that he sees them opened above his head, the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him, and hears a voice from heaven saying to him, “Thou art my beloved son, in thee I am well pleased.” This voice was twice heard again: on the Mount of Transfiguration, and within the temple. It was the voice of the Father. The fall sealed the Father’s lips in silence; all divine communications afterward with man were made through the Son. It was he who appeared and spake to the patriarchs; it was he who spake from the summit of Sinai, and was the giver of the law; but now for the first time the Father’s lips are opened, the long-kept silence is broken, that this testimony of the Father to the Sonship of Jesus, this expression of his entire good pleasure with him as he enters upon his ministry, may be given. H. Like a dove. To his vision it appeared as the form of a dove descending. A symbol this of perfect gentleness, purity, fulness of life, and of the power of communicating it. L.—The quiet flight and the resting dove betokened no rushing torrent of inspiration, no sudden seizure of the Spirit, but a uniform unfolding of the life of God, the loftiness yet the calm repose of a nature itself divine, the indwelling of the Spirit so that he could impart it to others, and fill them completely with it. N.—Here, in the baptism of our Head, are that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, into whose adorable name we are baptized. B. Isaiah had foretold (11 : 2) how the Spirit of Jehovah should rest upon the branch from the roots of Jesse, and the prediction was now fulfilled. It was the divine anointing of Jesus, the consecration from on high to the office of Messiah, and, as such, the true birth-hour of Christianity. It was his solemn designation as the great High-Priest of the new and abiding dispensation. G.—At his birth, he was filled and actuated by the Holy Spirit, so far as his talent and disposition were concerned. This implied his perfect sinlessness. But at his baptism, he attained the full consciousness of his nature and mission as the God-Man and Saviour. From that moment he became the organ of the Holy Spirit, not merely so far as he was personally concerned, but also as fully realizing his mediatorial character and work, and its relation to the salvation of mankind. But this fulness of the Spirit remained still concealed under the form of a servant, and in the lowliness of his walk and work. It was only after the work had been finished and accepted, that the Spirit was poured out in all his fulness upon his believing people; and the dove, which had erst descended into his heart, issued forth to move and to brood over the waters of the nations of the earth. Lange.—At his birth his person was owned; in his baptism his ministry is owned, and the Father is pleased in him; by and by he will, for the third time, be owned again, when his regal glory shines for a moment around him; and then there will be the addition, “hear ye him.” Later still these attestations will all be confirmed; not by words only, but by solemn acts, and the resurrection will at length declare him to be the Son of God with power. His person, his ministry, and his dominion, all are owned. At each stage the full pleasure of God rests upon him; and at last the full subjection of the earth is demanded for him. J. A. L. 23. Began to be. It should be translated, “was about thirty years old when he began”—i. e., his public life and ministry. L.—The Jewish priests were required to be thirty years old before they were allowed to officiate in their ministry. Pearce. J. 16. Grace for grace—i. e., grace upon grace (as all the best interpreters), in successive communications and larger measures. B.—So inexhaustibly rich is his fulness, that not only all receive from it a full sufficiency, but each receiver of grace takes away grace for grace; for every grace received is the earnest of one yet to be received. R. B.—Grace, like life itself, is a principle of growth: the more we have, the more we shall receive, “grace for grace,” grace upon grace, one measure drawing after it another, until we shall be filled with all the fulness of God. A divine dignity was stamped upon our humanity by the incarnation of Christ; but the blessing and the glory that he brought will come to us personally only as we receive his grace by believing on his name. J. P. T. 17. The law was given by Moses. The moral law, full of high and holy demands, and of stern threatenings against disobedience; and the ceremonial law, full of burdensome sacrifices, ordinances, and ceremonies, which never healed the worshipper’s conscience, and at best were only shadows of good things to come. Grace and truth by Jesus Christ. Grace by the full manifestation of God’s plan of salvation, and the offer of complete pardon to every soul that believes on Jesus; and truth, by the unveiled exhibition of Christ himself, as the true sacrifice, the true priest, and the true atonement for sin. J. C. R.—By him grace has come, which the law, working wrath, only teaches men to feel the want of, but does not offer for their acceptance; and by him also, truth has come, which the law, prophesying of future blessings, only indicates and shadows forth, but does not actually bring to pass or realize. Moses was not himself the law, but he was the servant through whom God gave his law. Jesus Christ is himself the grace and he is himself the truth; the very substance of his announcement is contained in his person and his work. Jesus Christ! In that name, which henceforward the evangelist gives to the incarnate Word—in that name is grace and truth. “He is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” R. B. 18. Only-begotten Son. What means that significant word, “only-begotten,” if Jesus is not a Son in some sense that we are not, and never can be, sons? There is that in Jesus Christ which separates him even from this spiritual nature in humanity, distinguishes him from the best dignity in man, and exalts him above even our highest honors. There is a line drawn between his soul and our souls, not cutting us off from his perfect sympathy, not barring us from his fellowship, not veiling his face with any dimness from ours, but marking us, in our nature, as human; and him, in his nature, as divine. F. D. H.—In the bosom of the Father. John remembers how he himself lay on Jesus' bosom, and he can think of no more tender expression to describe that most intimate, ever-blessed communion of the only-begotten Son with the Father than this. R. B. Declared him. A remarkable expression, here only used, presupposing the Son's conscious existence distinct from the Father, and expressing his immediate and most endeared access to and absolute acquaintance with him. He—emphatic—"He and he only hath declared him," because he only can. B.—He has explained, truly and fully, in his words and in his life; his instruction alone merits the name of an explanation; he is the expounder of God and divine things. Here is the origin of all true exegesis: Christ is the revealer and expounder of God, the Holy Ghost the revealer and expounder of Christ and his word. P. S. ## Section 15.—The Temptation. Wilderness of Judea. L. 1 AND Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan, and immediately was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And he was there in the wilderness with the wild beasts, being forty days tempted of Satan. And in those M. 2 days he did eat nothing. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterwards an hungered. 3. And when the tempter, the devil, came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, 4 command that these stones be made bread. But Jesus answered him and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. 5. Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee, to keep thee; and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. 7 And Jesus answering, said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. 8. Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, All these things, all this power will I give thee, and the glory of them; for that is delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will, I give it. If thou therefore wilt fall down and worship me, all shall be thine. Then answered Jesus and said unto him, Get thee hence, behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. 11. Then when the devil had ended the temptation, he leaveth him, and departed from him for a season. And behold, angels came and ministered unto him. A SPECTACLE as illusive as that presented to Jesus on the mountain-top, the arch-deceiver spreads out before our eyes, whispering to our hearts, "All this will I give you;" all this money, all that ease, all that pleasure, all that power. He asks from us no act of outward worship; all he asks is, that we believe his false promises, and turn away from God and Christ to give ourselves up to worldliness of heart and habit and pursuit. Take unto you the whole armor of God, for all is needed; but remember, of all the pieces of that panoply, the one that Christ himself used, and the only one that serves for defence and assault, is the sword of the Spirit, the word of God. By it all other parts of the armor are guarded. The helmet might be shattered on the brow, the shield wrenched from the arm, did it not protect; for hope and faith, that helmet and that shield, on what do they rest, but upon the word of the living God? H.—Christ's triumph is only the earnest and pledge of the believer's. The believer is in presence of the same versatile enemy, tempting him, now through his appetite, now through his intellect, now through his pride, making error attractive by decking it in the garb of truth, distributing false and pernicious dogmas wrapped up in isolated texts and misquoted paragraphs of God's word. But the believer has the same infinite wisdom to expose Satan's sophistries, and the same infinite power to resist his persuasions; he has the same weapon, too, "the sword of the Spirit." Let him believe, and watch, and pray, and strive, and his final triumph is secure. J. L. P. HAVING been baptized with water and the Holy Ghost, he shall now be baptized with the fire of temptation; even as there is another baptism, the baptism of blood, in store for him. It is not too much to say, as Augustine said often, that the entire history, moral and spiritual, of the world, revolves around two persons, Adam and Christ. To Adam was given a position to maintain; he did not maintain it, and the lot of the world for ages was decided. And now with the second Adam the second trial of our race has arrived. The second Adam, taking up the conflict exactly where the first had left it, and inheriting all the consequences of his defeat, in the desert does battle with the foe; and conquering him there, wins back the garden for that whole race, whose champion and representative in this conflict he had been. T. Christ could not well have lived in this world to the age of thirty without having excitements of wrong desire present before his mind, and without making his choice between obedience and disobedience. But now, when he had received a solemn inauguration by baptism from the forerunner, and a most remarkable testimony from God by a voice from heaven—now, when publicly and formally he took the place of representative for mankind in the system of grace, and when interests mightier than man had sustained before hung on his conduct—now there was a momentous crisis; and the parties most aware of what he might accomplish as the Son of God might well be most active in putting his character to the test. Accordingly, the sacred historian tells us that God and Satan were alike concerned in his temptation. . . . That Christ's innocence was secure by even more than divine help, by the possession of a divine nature, is a mere inference of the reason, and involves disbelief in the simple record of the gospel. Why was he tempted by a sagacious tempter if he could not by any possibility be led into evil? And if he himself knew that he could not sin, what could the transaction have been to him but a mere formality? Or how is he an example to us if his temptation is an unreality? No! They dishonor Christ's work who think thus. When he took on him the form of a servant he became by his own will subject to everything which can affect human nature. . . . The temptations were intended, not for Jesus in his nature as a man, but for Jesus in his official station as the Messiah. God was putting it to the test whether Jesus was qualified for his office—whether that man whom he had severed from the rest of mankind by a wondrous birth and a union with the divine nature, and who yet stood forth in perfect freedom as a man—whether he would remain true to the spiritual idea of the Messiah, or would fall below it under temptation. Nor was the tempter in this case anxious simply to lead a good man into sin, but he was striking at the root of salvation; his aim was to undermine the principles of the kingdom of heaven, to lead the Christ, if possible, by some subtle way of conduct inconsistent with the office to which he had been chosen, and which he had freely accepted. This thought is the key to the story of the temptation. T. D. W. The whole temptation presents a contrast between the founding of God's kingdom as pure, spiritual, and tried by many forms of self-denial in its slow development, and the sudden establishment of that kingdom as visible and earthly. This contrast forms the central point of the whole. And the free and conscious decision manifested in these three temptations, fully contrasting the true and false Messiahship, was made before his public ministry, which itself was but a continuation of the strife and the triumph. N. What happened in the desert and what happened in the garden are only parts of one great whole. What Christ shrank from at last was just what Satan tried to dissuade him from at first. And the three temptations all issued and centred in this one: To be the Messiah without suffering and death; such a Messiah as carnal Judaism then longed for. As the Messiah, Christ is challenged to satisfy his hunger and to fling himself down from the battlement of the temple. And the universal dominion offered was not secular but Messianic. The same world-inclusive possession that God had promised (Psalm 2: 8), to be won by self-denial, suffering, and death, Satan now offered to be won by worldly Satanic methods. The whole appeal of Satan was: Put forth your power in self-seeking and self-assertion, carry the Jewish nation by storm, and so begin at once the conquest of the world. And the answer of Christ was: No, I shall bear this fasting till I am told to end it; I shall not dazzle and stun the Jewish people into discipleship; I shall let them put me to death; and by this lowly pathway shall I take at last the crown. R. D. H.—The rejection of a false Messiahship, in accordance with the hopes and based upon obedience to the worldly spirit of Judaism, in favor of an inward kingdom to be developed gradually out of apparent failure by the power of the Divine Spirit, admits us to the secret of the entire after-plan—from the refusal to satisfy the craving for signs, to the cross itself, which was the final answer to the tempter. Eng. Review. 1. Immediately he was led by the Spirit. No sooner is the Holy Spirit descended upon his head in the form of a dove, than he is led by the Spirit to be tempted. No sooner doth God say, "This is my Son," than Satan says, "If thou be the Son of God." Bp. H.—In the words of Jeremy Taylor, "He was led by the good Spirit to be tempted of the evil."—Into the wilderness. No man who stands on the banks of the Jordan at Jericho could doubt for a moment where that wilderness is. He has only to lift up his eyes and look westward, and it is before him. A bare white plain, with two or three narrow strips of verdure, extends about six miles from the west bank of the  Rocky Hills of the Wilderness, near Jericho. river. On its farther side rises up a ridge of white limestone cliffs, extending north and south far as the eye can see, and supporting a chain of jagged, rocky hills behind, equally white and bare. A more dreary, desolate, and forbidding landscape the world could not furnish. The wilderness of Judea, including the whole of that wild region lying between Jericho and Jerusalem, was unquestionably the scene of the temptation. J. L. P. To be tempted of the devil. Such a personal tempter innumerable moral and spiritual phenomena of this fallen world at once demand and attest; and such a tempter or devil existing, it lay in the necessity of things that he should come into direct and immediate collision with him who had one mission in the world, and that, to destroy the works of the devil. T.—The Christian doctrine of the devil, as revealed in the Word of God, is, that he is a created being of a higher order than man, who has fallen away from God (Jude 6); that he is related to sin as its primeval and seductive originator (John 3:8; John 8:44); that he is an adversary, accuser, and a tempter of God's people (Gen. 3; compare Rev. 12:9; Matt. 4:1; Matt. 13:39; John 14:30); that he stands in relation to the Redeemer as a conquered enemy (John 12:31; Rev. 12:9), and in relation to the redeemed as an enemy absolutely vincible (1 Peter 5:8, 9; James 4:7); that he nevertheless continues to rage and persecute on earth (Rev. 2:10; Rev. 3:9), and is finally related to universal heathenism and the world, as well as to apostate Judaism as a patron, prince, and father (John 8:44; John 14:30; Ephes. 2:2; Ephes. 6:11, 12); and that, together with everything anti-Christian, he shall be delivered up to eternal punishment. An.—That evil was first introduced into the world by a being who goes under the name of Satan or the Adversary, we are told; that this being endeavored first to seduce and afterward to menace our Saviour into evil; and that he is constantly engaged in tempting us, as he tempted Christ, we are also told. How Satan exists, or where at the present time, or how his power avails, as we are told it does, to contrive and suggest temptations to the mind of man; and to what extent he is aware of what is passing in men's minds, so as to adopt his suggestions to their weakness, we are not told, and do not therefore know. But our not being told the manner in which his power is exercised and brought to bear is no proof of the unreality of that fearful being, who is everywhere in the New Testament exhibited as the adversary of God and goodness, whether in the individual or in the development of the human race. C. P. R. Fasted forty days. Of the same length were the fasts of Moses and Elijah; he the head of the new covenant in nothing coming short of those who stood as the chiefs and representatives of the old, of the law, and of the prophets. T. THE FIRST TEMPTATION. 3. If thou be the Son of God. "If"—since faith and trust are the mainstay of all human holiness, the tempter is ever strongest in the suggestion of such doubts; strong, too, in his appeal to the free-will and the self-will of man. "You may, you can—why not do it?" F.—Command that these stones be made bread. He who made the water wine could have made the stones bread; but to that he was solicited by the need of others, to this only by his own. And this abstinence of self-help was the law of his whole life, a life as wonderful in the miracles which it left undone as in those which it wrought. T. 4. Every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God.** This is a Hebrew phrase to express "everything that God appoints" or "arranges." It is the full recognition of God's Fatherhood. It assumes that every appointment of God is wise and loving. It asserts accordingly that a man's life—that which is his genuine abiding life and happiness—cannot consist in opposing such appointments of his Father, or in trying to get free from them as from chains and fetters; but must consist in a meek acquiescence in them, in sympathizing with a Father's will as revealed in them, and thus, by the inner chemistry of love, converting them into food wherewith to nourish the life of the spirit. N. M.—He takes the words of Moses to the children of Israel, which mean, not that men must dispense with bread, and feed only on the study of the divine word, but that our meat and drink, our food and raiment, are all the work of the creating hand of God; and that a sense of dependence on God is the duty of man. S. The temptation was to distrust God's providence under pressure of want, on the plea that relief in other ways could easily be had. Jesus replies: "The power of the Son of God is not the present question, but the duty of man under want: Israel was sustained in the wilderness for forty years, hanging on the bare word of God (Deut. 8 : 4); to show that in God's word of promise lies man's security for life: As man, therefore, so resting, I will calmly await divine supply." Mark here, how apt the quotation! how invincible in the hand of faith! B.—This is the most common, the most universal form of attack with which the enemy has assailed the soul of man, this of making him lose confidence in the Fatherhood of God, because of the wilderness, the hunger, or the physical sufferings into which God has brought him in his providence; and to make him rebel against the restrictions he lays upon many things we might naturally desire. N. M.—He who thinks that we live by bread alone will make the securing of bread the chief object of his life, and, because he seeks no diviner food, will inevitably starve with hunger in the midst of it. But he who knows that man doth not live by bread alone will, when he has done his duty, trust God to preserve with all things needful the body. He will seek with more earnest endeavor the bread from heaven, and that living water whereof he who drinketh shall thirst no more. F. THE SECOND TEMPTATION. 5. On a pinnacle of the temple. Our Lord went into a desert, and literally fasted and hungered there. But his temptations, like our own, may all have been subjective, without the help of either voice or visible appearance. Indeed, they must have been subjective, in order to be as much as possible like ours. As to the being taken up into the holy city, and into an exceeding high mountain, it may have been in thought, without doing any violence to the terms employed. R. D. H.—If Satan did appear in bodily shape, his suggestions could become temptations only as they might act upon the mind of Jesus. Hence the better view of the temptation is that which regards it as a mental scene. These three suggestions, artfully woven into the words of Scripture, were presented to the mind of Jesus in such a way that he knew them to proceed from the devil. Whatever view we take as to the form of the temptation, the lessons from the fact are the same. It teaches us that Christ had a human nature in all things like our own, yet without sin. It teaches us that sin does not consist in a nature susceptible to temptation, but in yielding to temptation by an act of will. It shows us how to resist temptation, by the word and the grace of God. And, above all, it teaches us that Christ can sympathize with us in our temptations, and is qualified to help us with grace in every time of need. With such a helper we have no excuse for being overcome with evil. J. P. T. 6. Cast thyself down.** Nothing could be more natural than at once to vindicate his rank and authority, and open the way for his ministrations, by some startling miracle. No place was so well fitted for such a demonstration as Jerusalem, the holy city, and no spot in it so suited as the temple, the centre of the national religion, and the chosen dwelling-place of God. G.—The ultimate object of this second temptation, as of all the others, was to destroy Christ's spirit of perfect Sonship, of perfect filial love, faith, and obedience toward his Father. Its immediate object was to destroy his faith in the reality of his Father's presence and love by inducing him to "tempt the Lord his God," and therefore to demand a sign as the ground of faith. N. M.—In the first temptation Satan urged the Lord to a distrust of his Father's love; now he urges him to put that love to the proof in a way of his own choosing, and not of God's appointing. Satan, too, has learnt that the Scripture is the law of Christ's life; the sphere in which he lives and moves. Here, then, is a word of that same Scripture, which should induce him to consent to that which is now put before him. The words following, "to keep thee in all thy ways," he omits altogether. But that to which he now challenged the Lord was not a "way" appointed by his heavenly Father for his treading. T.—One cannot help being impressed with the daring effrontery of Satan in quoting this psalm at such a time (Ps. 91). If there is one passage in the Word of God which we might suppose Satan would avoid more than another at such a crisis, it is this, for the whole psalm is full of promises to him who has a childlike trust in God. 7. Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.** In this reply Christ showed that what Satan proposed as the evidence of faith would have evidenced unbelief. To cast himself down without any command from God, or any call of duty, was virtually to "try" or to "tempt" the truthfulness and love of God himself, by demanding supernatural protection as a "sign." True love does not thus test love, but rests and relies upon it with unhesitating faith. To demand proof of love is to doubt it, and to doubt love is to disbelieve it. And so our Lord, with the clear spiritual light of love, pierced the darkness of the evil one as he replied, "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." N. M.—In this refusal of Christ's are implicitly condemned all who run before they are sent, who thrust themselves into perils to which they are not called, with all those who presumptuously draw drafts on the faithfulness of God, which they have no Scriptural warrant in believing that he will honor. There lies in that "It is written again" of Christ the secret of our safety and defence against all distorted use of isolated passages in Holy Scripture. Only as we enter into the unity of Scripture, as it balances, completes, and explains itself, are we armed against error and delusion, excess or defect on this side or the other. Thus the retort, "It is written again," must be of continual application; for, indeed, what very often are heresies but one-sided exaggerated truths, truths rent away indeed from the body and complex of the truth, without the balance of the counter-truth, which should have kept them in their due place, coördinated with other truths or subordinated to them; and so, because all such checks are wanting, not truth any more but error? T. THE THIRD TEMPTATION. 8. Sheweth all the kingdoms. By an angelical power he draws into one centre ideas from all the kingdoms and glories of the world, and makes an admirable map of beauties, and represents it to the eye of Jesus. J. T.—All these will I give thee. Herein was the temptation, that the Messiah should not develop his kingdom gradually, and in its pure spirituality from within, but should establish it at once, as an outward dominion; and that, although this could not be accomplished without the use of an evil agency, the end would sanctify the means. We find here the principle, that to try to establish Messiah's kingdom as an outward, worldly dominion, is to wish to turn the kingdom of God into the kingdom of the devil. And in rejecting the temptation, Christ condemned every mode of secularizing his kingdom, as well as all the devil-worship which must result from attempting that kingdom in a worldly form. We find here the principle, that God's work is to be accomplished purely as his work and by his power, without foreign aid; so that it shall all be only a share of the worship rendered to him alone. N. 9. For that is delivered unto me.** As regards this power of Satan, a striking contrast exists between the material world and the spiritual world, the world of things and that of personalities. In the one he is utterly powerless. Against the will of God, as expressed in the movement of every star or beam of light, in the outburst of the hurricane, the growth of a flower, or the formation of a drop of dew, he can do no more than any intelligent creature. But in the far higher and nobler world of personality it is different; for this implies will, and the awful power of its possessor to choose that which may be against the will of God. It is thus that Satan, without having any power to change that world "without," may so change the world "within" the spirit of man as to make the former minister to the latter, and make it the means of gratifying the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. N. M. 10. Get thee hence, Satan. The divine patience gives room now to the divine indignation, such as the character of this suggestion required. T.—Worship the Lord thy God. He thus spoke as a true Son, who glorified his Father by faith and love. He spoke as a true Priest, whose whole life was a self-sacrifice, a worship of the only living and true God. He spoke as a true King, whose kingdom was not of this world, but in the hearts of redeemed men. The words “Get thee behind me, Satan,” were an epitome of the future history of the world; a prophecy of all the glory that should be; a light ushering in the brighter day, seen beyond the shadow of the cross. As he uttered them, Satan was henceforth doomed to depart from the weary and oppressed earth, and the Son of man to step forth before him, ever advancing to take possession of human spirits, and make all men kings and priests, by enabling them through faith in himself to worship the Lord their God, and to serve him only. N. M. 11. Angels came. Straightway those blessed spirits, whose ministry but a few moments before the devil had tempted Him to command, now tender to their Lord’s weakened humanity their loving and unbidden services. E. 3-10. To convert the hard, stony life of duty into the comfort and enjoyment of this life; to barter, like Esau, life for pottage; to use divine powers in him only to procure bread of earth;—To distrust God, and try impatiently some wild, sudden plan, instead of his meek and slow-appointed ways; to cast himself from the temple, as we dash ourselves against our destiny;—To do homage to the majesty of wrong; to worship evil for the sake of success; making the world his own by force or by crooked policy, instead of suffering: These were the temptations of his life, as they are of ours. If you search through his history, you find that all trial was reducible to one or other of these three forms. In the wilderness his soul foresaw them all; they were all in spirit met then, fought and conquered before they came in their reality. F. W. R. The great declaration is made: Christ is come, not to be obeyed, but to obey. He has given himself unreservedly to God and to man. He has come out conqueror from the great moral ordeal, but the victory is itself a sacrifice, an immolation; it leads not to earthly glory, but to death; not to the throne, but to the cross. For, on entering upon this path of obedience and love, he will come into collision with all the prejudices of the Jewish nation; he will belie all its hopes, and kindle all its hatred. A Messiah who will not reign in the sense in which Jerusalem understands his kingdom must perish. King or victim he must be; there is no alternative. De P. In striking antithesis the opening chapters of Matthew set before us the new-born King of Peace and the savage Herod; the mysterious adoration of the Magi, and the hasty flight for life into a strange land; the baptism, with the opened heavens and descending Spirit; and the temptation, with all its circumstances of satanic trial. Thus, heightened by contrast as well as heralded by prophecy, the Lord appears to us as the son of David and the son of Abraham, the spiritual King of spiritual Judaism, the Messiah of the Israel of God. The theocratic King and the suffering Messiah pass and repass before our eyes, in ever-new and ever-striking interchange, and a strange deep tone of prophetic sadness blends with all we read, and prepares us for Gethsemane and Calvary. E. ## Section 16.—Testimony of the Baptist. Bethabara. Jordan Valley. J. 43 Now after two days Jesus departed thence. And when he had heard that John was cast into prison, he came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God. 44, 45 For Jesus himself testified, that a prophet hath no honour in his own country. Then when he was come into Galilee, the Galileans received him, having seen all the things 46 that he did at Jerusalem at the feast: for they also went unto the feast. So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine. 47 And there was a certain nobleman, whose son was sick at Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus was come out of Judea into Galilee, he went unto him, and besought him that he would come down and heal his son: for he was at the point of death. 48, 49 Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe. The 50 nobleman saith unto him, Sir, come down ere my child die. Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way; thy son liveth. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way. 51 And as he was now going down, his servants met him, and told him, saying, Thy son 52 liveth. Then inquired he of them the hour when he began to amend. And they said 53 unto him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him. So the father knew that it was at the same hour, in the which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth; and himself believed, and his whole house. 54. This is again the second miracle that Jesus did, when he was come out of Judea into Galilee. THE answers of Jesus apply much less to the questions asked and petitions addressed to him, than to the frame of mind, the disposition of heart, in the querist or suppliant. Hence on occasions which bear much resemblance in externals, the answers are often different. There were miracle-seekers who wished to make this heavenly power subservient to low desires or mere idle curiosity. Against such Jesus was always stern, often repelling their solicitations unheard. There were also those who were drawn to the Redeemer by craving inward wants which he alone could satisfy. These he loved best, and met with divine tenderness and affection. There was yet another class, who at first were drawn to him by their instant external needs; and who afterward, when they had obtained relief, joined him with feelings of love. The nobleman belonged to this class. He is not disinclined to believe; but it is necessity alone, and not an inward impulse, which brings him to Christ. K. The Lord spoke out of the fulness of his knowledge to awake in them some infant sense of what constituted all his life—the presence of God; just as the fingers of the light go searching in the dark mould for the sleeping seeds, to touch and awake them. The order of creation, the goings on of life, were ceaselessly flowing from the very heart of the Father: why should they seek signs and wonders dif- fering from common things only in being uncommon? Uncommonness is not excellence, even as common- ness is not inferiority. The sign, the wonder is, in fact, the lower thing, granted only because of men's hardness of heart and slowness to believe—in itself of inferior nature to God's chosen way. Yet, if signs and wonders could help them, have them they should, for neither were they at variance with the holy laws of life and faithfulness: they were but less usual utterances of the same. McD. 43. Came into Galilee. He was for a time unattended by the small band of disciples who had accompanied him to the Passover. They had re- mained with him, in Judea, and had returned with him, through Sychar, to Galilee; but, after so long an absence from home, he had let them go back to the Lake of Galilee, to their occupations, till he should once more call them finally to his service. He retired to the north before the rising signs of opposition from the Pharisees, who had at last found means to get John imprisoned, by their intrigues with Antipas, and might at any moment have ef- fected his own arrest. An interval of some months now elapsed, perhaps in stillness and privacy, the time not having yet come, for some reasons unknown to us, for his final and permanent entrance on his public work. G. The gospel of the kingdom of God. The good news of Messiah's advent and the erection of his kingdom, for the very purpose of saving his people from their sins. This form of statement showed that the salvation now proclaimed was not a new and independent method of escape from sin and punishment, but one which had been long pre- dicted under the old economy. J. A. A.—Under- lying the whole history of Israel, and all the forms of the Jewish state and religion, was the idea of a living present God who dwelt in the hearts of all true worshippers, "as a monarch living among his subjects;" the temple was his visible house, a rep- resentative of his sacred majesty, and its sacrifices showed how he was to be approached for the for- giveness of sin; but his true abode was in hearts delivered from sin, that honored and obeyed him as the Redeemer—God. With this spiritual conception of the kingdom, it is easy to understand how Jesus "preached the gospel of the kingdom of God." Coming at a time when the Jews were deprived of every symbol of their nationality save their temple and its worship, they were yearning for a deliverer; to the nominal people of God thus subjugated by military rule, yet clinging to the ancient promise of a Messiah who should restore the glory of the the- ocracy, he said, "I bring to you the good news of the kingdom of God; in me Jehovah once more comes to you as a deliverer; the time predicted by Daniel is fulfilled; the new covenant promised by Jeremiah is brought to you in my gospel; repent of the sins that have humiliated and wellnigh destroyed you; renounce your vain hopes of deliverance, and trust in me as your Saviour." But the body of the nation looked only for the restoration and perfection of the Davidic theocracy in perpetuity. Because of this popular expectation, which could easily have been kindled into the fever of a revolution, Jesus refrained from announcing himself as the Messiah, until by his teaching and works he had gained a footing for that spiritual commonwealth which in reality he had come to establish. J. P. T.—The very nature of a spiritual kingdom like his, founded on the free convictions of men, not on assertion or authority, demanded this reticence. The heart of man, which was to be the seat of his empire, could be won only by the spiritual attractions of his life and words. G. 45. The Galileans, or Jews of the north.** Their patriotism in national emergencies; their enthusiastic loyalty to their country's interests; their general adherence to the law of Moses in preference to tradition; their interest in the temple and its solemn feasts; their deep-seated and inspiring hope, which looked "for the redemption of Israel"—these things show that the Jews of the north, at least equally with those who dwelt beneath the very shadow of the temple, maintained within themselves some of the noblest traits of the Hebrew nation. But farther, we find the Galileans to have been a moral, intelligent, industrious, and enterprising people—"healthy as their own climate and cheerful as their own sky"—a people familiar with their own law and history, and not wanting in the finest poetical spirit; with the disposition and ability to appreciate in the main the teachings of Christ; a people among whom were found most devoted men; among whom also devotion to the national idea reached its highest development, till at last they rose, a solid wall of patriot hearts, to be crushed by the all-conquering power of Rome. Both country and people, one may say with truth, fitly chosen of God as the training-place of those men who were to move the world; the proper soil in which first to plant that truth which was destined, ere long, to be spoken by eloquent lips in Cesarea, Antioch, Constantinople, and Rome. S. M. 46,47. It had become known in Capernaum that he was once more in Cana, after his nine or ten months' absence from Galilee. His miraculous power over sickness and physical evil, as shown in Jerusalem, had become a subject of universal report. Among others, a high officer of the court of Herod Antipas, whose mansion was in Capernaum, had heard of the wonderful Teacher. . . . It marks the minute exactness of the narration that Jesus is asked to "come down" from Cana to Capernaum, the one place being 1,350 feet lower than the other. G. 48. Only "signs and wonders" would compel to a belief; unlike those Samaritans whom the Lord had just left, who, without a miracle, had in great numbers "believed because of his word." T.—Apparently repelling him for the moment, Jesus was, in fact, opening his eyes to the far greater blessings he might freely obtain. With royal bounty he wished to give the greater while he gave the less. G. 50. Go thy way; thy son liveth.** The man, noble-man certainly in this, obeyed, and found his obedience justify his faith. McD.—With one word doth Christ heal two patients, the son and the father. Bp. H.—A double sign and wonder has been done in Israel. A child has been cured of a fever in Capernaum by one standing miles away at Cana, and a father has been cured of his unbelief—the same kind of power that banished the disease from the body of the one banishing distrust from the heart of the other. Nor is this all; he returns to Capernaum to tell all the wonders of the cure; tells them to the healed child, who also believes—and strange would be the meeting afterward between that child and Jesus—he tells them to the other members of his family, and each in turn believes. He himself believed, and with him all his house—the first whole household brought into the Christian fold. H. 48 50. There is something to be learned by a comparison of the Lord's dealing with this man and with the centurion. Here being entreated to come, he does not, but sends his healing word. There, being asked to speak that word of healing, he rather proposes himself to come; for here a narrow faith is enlarged, there a strong faith is crowned and rewarded. That centurion is an example of a strong faith, this nobleman of a weak faith; that centurion counts that, if Jesus will but speak the word, his servant will be healed, while this nobleman is so earnest that the Lord should come down, because in heart he limits his power, and counts that nothing but his actual presence will avail to heal his sick. T.—Both plead for others, the one for his child, the other for his servant, and the pleading of both is signally successful, the compliance prompt and generous. Such honor doth Jesus put on all kindly intercession with him on behalf of those to whom we are bound by ties of relationship and affection. H. 52. Then inquired he the hour.** If we compare our hours of need and of help with each other, and give heed to all God's ways and dealings at this or that time, we should learn to know the Lord better, and strengthen ourselves in faith. If we only took more note of everything, we should then daily and hourly trace the forethought, the fidelity, and the overruling government of God. Bogatzky. 53. Once more glance over the blessed progress of the nobleman. He heard—he went and prayed—he came with the desire to see, but he believed the word before he saw, and went his way; he knew what he had believed—he became a believer, and now again he believed without seeing—he believed with his whole house. R. B. # Section 25.—Preaches at Nazareth, and is rejected. M. 13 And leaving Nazareth, he came down to and dwelt in Capernaum, a city of Galilee, 14 which is upon the sea-coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim: that it might be 15 fulfilled which was spoken by Esias the prophet, saying, The land of Zabulon, and the 16 land of Nephthalim by the way of the sea beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles: the people which sat in darkness saw great light, and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up. 17 From that time Jesus began to preach the gospel of the kingdom of God, and to say, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: Repent ye, and believe the L. 31, 32 gospel. And he taught them on the sabbath-days. And they were astonished at his doctrine: for his word was with power.Mk. 16 Now as Jesus walked by the sea of Galilee, he saw two brethren, Simon, called Peter, 17 and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers. And Jesus 18 said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. And 19 straightway they forsook their nets, and followed him. And when he had gone a little farther thence, he saw other two brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John his 20 brother, who also were in the ship with Zebedee their father, mending their nets. And straightway he called them: and they immediately left their father Zebedee in the ship with the hired servants, and went after him.L. 1 And it came to pass, that as the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, 2 he stood by the lake of Gennesaret, and saw two ships standing by the lake: but the 3 fishermen were gone out of them, and were washing their nets. And he entered into one of the ships, which was Simon's, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land. And he sat down, and taught the people out of the ship. 4 Now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and 5 let down your nets for a draught. And Simon answering said unto him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let 6 down the net. And when they had this done, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes: 7 and their net brake. And they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the ships, 8 so that they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, 9 saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord. For he was astonished, and 10 all that were with him, at the draught of the fishes which they had taken: and so was also James, and John, the sons of Zebedee, which were partners with Simon. And 11 Jesus said unto Simon, Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men. And when they had brought their ships to land, they forsook all, and followed him. He, whose purpose it was by the weak things of the world to confound the strong, who meant to draw emperors to himself by fishermen, and not fishermen by emperors, lest his church should even seem to stand in the wisdom and power of men, rather than in the wisdom and power of God, saw in these unlearned fishermen of the Galilean lake the fittest instruments for his work. Peter, astonished at the strange success of his cast, the same that he afterward appears, as impetuous, yielding as freely to the impulse of the moment, with the beginnings of the same quick spiritual eye which made him the first to see the highest glory of the Saviour, could no longer, in the deep feeling of his own unholiness, endure the nearness of an altogether Holy One. At moments like these the deep heart of man speaks out, and the deepest things that are in that heart come forth to the light. And this is the deepest thing that is in man's heart under the law; this sense of the gulf of separation that is between him and God. T. Thus it has ever been. The discovery of a divine presence leads to conviction, and conviction to a dread of deserved wrath. In old times it was the common judgment that none could see God and live. Manoah judged that he must die, because he had seen God. Isaiah learnt and confessed the uncleanness of his lips, when he saw "the King, the Lord of Hosts." Ezekiel fell upon his face, and Daniel's beauty was changed, when he came in contact with the divine glory. So long as men but hear of God, they deem themselves safe; but when once their eyes see him, they either abhor themselves and repent as in dust and ashes, or in despair they cry to the rocks to cover them. It is in God's light that men see themselves and feel their guilt. J. A. 13. Leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum. He chose the city that had treated him so differently from his own Nazareth as the place of his most frequent residence, the centre of his manifold labors, the scene of many of his most memorable discourses and miracles. H.—Christ's first miracle of Cana was a sign that he came, not to call his disciples out of the world and its ordinary duties, but to make men happier, nobler, better in the world. He willed that they should be husbands, and fathers, and citizens, not eremites or monks. And, as pointing the same moral, there was something significant in the place which he chose as the scene of his earliest ministry. John had preached in the lonely wastes by the Dead Sea waters; but Christ chose as the earliest centre of his ministry a bright and busy city, whose marble buildings were mirrored in a limpid sea. That city was Capernaum. It rose under the gentle declivities of hills that encircled an earthly paradise. F. Capernaum lies on the northwestern side of Lake Gennesaret, and is sunk a thousand feet below the elevated plain which surrounds it. From the western hills adjacent the traveller sees far below him a blue sheet of water, some thirteen miles long, and, in the broadest part, six or seven miles wide; its deep depression is a volcanic basin, giving it something of that strange, unnatural character which belongs in a still greater degree to the Dead Sea. The eastern highlands slope abruptly to the water's edge, forming a lofty wall, extending the entire length of the lake. Midway on the west the range of hills trends first westward and then to the northeast, growing constantly more rounded and beautiful, till, as a gentle elevation, it again touches the lake. In the recess formed by these encircling hills lies the plain or vale of Gennesaret. It is described by all who have seen it as a natural paradise. Well watered by perennial fountains and rivulets, with a soil of unsurpassed fertility, and a climate that favors the production of tropical fruits as well as those of the temperate zone, it is even now famous for its fruitfulness and beauty. In the time of Christ it was thickly studded with flourishing villages, embowered in palm-groves, vineyards, and olive-orchards. Z. E. Josephus, in a passage of glowing admiration, after describing the sweetness of its waters, and the delicate temperature of its air, its palms, and vines, and oranges, and figs, and almonds, and pomegranates, and warm springs, says that the seasons seemed to compete for the honor of its possession, and Nature to have created it as a kind of emulative challenge, wherein she had gathered all the elements of her strength. F. (Section 189.)—Jesus chose his home, in the midst of this life and beauty, beside the gleaming lake, embosomed deep on this its western shore; the higher hills of Upper Galilee rising beyond, and the majestic Hermon closing the glorious landscape. The view over the waters showed the steep slopes—now yellow limestone, now black basalt—which led up to the Gaulonitis country. The whole neighborhood, indeed, is sacred to the memory of Jesus. The Lake of Galilee had been chosen by God for himself, and honored above all seas of the earth, in a sense which the rabbis little dreamed. The men, the fields, the valleys round it, are immortalized by their association with the Saviour. G. Not, however, for its beauty only, but because of its centrality, and its populous activity, it was admirably adapted for that ministry which fulfilled the old prophecy of Isaiah, that "the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles," should "see a great light." Through this district passed the great caravans on their way from Egypt to Damascus; and the heathens who congregated at Bethsaida Julias and Cesarea Philippi must have been constantly seen in the streets of Capernaum. In the time of Christ it was for population and activity "the manufacturing district" of Palestine, and the waters of its lake were ploughed by 4,000 vessels of every description, from the war-vessel of the Romans to the rough fisher-boats of Bethsaida, and the gilded pinnaces from Herod's palace. Iturea, Samaria, Syria, Phoenicia were accessible by crossing the lake, the river, or the hills. F.—Nowhere, except in the capital it-  The Plain of Gennesaret—beyond Magdala self, could he have found such a sphere for his works and words of mercy; from no other centre could “his fame” have so gone throughout all Syria; nowhere else could he have so drawn around him the vast multitudes who hung on his lips. A. P. S. Our Saviour’s chief resort was now the margin of that beautiful lake which is variously called the Sea of Galilee, of Tiberias, and of Gennesaret. This region of beauty was to him the scene of constant labor for the souls that sat there in darkness. Days begun in preaching were filled up with the relief of hundreds who were sick, maimed, or tormented with devils; and the ensuing nights were spent in lonely agonies of prayer, or in crossing over the stormy lake. Here Christ is first presented to our view as preaching the Word of God to such multitudes, that he was fain to seek a station whence to address them on the lake itself. S.—Gliding over the sea, we now touch the placid shore of Gennesaret, where our Saviour dwelt so long. The beach is very low and sloping gently, with a thick fringe of oleanders skirting the deep-brown sand. With such a simple boundary curving inward to the land, the plain is bent into a crescent form, just three miles long by one in breadth, and rising gradually inland to the west. About this amphitheatre the mountains close. Streams and rills from these, and two fine fountains in the plain, bless this favored region with lasting fertility. J. M.—Never did so small a sheet of water see so many keels cutting its surface, or so many human habitations circling round and shadowing its waves, as did the Sea of Galilee in the days of Jesus Christ. Now all is silent there; lonely and most desolate. On its shores, Tiberias in ruins and Magdala composed of a few wretched hovels are all that remain. Capernaum, Bethsaida, Chorazin are gone. Here and there you stumble over ruins, but none can tell you exactly what they were. They knew not, those cities of the lake, the day of their visitation; their names and their memory have perished. H. (Section 189.) 17. Jesus began to preach. Christ declared that the fulness of time was come, and the prophecies were fulfilled in himself. The preparation required by John was repentance and reformation. Christ goes deeper, and besides repentance he demands faith—readiness to believe from the heart the truths he came to teach. This was his claim in the outset of his ministry, reserving for its course the full revelation of those truths and the spiritual exposition of that faith; the laws of the kingdom of heaven. Thus much, however, was clear from the first, that, in proclaiming the new order of things as a kingdom, Christ pointed to the fulfilment of the covenant with David, and claimed all the authority of his promised seed. S.—The kingdom of God. The expressions, “kingdom of heaven,” and “kingdom of God,” refer to the prophecies of Daniel (2:44; 7:13, 14), and denote that kingdom of the God of heaven, which he would set up and give to the Son of man; or, in other words, the spiritual and eternal kingdom of Christ, both God and man, which was to subsist first in imperfect circumstances on earth, and afterward to appear complete in the world of glory. Parkhurst.—The phrase “kingdom of heaven,” or of the heavens, as the original has it, Matthew uses no less than thirty times. The phrase clearly expresses the idea that it is a kingdom distinct from all those kingdoms of this world after which the Jew had fashioned his idea of Messiah's dominion. It taught that the kingdom of Messiah was to be a spiritual and heavenly kingdom, unlike the old theocracy with its temple and throne in Jerusalem; unlike the magnificent empire patterned after Rome, of which the worldly Jew was dreaming. It is to be a universal kingdom established by the preaching of the gospel throughout the world. D. S. G. Mk. 17. Fishers of men. The fish was a very frequent symbol of early Christian art. The Greek word ichthās, a fish, was very early used as a Christian anagram, its different letters forming the initials of a confession of Christianity: "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour." It was hence used as a symbol among Christians of Jesus Christ himself. 20. From that moment the four were his devoted followers. Called to decide there and then, as a proof of their fitness for discipleship, they forsook all and followed him at once. Peter and Andrew were apparently poor; James and John, in a better position. For the convenience of trade, both families had left the neighboring town of Bethsaida, and had settled in Capernaum, one of the centres of the local fisheries and of the occupations connected with them. Peter alone seems to have been married, and in his house James henceforth found a home. G.—L. 6, 7. This draught of fishes was not only a miracle, but it was a prophetic parable in action. It foreshadowed the success that would attend the labors of the apostolical fishers of men, in drawing the net of the gospel through the sea of the world; inclosing heathen nations within it, so that they might be caught—not for death—but for life eternal. W. 8. Peter had already seen Jesus do wonderful things, but somehow this wonder came home to him as none of them had done—wrought in his own vessel, with his own net, in the way of his own calling, after his own fruitless toil. Never had the impression of a divine power at work in his immediate presence taken such a hold of him. Never had the sense of his being in close contact with One in whom such power resided come so upon his spirit. He falls at Jesus' knees, as he sat there in the boat, quietly watching all the stir and bustle of the fishermen; and he gives vent to the feeling that for a moment is uppermost, as he exclaims, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!" H.—It was the cry of self-loathing which had already realized something nobler. It was the first impulse of fear and amazement, before they had had time to grow into adoration and love. Peter did not mean the "Depart from me;" he only meant—and this was known to the searcher of hearts —"I am utterly unworthy to be near thee, yet let me stay." F.—Christ hath left many a soul for froward and unkind usage; never any for the disparagement of itself, and entreaties of humility. Simon could not devise how to hold Christ faster, than by thus suing to him to be gone, than by thus pleading his unworthiness. Bp. H. 10. There is in these words a double magnifying of Peter's future function as compared with his past; that it is men and not poor fishes henceforth which he shall take, and that he shall take them for life, and not as he had taken his meaner prey, only for death. For no less than this is involved in the original word by which the catching is expressed. T.—Jesus Christ having chosen the son of Jonas, thenceforth engaged in his education. How much had to be done to discipline that wild energy, to regulate that impassioned vivacity, to purify that too carnal zeal, to humble that presumptuous ardor! To no other does he give such particular care, and one would say that Peter being formed beforehand for the apostleship, all others will be formed of course. Thus the character of Peter carries him always like a valiant soldier in the van, and the will of his Master keeps him there. It keeps him there so evidently, that uniformly in the gospel his name begins the list of the disciples, and when the leading ones only are mentioned, he stands there first also. The education of John was given, if we may so express it, on the bosom of Jesus. John was nourished in silence by the words of his Master, was penetrated with his spirit, appropriated his divine secrets. For a period still distant he treasured up remembrances and inspirations of infinite value. A pure and peaceful star, he was not to rise on the horizon of the Church; he was not to shed the full light of his instructions upon it until all the other apostles had acted and spoken; and his word was to be the magnificent, new, unexpected complement of the lessons of a Peter, a James, a Paul. A. V.—L. 1-10. The remark of Spanheim is here just: "The facts narrated by Luke are not contradicted by Matthew, but only passed over. Nothing is more common than that circumstances omitted by one should be supplied by another; lest the sacred writers should seem to have written by compact, or lest the readers should cleave to one and neglect the others." R. THE "call" of Abraham had given the world the grand truth of a living personal God; that of Moses had created a nation, in which the active government of human affairs by one God was to be illustrated, and his will made known directly to mankind; but that of the poor Galilean fishermen was the foundation of a society, for which all that had preceded it was only the preparation; a society in which all that was merely outward and temporary in the relations of God to man should be laid aside, and all that was imperfect and material replaced by the perfect, spiritual, and abiding. Henceforth it only remained to extend the kingdom thus founded by winning the consciences of men to the same devotion, by the announcement of the Fatherhood of God; the need of seeking his favor by repentance; and faith in his divine Son, leading to a holy life, of which that of Jesus was the realized ideal. G. ## Section 27.—Heals a Demoniac, Peter's Wife's Mother, and Others. Mk. 35 And in the morning rising up a great while before day, he went out and departed 36 into a solitary desert place, and there prayed. And Simon, and they that were with 37 him, followed after him. And when they had found him, they said unto him, All men 38 seek for thee. And he said unto them, Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also. And the people sought him, and came unto him and stayed him that he should not depart from them. And he said unto them, I must preach the kingdom of 39 God to other cities also: for therefore came I forth. And he preached in the synagogues of Galilee, and cast out devils. M. 23 And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness, and all manner of disease 24 among the people. And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the 25 palsy; and he healed them. And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judea, and from beyond Jordan. L. 12 And it came to pass, when he was in a certain city, behold, a man full of leprosy; who seeing Jesus, came to him, beseeching him; and kneeling down fell on his face and Mk. 41 worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou 42 clean. And as soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and 43, 44 he was cleansed. And he straitly charged him, and forthwith sent him away; and saith unto him, See thou say nothing to any man: but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto 45 them. But he went out, and began to publish it much, and to blaze abroad the matter, insomuch that Jesus could no more openly enter into the city, but was without in desert L. 15 places. And so much the more went there a fame abroad of him; and great multitudes came together from every quarter, to hear and to be healed by him of their infirmities. 16 And he withdrew himself into the wilderness, and prayed. CHRIST began his work by acts of kindness toward the poorest, the lowest, the most helpless; and toward the greatest sinners. The objects which surrounded him day after day, as subjects of his grace, were mainly such as now fill our almshouses, infirmaries, and our chambers of protracted sickness and disease, together with the subjects of demoniacal possession. But he had an object in the bestowment of his healing power upon these sufferers, beyond their relief from pain. By his acts of kindness to the lost and wretched, he established in the minds of the common people this truth, that there is love in the heart of God for every miserable sinner; that his vileness and his abandonment by the world only commend him to God as an object of his compassion; that the Son of God came down from the skies to save the worst of men; and that it is impossible for a sinner to be sunk too low for his hand to find him, or his grace to lift him up. N. A. Mk. 38. Preaching being the characteristic feature of the life of Christ, no true understanding of his mission can be had without a knowledge of what he preached as the truth of God. The gospels which give us the record of his life contain also a gospel which he preached; and this gospel comprises not only the rules of practical morality, the lessons and precepts of humanity and religion, but the doctrines of a positive theology. So far as the very words of Christ have been preserved, these form the essence of Christianity. In his words we find a proper theology—not formulated, indeed, nor systematized, yet expressed in doctrines set forth with a certain gradation of time and thought, or in a certain order of development—and these doctrines interwoven with the whole texture of the precepts and promises of the gospel. J. P. T. M. 23. Galilee, the most northern of the three divisions of Palestine, is between 50 and 60 miles in length, and from 30 to 40 in breadth. Josephus, who knew it well, speaks of 204 towns and villages, the smallest of them containing above 15,000 inhabitants. Making an allowance for exaggeration, the population of the province must have been about three millions. (Section 189.) We read of nine departures from and returns to Capernaum in the course of the eighteen months of our Lord's Galilean ministry; of three extensive tours through all the towns and villages of the district like the one now described; and of five or six more limited ones. Could we have traced the footsteps of our Saviour from place to place, from month to month, on these missionary rounds through Galilee, we should have had a year and a half before us of varied and almost unceasing toil, the crowded activities of which would have filled us with wonder. H.—How singular the contrast between the peaceful progress of the Son of man—on the one hand healing maladies, relieving afflictions, restoring their senses to the dumb and blind; on the other, gently distilling into the minds of the people those pure and humane principles of moral goodness to which the wisdom of ages has been able to add nothing—and every other event to which it can be compared in the history of human kind. H. M. Teaching in their synagogues. It has been questioned by what right Christ and his apostles, who had no public character among the Jews, taught in their synagogues. Dr. Lightfoot observes, that though this liberty was not allowed to any illiterate person or mechanic, they granted it to prophets and workers of miracles; and such as set up for heads and leaders of new sects; in order that they might inform themselves, and not condemn them unheard and unknown. Under these characters Christ and his apostles were admitted to this privilege. Burder.—The only schools, in Christ's time, were those connected with the synagogues. A synagogue presupposed a school, as in our country a church presupposes a Sunday-school. Synagogues were found in every city, and also in every village, unless the place was insignificant in size; and in such cases they had their place or places of prayer. In the schools, questions were asked and answered, opinions stated and discussed, and illustrations proposed in the form of allegories, or aphorisms, or parables. S. M. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/butler/ M. 1 AND seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his 2 disciples came unto him. And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples; and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, 3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. 5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. 6 Blessed are they which now do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh. 7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. 8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. 9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. 10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and revile you; and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall persecute you; and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, and cast out your name as evil, for my sake. 12 Rejoice ye in that day; be exceeding glad, and leap for joy: for great is your reward in heaven: for in like manner their fathers persecuted the prophets which were before you. L. 24 But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation. 25. Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep. 26. Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets. M. 13 Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under 14 foot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be 15 hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; 16 and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. BEFORE Christ came, the heathen had counted for divine the legislative wisdom of the man—manly strength, manly truth, manly justice, manly courage. The life and the cross of Christ shed a splendor from heaven upon a new and till then unheard-of order of heroism—that which may be called the feminine order—meekness, endurance, long-suffering, the passive strength of martyrdom. For Christianity does not say honor to the wise, but “Blessed are the meek.” F. W. R. These beatitudes teach us wherein the only true, pure, lasting blessedness for man consists; not in anything outward, not in the gratification of our natural passions or desires, our covetousness, or pride, our ambition, or love of pleasure; not in what we have, but in what we are in God’s sight and in relation to his empire over our souls. H. If we estimate character more by the standard of Christ’s beatitudes than by what we short-sightedly call “results,” we shall find some of the sublimest fruits of faith among what are commonly called passive virtues: in the silent endurance that hides under the shadow of great afflictions; in the quiet loveliness of that forbearance which “suffereth long and is kind;” in the charity which is “not easily provoked;” in the forgiveness which can be buffeted for doing well and “take it patiently;” in the smile on the face of diseased and suffering persons, a transfiguration of the tortured features of pain brightening sick-rooms more than the sun; in the unostentatious heroisms of the household, amid the daily dripping of small cares; in the noiseless conquests of a love too reverential to complain; in resting in the Lord, and waiting patiently for him. F. D. H. 1. The mountain. From the two prominences it presents, this hill is called the Horns of Hattin—Hattin being a village at its base. It overlooks the lake and the plain. You see Capernaum from its summit, lying about seven miles off. As seen again from Capernaum and the plain, it appears as the highest and loneliest elevation that rises upon that side of the lake. It would naturally be spoken of by the inhabitants of Capernaum and its neighborhood as the mountain. The ordination over, Jesus descended to a level spot, either between the two summits or lying at their base. The day had now advanced, and the great multitude that had followed him, apprised of his place of retreat, poured in upon him, bringing their diseased along with them. He stood for a time healing all who were brought to him. Retreating then again to the mountain-side, he sat down. His disciples seated themselves immediately around him, and the great multitude stood or sat upon the level ground below. H. There were three great offices connected with the mediatorial work which the Son of God assumed. He was to be a Priest, to atone—a King, to reign—and a Prophet, to instruct. In this last capacity, he acted from the earliest period of the Church, but all along through her history was it promised, that in the end of the Jewish dispensation he should appear in our nature as a public Teacher. A. V.—When the time came that the Jewish nation should cease to have its old functions to discharge, and when all its types and ceremonies had their true meaning expressed and their ends accomplished, then out of this complicated law there would come to be extracted that which was absolutely perfect and universally obligatory. Jesus knew that at his advent that time had come, and assuming the very place and exercising the very prerogative of the divine legislator of the Jews, he begins in this Sermon on the Mount to execute this task. H. The most careless reader has probably been struck with the contrast between the delivery of this sermon and the delivery of the law on Sinai. We think of that as a "fiery law," whose promulgation is surrounded by the imagery of thunders and lightnings, and the voice of the trumpet sounding long and waxing louder and louder. We think of this as flowing forth in divinest music amid all the calm and loveliness of the clear and quiet dawn. That came dreadfully to the startled conscience from an Unseen Presence, shrouded by wreathing clouds, and destroying fire, and eddying smoke; this was uttered by a sweet human voice that moved the heart most gently in words of peace. F.—On Horeb, as the great Law-giver, he enunciated the naked law in terms of sternness, amid terrific symbols of his presence which made Israel quake. Here, he speaks as a teacher full of sympathy and love. He clothes his lesson with the colors of hope, overarches the path of life with the splendors of the heavenly bow, and sets duties, like gems, in the bosoms of bright benedictions; adding, over and above, the happy reward to which they point as a stimulus to their performance. A. V. If there was one sentiment spread more widely than another throughout this crowd, it was the vague yet ardent expectation of some great national deliverance—of the near approach of a new kingdom—the kingdom of God. Of this kingdom they had no higher conception than that it would be a free and independent outward and visible Jewish monarchy. And when it came, then should come the days of liberty and peace, of honor and triumph, and all kinds of blessedness for poor oppressed Judea. With what a delicate hand was this deep national prejudice now treated by our Lord! What could have run more directly counter to the earthly ambitious hopes, swelling up within the hearts of those around him? what could have served more effectually to check them, than the very first words which Jesus uttered? H.—The people were expecting a Messiah who should break the yoke off their necks—a king clothed in earthly splendor, and manifested in the pomp of victory and vengeance. Their minds were haunted with legendary prophecies, as to how he should clothe them with jewels and scarlet, and feed them with even a sweeter manna than the wilderness had known. But Christ reveals to them another King, another happiness—the riches of poverty, the royalty of meekness, the high beatitude of sorrow and persecution. F. 1,2. The connected system of truths unfolded in the discourse was intended to exhibit to the people the kingdom of God as the aim of the old dispensation; as the consummation for which that dispensation prepared the way. The Sermon on the Mount, therefore, forms the point of transition from the law to the gospel; Christianity is exhibited in it as Judaism spiritualized and transfigured. The idea of the kingdom of God is the prominent one. N.—In this great declaration of the principles and laws of the Christian republic—a republic, in the relations of its citizens to each other; a kingdom, in their relations to Jesus—the omissions are no less striking than the demands. There is no reference to the priests or rabbis—till then the undisputed authorities in religion—nor is the rite of circumcision even mentioned, though it made a Jew a member of the old covenant. It is not condemned, but it is ignored. Nor are any other outward forms more in favor. The new kingdom is to be founded only on righteousness and love, and contrasts with the old by its spiritual freedom, untrammelled by outward rules. For the first time in the history of religion, a communion is founded without a priesthood, or offerings, or a temple, or ceremonial services; without symbolical worship, or a visible sanctuary. The kingdom thus founded is manifested only by the witness of the Spirit in the heart, and by the power going forth from it in the life. G.—Never was morality revealed so humbling, so ennobling, so spiritual. It makes the character of God our model, and the grace of God our encouragement. It brings us at once into contact with him, and the blessed result is a nobleness and reality of holiness, as far removed from bitterness and hypocrisy as it is from selfishness and pride. J. A. 3-12. The key-note of all the utterances of Christ reveals itself in these few sentences. His kingdom is at once present and future: present by undoubting faith in his assurances; future in the realization of its joys. As Christ's disciples, the future will be the contrast to the present; riches for poverty; joy for mourning; plenty for hunger; a heavenly crown for earthly suffering for the Master's sake. The contrast of sin and pardon; the lowly sense of needed salvation, which already has in itself the assurance that salvation is granted, are implied in all the states of heart recounted. Through all there runs the deepest sense of the sinfulness and troubles of the present; and springing from this, the loftiest aspirations, rising far above the earth to eternal realities. They thus disclose the inmost and central principle of the new kingdom; the willing and even joyful surrender of the present, in lowly hope of the future—and that from no lower motive than loving obedience and fidelity to Christ. Immediate self-interest is to be disregarded. The one passion of the heart is to be for greater righteousness—that is, for an evermore complete self-surrender to the will of God, and active fulfilment of its demands. G.—As these immortal promises fall on the outward sense—mercy for the merciful, comfort for them that mourn, the kingdom of heaven for the poor in spirit, filial places for the peacemakers, celestial fellowship with the prophets for those persecuted for righteousness' sake, and for the pure in heart the beatific vision of God—what does all this boundless Beatus, "blessed," signify, except there be some spiritual discernment to catch an image of the joy? To the sensual, to the profane, to the soul that is shut upward and open only toward the earth, cold in devotion and eager only with its appetites, or cased in that intellectual selfishness that shrinks as it freezes, what great desire, or aspiration, can that "blessed" bring? F. D. H. 3. Poor in spirit.** It denotes, not circumstances, but inward character; not a condition of life, but a state and temper of mind. It is put at the fore-front of the other graces, because it is the meet and impressive introduction to all. It is he who feels most poignantly his need of all, who will most heartily hail the promise of the free gift of all. The philosophers did not reckon humility among their virtues, but Jesus puts it first. Self-denial is the first lesson in his school, and poverty of spirit entitles it to the first beatitude. A. V.—To be beaten utterly out of conceit with one's own strength, goodness, and wisdom; to feel that apart from God's grace we are nothing, can do nothing; to be assured that our best resolves are like water or stubble, and to depend with great simplicity upon Christ for all things: this is the grace which lies at the foundation of every other. Gouldburn.—Our Saviour says, we are happy, blessed, in proportion as we feel our own want, our own emptiness, in things spiritual. Surely this first opening of his mouth in systematic teaching was at once a gospel. The more we are poor, the more are we rich! V.—This poverty of spirit being the condition of every blessing, therefore to it is attached the promise of the kingdom of heaven, which is inclusive of all blessings; for all the beatitudes which follow are but the unfolding of this first one. T. 4. That mourn.** Self-love, pride, and covetousness have their tears, but God wipes away only those of humility, repentance, and love. Q.—The sorrow that is blessed is that of the true penitent. Such a one sees his real position; his vain confidence is broken up, and self-righteous presumption is cast aside. The past, with its abused privileges, despised chastisements, its thousand resolutions violated, and its ten thousand transgressions of the divine law perpetrated, flashes upon his mind, and fills him with concern. Especially is an agonizing Saviour seen, standing between him and the gleaming sword of justice, and receiving its thrust into his own heart. No wonder that he bitterly deplores the effects of sin, and grieves over its odiousness. This sorrow, however, is only that which endureth for a night, to be succeeded by the joy that cometh in the morning. They are blessed, and "they shall be comcomforted." The Saviour's promise is actualized already in this life, and destined to its complete fulfilment in the perfected life to come. A. V. 5. The meek.** It is the opposite of all that is arrogant, forward, and self-asserting. It is the expression before men of a spirit which has already breathed itself before God. V.—The "inheritance of the earth" is that world-dominion which Christians are more and more to obtain, as the kingdom of God shall win increasing sway over mankind; and the power which is to gain this world-dominion is meekness; the quiet might of gentleness it is with which God's kingdom is to subjugate the world. N. 6. Righteousness.** In brief definition, the completeness of human duty toward all with whom we have to do; toward God above, no less than toward man below. Our Lord pronounces his benediction here upon those whose whole soul is hungering and thirsting after goodness, after sanctification. V.—Augustine cannot find the entire fulfilment of the appended promise, for they shall be filled, in the present life; for now our lips are but sprinkled with a few drops from that river of joy, whereof then we shall drink to the full. Yet the longing now is needful, if there is to be a satisfying of the longing hereafter; and the more longing, the ampler satisfaction, for this longing is itself the dilating of the vessel that it may contain the more. T. [This and other notes upon the sermon are taken from Trench's rendering of Augustine's "Exposition." Much of the richness and value of the thoughts, as here rendered, proceeds from the large mind of the interpreter; while some of the best comments cited are his own. Ed.] 7. The merciful. It is a pitifulness of wider reach than the relief of temporal needs, embracing the whole outcomings of a Christian's heart, whether in inward sympathies or outward acts, in relation to the sorrows and sufferings of his brethren. And here the blessed retaliations of the kingdom of God shall find place. T.—Obtain mercy.** It is not that the merciful obtain mercy by virtue of their mercifulness, but rather that their mercifulness stamps them as inheritors of the free forgiveness. V.—Thou art sought, and thou seekest. As thou dealest with thy seeker, even so will God deal with his. Thou art both empty and full. Fill thou the empty out of thy fulness, that out of the fulness of God thine emptiness may be filled. Aug. 8. The pure heart** Augustine explains rightly as the single heart, the heart without folds; and this, with the promise of seeing God which is annexed, causes him to connect this passage with others wherein our Lord speaks of the single eye, that eye of the soul, which, only when healthy, is receptive of divine light, and the channel of light to the whole interior man; that declaration being identical with this, that only the pure in heart shall see God. It is to the attaining of this pure heart, this purged eye of the soul, that all helps and appliances of grace are tending. This is the great meaning and purpose of them all, to prepare and fit us for this, for a time when we shall be enabled to see the Seer. For in that seeing all blessedness is included; without it there were no heaven, with it there could be no hell. T. 9. The peacemakers: children of God. The peacemaker has more of God's direct work to do than any other person. His office, as such, is the very office of God. The child bears the father's likeness: they who are like God are his children: and the peacemaker is, of all, the likest God. "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God;" and the choicest fruit of the Spirit is peace and peacemaking. V. 10-12. This eighth beatitude returns upon the first, having the same promise, the kingdom of heaven. In the intermediate ones this promise has not been forsaken, for it comprehends all the others; but it has been contemplated successively in its various aspects. Its return here, indicates that now the perfect and complete man has on all his sides been declared. For these are not different persons that will be differently blessed. It is not that one, being pure in heart, will see God; another, being merciful, will obtain mercy; and a third, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, will be filled. But these are different sides of the same Christian character, with the capacities of blessedness which are linked to each. It might be added, that in these beatitudes thus distinguished from one another, there is an implicit summons to seek to complete the Christian character in all its aspects. T. 12. Reward: not of debt, but of grace, as the parable of the laborers clearly represents it, where the reward is not what is earned, but what was covenanted. A.—The reward in heaven does, indeed, bear a relation to that which is done or suffered for Christ's sake on earth, yet is it a relation of grace and not of debt. God has chosen, and of his own free will and unmerited bounty appointed, that there should be such a relation, and "he is faithful that promised." The doctrine of preventing grace, legitimately carried out, must forever exclude the notion of any claim, as of merit properly so called; not that there are not merits, or rather graces, which will hereafter be recognized, but that these merits are themselves gifts of God, so that eternal life will be but the adding of one more, one crowning gift, to all that preceded. It will be but "grace for grace." T. 3-12. Each one of the beatitudes is a saying which contradicts man's opinion, and is a distinct cross to flesh and blood. Blessed are, not the rich, but the poor: not the joyful, but the sorrowful: not the self-satisfied, the triumphant, the magnificent, but the meek, the merciful, the peacemaker, and the pure. Blessed are they that actually suffer; the despised, the ill-used, the reviled, and the outcast! V. L. 24. Woe unto you. Our Saviour speaks here, not as a judge, pronouncing sentence on the guilty, but as a prophet, divinely enlightened as to the consequences of men's actions, and impelled by his zeal for their good to give them warning. Campbell.—That are rich! Who, having received your portion of good things in this life, live in voluptuousness, and place all your happiness in the enjoyments of the present world. So, in the next verse, "you that are full—that laugh," you who live in pleasure here, and never think of what is to come hereafter. 26. Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well! When, by propagating such doctrines as encourage men in their sins, ye gain their applause; for thus, in old time, false prophets, who accommodated their doctrines to the passions of men, were better received than the true prophets of God. S. C. 13. The salt of the earth. In the East salt was the very life of life; the universal antidote to decay and putrefaction. It must enter into everything, or the food of man and beast would fall rapidly to corruption and decay. And thus salt became the very word for uncorruptness, sincerity, fidelity. To be the salt is to do everything in our power, by word, by persuasion, by influence, by example, to make those around us more pure, more thoughtful, more Christ-like than they would have been without us. V.—Good for nothing. It is a well-known fact that the salt of this country (Palestine), when in contact with the ground, or exposed to rain and sun, does become insipid and useless. It is not only good for nothing itself, but it actually destroys all fertility wherever it is thrown; and this is the reason why it is cast into the street. So troublesome is this corrupted salt that no man will allow it to be thrown on to his field, and the only place for it is the street, and there it is cast to be trodden under foot of men. W. M. T. 14. City set on a hill cannot be hid. As used in the English Scriptures, city denotes hamlet, or village, as well as a town of the larger class. Add to this that the houses are often built of chalky limestone, or are whitewashed. Very expressive was the Saviour's illustration as addressed to those living in a hilly country where almost every summit glittered with a village. H. B. H. 16. Let your light shine. Profession is only the badge of a Christian, but practice it is which translates Christianity from a bare notion into a real business, from bare speculations into substantial duties, from an idea in the mind into an existence in the life. One great end of religion is to proclaim and publish God's sovereignty. Our faith indeed recognizes him to be our God, but it is our obedience only that declares him to be our Lord. When a man lives a good life, every hour he lives is virtually an act of worship. But if inward grace is not drawn forth into outward practice, men have no inspection into our hearts, to discern it there. R. S. The Church of Christ is organically a luminous body; a city set on a hill which cannot be hid. It shines because it exists; but it exists, and therefore shines, only when its life is hid with Christ in God. To the disciples whom he would leave behind him to represent his life and doctrine among men, Jesus said, "Ye are the light of the world." And this was said of a little company of obscure men—fishermen, small farmers, here and there a publican, a few women in humble life, the poor of a subjugated and despised race; not a priest, a scholar, or a ruler among them—for as yet there was not in their whole circle so much of human learning as the Apostle Paul afterward brought to the illustration of the Christian faith, and though Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea had been secretly drawn to Jesus, they had not avowed him as the Messiah—of such unlettered, untitled, uninfluential men, with absolutely no position and no prospect in the world, was it said, they were not simply a light to their sect, their times, their country, but the light of the world. And how marvellously has this declaration been fulfilled in five of that little band, Matthew, Mark, John, Peter, and James, who have given to the world more of the light of truth and holiness than all the wisdom of the ancients had been able to produce. And wherever now the light of knowledge, truth, virtue shines brightest and purest, there the gospels and epistles of those primitive disciples are the fountain and the glory of that light. So penetrated were they with the life of Christ that, by reproducing him—the incarnate Word, the atoning Saviour, the risen Lord—they have become the transparencies through which his image shines; and whatever the form of outward representation, we see in all the living Christ. . . . Every soul that receives Christ as its life becomes transparent with his image, and according to its sphere an enlightener of mankind. And so the Church—not as represented by organization, sacraments, forms, structures, officers, rituals, councils, creeds, though these all have their intermediate functions—but the Church as constituted of living disciples, true to their faith, true to their Lord, true to their stewardship of the manifold grace of God, true to their commission to evangelize the nations, the Church of renewed, praying, living souls, is the light of the world—the light as they receive and manifest the life; for the Scriptures declare that these "shine as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life." J. P. T ## Section 36.—Sermon on the Mount. The Law in its Spirit. The Sixth Command. 17. THINK not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to 18 destroy, but to fulfil. For verily, I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or 19 one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do, and teach them, the same shall 20 be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you, That except your right- eousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. 21 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whoso- 22 ever shall kill, shall be in danger of the judgment: but I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause, shall be in danger of the judgment: and who- soever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever 23 shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell-fire. Therefore, if thou bring thy gift to 24 the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. 25. Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, 26 and thou be cast into prison. Verily, I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing. HERE was a new man on the earth, clear as the light of the sun, fresh as the morning dews; knowing man, knowing God and his truth, discarding musty traditions, idle babblements, smiting home to the very core of the matter, and revealing at a stroke what it really concerned men to know—the real blessedness of life, what we must be and do to be true men, and to win true men's goal and reward. With the vision of a seer he saw, with the fearlessness of a prophet he told, where the true blessedness of man lay: not in walking the circles of ceremonious religionists, but in being meek, pure, lowly, peaceful, generous, forgiving; in being right-hearted, liberal-handed, devout, true, good. This authoritative speech of Christ will never become obsolete, and never can be superseded. He spoke to us of God and our relations to him, and God and our relations can never change. He spoke to us of eternity, and eternity never waxes old. He spoke to us of man, and man in his great original traits is the same as when Christ spoke to him. The truth on all these themes is not affected by the lapse of years. Centuries wear the mountains, and they come to naught, but they alter not the eternal truths of God and man. The Sermon on the Mount is as fresh and beautiful to-day as when the lips of Jesus first parted to utter it in the ears of the multitude. So long as man is what he is, so long the words of Jesus will be to him what they have ever been—the brightest jewels of our lost humanity. Jesus may become the obsolete Teacher of the world when a new God ascends the throne, when a new law issues from him, and a new Saviour tabernacles in clay. Till then, Jesus will be the fresh, unctuous Teacher of the race, speaking to every succeeding generation of men in the same tones of authority that he uttered to that gathered throng of Jews on the mountain-slope of Palestine. J. D. 17. I came not to destroy, but to fulfil. "The forms are not the law. Rites and ceremonies are only helps, for simple ages, which need material symbols. The law is forever sacred: Spoken by God, it is eternal. I come to do it honor; to confirm, but also to clear it from human additions and corruptions." G.—Christ was not only the living gospel but also the living law. He republished the law of God in all its purity and sanctity, and taught us its inmost meaning by his own perfect obedience. He came not to destroy but to fulfil. He unfolded the law in its length and breadth—in its letter and its spirit, in its rewards and its penalties, up to the judgment of the last assize. And he so interpreted that law to the human conscience and the human heart, and he so exemplified it in his whole incarnate life, that it really in and through him became fully known to the human race as the law of life. H. B. S.—The consummation of the kingdom will be the "fulfilling" of all which was contained, in germ, in the preparatory stage; it will, on the other hand, be the "destroying" of all that was, in itself, only preparatory. In pointing to this consummation of the kingdom of God as the final "fulfilling" of all, Christ at the same time fixes the final end for the fulfilment of all the promises connected with the beatitudes. N. As the previous dispensations were typical, he came to complete them, putting the substance in the place of the shadow. As they were predictive, he fulfils them. As they inculcate precepts and truths in relation to God and man, he develops and explains them; giving them a clearer, wider, and more spiritual application to the various duties of human life, and making them and himself a full and perfect revelation of the will and character of his Father. J. A.—Christ fulfilled the law and the prophets, by accomplishment of types, ceremonies, rites, and prophecies; by explaining, enlarging, and perfecting the moral law, by writing it on the heart, by giving grace to obey it as well as an example of obedience, by taking away its curse; and by the doctrine of free justification through faith in himself which the law prefigured and anticipated but could not give. W. 18. It is important to observe in these days how the Lord here includes the Old Testament and all its unfolding of the divine purposes regarding himself, in his teaching of the citizens of the kingdom of heaven. I say this, because it is always in contempt and setting aside of the Old Testament that rationalism has begun. First, its historical truth, then its theocratic dispensation and the types and prophecies connected with it are swept away; so that Christ came to fulfil nothing, and becomes only a teacher or a martyr; and thus the way is paved for a similar rejection of the New Testament, beginning with the narratives of the birth and infancy, as theocratic myths, advancing to the denial of his miracles, then attacking the truthfulness of his own sayings, which are grounded on the Old Testament as a revelation from God, and so finally leaving us nothing in the Scriptures but, as a German writer of this school has expressed it, “a mythology not so attractive as that of Greece.” A. —Jot or tittle. Jot is the Hebrew Jod, the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet; tittles, literally horns, are the little turns of the strokes by which one Hebrew letter differs from another similar to it. In the Hebrew Bible are over 66,000 jots. The Hebrew copyists were scrupulous to the last degree, and regarded the slightest error in their copy fatal. For the purpose of illustration, Christ takes this well-known veneration of the copyists for the most minute details in their copying. L. A. 20. The rest of our Lord’s sermon is a comment on and illustration of the assertion in this verse. A.—The main topic is the righteousness, or right rule of life, which Christ came to teach, and its immeasurable superiority over the highest righteousness known to man before he came. All through the sermon, sometimes latent but commonly expressed, there runs this comparison between the old righteousness and the new; until the closing parable sets forth the fate of those who trusted in the old, and those who trusted in the new. S. Cox.—Christ opposed the Pharisaic statutes because they took the law in its letter, not in its spirit, and surrounded its observance with difficulties. He made it a fundamental point, that all true obedience must spring from piety and love; but still it was obedience to the law. N.—The object he urges is to pass from the letter which kills to the spirit which gives life, from an external and material obedience to an internal and spiritual obedience, from the work of the hands to that of the heart, from the offering of goods to that of ourselves. The thing required is not a new law, but a new spirit, not new observances, but a second birth. The ancient law said, Do. The new law says, Be. A. V. Abstinence from forbidden deeds had been taken as a keeping of the divine commands. Obedience had thus come to be looked upon as a thing of outward constraint or mechanical conformity, its merit lying in the force of the constraint, the exactness of the conformity. It was thus that the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees consisted mainly in a formal adherence to the letter of the precept, to the neglect often and sometimes to the contradiction of its spirit. This fatal error Christ exposes, taking up commandment after commandment, unfolding the spirituality and extent of the requirement, showing how it reached not simply or mainly to the regulation of the outward conduct, but primarily and above all things to the state of the heart. H.—To emancipate Christianity from its connection with Judaism by a mere dictum, to produce so momentous a change by a word of command, would not only contradict the usual methods of Providence, but violate the very nature of Christianity as a system resting on the intelligent apprehension of truth. A sudden, violent rupture with the Old Testament system was not a thing to be desired. Rather were the old things to pass away, not as the result of a fiat, but by the natural expulsive power of the new. It was not a method of antagonism and destruction, but of fulfilment. Hence Christ set forth the seminal ideas of the new kingdom, and left them, through the Spirit and the agency of Providence, to produce in their own time the proper fruit. G. P. F. 21,27,33. In our translation it is, Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time. The sense of the passages, and the opposition of the clauses, But I say unto you, require that it should be translated not by, but to them of old time. This connection throws a beautiful light on our Lord’s sermon; showing us that it was not his intention to set his own precepts in opposition to the precepts of the law; but to set his expositions of those precepts in opposition to the interpretations of the doctors, which they pretended to derive from Moses by tradition. M.—21 (also 27, 33, 38, 43). A maxim or a commandment is taken out of the Levitical law—in some instances with the addition of a Pharisee’s gloss upon it—and then, so far as it is God’s it is interpreted, and, so far as it is man’s it is superseded, by a precept reaching down into the very depths of the heart, and going forth into the whole width and compass of the life. V. 22. Roca often occurs in the Talmud. It is equivalent to a worthless person in a light and frivolous sense. “It is a word used by one that despises another with the utmost scorn.” Gehenna is the word here translated “hell-fire.” It was originally Gê benê Hinnom, the valley of the sons of Hinnom, under the south walls of Jerusalem. Children were burned alive there to Moloch till the days of King Josiah. The howlings of the infants and the foul idolatry made it the symbol of hell, and this was strengthened by its being afterward used as the place where the refuse of the temple sacrifices was burned up continually in a fire that was never quenched. G.—There were among the Jews three well-known degrees of guilt, coming respectively under the cognizance of the local and the supreme courts, called here “the Judgment” and the “Council” or Sanhedrim; and after these is set the “Gehenna of fire,” the end of the malefactor, whose corpse, thrown out into the valley of Hinnom, was devoured by the worm or the flame. Similarly, in the spiritual kingdom of Christ, shall the sins even of thought and word be brought into judgment and punished, each according to its degree of guilt, but even the least of them before no less a tribunal than the judgment-seat of Christ. There is here no distinction of kind between these punishments, but only of degree. In the thing compared, the “judgment” inflicted death by the sword, the “council” death by stoning, and the disgrace of the “Gehenna of fire” followed as an intensification of the horrors of death; but the punishment is one and the same—death. So also in the subject of the similitude, all the punishments are spiritual; all result in eternal death. So that the distinction drawn between cenial and mortal sins finds not only no countenance but direct confutation from this passage. 25. The sense of this verse is: “As in worldly affairs it is prudent to make up a matter with an adversary before judgment is passed, which may deliver a man to a hard and rigorous imprisonment, so reconciliation with an offended brother in this life is absolutely necessary before his wrong shall cry against us to the Great Judge, and we be cast into eternal condemnation.” A. M. 27 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery. 28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath com- 29 mitted adultery with her already in his heart. And if thy right eye offend thee [or, cause thee to offend], pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. 30 And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be 31 cast into hell. It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her 32 a writing of divorce. But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery. 33 Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not for- 34 swear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths. But I say unto you, Swear 35 not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne: nor by the earth; for it is his 36 footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt 37 thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh 38 of evil. Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a 39 tooth. But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on 40 thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, 41 and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee 42 to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee; from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away; and of him that taketh away thy goods, ask them not again. 43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine 44 enemy. But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and per- 45 secute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on 46 the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? for sinners 47 also love those that love them. And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more L. 33 than others? do not even the publicans so? And if ye do good to them which do good 34 to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same. And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, 35 to receive as much again. But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the 36. Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. M. 48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. THE life of Jesus, in all its aspects, is the great lesson of humanity. His death is its hope. But there lies a wondrous treasure in his words. What but a pure and sinless soul could have conceived such an idea of God as the Father of mankind, drawing us to himself by the attraction of holy and exhaustless love? "It could only rise," says Hausrath, "in a spirit that stood pure, guiltless, and sinless before God—a spirit in which all human unrest and disturbance were unknown, on which there lay no sense of the littleness of life, no distracting feeling of disappointed ambition. Sinful man, with a stained or even uneasy conscience, will always think of God as jealous, wrathful, and about to avenge himself. The revelation that God is the Father of men could rise only in a mind in which the image of God mirrored itself in calm completeness, because the mirror had no specks to mar it." "He has left us not only a life, but a rich world of thoughts," says Keim, "in which all the best inspirations and longings of mankind meet and are reflected. It is the expression of the purest and directest truths which rise in the depths of the soul, and they are made common to all mankind by being uttered in the simplest and most popular form." G. THE sayings of our Lord herein are all to be regarded as expressing the spiritual sense of the Old Testament commands; and his explanations (with his moral precepts generally) must themselves be interpreted in his spirit. He speaks broadly and impressively, reckoning upon the candor and common-sense of his hearers. J. A.—Everything in the Sermon on the Mount points to a living and spiritual law. It contains the most emphatic protest against the falsehoods and fictions of Pharisaism; it inaugurates the true spiritual worship which is alone worthy of God. By that which it overthrows and that which it establishes, this sermon, which has been said to preach only a purified Judaism, unfurls the standard of the new covenant; the sovereign authority with which it accredits Jesus is compatible only with his incomparable dignity as Son of man and Son of God. De P. 27, 33, 38, 43. "Ye have heard that it was said (not by, but) to them of old times." By these words Jesus sets himself in opposition, not to Moses and his law, but to the Pharisees and their exposition of it. "Them of old times" we are to understand as signifying the ancestors of the Jews and contemporaries of the law-giver. C. B. 27. As with homicide, so in adultery, the morality of the new kingdom traced the crime home to the heart, and condemned the unclean glance as a virtual commission of the crime itself. The thoughts were nothing, in the loose morality of the day; but Jesus arraigns the secret lusts of the breast, with an earnestness unknown to the rabbis. G.—28. The man who can deliberately gaze with a view to feed unlawful desire has in thought committed the deed. A.—29, 30. Occasions of sin, at whatever cost, are to be sacrificed, on pain of "hell-fire." Such language from lips so gentle bespeaks awful danger. B.—The eye to be plucked out is the eye of concupiscence, and the hand to be cut off is the hand of violence and vengeance—i. e., those passions are to be checked and subdued, let the conflict cost us what it may. P. 31,32. He knows that the happiness of mankind, as well as the moral position of women, depend essentially upon the married state. He makes of the sanctity of marriage a fundamental law of Christian religion and society; he pursues adultery even into the recesses of the human heart, the human thought; he forbids divorce. Signal and striking testimony to the progressive action of God upon the human race! Jesus Christ restores to the divine law of marriage the purity and authority that Moses had not enjoined to the Hebrews, "because of the hardness of their hearts." F. G. 34-36. The casuistry of the rabbis had so darkened the whole subject of oaths, that they had become utterly worthless. They were formally classed under different heads in rabbinical jurisprudence, and endless refinements opened facilities for any one to break them who wished. Their number was endless; men swore by heaven, by the earth, by the sun, by the prophets, by the temple, by Jerusalem, by the altar, by the wood used for it, by the sacrifices, by the temple vessels, by their own heads. G.—The people now use the very same sort of oaths that are mentioned and condemned by our Lord. They swear by the head, by their life, by heaven, and by the temple, or, what is in its place, the church. The forms of cursing and swearing, however, are almost infinite, and fall on the pained ear all day long. W. M. T.—37. “Whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil”—i. e., testifies to a want of that disposition of heart which every member of his kingdom ought to possess; a want of that thorough truthfulness which makes every other affirmation superfluous, and of the mutual confidence that depends upon it. N.—After this sincerity, this entire truthfulness of conversation one with another, the Lord would have his disciples strive, and to this attain. Let guile and deceit cease from among you, and the oath will cease also; for it is “of evil,” of your evil; and only that renders it so frequently offered, and so frequently required. T. 38. The Pharisees thought it no injustice nor irreligion to prosecute the severest retaliation or revenge; so that at the same time their outward man might be a saint, and their inward man a devil. No care at all was had to curb the unruliness of anger, or the exorbitance of desire. Among all their sacrifices they never sacrificed so much as one lust. R. S. 38-42. The spirit of such injunctions is evident. Hasty retaliation; readiness to stand on one’s rights in all cases; deliberate revenge rather than pity, are unworthy a member of the new kingdom. It is for him to teach by bearing, yielding, and giving, and not by words only. He must suffer wrong patiently, that the conscience of the wrong-doer—become its own accuser—might be won to repentance, by the lesson of unresisting meekness. Christ’s own divine charity and forgiveness was to be repeated by his followers. But it is far from the teaching of Christ that law is to cease, or that the evil-doer is to have everything at his mercy. Only, as far as possible, the principle of his kingdom is to be the purest, deepest, self-sacrificing love. G. A cleaving to the letter of this and similar precepts, will continually issue in a violation of the spirit of Christ’s commandments. Thus, in his case who dared to lift up his hand against the Lord, to have offered him the other cheek would have been no love, for it would have been a tempting of him to repeat his fearful offence. It must be that our Lord is legislating here for the inward spirit of man. This offering of the other cheek may be done outwardly; but only inwardly can it be always right; being as it is the meekness of the spirit under wrong, the preparedness of heart to bear as much as has been already inflicted or more, if so any good may come to the injurious person. But Christian love and prudence are in each case to decide whether it is also a precept for the outward conduct. It may be so; it will be so often; for instance, if thou thinkest that thy offending brother will be won by thy Christian patience, and his evil overcome by this exhibition of thy good, then it will be thy duty, if he has done thee one wrong, to lay thyself open for a second. But if thou countest that his evil will grow with impunity, that he will strengthen himself in his sin, and therefore in his misery, through thy forbearance, then it is thy duty to turn to him thy love on its severer side, to repress the outcomings of his evil, though it will be the same love that dictates this line of conduct or the other. The commands are to stand fast evermore in all their breadth and fulness; their only limitation is this, that love and the Spirit of God are in each case to be their interpreters, to apply them to the emergent necessity. Where this love and this Spirit are wanting, the precept must be interpreted wrongly. God dealt with men by law and by gospel, and the same love was in each, as the law punished and the gospel forgave, each for the bringing about an end beyond itself, and the same end, even the righteousness of the sinner, though they sought it by ways so different. So will there be counterparts to both in the wise and loving conduct of a Christian man toward his offending brother. The everlasting rule is, that thou render good for thy brother’s evil: the shape in which thou shalt render it, love shall prescribe. T. 42. Give to him that asketh thee. The command then, “Give,” as interpreted by the life of him who uttered it, is ever to stand fast. But it is, give that which will make the receiver truly richer; and often in this sense a seeming denial will be the most real giving, as on the other side there are gifts which are no gifts, which as it was wrong to ask, so would it be far better never to have received. He who gives these does not really give; and while he seems to be keeping the letter of this, is indeed violating the spirit of all Christ’s commandments. T.—To give everything to every one, the sword to the madman, alms to the impostor, the criminal request to the temptress, would be to act as the enemy of others and ourselves. Ours should be a higher and deeper charity, flowing from those inner springs of love which are the sources of outward actions sometimes widely divergent; whence may arise both the timely concession, and the timely refusal. A. 44. Love your enemies. Love as God loves, regardless of merit and of the reciprocity of love; loving because you would be like God, loving because God has first loved you. V.—There is nothing greater than to imitate God in doing good to our enemies. If God had not loved us while we were his enemies, we could never have become his children; and we shall cease to be so, if we cease to imitate him. This precept alone is a sufficient proof of the holiness of the gospel, and of the truth of the Christian religion. None but God could have imposed a yoke so contrary to self-love; and nothing but the supreme and infinite love could have made men practise a law so insupportable to corrupt nature. Q.—He who has exhorted and taught us to pardon, is undoubtedly a God who pardons. His anger, all divine, takes nothing from his love. Were he man, he would pray for these enemies of his will. Jesus Christ, his Son, prayed for the enemies of his Father. The more our personal resentment is effaced in the sadness of seeing our Father offended, the weak scandalized, the seeds of sin multiplied, the empire of darkness extended, the more will our heart be free to pardon, to love, and to pray. A. V. 45. That ye may be the children of your Father in heaven.** One chief feature of the teaching in the gospels is found in the word Father. Jesus appears among men in the character of the Son. His first spoken word utters the consciousness of that relation. In right of this relation he straightway associates in it those who receive him: and when, in his first instructions, he lifts up his eyes on his disciples to teach them the principles of the kingdom of God, he bases everything upon this relation between them and their God. So the whole course of his teaching tends to the intertwining of his own relation to God with theirs, which is finally expressed on the eve of his departure: "My Father and your Father, my God and your God." T. D. B. This "sun" and "rain" are the common mercies of which all are partakers. And this same unstinted bounty of God, this love which comprehends all, according to the measure in which they are capable of being comprehended by it, supplies the measure in which those who would indeed show themselves "the children of their Father which is in heaven," are to exercise love, the pattern which they are to set before them for imitation. 46, 47. There is, first, the returning of good for good, and evil for evil; being the principle which the world recognizes and on which it acts. But beneath this there is the returning of evil for good, which is devilish; while above it is the returning of good for evil, which is divine, which is God's principle of action; and to this the children of God are summoned here. T. L. 35. We are not required to regard with precisely the same feeling a Christian brother, and an openly profane and profligate person—a generous benefactor and a malignant inveterate enemy. It is not possible—and, if it were, it would not be proper—to cherish the same tender regard for strangers as for "those of our own household," the same gratitude to enemies as to benefactors, the same esteem for the bad as for the good. But we are sincerely to wish all men well, even our enemies; we are to desire their good; we are, as we have opportunity, to promote their happiness. J. B.—Hoping for nothing again. That is, "Do good" to those who will never return you any kindness, as your enemies, and those especially who never can make any recompense, as the poor and needy. S. C. 36. Be ye therefore merciful.** What degree and description of mercy is required of us is sufficiently explained here. It is that which does not restrain our affections and good offices to persons from whom we either have received, or reasonably expect, the like: it is that which forgives our very enemies, forgives so as to love them, loves so as to do them good, liberally and cheerfully: it is that which conforms our practice to the example of that Father in heaven, who grudges not the daily blessings of life to those who daily forfeit all claim to his numberless benefits. Stanhope. M. 48. Be ye perfect. Complete, in your love of others; not one-sided or exclusive, as those just mentioned, but all-embracing and God-like. Ye is emphatic. No countenance is given by this command to the ancient heresy of perfectibility in this life. Such a sense of the words would be utterly at variance with the whole of the discourse. A.—Love, he says, not merely your friends, but your enemies; stop not short at that easier love, but go on to the harder, fulfilling the course set before you, reaching to the end of your Christian course; and do this because God does it. But he who asserts this to mean, Do all this in the measure in which God does it, and believes this possible, declares, not that he has a high apprehension of what man's love ought to be, but that he has most poor and unworthy apprehensions of what God's love is. T. The word perfect never signifies in New Testament usage sinlessness, but completion in Christian character in contrast with a half-finished and partial character, a character that is Christian in some parts and worldly and selfish in others. This verse sums up that portion of the Sermon on the Mount in which Christ has developed the Christian ideal of character. In it Christ explains in what consists the fulfilment of the law and the prophets. "The ancient statutes," says Christ in effect, "forbade murder, adultery, false swearing, cruelty in revenge. A complete obedience embraces the whole man, and brings the spirit as well as the members under allegiance to these laws. The ancient statute commanded love to your neighbor; the spirit of that statute requires love to all mankind. You are to aim, not at an external obedience to laws and regulations, but at the attainment of a character which in all its conduct shall conform to the law, and in all its faculties to the image of him whose sons you are called to be." In brief, one may be an imperfect, but one cannot be a partial Christian. He may obey Christ imperfectly, but he cannot obey in part and disobey in part. God requires perfection of his disciples as the wise teacher continually holds perfection before his pupils; not condemning those who fall short, but not allowing them to rest satisfied with incomplete attainment. L. A. Jesus knows humanity; he knows how fickle, how selfish, how base it is; and yet, strange to say! he does not despise it. He despises neither friends nor foes: he despairs of no man; he never fails to see in the most blinded and degraded creature the temple of God, empty and ruined although it be. He who best knows humanity, and we can add, who suffers most from it, he it is who honors it the most. He it is also who expects the most of it. That which he demands of them is not to take a step toward their true manhood, but to realize it completely. "Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." R. C. THE morality of Jesus was not that of a sect, a race, or a nation, but of universal man. It has no political, no local, no temporary precepts. Within its proper kingdom, the heart of man, it may dwell in every change of political relation. It has no local centre, no temple. Strictly speaking, it is no system of positive enactments. It is the establishment of certain principles, the enforcement of certain dispositions, the cultivation of a certain temper of mind, which the conscience is to apply to the ever varying exigencies of time and place. The basis of its universality was the broad and original principles upon which it rested. These two great principles the gospel first placed as the main pillars of the new moral structure: God the universal Father, mankind one brotherhood; God made known through the mediation of his Son, the image and humanized type and exemplar of his goodness; mankind of one kindred and therefore of equal rank, and to be united in one spiritual commonwealth. H. M. ## Section 38.—Almsgiving. Prayer. The Lord's Prayer. 1. TAKE heed that you do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye 2 have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore, when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do, in the synagogues, and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily, I say unto you, They have 3 their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right 4 hand doeth; that thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret, himself shall reward thee openly. 5 And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are; for they love to pray standing in the synagogues, and in the corners of the streets, that they may be 6 seen of men. Verily, I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly. 7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that 8 they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for 9 your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him. After this man- ner therefore pray ye: 10 Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy 11, 12 will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive 13 us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. 14 For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: 15. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. 16. Moreover, when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily, I say unto you, 17. They have their reward. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thy head, and wash thy 18 face; that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father, which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly. SOMETIMES, to go and be alone with God and Christ in the fellowship of the Spirit, just for the joy and blessedness of it; to open, with reverent yet eager hands, the door into the presence chamber of the great King, and then to fall down before him, it may be, in silent adoration; our very attitude an act of homage, our merely being there, through the motive that prompts it, being the testimony of our soul's love; to have our set day-hours of close communion, with which no other friends shall interfere, and which no other occupations may interrupt; to which we learn to look forward with a living gladness; on which we look back with satisfaction and peace; this indeed is prayer, for its own sake, for God's sake, for our friends' sake, for the Church's sake, for our work's sake; prayer which we do not hurry through, to still the conscience, but which (other things permitting) we can even linger over to satisfy the heart. If we Christians, who talk so much about the privilege and blessedness of prayer, would try to avail ourselves of it as we may, how should we reflect on the world around us the glory, as it streams on us from the face of the incarnate Mediator! A. W. T. 1. Righteousness instead of alms. This is in accordance with all the critical editions of the Greek Testament, and also with the context; for the word "righteousness" is here general, including the subsequent specifications of alms (verse 2), prayer (verse 5), and fasting (verse 16). R.—3. "So far from doing good that others may see it, thou must not even think of it as thy own work; do it in childish simplicity, from thy loving spirit, as if thou couldst not do otherwise." This principle Christ applies to three separate acts, in which the Pharisees were specially wont to make a pious display, viz.: Alms, prayer, and fasting. N. 5. Have their reward. They have it; have it out, the original language says; have it to the full, and have all they will have. There is nothing left over, to be treasured up for them out of sight in the keeping of a Father in heaven. V. 6. If we would find God, and be his children, and have the great reward of his presence, we must "enter into the closet, and shut the door, and pray to the Father who is in secret." Whenever the uplifted soul approaches God in its sincerest devotion, it must go alone; if other souls bend around, in unity of spirit, yet the communion of each with the Father is solitary, and each must be accepted not for another, but by itself. It must bear its own single burden to the mercy-seat. "Hast thou faith, have it to thyself before God." In order to let the great truths and influences of religion do their work upon us, we must put ourselves in the range and sweep of their action; we must—so to speak—give them a chance at our inner life. The street is no such place; the crowd is no such place. Enter into thy closet. Solitude is a means of spiritual education. Seek it; ordain it; cherish it; value it not for its own sake, but for faith's sake and Christ's sake; sanctify your life by the prayers it will then inspire. F. D. H.—Prayer is the most secret intercourse of the soul with God, and requires retirement, at least of the heart; for this is the closet in the house of God, which house is ourselves. Thither we ought to retire, even in public prayer, and in the midst of company. What goodness is there equal to this of God, to give not only what we ask, and more than we ask of him, but to reward even prayer itself! Q. 7. What is forbidden here is not much praying, for our Lord himself passed whole nights in prayer; nor praying in the same words, for this he did in the intensity of his agony in Gethsemane; but the making number and length a point of observance, and imagining that prayer will be heard, not because it is the genuine expression of the desire of faith, but because it is of such a length, or has been so many times repeated. A.—He who spake a parable "that men ought always to pray and not to faint," must be as far as possible from finding fault with prayer which is long drawn out, if only it be prayer indeed. He can only condemn that in which, while it retains the name of prayer, an endless tumult of words is substituted for all deeper (and oftentimes in words unspeakable) utterances of the spirit. T. 8. Your Father knoweth what ye need.** Prayer is the preparation and the enlargement of the heart for the receiving of the divine gift; which, indeed, God is always prepared to give, but we are not always prepared to receive. In the act of prayer there is a purging of the spiritual eye, which thus is averted from the things earthly that darken it, and becomes receptive of the divine light—able not to endure only the brightness of that light, but to rejoice in it with an ineffable joy. In the earnest asking is the enlargement of the heart for the abundant receiving; even as in it is also the needful preparation for the receiving with a due thankfulness; while, on the contrary, the good which came unsought would too often remain the unacknowledged also. T.—Prayer is not designed to inform God, but to give man a sight of his misery, to humble his heart, to excite his desire, to inflame his faith, to animate his hope, to raise his soul toward heaven, and to put him in mind that there is his Father, his country, his inheritance. He is a Father to whom we pray; let us go to him with confidence: he knows our wants; let us remove far from us all anxious disquiet and concern. Q. 9-13. The seven petitions of the Lord's Prayer admit of a clear division into three and four; for in the first three the cause of God—his name, his kingdom, and his will—is the subject of supplication; whereas the four others refer to our own concerns—to daily bread, forgiveness of sins, defence from temptation, and deliverance from all evil. C. B.—He had created a new heaven and a new earth for the soul, and in this prayer the mighty revelation of the Fatherhood of God shines, like a sun, over all humanity. The highest conceivable ideal of perfection and felicity for the race is offered in the will of the eternal Father being done on earth as it is in heaven. Childlike trust and dependence ask and are contented with daily bounty from that Father's hand. His mercy is pleaded by hearts that already have learned to show it to others. The spirit stands before him clothed in humility, and full of love and tenderness toward its fellows. Conscious weakness stretches out its hand for heavenly help, distrusting itself, but strong in a Higher. Each clause, almost each word, is full of the deepest significance. Each is filled with divine light. After eighteen centuries, Christendom knows no expression of thoughts and feelings so full in so small a compass, so rich, so majestic in praise and petition. G. 9. Our Father who art in heaven.** This invocation brings God into the closest personal relation to us, and yet it raises him infinitely above us. It reveals a love near to us, yet transcending while it embraces us. No closeness of relationship with God brings him down to our level. He remains far above us. "Our Father" indeed, but "Our Father in heaven." If we bow in adoration, we must bow before a personal Presence—a throne at once of mercy and judgment, of righteousness and of grace—a Will higher than our own, whither our wills, feeble and wavering, yet pointing beyond earth and flesh, may ascend. Such a Will it is, such a Presence, such a Heart, such an enthroned Personality that is revealed to us in Christ: a Father, yet a Judge; a Saviour, yet a Lord; near to us, yet infinitely transcending us; "having respect unto the lowly, yet inhabiting eternity and the praises thereof." Toward such a Presence and Person should we worship when we pray "after this manner." Tulloch.—The direct relation of man to God as a person to a person, which formed the basis of the Old Testament connection between the Divine Ruler and his chosen people, is extended to all nations of the earth in the opening words. God is a Father only to those who can be conscious of dependence upon him. Just as the parent is first known to the child as the person on whom he is immediately dependent, who is able to grant his requests and give him such things as are needful, so man learns to look on God as the Being on whom he is ultimately dependent for his existence and welfare; who as a Person is capable of showing favor to those dependent upon him, and as a Person can be regarded with feelings of love, reverence, gratitude, trust, and fear. This is the first characteristic of our consciousness of the Fatherhood of God: its natural expression is the language of prayer: the natural impulse to this expression is the conviction that God can hear and answer prayer. H. L. M.—He who says, "Our Father," sums up in this word, forgiveness of sins, justification, sanctification, redemption, adoption, inheritance, brotherly fellowship with the only-begotten Son, and the gifts of the Holy Ghost in all their fulness. Chrys. In heaven. While it is quite true that the local heavens are no more the habitation of God than any other place—that, since God is a spirit, all place is out of place when we are thinking of him—yet this attribution of the pure immeasurable spaces of the ether above us to God for his habitation, is part of the unconscious symbolism which is common to all places and to all people. The introduction of the words into the beginning of this prayer rests on this universal symbolism; they are, as it were, a sursum corda, they remind us that now we have lifted up our hearts from earth and things earthly to another and a higher world. T. These opening words of the Lord's Prayer set clearly before us the status of the Christian, as believing in, depending upon, praying to, a real objective personal God, lifted above him: to approach whom he must lift up his heart, as the eye is lifted up from earth to heaven. This strikes at the root of all pantheistic error, which regards the spirit of man as identical with the Spirit of God; and at the root of all deism—testifying as it does our relation to and covenant dependence on our heavenly Father. A. 9,10. Hallowed be thy name, etc.** The beginning of the work of God in us is the hallowing of his name: the form in which the divine work is perfected, as well as the means by which it comes to perfection, is the kingdom of God. This kingdom was prefigured in Israel: it was introduced in its essence by Christ; and through his power it advances in the course of the ages toward its perfection. Thus the second petition, “Thy kingdom come,” is connected with the first, which indicates the final goal of all things, the perfect harmony of the creature with the will of the Creator. These three petitions thus present the beginning, middle, and end of the development of the kingdom of God. A. T.—It is for the full consummation and triumph of the great plan of redemption—whether in the outward dispensation of the gospel, the inward dominion of grace in the heart, or the final development of grace into the glory of heaven—that we pray in the petition, Thy kingdom come. V. D. 11. Give us daily bread.** The things eternal having been thus asked for, the petitions which remain have to do with this life of our pilgrimage. This “bread” is rather the whole aliment of body and of spirit; of the body, as food, with whatever else is necessary for our earthly life and of the spirit no less; so that the frequent communions, the daily worship, the study of the Scriptures, the hymns we hear and sing, these all will appertain to, and be included in, the “daily bread” which we ask. A silent rebuke is here for the worshipper, who takes these words in his mouth, while he is allowing himself in anxious and far-looking cares, while he is making luxurious provision for the flesh and for its lusts. It is but “bread” which with his lips he asks, and that for the day. This prayer is the answer of the faithful to the admonition of the apostle, “Having food and raiment, let us be therewith content.” T. This day. God nowhere promises to give either temporal or spiritual blessings in advance, but reserves to himself the fatherly prerogative to spread our table and proportion our grace, according to our day. He would thus cultivate in us a sense of absolute and continual dependence. Our bread. The bread which is appropriate to us by the divine blessing on our own exertions; not the bread of idleness, nor of violence, nor of deceit; but our bread, coming down to us like manna from heaven, yet gathered by our own diligence in a business in whose minutest details we are not ashamed to ask God to prosper us. . . . The sense of dependence on God, and of trust in his promises—cultivated in the first instance at the lowest point of our temporal necessities, where it is often most difficult—pervades and controls the whole course of a Christian’s experience. The faith that trusts for daily bread and the divine gratitude that “puts joy and gladness into the heart,” rise into higher spheres, and take hold upon broader and more precious promises. The same hand that gives daily bread gives also daily grace, according to the same wise economy; and the same habit that trusts for temporal, trusts also for spiritual blessings—for living grace while life lasts, for dying grace in a dying day, and for eternal life when grace is swallowed up in glory. V. D. 12. Give and forgive: such needs to be our perpetual appeal to heaven, long as we remain upon earth. The one is the cry of want, and the other of guilt. Our debts.** Our forgetfulness of sin does not obliterate or annul it. Guilt is here expressly called our debt; perchance to guard us against that very neglect and oblivion. Of old, debt perilled not only the property, but the liberty, and in Roman law the life of the man indebted. Even thus, our guilt, unconfessed, unrepented, and unforgiven, left slowly to grow, with growing years and worldliness and unbelief, is mortgaging our happiness, our spiritual freedom, and our eternal life. W. R. W. This petition Augustine does not refer to the great forgiveness, which is assumed as a thing already possessed. He refers this rather to the sins of a daily infirmity, in which even he who watches the most will yet be entangled; and without which a life in the flesh can scarcely be led: scarcely without some of the world’s dust adhering to him will even the faithful man walk through the world’s paths. But in this prayer there is the shaking off this dust before it has settled upon him and hardened into a crust. Herein is the daily washing of the feet, for them that are already partakers of the great washing. The daily sins of a Christian man may be small, yet are not therefore to be despised, for if despised, then, though not else, they become indeed dangerous. T. As we forgive. We cannot release our fellow-men from the guilt of their wrong-doing, even though we have been its chief object. But in some good though imperfect degree, we can be, like our Father in heaven, free from wrath, revenge, and hatred. V. D.—How terrible a prayer this may become! If we pray it, keeping an unforgiving temper, we shall be ourselves blocking up the way by which our prayers should have ascended, not merely failing to extricate ourselves from the bands of our sins, but with our own hands drawing the cords of them more closely round us than before. T. 13. Lead us not into temptation.** Confessed guiltiness is the language of the preceding petition. Conscious weakness is that of this request: weakness imploring help against itself and its many foes, lest guilt return and remain upon us. W. R. W.—Satan tempts to bring out men's evil to their ruin, God to bring out, and through the conflict to strengthen, their good to their everlasting gain; or if to bring out their sin, yet this only as a process of transition to a higher good; that so, discovering and recovering from their sin, they may walk henceforward more humbly, more circumspectly; that knowing better the evil which is in them, they may take up arms the more earnestly against it. "Lead us not into temptation" is indeed what it seems at first sight, a prayer that we may not be tempted; yet not as declining to meet temptation when it comes, not as denying the blessing with which it may be charged; while yet out of a deep sense of our own infirmity, and of the uncertainty of the issue, we pray that it may be avoided. T. Deliver us from evil. Including the assaults of the evil one among our other temptations, we offer the comprehensive petition to be delivered from all sin, whether the provocation to commit it comes from the world in which we live, from the spiritual wickedness with which we wrestle, or from our own hearts. V. D.—Herein we pray that God would neither try us himself beyond our strength, nor suffer the devil, the world, or our own flesh to do it; that, if it be his will, we may not be exposed to any great temptations at all; but if, for any ends of his wise providence, he shall think fit to suffer us to be tempted, that then he would strengthen and support us, carry us through them with innocence and integrity, and not suffer us to be led by them into sin. Abp. Wake.—It is a proof of prudence, as well as of our sincerity in making this petition, not to court danger or invite temptation. Every man knows the quarter from which his danger arises, and his own heart will tell him where he is vulnerable. The attacks of temptation are so numerous and various, that no one can lay down rules for securing ourselves against them. The wisest way is as much as possible to avoid them. But, above all things, hold no parley with temptation; for the man that once deliberates on the brink of vice, is too surely in danger of being lost in its bottomless abyss. Carr. For thine is the kingdom, etc. The doxology has maintained its place in the prayers of the whole Christian Church, in our English version of the Bible, and in the standards of all Protestant denominations, in spite of all the historic arguments adduced against it; because it harmonizes with the foregoing petitions, because it epitomizes the testimony and example of other Scriptures (1 Chron. 29 : 10-13; 1 Tim. 1 : 17; Jude 25), and because it is suitable to Christian consciousness and experience. It fits like a crown upon the whole prayer; it sums up all the petitions, and turns them into praise; it completes the circle of our devout desires, bringing them back to the source from which they start, in the kingdom and power of our Father in heaven; it expresses the ground of hope on which all our petitions are based, and teaches us that the success of prayer depends on God alone; it sums up both the argument and the end of all prayer in the glory of God; and it seals what goes before with our desire and expectation to be heard, in the solemn Amen. V. D. As the eternal things are first in dignity, they are here placed first in order. We are asking in the first three petitions things which, though having for us a beginning in time, will yet stand fast through eternity; the name will be hallowed, the kingdom will be established, and the will accomplished forever. But the other and later petitions relate to things transient: the daily bread will not be needed by them who are nourished on the beatific vision of God; nor the forgiveness of trespasses by them that now sin no more; nor exemption from temptation, when there is nothing any longer within or without to tempt; nor deliverance from evil, when all evil shall have ended. There is not any possible request that a faithful man ought to make which cannot be reduced under one or other rubric of this prayer; which is not an unfolding of something which is shut up in the Lord's Prayer. It is only such a request as ought never to have been made, something that we "ask amiss," which will not range itself under one or other of these petitions. T. 14,15. If ye forgive not, neither will your Father forgive.** Our Lord returns back upon this condition of our obtaining forgiveness, and upon this only, among all the matters of which the prayer had treated; here giving one blow more to the die, so as to make the impression sharper and deeper on the minds of all. And this he does because of the fearful consequence of a failure here; for to retain our anger or our malice is not merely to retain one sin, but, in the retaining of that one, to retain also every other; it is not merely to shut one door, but in that one to shut every door by which the grace of God might enter into our souls. T. 16. Fasting had become one of the prominent religious usages of our Saviour's day. Though only one fast had been appointed by Moses—that of the Day of Atonement—the Pharisees had added numerous others, especially on the two days of the week—Monday and Thursday—on which synagogue worship was held. When fasting, they strewed their heads with ashes, and neither washed nor anointed themselves nor trimmed their beards, but put on wretched clothing, and showed themselves in all the outward signs of mourning and sadness used for the dead. G.—18. Appear not to men. In nothing does the gospel more commend itself to the conscience of mankind than in its abhorrence of hypocrisy and double dealing, its denunciation of all severance between seeming and being. V. [Connection with the following section:] All these acts of devotion were to be offered with sole reference to the love of God, in a simplicity which sought no earthly reward, but which stored up for itself a heavenly and incorruptible treasure. And the service to be sincere must be entire and undistracted. The cares and the anxieties of life were not to divert its earnestness or to trouble its repose. F. (For another comment on the Lord's Prayer, read Section 90.) 19. LAY not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, 20 and where thieves break through and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break 21, 22 through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be 23 full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! 24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. 25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than 26 meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. 27 Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit 28 unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the 29 field how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you, That 30 even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? 31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, 32 Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek;) for 33 your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. 34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. To Christians, Providence is no mere abstract attribute, but a living person. Jesus himself—God and man—is the Providence of the Christian Church. He is the Providence of the Christian still. “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world!” “I will not leave you comfortless.” He is indeed our good Shepherd, so that if we will, we lack nothing. It is he who encourages us with his voice, who guides us with his eye, who feeds us in the green pastures with the bread of heaven, who washes us from the stains that we gather as we pass along the road of life, in his precious and cleansing blood. In each joy, in each sorrow, in each friend whom we meet, in each opposition that befalls us, he is or he has been near; and beyond them all—beyond the horizon which our eyesight here cannot pass—he too still awaits us to crown these years of care and love through which he has tended us by receiving us at length with the arms of his mercy into our eternal home. Ah, if the lilies of the field are so beautiful, what will be the beauty of the white garments of the saints! Let us one and all think often and deeply of that future, and let us take our parts. H. P. L. IN the Sermon on the Mount our Lord gave an outline of that new kingdom of heaven which he proposed to set up upon the earth, and of which he was himself to be the sovereign. He first describes the character of its citizens, in the beatitudes. He then points out the nature of their influence among mankind at large. They were to preserve society from corruption like the salt; they were to guide it like a city set on a hill, like the light upon a candlestick. He then proceeds to explain that the law of the new kingdom would not destroy the law of the old, but on the contrary would fulfil it—fulfil it in the spirit even where setting it aside in the letter; and then he shows how this principle would apply to six different precepts of the ancient law, which he passes successively in review. After this he describes the new life of the citizens of the kingdom as seen in the unostentatious practice of almsgiving, of prayer, of fasting, but also as apprehended even more intimately in its ruling temper and spirit, in its persistent laying up of the true treasure in heaven, in its single-minded devotion to the service of God, in its comparative indifference to earthly interests, such as those of food and dress. H. P. L. 19-34. From cautions against the hypocrisy of formalists, the discourse naturally passes to the entire dedication of the heart to God, from which all duties of the Christian should be performed. This is enjoined with regard to earthly treasures, from the impossibility of serving God and mammon; and with regard to earthly cares, from the assurance that our Father careth for us. A. 19. Moth and rust . . . thieves. The first represents our most valued things as subject to decay from a principle within; the second, as liable to be forced from us by a violence from without: on both accounts unable to make us happy, and consequently unworthy to take possession of our hearts. R. S. 20. Lay up in heaven. A man may, if he will, hoard his treasure. He may invest his money with large advantage: he may treat it as all his own, and think only how to insure its possession to himself and to his children. He can do so. If he does, he is laying up his treasure upon earth. On the other hand, a man may, if he will, dispense his treasures. If he gives from principle, out of love to others because God in Christ has first loved him, our Lord here says that that man is not losing, not squandering, but laying up: his treasure is growing all the time: and with this difference from the other, that he is laying up where there is no rust, no moth, no thief; laying up in heaven, where the Almighty and the All-true is at once pledged to keep and pledged to repay. V.—He who gave, desires that we should not lose even his lower gifts, but should keep them forever; and therefore gives counsels such as this, offering to take into his own secure keeping that which we in no other way can retain; to send it before us, to that world whither we are certainly going, that we may find it there. Beware lest you be of the number of them, the men of the earth, who have slept the sleep of a vain worldly existence, and when they awaken to a world of realities their hands are empty; they have found nothing, and this because they placed nothing in the hand of Christ, which in each one of his poor was stretched out to them. That which comes from his people at the gentle pressure of his simple bidding, comes as the fine and sweet and golden-colored olive-oil which runs freely from the fruit, almost before ever the press has touched them. T. 21. Where your treasure, there your heart. Whatever man loves, that is his god. For he carries it in his heart; he goes about with it night and day; he sleeps and wakes with it, be it what it may—wealth or pelf, pleasure or renown. Luther.—Christ desires his people to lay up store in heaven, that they may have a heart in heaven; this is why he bids them to lift up their goods, that they may lift up their souls as well. For it is the power which the “treasure” has inevitably to draw after it the heart, the fact that it is the loadstar to which the needle must point, which makes it of such consequence where this treasure is stored. T.—No one ever went to heaven, whose heart was not there before. R. S. 22. Thine eye single. The single eye is the pure intention. The eye is neither single nor pure when it looks upon two differing objects at once; nor the heart when it pretends to unite God and the world, to be the servant of Christ and to please men, and to reconcile the gospel with the stronger desire of earthly things. Nothing is more single than the eye of faith; there is nothing which renders our whole conduct more uniform in goodness, than to follow singly the light of it. Q.—23. The light in thee. Not here the lamp as the natural eye was called in previous verse (“light of the body”). Reference is had to the mind, the intellectual light of a man. If that be darkened by false views of life, how great and fatal that darkness! To err in the comparative value of earthly and heavenly riches is proof that the soul is shrouded in this fatal darkness. J. J. O. 24. God and mammon. Either heaven or earth—either God or the world—one, not both, will be the place of your treasure; one, not both, will be the Lord of your service. V.—No man can have two chief goods. It is indeed more impossible than to serve two masters; forasmuch as the heart is more laid out upon what a man loves, than upon what he serves. Besides that the soul is but of a stinted operation; and cannot exert its full force and vigor upon two diverse, much less contrary objects. A man must first have two hearts and two souls and two selves, before he can give a heart to God and a heart to the world too. R. S.—There is one point—and it is the point of motive—where the world's people and God's people divide. There is a mark where living for self-gratification, whether sensual or intellectual, ends, and living for Christ and his righteousness takes its place; where self-will ceases to be the controlling force, and religious principle begins to be. There will not be spotless holiness on one side, nor unmitigated depravity on the other. But there is a divergence as wide apart in its issues as heaven and hell. On one side, notions, feelings, acts, which might otherwise seem to be neutral, take a taint of evil from an ungodly bias of the life. On the other side, actions and feelings which might otherwise be indifferent are stamped as good, because the ruling affection, the radical intention of life is right, or Christian. So neutrality ends, and every least thing has one of two contradictory, characteristic qualities. And so regeneration is both a philosophical and a Christian fact. "Ye cannot serve God and mammon." F. D. H. 25. Take no thought does not express the sense, but gives rather an exaggeration of the command, and this makes it unreal and nugatory. It is, Be not anxious, at sea tossed about between hope and fear. A.—Our Lord does not forbid provident forethought. But he forbids anxious, restless, distrustful solicitude about earthly things. W. 26. God gave to the birds their free, uncaring nature, and the instinct by which they seek their food; and in the diversities of food made ready for the diversities of creatures are manifested a forethought and plan that argue an intelligent Providence. The uniformity of this adaptation cannot account for the fact of the adaptation; and when we inquire why each bird and each beast seeks always and finds its own kind of food, there can be no better answer than that which Christ has given, "Your heavenly Father feedeth them." J. P. T. 27. Stature. Should be translated age or term of life, because the caution is against anxious care about the preservation of life, and about food, the means of prolonging it. Besides, the measure of a cubit agrees much better to a man's age than to his stature, the smallest addition to which would have been better expressed by a hair's-breadth, or the like, than by a cubit, which is more than the fourth part of the whole height of most men. In the Old Testament we find the life of man compared to measures of length, a hand-breadth, and a span. M.—And there is this more decisive objection, that increase of stature is not a matter about which men take anxious thought; it can scarcely be said for one in ten thousand to be an object of desire. It is otherwise with added length of days. T. 28. The grander features of the scenery, the mountains, the forests, the striking points of Oriental vegetation, palm and cedar and terebinth, the images, in short, which fill the pages of the psalmists and prophets of the older dispensation, have no place in the gospel discourses. As a general rule, every image, every emotion, is drawn from the humbler and plainer figures of every-day life and observation—vineyards and cornfields, shepherds and ploughmen, travellers and fishermen. And if the beauty of nature attract his notice, it is still of the same simple and general kind—the burst of the radiance of an eastern sun—the lively instincts and movements of the careless birds over his head—the gay colors of the carpet of flowers under his feet. The homeliness of the illustrations, while it links the teaching with the daily life of his time, yet sufficiently frees them from local peculiarity to render them of universal application. They gain more force and vividness by being still seen on the spot, but they need little or no explanation beyond what they themselves convey. A. P. S. 29. The Huleh lily is very large, and the three inner petals meet above and form a gorgeous canopy, such as art never approached and king never sat under, even in his utmost glory. And when I met this incomparable flower, in all its loveliness, among the oak woods around the northern base of Tabor and on the hills of Nazareth, where our Lord spent his youth, I felt assured that it was this to which he referred. W. M. T.—As the beauty of the flower is unfolded from within, from the capacities of its own life, so must a true adornment of man be unfolded from within by the same Almighty Spirit. As nothing from without can defile a man, so nothing from without can adorn him. A. 31. Take no thought. Christ has been urging to unity; unity within. Let the whole man be one. Let him have one aim, not two; one sight, not two; one treasure, by will and choice, even as he will have but one in God's judgment. And then follows, Take no thought: and the word itself is derived from one which signifies division, distraction. Be not anxious is, in the Greek, Be not divided. Anxiety is a mind going two ways: a mind hovering and wavering between two alternatives, of hope and fear. 32. Knoweth that ye need. Life does need, he says, certain supports and certain appliances; few indeed and simple, yet constant and adequate: life needs these things, and God, your heavenly Father, knows it. Anxiety is not only useless because it cannot get and cannot do what it would: it is needless also for this reason, that your Father knows your wants—knows, recognizes, and will supply. V.—Christianity forbids no necessary occupations, no reasonable indulgences, no innocent relaxations. It allows us to use the world, provided we abuse it not. All that it requires is, that our liberty degenerate not into licentiousness, our amusements into dissipation, our industry into incessant toil, our carefulness into extreme anxiety and endless solicitude. P. 33. Seek ye first the kingdom of God. Be God's wholly and singly; and let neither covetousness on the one hand, nor mistrustful anxiety on the other, distract your attention or divide your service. The kingdom of God: God is already reigning. Already there is a true spiritual power exercised by God himself, in Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, over and in the hearts of men. And his righteousness: Seek to be what God is, in his love of holiness, in his abhorrence of evil; seek to be like God in his purity, in his patience, in his disinterestedness, in his love. 34. Leave for to-morrow to-morrow's anxieties: then it will be to-day: then will Christ's precept enter into it, with Christ's promise, and the anxiety postponed will be an anxiety prevented. V.—Sufficient for the day.** The trouble of each day is sufficient for the day; and he who has been with us to-day will be with us to-morrow. In this ever-memorable precept, Christ consults our natural quiet, no less than our spiritual welfare. The chief sources of uneasiness are, vexation at what is past, or forebodings of what is to come: whereas what is past ought to give us no disquiet, except that of repentance for our faults; and what is to come ought much less to affect us, because with regard to us and our concerns, it is not, and perhaps never will be. The present is what we are apt to neglect. That, well employed, will render the remembrance of the past pleasant, and the prospect of the future comfortable. P.—He exhorts us to take God for our master and not mammon; and this on the great principle that God is sure to take good care of his servants. He feeds and clothes them to-day; and while they are doing his work, he is taking care for their to-morrow. Hamilton. He really lives according to the spirit of these precepts, who is confident that if by infirmity or other cause he is cut off from his work, he shall indeed be fed without his toil, as the birds are, that he shall be clothed as the lilies are; but with health and strength and opportunity, knows that these are God's appointed means whereby he shall acquire things needful for the body; yet esteems not because he labors, that it is any other than God who does truly feed him and clothe him now: who knows that it is the solicitude, and not the labor (for that is God's appointment), which is excluded; the doubt whether God could, if need were, provide for us in any other way, that is forbidden. T. THE gospels show that the lilies and the grass of the field; the hen, as it gathers its young in its mother-love; the birds of the air, as they eat and drink, without care, from the bounty around them; the lambs that follow the shepherd, but sometimes go astray and are lost in the wilderness; the dogs so familiar in Eastern cities; the foxes that make their holes in the thickets; the silent plants and flowers, the humble life of the creatures of the woods, the air, the fold, and the street, were all alike noticed in these early years of preparation. Nor was man neglected. The sports of childhood; the rejoicings of riper life; the bride and the bridegroom; the mourner and the dead; the castles and palaces of princes, and the silken robes of the great; the rich owners of field and vineyard; the steward, the travelling merchant, the beggar, the debtor; the toil of the sower and of the laborer in the vineyard, or of the fisher on the lake; the sweat of the worker; the sighs of those in chains, or in the dungeon, were seen, and heard, and remembered. G. # Section 40.—Sermon on the Mount. Judge not. Ask. Enter in. L. 37 JUDGE not, and ye shall not be judged; for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged. Condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned. Forgive, and ye shall be for- 38 given. Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again. 39 And he spake a parable unto them, Can the blind lead the blind? shall they not both 40 fall into the ditch? The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect, shall be as his master. 41 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but perceivest not the 42 beam that is in thine own eye? Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother's eye. M. 6 Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you. 7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened 8 unto you. For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to 9 him that knocketh, it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, whom if his son 10, 11 ask bread, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more 12 shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye also even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets. 13 Enter ye in at the strait gate; for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth 14 to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. 15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they 16 are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. For every tree is known by L. 44 his own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather M. 17 they grapes. Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree 18 bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit; neither can a cor- 19 rupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. L. 45 A good man out of the good treasure of his heart, bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart, bringeth forth that which is evil; wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh. CHRIST brings back the doctrine of prayer to reality: "Ask, and ye shall receive." It is all in these five words. And five homely words out of the heart are better than prolonged and polished ascriptions on a thoughtless tongue. Prayer for the least things, the commonest things, the really wished-for things, intercessions for others beloved, as little children ask what they know they shall receive, or what they know a love wiser than their own will deny! What is natural, if not that a child should speak to his parent, dependent weakness to sustaining power, the needy subject to the gracious king—speak his wants, his gratitude, his trust, his hope—speak in the common language that earnest feeling always chooses and always finds; should ask for what none else than this God can give, tell him the truth because there is a privilege in telling it? And this is prayer. It is a reality, then. It is something yearned for, and something satisfying. So speaks the world's best experience, ever since man has breathed upon it, and looked up from it to the pitying heavens. And this is what Christ and the New Testament teach about prayer: make it real; keep it fresh, simple, true, and then it will be fervent and constant. Fall under no torpid routine in it. F. D. H. Consider the great High-Priest of our profession, who himself showed the way of obedience to his own precept, "That men ought always to pray, and not to faint." Consider, too, for ourselves, the blessedness of being allowed to bathe our spirit's wings, as in living streams; of running, and not being weary; of being able to bring everything that is distorted within us, that it may be illumined; all that is rebellious, that it may be subdued. Consider this, and who it is that invites, beckons, entreats, commands us to this; and then consider how great our guilt and our folly must be, if, with such a throne of grace provided for us, we only approach it languidly and rarely; if, with such powers of the world to come brought within our reach, we do not earnestly lay hold of them; how just our doom will be, if, when God was ready to give, we did not care to ask; if, when he was waiting to be found, we were not willing to seek; if, when heaven's door would have opened to our knocking, we counted ourselves so far unworthy of eternal life, or rather counted eternal life so little to us, that we did not care so much as earnestly to knock at that door! T. 37. Judge not.** There is no denying that the world is full of such judgments as are here forbidden: needless, uncharitable, false, and hypocritical judgments. V.—What the Lord aims at is the spirit out of which they spring. Provided we eschew this unlovely spirit, we are not only warranted to sit in judgment upon a brother's character and actions, but, in the exercise of a necessary discrimination, are sometimes constrained to do so for our own guidance. It is the violation of the law of love which alone is here condemned. B.—We are not to condemn those rigidly and unmercifully whose faults are certain and visible; rather are we to conceal and excuse them as much as we can, without prejudice to truth and justice; and to be far from aggravating or divulging them, or desiring the punishment of them. Q. 38. The same measure shall be measured. Give judicial measure, and you will have judicial measure. Give fraternal measure, and you will have fraternal. S. Coz.—41. We search into the heart of our neighbor to discover something for which we may condemn him, either out of curiosity, or envy, or in order to find our own justification in the condemnation of others; this is what a great part of the world do almost without perceiving it. When we shall have as much zeal to correct ourselves as we have inclination to correct others, we shall then know our own defects better than we now do those of our neighbors. Q.—42. Shalt thou see clearly.** He that rids himself of the spirit of censoriousness, and seeks to discern the good and not the evil in his neighbor, is prepared to help him to get rid of the evil. It is not the spirit of criticism, but the spirit of charity, which is curative. Before he had only beheld the mote; now he sees to cast it out. L. A. The warning is only directed against the rebuking in a wrong spirit, without earnest endeavors at self-amendment, without the remembrance that we also have been "foolish, disobedient;" and thus a rebuking, not in the spirit of meekness and of love, but in that of arrogance or scorn, or with an evil pleasure in the humiliation of a brother. So far from all Christian rebuke being here condemned, there is implicitly a command to exercise this difficult grace, only at the right time and in the right temper; "then," after we have in ourselves sought the removal of all that is hindering our own vision of God, and rendering us incapable of giving true counsel to our brother, "shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye;" and it is not to love, but to hate our brother, under the plea of charity to refrain from the exercise of it, when it is needed. T. M. 6. Give not that which is holy. The holy, a technical term for the sacrificial meats laid upon the altar of God. Of these meats no unclean man was permitted to eat; how much less a dog! To the Jew, the dog was odious and unclean; even to touch him was to become unclean. S. Coz.—Trample them and rend you. The warning is, You will at once expose the truth to insult and yourselves to injury. T.—The connection is this: Judge not; attempt not the correction of others, when you need it far more yourselves. Still, be not such mere children, as not to distinguish the characters of those with whom you have to do. A. 7. Ask—seek—knock.** For a fuller understanding of the appropriateness of this charge, look back upon the whole of the discourse: call to mind the benedictions with which it opens, and the lofty standard which they set us both of heart and life; remember the grave declarations of Christian responsibility made in the figures of the salt of the earth and the light of the world; the demand of a righteousness exceeding that of scribe and Pharisee in all who would enter God's kingdom; the spiritual application of the divine law, extending its rules of conduct to the very thought and soul within; and the warnings against ostentation, against anxiety, and against a divided service. How suitable the precept concerning prayer in connection with this discourse concerning grace and duty! V. Ask, and it shall be given you. Simple words, but covering the deepest facts in our life! Consider how much they imply: the being of God; the dependence of man; a communion, or intercourse, between their spirits; a feeling of want on the part of man; a faith that God can fill that want; and the absolute truth that God is able to fill it, out of his infinitude. These are certainly great facts. They are as impressive to a rational intellect by their grandeur, as they are affecting to the heart by their tenderness. They are at once majestic ideas and comforting promises. F. D. H.—It would seem as though all God's words to us in reference to asking blessings of him, and all his dealings with us in reference to such requests, were so many challenges to our faith and hope. Promises to the praying heart are without limitation on God's side. There is no restriction upon the blessings that may be sought. "Ask"—how often? From heaven there is no answer to that query. There is not the slightest intimation that we can trespass by a too frequent supplication. It is left to us to say how many times a day we may prefer a petition. It is a challenge to our faith. Large asking and large expectation on our part honor God. They declare our sense of his greatness and goodness. They attest our confidence in the truth of his pledges. A. L. Stone. Seek. Christ here urges us, with condensed concern, to seek—for we shall find. What the object of this ceaseless and infinite quest shall be—so far as the immediate language goes—is left sublimely unuttered. In this case, as in many of the utterances that break the most solemn pauses and declare the grandest truths, the unmentioned thing is the supreme thing. There is only one aim large enough, and noble enough, to satisfy your soul's hunger, when you make a fair, free, deliberate decision. The one true search of man can have but one object—God. The ways and the helps of this seeking are fixed and definite as the rules for any human attainment. They are studious meditation, the exclusion from the heart of conflicting affections, a daily intimacy, through the record, with the perfect Christ and the whole body of revelation, prayers as punctual as the sun, the dashing away of that one dear, dark idol which stands between almost every heart and the light of heaven, and the faithful applying of the spirit of holiness given straight from God to one district after another of the practical territory of experience. F. D. H. 8. Every one.** To show that the assurance is without exception, to make it so specific that no one can even think that he is excluded by any unworthiness from the ear and heart and mercy of God, Christ here repeats this promise of promises, and individualizes its every particular: every one that asketh—he that seeketh—to him that knocketh. J. G. B.—Scripture insists much on the power of strong wishes in spiritual things. Its language is—if men really wish to be good, they will become good; if they really wish for faith, they will get faith; if they really wish to have habitual seriousness, they will gain habitual seriousness; if they really wish to realize God's presence, they will in time do so. The power of prayer, which is so much taught in Scripture, is in fact the power of strong wishes; wishes are prayers, if men believe in God, and if their wishes are formed around his presence. Asking, seeking, knocking—all these express earnest wishes of the heart which have put themselves in the shape of addresses to God. If we do not become believing or serious Christians, Scripture says it is because we have no real wish to become so. We do not ask, or seek, or knock; if we did we should obtain. J. B. M. 9-11. How much more certainly will a heavenly Father impart to his children the true riches of his kingdom! for it is such that the Lord has prominently in his eye, as is evident from a comparison with the parallel passage in Luke, where, instead of "good things," it is his "Holy Spirit" which is promised to them that ask it. As he will not deny his children, altogether withholding what they ask, so neither will he deceive his children, giving to them a useless or a noxious thing instead of a good. T. 12. All things ye would, do ye. These practical counsels are naturally concluded and summed up by this golden rule: Deal with others as ye would be dealt with by others; even as ye are dealt with by God. Be true, just, and kind in your judgments, as he is. Forgive as he forgives. Give that which is good, give generously and with discrimination, as God gives. J. G. B.—This is the law and the prophets.** It was certainly not Christ's purpose here to set up a rule of morals contradictory to the whole spirit of the rest of the sermon, which places the seat of true morality in the heart. Mere outward action, according to this rule, might spring from diverse dispositions, e. g., the mere prudence of selfishness might lead us to observe it, in order to get like for like. But, placing it in connection with what has gone before, and making love the mainspring of our actions, the rule affords a touchstone of their character. And when our actions stand this test, Christ says that "the law and the prophets (i. e., the life and essence of piety to which they point) are fulfilled;” for “love is the fulfilling of the law.” N. How bright and clear is Christ’s rule of equity toward our neighbor; and how many cases of conscience would it decide, if it were sincerely consulted on all occasions! Our self-love blinds us, and renders us unjust to our neighbor; and it is this very self-love which must serve to enlighten and set us right in respect of that which is owing to him. By changing persons, and putting ourselves in his place, and him in our own, we shall more easily discover our injustice and our duty. Q.—Place yourself, in thought and idea, in the condition or the circumstances of another. Think what would you, in that place, feel to be just, considerate, kind, toward you; what would give you pleasure, what would promote your welfare in soul, in body, in estate: and do just that. Do it, not once only, or in one thing, but always, and in all things. Make it your study so to act and so to speak: and you will be keeping God’s law; you will be fulfilling the voices of the prophets; you will be going to the root of duty and of obedience; because you will be living by the rule of Christian love, and Christian love is the fulfilling of the law. 13. Enter ye in. In that coming to God—in that first coming—in that coming once—lies the chief part of the great work of salvation. To go up to that glimmering light which indicates to us the first entrance of the way of life—to throw ourselves upon our knees there, as sinners wanting guidance, wanting help, wanting mercy—is all that we can do: blessed be God, it is all that he bids us to do. V.—At the strait gate.** Some of the city gates contain, in one of their folds, a small door, which is left open an hour or more after sunset. This little door is still more common in the gates of the bazars. We like to look at those curious little doors, and imagine that when our Lord had uttered these memorable words, he had in mind these two gates—the one wide, easy, and traversed by the multitude in broad daylight, and the other narrow, high in the step, to be found in the dark, and sought amid danger by a few anxious travellers. Van Lennep. 14. Strait the gate, etc.** What is it, Augustine asks, which makes this gate so strait to us, and this way so narrow? It is not so much that it is “strait” in itself, as that we make it strait for ourselves, by the swellings of our pride; and then, vexed that we cannot enter, chafing and impatient at the hinderances we meet with, we become more and more unable to pass through. But where is the remedy? How shall these tumid places of our souls be brought down? By accepting and drinking of the cup—wholesome though it may be distasteful—of humility; by listening to and learning of him, who having said, “Enter ye in at the strait gate,” does to them who inquire, “How shall we enter in?” reply, “By me;” “I am the way;” “I am the door.” T. To plant the right spirit and motive in the heart, out of which all true morality proceeds, is the great object he aims at. “Look up to God,” he says to us, “as indeed your Father—ever living, ever loving, patiently bearing with you, largely providing for you, willing to forgive you. Walk humbly, meekly, trustingly before him. Commit your way to him, cast all your care on him, seek all your supplies from him, render all your returns to him. Look upon all your fellow-men as children of the same Father, members of the same family. Love each other, and live together as brethren, bearing yourselves toward all around you patiently, forgivingly, generously, hopefully. The gate thus opened is strait, the way is narrow, but it is the only one that leadeth unto life. H. 17–19. There is a wonderful significance in the simple image running through the whole of Scripture, according to which men are compared to trees and their work to fruit—the fruit being the organic product and evidence of the inner life, not something arbitrarily fastened on from without. It is a comparison which helps greatly to set forth the true relation between faith and works, which relation is, in fact, just as plainly declared by our Lord, when he says, “A good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit, neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit,” as by Paul in any of his epistles. There are three kinds of works spoken of in the New Testament, which may all be illustrated from this image: First, good works, when the tree, being made good, bears fruit of the same character; then dead works, such as have a fair outward appearance, but are not the living outgrowth of the renewed man—fruit, as it were, attached and fastened on from without, alms given that they may be gloried in, prayers made that they may be seen, works such as were most of those of the Pharisees; and, lastly, wicked works, when the corrupt tree bears fruit manifestly of its own kind. T. # Section 41.—The Wise and the Foolish Builders. L. 46 AND why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? Not every one M. 21 that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that 22 doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? 23 and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. 24 Therefore, whosoever cometh to me, and heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built an house, and digged deep, and 25 laid the foundation upon a rock. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it; 26 and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, that, without 27 a foundation, built his house upon the sand. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and the stream did beat vehemently upon that house, and it fell; and great was the fall and the ruin of that house. 28 And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished 29 at his doctrine. For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. 1 When he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him. No labored argument, no scheme of doctrines formally propounded, no routine of religious services prescribed. He dealt with the simplest, plainest truths and duties; and did this in the simplest, plainest manner. The thing that struck the listeners most, was the calm, unhesitating, authoritative tone in which the whole was uttered. Here is one who comes forth from none of the great schools—who has sat at the feet of none of the great masters—who uses no book language—who appeals to no authority but his own—a young untaught Nazarene; and yet he takes it upon him to pronounce with the utmost confidence who the truly blessed are, and reckons among these those who were to be persecuted for his sake. Here is one who does not shrink from taking into his hands the law and the prophets, acting not simply as their expositor—the clearer of them from all false traditional interpretations. He is bold enough to say that he came to fulfil them; in one remarkable instance, at least—that of the law which permitted divorce—speaking as the original law-giver was alone entitled to do, declaring that the time for this permission had now ceased, and that henceforth such divorces as Moses had tolerated were not to be allowed. Here is one who speaks of God as one who fully knew and had a right to declare how his children were to act so as to please him; whom he would forgive, whom he would reward, upon whom he would bestow his gifts. Here is one who, though seated on that Galilean mountain, with nothing to distinguish him from the humble fishermen around him, speaks of a day on which he would be seated on the throne of universal judgment. Dimly, indeed, through this Sermon on the Mount does the Jesus of the Cross appear, but the Jesus of the Throne is here. And once that we have learned from other after-teachings of himself and his apostles to know, and love, and trust in him, it will be the habit of every true follower of his to dwell upon this wonderful discourse, in which the very spirit and essence of a humble childlike faith in God, and the lofty ideal of a perfect, a heavenly morality, are unfolded and enforced. H. CHRIST concludes the whole discourse with a contrast between true and false disciples; between those who take care to apply to their life and practice the truths which he had laid down, and those who do not. He thus makes prominent, in the conclusion, the great truth announced in the beginning, and carried through the discourse, viz., that a right disposition of heart is essential in all things. N. 22. In the words, “Many will say to me in that day, Have we not taught in thy name?” etc., our Lord anticipates the time when active zeal for himself will be no guarantee. The prophecy puts before us the fact of a great deal of work being done in the Church, and outwardly good and zealous work, upon the same motive in substance upon which worldly men do their work in the world; and stamps it as the activity of corrupt nature. Religious machinery provides as pleasant a form of activity, and exercises much the same kind of talents and gifts as the machinery of a government office or a large business. The Church is undoubtedly in its design a spiritual society, but it is also a society of this world as well; and it depends upon the inward motive of a man whether it is to him a spiritual society or a worldly one. J. B. M. 23. This “I never knew you” must be accepted according to that deeper meaning of knowing which includes also loving—a knowing which, in its essence, is reciprocal, he only being known who also knows; so that Augustine has all right when he affirms “I never knew you” to be but another way of saying, Ye never knew me. Not to be known of the Lord is never to have known him, and is therefore itself the condemnation. And hereupon follows that terrible sentence of doom, that everlasting separation from the presence of God, wherein everything that is fearful is contained. Augustine often brings out that the terribleness of that “Depart from me” presents itself unto men under very different aspects, as they are or are not the true servants and children of God. And he often presses each man to judge of himself and his state, whether he be a lover of God or only a fearer of hell, by asking himself what is the truly terrible which this “Depart from me” contains for him. T. 24. Built his house. The house which a man builds for himself as a secure abode, as a defence, and protection, against wind and weather, signifies the abiding and standing before the judgment of God, both in time and eternity. Stier.—The rain and the floods.** Their mountain streams are of a peculiar character. These watercourses, called wadies, are in the summer perfectly dry; in the rainy season they are swollen streams. A friend, journeying through Palestine, pitched his tent one fair night in one of these wadies, and was before morning awakened by the sound of water, from which he and his party had barely time to escape with the loss of clothing, books, and instruments. So the trial of the last great day will come, without warning, and overwhelming those whose exterior was fair, but the foundation of whose life was insecure. L. A. 24-27. This similitude must not be pressed to an allegorical or symbolical meaning in its details; but the Rock, as signifying him who spoke this, is of too frequent use in Scripture for us to overlook it here. He founds his house on a rock, who, hearing the words of Christ, brings his heart and life into accordance with his expressed will, and is thus by faith in union with him, founded on him. Whereas he who merely hears his words, but does them not, has never dug down to the rock, nor become united with it, nor has any stability in the hour of trial. A.—The spiritual builder that would translate his foundation from the sand to the rock, must not presume upon Christ as his Saviour, till by obedience to his laws he has owned him for his sovereign. And this is properly to believe in him—this is truly to build upon a rock, even that “rock of ages,” upon which every one that wears the name of Christ must inevitably either build or split. R. S. There is a solemn awfulness in this conclusion, which Augustine bids us specially to note; namely, that by neither the one nor the other of these two classes, not by those who are swept away any more than by those who stand, can the open despisers of the truth be signified. For in each case there is a readiness to hear the word, a certain good-will therefore toward the truth. But this is not enough. In one way only does that which is heard win a stable foundation in the soul, that is, through being turned into action, when the heard is also the done. Christ, as in so many other places of Scripture, is himself the “rock;” that man builds on the rock, who does the things which he hears and learns of Christ. It remains as the only prudent thing—to hear, and what we hear to do; being doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving our own selves. T. 29. One having authority.** Christ’s words have a character essentially simple and practical. His object is to pervade the human soul, to establish himself in it—to save it. He knows human nature in its universality, and what it will be in future generations: his object is to produce upon it an effect at once positive, general, durable. He chooses the ideas, he employs the images suitable to his design for the regeneration and salvation of all. God’s Ambassador is the most penetrating and able of human moralists. F. G. Not as the scribes. The scribes (sopherim) date as a distinct body from the period of Ezra. The name is derived from sepher, or “book,” and means “scripturalists”—those who explained and copied the law. Their functions were to copy, read, amend, explain, and protect the law. It was in the latter capacity that they invented the “fences,” which, under the title of “words of the scribes,” formed the nucleus of the “tradition of the elders,” or oral law. The teaching of the scribes was narrow, dogmatic, material; it was cold in manner, frivolous in matter, second-hand, and iterative in its very essence; with no freshness in it, no force, no fire; at once erudite and foolish, never passing a hair's-breadth beyond the boundary line of commentary and precedent; concerned only about priests and Pharisees, in temple and synagogue, or school, or Sanhedrim, and mostly occupied with things infinitely little. This testimony of his enemies furnishes us with a convincing proof that his teaching was not, as some would insinuate, borrowed from the various sects and teachers of his times. It is certain that he was never enrolled among the scholars of those scribes who made it their main business to teach the traditions of the fathers. And from whom could Jesus have borrowed? From the Pharisees? The very foundations of their system, the very idea of their religion, was irreconcilably alien from all that he revealed. From the Sadducees? Their "expediency" politics, their shallow rationalism, were even more repugnant to true Christianity than they were to sincere Judaism. From the Essenes? They were an exclusive, ascetic, and isolated community, with whose discouragement of marriage, and withdrawal from action, the gospels have no sympathy, and to whom our Lord never alluded, unless it be in those passages where he reprobates those who abstain from anointing themselves when they fast, and who hide their candle under a bushel. The schools in which Jesus learnt were not the schools of the scribes, but the school of holy obedience, of sweet contentment, of unalloyed simplicity, of stainless purity, of cheerful toil. The lore in which he studied was not the lore of rabbinism, in which to find one just or noble thought we must wade through masses of puerile fancy and cabalistic folly, but the books of God without him, in Scripture, in nature, and in life; and the book of God within him. F. THE Sermon on the Mount is to the new covenant what the law given from Sinai was to the old; and, to exhibit the unity of the covenants, its precepts are based upon the ten commandments, unfolded in all their spiritual breadth, cleared of all the human interpretations by which their spirit had been bound down or frittered away, and expanded into the new law of love. The key-note to this, the main body of the discourse, is struck by the words: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets; I am not come to destroy but to fulfil;" and, "Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." The principle of all Christian goodness, and especially of all Christian love, is laid in restoration to the image of God himself: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect;" "Be ye merciful, as your Father also is merciful." And its practical climax is attained in the Christian law of brotherly kindness and charity: "As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise." To these precepts there is a preface and a conclusion. The former insists on the spirit and conditions of entrance into the kingdom of heaven, by repentance, humility, faith in him and endurance for his sake. But these conditions, unlike the curses of the law, are pronounced as blessings and sustained by promises. In the conclusion, the principle of judgment is brought in, to enforce all that has been said: character is brought to the test of deeds, not words; and a final note of warning and promise, equally mingled, assures the hearers that as they sow, so shall they reap; everlasting life from living faith in Christ, destruction from pursuing their self-will. S. ## Section 42.—Heals the Centurion's Servant. Capernaum. L. 1 Now when he had ended all his sayings in the audience of the people, he entered into Capernaum. 2 And a certain centurion's servant, who was dear unto him, was sick of the palsy, and 3 ready to die. And when he heard of Jesus, he sent unto him the elders of the Jews, 4 beseeching him that he would come and heal his servant. And when they came to Jesus, they besought him instantly, saying, That he was worthy for whom he should do 5, 6 this. For he loveth our nation, and he hath built us a synagogue. Then Jesus went with them. And when he was now not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to him, saying unto him, Lord, trouble not thyself. M. 5, 6 Then came unto him the centurion, beseeching him and saying, Lord, my servant 7 lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. And Jesus saith unto him, I will 8 come and heal him. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof. Wherefore neither thought I myself worthy to come 9 unto thee: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. For I also am a man set under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say unto this one, Go, and he goeth: and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. 10 When Jesus heard these things, he marvelled at him, and turned him about, and said unto the people that followed him, Verily, I say unto you, I have not found so great 11 faith, no, not in Israel. And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. 12 But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into utter darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 13 And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way, and as thou hast believed, so be it L. 10 done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the self-same hour. And they that were sent, returning to the house, found the servant whole that had been sick. THERE is here no analysis of faith, and no definition of it. It seems to be assumed by Christ and his evangelists that all would understand what faith is. The thing is enacted, not described. Men do in regard to Christ almost everything in the range of possibility: philosophize about him, study about him, reason about him, everything save trusting in him. Trusting, I mean, after the simple method which impelled this centurion to implore his help. Trust is at once the most active and the most quiet of all qualities. What the centurion had not, we have: the positive assurance and promise of the Redeemer. This has been verified by ages of human experience. Every man who has died in peace, looking unto Jesus, is an irrefutable argument for the wisdom of faith. The simpler our trust in Christ for all things, the surer is our peace. W. A. 1. The inauguration of the great doctrine was immediately followed and ratified by mighty signs. Jesus went, says one of the Fathers, from teaching to miracle. Having taught as one who had authority, he proceeded to confirm that authority by accordant deeds. F. 2. Centurion. All Palestine was under Roman military government; this centurion was probably connected with the garrison at Capernaum. The Roman army was divided into legions, varying in size from three thousand to six thousand men. There were in each legion sixty centuries, each under the command of a centurion. L. A.—He was one among the many who are distinguished from the seed of Abraham, yet described as fearing God, or worshipping God, of whom we read so often in the Acts—the proselytes, whom the providence of God had so wonderfully prepared in all the great cities of the Greek and Roman world as a link of communication between Gentile and Jew, in contact with both—holding to the first by their race, and to the last by their religion; and who must have greatly helped to the ultimate fusion of both into one Christian Church. T. M. 5. Before the centurion's friends can deliver this message to the Lord, who was approaching nearer and nearer to the house, the centurion himself hastens from the house to be the bearer of his own petition. The report of Matthew commences where that of Luke ceases. C. B.—It may be considered probable that the first evangelist abridges the tale by the omission of incidents that were familiar to him. But the suggestion must occur to the historical student that possibly two separate traditions, differing from one another in the circumstance of the deputation of the elders, appear in the two narratives. G. P. F. 8,9. The centurion's humility was not more low than his faith was lofty: that reaches up into heaven; and, in the face of human weakness, deseries Omnipotence: "Only say the word, and my servant shall be whole." Bp. H.—"I am," he would say, "one occupying only a subordinate place, set under authority, a subaltern, with commanders over me. Yet those that are under me obey me. I have power to send them hither and thither, and they go at my bidding. How much more thou, who art not set, as I am, in a subordinate place, but who art as a prince over the host of heaven, who wilt have angels and spirits to obey thy word and run swiftly at thy command! His view of Christ's relation to the spiritual kingdom is as original as it is grand; and it is so truly that of the Roman officer: the Lord appears to him as the true Imperator, the highest over the hierarchy, not of earth, but of heaven. T.—He begins with acknowledging his own subjection, and states his own authority; then leaves it to our Lord to understand that he recognizes in him an authority beyond all, expecting the powers of nature to obey their Master, just as his soldiers or his servants obey him. How grandly he must have believed in him! And it is to be well heeded that the Lord went no farther—turned at once. McD. 10. Marvelled.** He did this but at two things—faith and unbelief. B.—Midway between the Gentile and the Jew stood the woman of Samaria; outside the bounds of Judaism stood this Roman centurion. Was it to prefigure the great future of the gathering in of all people and tongues that so early in his ministry such a manifestation of faith in the Saviour was made? H. 13. Counting himself unworthy that Christ should enter into his doors, he was counted worthy that Christ should enter into his heart—a far better boon: for Christ sat down in the houses of men, as of that proud, self-righteous Pharisee, whose hearts were not for this the less empty of his presence. But this centurion received him in his heart, whom he did not receive in his house. T.—The centurion's faith came out strongly in every point where that of the nobleman (Section 24) had been deficient. The mind of this semi-heathen—free from the cloud of notions respecting the nature of the Messiah's kingdom which obscured the Jewish mind—had been enabled to realize a clear conception of his own lowliness and of the loftiness of the One to whom he spoke—a state of heart in all ages essential for true access to him. K. ## Section 43.—The Widow's Son raised to Life. Messengers from John. Mk.21 And they went into Capernaum; and straightway on the sabbath-day he entered 22 into the synagogue, and taught. And they were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one that had authority, and not as the scribes; and his word was with power.L. 33 And in the synagogue there was a man, which had a spirit of an unclean devil, and 34 cried out with a loud voice, saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art; the Holy One 35 of God. And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him. And when the unclean spirit had torn him, and thrown him in the midst, and cried with a Mk.27 loud voice, he came out of him, and hurt him not. And they were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying, What thing, what a word is this? What new doctrine is this? for with authority and power he commandeth even the 28 unclean spirits, and they do obey him, and come out. And immediately his fame spread abroad throughout all the region, into every place of the country round about Galilee.29 And forthwith when they were come out of the synagogue, they entered into the 30 house of Simon Peter and Andrew, with James and John. And Simon's wife's mother lay sick of a great fever: and anon they tell him of her, and besought him for her. 31 And he came, and stood over her, and rebuked the fever; and took her by the hand, and lifted her up. And immediately the fever left her; and she arose, and ministered unto them.32 And at even, when the sun did set, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him; and they brought unto him many that were possessed with 33, 34 devils. And all the city was gathered together at the door. And, cast out with his word, devils also came out of many, crying out, and saying, Thou art Christ the Son of God. And he rebuking them suffered not the devils to speak, because they knew him, that he was Christ. And he laid his hands on every one of them that were sick of M. 17 divers diseases, and healed them: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses. Nor this day only but every day of his earthly life was a coming under, upon his part, of the evils which he removed from others. For that which is the law of all true helping, namely, that the burden which you would lift you must yourself stoop to and come under, the grief which you would console you must yourself feel with—a law which we witness to as often as we use the words "sympathy" and "compassion"—was, of course, eminently true in him upon whom the help of all was laid. Not in this single aspect of his life, namely, that he was a healer of sicknesses, were these words of the prophet fulfilled, but rather in the life itself, which brought him in contact with these sicknesses and these discords of man's inner being, every one of which as a real consequence of sin, and as being at every moment contemplated by him as such, did press with a living pang into the holy soul of the Lord. Not so much the healing of these sicknesses was Christ's bearing of them; but his burden was that there were these sicknesses to heal. He "bore" them inasmuch as he bore the mortal suffering life, in which alone he could bring them to an end, and at length swallow up death in victory. T. Mk. 22. As one that had authority. Christ spoke as one who claimed to be, who was himself, a sufficient authority for all he uttered; by no means bound to appeal to law or testimony, although he often did so to silence gainsayers or to convince doubters. He spoke as one who was himself a law-giver, superior to Moses, entirely competent by his own authority to abrogate any old law, and to establish any new one. Others said—others say, Believe this, for it is written there. But he always says, "Verily, verily, I say unto you." Believe this, because I say it. K.—Not as the scribes. As the successors of Ezra (7 : 6), the scribes were the conservators and guardians of the sacred text and canon, which implies a critical acquaintance with them, such as qualified the scribes above all others to be expounders of the Scripture. Christ taught not as a mere expounder, but with the original authority belonging to the author of the law expounded. Even those who were most accustomed and most submissive to the teachings of the scribes, must have felt, when Jesus spoke, that he was speaking with authority, declaring his own will and expounding his own law, not that of another. J. A. A. (Read Section 180.) Jesus at once assumed a superiority not merely over these teachers of the law, this acknowledged religious aristocracy, whose reputation, interests, and pride were pledged to the maintenance of the existing system—but he set himself above those inspired teachers of whom the rabbis were but interpreters. He superseded at once by his simple word all that these rabbis had painfully learned and regularly taught as the eternal irrepealable word of God, perfect, complete, enduring no addition. H. M.—The synagogue sermons of the rabbis, as we see in the book of Jubilees, were a tiresome iteration of the minutest rabbinical rules, with a serious importance which regarded them as the basis of all moral order. The kind and quality of wood for the altar; the infinite details of the law of tithes; the moral deadliness of the use of blood; or the indispensableness of circumcision on the eighth day, were urged with passionate zeal as momentous and fundamental truths. The morality and religion of the age had sunk thus low; and hence the fervid words of Jesus, stirring the depths of the heart, created profound excitement in Capernaum. Men were amazed at the phenomenon of novelty, in a religious sphere so unchangeably conservative as that of the synagogue. "New teaching," said one to the other, "and with authority—not like other rabbis." But if they were astonished at his teaching, they were still more so at the power which he revealed in connection with it. G. L. 33-35. The N. T., and especially the Evangelists, repeatedly mention individuals whom they describe as possessed by devils. The possession was often accompanied by physical disease—blindness, dumbness, epilepsy. The Evangelists unquestionably believed and intended to be understood as asserting that the persons described as possessed with evil or unclean spirits were really under the control of disembodied spirits, agents of Satan. They are frequently distinguished from those afflicted with mere physical disorders; the demons are distinguished from the persons whom they control, and are represented as recognizing in Jesus the Son of God, a title not given to him even by his disciples until toward the close of his ministry. No honest interpreter can doubt that the Evangelists shared the common opinion of their day, and intended to be understood as asserting that these individuals were under the control of evil spirits, and that Christ literally emancipated them from this diabolical servitude, and cast the evil spirits out. L. A.—The two Greek words daimon and daimonion—whence our word "demon"—are synonymous; and are the words almost always employed to represent the agents—real or imaginary—in the afflictions we are considering. These words, in the gospels, are uniformly translated "devil" in our version. Wrongly, however; for the representation of the Bible is that there is but one devil—for which the Greek had a different word, diabolos—while demons are represented as being innumerable. By the word "demon" was meant an immaterial, intelligent being. S. Hopkins.—The demoniac stood in a totally different position from the abandoned wicked man, who morally is given over to the devil. This latter would be a subject for punishment; but the demoniac for deepest compassion. There appeared to have been in him a double will and a double consciousness—sometimes the cruel spirit thinking and speaking in him, sometimes his poor crushed self crying out to the Saviour of men for mercy. A. Mk. 27. This miracle—the first of the kind—struck the people with amazement; and they rightly recognized miracles as evidence of Christ's doctrine and mission. K.—34. Suffered not the devils to speak, because they knew him. Earth has not recognized her king; but heaven and hell alike bear witness unto him. T.—The fact that these persons, all of them and at first sight, recognized our Saviour in his superhuman character and divine office (and this in advance of the popular voice, and even against it), cannot be accounted for, except on the supposition that these men—these demoniacs—were under some intelligent impulse, foreign to themselves, which controlled their minds and shaped their utterance. S. Hopkins.—Our Lord himself everywhere speaks of demoniacs not as persons merely of disordered intellects, but as subjects and thralls of an alien spiritual might; he addresses the evil spirit as distinct from the man. T.—Our Lord's promptitude in silencing this testimony would seem to suggest that he saw it was intended for mischief, and could in the end accomplish nothing else. From such a source it was likely to injure the estimation of him in whose behalf it was borne; for the truth itself might come into discredit when the "father of lies" bore witness to it. K. (On demoniacs, read also notes in Sections 59 and 77.) 31. And she arose.** She rises, as if no disease had ever weakened her, with glad and grateful spirit to wait upon Jesus and the rest. And so within that home kindly hands were provided, like those of Martha at Bethany, to minister to the Saviour's wants during the busiest, most toilsome period of his life, when, in season and out of season, early in the morning and far on often in the night, he came and went, living longer under that roof of Peter's house at Capernaum than under any other that sheltered him after his public ministry had begun. H. 32. Hushing by his voice the delirium of madness, and touching disease into health again by laying on each unhappy and tortured sufferer his pure and gentle hands, moved, in his love and tenderness, the young prophet of Nazareth, the Christ, the Saviour of the world. F. 34. No doubt was entertained by the devils who came "out of many, crying out, and saying, Thou art Christ the Son of God." The testimony so given was not welcomed by Christ. It came unsuitably from a quarter whence no witness was wished for, as it came unseasonably, when premature revelations of his true character were not desired. But, though refused thus by our Lord, its first wild, impatient utterances, all that it was permitted to give forth, this voice is most striking to us now as a testimony from the demon-world. Accepting, with whatever mystery the whole subject of demoniae possession is clothed, the simple account of the Evangelists, it does appear most wonderful—the quick intelligence, the wild alarm, the terror-striking faith that then pervaded the demon-world, as if all the spirits of hell who had been suffered to make human bodies their habitation, grew pale at the very presence of Jesus, and could not but cry out in the extremity of their despair. 32-34. All the city had gathered together at the door of Peter's house. The sun goes down, and Jesus steps out into that bustling, anxious crowd; he lays his hand on every one of the diseased and heals them, and casts out all the spirits with his word. The stars would be shining brightly in the heavens ere the busy blessed work was done, and within a few hours a city which numbered many thousand inhabitants saw disease of every kind banished from its borders. H.—The memorable Sabbath, the events of which are thus circumstantially recorded, may show us how he fulfilled his own great saying concerning doing good on the Sabbath-days: "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." S.—What an insight does the account of this day, so marked by deeds of love and mercy, give us into the nature of our Lord's ministry in Galilee! What holy activities, what ceaseless acts of mercies! Such a picture does it give us of their actual nature and amount, that we may well conceive that the single day, with all its quickly-succeeding events, has been thus minutely portrayed to show us what our Redeemer's ministerial life really was. E. M. 17. In all the afflictions which met his eye, "he was afflicted." And when, from the day of his baptism to the night at Gethsemane, he was going from village to village thronged by moaning sufferers and by parents stricken through their children, he comprehended perfectly, as no man ever did, the suffering of each; adopted and realized in his own self each quivering agony; "took their infirmities, bare their sicknesses." Even on the way to Calvary, and upon the cross, "bearing our griefs and carrying our sorrows" to the last! S. Hopkins. # Section 28.—First Journey through Galilee. Heals a Leper. M. 18 And the same day when the even was come, when Jesus saw great multitudes about him, he gave commandment to depart; and saith unto them, Let us pass over unto the other side of the lake. 19 And it came to pass, that as they went in the way, a certain scribe came and said 20 unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath 21 not where to lay his head. And he said unto another of his disciples, Follow me. But 22 he said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. But Jesus said unto him, Follow me. Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of L. 61 God. And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them 62 farewell, which are at home at my house. And Jesus said unto him, No man having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God. Mk. 36 And when they had sent away the multitude, they took him even as he was in the ship. And when he was entered, his disciples followed him. And there were also with him other little ships. And they launched forth. But as they sailed he fell asleep. 37 And behold, there came down a great storm of wind, and there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves; and the waves beat into 38 the ship so that it was now full, and they were in jeopardy. And he was in the hinder part of the ship asleep on a pillow; and his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Master, Master, we perish! carest thou not that we perish? Lord, save us; we perish! And he saith unto them, Why are ye so fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds, and the raging of the water, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. And he said unto them, Where is your faith? How is it that ye have no faith? But the men feared exceedingly, and marvelled, and said one to another, What manner of man is this? for he commandeth even the winds and water, and the winds and the sea obey him. JESUS lying this moment under the weakness of exhausted strength, rising the next in the might of manifested omnipotence: in close proximity, in quick succession, the humanity and the divinity that were in him exhibited themselves. Though suddenly roused to see himself in a position of great peril, Jesus has no fear. His first thought is not of the danger, his first word is not to the tempest, his first care is not for the safety of the body, it is for the state of the spirit of those who wake him from his slumbers; nor is it until he has rebuked their fears that he removes the cause; but then he does so, and does it effectually, by the word of his power. And so long as the life we are living shall be thought and spoken of as a voyage, so long shall this night-scene on the Lake of Galilee supply the imagery by which many a passage in the history of the Church, and many in the history of the individual believer, shall be illustrated. Sleeping or waking, let Christ be in the vessel and it is safe. The tempest may come, our faith be small, our fear be great, but still if in our fear we have so much faith as to cry to him to save us, still in the hour of our greatest need will he arise to our help, and though he may have to blame us for not cherishing a livelier trust, he will not suffer the winds or the waves to overwhelm us. H. M. 19. One, himself a rabbi, offered to follow him as his scholar. He returned an answer which should test the applicant's motives to the utmost. It might have seemed of moment to secure the support of a rabbi, but Jesus had seen the worldly bent of his thoughts, and thus turned him aside, by blasting any hopes of advantage or honor in joining him. G. 20. The Son of man.** J. 12 : 34 shows that the Jews understood it to mean the Messiah, and L. 22 : 69, 70, that they considered the Son of man to mean the same as the Son of God. Burton.—It is the name by which the Lord ordinarily designates himself as the Messiah—the Son of God manifested in the flesh of Adam—the second Adam. And to it belong all those conditions of humiliation, suffering, and exaltation, which it behooved the Son of man to go through. A. 21,22. To bury my father. Under other circumstances Christ would not have hindered the indulgence of such a filial love; but he made use of this case to show, by a striking example, that those who sought to follow him must deny natural feelings that were otherwise entirely sacred, when the interests of the kingdom of God required it. "Let those who are themselves dead, who know nothing of the higher interests of the kingdom of God, or the divine life, attend to the lifeless clay. But thou, upon whom the divine life, which conquers all death, is opened, thou must devote thyself wholly to propagate it by preaching the gospel." N.—L. 62.** As ploughing requires an eye intent on the furrow to be made, and is marred the instant one turns about, so will they come short of salvation who prosecute the work of God with a distracted attention, a divided heart. B.—This reply of Christ was not meant merely and only to repel; but rather to throw back this candidate for discipleship on deeper heart-searchings. T.—We must bid all things stand aside that would impede us when we are in pursuit of so great a good; the love of which will soon reconcile us to the hardest duties and endear to us the most self-denying courses. It will alter the countenance of suffering and make all the troubles of this life cast a kinder aspect on us. Nay, it will enable us to look death in the face with a cheerful heart; for it will present it to us in another shape, and make the grave, that house of darkness, seem like the Beautiful Gate of the Temple of God. Patrick. Mk. 37. Came down. The expressions used by the Evangelists all imply the extreme fury of the hurricane. The heated tropical air of the Sea of Galilee, 600 feet beneath the level of the Mediterranean, is suddenly filled by the cold winds sweeping down the snowy ranges of Lebanon and Hermon through the ravines of the Perean hills. F.—This torrent of heavy cold air was pouring over the mountain-crests into the deep caldron of the lake below, a headlong flood of wind, like a waterfall into the hollow. The peculiar effects of squalls among mountains are known to all who have boated much on lakes, but on the Sea of Galilee the wind has a singular force and suddenness; and this is, no doubt, because the sea is so deep below the earth's surface that the sun rarefies the air in it enormously, and the wind gathers much force as it sweeps through flat deserts, until suddenly it meets this huge gap in the way, and it tumbles down here irresistible. J. M.—The whole lake, as we had it, was lashed into fury; the waves repeatedly rolled up to our tent-door, tumbling over the ropes with such violence as to carry away the tent-pins. And, moreover, those winds are not only violent, but they come down suddenly, and often when the sky is perfectly clear. Some such sudden wind it was, I suppose, that filled the ship with waves "so that it was now full." Small as the lake is, and placid, in general, as a molten mirror, I have repeatedly seen it quiver, and leap, and boil like a caldron, when driven by fierce winds from the eastern mountains, and the waves ran high—high enough to fill or "cover" the ships, as Matthew has it. In the midst of such a gale "calmly slept the Son of God," in the hinder part of the ship, until awakened by the terrified disciples. W. M. T. 38. On a pillow.** A part of the boat was used for the boatman's lying or sitting on, and was provided with a leather cushion. Meyer.—Evidently a regular part of the boat's equipment, from the use of the definite article, "the pillow." The stern in ancient ships was much higher than the prow, and this form continued even to the last century in England, while it is still the fashion in Egypt. It was on this account that they could anchor from the stern (as in the case of Paul's shipwreck), and the high stern made a safe and sloping place, where our Saviour slept in the storm. J. M. Master, carest thou—Master, we perish—Lord, save. These variations indicate the different characters of the men who were with Christ in the vessel, and make our conception of the scene at once more graphic and complete. Instead of urging them as an argument against the veracity or accuracy of the Evangelists, we ought rather to find new proofs of their honesty, and the transparent fidelity of these reports. And, after all, however various the words the apostles heard, or thought they heard, they all learned the great lesson of the Master's rebuke. The gist and substance of the rebuke was, that if they had had faith, or faith enough, they would not have feared. The common lesson is, that faith is the conquering opposite of fear. S. Coz. O ye of little faith. Faith they had, for they applied to Christ for relief; but little, for they were afraid, though Christ was in the ship. Faith dispels fear, but in proportion to its strength. B.—Jesus awakes, and the only thing that he beholds is the unbelief of his disciples; his ear tells him not of the fury and rack of the elements, but of the guilty fears of his Galilean friends. And his first reproof is for them. He lets the storm rage on unrebuked, until he has rebuked the agitation of their souls. And now they perceive that a most precious opportunity of signalizing their faith in Christ had been given, and given in vain. The elements had been let loose that their faith might gain a victory, and go on to perfection. The progress of ordinary months might have been made in an hour, had they been watchful. When will they understand that this matter of the education of faith is the most important thing going on under the sun? The school of faith is a school in which we are advancing, lesson by lesson, to a condition where the glory of God shall be perpetually revealed to the soul. G. B. 39. Peace, be still!** The quiet, simple recital of the Evangelists more effectually realizes this sublime transaction than any garniture of words could do. Nothing comes near it but that one other instance which the commencement of the sacred volume supplies—"And he said, Light be—and light was." And he who now rebukes the wind, is he "by whom also God made the worlds"—he, "without whom was nothing made that was made." K.—When he comes down as the Incarnate One, to be man with us, tired and spent as we by life's toils, when he lies so humbly down that even the waters of a lake some hundreds of feet below sea level dash over him, and there sleeps, our feeling is in a strange maze of tenderness. Our God is so nigh, our glorious tent-mate in a guise so gentle, that we come to look upon him in his divine sleep, more tenderly than we could even in the waking mercies and charities of his life. The very heaven of sky and stars that cells the august chamber of his sleep, is more sanctified from underneath, than, before, it was from above. The world is another world—we are other ourselves. H. B. 41. We see here one of the moral purposes to which, in the providence of God, who ordered all things for the glory of his Son, this miracle should serve. It should lead his disciples into thoughts ever higher and more awful of that Lord whom they followed, and should more and more bring them to feel that in nearness to him was safety and deliverance from every danger. The danger which exercised, should strengthen their faith—who indeed had need of a mighty faith, since God, in Chrysostom's words, had chosen them to be the athletes of the universe. T.—The miracles of Jesus, as attestations that the elements of nature were plastic in his hands, are really a new key to the grandest scientific principle in the universe—which is that God lives and moves and acts in all of nature, every instant, and that the whole creation is formed and guided in the interest of the spiritual man, i. e., of the kingdom of heaven on the earth. This world is a place for the training of souls in a Christian immortality. All its laws are yet to serve that end. Its evils, sufferings, disorders; its blights and tempests and agonies, are somehow in it—we know not how, and shall not know at present, because it is the residence of a wrong-choosing, falling, and sinning race. Everything material, visible and tangible, answers to something, expresses something, symbolizes something, in the soul and its spiritual life, as it is hereafter to be developed. Hence Christ must be Lord of life and death, of seas and storms, of diseases and demons, of every mystery and might and secret of created things. “The winds and the sea obey him.” The whole creation, now groaning and travailing in pain together, waits for the redemption, the manifestation of the sons of God. F. D. H.—This sensible miracle was an image of that higher spiritual one which Christ works in all ages, in speaking peace to the soul amid all the tempests of life, and in bringing to obedience all the raging powers that oppose the progress of his kingdom. N.—By this you may know you dwell in Christ, if, when the tempest come, you are ready to run under his wing, and think of no shelter, no protection, but his. Talk what we will of faith, if we do not trust and rely on him, we do not believe in him. Farindon. To set them thinking of him, to give them truer thoughts of the Rabbi whom they loved but did not understand, to teach them that he was Lord of all, and to win them to a deeper trust in him, this was what the storm came for, and was hushed for. And this is what our disasters and happy fortunes come for, our tempests and our calms, our perils and deliverances. They come to set us thinking of him whom, in the quiet every-day course of our life, we are too apt to forget. They come to teach us that he is always with us, ordering all things according to the good pleasure of his will, and to constrain us to trust in him instead of in ourselves, by making us feel how utterly we are in his hands. Danger is not dangerous, nor death dreadful, if Christ be with us and we have faith in him. S. Cox. ## Section 59.—The Demoniac of Gergesa or Gadara. East Side of the Lake. Mk. 1 AND they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gada- 2 renes, or Gergesenes, which is over against Galilee. And when he went forth out of the ship to land, there met him, out of the city, two possessed with devils coming out of the tombs, exceeding fierce so that no man might pass by that way: [one] a man with an 3 unclean spirit which had devils long time, who had his dwelling among the tombs; and 4 no man could bind him, no, not with chains. Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains; and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fet- 5 ters broken in pieces; neither could any man tame him. And he ware no clothes, neither abode in any house; but driven of the devil into the wilderness, always night and day he was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones. 6 But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran; and fell down before him, and worshipped 7 him, and cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? art thou come hither to torment us before the time? I 8 beseech thee, I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not. For he had said unto 9 him, Thou unclean spirit, come out of the man! And Jesus asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion, for we are many: because many 10 devils were entered into him. And they besought him much, that he would not send them away out of the country, that he would not command them to go out into the deep. 11. Now there was there, a good way off from them, nigh unto the mountains, a great 12 herd of swine feeding. And all the devils besought him, saying, If thou cast us out, 13 suffer us to go away into the herd of swine, that we may enter into them. And forth- with Jesus gave them leave, and said unto them, Go. And the unclean spirits went out of the man, and entered into the swine. And behold, the whole herd of swine ran vio- lently down a steep place into the sea (they were about two thousand), and were choked, and perished in the waters. 14 And when they that fed the swine saw what was done, they fled, and went their ways and told everything in the city and in the country, and what was befallen to the possessed of the devils. And behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus, and to see 15 what it was that was done. And they came to Jesus, and found the man out of whom the devils were departed; and saw him that had the legion, sitting at the feet of Jesus, 16 clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid. And they that saw it told them by what means he that was possessed of the devils was healed, and also concerning 17 the swine. Then the whole multitude of the country of the Gadarenes round about besought him to depart from them out of their coasts; for they were taken with a great fear. 18 And when he was come into the ship, the man out of whom the devils were de- 19 parted besought him that he might be with him. Howbeit, Jesus suffered him not, but sent him away, saying, Return to thine own house, and to thy friends, and tell them how great things God hath done for thee, and how the Lord hath had compassion 20 on thee. And he departed, and went his way, and began to publish throughout the whole city, and in Decapolis, how great things Jesus had done for him; and all men did marvel. 21 And he entered into a ship, and when he was passed over again unto the other side, much people gathered unto him, and gladly received him, for they were all waiting for him; and he was nigh unto the sea. And he came into his own city. THROUGH his life, he not only affirmed but demonstrated his love; a friend to the afflicted and broken- hearted, to the publican, to the sinner; "tasting death for every man," "the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God." Plenitude, perfectness of love! Adapting himself to our capacities, he gave practical illustrations of his power: of his power over nature—stilling the tempest, walking on the sea, blighting the fig-tree; over providence—supplying abundance for thousands from a handful of food, bringing tribute-money from the sea and a wondrous draught to toil-worn fishermen; over men and women—winning them by his love, confounding them by his wisdom, awing and baffling them by his majesty; over diseases—removing them by a word; over death and the grave—raising the dead, laying down his own life and taking it again. But, when we see Jesus truly, literally, "casting out demons by a word," effecting deliverance to their captives; when we find these evil spirits not only obedient to his will, but trembling at his presence; when we find their wretched victims made the Lord's freedmen, following him and ministering to him with grateful devotion; when we find the maniac of yesterday sitting at the feet of Jesus to-day, clothed and in his right mind: the evidence of Christ's sufficiency is complete! All things in his hand! Lord over nature, providence, death, the grave, the world of spirits! He who can provide for the body and protect it, he who can cause it to sleep in the dust and raise it again, can protect the soul also, even from its most subtle adversaries; can comfort it, train it, perfect it, and save it! This, and the plenitude of his love, are enough! In this faith we can rest; in this, find perfect repose. To this faith he solicits us, encour- ages us, in each recorded act of his supremacy over unclean spirits. The Seed of the woman bruising the serpent's head! To such a Saviour, and only to such, we can each trustfully and safely appeal, like Stephen, "full of the Holy Ghost," "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." S. Hopkins. PECULIAR outbreaks of hostile passion from the kingdom of darkness, against the kingdom of light and peace, attended the appearance of the Lord on the earth; as if the forces that wrought to resist him had been held in reserve for that critical hour, to be then precipitated, in fiercest assault of infernal phalanx, on the field of his divine operations. The very sky of Palestine looks lurid, its sod seems teeming, with malign shapes and glancing figures swift for evil, as we revert to the years when he walked there. R. S. S.—If there was anything that marked the period of the Lord's coming in the flesh, it was the wreck and confusion of men's spiritual life which was then, the sense of utter disharmony, the hopelessness, the despair which must have beset every man that thought at all—this, with the tendency to rush with frantic eagerness into sensual enjoyments as the refuge from despairing thoughts. That whole period was the hour and power of darkness—of a darkness which then, immediately before the dawn of a new day, was the thickest. It was exactly the crisis for such soul maladies as these, in which the spiritual and bodily should be thus strangely interlinked, and it is nothing wonderful that they should have abounded at that time. T. This passage in our Saviour's life abounds in striking contrasts. Reckless frenzy, abject terror, profound attention, devoted attachment, rapidly succeed each other in him who, brought into closest union with the highest and the lowest of the powers of the spiritual world, presents to us a condensed epitome of the great conflict between good and evil—between Christ and Satan—in the domain of the human spirit. Undoubtedly it stands the most remarkable instance of dispossession in the gospel narrative, revealing to us at once the depth of that degradation to which our poor humanity may sink, and the height of that elevation to which, through the power and infinite compassion of the Saviour, it may be raised. Was it for the purpose of teaching us more manifestly that Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil, that in that age of his appearance devils were permitted to exercise such strange dominion over men? Was it to bring into visible and personal collision the heads of the two opposite spiritual communities—the Prince of Light and the prince of darkness—and to make more visible to all men the supremacy of the one over the other? H. We greatly err if we conceive of the demoniacs as the worst of men, and their possession as the penalty of a wickedness in which they had eminently surpassed their fellows. On the contrary, the most eminent representatives and organs of Satan, false prophets and antichrists, are never spoken of in this language. We all feel that Judas's possession, when Satan entered into him, was specifically different from that of one of the unhappy persons whom Christ came to deliver. T. By persons represented as demonized, were meant those who were supposed to be in some way under the control or mastery of evil spirits. The same thing is meant by the phrases, "hath a demon," "is vexed with a demon," "hath an unclean spirit." The writers of our Saviour's memoirs uniformly represent that this was the case, and that to this demoniacal presence and power were to be attributed the exasperation and continuance—if not the origin—in certain individuals, of bodily and mental maladies. However demonized persons may have been afflicted with bodily diseases or infirmities, the mere presence of these did not constitute them demoniacs; their being demonized was something superadded to their being sick, or in any particular impotent. The bodily affliction and the demoniacal were not the same. Though the former may have been caused by the latter, still they were not the same. In other words, all demoniacs were persons afflicted in some other way or ways than by natural bodily disease or infirmities. Such is the plain import of the language employed. Persons called demonized recognized Jesus as the Messiah of God. We find them all agreed in acknowledging Jesus as the holy anointed of God; we find them agreed in advance of the popular voice; we find them thus agreed, although the popular voice, from which some of them might have received their impressions, was the other way. These men must have made their remarkable confessions by a preternatural influence common to them all; under some intelligent impulse, foreign to themselves, which controlled their minds and shaped their utterance. But two other cases are on record of persons who, at first sight and with no other natural means of information, recognized the Messiah in Jesus; and they were clearly indebted to preternatural aid—Simeon, and Anna the prophetess. Even John the Baptist, his kinsman and forerunner, did not know him to be the Messiah otherwise. By preternatural means, we designate an agency out of the range of the natural senses; an immaterial, or spirit agency. In this case the agency must have been that of evil spirits; for their character is shown by the wretched condition of their victims. Our Saviour taught by his words and by his deeds that evil spirits did torment men by holding their bodies in subjection to infirmity and disease; by holding their minds in subjection to the most cruel of sufferings. He plainly and repeatedly sanctioned the popular belief. Upon the minds of ear-witnesses and eye-witnesses, he left the impression, and meant to leave it, that the doctrine was true. S. Hopkins. (Compare Sections 27 and 77.) 1. The names of Gergesa and Gadara do not occur in the New Testament, but we have “Gergesenes” and “Gadarenes,” which imply that there existed in Christ’s time two cities or countries named respectively Gergesa and Gadara. S. M.—Gadara was a famous fortified city on the east of the Jordan, on the steep edge of the valley of the Jarmuk. It was one of the cities of the Decapolis (League of ten cities), and was about eight miles southeast from Tiberias, across the lake. It was reckoned the capital of Perea, and had coins of its own. The great roads from Tiberias and Scythopolis passed through it to the interior of Perea and to Damascus. G.—The region to the south and to the north of the city would bear in popular language the name of the city itself; and the most natural thing in the world would be for one to speak of the region “over against Galilee,” which might embrace the whole district east of the Lake of Tiberias, as “the country of the Gadarenes.” But there could also be local names which would be just as appropriate as this. Hence, when Matthew, referring to the same event, speaks of Christ’s crossing “to the other side into the country of the Gergesenes,” he is also literally correct. The phrase, “the country of the Gergesenes,” points out, in the unobtrusive minuteness peculiar to inspiration, the particular portion of the “country of the Gadarenes” to which our Saviour went. Directly opposite Tiberias, there is a large valley through which flows a copious stream of water. After leaving the hills and before reaching the lake, it crosses a plain of considerable breadth, on which, just south of the stream, and stretching from the lake back for some distance toward the hills, are ruins called Kersa, or “Gersa.” S. M.—In this Gersa or Chersa we have a position which fulfils every requirement of the narratives, and with a name so near that in Matthew as to be in itself a strong corroboration of the truth of this identification. It is within a few rods of the shore, and an immense mountain rises directly above it in which are ancient tombs, out of some of which the two men possessed of the devils may have issued to meet Jesus. The lake is so near the base of the mountain that the swine, rushing madly down it, could not stop, but would be hurried on into the water and drowned. W. M. T. 2. Of the current explanations of the seeming difficulty that Matthew names two, and the other Evangelists one demoniac, that of Chrysostom and Augustine seems most satisfactory, that one of the demoniacs took so entirely the prominent part as to cause two of the narrators to omit all mention of his companion. E. 3. Dwelling among the tombs. We arrived before sunset at Um Keis—the ancient Gadara. We were kindly received by the sheik of the natives who inhabit the sepulchres. The tomb we lodged in was capable of containing between twenty and thirty people. It was of an oblong form, and the cattle, etc., occupied one end, while the proprietor and his family lodged in another. The sepulchres, which are all underground, are hewn out of the live rock. The doors, which are very massy, are cut out of immense blocks of stone; some of these are now standing and actually working on their hinges, and used by the natives. Irby. 3-8. Our Lord has just spoken peace to the winds and to the waves. But there is something wilder and more fearful than winds and waves in their fiercest moods—even the spirit of man, when it has broken loose from all restraints. And Christ will do here a yet mightier work than he accomplished there; he will prove himself here also the Prince of Peace; he will speak, and at his potent word this madder strife in the heart of man will allay itself; and here also there shall be a great calm. 6-8. His state is in the truest sense of the word “a possession;” another is ruling in the high places of his soul, and he knows this; and out of his consciousness of it there goes forth a cry for redemption, so soon as a glimpse of hope is afforded, an unlooked-for Redeemer draws near. This sense of misery, this yearning after deliverance, was, in fact, what made these demoniacs objects and subjects for Christ’s healing power. T.—There lay a profound truth at the bottom of the demoniac’s consciousness that his feelings, inclinations, and words did not spring from his rational, God-allied nature (his true I), but from a foreign power belonging to the kingdom of the devil. And this truth offered the necessary point of contact for Christ’s spiritual influence, to aid the soul which longed to be delivered from its distraction and its ignominious bondage. The appearance of Christ affected him profoundly; the warring powers within him partly urged him toward the Saviour, and partly held him back; attracted as he was, he could not bear the presence of Jesus. There is something in him which resists and dreads the divine power. Losing his proper identity in that of the evil spirits that possess him, he personates them, and recognizing, with terror, the Son of God as the future judge, he exclaims, in anguish, “Why hast thou come hither before the final doom, to make us feel thy power, and torment us?” N.—Before the time. Here was such a reference to the final sentence which Christ was to pass on these evil spirits at the end of the world (Jude 6) as could not be dictated by lunacy. D.—Thou Son of the most high God. This is one of the most remarkable points in our Lord’s dealings with the evil spirits, the testimony they bear to him. Hell is before earth in acknowledging her Lord. Fear has a  The Demoniac from the Tombs. quicker perception than love, or even than the sense of need. "The devils also believe and tremble." S. 9. They conceived themselves, in fact, as possessed of two natures, viz., their real proper being (the true I), and the evil spirit which subjugated the other; and thus it happened that they spoke in the person of the evil spirit, with which they felt themselves blended into one, even in instincts and propensities utterly repugnant to their true nature. The sense of inward discord and distraction might rise to such a height as to induce the belief that they were possessed by a number of spirits, to whom they were compelled to lend their utterance. The demoniac, still blending his own identity with that of the evil spirits, answers, Legion; it is a whole legion of evil spirits that dwell in him. N.—The presence of Roman armies in Palestine had rendered him familiar with that title of multitude, and as though six thousand evil spirits were in him he answers by the Latin word which had now become so familiar to every Jew. F. 10. Deep. Abyss. Not the Sea of Galilee, nor yet Gehenna, or the Lake of Fire, which is the place of future torment prepared for the devil and his angels. The abyss seems to describe the place of gloom into which the devils were driven after their expulsion from heaven, from which they are allowed to emerge from time to time, as far as their chain—God's permission—suffers. W. 11,12. Herd of swine. Swine and dogs were the ideal of uncleanness. Swine were eaten and even offered in sacrifice by the Canaanites, and though the Jews did not keep swine, they were largely kept by others for the heathen market. The population of the districts beyond Jordan were largely foreign and heathen, and created a demand for the flesh of swine. The herds, fed on the hills and wastes, seem often to have become half wild. G.—The devils besought. Here comes out the very essence of evil in its truest manifestation, that it defeats itself, being as inevitably scourged in the granting of its requests as in their refusal; that it is stupid, blind, self-contradicting, and suicidal; that it can only destroy, and will rather involve itself in the common ruin than not destroy. T. 13. Perished in the waters. Deprived of the abode they preferred, debarred from men, swine would serve their turn. But even the swine—animals created to look unclean, for a type to humanity of the very form and fashion of its greed—could not endure their presence. The man had cut himself with stones in his misery; the swine in theirs rushed into the waters of the lake and were drowned. McD.—The reality of these diabolical possessions, on the one hand, and the manifestly superior power of Christ to dispossess and control the evil spirits, on the other, were placed above suspicion of fraud; for “it was self-evident that a herd of swine could not be confederates in any fraud.” J. G. B. In regard, too, of the loss incurred by the owners, there is no more reason why this should have been made an object of cavil than every murrain that causes cattle to die, or inundation that destroys the fruits of the field, or other natural calamity with which God chastens his children, punishes, or seeks to make contrite the hearts of his enemies. T.—The destruction of the swine is not for a moment to be thought of in the matter, as if that were an act repugnant to the merciful character of our Lord’s miracles. It finds its parallel in the cursing of the fig-tree; and we may well think that if God has appointed so many animals to be daily slaughtered for the sustenance of men’s bodies, he may also be pleased to destroy animal life when he sees fit, for the liberation or instruction of their souls. Besides, if the confessedly far greater evil of the possession of men by evil spirits, and all the misery thereupon attendant, was permitted in God’s inscrutable purposes, surely much more this lesser one. Whether there may have been special reasons in this case, such as the contempt of the Mosaic law by the keepers of the swine, we have no means of judging; but it is at least possible. A. 19. Go home to thy friends, and tell them.** The reasons for enjoining silence on the part of those healed among the Jews—namely, the stirring up of the priestly party to take measures for his arrest before his hour had come, or the fomenting of a revolution in his favor by the excitable Jewish people—did not apply in this case of one living in a wholly Gentile region. Therefore our Lord bade him carry the glad tidings to his friends. J. G. B.—And so the demoniac of Gergesa became the first great missionary to the region of Decapolis, bearing in his own person the confirmation of his words. F. While he calls upon some to leave home and family to follow him, he bids this man to follow first the purely human feelings which had been reinstated in their natural rights within him; to return, sane and calm, to the family which he had abandoned as a maniac; and to glorify God among them, by telling them how Christ had wrought the mighty change, and giving them a living proof of it in his own person. The simple story of the restored man’s experience was adapted to lead them to contemplate Christ, no longer on the side of his power, but of his love and holiness. N.—20. Not in his own house alone, nor among his own friends alone, but throughout the whole Gentile district of Decapolis he published abroad the great things that Jesus had done for him. H.—Under the name of Decapolis—“the ten cities”—Philadelphia, Gadara, Hippos, Damascus, Raphana, Dio, Pella, Gerasa, and Kanatha, were confederated, under direct Roman government, with Scythopolis, on the west side of the Jordan, in a league of peace and war against native robber bands and the Bedouin hordes; and this made them virtually a distinct state. Antipas, apparently, had only so much of the district as did not belong to these cities. G. ## Section 60.—Matthew’s Feast. Old and New Garments and Bottles. Mk. 1 And it came to pass on a certain day that again he entered into Capernaum, after 2 some days; and it was noised that he was in the house. And straightway many were gathered together, insomuch that there was no room to receive them, not so much as about the door: and he preached the word unto them.L. 17 And as he was teaching, there were Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by, which were come out of every town of Galilee, and Judea, and Jerusalem: and the power of 18 the Lord was present to heal them. And behold, men come unto him bringing a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed which was borne of four. And they sought to bring 19 him in, and to lay him before him. And when they could not come nigh unto him for the press, nor find by what way they might bring him in because of the multitude, they went upon the housetop, uncovered the roof where he was, and when they had broken it up, they let him down through the tiling with his couch, into the midst before Jesus. 20 And when he saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee.21 And behold, certain of the scribes and Pharisees sitting there began to reason within themselves, saying, Who is this which blasphemeth? Why doth this man thus speak Mk. 8 blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone? And immediately, when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, answering their thoughts he said unto them, Why reason ye these things? Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts? 9 For whether is it easier, to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee, or to 10 say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of man 11 hath power upon earth to forgive sins, (then saith he to the sick of the palsy,) I say unto 12 thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house. And immediately he rose up before them, took up the bed whereon he lay, went forth before them all, and departed to his own house, glorifying God. But when the multitude saw it, they were all amazed, and glorified God, which had given such power unto men; and they were filled with fear, saying, We never saw it on this fashion; we have seen strange things to-day.13 And after these things he went forth again by the sea side, and all the multitude re- 14 sorted unto him, and he taught them. And as he passed by, he saw a publican, named Matthew or Levi, the son of Alpheus, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he said unto him, Follow me. And he left all, rose up, and followed him. THERE had never appeared in any age such a man, such a friend, or such a helper. He seemed the contrast of a king or prince, and yet all his words were kingly; all his acts a succession of the kingliest deeds, decisions, and commands. By his works and life, he established in the midst of the old theocracy the framework of an empire before which all former religious systems were to fade away. But though his absolute self-control was never intermitted, there were times when the claims of the truth, or the service of his kingdom, brought out the full grandeur of his power and kingly greatness. It was thus when he had to meet and confute prejudice and error, or to heal the sick and diseased. At times we shall see him forced to blame and condemn, but this was only a passing shadow on the clear heaven of his unvarying grace and love. It is impossible to realize such an appearance, but we can imagine it in some measure. The stainless truth and uprightness which filled his whole nature; the exhaustless love and pity which were the very breath of his spirit; the radiant joy of the bridegroom wedding redeemed humanity; the calm light as of other worlds in his every look, may well account for the deathless love and devotion he inspired in those whom he suffered to follow him. G. L. 17. Doctors of the law: Scribes or Rabbis.—The rabbis were the heads of the nation in the widest sense, for the religion of the people was also their politics. They were the theologians, the jurists, the legislators, the politicians, and, indeed, the soul of Israel. The people gloried in them as the crown of Israel, and its distinguishing honor above all other nations. Their activity never rested. Whether as guests from the Holy City, or as residents, they pervaded the land, visiting every school and synagogue, to extend their influence by teaching and exhortations. This incident led to the first open difference between Jesus and this all-powerful order. G. 19. Jesus probably stood in the open lewan, or interior court, and the crowd were around and in front of him. Those who carried the paralytic, not being able “to come at him for the press,” ascended to the roof, removed so much of it as was necessary, and let down their patient through the aperture. Examine one of these houses, and you see at once that the thing is natural, and easy to be accomplished. The roof is only a few feet high, and by stooping down and holding the corners of the couch—merely a thickly-padded quilt, as at present in this region—they could let down the sick man without any apparatus of ropes or cords to assist them. And thus, I suppose, they did. The whole affair was the extemporaneous device of plain peasants, accustomed to open their roofs, and let down grain, straw, and other articles, as they still do in this country. W. M. T. 20. It was alike their faith and his which the Lord saw and rewarded. And this faith, as in the case of all whom he healed, was not as yet the reception of any certain doctrines, but a deep sense of need, and of Christ as the one who only could meet that need. T.—Be of good courage, my child; thy sins are forgiven thee. These first words of our Lord show that the man’s uppermost feelings were a deep sense of sin, and the doubt and fear which the sense of sin inspires. As he had lain, crippled and weary, on the bed to which his “sins” had conducted him, he had grown more sensitive to the guilt of his career. We cannot doubt that these tender words sufficed to dispel the man’s shame and fear, to quicken a dawning faith in his soul. Faith being quickened, the element in which Christ’s healing power can work is generated. With what infinite delicacy does Christ adjust himself to the man’s needs—forgiving his sins, removing his fears, quickening his faith, awakening hope, and afterward conferring health! S. Coz. It was a wondrous utterance, and must have sounded still more strangely when thus first heard, than to us who have been familiar with it from childhood. No one had ever heard him admit his own sinfulness. He showed no humility before God as a sinner; never sought pardon at his hands. The standard he demanded was no less than the awful perfection of God. But now he rises above any mere tacit assumption of sinless purity by his claim, not only to announce the forgiveness of sins by God, but himself to dispense it. It was at once a proclamation of his own sinlessness, and of his kingly dignity as the Messiah, in whose hands had been placed the rule over the new theocracy. The rabbis felt, in a moment, all that such words implied. The law knew no such form as an official forgiving of sins, or absolution. Forgiveness was the direct act of God; no human lips dared pronounce it. It was a special prerogative of the Almighty; even should mortal man venture to declare it, he could only do so in the name of Jehovah, and by his immediate authorization. But Jesus had spoken in his own name. He had not hinted at being empowered by God to act for him. It was the turning-point in the life of Jesus, for the accusation of blasphemy, now muttered in the hearts of the rabbis present, was the beginning of the process which ended, after a time, on Calvary; and he knew it. G. Mk. 10, 11. The Pharisees, always on the watch, seized upon this opportunity to renew their accusations; he had claimed a fulness of power which belonged to God alone; the power, namely, to forgive sins. Perceiving their irritation, he appealed to a fact which could not be denied, as proof that he claimed no power which he could not fully exercise. N.—“You ask an outward sign of the communication of inward grace—a proof within the cognizance of your senses of miraculous power; and that proof I will supply. J. A.—I will speak a word, I will claim a power, which if I claim falsely, I shall be convinced upon the instant to be an impostor and a deceiver. I will say to this sick man, ‘Rise up and walk;’ by the effects, as they follow or do not follow, you may judge whether I have a right to say to him, ‘Thy sins be forgiven thee.’” T. That ye may know . . . I say unto thee. To the learned doctors who so love their logic that they must think as well as speak in it, he grants the logic they love. They ask a proof of him, and he gives them the very proof they ask. Abruptly breaking off while his sentence to them is incomplete, he finished it with a deed which spoke louder than words. At once to prove and confirm the man’s incipient faith, and to show that he has power to absolve him from his sins, the Lord turns to him with the words, “I say unto thee, Arise, take up thy bed, and walk!” S. Coz.—12. And immediately he arose, etc. The argument was unanswerable, for not only did the prevalent belief connect sickness in every instance with actual sin, but also it was generally maintained, even by the rabbis, "that no sick man is healed from his disease, until all his sins have been forgiven." It was, therefore, in full accordance with their own notions that he who by his own authority could heal diseases, could also, by his own authority, pronounce that sins were forgiven. F. 14. Matthew or Levi.** Matthew describes his calling, and adds "the publican" to his name in the list of apostles. Mark and Luke call him Levi, his Jewish name, and tell us that he was wealthy, "made a feast in his own house," but left all. J. G. B.—At or near Capernaum there was a receipt of custom. Lying as the town did at the nucleus of roads which diverged to Tyre, to Damascus, to Jerusalem, and to Sepphoris, it was a busy centre of merchandise, and therefore a natural place for the collection of tribute and taxes. These imposts were to the Jews preëminently distasteful. They were not only a badge of servitude; they were not only a daily witness that God seemed to have forsaken his land, but the mere payment of such imposts wore almost the appearance of apostasy to the scrupulous mind of a genuine Jew. F.—Jews who made themselves the instruments of this disgrace to their country, were accounted the vilest of the vile. They became in fact outcasts from all society except that of their own degraded class. They were not allowed to enter the synagogues or the temple, or to take any part in public prayers, nor were offerings accepted from them. K. His admission of a publican as a disciple could not fail to irritate his enemies still more. But he had no hesitation in his course. Sent to the lost, he welcomed to his inmost circle one of their number in whom he saw the germs of true spiritual life, in disregard of all the prejudices of the time, and all the false religious narrowness of ecclesiastical leaders. He desired, in the choice of a publican as apostle, to embody visibly his love for sinners, and show the quickening virtue of the kingdom of God even in the most unlikely. G.—He who came to seek and save the lost—he who could evoke Christian holiness out of the midst of heathen corruption—could make, even out of a Jewish publican, the apostle and the first evangelist of a new and living faith. It was the glorious unworldliness of a divine insight and a perfect love, and Matthew more than justified it by turning his knowledge of writing to a sacred use, and becoming the earliest biographer of his Saviour and his Lord. F. THUS ended the first year of the public life of Jesus. The fame of his wonderful works; the authority with which he delivered his doctrines; among the meeker and more peaceful spirits, the beauty of the doctrines themselves; above all, the mystery which hung over his character and pretensions, had strongly excited the interest of the whole nation. From all quarters—from Galilee, Perea, Judea, and even the remoter Idumea—multitudes approached him with eager curiosity. H. M. Jerusalem. L. 29 AND Levi made him a great feast in his own house. And it came to pass, that M. 10 as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, a great company of publicans and sinners came and sat down also with him and his disciples; for there were many, and they followed him. But when the scribes and Pharisees saw him eat with publicans and sinners, they murmured against his disciples, and said unto them, Why eateth and drinketh your Master, why do ye eat and drink, with publicans and sinners? But when Jesus heard that, answering, he said unto them, They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice. For I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Mk. 18 And the disciples of John and of the Pharisees used to fast, and they come and say unto him, Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast often, and make 19 prayers, but thy disciples fast not, but eat and drink? And Jesus said unto them, Can ye make the children of the bride-chamber fast and mourn, while the bridegroom is 20 with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days. 21 And he spake also a parable unto them: No man seweth a piece of new cloth on an old garment; else the new piece that filled it up taketh away from the old garment, and the rent is made worse, and the piece that was taken out of the new, agreeth not with L. 37 the old. And no man putteth new wine into old bottles: else the new wine will burst 38 the bottles, and the wine is spilled, and the bottles shall perish. But new wine must 39 be put into new bottles, and both are preserved. No man also having drunk old wine, straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better. THERE is a religion, of which the Pharisaism of Christ's days was an exaggerated specimen—the very heart and soul of which consists in penances and prayers and fastings—in worship offered, in duties done, in sacrifices made, in mortifications inflicted and endured—all to soothe an agitated conscience, to win a peace with God, to eke out a hope of heaven. To this the faith that is in Christ our Saviour stands diametrically opposed—the one offering as a free gift what the other toils after as a reward; the one inviting us to begin when the other would have us end; the one putting forgiveness and acceptance with God in our hand and calling upon us, in the free spirit of his redeemed, forgiven, adopted children, to live and serve and in all things to submit to our Father which is in heaven—the other holding out the forgiveness and the acceptance away in the distance, and calling upon us, in the spirit of bondage, to labor all through life for their attainment; the one the old tattered garment, the other the piece of the new-made cloth. And the wine of the kingdom, ever as it pours itself afresh from its fountain-head on high into the spirit of man, is it not a new wine that needs new bottles to contain it? If it be indeed the spirit of Christ which is working in hearts that have been opened to receive it, may we not safely leave it to its own operation there, and allow it to shape the vessel that holds it as it likes? H. WHEN you take the entire attitude, bearing, and conduct of Jesus Christ as to their ablutions, their fastings, their prayers, their keeping of the Sabbath, their attendance at the feasts, it is not difficult to imagine what an inexplicable mystery he must have been to the superstitiously religious Jews among whom he lived. This man Christ Jesus—speaking so much and in such a way of God and godliness, proclaiming the advent of God's own kingdom on the earth, unfolding its duties, its privileges, its blessednesses, yet to them seeming so neglectful, so undevout, so irreligious! We may not be able now thoroughly to understand with what kind of eyes they looked upon that wonderful spectacle which the life of Jesus pressed upon their vision—but we should be capable of discerning the emphatic protest which that life was ever raising against all mere formal piety, the piety of times and seasons and ordinances, the religion of rule and of routine. H. M. 11-13. Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners? The simple-minded apostles were perhaps unable to explain; but Jesus at once faced the opposition, and told these murmuring respectabilities that he came not to the self-righteous, but to the conscious sinners. He came not to the folded flock, but to the straying sheep. It was his will not to thrust his grace on those who from the very first wilfully steeled their hearts against it, but gently to extend it to those who felt their need of it. And then, referring them to one of those palmary passages of the Old Testament (Hos. 6: 6), which even in those days had summed up the very essence of all that was pleasing to God in love and mercy, he borrowed the phrase of their own rabbis, and bade them—these teachers of the people, who claimed to know so much—to "go and learn" what that meaneth, "I will have mercy, and not sacrifice." F.—Many of these poor publicans and sinners—excommunicated though they might be—very careless about religious rites—were men of simpler, more honest natures, kindlier in their dispositions, and, in a sense, too, more devout, than many of these pretentious pietists. "Go," said Jesus to those who imagined themselves to be righteous and despised others—"Go, and learn what that meaneth: I will have mercy, and not sacrifice"—mercy rather than sacrifice if the two be put in comparison; mercy alone, and no sacrifice, if the two are put in opposition—mercy among publicans and sinners rather than sacrifice or any amount of ceremonial observances among scribes and Pharisees. H.—The very essence of the Jewish sacrificial system was that it expressed the infinite mercy of God, in providing a way of pardon for sin. To be without the spirit of mercy was really to lose the meaning and heart of the sacrifices; as now, to hold to the doctrine of Christ's atoning sacrifice, but to be without the spirit which leads to personal self-sacrifice for the salvation of others, is to be without the spirit of Christ. L. A. 13. Not the righteous, but sinners. Nothing can mark the grandeur of his enthusiasm for humanity, more than that he thus proposed to lay the foundation of his kingdom in a class on which the priests and theologians, and the higher ranks of the day, looked down with haughty contempt and moral aversion. It shows how deeply he looked into things, that he recognized the greater openness of the truth of castes thus discredited; their franker and more decisive bearing toward the startling innovations of his teaching; their deeper longing for peace of conscience and reconciliation to God. Mk. 18. Jesus had silently left the harsh discipline of fasting behind, and had prescribed no formal rules for prayer, such as were common to the rabbis and their disciples, and to those of the Baptist; and now a deputation came to ask him for an explanation. G.—Pharisees fast often. Although they had instituted a fast twice in the week (on Thursday, because on that day Moses was believed to have reascended Mount Sinai; on Monday, because on that day he returned), this was but a traditional institution, so little sanctioned by the Mosaic law, that in it but one day of fasting was appointed for the entire year, the day of atonement. F. 19,20. He here gives the questioners to understand that if they would but recognize in him the bridegroom, if they but were the bridegroom's friends, marriage-guests' joy would drive all thoughts of fasting from their minds. C. B.—Calmly forecasting his own departure, our Lord inspired his disciples with courage and hope. The thought of Christ as our present Saviour should dispel from our religion all tinge of asceticism or gloom. The world needs the example of a cheerful piety to win it to the Church: the joy of the Lord is our strength. J. P. T.—Christ here presents himself as "the Bridegroom;" intending, as we may very well suppose, to remind the disciples of John that under this very aspect their own master had so recently hailed him. How large an amount of the Old Testament in this single phrase does he claim for himself, and as finding its fulfilment in him! How much in the New Testament, only hereafter to be uttered, does he already anticipate in this significant word! T. 21. When the garment is indeed worn out (for "old" here can mean nothing short of this), it would be no true economy to endeavor with a new piece, which would not match with the threadbare old, to fit it for use again. As such an ancient garment, the great Author of all the economies in the Church of God would here characterize that elder economy, given by the hand of Moses; whereof these obligatory fasts, which men were now seeking to thrust on his disciples, formed a part. This likening of that elder dispensation to such a worn-out garment may seem harshly spoken; yet the language is not stronger than that which Paul uses (Gal. 4: 3, 9), nor than that employed in Heb. 7: 18, where the apostle speaks of the disannulling of the commandment which went before "for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof." "It would profit nothing," Christ would here say, "to seek to attach my new as a patch to that old of yours. My doctrine is something more than a mere supplement to yours, to repair that, where it is outworn. It is something which is all of a piece, not a righteousness of works, eked out and patched here and there with the righteousness of faith, but from head to foot a new garment for souls." It was exactly such a piece of patchwork as this, which the Galatians actually attempted, and for which Paul chides them so earnestly. T. The old nature cannot be renewed by the imposition from without of the exercises of fasting and prayer; no outward and compulsory asceticism can change it. A mere renewal from without is at best an artificial, hypocritical thing. The new cloth is torn, and a patch laid upon the old that does not fit it. N.—Institutions must conform to the doctrine which they embody. They must be new, because that is new. A new type of piety must create a new ritual congenial with itself. It will not brook customs incongruous with it. G. P. F. L. 37, 38. New wine in new bottles As the first comparison had chiefly to do with doctrine, something therefore more external, even as a garment is worn on the outside of the body, this with life, that which is more inward, as wine is inwardly received. T.—Let not the Pharisees think that the new wine of the kingdom, the fresh spirit of love to God and man, which Jesus came to breathe into regenerated humanity, could be safely poured into their old bottles—into those forms and ceremonies of worship, dry as dust, and brittle as the thinnest, most withered piece of leather. No, there must be new bottles for the new wine, bottles that will yield to the pressure from within, and expand as the fermenting liquid which they contain expanded. And such new bottles as were thus required Jesus was finding—not in priestly men, chained up from childhood within priestly habits—not in those rigid Levitical institutions which the long years had been stiffening into an immovable inflexibility: but in these fishermen, these publicans—natural, homely, unlearned men, open to imbibe his spirit in all its richness and expansiveness; and in those simple forms and institutions of Christianity, which, cramped by no formal injunctions, were to be left free to take such new outward shapes as the indwelling spirit might mould. H.—The new wine was already bursting the old bottles, and the result could not be doubtful. Conservatism felt itself imperilled, for it had been weighed, and found wanting. The sacrifices were mere outward forms; the temple, notwithstanding the glory with which Herod's love of magnificence and hypocritical piety had adorned it, was a symbol of exclusiveness, intolerance, and hatred of humanity at large; the high officialism of the day a dam against every reform, every breath of fresh religious thought, and every attempt at a purer spiritual life. G. 39. He graciously proceeds to make excuse for the disciples of John. Was it to be expected that their own, to which these had been accustomed so long, should grow out of favor with them on the instant, even though he offered to them something better in its room? But let them have time and opportunity to wean themselves from that old, and doubtless there would be found among them those who would grow into liking of this new, which indeed in a higher sense is the oldest of all. T.—The “new wine” seems plainly to be the evangelical freedom which Christ was introducing; and the old, the opposite spirit of Judaism: men long accustomed to the latter could not be expected “straightway”—all at once—to take a liking for the former. “These inquiries about the difference between my disciples and the Pharisees’, and even John’s, are not surprising; they are the effect of a natural revulsion against sudden change, which time will cure; the new wine will itself in time become old, and so acquire all the added charms of antiquity.” What lessons does this teach, on the one hand, to those who unreasonably cling to what is getting antiquated; and, on the other, to hasty reformers who have no patience with the timidity of their weaker brethren! B. ## Section 61.—Healing by the Touch of his Garment. Jairus’s Daughter. Capernaum. L. 41 And while he spake these things unto them, behold, there came a man named Jairus, one of the rulers of the synagogue; and when he saw him, he fell down at Jesus’ 42 feet and worshipped him, and besought him that he would come into his house: for he Mk.23 had one only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she lay a dying. And he be- sought him greatly, saying, My little daughter lieth at the point of death, is even now dead: I pray thee come and lay thy hands upon her, that she may be healed; and she 24 shall live. And Jesus arose and followed him, and so did his disciples. But as he went, much people followed him, and thronged him. 25 And behold, a certain woman which was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years, 26 and had suffered many things, and had spent all her living upon many physicians, neither 27 could be healed of any, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse, when she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind him, and touched the border of his garment. 28, 29 For she said within herself, If I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole. And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she 30 was healed of that plague. And Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about in the press, and said, Who touched my clothes? 31 When all denied, Peter and they that were with him said unto him, Master, thou seest the multitude throng thee and press thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me? And Jesus said, Somebody hath touched me: for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me. 32 And he looked round about to see her that had done this thing. And when the woman 33 saw that she was not hid, she came fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her, and fell down before him, and told him all the truth; and declared unto him before all the people, for what cause she had touched him, and how she was healed immediately. 34 And when he saw her, he said unto her, Daughter, be of good comfort, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague. And the woman was made whole from that hour. 35 While he yet spake, there cometh one from the ruler of the synagogue's house, saying 36 to him, Thy daughter is dead: why troublest thou the Master any further? But as soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken, he saith unto the ruler of the synagogue, 37 Be not afraid, only believe, and she shall be made whole. And when Jesus came into the ruler's house, he suffered no man to go in, save Peter, and James, and John the 38 brother of James, and the father and the mother of the maiden. And he seeth the tumult, the minstrels and people making a noise, and them that wept and wailed great- 39 ly. And when he was come in, he saith unto them, Why make ye this ado, and weep? 40 Give place: for the damsel is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn, knowing that she was dead. But, when he had put them all out, he taketh the father and the mother of the damsel, and them that were with him, and entereth in where the 41 damsel was lying. And he took the damsel by the hand, and said unto her, Talitha- 42 cumi: which is, being interpreted, Damsel, (I say unto thee) arise. And her spirit came again, and straightway the damsel arose, and walked; for she was of the age of twelve 43 years. And her parents were astonished with a great astonishment. And he charged them straitly that no man should know it; and commanded that something should be M. 26 given her to eat. And the fame hereof went abroad into all that land. THE simplest and obvious use of sorrow is to remind of God. Jairus and the woman, like many others, came to Christ from a sense of want. It would seem that a certain shock is needed to bring us in contact with reality. We are not conscious of our breathing till obstruction makes it felt. We are not aware of the possession of a heart till some disease, some sudden joy or sorrow, rouses it into extraor- dinary action. And we are not conscious of the mighty cravings of our half divine humanity; we are not aware of the God within us, till some chasm yawns which must be filled, or till the rending asunder of our affections forces us to become fearfully conscious of a need. F. W. R. Christ is now, as he was then, passing through the midst of men, if they would but see him. Still they throng and press and draw nothing from him, because they bring no eye to discern, and do not feel that need which opens the eyesight. We can take from him only what we perceive in him, and must urge the prayer that "God would reveal his Son in us!" . . . It is our hope and joy to think, as we touch him here, with the hands of dying men, that he is still passing on through the world to perform his great- est work—to raise the dead. Many a home like that of Jairus looks for his appearing. Himself the Risen One; he is advancing to awake his friends who have fallen asleep, and to comfort those who mourn over them, and who wait for his coming. He spreads his garment, meanwhile, as he moves, to the touch of misery and sin, and if he lingers in his progress to the homes of the dead, it is but to gather in his train the fuller fruits of his redeeming toil. His mercy and our need cause the seeming delay. His work on the way must be finished ere the close can come. Ere long he will enter that highest house, and we possess the privilege of the best-beloved, to enter the innermost chamber with him, where sorrow shall be turned into joy, and death into life, where faith which touches the hem shall rise to vision that beholds the face, and friends who part and weep at nightfall shall meet at day-dawn, in a world where the voice of crying shall not be heard any more, nor the shadow of death fall upon the heart forever. Ker. L. 41. It is not improbable that this ruler of the synagogue had been one of the very deputation who had pleaded with Jesus for the centurion-proselyte by whom it had been built. If so, he knew by experience the power of him to whom he now ap- pealed. F.—Mk. 23. Even now dead. She had been given over when her father left her, and actually was dead before he could return. He might therefore, when he applied to Christ, fear that she was at this time dead, and express his belief of it. D. 25-34. One always loves to think of the surrounding circumstances of this miracle—Christ called to the ruler's house filled with mourning and death, with his heart absorbed in the great work which lay before him. The thronging press of the people is around him, curious and expectant. But nothing far off or near, future or present, can shut out from him the appeal of misery. He is, always and everywhere, alive to a suppliant's touch. His very garment, to its hem, is instinct with his own spirit and sensitive to the most trembling hand. It is not less so now far up in heaven. The place which increases the sympathy of all hearts that enter there, has not diminished his. His garment, widespread and dropping low, is near our hand, and he feels a sinner's and a sufferer's touch upon his throne, with circle on circle of glory gathering round him, and saints and angels thronging in. He came down that, in his nearness to our misery, we might learn to know his heart, and he rose that we might be assured of his power to help and heal. So let us seek to read this incident and consider what it teaches. Ker. 28. If I may but touch.** There was in the woman a mixture of weakness and of faith. She could not think to steal a cure without the knowledge of him by whom it was wrought; or imagine a charm in the garment that Christ wore, which could produce such an effect, independent of his agency and will. Yet she acted as if she had thought thus; and a compassionate Redeemer commended her faith, and excused her infirmity. D.—In many, faith may be weak and ignorant, but touching Christ it is forgiven much. Many things were wrong in this woman's knowledge, but her faith was very full and absolute. Up to the measure of what she needed, her confidence was entire. Ker.—She believed that she was to receive something, a real blessing, from Christ. This was that in her which was not in the crowd around her. They all travelled on in the highway together, talked about Christ, were interested in him in various ways, discussed his origin and nature, hoped that some good would come of him to the nation. But the woman believed that she should personally receive new life from him. She knew she needed it; she knew she had nothing to buy it with—for she had spent all her living on physicians, and could not be healed of any, but rather grew worse. Most graphic history of how many hearts! She believed that she could have that new life by a touch. The reaching out of her hand was an expression of that faith. Another signal might probably have done just as well. In other cases a prayer was as effectual. But there must have been two things: the faith that she should receive the benefit, and some act to embody that faith and bring the benefit home. With faith, action. F. D. H. 29. And she felt that she was healed.** There was an inward sense, which could not be mistaken, of return to wholeness—the stanching of a wound through which life, for long years, had been slowly ebbing, and the rising of a tide of new existence which made her feel she could yet be, and do something, in God's world. When faith, under a sense of its need, touches Christ, the virtue that comes from him gives some such feeling to the soul. When that great transference of sin and spiritual sickness is made to the Saviour the soul is safe, entirely and eternally safe, through the grace of him who will keep that soul which we commit to his trust, and who will never suffer any one to pluck it out of his hand. Ker. 30,31. Knowing in himself. Conscious of the forthcoming of his healing power, which was not as in prophets and apostles, a power foreign to him, but dwelling in him. Somebody touched.** Yes, the multitude "thronged and pressed him," but all involuntarily; they were merely carried along: but one, one only, touched him, with the conscious, voluntary, dependent touch of faith, reaching forth its hand expressly to have contact with him. This and this only Jesus acknowledges and seeks out. Even so, multitudes still come similarly close to Christ in the means of grace, but all to no purpose. The voluntary, living contact of faith is that electric conductor which alone draws virtue out of him. B.—The only touch which reaches God is that of faith. The multitude may throng and press: but heart to heart, soul to soul, mind to mind, only so do we come in actual contact with God. F. W. R. 32-34. In this the loving and gracious dealings of the Son of man, who always sought to make through the healing of the body a way for the healing of the soul, are to be traced. She had borne away a maimed blessing, had she been suffered to bear it away in secret and unacknowledged. T.—Christ will have himself openly confessed, and not only secretly sought. Our Christian life is not, as it is sometimes called, merely a thing between ourselves and God; but a good confession to be witnessed "before all the people." A.—Her faith had made her whole, and Christ's virtue had made her whole. It is as when we say that faith justifies: our faith is not itself a blessing; but it is the organ by which the blessing is received; it is the right hand of the soul, which lays hold upon it. T.—It is a principle of God's kingdom, and a part of God's command, that a confession before men shall accompany the believing of the heart. If anybody could be excused, it would seem that she might be. But there is no exception, none; none for the proudest man, none for the weakest woman. Hitherto her offering is incomplete; she has brought her secret faith, but not herself; and true faith must keep nothing back that the Lord requires. Then the Lord uses for her encouragement a term of endearment he had not spoken before: "Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole." Her faith had made the occasion—doing it mediately; his divine power had made the cure—doing it directly. Faith is the conditional cause; Christ himself is the efficient, energetic cause. And the acknowledgment of him is the signal of the final blessing which then falls in a benediction from his lips: "Go in peace." F. D. H. 25-34. There is not one of all our Saviour's many miracles of healing fuller of comfort and encouragement. Whenever we grow sad or despondent as we think how much of fear, or shame, or error, or weakness, or superstition mingles with the faith we cherish, if only the depth of the spiritual disease be felt, he who accepted this woman's faith with all its weakening ingredients, will not cast us off. A timid trembling touch of him, be it only the touch of humility and trust, will still bring forth that healing virtue which delights to pour itself freely into every open receptacle that is brought to it. H. 35-38. The message had not been addressed to Jesus, but he overheard it, and with a compassionate desire to spare the poor father from needless agony, he said to him those memorable words, "Fear not, only believe." They soon arrived at his house, and found it occupied by the hired mourners and flute-players, who, as they beat their breasts, insulted the dumbness of sincere sorrow, and the patient majesty of death. F. 39. As regards the Lord's words, that the maiden was not dead, but slept, he uses exactly the same language concerning Lazarus, "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth." The reality of the death is not denied, but only the fact implicitly assumed, that death will be followed by a resurrection as sleep is by an awakening. He, the Lord of life, takes away that word of fear, "She is dead," and puts in its room that milder word which gives promise of an awakening, "She sleepeth." T.—41. How could that touch, that call, be other than effectual? He, who made that hand, touched it; and he, who shall once say, "Arise, ye dead," said now, "Maid, arise." Death cannot but obey him who is the Lord of life. The soul is ever equally in his hand who is the God of spirits; it cannot but go and come at his command. Bp. H.—Jesus seldom speaks of a future time in divine things. His sense was of the presentness of the true life. The maid was not dead to him—she was only sleeping. It is in harmony with the sublime familiarity of Jesus on all the points of this subject, which men had consecrated with all solemn symbols as the one great dread of the race, that he should have used the dear mother-call to this little girl—Talitha-cumi—as if she only had slept soundly for a night. . . . Who of us ever thinks of his sleeping family as in any sense lost to him? And it is only a deeper sleep that separates the departed. The home is unbroken. Its numbers are complete. The Son of man joins for us, by his precepts and promises, home and paradise. The Talitha-cumi, heard no more by the outward ear, is heard by faith. In the calm of the holy city, the redeemed awake to the light which needs no sun nor moon to create it. Over every silent grave the ear of faith can hear the words, I am the resurrection and the life—he that believeth in me, never dies. C. H. Hall. There is nothing more remarkable about these raisings from the dead by Jesus Christ than the simple, unostentatious way in which they were effected. "Young man, I say unto thee, Arise!" "Maid, arise!" "Lazarus, come forth!" It is in the style of him who said, "Let there be light, and there was light." They were the highest instances of the forth-putting of his divine almighty power. With respect to many of his other works, questions might be raised as to the nature or extent of the power required for their performance, but none as to these. . . . And if Jesus never presents himself to our eye in a diviner, never does he show himself in a more human aspect than in these raisings from the dead. They were those of the only son of a widowed mother, the only daughter of two fond parents, the only brother of two affectionate sisters. And in each case there was something singular in the tenderness of our Lord's conduct toward the mourners. He knew beforehand how speedily the anxiety would be relieved, the sorrow chased away; but the "Weep not" to the mother before he touched the bier, the "Fear not, only believe," to the agitated father, the tears that fell before the grave of Lazarus, what a testimony do they bear to the exquisite susceptibility of the Saviour's spirit—to the quickness, the fullness of his sympathy with human grief! It is even then, when he is most divine, that he is most human—when he lifts himself the highest above our level that he links himself the closest to us as a true brother of our humanity. 43. That no man should know it.** As we think of the difficulty, we might almost say impossibility, of such concealment, the thought occurs that it was not so much with any desire or intention to secure secrecy that the order was issued, as to prevent those who had the closest personal interest in the miracle being the first or the loudest in noising it abroad. 41-43. Jesus is the great raiser of human souls as well as of human bodies. All that are in the grave of sin, of spiritual death, may hear his voice. Awake, it says to each of us—awake thou that sleepest, arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee life. Let us awake, and with life new-given turn to the life-giver; rejoicing to know that as tenderly as he handed her new-raised son to the widow of Nain, as tenderly as he ordered the food to be given to the little daughter of Jairus, as tenderly will he watch over the first stages of our spiritual being; and that as fully as the griefs of widowed mother and weeping parents were shared in of old by him in Galilee, as fully will he share in all the griefs of our earthly history, till he take us to that land where his own gracious hand shall wipe off the tears from every eye. H. ## Section 62.—Heals Two Blind, and a Dumb Demoniac. Again rejected at Nazareth. Third Circuit in Galilee. M. 27 And when Jesus departed thence, two blind men followed him, crying, and saying, 28 Thou Son of David have mercy on us. And when he was come into the house the blind men came to him; and Jesus saith unto them, Believe ye that I am able to do 29 this? They said unto him, Yea, Lord. Then touched he their eyes, saying, According 30 to your faith be it unto you. And their eyes were opened, and Jesus straitly charged 31 them, saying, See that no man know it. But they, when they were departed, spread abroad his fame in all that country. 32 And as they went out, behold, they brought to him a dumb man possessed with a 33 devil. And when the devil was cast out, the dumb spake. And the multitude mar- 34 velled, saying, It was never so seen in Israel. But the Pharisees said, He casteth out devils through Beelzebub the prince of the devils.Mk. 1 And he went out from thence, and came into his own country; and his disciples 2 follow him. And when the sabbath-day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue: and many hearing him were astonished, and said, From whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works M. 55 are wrought by his hands? Is not this the carpenter, the carpenter's son? Is not his 56 mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all here with us? Whence then hath this man all these things? 57 And they were offended in him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without Mk. 5 honour, save in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house. And he could do there no mighty works, because of their unbelief; save that he laid his hands 6 on a few sick folk, and healed them. And he marvelled because of their unbelief.M. 35 And Jesus went round about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease 36 among the people. But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd. 37 Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are 38 few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest. THIS short sentence descends to the deepest depth of his being, and lays open the chief spring of all his movements: He had compassion on the multitudes. Spiritual truth was precious to him; he felt also the burden of a great mission, and he was tenderly alive to all the rights and claims of God. But he pitied and loved the multitude; their spiritual condition, their destinies, their necessities, and their sorrows oppressed his heart. In addition to all the force of fidelity to God, to himself, and to truth of which he was conscious, there were impulses of love and pity that gushed up ever warm and fresh in his bosom, and imparted a subduing tone to all his ministrations. Jesus saw an inexpressible worth in human nature. It is fallen and ruined, but it is a precious ruin. Y.—He came so nigh to us lost sinners, that he became like to us in all things except sin; nay, as the elder Brother, the kinsman Redeemer of his people, he undertook their full deliverance from all the consequences of their rebellion, bearing their griefs, carrying their sorrows, grappling with their temptations, working out their righteousness by his own perfect voluntary obedience, and dying—on the shameful, bitter, then accursed cross—their death to the broken law, that they might receive eternal life. Even now, upon the throne of his glory, he has not laid aside his sympathy, for he has carried up with him to the right hand of the Father the body which felt our pains, the heart which bled in our sorrows, and the mind that endured our trials. Blessed be his name! He is not the less man, though “crowned with glory and honor,” than when he resisted our tempter in the wilderness, sat wayworn and weary at the gate of Sychar, wept at the tomb of his friend, staggered under his cross amid the hootings of the multitude, or gave up the ghost in a cry of agony. Every pulsation of his human breast reminds him of his brethren below. He pleads for them as he shows the scars of his crucifixion. He exerts his almighty power in ordering all providence for their good, and in embellishing the mansions of heaven for their eternal home. Bethune. M. 28. Without noticing the men or their cry, he went to the house in Capernaum where he abode; nor was it until they had persistently followed him into the house that he tested their faith by the question, “Believe ye that I am able to do this?” F.—This was the first case particularly mentioned of his giving sight to the blind: and it is distinguished from the other cases by the fact that it is the only one in which the cure is effected by simple touch. Incapable of receiving visual impressions by which their faith might be aided, they are helped by the sense of touch, which they could best apprehend. And even so still are men variously dealt with. The strong in faith have their faith tried; the weak in faith have their faith strengthened. K.—29. According to your faith. The faith, which in itself is nothing, is yet the organ of receiving everything. It places the man in relation with the divine blessing; of no esteem in itself, but only in its relation to its object. It is the bucket let down into the fountain of God’s grace. T. 30. Charged them.** The purpose of our Lord’s earnestness appears to have been to prevent the already excited people from taking some public measure of recognition, and thus arousing the malice of the Pharisees before his hour was come. A.—He must guard against precipitating the conflict with the ruling class, which he well knew could only have one issue, and must gain time to train his disciples, and to plant in the world the seed of divine truth. Hence the prudence which he showed in withholding the full disclosure of his own claims, in avoiding needless publicity, and in postponing the inevitable conflict, which was a consequence of his teaching and his works, until he should have time to lay the foundations, firm and broad, of his spiritual kingdom. G. P. F. 31. In these miracles of healing our Lord must have laid one of the largest of the foundation-stones of his Church. The healed knew him henceforth, not by comprehension, but with their whole being. Their very life acknowledged him. They returned to their homes to recall and love afresh. McD.—34. He casteth out through Beelzebub. Our Lord had confuted this calumny before (Section 47); yet they had the assurance to advance it again. D. Mk. 2. Well may we ask, as the Jews on this occasion did with another spirit, Whence hath this man wisdom? What education had Jesus, what patterns to form himself upon, to become the man he was? By what train of thinking could he be led to conceive, by what prospects could he be moved to undertake, by what power was he enabled to accomplish, the unparalleled things he did? To imagine that such a person could have existed by accident, is monstrously unreasonable. But that he should also have fallen by accident just into that single country, in which there was a system of religion that he could build on, with a series of predictions applicable to himself; and just at that period too, when these predictions had so pointed him out, as to raise a universal expectation of him, that, under all the disadvantages of a low condition, he should have spirit enough to make and maintain the highest of claims, sagacity enough to interpret the ancient oracles in a much sublimer and juster sense than any of the most learned instructors of the people, and self-denial enough to prefer, in consequence of these interpretations, persecution and crucifixion before the safety of a private station, or the splendor of offered dominion; that every one of these things (and many others equally strange) should meet in the same person, without the special appointment of heaven, exceeds all power of chance. Consider him only as a man, and he appears to have been the greatest and best of men. The general reasonableness of his doctrine, the coolness of his temper, the composedness and familiarity of his whole conversation, prove he was no enthusiast; the unvaried goodness of his life, the willingness with which he suffered death, the impossibility which he could not but see of attaining any worldly advantage by the course which he took, prove sufficiently well that he was no impostor. What must he then have been? And what else can we gather from his whole behavior, than what the spectators did from the finishing scene of it upon the cross, "Truly this was the Son of God?" Secker. M. 55. Of eighteen years of his life we possess no record whatever save such as is implied in a single word: "the carpenter" (Mk. 6 : 3). We may be indeed thankful that the word remains, for it is full of meaning, and has exercised a very noble and blessed influence over the fortunes of mankind. It has tended to console and sanctify the estate of poverty; to ennoble the duty of labor; to elevate the entire conception of manhood, as of a condition which in itself alone, and apart from every adventitious circumstance, has its own grandeur and dignity in the sight of God. Our Lord wished to show that labor is a pure and noble thing; it is the salt of life; it is the girdle of manliness; it saves the body from effeminate languor, and the soul from polluting thoughts. And therefore Christ labored, working with his own hands. F.—Work—the condition of health, the law of progress, the primal duty in Eden, and the safeguard of every virtue in all ages—is touched with a grand nobility by the spectacle of the carpenter of Nazareth. Idleness, in any rank, becomes doubly a vice from the remembrance of such a lesson. G.—His mother called Mary. The omission of Joseph's name has been universally accepted as an indication that he was dead; otherwise we might suppose that something contemptuous was intended by only mentioning the mother's name. F. THERE are three main views: (1) the Helvidian—that the brethren of the Lord were the actual children of Joseph and Mary; (2) the Hieronymian—that they were his first cousins, being sons of Mary and Alpheus; (3) the Epiphanian—that they were the sons of Joseph by a former marriage. Of these three theories, the second—that of Jerome—is decidedly the most popular, and the one which has least to be said for it. It has not a particle of tradition before the time of Jerome in its favor. Even Jerome, after his residence in Palestine, seems to have abandoned it; and it is perhaps sufficient to observe that, as it assumes three at least of these "brethren" to have been actual apostles, it is in flagrant contradiction to John 7 : 5, to say nothing of the fact that it depends on a number of very dubious hypotheses. The Epiphanian theory seems to have been the tradition of Palestine, and is the one current in the apocryphal gospels; but I still believe that the Helvidian has an overwhelming preponderance of argument in its favor. The only two serious arguments against it are: (a) The fact that our Lord intrusted his mother to the care of John, not of her own children; but this is accounted for by their acknowledged want of sympathy with him up to that time. (b) The fact that the names of the sons of Alpheus were identical with those of the Lord's brethren; but these names were as common among the Jews as John and William among us. Undoubtedly the Helvidian view—that they were actual sons of Joseph and Mary—is most in accordance with the simple interpretation of the gospel narratives F. The term brethren is never used in the New Testament to signify a wider relationship than true brothers; though its use in a metaphorical sense (e. g., Matt. 12 : 49) is not uncommon. The Old Testament references do not justify us in depriving it in the New Testament of its natural and normal meaning. The more general term kinsman, though of frequent use in the New Testament, and the more precise designations of cousin, and sister's son, are never used in respect to the brethren of the Lord. In every instance in the gospels they are mentioned in connection with Jesus' mother, and in such a manner as to imply that they were part of Mary's household; while there is nothing to imply that they were either children of Joseph by a former marriage, or adopted children. L. A.—Further, there is no allusion whatever in the gospels to a former marriage of Joseph, and no hint of the childlessness of Mary after the birth of Jesus. They rather assume that she had a family, since Jesus is twice spoken of as her "first-born." In the history, Jesus himself is mentioned, without any limitation, as the brother of those named. The names of his brothers, and the fact of his having sisters, are given by his fellow-townsmen of Nazareth, without a hint at their being only cousins, or half-blood to him. In other places where "brethren" are mentioned, at times in connection with Mary herself (Matt. 12 : 46), the current use of the word precludes the idea of any other than the full relationship. The substitution of cousins for brothers throughout, is, indeed, wholly arbitrary and contrary to the usage of the language. G. After weighing all the objections which have been adduced, I can see no sufficient reason for rejecting the first and most natural reading of the passages referred to, for not believing that they were brothers and sisters of Jesus, who grew up along with him in the household at Nazareth. Perhaps our readiness to admit this may partly spring from our not sharing the impression that there is anything in such a belief either derogatory to the character of Mary, or to the true dignity of her first-born Son. H.—Neither his nor her honor requires the perpetual virginity after his birth, unless there be something impure and unholy in the marriage relation itself. The latter we cannot admit, since God instituted marriage in the state of innocence in Paradise, and Paul compares it to the most sacred relation existing, the union of Christ with his Church. And the apostles and evangelists, who are certainly much safer guides in all matters of faith and religious feeling than even fathers and reformers, seem to have had no such feeling of repugnance to a real marriage between Joseph and Mary. It may be regarded as another proof of the true and full humanity and the condescending love of our Saviour, if he shared the common trials of family life in all its forms, and moved a brother among brothers and sisters, that he might be touched with a feeling of our infirmities. P. S. 57. They were offended in him.** The grand fundamental article of all their creed was that their Messiah should be a temporal prince. They fancied nothing but triumphs and trophies, and all the nations under the victorious conduct of their Messiah. They expected such a one as should disenslave them from the Roman yoke; make the Senate stoop to their Sanhedrim, and the Capitol do homage to their Temple. With such fancies and expectations how would they receive a person bearing himself for the Messiah, yet in the poor habit of a mechanic, and preaching to them nothing but humility, self-denial, and contempt of those temporal glories which they had made the very design of their religion? What! shall we receive a threadbare Messiah, one fitter to wield a saw or hatchet than a sceptre? Can such a one be a fit person to step into the throne of David, to redeem Israel, and to cope with all the Roman power? R. S. Mk. 5. Because of their unbelief. The object of his miracles, then, was not to convince wilful skeptics of his divine authority; if it were, he would have done the most miracles where the unbelief was strongest. To use the miracles as an argument for the divine authority of Christianity, with those who deny its authority and reject its teachings, is to misapprehend their purport and aim. They are the seal of his divine authority, to those who are morally and spiritually ready to receive the truth, but need for it some external sanction. L. A.—Unbelief, and contempt of the divine word, drive Christ out of the heart, as they did out of his own country. Faith seems to put the almighty power of God into the hands of man; whereas unbelief seems to tie up even the hands of the Almighty. Q. M. 35. Teaching—healing. Jesus, on all occasions, discovers himself to be, what his name implies, the Saviour. He goes about, not to gratify or profit himself, but to diffuse his benefactions. He either teaches, or comforts, or raises from the dead, or heals, or feeds, or delivers, or departs into a mountain to pray. And all for us. For us he preaches, that we may learn the truth; for us he heals, and performs various miracles, that we may believe him; for us, no less, he retires; for us he prays; for us he gives thanks to the Father. Thus he changes his situation often, his disposition never. Horne. 38. The Church, in its missionary character, should take this precious saying along with M. 28: 18–20; the one as the directory of its devotional, the other of its active work, as Christ's instrument for evangelizing the world, and every Christian should do the same. Ministers of Christ are God's gifts to a perishing world, to be sought by prayer, offered up in the spirit of the Saviour's own compassion. B. The plain of Esdraelon constitutes one of the great physical features of Palestine. Intersecting the country from east to west, it opens eastwardly on the valley of the Jordan, and westwardly on the Mediterranean Sea. The central portion is an immense triangle, the apex of which is toward the west, at the southeast end of Mt. Carmel; its sides being the mountain-ranges of Galilee and Samaria—the one running east twelve miles, the other southeast eighteen miles, from Carmel; and the base being a line twelve or fifteen miles in length, from Jenin northward to below Nazareth, touching the western ends of Gilboa and Little Hermon. The ridges of Little Hermon and Gilboa divide the portion of the plain east of the triangle into three nearly equal parts; the middle part being the famous "valley of Jezreel," leading down to the Jordan by a gentle decline. The name Esdraelon is a Greek form of the Hebrew Jezreel. N. C. B. Southwest of the lake, between the northern uplands and the range of Carmel, stretched out the plain of Esdraelon, the market of Galilee. Beyond other parts of the province, this great plain was crowded with life, and covered with fruitful fields, vineyards, and orchards, in the days of our Lord. Jewish writers are never tired of praising Galilee as a whole. Its climate was a wellnigh perpetual spring, its soil the most fertile in Palestine, its fruits renowned for their sweetness. For sixteen miles round Sepphoris and Nazareth, the land, it was boasted, flowed with milk and honey. The whole province was, and is even still, full of verdure, and rich in shade and pleasantness, the true country of the Song of Songs, and of the lays of the well-beloved. It was a region where rich woods crowned the higher hills and mountains; where the uplands, gentle slopes, and broader valleys were rich in pastures, cultivated fields, vineyards, olive-groves, orchards, and palm-groves. G. Galilee. M. 1 And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power over unclean spirits, and authority over all devils, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease. These twelve, Jesus began to send forth by two and two, to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick. And he commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not. But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give. Provide neither gold nor silver, nor brass in your purses, and take nothing for your journey, save a staff only: no scrip, no bread, neither shoes, but be shod with sandals, neither have two coats apiece. For the workman is worthy of his meat. 11 And into whatsoever city or town ye shall enter, inquire who in it is worthy: and whatsoever house ye enter into, there abide till you depart from that place. And when ye come into an house, salute it; and if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it: but if it be not worthy, let your peace return to you. And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the very dust from under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily, I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city. 16 Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues; and ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you. And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved. But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come. CHRIST sought to train his ministers to perform the duties of their calling without anxious care for the future. He bade them make no provision for their journey, but to trust in God, who would not see them want while faithfully doing their duty; to be content with what was offered them; to abide in the first house that was hospitably opened to them; and thus, having made one family their home, to extend their labors around it as a centre. The issue satisfied them that their Master had predicted rightly; they found, as he had promised, all their wants supplied. N. Open as day lay all that future to him who here, as elsewhere in so many of his most important discourses, sets forth in a series of perspectives—mixing with and melting into each other—the whole history of his Church in all its trials and conflicts from the beginning even to the end. A greater than prophet is here—one who speaks of men being hated, persecuted, scourged, and put to death for his name's sake, as if there were nothing in any wise unreasonable or unnatural in it; one who would have all men come to him, and who asks of all who come, love, obedience, and sacrifice, such as but one being has a right to ask, even he who has redeemed us to God by his blood; whose right over all we are and have, and can do, is supreme, unchallengeable, unchangeable; whose by every tie we are, and whom, by the mightiest of all obligations, we are bound to love and serve. H. WHAT he had first told his disciples at Sychar had now come true on a far larger scale; the spiritual harvest was too great for the laborers; and so, after bidding them to pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth more laborers, he gives them their first commission to begin their work. He sent them out by two and two, giving them power to cast out devils and heal diseases, and to preach the kingdom of God. They were, in fact, to be his representatives, carrying the gospel to those who could not, or only with great difficulty, attend on his own ministry. S.—Well timed was the mission. For not at the beginning did he send them; but when they had enjoyed the advantage of following him, and had received sufficient proof of his power, both by deeds and words, then he sends them forth; and not to dangerous acts, for as yet they had only to stand against evil speakings. Chrys. 5,6. Go not in the way of the Gentiles.** It was not until after his crucifixion by the Jews and his resurrection, that our Lord said, Go teach all nations. He sends his apostles first to the Jews that they might not plead that they rejected him because he sent his disciples to the Gentiles and Samaritans. Jerome.—Until Christ's death, which broke down the middle wall of partition (Eph. 2: 14), the gospel commission was to Jews only, who, though the visible people of God, were yet "lost sheep," needing a Saviour even as others. B.—Before the apostles could teach the heathen, they had to learn the peculiarities of the gospel itself, as well as its relations to the Old Testament. Even had they succeeded in reaching the mind of the heathen with their defective apprehension of Christ's doctrine, and thus making Jews of them, it would only have been the more difficult afterward to eradicate errors, and impart a pure form of Christianity. But this knowledge was among the things of which Christ himself said to his disciples, "Ye cannot bear them now;" it was bound up with many truths that were as yet veiled from them. Nor could he, consistently with his plan, impart these truths as separate and ready-made; the fruit of knowledge had to grow up in their religious consciousness from the seeds of knowledge sown there by the Spirit of God. 7. He by no means sent them to proclaim the whole truth of salvation; they were as yet incapable of this; and it was at a later period only that he promised the gift of the Spirit to qualify them for it. So long as he remained upon the earth, he was the sole teacher. They were only to proclaim everywhere that the kingdom of God, the object of all men's desire, had come; to point out to the people of Galilee the great grace of God in calling the founder of that kingdom from their midst. Their present work was to be a type of their future one, when the great work within them should be accomplished. N. 9. Purse and scrip. One day on the Mount of Olives a peasant offered his services, whose costume arrested my attention. He wore a girdle around his waist, which had an opening at one end, fitting it to hold money and other valuables, and at the same time carried a pouch or bag, in which he could store away provisions and other things needed on a journey. Here, beyond doubt, I saw the articles to which the Saviour refers. H. B. H.—Provide neither gold nor silver.** He would relieve them from worldly anxiety, and teach them to devote themselves wholly to the preaching of the word; next he would prove to them his own power, and therefore he afterward asked them, When I sent without purse and scrip, lacked ye anything? W. 16-23. The task now committed to them carried in it the germ of that larger apostolic work, for which by the gift of the Spirit they were to be qualified, and in which for so many years after their Master's death they were to be engaged. And so, after speaking of the one, Jesus passes on to the other, the narrower mission sinking out of sight as his eye rests on the farther and broader mission that lay before them. In the one, the nearer, there was to be no opposition or persecution; in the other, a fiery trial was in store for the faithful. The one was to be confined to the lost sheep of the house of Israel; in the other, they were to come into collision with kings and governors of the Gentiles. It is of this second period—of the persecution on the one hand, and the gifts of the Spirit on the other, by which it should be distinguished— that Jesus speaks in the passage embraced in the verses from the sixteenth to the twenty-third. The second division of the address closes, as the first does, by a "Verily, I say unto you." The fact thus solemnly affirmed points, in the destruction of Jerusalem, to the close of that period over which Christ's prophetic eye was now ranging: "Verily, I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come." II. The world's history may be perused and reperused; the causes of all revolutions, religious or political, may be investigated; but we shall nowhere be able to trace in the dealings of chiefs and accomplices, of originators and fellow-workmen, the divine characteristics of absolute and uncompromising sincerity that reign throughout the actions and language of Jesus Christ in his conduct toward his apostles. Them he has chosen and loved, and to them intrusted his work; but he practises with them no arts of worldly wisdom; he withholds nothing from them. Here is no faltering encouragement, no exaggeration in the promises that he makes, or in the hopes that he holds forth. He speaks to them the language of pure truth, and it is in the name of that truth that he gives them his commands and transfers to them his mission. F. G. 17, 18. Scourge you . . . for my sake. That twelve men, without any reason, and without being misled by any artifice or delusion, voluntarily exposed themselves, at the desire of another person, to persecution, torment, and destruction, demands some most forcible reason, and that reason could be nothing less than a full and perfect conviction, arising from the miracles which they saw, that Christ was the Son of God; that all power was given to him in heaven and in earth; and that he was able to fulfil the promises he had made them of a recompense in the future life, infinitely surpassing in magnitude and duration all the sufferings they could experience in the present world. P. 19. It shall be given you what ye shall speak. The Holy Spirit is in the heart, in the mind, and on the tongue of those who are to speak for Christ, and who belong to him. Neither surprise, nor defect of talent, nor even ignorance, can hurt the cause of God, when the heart is ready to defend it. This promise banishes distrust without encouraging negligence, and without dispensing with the obligation to prepare ourselves, by the meditation of Christian truths, by the study of the Holy Scriptures, and by prayer. A promise so positive would more frequently have its effect, if the incredulity of man did not oppose it. Q.—20. In the great work of God in the world human individuality sinks down and vanishes, and God alone, his Christ, his Spirit, is the great worker, as here "it is not ye that speak." Your Father. To his disciples our Lord never says our Father, but either my Father or your Father, or both conjoined; never leaving it to be inferred that God is in the same sense his father and our Father. 22, 23. He that endureth to the end shall be saved. Our Lord's prophecies concerning his coming have an immediate literal, and a distant foreshadowed fulfilment. In these words there is certainly reference to the destruction of Jerusalem, the end directly spoken of is that event, and the shall be saved the preservation provided by the warning afterward given. But these words as certainly look onward to the great final coming of the Lord, the end of all prophecy; as certainly the shall be saved here bears the full Scripture meaning of everlasting salvation; and the endurance to the end is the finished course of the Christian. It is most important to keep in mind the great prophetic parallels which run through our Lord's discourses, and are, sometimes separately, sometimes simultaneously, presented to us by him. A. ## Section 64.—The Twelve, instructed, go forth. Galilee. Mk. 7 And great multitudes from Galilee followed him, and from Judea, and from Jerusalem 8 and from Idumea, and from beyond Jordan; and he healed them all. And they about 9 Tyre and Sidon, a great multitude, when they had heard what great things he did, 9 came unto him. And he spake to his disciples, that a small ship should wait on him 10 because of the multitude, lest they should throng him. For he had healed many; in- 11 somuch that they pressed upon him for to touch him, as many as had plagues. And un- 11 clean spirits, when they saw him, fell down before him, and cried saying, Thou art the 12 Son of God. And he straitly charged them that they should not make him known. M. 17 That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Behold my 18 servant whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will 19 put my Spirit upon him, and he shall shew judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not 20 strive nor cry; neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed 21 shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment 21 unto victory. And in his name shall the Gentiles trust. L. 12 And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and 13 continued all night in prayer to God. And when it was day, he called unto him his disciples, whom he would, and they came unto him. And of them he chose and or- dained twelve, whom also he named Apostles: that they should be with him, and that Mk. 15 he might send them forth to preach; and to have power to heal sicknesses, and to 16 cast out devils. Now the names of the twelve apostles are these: The first, Simon 17 (whom he also named Peter), and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James (and he surnamed them Boanerges, which is, The sons of 18 thunder); Philip and Bartholomew; Matthew the publican, and Thomas; James the son of Alpheus, and Lebbeus whose surname was Thaddeus, [whom Luke names] Judas 19 the brother of James; Simon the Canaanite, called Zelotes, and Judas Iscariot, which also betrayed him. L. 17 And he came down with them, and stood in the plain; and the company of his disciples, and a great multitude of people out of all Judea and Jerusalem and from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, which came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; 18, 19 and they that were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed. And the whole multitude sought to touch him: for there went virtue out of him, and healed them all. It behooved him to select a number of men in whom the riches of his life might be unfolded in every direction. For this end he needed, above all, men in whom the glory of his spirit and the peculiarity of his work might be distinctly identified; laymen, who would not chain his work to existing priestly habits; unlearned men, who would not mix up his wisdom with traditional schemes of philosophy; even comparatively uneducated men, in order that the dulled taste of a diseased worldly civilization might not disturb the culture which the spirit of the incarnate Word was to impart to them. It was through fishermen, country people, and publicans, that the Word of God in the life and doings of Christ was to be declared in its purity. Lange. A small body of trustworthy followers were to form the closest, inmost circle of his disciples, and to be his friends and companions. He would give them his fullest confidence: open his mind to them more fully than to others: and, by living among them, inspire them with his own fervor, and mould them to his own likeness. They would see how his soul never unbent from its grand enthusiasm: how he never wearied in his transcendent devotion of body and spirit to his work. In seeing and hearing him, they would gain experience: in the opposition and trials they met in his company, their fidelity would be put to the test, and, in the end, they would be qualified for the special work for which they had been chosen. G. They were to share and multiply his labors, to protect and relieve him from the pressure to which he was exposed. For a short season he was to send them from his side, to teach and to work miracles as he did himself, that a short fore-trial might be made of the work in which they were afterward to be engaged. After his death they were to be the witnesses of the resurrection, the expounders of that gospel which needed the great decease to be accomplished ere in its full measure it could be proclaimed. By their hands the foundations of the Church were to be laid. H. Mk. 7-12. This summary statement indicates not only the vast number of those whom Christ healed during his Galilean ministry, but it shows the universality of attention and interest concentrated upon himself. From Judea, Galilee, and Perea, and the outlying countries of Phenicia on the north and Idumea on the south, came these immense multitudes. And it is to be noted, that this great reach and measure of influence was attained by our Lord before his appointment of the apostles, and before any formal and public statement of his essential doctrines. M. 18-20. How gently and unobtrusively, with what a consummate union of wisdom and tenderness, he had attained this wide sway over these ever following multitudes, is intimated by this touching reference to Jehovah's word concerning his chosen servant. J. G. B. L. 12. Our Saviour's whole position at this period of his ministry not only suggested, but may even be said to have claimed, some such public exposition of his doctrine as we find in the Sermon on the Mount. His mission had been unfolded step by step, till it lay fully open to the inquiries of his disdisciples and the objections of his foes; and the time had come to rebuke malignant cavils, to correct erroneous expectations, and to satisfy humble and earnest inquiries. The multitudes who had followed him to the shores of the lake were in a condition not unlike those whom Moses had led out into the wilderness. They had seen and heard enough to prepare them to hear the law of God from his own lips; and they are assembled before a mount, whose very name marks it as far more glorious than Sinai, the Mount of Beatitudes. But in this case, as in that, a solemn pause precedes the utterance of the divine word. The Mediator himself is called to close and secret communion with God, while the people have an interval of awful expectation. Alone, like Moses, Jesus "went up into the mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God." S.—The scene of this lonely vigil, and of the Sermon on the Mount, was in all probability the singular elevation known at this day as the Kurn Hattin, or "Horns of Hattin." It is a hill with a summit which closely resembles an Oriental saddle with its two high peaks. These two maps, copied from a single one prepared by the English Survey, overlap each other. Hattin, the “mountain” where the following sermon was probably delivered, is included in both. The position of Nazareth and Cana is to be noted on the left-hand map. The map on the right hand should be carefully studied, as exhibiting the localities of so large a part of our Lord’s ministry.  The double-peaked summit of Hattin, on the west rises very little above the level of a broad and undulating plain; on the east it sinks precipitately toward a plateau, on which lies, immediately beneath the cliffs, the village of Hattin; and from this plateau the traveller descends through a wild and tropic gorge to the shining levels of the lake of Galilee. It is the only conspicuous hill on the western side of the lake, and it is singularly adapted by its conformation, both to form a place for short retirement, and a rendezvous for gathering multitudes. 13. He chose and ordained twelve.** The present choice was regarded as formal and as final. Henceforth there was to be no return to the fisher's boat or the publican's booth as a source of sustenance; but the disciples were to share the wandering missions, the evangelic labors, the scant meal and uncertain home, which marked even the happiest period of the ministry of their Lord. F.—The twelve were not all in indigence. The mother of John ministered to Jesus of her substance; Peter and Andrew had a house at Capernaum; Matthew gave a feast to the Master. But it is clear, nevertheless, that the apostles belonged to the lower class, and were accounted unlearned and ignorant men. At the time they were chosen they were still very ignorant, infected with Jewish prejudices, incapable of rising to the sublime thoughts of their Master. They often saddened the heart of Jesus, though they could not exhaust his patience in the work of their religious education. This work was not to be fully accomplished till he should have gone away from them, and the Holy Spirit should have come upon them, accompanied with the chastening influence of trial. De P. The twelve were to lead the kingdom as his organs. Their superiority to all others, who should also act as organs of the Holy Spirit testifying within them of the Redeemer (the common calling of all believers), consisted in this, that they received a direct and personal impression of the words and works of Christ, and could thus testify of what they had seen and heard. N.—The marks of the apostolic office were these: Personal intercourse with Christ; appointment by himself; the gift of the Holy Spirit, breathed upon them by Christ, and more openly conferred, according to his promise, on the day of Pentecost, giving them power to work miracles and to speak in foreign tongues; to which was added the power to confer that gift on others. The union of these signs distinguished the apostles from every other class of ministers. The number of the apostles, corresponding to that of the twelve tribes of Israel, is clearly symbolical of their primary mission to the Jews. S.—Only at a later period was a Paul added to the apostles—a man capable, from his systematic mental cultivation, of elaborating and unfolding, by his own power of thought, yet under the guidance of the same Spirit of Christ, the material of divine revelation that was bestowed upon him. N. Mk. 15. The twelve are arranged by Luke in pairs; generally, however, they were divided into three classes, with two pairs in each, in the following manner: 1. 1. Simon, James, Andrew, John; 2. 2. Philip, Matthew (Levi), Bartholomew (Nathanael), Thomas; 3. 3. James, son of Alpheus, Judas, brother of James (Lebbeus, Thaddeus). Simon Zelotes, Judas Iscariot. C. B. L. 17. Came down . . . in the plain. On a level place, not "in the plain." This expression suggests that the spot was situated in the midst of a hilly country. Thus the description of the localities offers no impediment to our identifying the discourses of Matthew and Luke. L.—The words which our translators render in the plain, suggest rather some platform. S.—According to tradition, the "Mount of Beatitudes" lies a little west of the Sea of Galilee, and is a square-shaped hill, about sixty feet in height, with two tops, called the Horns of Hattin, from the village of Hattin at its base. The plain on which it stands is easily accessible from the lake, and from that plain to the summit is but a few minutes' walk. The platform at the top is evidently suitable for the collection of a multitude, and corresponds precisely to the "level place" to which he would "come down" as from one of its higher horns to address the people. A. P. S.—It is quite certain, from the evangelical narrative, that this sermon of the Great Teacher was spoken on a mountain not far to the west of the Sea of Galilee. Somewhere on the summit of this mountain, which slopes down so gently to the spacious Gennesaret plain, Jesus spake that exposition of moral duty which, in purity, spirituality, and humanity, had never been approached by any of the ethical teachings that had preceded it—which no moral teaching since has been able to supplement or improve—which, though it did not amend the Decalogue, yet "filled it up," ensouled it, and transfigured it; "that heavenly summary of the life and practice of Christianity which age after age has regarded as the most sacred heritage which God has vouchsafed unto his Church." A. Thomson. As those twelve chosen ministers stood with him on the Mount of Beatitudes in the morning glow that shone upon the lake, they resembled the heads of the twelve tribes, who were called up with Moses to hear the law given upon Sinai. The discourse which follows was spoken first to them, as the manual of their instructions, the code of the new kingdom of which they were the new ministers, the outline of the truths they were to teach. It was uttered to the disciples in the hearing of all the people, to whom, as representing the whole world, it points out the only path of duty and happiness, that which gives entrance to the kingdom of heaven; invites them into that kingdom by the most alluring promises of blessedness; claims their submission to its just and holy laws; and warns them of the danger and ruin of remaining without it. To all these classes it exhibits the characters that all men must bear, the truths that all must learn, the spirit that all must cultivate, the life that all must live, if they would enter into the kingdom of heaven, and insure the salvation of their souls. S. The discourses by Matthew and Luke. The positive arguments for the identity of the two discourses are overwhelming, and the very variations tend to establish an essential sameness. Both begin with the same blessings, and end with the same striking parable concerning the difference between hearing and doing. Both mark the same period of our Lord's ministry, name the same locality, represent our Lord, directly after the discourse, as entering Capernaum, and performing the same miracle. S.—The choice of the twelve by our Lord, as his ministers and witnesses, furnished an appropriate occasion for this public declaration respecting the spiritual nature of his kingdom, and the life and character required of those who would become his true followers. Luke expressly assigns this as the occasion; and although Matthew is silent here and elsewhere as to the selection of the apostles, yet some passages of the discourse as reported by him seem to presuppose their previous appointment as teachers. The order of circumstances would seem to have been the following: Our Lord retires to the mountain and chooses the twelve, and with them descends to the multitudes on the level place or plain, where he heals many. As they press upon him, he again ascends to a more elevated spot, where he can overlook the crowds and be heard by them; and here, seating himself with the twelve around him, he addresses himself to his disciples in particular and to the multitudes in general. R. M. 24 The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord. It is enough 25 for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord: if they have 26 called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his 27 household? Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that shall not be 28 revealed; and hid, that shall not be known. What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye 29 in light, and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the house-tops. And fear not them which will kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him 29 which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a 30 farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the 31 very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore; ye are of more value than many sparrows. 32. Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my 33 Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also 34 deny before my Father which is in heaven. Think not that I am come to send peace 35 on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in- 36 law against her mother-in-law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. 37 He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me: and he that loveth 38 son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, 39 and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it: and 40 he that loseth his life for my sake, shall find it. He that receiveth you, receiveth me: 41 and he that receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me. He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet, shall receive a prophet's reward; and he that receiveth a right- 42 eous man in the name of a righteous man, shall receive a righteous man's reward. And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only, in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you he shall in no wise lose his reward. 1. And it came to pass, when Jesus had made an end of commanding his twelve dis- Mk.12 ciples, he departed thence to teach and preach in their cities. And they departed and 13 went through the towns, preaching the gospel, that men should repent. And they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed every- where. THE world that pursued Christ unrelentingly, until it had driven him forth, has ever since been doing its best to make his followers silent concerning him. "Thou shalt not confess the Lord Jesus Christ," is the first and great commandment of the world, and if it can only get this obeyed it will give a dispensa- tion from all other duties. It has tried fire and the sword abundantly; but in these latter days its tactics are more subtle. In all courtesy, addressing the Christian, it says: "I will sit at your feet, and learn of you. In return I will teach you what I know. We must go hand in hand along the journey of life." The Christian is charmed by this proposal, and falls into the snare. The world learns something, just to lull the Church asleep; and the Church learns, alas! much of the world. G. B. Do any good, be it great or small, to a brother of Christ, and you do it to Christ. What new rays of encouragement are here shed over the walks of our common life, which is made up of seeming trifles! Noth- ing is small, which the Master accepts as tribute. Little things become great, when done in a great cause, and out of loyalty to a great King. It is not the price, but the homage. The cup of cold water, in the name of a disciple, refreshes the soul of the Master and has his sure reward. The two mites of the widow (less than the cost of three sparrows) go for more than the thousands of the opulent. The heart is all. The giver stamps the gift, and the intention defines the giver. So likewise in regard to the person bene- fited; little things, we may say again, become great, when done in behalf of Christ's "little ones." And these are continually about us. The poor we have always with us; and God hath chosen the poor rich in faith. J. W. A. 24-42. Now the whole earthly mission of the twelve presents itself to the Saviour's eye but as the preface to that continuous, abiding work of witnessing for him upon this earth to which each separate disciple of the cross is called. Dropping, therefore, all directions and allusions referring ex- clusively to the apostles, Jesus, in the closing and larger portion of the address, from the twentyfourth to the forty-second verse, speaks generally of all true discipleship to himself upon this earth: foretelling its fortunes, describing its character, its duties, its encouragements, and its rewards. H. 28. Fear not. For the day is coming which shall clear you and condemn them, if ye are fear- lessly doing the work of him that sent you. Rather fear him. Fear him, above men; trust him, in spite of men. Their heavenly Father is set forth as the sole object of childlike trust and childlike fear—the former from his love, the latter from his power, his power to destroy, not them, but absolute, soul and body, in hell. A. 30. The hairs of your head are all numbered.** Our Lord teaches us, as to those very little things, in order that we may know and feel that nothing is too little to be ordered by our Father, nothing too little in which to see his hand, nothing, which touches our souls, too little to accept from him, nothing too little to be done to him. Since the hairs of our heads are all numbered, so is every throb or shoot of pain, every beating of the heart. Every tear which starts is seen, and if wept to him is gathered up by him. Every heart's sigh he hears at once from every bosom in his whole creation. He, who is in the highest heaven and filleth all things, but is contained in none, is present to each single heart, and if the heart form its wish to him he hearkens. Keble. Nothing is more wonderful, or more incomprehensible, than the care and concern of God for his own. The least circumstances of their life are regulated, not by the general providence, which extends to all things, but by a particular providence, which fits and directs all things to the design of their salvation. Q.—How magnificent is this idea of God's government! That he inspects the whole and every part of his universe every moment; and orders it according to the counsels of his infinite wisdom and goodness, by his omnipotent will! Whose thought is power, and his acts ten thousand times quicker than the light, unconfused in a multiplicity exceeding number, and unwearied through eternity! How much comfort and encouragement to all good and devout persons are contained in this thought! That Almighty God, as he has his eye continually upon them, so he is employed constantly in directing, in doing, what is best for them. Thus they may be sure indeed that all things work together for their good. The Lord is truly their Shepherd; not leaving them to chance or fate, but watching over them himself; and therefore can they lack nothing. Ogden. 31. Of more value than many sparrows.** We never knew an earthly father take care of his fowls and neglect his children; and shall we fear this from our heavenly Father? That man is unworthy to have God for his father in heaven, who depends less upon his goodness, wisdom, and power, than upon a crop of corn, which may be spoiled, either in the field or in the barn. The passage from distrust to apostasy is very short and easy; and a man is not far from murmuring against providence, when he is dissatisfied with its conduct. He ought to depend entirely upon it, as well for the keeping of its gifts as for the gifts themselves. Q. 32. Confess me. The context shows plainly that it is a practical, consistent confession which is meant, and also a practical and enduring denial. The Lord will not confess the confessing Judas, nor deny the denying Peter. The traitor who denied him in act is denied; the apostle who confessed him even to death will be confessed. L. A.—33. Deny me. As the great comprehensive gospel duty is the denial of self, so the grand gospel sin that confronts it is the denial of Christ. These two are both the commanding and the dividing principles of all our actions; for whosoever acts in opposition to one, does it always in behalf of the other. None ever opposed Christ, but it was to gratify self; none ever renounced the interest of self, but from a prevailing love to the interest of Christ. The things which generally cause men to deny Christ are either the enjoyments or the miseries of this life; but, alas! at the day of judgment all these will expire; and what are we the better for pleasure, or the worse for sorrow, when it is past? But then sin and guilt will be still fresh; and heaven and hell will be then yet to begin. Him will I deny.** How many woes are crowded into this one sentence! It is an eternity of torments compressed in a word. It is condemnation itself, and what is most of all, it is condemnation from the mouth of the Saviour. Could I give you a lively representation of guilt and horror, and paint out eternal wrath and decipher eternal vengeance, then might I show the condition of a sinner hearing himself denied by Christ. And for those whom Christ has denied, it will be in vain to appeal to the Father, unless he imagine that those whom mercy has condemned justice will absolve. R. S. 39. Findeth his life shall lose it.** Life and it refer to the same thing, but in somewhat different senses. The first life is the life of this world, which we here all count so dear to us; the second, implied in it, the real life of man in a blessed eternity. This life unto God is the true life which the self-denier shall find and preserve unto life eternal. A.—All self-seeking is self-losing. Even in spiritual things, he who is perpetually studying how to secure joy and peace for himself loses it. A certain measure of self-forgetfulness is the condition of the highest success even in Christian grace. L. A. 42. Shall in no wise lose his reward.** For so it is, and ever shall be, not simply by great men going out and speaking words of power to gathered multitudes, or by great assemblies propounding solemn truths, that the kingdom of Jesus Christ is advanced; but by all, the high and low, rich and poor, weak and strong, who bear his name, looking upon themselves as his missionaries here, sent by him even as he was sent by his Father; seeking each other's good, giving and in giving receiving, receiving and in receiving imparting, each doing a little to commend to others that Saviour in whom is all his trust; these littles making up that vast agency by which the empire of the Redeemer over human spirits is being continually enlarged. Mk. 12. The sight must have been a very extraordinary one, of the apostles setting off two by two from their Master's side, passing with such eagerness and haste through the towns and villages, preaching and working miracles. To hear one man preach as Jesus did, to see one man confirm his word by doing such wonderful works, filled the whole community with wonder. To what a higher pitch must that wonder have been raised when they saw others commissioned by him, endowed by him, not only preaching as he did, but healing, too, all manner of disease! H.—How long this mission lasted is uncertain. As the first journey of the twelve, alone, it is not likely to have been very protracted. As they appeared, two by two, in the villages of Galilee, the name of Jesus was on every tongue, and penetrated even the gilded saloons of the hated Roman palace of Antipas, at Tiberias. Jesus, himself, had not been idle while his followers were away, for their departure was the signal for a new, solitary journey, to preach and teach in the various cities. His name was thus spread abroad everywhere, and his claims and character discussed by all. G. ## Section 65.—Herod holds Jesus to be the Baptist recently beheaded. L. 11 And it came to pass the day after, that he went into a city called Nain; and many 12 of his disciples went with him, and much people. Now when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother: and 13 she was a widow: and much people of the city was with her. And when the Lord 14 saw her, he had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not. And he came and touched the bier: and they that bare him stood still. And he said, Young man, I say 15 unto thee, Arise. And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak: and he delivered 16 him to his mother. And there came a fear on all: and they glorified God, saying, That 17 a great prophet is risen up among us; and, That God had visited his people. And this rumour of him went forth throughout all Judea, and throughout all the region round about.18, 19 And the disciples of John shewed him all these things. And John, when he had heard in the prison the works of Christ, calling unto him two of his disciples, sent them unto Jesus, saying unto him, Art thou he that should come, or look we for another? 20 When the men were come unto him, they said, John Baptist hath sent us unto thee, saying, Art thou he that should come, or look we for another? 21 And in that same hour he cured many of their infirmities, and plagues, and of evil 22 spirits, and to many that were blind he gave sight. Then Jesus answering, said unto them, Go your way and tell John again what things ye have seen and heard, how that the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf 23 hear, the dead are raised up, and to the poor the gospel is preached. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me. THESE mighty works of Jesus, which have been done and duly certified, are fit expressions to us of the fact that he can do for us all that we want. Doubtless it is a great and difficult thing to regenerate a fallen nature; no person, really awake to his miserable and dreadful bondage, ever thought otherwise. But he that touched the blind eyes and commanded the leprosy away, he that trod the sea, and raised the dead, and burst the bars of death himself, can tame the passions, sweeten the bitter affections, and roll back all the storms of the mind. Assured in this manner by his miracles, they become arguments of trust, a storehouse of powerful images, that invigorate courage and stimulate hope. Broken as we are by our sorrow, cast down as we are by our guiltiness, ashamed, and weak, and ready to despair, we can yet venture a hope that our great soul-miracle may be done; that, if we can but touch the hem of Christ's garment, a virtue will go out of him to heal us. In all dark days and darker struggles of the mind, in all outward disasters, and amid all storms upon the sea of life, we can yet descry him treading the billows, and hear him saying, "It is I, be not afraid." And lest we should believe the miracles faintly, for there is a busy infidel lurking in our hearts to cheat us of our faith when he cannot reason it away, the character of Jesus is ever shining with and through them, in clear self-evidence, leaving them never to stand as raw wonders only of might, but covering them with glory, as tokens of a heavenly love, and acts that only suit the proportions of his personal greatness and majesty. H. B. 11. Nain still remains under the same name: a small village on the northern slope of Little Hermon. (See maps on pages 46 and 50.) J. G. B. 12-15. Our Lord healed, probably, every kind of disease known in Palestine. But he had not yet raised the dead. This alone was wanting to complete the evidences of divine power which his miracles offered. There were examples of raising the dead by the prophets Elijah and Elisha; but with what remarkably contrasting circumstances of prayer and effort, and delay; whereas Jesus arrests a corpse in the road to the grave, and at once bids it live. The apostles also raised the dead, but they confessedly derived their power from Jesus, and did nothing but in his name. K.—Under the Old Testament, God raised one by Elijah, another by Elisha living, a third by Elisha dead: by the hand of the Mediator of the New Testament, he raised here the son of the widow, the daughter of Jairus, Lazarus; and, in attendance of his own resurrection, he made a delivery of holy prisoners at Jerusalem. He raises the daughter of Jairus from her bed, this widow's son from his coffin, Lazarus from his grave, the dead saints of Jerusalem from their decay; that it might appear no degree of death can hinder the efficacy of his overruling command. He that keeps the keys of death, cannot only make way for himself through the common hall and outer rooms, but through the most reserved closets of darkness. Bp. H. Here was a woman in a state of widowhood, a state friendless and forlorn, and frequently mentioned in Scripture as one which God receives under his special protection. She stood childless, without any help or sanctuary except in that kind and tender God, who is a never-failing friend to the unfriended. This complication of miseries the merciful Jesus saw and felt, and relieved by turning her tears into joy. Stanhope.—Here was no solicitor, but his own compassion. In other occasions, he was sought and sued to. The centurion comes to him for a servant; the ruler, for a son; Jairus, for a daughter; the neighbors, for the paralytic; here, he offers the cure unrequested. While we have to do with the Father of mercies, our afflictions are the most powerful suitors. No tears, no prayers can move him so much as his own commiseration. When we are past all our hopes, all possibilities of help, then he is nearest to us for deliverance. Bp. H. 14,15. What mingled majesty and grace shines in this scene! The Resurrection and the Life in human flesh, with a word of command, bringing back life to the dead body; Incarnate Compassion summoning its absolute power to dry a widow's tears! B.—Pausing only to say to the mother, "Weep not," he approached, and—heedless once more of purely ceremonial observances—touched the bier, or rather the open coffin in which the dead youth lay. It must have been a moment of intense and breathless expectation. Unbidden, but filled with indefinable awe, the bearers of the bier stood still. And then through the hearts of the stricken mourners, and through the hearts of the silent multitude, there thrilled the calm utterance, "Young man, arise!" F.—He who did this, shall once, when he has spoken the great "Arise," which shall awaken not one, but all the dead, deliver all the divided, that have fallen asleep in him, to their beloved for personal recognition and for a special fellowship of joy, amid the universal gladness and communion of love which shall then fill all hearts. We have the promise and pledge of this in the three raisings from the dead which prefigure that coming resurrection. T. Jesus raised the dead as he performed the most common actions: he spoke as a master to those who were sleeping the eternal sleep. One feels that he was Lord of the dead as of the living; never more tranquil than when he wrought the mightiest works. Massillon.—This miracle of the resurrection he does not now repeat; but he still meets us at the grave, the sympathizing Saviour, the Resurrection and the Life. To the heart that yearns to receive its dead to life again he gives a consolation greater than the miracle. Though the cry of nature be not heard, faith wins the answer of peace. J. P. T. 16,17. At the sight of the young man once more alive, the memory of Elijah and Elisha was on every lip, and cries rose on all sides that a great prophet had again risen, and that God had visited his people. Nor did the report confine itself to these upland regions. It flew far and near to Judea in the south, and even to the remote Perea. G. 19,20. John had now been a year in prison, and Josephus states that Machærus, east of the Dead Sea, one of the strong fortresses built by the elder Herod, was the place of his imprisonment. In that case the disciples must have come upward of fifty miles to visit Jesus at Capernaum. K.—On the brink of a great precipice, above the steaming hot fountains of Kalhirrhoë, and facing the Dead Sea, is the lonely fortress of Machærus. Here, in the midst of a scene of most remarkable natural desolation, John the Baptist was imprisoned till he met his death. This fact affords a striking commentary on our Saviour's reply to the messengers which John sent, wherein he distinctly refers him for consolation and strength to the passage in Isaiah, chap. 35, which so beautifully changes the theme from the prophecy of desolation in chap. 34 on that same land of Idumea and Bozrah. W. H. Thomson. 21,22. Christ contents himself with simply pointing to such works done by him as the Baptist could not fail to recognize as a fulfilment of those prophecies of Isaiah, in which the days and doings of the Messiah were described. H.—As the article is wanting in each of these clauses, the sense would be better perceived by the English reader thus, though scarcely tuneful enough: "Blind persons are seeing, lame people are walking, leprous persons are getting cleansed, deaf people are hearing, dead persons are being raised." B. The question of John is nothing else than the prayer, "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief." And this prayer is answered by our gracious Lord. O.—23. We conclude from the express words of him, who at this very crisis pronounced upon him the most splendid eulogy ever breathed over mortal man, that the great and noble prophet had indeed, for the moment, found a stumbling-block to his faith in what he heard about the Christ. And is this unnatural? is it an indecision which any one who knows anything of the human heart will venture for a moment to condemn? Though all men flocked in multitudes to listen to the fiery preacher of the wilderness, the real effect on the mind of the nation had been neither permanent nor deep. Though his Friend and his Saviour was living, was at no great distance from him, was in the full tide of his influence, and was daily working the miracles of love which attested his mission, yet John saw that Friend and Saviour on earth no more. He seemed to be neglected not only by God above, but by the living Son of God on earth. Among so many words of mercy and tenderness might not some be vouchsafed to him who had uttered that voice in the wilderness? What wonder if the eye of the caged eagle began to film! F.—Observe, that his doubt is not distrust, for he sends to Jesus for its solution; that Jesus carefully guards the people against the supposition that the temporary doubt really shakes his religious faith and character; that similar experiences of perplexity at the course of God's providential dealings are recorded of Moses, Elijah, David, Jeremiah, and the unknown author of Psalm 77, written during the Babylonian captivity; that it is not unnatural to suppose that John the Baptist shared the universal expectation among the Jews and Christ's own disciples of the temporal reign of the Messiah, and may, therefore, have been perplexed by the fact that there was no sign of the establishment of the kingdom of God in the nation; that experience of doubts is a peculiar temptation of active natures in times of enforced inactivity; and finally that the result of this embassy was probably to solve his doubts, certainly to put an end to the doubts and jealousies of his disciples. L. A. [With these views on the side of John's failure in the fortitude of faith, we also set the opposite—perhaps the juster—interpretation of his act and words. Ed.] I cannot believe that there was any such shaking in the Baptist's faith. Rather, in sending his disciples with this question to the Lord, he did but continue to do what he had done from the first, namely, turn all eyes so far as might be from himself, the waning lamp, to Jesus, the risen sun. His disciples had heard his testimony that Jesus was the Christ, and they might have been tempted to believe this, mainly because their master said it, instead of because the Lord himself declared it, to make even their very affiance on the Lord itself an act of homage done to their own master, and not to him. But their faith in Christ shall rest not on their faith in him, but rather on the Lord's own testimony that he is the Christ John desired, as Augustine well expresses it, that his disciples should dig down to the rock, and set their foundations there, and would not be satisfied until they had so done; and this was the meaning of his sending them with that question to the Lord. He further adds that the Lord's honorable testimony to John was especially timed to hinder any such misinterpretation of it or misapplication of his own warning words, "Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me," as should derogate in the least from the just esteem and honor in which the Baptist deserved ever to be holden. T. The happy result of this mission is intimated in those touching words, "His disciples took up the body of John and buried it, and came and told Jesus." W. ## Section 44.—Extols John, and reproves the Generation. L. 24 And when the messengers of John were departed, Jesus began to speak unto the people concerning John, What went ye out into the wilderness for to see? A reed shaken with the wind? But what went ye out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? Behold, they which are gorgeously apparelled in soft clothing, and live delicately, are in kings' courts. But what went ye out for to see? A prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and much more than a prophet. For this is he of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. Verily, I say unto you, Among them that are born of women, there hath not risen a greater prophet than John the Baptist: notwithstanding, he that is least in the kingdom of heaven, is greater than he. And from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. L. 29 And all the people that heard him, and the publicans, justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John. But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of him. And the Lord said, Whereunto then shall I liken the men of this generation? and to what are they like? They are like unto children sitting in the market-place, and calling one to another, and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned to you, and ye have not wept. For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and ye say, He hath a devil. The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners! But wisdom is justified of all her children. If the nearer a human soul approaches to perfection, the more sensitive does it become to the evils, pains, sorrows, sins, that surround it in such a world as this—surely far beyond all human experience, far even beyond all human comprehension, must have been the sufferings of the soul of Jesus. His was indeed the gentlest, noblest, purest spirit that ever dwelt in human breast; it had therefore a capability of suffering, a cognizance of surrounding evils, an exquisitely strung susceptibility to sorrow, such as soul of man besides never felt. His soul's delight was in holiness; it recoiled with deep and instinctive abhorrence from sin: upon the pure, burnished mirror, so to speak, of that spotless nature, the slightest breath of outward impurity would have gathered dimness. What, then, must it have been for him to live in such a world as this—to be exposed for thirty years to the foul atmosphere of its ungodliness and evil! His soul's delight was in happiness. What, then, must it have been for him to take in with his omniscient, world-wide glance, the tears, and griefs, and pains, and struggles, and sicknesses of men, to hear the great forlorn wail of humanity borne to his ear upon the four winds of heaven! Caird. Our Lord had answered the question of John's disciples by an appeal to their own senses. He now replies to the thoughts of the multitude concerning John. They might imagine from John's message and the words in which it was delivered, that the Baptist wavered in his faith, and that his imprisonment had shaken his constancy. Our Lord, therefore, reminds them of what John was, how he had acted, and how they themselves had behaved to him. What went ye out to see? Not an inconstant and vacillating man, but a man of inflexible resolution and invincible courage. Not a man of effeminate temper; not a sycophant who would flatter for hope of gain. No: his rigorous fare, his simple garb, the very place in which you found him, refute this notion. If he had been such, he would have been in the court, and not in the desert. W.—No pliant reed, that would bend before the wind of adversity: no dainty courtier, to fear a king's frown or a queen's hatred. No! he was the very Elijah predicted by the prophets as the Messiah's herald; but their childish folly, never knowing what to ask for or expect, vented itself in discontent and unbelief alike against the stern asceticism of John and the winning love of Jesus. S. 24. The reed of Egypt and Palestine is a very tall cane, growing twelve feet high, with a magnificent panicle of blossom at the top, and so slender and yielding that it will lie perfectly flat under a gust of wind, and immediately resume its upright position. It grows in great canebrakes in many parts of Palestine, especially on the west side of the Dead Sea, where, nourished by the warm springs, it lines the shore for several miles with an impenetrable fringe—the lair of wild boars and leopards—to the exclusion of all other vegetation. On the banks of the Jordan it occurs in great patches, but is not so lofty. H. B. T. 27. Before thy face.** In Mal. 3 : 1, it is "before me," God being the first person. Then it appears that Christ is one with God the Father, and that the coming of Christ is the coming of God. Hammond.—M. 11. He that is least. The manner in which Christ contrasted the Old Testament with its fulfilment, the New, and elevated the least of Christians above all the prophets, shows how clearly he distinguished the kernel from its perishable shell, the divine idea from its temporary veil, the truth which lay in germ in the Old Testament from the contracted form in which it presented itself to Old Testament minds. 12. The violent take it.** These words are expressly chosen to denote the earnest will, the struggle, and the entire devotion of soul which are requisite to enter into the kingdom of heaven. All the powers of the spirit, its submission, its efforts, are necessary at all times to secure the kingdom amid the reactions of the natural man, the carnal mind, its selfishness, its worldliness of spirit; but at that time it was especially the worldly notions of the Messiahship that had to be struggled against. N. 13,14. The Baptist was, so to speak, the impersonation of the whole preparatory discipline for men's reception of a Saviour: that whole preparation culminating in him; "the law and the prophets were until John." Yet, though standing thus at the threshold, he did not himself move in the sphere of New Testament and evangelical life, but in that of the Old; and thus it would have been a confounding of things which it was the intention of God should be kept distinct, the law and the gospel, prophecy and its fulfilment; it would have troubled and marred the representative character of John, personifying, as he did, the first of each of these great contrasts, had he entered into closer personal relation with Christ who was the end of the law, the fulfilment of prophecy. L. 31-34. The children sitting in the markets, now mourning and now piping, are the Jews, the generation of which the Lord just before had spoken; and the companions of whom they complain are Jesus and John. The Jews wanted John to be laxer; they would fain have had him give up his strict ascetic ways; and complained that he would not do so, that he would not dance to their piping. Christ himself was equally at fault, though in an opposite extreme. They mourned to him, and he would not lament. The bridegroom and the bringer of joy, he would not change for any sadder note that note of joy to which the gospel that he preached was set, any more than John to please them would change the note of a sterner sadness to which his preaching of the law was attuned. T.—More than one public testimony had been borne by John to Jesus. Jesus answers these by the witness he thus bears to John. But as he thinks of himself in conjunction with the Baptist, the strange and inconsistent treatment that they respectively had met with from the men of that generation presents itself to his thoughts. Addressed by two different voices, speaking in two different tones, they had turned a deaf ear to both. The rigor of the law came to them in the message of the Baptist; they took offence at it. The gentleness and love of the gospel came to them in the message of Jesus; they took equal offence at it; justifying in either case their conduct by fixing on something in the character or life of each of the two messengers which they had turned into matter of complaint and accusation. H. 35. Wisdom is justified.** That generation rejected both John and his master: the one because he was too unsocial; the other because he was too much the reverse, given to consorting with the lowest classes of society. But the children of wisdom recognize and honor her whether in the austere garb of the Baptist or in the more attractive style of his Master. B.—This word "wisdom" which Christ uses here has the advantage that by aid of it he is able to include in a common justification both his own dealings and those of John, which last he would fain vindicate not less than his own. "Her children" can be no other than as many as have accepted her teaching, and now walk in her ways. T.—The heavenly wisdom from which emanated both law and gospel—that which instituted both the Old and New Testaments—is always justified—that is, approved—by her children, or those by whom she is truly loved. C. B. That which distinguishes the standpoint of the Saviour from that of the Old Testament was the spirit of liberty with which, in Christianity, the divine life appropriates to itself the relations of the world and society, in contrast with the spirit of ascetic opposition to the world. The Jews could see nothing of the holy prophet in a man who shared with his disciples in the pleasures of social life, and sanctified them by his presence; in a man who did not hesitate to partake of the entertainments of publicans and sinners. No schools of spiritual life, indeed, before that time, had trained their pupils as Christ did his. We can easily imagine the amazement of the Pharisees! N.—Our Lord enjoined no austerities as absolute duties, nor even recommended any, as carrying men to a higher degree of divine favor. The religion of Christ stands eminently distinguished in this respect when compared with other religions which have been founded in the fanaticism either of their authors or their first followers. Paley.—His gospel was not to be a system of asceticism, nor of any kind of external uniformity. It would take men as it found them, and enter into the daily life. The kingdom of heaven was more than meat and drink, more than names and rules: men must take hold of it from within, with true earnestness of spirit, with energy of faith—must break away from the world, not by going into the desert, but by breaking off from sin. The outer life must be governed by the inner spirit of wisdom, truth, and love. The Christian should not bind himself by tradition or custom in things not essential. The true Christian spirit will not compromise with sin, nor court the world; yet it is full of mercy and of good fruits. J. P. T. ## Section 45.—Upbraids the Favored Cities. Invites the Heavy-laden. Capernaum. 20. THEN began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, 21 because they repented not. Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they 22 would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, It shall be 23 more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works which have been done in thee had been done in Sodom, it would have 24 remained until this day. But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee. 25 At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed 26, 27 them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight. All things are delivered unto me of my Father; and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal 28 him. Come unto me, all ye that labour, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me: for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye 30 shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. If all the anxious thought and weary labor, the prayers, the pains, the self-mortifications, the sacrifices—personal, domestic, social, of affections, of property, of life—that have been made by mankind to turn away the apprehended wrath of heaven—if they could be all heaped up in one great mass, what a mountain-pile of toil and suffering would they exhibit, what a gigantic monument to the sense of sin, the power of conscience in the human heart! With a mournful eye we look upon that pile as we remember that it has been heaped up in vain, that all that was wanted was the ceasing from the effort to establish a righteousness of their own before God, the ceasing from any such methods to ward off the displeasure or win the favor of the Most High; and the opening simply of the ear and the heart to the words of Jesus, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." It is as those who have been redeemed to God by Christ's most precious blood, whose sins have been forgiven for Jesus' sake, whose peace has been made with God through him; it is in the spirit of child-like confidence, looking up to God as our Father in heaven, and to himself as having ready in his hand for us the grace and strength we need, that Jesus would have us take up every duty, face every temptation, endure every trial, of the Christian life. But if, instead of this, it be with a doubtful mind and a divided heart that we take on the yoke—if we do this, not so much to render a return for a great benefit already received, as to add to our chance of receiving that benefit hereafter—if it be for peace and not from peace, for life and not from life that we are working—what is this but trying to shift the old yoke of self a little, loosen some of its fastenings, and by their help try to attach to us the new yoke of Christ? Is it any wonder that, encumbered thus, there should be little freedom of motion, little capacity for and little enjoyment of the work of faith and labor of love? As ever we desire to know how truly easy the yoke of Jesus is, first let us enter into the rest that at once he gives to all who come to him—the rest of forgiveness, peace, acceptance with God. And then, as animated and strengthened by this rest, let us assume the yoke, that in the bearing of it we may enter into the further rest there is for us in him—the rest of a meek and lowly heart, gentle, resigned, contented, patient of wrong, submissive under suffering, a rest not given at once or in full measure to any. H. 20-24. And now the time was come for Christ to reveal himself as a judge, to those who would not accept him as a Saviour. The cities of Galilee most favored by his ministry—Chorazin, Bethsaida, and especially Capernaum—are doomed to a far heavier judgment than Tyre and Sidon, Sodom and Gomorrah. Such words, uttered now over Galilee, as afterward over Judea and Jerusalem, show the wounded sympathies of the human friend, as well as the just indignation of the divine judge. S. The warnings denounced against Tyre and Sidon in Ezekiel (chapters 26, 27, and 28) rendered these cities notably a type of warning to the Jews. L. A.—The names of Tyre and Sidon are preserved, their sites are unquestioned; but the names of Beth- Bethsaida, Chorazin, and Capernaum are gone, and even the sites are disputed. H. B. T.—The name and perhaps even the remains of Sodom are still to be found on the shore of the Dead Sea, while that of Capernaum, on the Lake of Gennesaret, has been utterly lost. A. P. S. A ride of two miles westward, from the mouth of the Jordan along the shore, brought me to the ruins of a large town. Broken columns, hewn stones, sculptured slabs of marble, and great, shapeless heaps of rubbish, half concealed by thorns and briers, alone serve to mark the site of a great and rich city. The Arabian does not pitch his tent there, the shepherd does not feed his flock there—not a sound fell on my ear as I stood amid those  Chorazin, on the North Shore of the Lake. ruins save the gentle murmur of each wave as it broke upon the pebbly beach, and the mournful sighing of the summer breeze through sun-scorched branches; yet that is the place where Chorazm once stood! Farther along the lake, I reached a little retired bay, with a pebbly strand, just such a place as fishermen would delight to draw up their boats and spread out their nets upon. Here were numerous fountains, several old tanks and aqueducts, great heaps of rubbish, and fields of ruin. Two Arab tents were pitched a little way up on the hill-side, but I saw no other trace there of human habitation or human life; and yet that is the site of Bethsaida—the city of Andrew and Peter, James and John. A few minutes more and I reached the brow of a bluff promontory, which dips into the bosom of the lake. Before me now opened up the fertile plain of Gennesaret. At my feet, beneath the western brow of the cliff, a little fountain burst from a rocky basin. Beside it are some massive foundations, scarcely distinguishable amid the rank weeds, and away beyond it, almost covered with thickets of thorns, briers, and gigantic thistles, I saw large heaps of ruins and rubbish. These are all that now mark the site of Capernaum. On that day I climbed a peak which commands the lake, and the Jordan valley up to the waters of Merom. The principal scene of Christ's public labors lay around me—a region some thirty miles long by ten wide. When he had his home at Capernaum, the whole country was teeming with life and bustle and industry. No less than ten large cities, with numerous villages, studded the shores of the lake and the plains and the hill-sides around. The water was all speckled with the dark boats and white sails of Galilee's fishermen. Eager multitudes followed the footsteps of Jesus through the city streets, over the flower-strewn fields, along the pebbly beach. What a woful change has passed over the land since that time! The angel of destruction has been there. From that commanding height, through the clear Syrian atmosphere, I was able to distinguish, by the aid of my glass, every spot in that wide region celebrated in sacred history, or hallowed by sacred association. My eye swept over the lake from north to south, from east to west; not a single sail, not a solitary boat was there. My eye swept the great Jordan valley, the little plains, the glens, the mountain-sides from base to summit—not a city, not a village, not a house, not a sign of settled habitation was there, except the few huts of Magdala and the shattered houses of Tiberias. A mournful and solitary silence reigned triumphant. Desolation keeps unbroken Sabbath in Galilee now. Nature has lavished on the country some of her choicest gifts—a rich soil, a genial climate; but the curse of heaven has come upon it because of the sin of man. I saw how wondrously time has changed a prophetic sentence into a graphic reality: "I will make your cities waste, saith the Lord; I will bring the land into desolation." J. L. P. (See Section 34, page 141.) 20-24 and 25-30. [A linking thought for these two portions.] Nothing strikes me more in the gospel than the double character of austerity and love, of severe purity and tender sympathy, which constantly appears in the actions and words of Jesus Christ in everything that touches the revelation of God and mankind. To Christ the law of God is absolute, sacred; the violation of the law and sin are odious to him; but the sinner irresistibly attracts and moves him. This harmony of severity and love, this union of holiness and sympathy, is Heaven's revelation of the nature of Jesus himself, of the God-man. God, he made himself man. God is his Father, men are his brethren. He is pure and holy, like God: he is accessible and sensible to all that man feels. 25. Hidden from the wise. It is a noble privilege of man that God, in creating him an intelligent and free agent, has given him a capacity to desire and to pursue through study the truths of science, and even to attain them in a certain measure and in a certain sphere. But when science attempts to exceed that measure, and to quit that sphere; when it ignores and scorns the instincts—natural, universal, and permanent instincts of the human soul; when it essays to set up everywhere its own torch in the place of that primitive light that lights mankind, then, and from that cause alone, science fills itself with error: and this is the very case which called forth these words of Jesus. F. G. Revealed unto babes. Precisely because these men, destitute of all higher learning, attached themselves to him like children, were they best fitted to receive his spirit with childlike devotion and confidence, and to propagate the revelations which he made to them. Everything in them was to be the growth of the new creation through Christ's spirit; and men who had received a complete culture elsewhere would have been ill adapted for this. They were trammelled, it is true, by their carnal conceptions of divine things; but this was counterbalanced by their anxiety to learn, and their childlike submission to Christ as master and guide; while, on the other hand, insurmountable obstacles would have been presented in the preconceived views of men who had been trained and cultivated before. Moreover, this reverential submission to Christ tended surely and constantly to refine and spiritualize their mode of thinking. His image, received into their inner life, exerted a steady and overruling influence. N. It is to be observed that he does not address the Father as his Lord, but as Lord of heaven and earth. These things. These mysterious arrangements, by which the sinner is condemned in his pride and unbelief, the humble and childlike saved, and God justified when he saves and condemns. These are "revealed" to those who, in a simple and tractable spirit, obey the invitation in verses 28-30, but "hidden" from the wise of this world, who attempt their solution by the mere human understanding. A.—Our Lord does not say that God denied means of salvation to any; but he thanks him, because he has revealed to the apostles what he has hidden from the Pharisees, and thus punishes pride and rewards meekness. He thus teaches the proud that if they will become humble, they will be able to see the wondrous things of God's law, and so escape the punishment due to pride. W. 26. Take up the great enigma of the doings of God and the destinies of men at what end you may; adopt whatever method of solution you may prefer; make your way through the difficulties that beset you as far as you can: sooner or later you reach the point where explanation fails, and where there is nothing left but to join with him who said, "Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight." H.—27. Not, as in our version, no man knoweth, but no one knoweth—man, angel, archangel. That is, Christ claims a character which only the Infinite can fathom, because only the Infinite can fully understand the Infinite. L. A.—What encouragement is there for our trustful gratitude that we are left to no painful questioning, whether Christ's word is God's word, Christ's promises sustained by Almighty veracity, Christ's reconciling invitation pledged by the Father's power! Faith is made independent of doubt; and Hope casts her anchor fast by the pillars of heaven. F. D. H. The Son will reveal him. To some partial knowledge of the Supreme Being as Creator, Upholder, Sovereign, we may attain without help of this revelation by Christ; but if we would know him in his living personality, know him as a God not afar off, but near at hand, know him in all the richness and fulness of his mercy and love, know him as a pitying, forgiving, protecting, providing, comforting, reconciled Father, we must get at that knowledge through Christ; we must see him as the Son reveals him. No man knoweth thus the Father, but he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. But who is he to whom this revelation of the Father is offered? Let the broad unrestricted invitation with which the statement of the Saviour is immediately succeeded supply the answer: "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." This invitation loses half its meaning, taken out of the connection in which it was spoken. We understand and appreciate its significance only by looking upon it as grounded on and flowing out of what Christ had the moment before been saying "All things are delivered unto me of my Father." Simply that they might so freely fully come unto us, he has all, holds all as the treasurer of the kingdom, the steward of the divine mercies. And he holds all under the condition that there shall be the freest, most gracious dispensing of all, that whoever asks shall get, that no needy one shall ever come to him and be sent unrelieved away. H. 28-30. Come unto me, etc. He contrasts himself, as the Redeemer of "heavy-laden" souls, with the rigid teachers of the law, who, while they burdened men's consciences with their multiplied statutes, imparted no power to perform them, and repelled, in haughtiness, the conscience-stricken sinner, instead of affording him peace and consolation. The "friend of publicans and sinners" thus invites all who feel their wretchedness to enter his communion; and announces himself as the "meek and lowly" one, repelling none because of their misery, condescending to the necessities of all, taking off the load from the weary soul instead of imposing new burdens, and giving them joy and rest in his fellowship. He makes no extravagant, impracticable demands. Obedience, indeed ("the easy yoke"), he does require; but an obedience which is easy and pleasant, flowing spontaneously from the divine life within, and rendered in the spirit of love. "Come unto me (says he), and I will free you from your burdens, and give you the peace for which you sigh. Enter the fellowship of my disciples, and you will find me no hard master, but a kind and gentle one; you shall obtain rest for your souls, for my yoke is mild, and the burden which I shall lay upon you, light." N. The expressions labor and are heavy laden, in the first verse, answer exactly to yoke and burden in the last; and the two ideas comprehend all the modes in which working animals can be employed. They either draw or carry; in the former case they wear a yoke; in the latter, they bear a burden. There is then a beautiful contrast between the ideas in the first verse and those in the last. The bondage of the world and flesh in the one is opposed to the happy enfranchisement implied in the service of Christ in the other. A. K.—God wishes to impress us most forcibly with his pity and love, to bring us into fellowship with him, to make us more trustful and loving, better in heart and so in life. This is his design, and the restraints he imposes are in accordance with it. When we take the yoke of Christ we are at the same time to learn of him, we are to drink in of his spirit; and the new spirit of the Master will make the restraints of the Master easy and his burden light. Let the mind of Christ be in you first, and the yoke of Christ you will take through love. J. D. 30. A yoke of some kind we all are born under or willingly take on. Some assume the yoke of a single passion; and if that passion be a strong one, such as covetousness, it turns the man into a slave, making him a mere beast of burden—time for nothing, care for nothing, taste for nothing, joy in nothing but in working for it and under it. And the more work is done for it the more does it impose. Nor does it mend the matter if, instead of one, there be many such yokes about the neck, fretting and galling the wearer by the force of the impulses that drive him in this direction and in that. It is to all mankind as bearers of the one yoke or the many that Jesus says, "Take up my yoke, throw off these others, the yoke of pride, of covetousness, of sensuality, of worldliness, of ambition, of self-indulgence—take on that yoke which consists in devotedness to me and to duty, in a life of self-restraint, in a struggle with all that is evil, a cultivation of all that is beautiful and good and holy. A hard yoke you may think this to be, but believe me, my yoke is easy, my burden is light, easier and lighter far than those you are groaning under." II. 25-30. The nature of the truths contained in the gospel and their moral effects are the abiding evidence of their divine origin; and this evidence addresses itself to a humble sincere mind, to a childlike state of feeling. The mysteries of Providence, which lie beyond the analysis of reason, may lie open to the higher vision of faith. A meek and lowly mind will rest in the word of Christ, in the wisdom and love of the Father, and cannot be disquieted by that which for the present baffles the understanding. The true rest comes, not from outward circumstances, nor from the decision of vexed problems, but is within the soul—in its moral convictions, in its spiritual affections, in its trust and hope; and, when these are fixed upon God, no disturbance of affairs, no perplexities of Providence, no mysteries of faith, can really disquiet the mind. In such a frame, Christ becomes manifested to the consciousness as the embodiment of divine truth, love, and grace; and so the Father is revealed in the Son. J. P. T. 28-30. The whole of this comprehensive conclusion of the discourse is an inexhaustible text, which can never be preached out! Who is it that invites, beseeches, and calls? The eternal Son of the eternal Father, for us become the Son of man. Whom does he call? All who will know themselves to be what they are, weary and heavy laden. What does he promise them? Refreshment and rest for their souls. What does he require as the conditions? Nothing, absolutely nothing, but coming; and when they are come, and have already received his consolation, only the abiding with him, learning of him. Stier. # Section 46.—The Pharisee and the Sinner. The Two Debtors. Second Circuit in Galilee. L. 1 And it came to pass on the second sabbath after the first, that he went through the corn-fields: and his disciples were an hungered, and began, as they went, to pluck the ears of corn, and did eat, rubbing them in their hands. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto him, Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do on the sabbath-day. And certain of the Pharisees said unto them, Why do ye that which is not lawful? And Jesus answering them, said, Have ye never read so much as this, what David did, when he had need and was an hungered, he and they that were with him; how he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high-priest, and did take and eat the shewbread, and gave also to them that were with him; which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests? Or have ye not read in the law how that on the sabbath-days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless? But I say unto you, that in this place is one greater than the temple. But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless. And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath. L. 6 And it came to pass also on another sabbath, when he was departed thence, that he entered into the synagogue and taught: and behold, there was a man there whose right hand was withered. And the scribes and Pharisees watched him, whether he would heal on the sabbath-day: and they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath-days? that they might find an accusation against him. But he knew their thoughts, and said to the man which had the withered hand, Rise up, and stand forth in the midst. And he arose and stood forth. Then said Jesus unto them, I will ask you one thing: Is it lawful on the sabbath-days to do good, or to do evil? to save life, or to destroy it? But they held their peace. And he said unto them, What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the sabbath-day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out? How much then is a man better than a sheep? wherefore it is lawful to do well on the sabbath-days. Mk. 5 And when he had looked round about upon them all with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it forth; and his hand was restored whole, like as the other. 6 Then the Pharisees were filled with madness, and went out, and communed one with another what they might do to Jesus. And straightway they took counsel with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him. But Jesus, when he knew it, withdrew himself from thence with his disciples to the sea. VIRTUE goes out of Christ. The shrunken hand instantly acquires a healthful color, and swells into its right proportions. In his joy the man shuts and opens it; moves the pliant fingers; and holds the miracle aloft to the gaze of a crowd, dumb with astonishment. Give him a harp, and with that hand he would sweep its sounding strings to the praise of Jesus. Pattern to men who have souls to be saved, and hearts to cure, he did what he could—using all means within his power to obtain the blessing. And, did people, with equal eagerness, repair to the church on Sabbath, as he to the synagogue, to meet Jesus Christ, and with the same earnestness and the same faith, lay out their sins and soul's sorrows before him, our Sabbaths would witness greater works than this—he who healed that withered hand healing withered hearts, and, whether they required to be saved or sanctified, giving power to them that have no might. Guthrie. 1. More properly translated “the second-first Sabbath,” and was probably a sort of proper name for the first Sabbath after the second day of the Passover or of unleavened bread; that is, the first of the seven Sabbaths reckoned between that day and Pentecost. R.—Went through the corn-fields. The Scriptures are almost entire strangers to the word fence, as they are to the word road. We read of ways and highways, instead of roads; and fences were for towns rather than for fields. In the absence of fences, there was of course the greater need of such laws concerning trespass as Moses instituted. This account seems a picture from life in modern Palestine. N. C. B.—Pluck the corn and eat. The law and practice of Palestine continue to be this day what they were so many thousand years ago (Deut. 23 : 25). We travelled in that country once in spring, before the ears of corn were full. Nothing surprised us more than the liberties which our guides took in riding through the fields and letting their horses eat as much of the standing corn as they pleased. We felt at first as if we were trespassers and thieves, but were relieved by finding that it was done under the eye and with the full consent of the owners of the crops. H.—So I have often seen my muleteers, as we passed along the wheat-fields, pluck off ears, rub them in their hands, and eat the grains, unroasted, just as the apostles are said to have done. This also is allowable. The Pharisees did not object to the thing itself, only to the time when it was done. W. M. T.—The rabbis had decided that to pluck corn was to be construed as reaping, and to rub it as threshing. F. ONE principal end of the sabbatic institute was to preserve a knowledge of, and a faith in, the one living and true God as the creator of all things. There was no rite, nor institution, not even circumcision, by which the Jews were more conspicuously distinguished from surrounding nations, and marked off as the worshippers of Jehovah. Their Sabbath-keeping was a perpetual and visible token of the connection in which they stood to God, and of the great mission which they were set apart to discharge. But, as the faith of the people grew weak, and their allegiance faltered, they began to profane the day by breaking in upon that rest from all ordinary occupations, which should have been observed. Thus, among other distinctive marks of their peculiarity as the only worshippers of the great Creator, this one became obscured and wellnigh obliterated. A singular change came over the Jewish people after the restoration from the Babylonian captivity. Previously they were ever and anon showing a tendency to idolatry; subsequently no such tendency appears. Previously they had been neglectful of many of the distinctive rites and ceremonies of their faith; subsequently they became strict and punctilious in their observance of them. Great national calamities—the persecution under the successors of Alexander the Great, the wars of the Maccabees, the aggression of the Romans, the ascent into power of the Idumean family of the Herods, the establishment of the schools of the rabbis—all conspired to intensify the national pride and religious bigotry of the Jews; who, as they had nothing but the old laws and traditions to cling to, clung to them with all the more tenacious grasp. The sect of the Pharisees arose, and carried the popular sympathy along with it. Everything regarded as purely and peculiarly Judaic was exaggerated. Punctilious observance of the old ritual was the one great merit compensating for all defects; while around the simpler statute-law of Moses there arose an oral or traditional law, growing continually in bulk and overshadowing the primitive Mosaic institute. Upon each statute additions and explanations were heaped of such a character as to turn more and more the keeping into a mere external routine and outward performance. So fared it with the old, broad, and benignant law as to the Sabbath. Its primary injunction, “Thou shalt do no manner of work,” was falsely held as aimed at all kinds of work whatever; no less than thirty-nine kinds or classes of work being specified as involved in the prohibition. It was ruled thus that grass should not be trodden on the Sabbath, for the bruising of it was a species of harvest work; that shoes with nails should not be worn, as that was the carrying a burden. In all this there was not only a wrong rendering of the Mosaic precept, but much worse than that, there was the erection of a false standard of duty, a false test of piety—the elevation of the outward, the positive, the ceremonial, over the inward, the moral, the spiritual; the putting of the letter that killeth above the spirit which maketh alive. H. M. 5, 6. He begins with his opponents upon their own ground. “You yourselves admit that the priests who serve the temple on the Sabbath must break the literal sabbatical law in view of the higher duties of the temple-service.” Then he continues, “But I say unto you, there is something here greater than the temple.” In these, as in many of Christ’s words, there is more than meets the ear. When we remember the sanctity of the temple in Jewish eyes, as the seat of the Shechinah, as the only place where God could ever be worshipped, we can conceive the weight of Christ’s declaration that his manifestation was something greater than the temple, and was to introduce a revelation of the glory of God, and a mode of divine worship to which the temple-service was entirely subordinate. We may infer Christ’s conclusion to have been, “If the priests have been freed from the literal observance of the Sabbath law because of their relation to the temple, heretofore the highest seat of worship, how much more must my disciples be freed from the letter of that law by their relation to that which is greater than the temple! (Their intercourse with him was something greater than temple-worship.) They have plucked the corn on the Sabbath, it is true, but they have done it that they might not be disturbed in their communion with the Son of man, and in reliance upon his authority. They are free from guilt, then, for the Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” He thus laid the foundation for that true, spiritual worship to which the temple-service was to give way. N.—The temple—the seat of the Shechinah, the visible majesty of the divine presence—released the priesthood from the strict observance of the sabbatical law. They might offer their sacrifices. How much higher the claim to liberty on the part of the disciples through their connection with him! How natural to conclude that he who was greater than the temple is to take its place! G. P. F. Or have ye not read? His deep knowledge of the Scriptures shows itself throughout the gospels. He has a quotation ready to meet every hostile question. It was so profound that it forced even his enemies to recognize him as a rabbi. His frequent retort on the rabbis themselves—“Have ye not read?” and the deep insight into the spirit of Scripture, which opposes to rubrics and forms the quickening power of a higher life, prove how intensely he must have studied the sacred books. G. 7. The quotation (Hos. 6 : 7) bears this translation, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice,” the words themselves containing one of those prophetic glimpses of the gospel, one of those slights cast upon the law intimating that God had something better and higher in store for his people. The prophet of the old covenant is here anticipating the great apostle of the new, in his saying, 1 Cor. 13 : 1–3. He is declaring, That which God longs for on the part of men is not the outward observance, the sacrifice in the letter, but the inward outpouring of love—that which the “sacrifice” symbolized, the giving up of self in the self-devotion of love. This must underlie every outward sacrifice and service to give it value; and when the question arises between the form and the spirit, then the form must yield to the life, as the meaner to the more precious. T. Mk. 27. That is: Man was not created for the purpose of honoring the Sabbath; but as soon as created, the Sabbath was made to promote the best welfare of man, and, therefore, to his best welfare it must ever be held subordinate. It was made for man; not for any particular nation, but for the race; for the spiritual benefit of mankind. The very act of authoritatively regulating the duties of the Sabbath, while it doubtless implies an authority to abolish the institution, was really an authoritative recognition of it. As the authority was not used in abolishing, its effect was to confirm the ordinance. Stone. (Read Section 184.)—The end for which the Sabbath was ordained was to bless man; the end for which man was created was not to observe the Sabbath. A principle is here laid down, which must extend to the whole circle of outward ordinances. It does in fact say this, The law was made for man; not man for the law. Man is the end, and the ordinances of the law the means; not these the end, and man the means. Man was not made to the end that he might observe these; but these were given, that they might bless man, that they might train and discipline him till he should be ready to serve God from the free impulses of his spirit. T. 28. Lord even of the Sabbath.** As naked a claim to all the authority of Him who gave the law at Sinai as could possibly be made. B.—These words are inseparable from the meaning of our Lord’s answer. In pleading the example of David, the king and prophet, and of the priests in the temple, the Lord tacitly implies the greatness of his own position. He is indeed Prophet, Priest, and King; and had he been none of these, the argument would have been not merely incomplete, but misleading. It is undeniable that the law of the Sabbath was very strict. Our Lord quotes cases where the law is superseded or set aside, because he is One who has power to do the same. S. L. 9. They had put the alternatives of doing or not doing; here there might be a question. But he shows that the alternatives are, doing good or failing to do good—which last he puts as identical with doing evil, the neglecting to save as equivalent with destroying. Here there could be no question. T.—By this novel way of putting his case, our Lord teaches the great ethical principle, that to neglect any opportunity of doing good is to incur the guilt of doing evil; and by this law he bound his own spirit. B. Mk. 5. It was the sight of men, who, laying hold of one of his Father’s most merciful institutes, had exalted it into a place of false importance, attaching a specific virtue to the bare outward keeping of the letter, magnifying the minutest acts of bodily service, finding therein the materials which self-righteousness employed for defrauding the poor, the needy, and the diseased of that help which charity was ready to render—such was the source of that anger with which Jesus looked round about on the scribes and Pharisees. H.—Being grieved. One of the most striking and graphic descriptions in the gospels. It was thus that he bare even while on earth our infirmities and our sins. Their hearts were hardened—but he grieved for it. A. He stretched it forth. He believes that Christ can give the strength to execute the command. It is in that faith he acts, and, paradoxical as it may seem, let us say that, if in that faith he had not made the effort, he never would have got the strength; and yet if he had not got the strength, he never could have made the effort. Stretch forth thy withered heart to love—thy withered hand to serve—such is still his command. Fixing an eye of faith on him, who has already fixed his eye of love on us, let us make the effort, and in the very making of the effort we shall get the strength. H. 6. Filled with madness.** Thus in every way were his enemies foiled—foiled in argument, shamed into silence, thwarted even in their attempt to find some ground for a criminal accusation. For even in healing the man, Christ had done absolutely nothing which their worst hostility could misconstrue into a breach of the Sabbath law. He had not touched the man; he had not questioned him; he had not bid him exercise his recovered power; he had but spoken a word, and not even a Pharisee could say that to speak a word was an infraction of the Sabbath, even if the word were followed by miraculous blessing! Took counsel with the Herodians. Hitherto they had been enemies of the Herodians. They regarded them as half-apostate Jews, who accepted the Roman domination, imitated heathen practices, adopted Sadducean opinions, and had gone so far in their flattery to the reigning house that they had blasphemously tried to represent Herod the Great as the promised Messiah. But now their old enmities were reconciled in their mad rage against a common foe. F.—The Herodians were such Jews as favored Herod Antipas, and thus, outwardly at least, were friends of Rome, whose vassal Antipas was. Antipas had seen Judea and Samaria made a Roman procuratorship, and longed to get them back for himself, as a son of Herod, of whose kingdom they had been part. Intrigues to gain this end led to standing enmity between him and the rest of the family on the one side, and the procurators on the other. Disappointment at the results of annexation to Rome had made some look with kindlier feeling on the Idumean dynasty, which in its turn felt itself endangered by the claims of Jesus to set up a new kingdom. The Herodians in the end got their wish, when Agrippa I. (A. D. 37) was appointed king, and a Herod kingdom was thus again set up for a time. Even the Pharisaic or national party, indeed, came in the end to favor this scheme, in their deadly hatred of Rome. The alliance with the Herodians against Jesus was the first step in this new political path. G. ## Section 34.—Healing at the Seaside. The Apostles chosen. Mk.19 And they went into an house. And the multitude cometh together again, so that 20, 21 they could not so much as eat bread. And when his friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him: for they said, He is beside himself. M. 22 Then was brought unto him one possessed of a devil, blind and dumb: and he healed him, insomuch that it came to pass when the devil was gone out the blind and dumb 23 both spake and saw. And all the people were amazed, and said, Is not this the son of David? 24. But the Pharisees, when they heard it, and the scribes which came down from Jerusalem, said, This fellow hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth he out 25 devils. But Jesus knew their thoughts, and called them unto him, and said unto them in parables, How can Satan cast out Satan? Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand. 26 And if Satan rise up against and cast out Satan, he is divided against himself: how 27 shall then his kingdom stand? He cannot stand, but hath an end. And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? therefore they shall be 28 your judges. But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God 29 is come unto you. No man can enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house. When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace; but when a stronger than he shall come upon him and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils. He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad. 31. Wherefore, verily, I say unto you, All manner of sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme; but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. 32. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come: he hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation. Because they said, He hath an unclean spirit. 33. Either make the tree good, and his fruit good: or else make the tree corrupt, and his 34 fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit. O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speak- 35 eth. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: 36 and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things. But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the 37 day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned. GOODNESS, in the spiritual representation of Christ, is a certain interior disposition, a frame of the soul, where the first fixed choice is for righteousness, and the first fixed love is for God. Goodness, then, lies not so much in specific deeds as in the faithful heart; not so much even in special attainments as in that principle of a consecrated will which presides over all our doings and gettings; not so much in this or that act, or even series of acts, as in that pervading and supreme purpose or motive which, having been appropriated from Christ himself, rules the general tenor and course of life into harmony with his spirit; not so much in outward manifestations as in an internal aspiration, strong and constant, for newness of life, and fellowship with God by his Son. In other words, a Christian righteousness consists in being first and doing afterward; in a right spirit before there can be a right life; in a changed and reconciled heart, in order to a noble and beautiful conduct. We must do Christian works from a love of them, or else we never do them—Christian works—at all. Make the tree a good tree, or the fruit will not be good fruit. F. D. H. 21. A mode of life like this—out all night upon the mountain-top, teaching, walking all day long without food or rest—so affected the minds of his immediate relatives when they heard of it, that they went out to lay hold of him, for they said, He is beside himself. 22. Blindness and dumbness, whether springing from original defect or induced by disease, he had often before cured. But here, underlying both, was the deeper spiritual malady of possession. Jesus cast the devil out, and the immediate effect of the dispossession was the recovery of speech and vision. H.—23. The dissolution of so hideous a spell as that which had bound this man—the power to pour light on the filmed eyeball, and to restore speech to the cramped tongue, and intelligence to the bewildered soul—was something that the people had never witnessed. The miracle produced a thrill of astonishment, a burst of unconcealed admiration. For the first time they openly debated whether He who had such power could be any other than their expected Deliverer. “Can this man,” they asked, “can he be the Son of David?” F.—Here were three cures simultaneously effected; and when the people beheld the lunatic sensible and collected, when they heard the dumb speak, and perceived that the blind saw, they exclaimed in amazed reverence, “Is not this the Son of David?”—that is, the Messiah? K.—The descent of the Messiah from David was universally acknowledged. “The Son of David” was, therefore, a very common title for the Messiah. To this day, all Jews speak of the Messiah they expect as “The Son” or “The Branch” of David. G.—It was in connection with this class of cases only that the double result appeared, of an extraordinary commotion among the people and an extraordinary allegation put forward by the Pharisees. 24. Christ had not yet broken with the Pharisees as a party, nor denounced them either privately to his disciples or publicly to the multitude. But now, at the close of his second circuit through Galilee, the collision came, and the whole manner of his speech and action toward them was changed. A winebibber, a gluttonous man, a friend of publicans and sinners, a Sabbath-breaker, a blasphemer, they had called him, but here is the vilest thing that calumny can say of him—that he is in league with Satan, and that it is to his connection with the devil that he owes all his wisdom and power. H.—Beelzebub. How the name of this Philistine idol came to be given to Satan, is not known; but as idolatry is in reality devil-worship, it was not unnatural. Christ's bitterest enemies did not deny the reality of his miracles; and being stung by the unsophisticated testimony of "all the people," they had no way of holding out against his claims but by the desperate shift of ascribing his miracles to Satan. B. 25-29. That he spoke thus against them was but a further carrying out of his mission, a further inroad upon the kingdom of that Beelzebub. And yet they were the accredited authorities in the church of that day. It was for the sake of the people that he called the Pharisees hypocrites, and not for their own sakes, for how should he argue with men who taught religion for their own aggrandizement? They who were cured, and they in whom self-worship was not blinding the judgment, had no doubt that he was fighting Satan on his usurped ground. Torture was what might be expected of Satan; healing what might be expected of God. The reality of the healing, the loss of the man, morally as well as physically, to the kingdom of evil, was witnessed in all the signs that followed. Our Lord rests his argument on the fact that Satan had lost these men. McD.—Christ silences the Pharisees by referring to their own practice and belief. The Jews believed in exorcisms. Their exorcists, called here the children (i. e., disciples) of the Pharisees, pretended to eject demons, and persuaded the common people that they really did so. Our Saviour does not acknowledge the reality of these exorcisms, but shows that on their own principles they ought not to charge him with casting out devils by Beelzebub. That their cures were pretended and incomplete is evident from Matt. 9: 33, where in view of the perfect cure of one possessed with a devil, the people said, "It was never so seen in Israel." J. J. O.—Christ points out the contradiction involved in their assertion, and showed that such works could be wrought only by the power of God, which alone could free the human soul from the dominion of the evil spirit. He designates this individual case as a sign that the kingdom of God, before which the powers of darkness must flee away, had manifested itself. N.—A rigid monotheistic religion like the Jewish left but one way of escape from the authority of miracles, which were acknowledged to be indeed such, and not mere collusions and sleights of hand. There remained nothing to say but that these were works of hell. We have our Lord's answer to the deep malignity of this assertion; his appeal, namely, to the whole tenor of his doctrine and his miracles—whether they were not altogether for the overturning of the kingdom of evil—whether such a lending of power to him on the part of Satan would not be wholly inconceivable, since it were altogether suicidal. T. 29. The soul is here represented as the usurped possession and dwelling-place of Satan, "a strong man." The only "stronger than he" is Christ, who comes upon and overcomes him in the soul by using the sword of the Spirit, even the word of God—the same weapon which won him the personal victory in the wilderness. Falsehood is the weapon by which Satan takes and holds the soul captive. By its reception of the pure truth as taught by the Holy Spirit, Satan's power is broken. The palace, or the soul, passes into possession of Christ. J. G. B.— 30. He that is not with me is against me. Not with me (works not with me in the power of the Holy Ghost) is against me (opposes in his works the kingdom of God); and he that gathereth not with me (does not, in communion with me, gather souls for the kingdom) scattereth abroad (leads them astray, and thus really works for the kingdom of Satan, against which he apparently contends). N.—The first clause of the verse asserts that he who is not Christ's follower is his foe, and it classes the multitude, who were listening but not obeying, with the Pharisees, and both with Satan and the devils; the second asserts that every act and influence in life, of the disciple as well as of him who is not, if it gather nothing for Christ and with him, scatters and wastes that which has been or is being gathered. Every act as well as every individual is with and for Christ or against him. L. A.—The mightiest spiritual forces are struggling for the possession of the soul of man: on the one hand, Satan, the tempter of our first parents, the "father of lies," with his subtle devices of temptation; and, on the other, the Holy Spirit of light and truth and love, with his influences of grace. No one can be passive in this conflict of spiritual powers; and as one chooses his alliance here will be his state and portion in the hereafter. J. P. T. 31,32. The sin of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost consists evidently in words malignantly spoken against the power of the Holy Ghost working in Jesus Christ. The Pharisees are virtually charged with having committed this crime. They had deliberately attributed to the devil one of the highest acts of omnipotence. No conceivable sin could be greater than this. J. J. O.—Nothing could be here intended, short of the entire and final alienation of the heart and will and life from everything divine, the contradiction of the whole man to all of God's which testifies of grace and mercy and truth and holiness; a sin which therefore, in its very nature, excludes its own forgiveness, inasmuch as it excludes the conditions under which alone forgiveness could be obtained. T.—He speaks of a certain malicious disposition of mind, which by venting itself under such circumstances in blasphemy against the greatest of our Lord's miracles, plainly discovered itself to be incapable of amendment by any means which God would vouchsafe to make use of. That particular blasphemy, in those particular circumstances, was a sign only or an evidence, which our Saviour knew and declared to proceed from an incurable and therefore unpardonable malicious disposition of mind. Nothing therefore can be gathered from this passage, concerning any particular sin against the Holy Ghost (as many have without reason imagined), in its own nature unpardonable. The blasphemy our Saviour here speaks of is not singly sinning against the person of the Holy Ghost, or against his good motions, but presumptuously reviling the greatest works of the Holy Ghost, and so obstinately rejecting the last call to repentance. He that blasphemed against the Holy Ghost, against the highest evidence of our Lord's greatest miracles, was never to be forgiven; not because even this was in itself and in the nature of the thing absolutely unpardonable (for no reason can be given why speaking against the person of the Holy Ghost should be in itself of greater malignity than speaking against Christ, or against God the Father himself), but because it was an obstinate rejecting the last means of conviction, and an evident token of incorrigible malice. S. C. Hath never forgiveness, but, etc. Hath not remission (or forgiveness) to eternity, but is subject (or obnoxious) to eternal judgment. The common version of the second clause (hath never forgiveness), though impressive and substantially correct, obscures the antithesis between the cognate noun and adjective, aiona and aioniou. The former properly denotes duration—sometimes definite, as an age, a lifetime, or a dispensation; but, when limited by nothing in the context, indefinite and even infinite duration. This strongest sense would be implied here, even if these words were not expressed, by the structure of the sentence. If some sins will be forgiven, and some not, the latter must be coextensive with the former; and as those forgiven are forgiven to eternity, those unforgiven must eternally remain so. The same thing is more positively stated in the last clause. As his sin is not to be remitted, he is of course subject to eternal condemnation, i. e., actually subject, or judicially subjected to it, and not merely in danger of it, as the word is inexactly rendered. J. A. A. 33. The greatest of God's inward works is the work of regeneration. It is this which is the root of all subsequent growth. To this our Lord remands the Pharisees instead of all cleansing of the "outside of the cup and the platter," saying, "Make the tree good." No change from better to better can be compared with the change from darkness to light. J. W. A.—The tree is known by its fruit. Ye accuse me of working by Beelzebub. But if the devil be evil, he cannot do good works; so that if my works are good, the devil is not the doer of them. Jerome.—A tree is known by its fruits, not the fruits by the tree. Having no fault to find with the fruit, ye pass sentence against the tree, saying that I have a devil. Chrys. 34-37. And then, speaking to them in language of yet plainer significance, he turned the light of truth into their hypocritical hearts, and showed them how this fruit of falsehood and calumny could only spring from roots of hidden bitterness; how only from evil treasures hid deep in darkness, where the very source of light was quenched, could be produced these dark imaginings of their malignity. Lastly, and with a note of warning which has never since ceased to vibrate, he warned them that the words of man reveal the true nature of the heart within, and that for those, as for all other false and lightly uttered words of idle wickedness, they should give account at the last day. F.—Because words, so lightly thought of by the careless, spring from the inner fountains of good and ill, therefore they will form subjects of the judgment of the great day, when the whole life shall be unfolded and pronounced upon. Words are the outward utterance of the man—a specimen of what is within. A. # Section 48—Rebukes the Scribes and Pharisees. Disciples his Kindred. # Galilee. M. 38 THEN certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees tempting him answered, saying, 39 Master, we would see a sign from heaven, from thee. But when the people were gathered thick together, he answered and said to them, This is an evil and adulterous generation; they seek after a sign, and there shall no sign be given to it but the sign of the prophet Jonas. As Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of 40 man be to this generation. For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41 The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is 42 here. The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with the men of this generation, and shall condemn them: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here.L. 33 No man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither under a 34 bushel, but on a candlestick, that they which come in may see the light. The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of 35 light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness. Take heed therefore 36 that the light which is in thee be not darkness. If thy whole body therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light.M. 43 When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seek- 44 ing rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I 45 came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.L. 27 And it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps 28 which thou hast sucked. But he said, Yea, rather blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.M. 46 While he yet talked to the people, behold, there came then his mother and his brethren, and standing without, sent unto him, calling him, desiring to speak with him. And 47 the multitude sat about him. Then one said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy 48 brethren stand without, desiring to see thee, to speak with thee. But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are my brethren? And he 49 looked round about on them which sat about him, and stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! my mother and my breth- 50 ren are these which hear the word of God and do it. For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is heaven, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother. CHRIST and his gospel stand out totally distinct from the times and the life when they appeared. That gospel could not have been produced by the age, for it was an antagonism to it; the age was a degenerate one, a mixture of formal ceremony and licentious unbelief. Paganism was waning; Rome becoming debased; the ancient traditions of the Jews were lost in human inventions and rabbinical fantasies—when rising up in the midst of all this debasement, this corruption, these anomalies, came Christ and his gospel, gentle in the midst of violence, holy amongst flagrant infidelity and wanton vice, the Preacher and the preaching both sent from somewhere, but manifestly not from the world, not from Oriental barbarism, not from Western paganism, not from Jewish corruption. It could then have come from no other place than heaven, and had no other author than God. And when we reflect upon what was compressed in that three years' labor, and compare it with systems which have occupied men's lives to sketch out merely, and taken ages to perfect; when we see that this greatest system, which has spread over the whole civilized world by the force of its own truth, was in three short years laid down and consolidated, every principle defined, every rule established, every law delineated, and an impetus given to it by its great Master, which has always kept it advancing in the world against every opposing force, and in spite of every disadvantageous circumstance, all doubt about its individuality, its superhuman character, and its divine origin, must vanish from the mind. Therefore the best thing for Christians still to do is to lift up Christ before the eyes of men, no matter how, so that he be lifted up boldly and faithfully, be it by the voice, or the pen, or better still, by the more impressive exhibition of Christ in a Christian life. An. M. 38. The crowds that gathered round him wherever he went; the wonder and gratitude with which his miracles were hailed; the impression his discourses had created, and the steps that he had now obviously taken toward organizing a distinct body of disciples, fanned into an open flame the long-smouldering fire of Pharisaic opposition. H.—Though baffled, the Pharisees did not intend to leave Jesus long in peace. He had spoken to them in language of lofty warning, nay, even of stern rebuke—to them, the leaders and religious teachers of his time and country. How did he dare thus to address them? Let him at least show them some sign from heaven, no mere exorcism or act of healing, but some great, indisputable, decisive sign of his authority. It was the old question which had assailed him at his very earliest ministry, "What sign showest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things?" To such appeals, made only to insult and tempt—made by men who, unconvinced and unsoftened, had just seen a mighty sign, and had attributed it at once without a blush to demoniac agency—made, not from hearts of faith, but out of curiosity, and hatred, and unbelief—Jesus always turned a deaf ear. F. 39. As Jonah, by his deliverance, was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of man be, by his resurrection from the dead, to this generation. L. A.—40. The usual formula which our Lord employed in speaking of his resurrection was, that "he should rise on the third day." The expression "three days and three nights," our Lord uses here, and here alone, because he is quoting from Jonah 1:17. The Hebrew form of expression for three days and three nights was likewise used generally and indefinitely for three days simply. This is manifestly the case here. R.—Jesus was dead part of the first and part of the third day. The Jews were accustomed to call parts of a day as a whole day. Jesus, of course, speaks with a recognition of the custom of the people. The phrase "the heart of the earth" does not mean "the grave," but Hades—the "death kingdoms." G.—Our Lord treats the history of Jonah as a true history, to be understood in its plain sense; and expounds the meaning of it, hitherto unrevealed, viz., that it was not only a history, but also a prophecy, a typical representation of himself—of his own wonderful death, burial, and resurrection. W. 41. This generation, our Saviour says, compared with the people of Nineveh, shall be more justly condemned. For, when the men of Nineveh were preached to by Jonah, a stranger, who continued among them but three days, and wrought no miracles to confirm his mission, they yet hearkened to him, and repented. But this generation, though they have Christ himself sent to preach to them, though they hear his doctrine, and see his miracles, though they are astonished at the authority with which he teaches, and the power by which he acts, yet they are not by all these things brought to repentance. S. C. L. 34. Christ tells them that they will not see the significance of his teaching and miracles because they shut the eyes of their understanding which should be the light of the soul; this is set before them in a parable concerning the light of the body which is the outward eye. A.—35. Take heed that the light which is in thee. That is, Let every man take care that the moral judgment of his understanding be not corrupted with blind unreasonable prejudices, or with vicious wilfully indulged affections; for, in that case, his very guide becomes his seducer, and his light itself is darkness. S. C.—36. Our Lord is speaking of his teaching as apprehended by the simple, single-seeing soul. If the soul, having no part darkened by prejudice or selfish lusts, approach thus to his teaching, it shall be wholly illuminated by it. The second clause expresses the waxing onward of the shining light, arising from the singleness of the eye, and becomes, in its spiritual significance, a weighty declaration of truth. A. M. 43-45. The direct application of this parable is to the Jewish people, and the parallel runs thus: The old demon of idolatry brought down on the Jews the Babylonish captivity, and was cast out by it. They did not, after their return, fall into it again, but rather endured persecution, as under Antiochus Epiphanes. The emptying, sweeping, and garnishing may be traced in the growth of Pharisaic hypocrisy and the rabbinical schools between the return and the coming of our Lord. The repossession by the one, and accession of seven other spirits more malicious than the first, hardly needs explanation. The desperate infatuation of the Jews after our Lord's ascension, their bitter hostility to his Church, their miserable end, are known to all. A.—The personal application of the parable may be thus stated: A purposed and begun reformation makes the soul an uncongenial resting-place for the "unclean" or evil spirit, and he goes out for a time. After a while he concludes to return and ascertain how the attempt at reformation has ended. He finds the soul empty! No "stronger man than he," no Christ in possession; none to resist his renewed control. Nay, the self-reformer has only prepared the way by successive declensions for Satan's return; sweeping the soul of all good purposes, and so suitably garnishing it for his reentrance and permanent abode. Now, Christ intimates, the state of that soul is hopeless! J. G. B.—Relapse into evil, when thoroughly yielded to, makes the case ever worse than before. The power of a resisting will is destroyed; in just judgment God lets this awful law of the human soul take effect; and the enemy is permitted to take his own advantage of it. B. L. 28. He does not deny the honor pronounced upon his mother. "Yes indeed, but." This answer cuts at the root of all Mariolatry, and shows us in what the true honor of that holy woman consisted—in faith and obedience. A. M. 49. Christ, surrounded by a host of anxious seekers for salvation, heard the announcement undisturbed. To show, by this striking case, that blood relationship did not imply affinity for his spirit, pointing to the seeking souls around him, and to his nearer spiritual kindred—the disciples—he said, "Behold my mother and my brothers!" N.—How great is the honor of faith and obedience! How blessed the consanguinity! To be born of God, and to bear the Lord Jesus Christ in our hearts; to express his image in every thought and word and action; and to be ourselves confirmed to him, partakers of his holiness, and of his crown. Thus to become his brethren, and the children of God, is no empty honor, no sounding name, but gives a sure title to a share in his glory. Stanhope. 46-50. Mary is included in what is a virtual censure on the part of her Lord. He neither goes out to meet her and her companions, nor admits them into his presence. He exclaims that his nearest of kin are the children of God. It is thus remarkable that in the only two instances, until the crucifixion, where Mary figures in the gospel, she appears in order to be reproved by the Saviour, and to be placed, as far as the mere maternal relation is concerned, below obedient servants of God. These passages must be regarded as protests laid up in store against the heathenish eminence which the Roman Church assigns to Mary, and especially against that newly-established dogma, of her being without sin from her birth, which they so signally contradict. T. D. W. Christ came for all men, the second Adam, taking our entire humanity on him. Though he was born of a woman, he is not on that account more nearly united to her than to all those who are united to him by the spirit; nor bound to regard the call of earthly relations so much as the welfare of those he came to save. . . . Our Lord, though he introduces the additional term sister into his answer, does not introduce father, inasmuch as he never speaks of an earthly father. A.—His vocation lies altogether in the reconciliation of men with God, and thereby with each other. Not that he felt any indifference, much less contempt, toward the earthly relations or vocations of men. He was a loving son, a faithful friend. But the holiest of earth's relations, and the purest of its vocations, are nothing to him, except in so far as each is not only controlled but penetrated by a higher relation and vocation. His true friends are those who do what he commands. His true, his sole vocation is that of Saviour. R. C.—The earthly and the heavenly bonds, the common and the Christian ties, do not always coincide, neither are they always in harmony. If ever they interfere—if mother, or brother, or sister, or dearest friend, should tempt us away from him in nearness to whom standeth our eternal life—then let us remember this scene and ask our Lord to give us of his own spirit, to follow him. H. ## Section 49.—Dining with Pharisees, denounces their Hypocrisy. Galilee. M. 1 THE same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the sea side, and began again to 2 teach. And great multitudes were gathered together, and were come unto him out of every city, so that he entered into a ship, and sat in the sea; and the whole multitude stood on the shore. 3 And he spake unto them, and taught them many things by parables; and said unto Mk. 3 them in his doctrine, Hearken; behold, a sower went out to sow his seed. And it came 4 to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls 5 of the air came and devoured it up. And some fell on stony ground, where it had not 6 much earth; and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth. But as soon as it was sprung up, when the sun was up, it was scorched, and because it had no 7 root and lacked moisture, it withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the 8 thorns grew up with it, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit. But other fell into good ground, and sprang up, and increased; and brought forth fruit, some thirty, and some 9 sixty, and some an hundred-fold. And when he had said these things, he cried, He that 10 hath ears to hear, let him hear. And when he was alone they that were about him, with the twelve disciples, came and asked him saying, What might this parable be? M. 11 Why speakest thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but unto them that 12 are without it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance; but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that 13 he hath. Therefore speak I to others in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand; lest at any time they should be con- 14 verted, and their sins should be forgiven them. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand: and seeing 15 ye shall see, and shall not perceive: for this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, 16 and should be converted, and I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for they 17 see: and your ears, for they hear. For verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them. WHAT was true of the instructions of that single day is true of the whole body of disclosures made to us in the Bible. There are things simple and things obscure. We must compass the simple first, if we would fathom the obscure. We must receive into honest hearts and make good use of the plainest declarations of the divine Word, if we would have that lamp kindled within us, by the light of which the more recondite of its sayings can alone be understood. It is in an inner sanctuary that the true Shechinah, the light of God's gracious presence, still shineth, to be approached with a humble tractable spirit, the prayer upon our lips and in our heart, "What I know not, Lord, teach thou me; I beseech thee show me thy glory." It is not in the intellect, it is in the conscience, in the heart, that the finest, most powerful organs of spiritual vision lie. There are seals that cover up many passages and pages of the Bible, which no light or fire of genius can dissolve; there are hidden riches here that no labor of mere learned research can get at and spread forth. But those seals melt like the snow-wreath beneath the warm breathings of desire and prayer, and those riches drop spontaneously into the bosom of the humble and the contrite, the poor and the needy. H. MORE than half of the term allotted to his ministry in Galilee had now expired. Here beside him was a small band of followers—ignorant, yet willing to be taught; weak in faith, but strong in personal attachment. There against him was a powerful and numerous band, socially, politically, religiously the leaders of the people. Between the two lay the bulk of the common people—greatly excited by his miracles, listening with wonder and half approval to his words, siding with him rather than against him in his conflict with the Pharisees. Behind all the show of outward attachment he saw that there was but little discernment of his true character, but little capacity to understand the more secret things of his spiritual kingdom. And as he had altered his conduct toward his secret enemies by openly denouncing them, so now he alters his conduct toward his professed friends by clothing his higher instructions to them in a new and peculiar garb. H. M. 2. He sat in the sea. The Rob Roy approached, and we had a pleasant talk. It was very remarkable how distinctly every word was heard, though our voices were not raised, even at three hundred yards off; and it was very easy to comprehend how, in this clear air, a preacher sitting in a boat could address a vast multitude standing upon the shore. J. M. 3. Many things by parables.** We have not anywhere else in the gospels so rich a group of parables together, so many and so costly pearls strung upon a single thread. The only passage that will bear comparison is chapters 15 and 16 of Luke. The seven that are here recorded divide themselves into two groups—the first four being spoken to the multitude while he taught them out of the boat—the last three, as it would seem, on the same day, in the narrower circle of his disciples at his own home. T.—These short and lively apologues were admirably adapted to suggest the first rudiments of truths which it was not expedient openly to announce. Though some of the parables have a purely moral purport, the greater part delivered at this period bear a relation to the character and growth of the new religion; a subject which, avowed without disguise, would have revolted the popular mind, and clashed directly with their inveterate nationality. H. M.—In these parables the whole idea, progress, and destiny of the kingdom of heaven are unfolded: its beginnings among men, in the parable of the sower; its counterfeits, and their treatment by us and by God, in that of the tares; its vast outward extent, from the smallest beginning, in that of the mustard-seed; its inward purifying and transforming power, in that of the leaven; the two ways in which men find it, one by chance, in a field which he gives up all he has to buy, another by search, also giving up all to acquire it when found; and finally, the ultimate destiny of the good and bad in it, in the parable of the draw-net. A. Mk. 3-9. Present appearance of the Plain of Gennesaret. There was the undulating corn-field descending to the water's edge. There was the trodden pathway running through the midst of it, with no fence or hedge to prevent the seed from falling here and there on either side of it, or upon it; itself hard with constant tramp of horse, mule, and human feet. There was the "good" rich soil, which distinguishes the whole of that plain and its neighborhood from the bare hills, elsewhere descending into the lake, and which, where there is no interruption, produces one vast mass of corn. There was the rocky ground of the hill-side protruding here and there through the corn-fields, as elsewhere through the grassy slopes. There were the large bushes of thorn—the “nabk,” that kind of which tradition says that the crown of thorns was woven—springing up, like the fruit-trees of the more inland parts, in the very midst of the waving wheat. A P. S.—The imagery was derived, as usual, from the objects immediately before his eyes—the sown fields of Gennesaret; the springing corn in them; the hard-trodden paths which ran through them, on which no corn could grow; the innumerable birds which fluttered over them ready to feed upon the grain; the weak and withering struggle for life on the stony places; the tangling growth of luxuriant thistles in neglected corners; the deep loam of the general soil, on which already the golden ears stood thick and strong, giving promise of a sixty and hundred-fold return as they rippled under the balmy wind. To us, who from infancy have read the parable side by side with Christ’s own interpretation of it, the meaning is singularly clear and plain, and we see in it the liveliest images of the danger incurred by the cold and indifferent, by the impulsive and shallow, by the worldly and ambitious, by the preoccupied and the luxurious, as they listen to the Word of God. But it was not so easy to those who heard it. Even the disciples failed to catch its full significance. F. 3. Went forth.** The expression implies that the sower, in the days of our Saviour, lived in a hamlet or village, as all these farmers now do; that he did not sow near his own house, or in a garden fenced or walled. He must go forth into the open country, as these have done, where there are no fences, where the path passes through the cultivated land, where thorns grow in clumps all around, where the rocks peep out in places through the sandy soil, and where, also, hard by, are patches extremely fertile. W. M. T. 4. Some fell on the hard footpath, or road, where the glebe was not broken, and so it could not sink down in the earth, but lay exposed on the surface to the feet of passers by, till at length it became an easy prey to the birds. 5. Stony ground. What is meant is ground where a thin superficial coating of mould covered the surface of a rock, which stretched below it. 7. Ground where the roots of these thorns had not been carefully extirpated, ground which had not been thoroughly cleansed. The good seed grew dwarfed and stunted, for the best of the soil did not feed them—forming indeed a blade, but unable to form a full corn in the ear. It is not here, as in the first case, that there was no soil, or none deserving the name—nor, as in the second case, that there was a poor or shallow soil. Here was no lack of soil, it might be good soil; but what was deficient was a careful husbandry, a diligent eradication of the mischievous growths, which would strangle whatever sprung up side by side with them. T.—8. An hundred-fold. An extraordinary number of stalks do actually spring from a single root. Here, on this plain of Sidon, I have seen more than a hundred, and each with a head bowing gracefully beneath the load of well-formed grains. The yield was more than a thousand-fold. W. M. T. A PARABLE is a serious narration, within the limits of probability, of a course of action pointing to some moral or spiritual truth. The parable is especially adapted to various classes of hearers at once; it is understood by each according to his measure of understanding. A.—The original Greek word signifies, literally, placing side by side—hence a comparison. The parable always teaches by comparing a spiritual truth with some type or symbol, in nature or human experience. It differs from the proverb in being a narrative, from the fable in being true to nature, from the myth in being undeceptive, from the allegory in that it veils the spiritual truth. L. A. As the truth which he uttered was deeper, so the aphorism in which it was embodied was the more weighty. The use of parables was not something absolutely new. It had examples in the Old Testament and among the rabbis. The immediate motive for the employment of this means of conveying knowledge was the advantage afforded by it for a lucid and vivid exhibition of the truth. In these narratives, as in pictures, the abstract reality was made to stand forth in a concrete form. Doctrine, precept, and argument were all incorporated in them in a way that could hardly be gainsaid. On the ear of those who were destitute of sympathy with the Teacher and his doctrine, and therefore lacked both curiosity and insight, they produced no effect, they awakened no desire to get at the truth that was wrapped up in them. On the contrary, those who felt the attraction of the Teacher, and wished to see clearly that of which they had gained a partial glimpse, could tarry and receive the enlightenment which they craved. That others besides the twelve took this way of gaining light, the Evangelists explicitly inform us. G. P. F. The parable is his favorite method in speech, and the miracle in action, which, as he performs it, is a parable put into a living shape. In both of these a man sees little or much, according to the spirit he brings, and what he sees is always growing into something deeper and higher, as he ponders it. Our Lord desired that truth should not be thrust upon a man from without, but grow up within, as from a seed, night and day, he knows not how. "Seeing, he sees and does not perceive; hearing, he hears and does not understand;" but, if he will only be patient and thoughtful, a new world grows up in him as plants and leaves grow in spring. It is this manner of Christ's teaching, by parable and miracle, which makes it suited to all the years of human life, as it is suited to every age of the world. The youngest child can understand something of it, and the most mature Christian feels that he has not reached the end of it. Ker. Our Lord's general teaching, in regard to form, is cast in the mould of parable or proverb. It is to be noticed, not only in the large amount of professed parables, but in the general habit of proverbial sayings, that is, sayings which glance by us as condensed and momentary parables, suggesting much that it would take long to tell, or sayings which have more or less the shape and air of proverbs, complete in themselves, terse and pointed, fashioned for common memory and common use, meaning more than they say, and, by strong antithesis, or seeming paradox, fitted to arouse reflection and fix on the mind some principle of thought or conduct. It is of the essence of proverbial speech that it detaches itself from particular occasions, that it has a capacity for various applications, and a fitness for permanent use, and embraces large meaning within narrow limits. It therefore fitted well the lips which were to utter the great principles of Christian thought, and to leave them among men for all times and occasions. T. D. B. Every type is a real parable. The whole Levitical constitution, with its outer court, its holy, its holiest of all, its high-priest, its sacrifices, and all its ordinances, is such, and is declared to be such in the Epistle to the Hebrews. T.—The symbols and the sacrifices were divine parables, where the learners had to take part with their hands, and were made their own instructors. The daily acts were impressing upon them the great lessons of sin, atonement, and purity, and, step by step, they saw a deeper meaning as their minds were ready for it. There is nothing more beautiful than to trace how their views of these three things, guilt, pardon, and holiness, kept equal pace, growing in clearness till Christ came and satisfied all their longings. Ker.—The wanderings of the children of Israel have ever been regarded as a parable of the spiritual life. In like manner we have parabolic persons, who are to teach us not merely by what simply in their own characters they did, but as they represented one higher and greater. How often has God chosen that his prophets should teach by an acted parable rather than by any other means, and this because there was no other that would make so deep and so lasting an impression! In the New Testament we have a great example of the same teaching in Peter's vision (Acts 10: 9-16), and throughout all the visions of the Apocalypse. Nay, we might venture to affirm that so it was with the highest and greatest truth of all, the manifestation of God in the flesh. This, inasmuch as it was a making intelligible of the otherwise unintelligible; a making visible the invisible; a teaching not by doctrine, but by the embodied doctrine of a divine life, was the highest and most glorious of all parables. The parables may not be made first sources of doctrine. Doctrines otherwise and already grounded may be illustrated or indeed further confirmed by them; but it is not allowable to constitute doctrine first by their aid. For from the literal to the figurative, from the clearer to the more obscure, has been ever recognized as the law of Scripture interpretation. T. M. 11. The mystery is something hidden from men of worldly minds; incomprehensible to them and to all who are excluded, by their spirit and disposition, from the kingdom of God. And this is the case with all truths that relate to that kingdom, however simple and clear they may seem to those whose inner life has made them at home in it. N.—12. In this saying is summed up the double force—the revealing and concealing properties of the parable. By it, he who hath, he who not only hears with the ear, but understands with the heart, has more given to him; and it is for this main purpose undoubtedly that the Lord spoke parables: to be to his Church revelations of the truth and mysteries of his kingdom (every kingdom has its secrets and inner councils which strangers must not know). But his present purpose in speaking them was the quality possessed by them of hiding their meaning from the hard-hearted and sensual. By them he who hath not, in whom there is no spark of spiritual desire nor meekness to receive the engrafted word, has taken from him even that which he hath ("seemeth to have"); even the poor confused notions of heavenly doctrine which a sensual and careless life allow him are further bewildered and darkened by this simple teaching. A.—He came to be a light to men, and to reveal the truth, not to hide it; but men must have willing ears, and take heed to what they hear, pondering over it in their hearts. In natures wilfully indifferent, hardness only grows the worse the more they hear. To such, the very word of life becomes a word of death. Rejecting the light, they are given up by God to the darkness they have chosen, and lose ere long even the superficial interest in higher things they may have had. G.—It is among the simplest and most obtrusive facts of life, that here where we are, now in the day in which we live, the vast mass of men have no quick perceptions of spiritual truths, no vivid realizations of them. They move all encompassed by them, and yet they penetrate not to the seat of their life to quicken and draw it into their own higher sphere. The inner ear is dull—their eye have they closed—they are in the broad blaze of the gospel, and yet in darkness. J. D. ## Section 55.—Explains the Parable of the Sower. Capernaum. Mk. 13 And he said unto them, Know ye not this parable? And how then will ye know all parables? Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower. The parable is this: The seed 14, 15 is the word of God. The sower soweth the word. And those by the way side where the word is sown are they that hear the word of the kingdom and understand it not; but when they have heard Satan cometh immediately, and taketh away the word that 16 was sown, out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. And these are they likewise which have received the seed into stony places, who, when they have 17 heard the word, immediately receive it with joy; yet these have no root in themselves, and so endure but for a time: which for a while believe; afterward, in time of temptation, when tribulation or persecution ariseth for the word's sake, immediately they are 18 offended, and fall away. And these are they which received seed among thorns: such 19 as hear the word, who when they have heard go forth; and the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and pleasures of this life, and the lusts of other things enter- 20 ing in, choke the word, and they bring no fruit to perfection. But these are they that received seed into the good ground; such as hear the word, and understand and receive it in an honest and good heart, and keep it; which also bear fruit with patience, and bring forth, some thirty-fold, some sixty, and some an hundred. 21 And he said unto them, No man when he hath lighted a candle, covereth it with a vessel, or putteth it under a bushel, or under a bed; but setteth it on a candlestick, that 22 they which enter in may see the light. For there is nothing hid which shall not be manifested: neither was anything kept secret, that shall not be known, and come 23, 24 abroad. If any man have ears to hear, let him hear. And he said unto them, Take heed therefore what and how ye hear: with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured 25 to you: and unto you that hear shall more be given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given; and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that which he seemeth to have. THE number, diversity, and incumbrance of the affairs of the world; the continual motion and hurry in which worldly men are; that chain of employments, which to appearance are neither good nor bad, and of new designs which succeed one another; and that circle of pleasures, amusements, and vanities—these are the things wherein that art and policy consists which the devil uses, in order to render the word, good thoughts, and good desires fruitless, and to take away God's seed out of their hearts and minds. Q. While there is such a thing as laying waste the very soil in which the seed of life should have taken root—while every act of sin is a treading of the ground into more hardness so that the seed shall not sink in it, or a wasting of the soil so that the seed shall find no nutriment there, or a fitting it to nourish thorns and briars; yet on the other hand a recovery is still, through the grace of God, possible: the hard soil may again become soft—the shallow soil may become rich and deep—and the soil beset with thorns open and clear. As the earthly seed finds its soil, so it must use it, for it cannot alter its nature. But the heavenly seed, if it be acted upon by the soil where it is cast, also reacts more mightily upon it, softening it where it is hard, deepening it where it is shallow, extirpating the roots of evil, and transforming each of these inferior soils, till the heart has become good ground, fit to afford nourishment to the divine Word, that seed of eternal life. T. 14-19. All spiritual life depends on a divine seed sown in the heart by the divine Sower. The life of the seed depends on, first, receiving it; second, rooting it; third, cultivating it. The unfruitful hearers described are of three classes: The first hear, but heed nothing; the second heed, but resolve nothing; the third resolve, but persist not. The first hear, but without really apprehending the truth; the second apprehend, but only for a transient emotional enjoyment—the truth gets no hold, and produces no real moral convictions or changed life; the third hear, apprehend, and begin a new life, but suffer it to be choked by the world. The first danger described is that of careless hearing; its cause is a heart made hard by worldliness, and inattentive by wandering thoughts; to guard against it, keep the heart tender and the attention fixed. The second danger is that of mistaking emotion for principle—glad reception of the truth for resolute practice of it; its cause is an underlying selfishness of life; to guard against it, count the cost of following Christ. The third danger is worldliness, whether cares and anxieties, or pleasures and luxuries; its cause is a divided heart and a divided service; to guard against it, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and watch and pray against the first appearance of worldly-mindedness. L. A. 15. The way-side hearers. The seed, which does not penetrate the earth at all, and is trodden or devoured by birds, corresponds to the relation of the divine word to the wholly worldly, who, utterly unsusceptible, reject the truth without ever comprehending it at all. N.—The man does not recognize himself as standing in any relation to the word which he hears, or to the kingdom of grace which that word proclaims. All that speaks of man's connection with a higher, invisible world, all that speaks of sin, of redemption, of holiness, is unintelligible to him, and wholly without significance. He has brought himself to it; he has exposed his heart as a common road to every evil influence of the world, till it has become hard as a pavement. T. 16, 17. The stony-ground hearers. Under the figure of the stony ground, in which the seed shoots up quickly but withers as soon for want of earth and moisture, he depicts that lively but shallow susceptibility of spirit which grasps the truth eagerly, but receives no deep impressions; and yields as quickly to the reaction of worldly temptations as it had yielded to the divine word. Faith must prove itself in strife against the world without, as well as within; but the mind just described never appropriates the truth in such a way as to obtain power to resist. N.—The hearer described has not counted the cost; whatever was fair and beautiful in Christianity as it first presents itself, had attracted him—its sweet and comfortable promises, the moral loveliness of its doctrines; but not its answer to the deepest needs of the human heart; as neither, when he received the word with gladness, had he contemplated the having to endure hardness in his warfare with sin and Satan and the world. As the heat scorches the blade which has no deepness of earth, so the troubles and afflictions, which would have strengthened a new faith, cause a faith which was merely temporary to fail. The image has a peculiar fitness and beauty; for as the roots of a tree are out of sight, yet from them it derives its firmness and stability, so upon the hidden life of the Christian his firmness and stability depend. T. 18, 19. The word choked among thorns. The seed which takes root but is stifled by the thorns that shoot up with it, figures the mind in which the elements of worldly desire develop themselves along with the higher life, and at last become strong enough to crush it, so that the received truth is utterly lost. N.—It is not here, as in the first case, that the word of God is totally ineffectual; nor yet, as in the second case, that after a temporary obedience to the truth, there is an evident falling away from it, such as the withering of the stalk indicates: the profession of a spiritual life is retained, the name to live still remains—but the life and power of religion is by degrees eaten out and has departed. And to what disastrous influences are these sad effects attributed? To two things, the cares of this world, and its pleasures; these are the thorns and briers that strangle the life of the soul. T. The evil here is neither a hard nor a shallow soil—there is softness enough, and depth enough; but it is the existence in it of what draws all the moisture and richness of the soil away to itself, and so staves the plant. What are these “thorns?” “The cares of this world”—anxious, unrelaxing attention to the business of this present life; “the deceitfulness of riches”—the fruit of this worldly “care;” “the pleasures of this life,” or “the lusts of other things entering in”—the enjoyments, in themselves it may be innocent, which worldly prosperity enables one to indulge. These “choke” or “smoother” the word; drawing off so much of one’s attention, absorbing so much of one’s interest, and using up so much of one’s time, that only the dregs of these remain for spiritual things, and a fagged, hurried, and heartless formalism is at length all the religion of such persons. B.—Our Saviour here places riches in the midst, between cares and pleasures; for cares generally precede the gaining of riches, and, when gained, they draw men into pleasures and indulgences. Dodd.—Marvel not at his calling luxury thorns. For it pricks sharper than any thorn, and wastes the soul worse than care, and causes more grievous pain both to body and soul. Chrys. 20. The fruitful word.** When seed is sown into good ground, it is variously productive according to the fertility of the soil. So the fruitfulness of divine truth, when once appropriated, depends upon the degree in which it penetrates the whole interior life and all the powers of the spirit, stamping itself upon the truth-inspired course of life. N.—The fourth class must not be understood as a decided, well-marked company, excluding all the rest. For the soil is not good by nature. The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; but every disposition to receive them is of God. A.—We must keep ever in mind that the good soil comes as much from God as the seed which is to find there its home. God's secret and preventing grace runs before the preaching of the word of the kingdom; and thus when that word comes, it finds some with greater readiness for receiving it, as a word of eternal life, than others. T. We here see that a principal qualification for hearing the word of God, and for rendering it capable of bearing fruit in us, is an honest and a good heart, a heart clear from prejudice, pride, and self-conceit, sincerely disposed, and earnestly desirous to find the truth, and firmly resolved to embrace it when found; ready to acknowledge its own ignorance, and weakness, and corruption, and "to receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save the soul." P.—It is always the fault of men themselves if it be not living seed in their hearts. Worldly indifference may have made the soil impenetrable as the trodden path, or have left only a skin of sentiment over hidden callousness; or worldly cares or pleasures may be let spring up, and choke the better growth; in all cases it is the man, not the seed or the sower, on whom the result turns. G.—Believers should fix the truths of religion on their minds by serious application of thought, and frequent reflection. They should bear in mind that this word ought to influence all the powers of their souls, and bring them forth into action; that it is therefore called the seed, because it is the first and common principle whence all our virtue springs; that the end of it, therefore, is never answered, but by bringing forth fruit, and that fruit is no other than a holy conversation. Stanhope. L. 16. After unfolding its import, he taught them that the truth then veiled in parables was to become a light for all mankind; that they were to train themselves to be his organs in diffusing it; but that, in order to this, they must ever grow in the knowledge of his truth by a faithful employment of the means that he had given them. N.— Mk. 22. For there is nothing hid. He means, that the things which he now tells them privately ought to manifest themselves publicly in their life and doctrine; and though it was necessary at present to conceal some things from the multitude, because of their prejudices, yet the time was coming when all these things must be published openly and plainly before all the world. S. C.—25. And he concludes with the general law, "Whosoever has—in reality has—whosoever has made to himself a living possession of the truths which he has heard, to him shall more be ever given. But he that has received it only as something dead and outward, shall lose even that which he seems to have, but really has not." His knowledge, unspiritual and dead, will turn out to be worthless—the shell without the kernel. N. ## Section 56.—The Tares, and the Interpretation. 24. ANOTHER parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened 25 unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: but while men slept, his enemy came 26 and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung 27 up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the house- 28 holder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from 29 whence then hath it tares? He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The ser- 30 vants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn. 36. Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came 37 unto him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field. He answered 38 and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; the field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of 39 the wicked one; the enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the 40 world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned 41 in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them 42 which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing 43 and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear. WE behold Satan here, not as he works in deceiving the world, but in his deeper skill and malignity, as he mimics and counterworks the work of Christ: in the words of Chrysostom, "after the prophets, the false prophets; after the apostles, the false apostles; after Christ, Antichrist." With what distinct- ness the doctrine concerning Satan and his agency, his active hostility to the blessedness of man, of which there is so little in the Old Testament, comes out in our Lord's teaching in the New! As the lights be- come brighter, the shadows become deeper; but till the mightier power of good was revealed, we were not suffered to know how mighty was the power of evil. It was not till the Son of man actually ap- peared on the stage of the world, that Satan came distinctly forward upon it also; but the instant that Christ opens his ministry for the setting up of the kingdom of God, at the same instant Satan starts for- ward as the hinderer and adversary of it, the tempter of him who is the head and prince of this kingdom. It is observable, too, that Satan is spoken of as his enemy, the enemy of the Son of man; for here, as in so many other places, the great conflict is spoken of as rather between Satan and the Son of man, than between Satan and God. It was part of the great scheme of redemption, that the victory over evil should be a moral triumph, not obtained by mere putting forth of superior strength. T. 24. The parable of the tares accounts for the existence of evil in this world, and declares that it is not from God; at the same time it assures us of God's perfect goodness, and of his desire and de- sign (short of compulsion) that the whole world should be saved; for as our Lord declares, "the field is the world"—that is, in his will and design the Church is coextensive with the world. The parable assures us also of the continuance of the Church visible unto the end; of the future full and final victory of good over evil; and of the everlast- ing reward of virtue and the eternal punishment of sin. W.—The disciples must have been so little prepared to expect a mixture of good and bad in the Church, that it was needful to warn them before- hand, that they might not be offended and think the promises of God had failed, when the evil should appear. T. 25. Sowed tares. The tares and wheat both belong to the special group of wheat-like grasses. Their structure, mode, and conditions of growth are almost the same; and it is only when the fruit is formed that the impostor is detected by its smaller and darker ear. The darnel, or tare, is the only species of grass that is possessed of deleterious properties. If its seeds are mixed with wheat, the bread thus produced causes nausea, giddiness, pa- ralysis, and in extreme cases even death. Macmil- lan.—The tare abounds all over the East, and is a great nuisance to the farmer. It resembles the American cheat, but the head does not droop like cheat, nor does it branch out like oats. The grain, also, is smaller, and is arranged along the upper part of the stalk, which stands perfectly erect. It is a strong soporific poison, and must be carefully winnowed, and picked out of the wheat, grain by grain, before grinding, or the flour is not healthy. Of course the farmers are very anxious to extermi- nate it, but this is nearly impossible. W. M. T. 28. In the householder's reply the mischief is traced up to its origin: An enemy hath done this. It is attributed not to the imperfection, ignorance, weakness, which cling to everything human, but to the distinct counterworking of the great spiritual enemy. 29. It makes much for the beauty of the parable and is full of instruction, that wheat and tares are not seeds of different kinds, but that the last is a degenerate wheat. They are only distinguishable when the ear is formed; thus fulfilling literally the Lord's words, "By their fruits ye shall know them." T.—Until the grain has headed out the closest scrutiny will fail to detect the tares. Even the farmers, who in this country generally seed their fields, do not attempt to separate the one from the other. They would not only mistake good grain for them, but very commonly the roots of the two are so intertwined that it is impossible to separate them without plucking up both. Both, therefore, must be left to grow together until the time of harvest. W. M. T. Lest ye root up the wheat. This plainly teaches the difficulty of distinguishing the two classes, and so the impropriety of sitting in judgment on men's state before God. 30. Let both grow together—i. e., in the visible Church. This, however, must not be stretched so far as to justify retaining scandalous persons in the communion of the Church, in the teeth of apostolic injunctions (1 Cor. 5). B.—When Christ asserts that it is his purpose to make a complete separation at the end, he implicitly forbids, not the exercise of a godly discipline, not, where necessary, absolute exclusion from church-fellowship—but any attempts to anticipate the final irrevocable separation, of which he has reserved the execution to himself. Both are to grow, evil and good, till they come to a head, till they are ripe, one for destruction, and the other for full salvation. And they are to grow together; the visible Church is to have its intermixture of good and bad until the end of time. T.—Bind in bundles. Grain-fields covered the whole surface; but the crops were very unequal; part thick, shrunk, and almost dry; part full, and stately. Men, women, and children were busy in many of the fields pulling out the weeds, which they gathered in heaps and bound into bundles, to burn them. Furrer. 38. Good seed.** "The children of the kingdom;" the same seed of "the word" as in the former parable, but now received into the heart and converting him that receives it into a new creature, a "child of the kingdom." "The children of the wicked one," resembling, in religious profession, "the children of the kingdom, and produced by the same process" ("sowing"). B. 39. Satan is a created, finite spirit. He cannot create anything new; he can only mar and destroy what has been created. He cannot create angels of darkness; he can only seduce angels of light into devils. He cannot originate evil men; he can only tempt and spoil creatures made in the image of God. The fulness of Satan's dominion was most clearly manifested in the world, when the fulness of the Godhead that dwelt in Christ bodily was displayed to the eyes of men. But now that Christ is concealed by the cloud, so is Satan. In harmony with the viewless operations of the Holy Spirit are the subtle and impalpable agencies which Satan now wields. He has withdrawn his sorceries, his outward signs, and tempts with covetousness and worldliness. And so thoroughly has he carried out this system of invisible temptation, that he has succeeded in persuading many that he has no existence as a personal spirit of evil, and that evil is only an immature stage in the progress of the world's ripening. Macmillan. 41. Son of man. He claimed the title (which was already given him in the Old Testament, Dan. 8 : 13), inasmuch as it was he who alone realized the idea of man, the second Adam, who, unlike the first, should maintain his position as the head and representative of the race—the one perfect flower which had ever unfolded itself out of the root and stalk of humanity. 42, 43.** As fire was the element of the cruel kingdom of hell, so is light of the pure heavenly kingdom. Then, when the hindering element is removed, shall this element of light which was before obstructed by it, come forth in its full brightness. T. ## Section 57.—The Seed growing secretly. The Mustard-seed. The Leaven. Hid Treasure. The Pearl. The Net. Capernaum. Mk. 26 AND he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; 27 and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he 28 knoweth not how. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself, first the blade, then 29 the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come. 30 And he said, Whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God? or with what comparison M. 31 shall we compare it? Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field; 32 which indeed is the least of all seeds that be in the earth. But when it is sown, it groweth up, and when it is grown it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, and shooteth out great branches; so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the 33 branches thereof, under the shadow of it. Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened. 34 All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables. And with many such parables spake he the word unto them, as they were able to hear it. But without a 35 parable spake he not unto them. That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world. And when they were alone, he expound- 36 ed all things to his disciples. Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him. [After explaining the parable of the tares (verses 37-43) he continues:] 44 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and 45 buyeth that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking 46 goodly pearls: who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it. 47 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and 48 gathered of every kind; which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and 49 gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away. So shall it be at the end of the 50 world; the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. 51 Jesus saith unto them, Have ye understood all these things? They say unto him, Yea, 52 Lord. Then said he unto them, Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven, is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out 53 of his treasure things new and old. And it came to pass, that when Jesus had finished these parables, he departed thence. THE kingdom of God begins in any man in the solemn and central purpose of his soul to become like God, to honor and to serve him; the personal commitment of himself to the Father, through the mediation of the Son, and under the quickening influence of the Spirit. And yet this purpose is but the commencement of a course whose end is still distant. One temptation after another must be met and overcome. One desire after another, which has grown inordinate through long indulgence, must be brought into harmony with the law of holiness. The principles of action, though now pure and high, require to be confirmed by the discipline of effort; the thoughts of divine truth to be made more clear, comprehensive, controlling; above all, the affections demand to be developed, cherished, matured, until they shall answer as they ought to God's character; until they shall spring spontaneously toward Christ, on his cross or his throne; until they shall purely control and impel our whole moral action, making duty a delight, privation a pleasure if borne for God, and death a sure and immeasurable gain! It is not till after long seasons of effort that this magnificent consummation is reached; that the world seems nothing, and God all in all; that the cross becomes the summit-fact, in personal experience as in the world's history; and that heaven opens bright and near its gates of pearl! It is not till sorrows and prosperities both have brought their ministry from God to the soul; not till life has been experienced, in its successes and its changes; not till sermons and treatises, works and worships, self-denials and charities, homes and teachers, have done their office; and the communion with friends, the communion of the Church, contemplation, study, prayer, self-scrutiny—all have taught and disciplined the soul, and brought it in a measure to the likeness of Christ's. This harvest comes after long summer; first a purpose; then a principle; then a habit; then a life, pervading, renewing, glorifying the soul; then the heavenly nature and peace! R. S. S. THE seven parables of Matthew have a certain unity, succeeding one another in natural order, and having a completeness in themselves. In the Sower are set forth the causes of the failures and successes of the gospel, when it is preached in the world. In the Tares, the obstacles to the internal development of Christ's kingdom are traced up to their true author, with a warning against the manner in which men might be tempted to remove those obstacles. The Mustard-seed and the Leaven declare the victorious might—the first the outward and the second the inward might of that kingdom; and therefore implicitly prophesy of its development in spite of these obstacles, and its triumph over them. The two which follow (the Treasure and the Pearl) declare the relation of the kingdom to every man, its supreme worth, and how those who have discovered that worth will be willing to renounce all things for its sake. The last (the Draw-net) is the declaration that entire separation from evil shall yet come to pass, looking forward to which, each is to strive that he may so use present privileges that he may be found among those that shall be the Lord's when he shall set a difference between them who serve him and them who serve him not. Mk. 26-29. The seed growing secretly. This is the only parable peculiar to Mark. Like that of the Leaven, of which it seems to occupy the place, it declares the invisible energy of the divine word, and that this word of the kingdom has that in it which will allow it safely to be left to itself. T.—Christ obviously intended by this parable to impress upon the disciples that their duty was to preach the word [not to make it fruitful]; that where the truth was once implanted in the heart, its growth was independent of human agency; unfolding itself by its own inherent divine power, it would gradually accomplish the transformation of human nature into that perfection for which God designed it [the full corn in the ear]. N.—Those who under Christ are teachers are here implicitly bidden to have faith in the word which they sow, for it is the seed of God; when it has found place in a heart they are to have confidence in its indwelling power, not supposing that they are to keep it alive; for maintaining its life is God's part, and he undertakes to fulfil it. Of course they are to follow up the work which has been through their instrumentality commenced. T. M. 31-33. The parables which treat of the progress of his kingdom, and the effects of his truth upon human nature, viz., the parables of the Mustard-seed and of the Leaven, were designed to illustrate a development which was to commence with small beginnings, and to propagate itself by a mighty power working outwardly from within. All these parables presuppose the renewal of human nature by a new and pervading principle of spiritual life; and imply that the kingdom of God cannot be visibly realized among men until they become subjects of this renewal. N.—In the parable of the Sower, the disciples had heard that three parts of the seed sown perished, and only a fourth part prospered; again, they had heard in that of the Tares of the hinderances which beset even this part that remained: lest then they should be tempted to lose heart and despair, the Lord spake these two parables (the Mustard-seed and the Leaven) for their encouragement. My kingdom, he would say, will survive these losses, and surmount these hinderances, until, small as its first beginnings may appear, it will, like a mighty tree, fill the earth with its branches—like potent leaven, will diffuse its influence through all the world. T.—The point in which the two parables agree is, the designating of the power with which the kingdom of God develops itself outwardly from within; the greatest results proceeding from the most insignificant beginnings. The point in which they differ is, that the development illustrated in the parable of the Mustard-seed is more extensive, in that of the Leaven more intensive; in the former is shown the power with which the Church, so feeble in its beginning, spreads over all the earth; in the latter, the principle of divine life in Christianity renews human nature, in all its parts and powers, after its own image, to become its own organ; thus illustrating the growth of religion not only in the race, but also in individual men. N. 31. Small as a grain of mustard-seed, was a proverbial expression among the Jews for something exceedingly minute. The Lord, in his popular teaching, adhered to the popular language. Maldonatus relates that even in Spain he has seen great ovens heated with its branches; he mentions as well that birds are exceedingly partial to the seed, so that when it is advancing to ripeness he has often seen them lighting in great numbers on its boughs, which were strong enough to sustain the weight. 33. By the leaven we are to understand the word of the kingdom, which word in its highest sense Christ himself was. As the mustard-seed, out of which a mighty tree was to grow, was the least of all seeds, so the leaven is also something apparently of slight account, and yet mighty in operation. Till the whole is leavened. A prophecy of the final complete triumph of Christianity; that it will diffuse itself through all nations, and purify and ennoble all life. We may also fairly see in these words a promise and an assurance that the word of life, received into any single heart, shall not there cease its effectual working till it has brought the whole man in obedience to it, so that he shall be a new creature in Christ Jesus. T.—The unleavened mass, untouched by any particle with the true leaven in it, will remain unchanged. The whole secret of the spread of Christianity over the world is in this figure of the leaven. It is fire that kindles fire; love that kindles love; Christianity manifested that spreads Christianity. Talent, learning, conviction from argument, are well in their places, but avail little. Belief is needed, but it must be in the form of trust. It must be belief on the Lord Jesus Christ. There must be in it the acceptance of him for all that for which he offers himself to us, and sympathy with him in all that he proposes to do. In such a belief there is life; and in life there is power. M. H. In the process of leavening it is not the substance but the character of the meal that is changed. Even so with the effect of grace. It did not give John his warm affections; but it fixed them on his beloved Master, sanctifying his love. It did not give Paul his genius, his resistless logic, and noble oratory; but it consecrated them to the cause of Christ. It did not give David a poet's fire and a poet's lyre; but it strung his harp with chords from heaven, and tuned all its strings to the high praises of God. So grace ever works. It does not change the metal, but stamps it with the divine image, and assimilates all who have received Christ to the nature of Christ. Guthrie. 44.46. The kingdom of God is not merely a tree overshadowing the earth, leaven leavening the world, but each man must have it for himself, and make it his own by a distinct act of his own will. He may come under the shadow of this great tree, and partake of many blessings of its shelter. He may dwell in a Christendom which has been leavened, and so in a manner himself share in the universal leavening. But more than this is needed, even a personal appropriation of the benefit. We have the history of this in the two parables which follow. They were spoken not to the multitude, not to those "without," but within the house (verse 36), and to the more immediate disciples. These are addressed as having found the hid treasure—the pearl of price, and are now warned of the surpassing worth of these, and that, for their sakes, all things are to be joyfully renounced. T. 44. Owing to the insecurity of property in the East, from war and oppression, joined to the necessity of keeping valuable property in hand for want of secure banks of deposit, the practice of hiding precious utensils and ornaments, money and jewels, has always been common in the East. Often it is built up into the walls of the owner's house, often buried in fields and gardens. The owner often dies and takes his secret with him. K.—Many such transactions are still negotiated. It is extremely difficult, and even dangerous, to remove treasure thus discovered in another person's field; but, having purchased it, you can wait in safety, work in secret, and the coveted treasure is yours. This country has always been subject to revolutions, invasions, and calamities of various kinds, and hence a feeling of insecurity hovers over the land like a dismal spectre. Then there are, and always have been, intestine commotions and wars. At such times multitudes bury their gold and jewels, and in many cases the owners are killed, and no one knows where the treasure was concealed. W. M. T. Buyết field. Whenever any man renounces the thing that is closest to him, rather than that should be a hinderance to his embracing and making his own all the blessings of the gospel—when the lover of money renounces his covetousness—and the indolent man, his ease—and the lover of pleasure, his pleasure—and the wise man, his confidence in the wisdom of this world—then each is selling what he has that he may buy the field which contains the treasure. T. 45. Seeking pearls.** The occupation of a travelling jeweller is still common in the East. He deals in precious stones and pearls, and travels widely in search of advantageous purchases or exchanges. K.—Those persons who feel that there must be some absolute good for man in which he shall find the satisfaction of all his longings, and who are therefore seeking everywhere for this good, are likened to the merchant that has distinctly set before himself the purpose of seeking goodly pearls. These are the fewest in number, but at the same time, perhaps, the noblest converts to the truth. 46. The pearl is the kingdom of God within a man—or God revealing himself in the soul—or the knowledge of Christ—or Christ himself—all different ways of expressing the same thing. It is God alone in whom any intelligent creature can find its centre and true repose; in Augustine's beautiful and often-quoted words, "Lord, thou hast made us for thee, and our heart is disquieted till it reacheth to thee." T. Those who find Christ without seeking him have usually the liveliest joy, while those who find him after long and anxious search have usually the deepest apprehension of his value. It will be observed that the joy of discovery is only in the former parable, as if to express not the value set upon the treasure, but the unexpectedness of it. Yet not less profound is the sense of Christ's preciousness when found after long and anxious search has deepened the craving of the soul after him. B. 47. He had to teach his disciples that not all who joined him were fitted to be genuine followers, and that the spurious and the true should be intermixed in his visible kingdom, until that final process of decision which God had reserved to himself. To convey this truth, he compares the kingdom of God, in the process of its development on earth (which corresponds to the visible Church as distinguished from the invisible), to a net cast into the sea, in which fish of all kinds, good and worthless, are caught, and which are only assorted after the net has been drawn to the shore. N.—A net. A drag-net. It was leaded and buoyed, and then drawn in a circle, so as to inclose a multitude of fishes. H. B. T.—The word in the original is a hauling-net, as distinguished from the casting-net—a net of the largest size, suffering nothing to escape from it. And this, its all-embracing nature, contains a prophecy of the wide reach and potent operation of the gospel. The kingdom of heaven should henceforward be a net, not cast into a single stream as hitherto, but into the broad sea of the whole world, and gathering or drawing together some out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation. T.—52. Things new and old. He teaches his apostles and ministers to avail themselves of what is old in teaching what is new, and by teaching what is new to confirm what is old; to show that the gospel is not contrary to the law, and that both are from one and the same source. W.—As they hearkened to the Lord from heaven these Galilean peasants and fishermen found something that was new, and something that was old. Duties were declared, principles were announced, springs of human feeling and action were touched, which their religious education and the light of their consciences had made as familiar to them as the slopes of the hills about the lake, the curves of the shore, or the trees along the street, under the common sunshine, where they plied their daily calling. This was “old,” but this was not all. As the heavenly words came from the lips of this “Son of man,” knowing not only all that is in man but the secrets in the bosom of God, they caught glimpses of something “new,” and as grand as it was new. Very faint and inadequate these glimpses were at first. But the patient Master knew the work he had to do, and led their dull intellects along through this simple path of parable, giving them what they were able to bear—tempered beams for their weak eyes. What he was seeking to unfold to them was nothing less than the nature of that everlasting and universal kingdom of God, which embraces all other truth, transcends all mortal understanding, and provides redemption for all the nations of our race, and yet sets up its true throne in the unlettered heart of a regenerated child or a penitent slave. Holding fast all that was good in the “old” religion of conscience and law, he was bringing forth to them the “newness” of his gospel. F. D. H. ## Section 58.—Answers to Unready Disciples. Stilling of the Tempest. Near and on the Lake. Mk. 14 And at that time king Herod, the tetrarch, heard of the fame of Jesus, and of all that was done by him; (for his name was spread abroad). And he was perplexed, because that it was said of some, that John the Baptist was risen from the dead, and therefore mighty works do shew forth themselves in him. Others said, that Elias had appeared; and others, that it is a prophet, or that one of the old prophets was risen again. But when Herod heard, he said unto his servants, John have I beheaded: but who is this, of whom I hear such things? This is John the Baptist; he is risen from the dead; and therefore mighty works do shew forth themselves in him. And he desired to see him. 21 And when a convenient day was come, that Herod on his birthday made a supper to his lords, high captains, and chief estates of Galilee, and when the daughter of Herodias came in, and danced before them, and pleased Herod, and them that sat with him, the king said unto the damsel, Ask of me whatsoever thou wilt, and I will give it thee. 23 And he sware unto her, Whatsoever thou shalt ask of me I will give it thee, unto the half of my kingdom. And she went forth, and said unto her mother, What shall I ask? 25 And she said, The head of John the Baptist. And she being instructed of her mother came in straightway with haste unto the king, and asked, saying, I will that thou give me here, by and by, in a charger, the head of John the Baptist. And the king was exceeding sorry; yet for his oath's sake, and for their sakes which sat with him at meat, he would not reject her. And immediately the king sent an executioner, and commanded his head to be brought, and to be given her. And he went and beheaded John in the prison; and brought his head in a charger, and gave it to the damsel; and the damsel brought it and gave it to her mother. And when his disciples heard of it, they came and took up his body, and buried it in a tomb, and went and told Jesus. THERE is a certain fitness, Augustine observes, such as we may trace running through the whole of the Baptist's history, in the fact that the immediate occasion of his martyrdom was not his witness for Jesus as the Christ, or aught in immediate connection with his Lord; but rather his assertion of the holiness of the law: "It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife!" He who was the last and noblest personification of the law fitly sealed with his own blood his zeal for its holiness. At the same time he, and others who like him resisted unto blood, inasmuch as they died for the truth, did in fact die for Christ, who is the Truth; they were his martyrs as really as those who were called by his name, and shed their blood more immediately for his testimony. And on deaths like this of the Baptist, when the servants of God seem given into the hands of the wicked, who do unto them whatsoever they list, he often takes occasion to remark how different to the eye of sense the dealings of God with some of his servants, from his dealings with others. Those he gloriously delivers; these he appears to abandon to their foes; the three children are brought forth altogether unscathed from the fiery furnace; the Maccabean martyrs perish in the flames; Peter is delivered from the sword of Herod, from that sword which had just been stained with James's blood; one John the malice of an emperor fails to hurt, and he is plunged unharmed into the boiling oil; another falls a victim to a wicked woman's spite, and his life is given away at a wanton dancing girl's request. But shall we therefore conclude that those God delivered, and these he did not deliver? Would such language rightly express the facts of the case? Should we not rather say those were delivered openly, and in the face of the world—these as really delivered; however their deliverance did not as manifestly appear, but like so much besides, is at present seen and apprehended only by the eye of faith? T. 14. Herod Antipas had been, while at Rome, the guest of his brother Herod Philip—not the tetrarch of that name, but a son of Herod the Great and Mariamne, daughter of Simon the Boëthusian, who, having been disinherited by his father, was living at Rome as a private person. Here Antipas became entangled by the snares of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife; and he repaid the hospitality he had received by carrying her off. Everything combined to make the act as detestable as it was ungrateful and treacherous. Herodias, being the daughter of Aristobulus, was not only the sister-in-law but also the niece of Antipas; she had already borne to her husband a daughter, who was now grown up. Antipas had himself long been married to the daughter of Aretas, emir of Arabia, and neither he nor Herodias was young enough to plead even the poor excuse of youthful passion. A small fragment of the Stemma Herodum will make these relationships more clear: | m. Mariamne, d. of Simon. | Herod "Philip." m. Herodias. | Salome. | m. Malthace (a Samaritan). | Herod Antipas. Archelaus. m. d. of Aretas. m. Herodias. | m. Cleopatra. | Philip, tetr. of Iturea. m. Salome. | m. Mariamne, d. of Hyrcanus. | Aristobulus. | Herodias. Herod Agrippa L | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | It was said, that John was risen. That such thoughts must have been very rife is shown by the fact that when the army of Herod Antipas was disgracefully routed by Aretas, the people looked on it as a retribution for the murder of John. F. (Imprisonment of John, see Section 21.) 25. Instructed. Instigated by her mother. P. S.—Herodias had a passion to gratify, stronger perhaps than any other, when it takes full possession of the human heart, and that was revenge. She had been mortally injured, as she conceived, by the Baptist, who had attempted to break her present infamous connection with Herod; and accordingly gave way to her resentment. P.—Give me here. The bleeding trophy is to be brought to her—it is to be brought to her there—not in a napkin, not held by the hair, but in a dish; so that she—that young girl—may receive it into her own hands, and take it where she pleased, without danger of soiling her rich dress with a prophet's blood. This is frightful. It was done, nevertheless. K. By and by; or, immediately. She desired this might be done quickly, fearing lest Herod should change his mind. Josephus informs us that John was imprisoned in the castle of Macharus, a fortress at the extremity of Perea, his territory adjoining that of Aretas, king of Arabia. Herod had married his daughter, but had put her away to take Herodias, to avenge which Aretas had declared war against him. It is then almost certain that Herod with his forces now lay at Macharus, where his leading men and officers attended him, and where his birthday was kept. Hence he sent a sentinel to behead John, which could be done, and was done immediately. Soon after Herod engaged Aretas, but was defeated with great slaughter. He never prospered after beheading John, but died in exile. B.—According to J. 6:4, the Passover was now at hand, viz., the third during our Lord's ministry. John therefore had lain in prison not far from a year and six months; and was beheaded about three years after entering upon his public ministry. R. 26-28. And so, at the asking of a worthless girl, in spite of the wretched king's undissembled grief and reluctance, the minister of death is sent to the prison, the greatest of the sons of men is foully slain, and the holy lips which had uttered the message of God's Spirit to Israel are given into the hands of the wanton, are passed about for the gaze of the revellers, and finally delivered up to the criminal wife herself to insult and cast out. And the end of the glorious career of the forerunner of the world's King is to fall as it were by a chance blow, victim to the spite of a worthless woman. A.— The Baptist had not turned back, on any occasion, from his perilous duty—he had kept his Nazarite ritual, both in body and spirit, sustaining the one upon the simplest meat, and the other upon the hardest conditions. The Almighty heard the voice which he spoke always for his well-beloved Son; He saw that he spoke truth, and held his integrity steadfast unto the end. And, perceiving in his servant such noble and excellent qualities, He resolved to perfect him for a high place in heaven, and so directed his footsteps to the fiery furnace of a court, that the temper of his truth and piety might be purified manifold. And in the fiery furnace He walked with his servant, so that his spirit was not harmed; and having thus annealed his nature to the utmost which this earth could do, He took him hastily away, and placed him among the glorified in heaven. Irving. # Section 66.—The Twelve return. Cross the Lake. Five Thousand fed. Plain of Butaiha. J. 22 AFTER these things came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judea; and there he 23 tarried with them, and baptized. And John also was baptizing in Enon near to Salim, 24 because there was much water there: and they came, and were baptized. For John was not yet cast into prison. 25 Then there arose a question between some of John's disciples and the Jews, about 26 purifying. And they came unto John, and said unto him, Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou barest witness, behold, the same baptizeth, and all men 27 come to him. John answered and said, A man can receive nothing, except it be given 28 him from heaven. Ye yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but 29 that I am sent before him. He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bride- 30 groom's voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease. 31 He that cometh from above is above all: he that is of the earth is earthly, and speak- 32 eth of the earth: he that cometh from heaven is above all. And what he hath seen and 33 heard, that he testifieth; and no man receiveth his testimony. He that hath received 34 his testimony, hath set to his seal that God is true. For he whom God hath sent, 35 speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him. The 36 Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life: but the wrath of God abideth on him. L. 19 But Herod the tetrarch, being reproved by John for Herodias his brother Philip's wife, 20 and for all the evils which Herod had done, added yet this above all, that he shut up Mk. 17 John in prison. For Herod himself had sent forth, and laid hold upon John, and 18 bound him, and put him in prison for Herodias' sake: for he had married her. For 19 John had said unto Herod, It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife. There- fore Herodias had a quarrel against him, and would have killed him; but she could not: 20 for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a just man and an holy, and observed him: M. 5 and when he heard him, he did many things, and heard him gladly. And when he would have put him to death, he feared the multitude, because they counted him as a prophet. THE first thought which suggests itself is, that a magnificent career is cut short too soon. At the very outset of ripe and experienced manhood, the whole thing ends in failure. John's day of active usefulness is over; at thirty years of age his work is done; and what permanent effect have all his labors left? The crowds that listened to his voice, awed into silence by Jordan's side, we hear of them no more. Was all indeed failure? No, it was sublimest victory. John's work was no failure; he left behind him no sect to which he had given his name, but his disciples passed into the service of Christ, and were absorbed in the Christian Church. Words from John had made impressions, and men forgot in after-years where the impressions first came from, but the day of judgment will not forget. John laid the foundations of a temple, and others built upon it. There is a lesson for us in all that, if we will learn it. Work, true work, done honestly and manfully for Christ, never can be a failure. Your own work, which God has given you to do, whatever that is, let it be done truly. Leave eternity to show that it has not been in vain in the Lord. Let it but be work, it will tell. F. W. R. 22. After the occurrences connected with the first Passover, Jesus entered upon a wide preaching-tour, which (Peter states in Acts 10 : 37) extended "throughout all Judea." The word "tarried," elsewhere translated continued or abode, intimates a prolonged tour, occupying about eight or nine months. This seems to have been his only ministry in the rural territory of Judea. J. G. B.—Judea extended on the south to the edge of the wilderness at Beersheba; to the lowlands of the Philistine plain on the west; to the line of the Jordan and the Dead Sea on the east; and on the north to the frontier of Samaria, twenty-five miles from Jerusalem. Jesus found willing hearers and many disciples in the cities and towns of Galilee, but he made little impression on Judea. He "tarried" from time to time at different points, he himself preaching and teaching, and his disciples baptizing the converts gained. (See next section, verse 2.) It was not fitting that Jesus should himself administer the rite which admitted citizens to his spiritual kingdom. The material baptism was but the symbol, and might well be left to his disciples, himself retaining the far grander ministry of the dispensation of the Spirit, which cleansed the moral nature. 23. In this opening period John still continued his great preparatory work. He had crossed from the eastern to the western side of Jordan, and was baptizing at Enon, near Salim—a place the position of which is not positively known. He had apparently expected Jesus to begin his work as the Messiah, by an open assumption of the title. The idea of a great national movement, with Jesus at its head, was natural to him; nor does he seem to have realized that the sublimest self-proclamation our Lord could make was by the still small voice of his divine life and words. John was waiting for a signal to retire, which had not yet been given. Nor was it a superfluous work to continue to point the multitudes to the Lamb of God, and thus prepare them, by the weight of a testimony so revered, for accepting him to whom he thus directed them. 25,26. There arose a question.** A Jew [not "the Jews"], who had apparently attended the ministry of both John and Jesus, had shown the common bias of his race by getting into a discussion with some of John's disciples, about the value of their master's baptism, as a means of purification, as compared with that of Jesus. A theological controversy between Jews, as between Christians, is dangerous to the temper, and, indeed, the rabbis denounced quietness and composure in such matters as a sign of religious indifference. Warmth and bitterness were assumed to prove zeal for the law. Hence, no doubt, there was abundant heat and wrangling on an occasion like this, the whole resulting in a feeling of irritation and jealousy on the part of the champions of John, against One who had thus been set up as his rival. In this spirit they returned to their master. 27-30. The grand humility of John—inaccessible to a jealous thought—was contented to be a mere voice, sending men away from himself to his great successor. His greatness could not have been shown more strikingly than in his reply. G.—In this, his last testimony respecting Christ, the former legal preaching of the Baptist completely passes into the purest gospel. Especially sweet and touchingly beautiful are his words in verses 29, 30. C. B.—He saw Jesus able to loose every evil, to unfold every mystery, to detect every snare, to brighten every darkness, to guide into all truth, and to form to all goodness, and to no hands could he leave the concerns of religion, and the spiritual interests of those to whom he had ministered, but in those of Christ. In the splendor of his grace and truth, John was happy to be darkened, and in such fame he was content to be forgotten. Had his honors been ten thousand times brighter than they were, he would have laid them all at Christ's feet. John in his ministry was not like the evening star, sinking into the darkness of night, but like the morning star, lost to our view in the brightness of day. Bel-frage. 30. I must decrease.** In uttering these words the Baptist probably had a presentiment that the end of his career was at hand. When he returned to the other side of the river, Herod Antipas, who ruled in Perea, succeeded in laying hold of him. The rigid censor of morals, who had no respect for persons where the holy law of God was concerned, had offended the tetrarch; and, by order of the latter, he was conveyed as a prisoner to the border fortress of Macharus. N.—Ten miles southward from the northeast angle of the Dead Sea, on one side of a ravine which breaks the high coast range of rocky precipices, was the fortress of Macharus, where John was imprisoned and beheaded. J. G. B.—This castle, known as "the diadem," from its crown-like seat on the lofty rocks, and as "the black tower," lay on the east side of the Dead Sea, almost on a line with Bethlehem. It was the southern stronghold of Perea, as the Macedonian colony of Pella was the northern. G. 31-34. John's final testimony upon this occasion to the character and office of Jesus is as striking as the involuntary display that he makes of his own character, going much beyond what he had said before, and containing much that bears a singular likeness to what Jesus said of himself to Nicodemus: "He that cometh from above," etc. H.—He who in faith receives the witness of Jesus is a living letter of acknowledgment testifying to the truthfulness of God who gave this Jesus to be the life of sinners; the believer's joy and perfect satisfaction is, so to speak, a seal of confirmation to that great charter of God which God has set before the world in the person of his only-begotten Son, in whom all his promises are yea and amen. 35. Observe the names which he gives to Christ, and by which he distinguishes him from himself who is "a man." He calls him the bridegroom—him that cometh from above, from heaven—him who has been sent from God, anointed with the Holy Ghost without measure. But here he calls him by the highest name of all—the Son. That name John had heard in the voice from the Father, which, while the Holy Ghost was descending on the baptized Jesus, called down from heaven, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." R. B. 35,36. Such thoughts filled John's heart with tender adoration, which embodied itself in closing words of wondrous sublimity. "You may well believe on him," said he, "for the Father has given all things into his hand—eternal life and outer darkness. He has not only the divine anointing of the Messiah, but the awful power. To be saved by the works of the law is, moreover, hopeless: faith in him is the one salvation. It is momentous, therefore, that you receive him, for to reject him is to perish. Blessed is he who believes in him; he has, even now, the beginnings in his soul of the divine life, which survives death and never dies. Woe to him who will not hear his voice! He shall never see life; but the wrath of God will burn against him abidingly!" G. Believe, and thou art saved; thou hast life, and shalt never see death. He who has not life now in faith, his eyes never will see it. Would that all Christians really knew these three things! First, what they were without Christ—lost; what they are through Christ for them—righteous; what they become through Christ in them—holy. For then should we have peace, and, as blessed possessors of eternal life, we should await, with longing indeed, but without disquiet, the appearance of that which as yet we are not—to be crowned with the crown of manifested glory. Abideth. The wrath of God does not now first come on the unbeliever, but remains on him, who, being the child, by nature, of wrath, despises to become by grace, through Christ, a child of love. The unbeliever is condemned. R. B.—The contrast here is striking: The one has already a life that will endure forever; the other not only has it not now, but shall never have it—never see it. B.—This statement is strictly absolute and final; it denies unqualifiedly; no form of statement possible to human speech can be stronger. It shuts off all questions of limitation. If the unbelieving sinner shall not see life, his die is cast beyond hope of reversing it. The blessedness of life with God, and with all the pure-hearted above, he can never enjoy. H. C. 31-36. Whether these verses were spoken by John the Baptist, or by John the Evangelist, is not clear; but in either case the lesson is instructive. If the former spoke them, then they form an attestation from the lips of the preacher of repentance, to the impotency of repentance without faith to secure salvation; and if the latter, they are as strong an attestation from the preacher of love to the reality of the divine judgments. In the one case, it is the preacher of repentance, who bids men to believe; in the other, it is the preacher of love expatiating on the fearfulness of the wrath of God; and we may be sure it is in substance the attestation of both. J. A. L. 19, 20. Herod's own wife was the daughter of Aretas, King of Arabia; but he persuaded Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, to forsake her husband and live with him, on condition that he should put away his own wife. This involved him in a war with Aretas, who totally defeated him. From the effects of this defeat he was never able to recover himself. B.—Mk. 17. Josephus differs from the gospels as to Herod's reasons for imprisoning John; according to the latter, it was done because John had reproved him for carrying off and marrying his brother Philip's wife; according to the former, the tetrarch was induced by fear of political disturbances. Josephus gave the ostensible and the Evangelists the real and secret reason that impelled Herod. As the Baptist did not claim to be Messiah, and exhorted the people to fidelity in the several relations of life, Herod could have had no political fears except such, indeed, as might arise from John's honest boldness in reproving his sins. N.—18. Not lawful. Because the wife of Herod Antipas was still living, the husband of Herodias was still living, and Herodias and Herod Antipas were relatives within the degrees of consanguinity, within which marriage was forbidden by Lev. 18: 11. L. A. 20. Herod, though in his palace, surrounded with his royal guards, feared him. He knew the Baptist was stronger than he, for truth is mighty, and mightily prevaleth: and being already conscious of his offendings, and having enough to do to keep down the voices of crime and transgression within him, he feared this righteous man, whose words gave such edge to his self-accusations, such point to his remorse. Unarmed, the Baptist daunted him more than an army of men, an embattled city, or a fenced tower, or any other source of physical and outward force. Irving.—John, though defenceless, had a kingly divinity of truth and goodness, that for a time hedged him round from death. Herod's uneasy conscience, and natural indisposition to violence, and the slow, cruel delays of Eastern justice, left John alive. He was even allowed to have intercourse with some of his people, whose love braved personal danger, and brought them to his prison to visit him. G. Observed him. The Greek verb is elsewhere rendered preserved and kept. He guarded John from his wife's malice, and at the same time kept him in prison, and so silenced his public rebuke. L. A. —How thorough-going was the fidelity of the Baptist to his royal hearer, and how strong must have been the workings of conscience in that slave of passion, when, notwithstanding such plainness, he "did many things and heard John gladly!" But this only shows how far Herodias must have wrought upon him, as Jezebel upon Ahab, that he should at length agree to what his awakened conscience kept him long from executing. B. (Read Section 65.) ## Section 22.—To a Woman of Samaria declares himself the Messiah. Sychar, or Shechem. Mk.30 And the apostles, when they were returned, gathered themselves together unto Jesus, 31 and told him all things, both what they had done and what they had taught. And when Jesus heard he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much 32 as to eat. And he took them, and departed thence by ship privately, and went over the sea of Galilee, which is the sea of Tiberias, and went aside into a desert place belonging 33 to the city called Bethsaida. And the people saw them departing, and many knew him and ran afoot thither out of all cities, and outwent them, and came together unto him. J. 2 And a great multitude when they knew it followed him, because they saw his miracles which he did on them that were diseased. 3, 4 And Jesus went up into a mountain, and there he sat with his disciples. And the passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh. When Jesus then lifted up his eyes, and saw a Mk.34 great company come unto him, he was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd. And he received them, and began to teach them many things, and spake unto them of the kingdom of God, and healed them that had need of healing. 35 And when the day was now far spent, when it was evening, the twelve disciples came 36 to him, and said, This is a desert place, and the time is now far past; send the multitude away, that they may go into the towns and country round about, and lodge, and buy 37 themselves victuals; for they have nothing to eat. But Jesus answered, and said unto J. 5 them, They need not depart, give ye them to eat. And he saith unto Philip, Whence 6 shall we buy bread that these may eat? (And this he said to prove him: for he himself 7 knew what he would do.) Philip answered him, Two hundred penny-worth of bread Mk.37 is not sufficient for them, that every one may take a little. And they say unto him, 38 Shall we go and buy two hundred penny-worth of bread, and give them to eat? He J. 8 saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? go and see. And when they knew, one of 9 his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, saith unto him, There is a lad here which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes; but what are they among so many? We have no more; except we should go and buy meat for all this people. He said, Bring them hither to me. Mk. 39 Now there was much grass in the place. And he commanded them to make all sit down by companies on the green grass. And they did so, and sat down in ranks, by hundreds and by fifties in a company. Then he took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed them; and when he had given thanks he brake the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the multitude; and likewise the two fishes he divided among them all. And the disciples distributed to the multitude that were set down, as much as they would. And they did all eat, and were all filled. When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost. Therefore they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves and of the fishes, which remained over and above unto them that had eaten. And they that had eaten were about five thousand men, beside women and children. Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth that Prophet that should come into the world. Mk. 45 And straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into the ship, and to go before him to the other side unto Bethsaida, while he sent the multitudes away. And when he had sent the multitudes away, when Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again, and went himself alone up into a mountain to pray. THE day is wearing away; this is a desert place; there are hungry perishing multitudes around us, and Christ is saying to us all, Give ye them to eat. Say not, We cannot, we have nothing to give. Go to your duty, every one, and trust yourselves to him; for he will give you all supply, just as fast as you need it. Take upon you readily, have it as a law to be always doing great works, that is, works that are great to you; and this in the faith that God so clearly justifies, that your abilities will be as your works. Make large adventures. Trust God for great things. With your loaves and two fishes, he will show you a way to feed thousands. H. B. Mk. 30. He seems to have selected the place of meeting after this first missionary tour was completed. "The apostles," we are told, "gathered themselves together, and told him all things, both what they had done and what they had taught." How delightful this confidence! They told him of their failures and of their successes; of their wisdom and of their folly; of their reliance and of their unbelief. We seem to see Christ listening with affectionate earnestness to the recital of their adventures; and interposing from time to time a word of encouragement or of caution, as the character and narrative of each might demand. The heart of each was unveiled, and the words spoken were eminently in season. The fatigues of their journey were none of them remembered, as each received from the Saviour the smile of his approval. J. A. 31. When Jesus heard. While the twelve are absent preaching in the name of Christ, Herod causes John the Baptist to be beheaded in the castle of Macherus at the southern extremity of Perea, near the Dead Sea. In consequence of the preaching of the apostles, Herod hears the fame of Jesus; is conscience-smitten, and declares him to be John, risen from the dead. The disciples of John come and tell Jesus; and the twelve also return with the same intelligence; upon which Jesus retires to the northeastern coast of the lake, not far from the northern Bethsaida or Julias. All these events seem to have taken place near together. R. Come ye apart and rest. In our day, a waking rest of travel, change of scene, new society, is permitted, and when it is a privilege assumed by faithful men, to recruit them for their works of duty, they have it by God's sanction, and even as a part of the sound economy of life. The true blessing of rest is on us only when we carry a good mind with us, able to look back on works of industry and faithfulness, suspended for a time, that we may do them more effectually. Going in such a frame, we shall rest awhile as none but such can rest. Nature will dress herself in beauty to our eye, calm thoughts will fan us with their cooling breath, and the joy of the Lord will be strength to our wasted brain and body. H. B. 32. Tiberias was quite a modern town when our Lord frequented this region, having been built and named by Herod about the time of his advent. Seventy years afterward, Josephus found it an important city, and no other in Galilee is so often mentioned by him. Almost every other city was destroyed by Vespasian and Titus, but this was spared, and rewarded for its adherence to the Romans by being made the capital of the province. John, writing many years after these events, would naturally mention both the city and the lake, and call the latter by its then most familiar name, Tiberias. But the other apostles wrote before these events had taken place, and therefore do not speak of Tiberias at all. W. M. T.—It ultimately became the favorite resort and refuge of the scattered Jews not long after the destruction of Jerusalem. For three centuries the Sanhedrim held its assemblies within its walls; it contained schools and a university for the higher education of Jewish youths; and learned rabbins pursued their studies in it, comparatively free from molestation. The rabbi Jonathan wrote here the Jerusalem Talmud. It is to this day one of the four holy cities of the Jews, along with Jerusalem, Hebron, and Safed, in which prayers are offered up for the world twice every day, without which, it is believed, it would return to its primeval chaos. Jews gather to it especially from Spain and Barbary, from Poland and Russia, in order to be buried within its hallowed precincts; for next to the valley of Jehoshaphat and the sides of Olivet, it is the highest privilege for a Jew to have a grave here. No wonder, when it is one of their most cherished expectations that the Messiah, when he comes, shall emerge from the waters of the Sea of Galilee, and first reveal himself in Tiberias; after which he shall establish his world-empire up in the mountain-city of Safed. A. Thomson. Bethsaida. At the northeastern corner of  Looking a little east of north from above the modern Tiberias. The desert plain of Butaiha rises from the middle of the farther lake line, at the right of the Jordan's entrance. Snow-crowned Hermon in the far distance. the lake, a little beyond the point where the Jordan enters it, was a second Bethsaida, or "Fish-house," once, like its western namesake, a small village, but recently enlarged and beautified by Philip, tetrarch of Iturea, and called, for the sake of distinction, Bethsaida Julias. F.—The tetrarch Philip, who raised the village of Bethsaida (on the east side) to the dignity of a city, distinguished it from the village of the same name on the west side, by adding the name Julias, from the emperor's daughter. It is not strange that the name, meaning a place of fish, a fishing-town, should be applied to two places on different sides of a lake abounding in fish. N. J. 4. A great multitude followed him, and around the mountain upon which he had retired with the disciples were soon gathered crowds of Jews who were on their way up to Jerusalem to the feast of the Passover. R. B.—Mk. 34. Ascending the hill-side, and gathering the vast throng before him, he "spake unto them of the kingdom of God." The day was spent in this arduous labor, but the people still lingered. They had been fed with the bread of truth, and as they sat and stood round him, they forgot their bodily wants in the beauty and power of his words. G. J. 5. To prove him. Philip was of a thoughtful, anxious disposition, not like Peter, impetuous and soon rushing to a believing conclusion; for that reason the Lord, seeking in love to train the minds of his disciples, addresses himself to him in particular. R. B.—God tests us benevolently, to prove and exercise our faith; the devil tempts malevolently, to weaken and extinguish it. Q.—Mk. 39. “Make the men,” he said, “sit down by fifties in a company”—an order indicative of our Lord’s design that there might be no confusion and that the attention of all might be directed to what he was about to do. L. 16. He chose here as elsewhere—might we not say as everywhere?—to veil the workings of his omnipotence—to hide, as it were, the working of his hand and power, mingling it with that of human hands and earthly elements. H.—As the widow’s oil increased, not in the vessel, but by pouring out; as, here, the barley bread multiplied, not in the whole loaf, but by breaking and distributing; and as the grain bringeth increase, not when it lieth on a heap in the garner, but when scattered upon the land: so spiritual graces are best improved, not by keeping them together, but by distributing them abroad. Sanderson.—Jesus never wrought a miracle except to meet a want, to heal a malady, to satisfy hunger, or in some shape to contribute to the happiness of mankind. . . . It needs as much of Deity to translate spring into harvest, as to transform a few barley loaves into food for so many thousands. J. C. 17. Were all filled. Those whom he professes to feed must needs have enough. The measure of his bounty cannot but run over. Will he feast his auditors in the wilderness? if they have not dainties, they shall have plenty; “They were all satisfied.” Neither yet, O Saviour, is thy hand closed. Not according to our meanness, but according to thy state, are we fed. We are full of thy goodness; oh, let our hearts run over with thanks! Bp. H.—Thus he, all whose works were signs, did in this miracle proclaim himself the true bread of the world, that should assuage the hunger of men, the inexhaustible source of all life, in whom there should be enough and to spare for all the spiritual needs of hungering souls in all ages. T. J. 12. When all were abundantly satisfied, Jesus, not only to show his disciples the extent and reality of what had been done, but also to teach them the memorable lesson that wastefulness is wholly alien to the divine economy, bade them gather up the fragments that remained, that nothing might be lost. F.—It is a common, but a Christian proverb, “Waste not, want not,” and he that wastes needlessly deserves to want. And he that has plenty ought not to waste; for the Lord of all plenty, the Maker, Creator, and Proprietor of all, would not allow one fragment to fall that could be useful to a single human being. J. C.—God loveth a bountiful, not a wasteful hand. Sandys. 13. Twelve baskets. Probably each apostle took a basket in which to gather; hence the twelve. This union of careful savingness with creative power is a feature so peculiar that it impresses, beyond all mistake, a heavenly character on the narrative. Such things are not invented! O.—Baskets were taken by Jews on journeying, to carry their provisions, etc., that they might not have to depend on Gentiles and so incur the risk of ceremonial pollution. B.—All the Evangelists alike here use kophinoi for the common vicker-baskets, in which these fragments were collected; and the word spurides, or “rope-baskets,” when they speak of the feeding of the four thousand. F.—The twelve baskets were an apt symbol of that love which exhausts not itself by loving, but after all its outgoings upon others, abides itself far richer than it would have done but for these, of the multiplying which there ever is in a true dispensing. T. Mk. 45. This was the Bethsaida on the west, which is always styled simply “Bethsaida,” as if it was well known, while the other on the east is “the city called Bethsaida.” J. M.—46. To make him a king. The effect on the multitude was in keeping with the ideas of the time. Murmurs ran through the excited throng, that Jesus must be the expected prophet—the Messiah. Like Moses, he had fed Israel by a miracle, in the wilderness, which the rabbis said the Messiah would do. They had no higher idea of the Messianic kingdom than the outward and political, and would hasten its advent by forcing him, if possible, to proclaim himself king, and thus open the longed-for war with the hated Romans, in which God would appear on their behalf. While visions of national splendor dazzled the thoughts of his countrymen, the ideal of greatness for himself and them lay with Jesus in humiliation. Hiding his glory in outward lowliness, and never seeking honor from men, he had, throughout, identified his will with that of God, with a self-restraint which showed the grandest force of will. He would not use force, and they were bent on it. His refusal to carry out their plan made opposition inevitable, and it necessarily grew deeper each day as that refusal became more clearly final. That he had declined to be led by them to the throne of David in their way, was, in reality, a step toward the cross. G.—This climax of his miracle-working power produced one, also, in their opinions. “He that can do such a miracle can be no other than Messiah; we must do homage to him as theocratic king, and urge him to establish his kingdom among us.” Plans of this sort Christ had to evade; and he returned alone to the mountain. N.—Into a mountain. A remarkable feature of the lake must have been the concentration of varied life and activity in a basin so closely surrounded with desert solitudes. It was those “desert places,” thus close at hand, on the table-lands, or in the ravines of the eastern and western ranges, which seem to be classed under the common name of “the mountain” that gave the opportunities of retirement for rest or prayer. A. P. S.—To pray. Thus it is that our Lord’s was an angelical life (as Leighton calls it), devoted both to contemplation and to activity. And we need in this respect to copy him. Contemplation we require, that our troubled spirits may be quieted; that truth may produce its appropriate impression upon our hearts; and then activity, that we may spend the strength gained by prayer in beneficent consecration. True piety ought ever to be energetic and practical; it ought also to be meditative and secluded. Days spent among the multitude need nights of calmness and devotion. J. A. # Section 67—The Night-storm on Galilee. Christ walks on the Sea. J. 16 AND when even was come, his disciples went down unto the sea, and entered into a 17 ship, and went over the sea toward Capernaum. And it was now dark, and the ship 18 was in the midst of the sea, and Jesus alone on the land was not come to them. And Mk.48 the sea arose by reason of a great wind that blew. And he saw them toiling in rowing; for the wind was contrary unto them; and the ship was now in the midst of the sea tossed with waves. And about the fourth watch of the night, when they had rowed about five and twenty or thirty furlongs, Jesus cometh unto them, walking upon the sea, and would 49 have passed by them. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, and draw- 50 ing nigh unto the ship, they supposed it had been a spirit, and cried out for fear. (For they all saw him and were troubled.) And immediately he talked with them, and saith M. 28 unto them, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid. And Peter answered him and said, 29 Lord, if it be thou, bid me come to thee on the water. And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. 30 But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, 31 saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? Then he 32 went up unto them into the ship, and they willingly received him. And when they were come into the ship, the wind ceased; and immediately the ship was at the land, 33 whither they went. Then they that were in the ship were sore amazed in themselves beyond measure, and wondered. For they considered not the miracle of the loaves; for their heart was hardened. And they came and worshipped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God. Mk.53 And when they had passed over, they came into the land of Gennesaret, and drew to 54 the shore. And when they were come out of the ship, and when the men of that 55 place had knowledge of him, straightway they sent out into all the country round about, and began to carry about in beds those that were sick, where they heard he 56 was: and brought unto him all that were diseased. And whithersoever he entered, into villages, or cities, or country, they laid the sick in the streets, and besought him that they might touch, if it were but the border of his garment; and as many as touched him were made perfectly whole. EVERY one of us is no other than a little bark rowing against the wind, in a tempestuous sea, encompassed with the darkness of the night, and destitute of all help and succor. He who is not afraid in this condition, sees not the danger of it; whoever sees it, and does not pray, knows nothing of his own weakness. Christ leaves us sometimes to ourselves, on purpose that we may know ourselves, and the need we have of him; but he never loses sight of us. Q.—Peter is here the image of all the faithful, in the seasons of their weakness and fear. So long as they are strong in faith, they are able to tread under foot all the most turbulent agitations of an unquiet world; but when they lose heart and fear, when instead of “looking unto Jesus,” they look at the stormy winds and waters, then these prevail against them, and they begin to sink, and were it not for Christ’s sustaining hand, which is stretched out in answer to their cry, they would be wholly overwhelmed. T. Sure and sweet is the revelation of Christ to the believer in the time of darkness and sorrow. Many a storm has he passed through; but every one has been glorified by the presence of the Redeemer. Many more may await him, but he need not fear. His trust is in One who treads the wildest billows into a sea of glass, and who hushes the roar of the tempest into the murmuring of the evening zephyr. One more night of trial must come to all ere the voyage of life is ended. We are sailing right into the darkness of the unknown sea of death. Yet we will not fear. Our deliverer will come to us even there. Beautiful will be his feet upon the sullen waves; sweet will be the sound of his voice through the gloom, saying to us: “It is I; be not afraid;” and then the morning of eternity will break in beauty over the purple shores of the Canaan that we love. Z. E. J. 16, 17. From the region of the northern Bethsaida or Julias, the disciples embark for Bethsaida of Galilee (Mk. 6 : 45); or for Capernaum, according to J. 6 : 17. They land on the plain of Gennesaret (Mk. 6 : 53). The next day the multitudes follow in boats to Capernaum seeking for Jesus, and find him there (J. 6 : 24, 25, 29). It follows, as a necessary conclusion, that Capernaum was on or near the plain of Gennesaret; most probably at its northeastern extremity. R. (Section 189.)—In J. 6 : 16, it is said that “when even was come the disciples went down unto the sea.” In the other gospels, however, evening is spoken of as having already come, or being near, before the multitude was fed. The explanation is that while John has followed the usual Greek mode of speaking, the others make use of the Hebrew, or rather the Pharisaic, way of reckoning the day. By this, there were two evenings: the first corresponding to our afternoon, from three to six, the other from six to nine, after which came “the darkness.” G.—A ship. When the Sea of Galilee was fringed by towns and villas, trees and corn-fields, then the water was covered by little vessels sailing about in hundreds. It is not easy to ascertain what was the size of the largest of these vessels; but probably, as the distances were short, and the ports were shallow, the boats were not larger than they are now, say about thirty feet long and seven feet beam. J. M. Alone on the land. The darkness deepens; the tempest rises; midnight comes with its gusts and gloom. There—somewhere on that mountain, sheltered or exposed—there, for five or six hours, till the fourth watch of the night—Jesus holds his secret and close fellowship with heaven. H. 18. A great wind.** To understand the causes of these sudden and violent tempests, we must reremember that the lake lies low—six hundred feet lower than the ocean; that the vast and naked plateaus of the Jaulan rise to a great height, spreading backward to the wilds of the Hauran, and upward to snowy Hermon; that the water-courses have cut out profound ravines and wild gorges, converging to the head of this lake, and that these act like gigantic funnels to draw down the cold winds from the mountains. No wonder the disciples toiled and rowed hard all that night; and how natural their amazement and terror at the sight of Jesus walking on the waves! The faith of Peter in desiring and daring to set foot on such a sea is most striking and impressive; more so, indeed, than its failure after he made the attempt. W. M. T. Mk. 48. Five and twenty or thirty furlongs, scarcely more than half of their way, the lake being forty or forty-five furlongs in breadth. T.—We may reckon the furlong or stadion (by the best authorized computation) at 202 yards, so that twenty-seven furlongs and a half, the mean of the distances given, would be about three miles. J. M.—He saw them. He knew where the tempest-tossed bark was. His knowledge directed him; his love constrained him; their need invited him. He had seen them from the mount of fellowship with God. An. 49. Saw him walking on the sea.** What Job celebrates as the distinguishing prerogative of God, “Who alone spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the waves of the sea”—what Agur challenges as God’s unapproachable prerogative, to “gather the wind in his fists, and bind the waters in a garment”—this is here done in flesh by the Son of man. B.—There surely can be no question in the mind of an unprejudiced reader that it is John’s intention to relate a miracle; nor again, that there could be in the minds of the disciples no doubt about that miracle—no chance of a mistake as to what they saw. They were afraid: but, upon being reassured by his voice, they were willing to take him into the ship: and upon their doing so, the ship in a comparatively short time was at the land to which they had been going, viz., by the storm ceasing, and the ship making smooth way. A.—Walking upon the sea was thought so impracticable, that the picture of two feet walking on the sea was an Egyptian hieroglyphic for an impossible thing. D. 50. It is I.** So soon as they had made proof that without him they could do nothing, he was with them once more. For it had been his purpose in all this to discipline and lead them up to higher things than they had learned before. When he has tried them to the uttermost, he appears beside them, thus teaching them for all their after-life, in all coming storms of temptation, that he is near them, a very present help in the needful time of trouble. T.—There is something in those two little words, “Tis I” (Gr. “I am”), which from the mouth that spake it and the circumstances in which it was uttered passes the power of language to express. B.—Oh, if we feel, often and often, that the water-floods threaten to drown us, and the deep to swallow up our faith, may it again and again be granted us to hear amid the storm and the darkness those two sweetest of the Saviour’s utterances—“Fear not. Only believe.” “It is I. Be not afraid.” F. M. 28. Rather do the words mean: “Since it is thou, command me to come unto thee.” He feels rightly that Christ’s command must go before his coming. In that “Bid me,” the fault lay. He would go before the other disciples. But Christ does not reply, “Come to me”—only “Come;” that is, “Come, if thou wilt; make the experiment, if thou desirest.” T. 30. A doubt is too heavy for any one to carry who would walk the waters; and Peter’s doubt had sunk him into the deep, but that the Lord had mercy upon him. K.—“Save me!” It was the cry of weakness, of wild alarm, yet it had in it one grain of gold. It was a cry to Jesus, as to the only one that now could help; some true faith mingling now with all the fear. H.—Short prayers are long enough. There were but three words in the petition which Peter gasped out, but they were enough for his purpose. Not length, but strength, is desirable. A sense of need is a mighty teacher of brevity. Precious things lie in small compass, and all that is real prayer in many a long address might have been uttered in a petition as short as that of Peter. Spurgeon. 31. Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him.** It was not Peter’s laying hold of Christ, it was Christ’s laying hold of him, that bore him up. And in our extremity it is not our hold of Jesus, but his of us, on which our trust resteth. Our hand is weak, but his is strong; ours so readily relaxes—too often lets go its hold; but his—none can pluck out of it, and none that are in it can perish. H.—Wherefore doubt? This rebuke was not administered while Peter was sinking—not till Christ had him by the hand, both reinvigorating his faith and with it enabling him again to walk upon the crested wave. B.—The energy of faith was palsied for action; but the earnestness of faith was revived for trusting. Jesus, who mingled tenderness with rebuke, recognized the reality and sincerity of his faith, while he reproved him for its feebleness; for “little faith” is a different thing from faithlessness. The essence of faith is an unfaltering faith in Christ, and its strength lies in its simplicity as an undivided act. J. P. T. 32. The occurrences here related were calculated to make such an impression upon the disciples, that they would be able to receive in faith his discourse on eating his flesh and drinking his blood, and to look forward to a future understanding of it, although at the time a great part might appear unintelligible to them. That which did not appear as if it could be sufficient food to satisfy so many, he had made sufficient; and now when they knew him to be far from them, and themselves to be far from the end of their voyage, he had miraculously approached them, and had brought them to the land whither they were going. Hofman. 33. Worshipped him.** This new illustration of the superhuman power of their Master was so transcendent, that their wonder passed into worship. The impression, like many before, might soon lose its force; but for the moment they were so awed that, approaching him in lowliest reverence, they paid him homage in the words—“Of a truth thou art the Son of God.” G. The eternal future is clear only in Christ. When the powers of the world to come lay their arrest on a man, when time dwindles, when eternity opens in its awful proportions, it is God’s purpose that there should be no place for a man to flee to but Christ. He darkens all the sky save where he appears, and leaves the soul with Christ alone. And when at last a man is forced to quit his hold of all the known, and venture forth into that void, who can give the soul a footing in the empty place, and bring it safe to the shore of a new world? There is but One. The ship is tossed until the morning watch, but there can be no calm around, nor peace within, till He appear. God has willed that morning should break only at his coming, and calm fall in the track of his footsteps. He "who treadeth the waves of the sea"—who has his throne in the upper calm, and his feet on the lower storms—is still walking the waters of death for the help of them who love his appearing. The waters may rise even to the soul, the gloom of death-shade gather over it, and the heart may so fail as to cry out for fear in presence of the Deliverer. But the ear that has learned to recognize his voice will hear the words of the Son of man, "It is I; be not afraid"—words that assure us of a kindred nature, and a gracious purpose. Then shall we receive him gladly, and be immediately at that land whither we are going—"We shall behold his face in righteousness, and shall be satisfied when we awake with his likeness." Ker. ## Section 68.—Christ the Bread of Life. Capernaum. Mk. 1 THEN came together unto him the Pharisees, and certain of the scribes, which came 2 from Jerusalem. And when they saw some of his disciples eat bread with defiled, 3 that is to say, with unwashen hands, they found fault. For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, except they wash their hands oft, eat not, holding the tradition of the elders. 4 And when they come from the market, except they wash, they eat not. And many other things there be, which they have received to hold, as the washing of cups, and pots, and of brazen vessels, and tables. 5 Then the Pharisees and scribes asked him, Why walk not thy disciples according to, but transgress, the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they M. 3 eat bread. But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the command- Mk. 8 ment of God by your tradition? For, laying aside the commandments of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things 9 ye do. And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye M. 4 may keep your own tradition. For God commanded by Moses, saying, Honour thy father 5 and thy mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death. But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; and honour not his father or his Mk.12 mother, he shall be free. And ye suffer him no more to do aught for his father or his 13 mother; making the word of God of none effect by your tradition, which ye have de- M. 7 livered: and many such like things do ye. Ye hypocrites, well hath Esaias prophesied 8 of you, saying, as it is written, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, 9 and honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Howbeit, in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. Mk.14 And when he had called all the people, he said unto them, Hearken unto me every 15 one of you, and understand: There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him. Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but the things which come out of him: that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a 16 man. If any man have ears to hear, let him hear. 17 And when he was entered into the house from the people, then came his disciples, M. 12 and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended, after they heard 13 this saying? But he answered and said, Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath 14 not planted, shall be rooted up. Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. 15 And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch. Then his disciples asked him concerning the parable; and Peter said unto him, Declare unto us this parable. 16 And Jesus said unto them, Are ye also yet without understanding? Do ye not per- Mk.18 ceive, that whatsoever thing from without entereth at the mouth into the man, it can- 19 not defile him; because it entereth not into his heart, but into the belly, and is cast out 20 into the draught, purging all meats? And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man: for those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth 21 from the heart; and they defile the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, 22 proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, covetousness, wicked- ness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, false witness, blasphemies, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and these are the things which defile a man but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man. OUTWARD obedience is invaluable, when it is the fruit of a holy heart; but all the teaching of our Lord shows that the work must begin within. Obedience is the child of Love. Prophecy, alms, and martyrdom are nothing without this inward principle. No perfection of exterior service can make up for a want of the life of God in the soul. The reformation of things outward, and the performance of good acts, unless from a principle of regard to God, are only like hanging fruits on the branches of a sapless tree, dead to the very root. So Christ taught. So the gospel everywhere affirms. J. W. A. Mk. 3. Except they wash their hands, eat not. The Jews attached more importance to the traditional exposition than to the Scripture text itself. The duty of washing before meat is not inculcated in the law, but only in the tradition of the scribes. So rigidly did the Jews observe it, that Rabbi Akiba, being imprisoned, and having water scarcely sufficient to sustain life given him, preferred dying of thirst to eating without washing his hands. A. 5. The tradition of the elders.** The Jews distinguished between the written law and the traditional law, or “law upon the lip;” and the latter was asserted, by its more extravagant votaries, to have been orally delivered by God to Moses, and orally transmitted by him through a succession of elders. On it is founded the Talmud (or “doctrine”), which consists of the Mishna (or “repetition”) of the law, and the Gemara, or “supplement” to it; and so extravagant did the reverence for the Talmud become, that it was said to be, in relation to the law, as wine to water; to read the Scriptures was a matter of indifference, but to read the Mishna was meritorious, and to read the Gemara would be to receive the richest recompense. And it was this system of revered commentary and pious custom which Jesus now completely discountenanced. F. M. 5. As they had specified an instance in which the traditions of the elders had been violated by his disciples, he in turn specifies an instance in which they, by their traditions, had nullified a commandment of God. No human duty was of clearer obligation than that by which a child was bound to honor and help his father and mother. The command enforcing the duty stood among the precepts of the Decalogue. But the elders had found out a way of reading it by which the selfishness or ill-will of a child might find room for exercise, under a religious garb. All that one, who desired to evade the obligation of assisting his parents, had to do, was to say “Corban” over that property on which his parents might be supposed to have a claim—to declare it to be consecrated, bound over to the Lord—and he was free. H.—It was then not lawful for him to succor his parent. And, what was most strange, he was not held to be bound by his words to devote his estate to sacred uses; but, not to relieve the parent, he was inviolably bound. J. L.—So it was that these traditionalists among the Jews quenched the instincts of nature, gave place to evil passions, and broke one of the first and plainest of the divine commands, all under a pretence of piety. H. 8. Their heart is far from me.** Even in the light of the Old Testament it was known that piety of heart was indispensable to a true fulfilment of the law. Christ himself appealed to a passage in the Old Testament (Hos. 6 : 6) in proof of this; and even the well-disposed scribe admitted it. N.—Often in the prophetic word its threats and promises are for all times of the Church: the particular event then foretold being but one fulfilment of those deeper and more general declarations of God, which shall be ever having their successive illustrations in his dealings with men. A. Mk. 14. No further answer will our Lord give to the Pharisees than this severe retort. But first to the multitude, and afterward to his disciples, he will say a word or two of that wherein all real defilement consists—not in the outward, but in the inward. H.—The foregoing dialogue, though in the people’s hearing, was between Jesus and the Pharisaic cavillers, whose object was to disparage him with the people. But Jesus, having put them down, turns to the multitude who, at this time, were prepared to drink in everything he said, and with admirable plainness, pithiness, and brevity, lays down the great principle of real pollution, by which a world of bondage and uneasiness of conscience would be dissipated in a moment, and the sense of sin be reserved for deviations from the holy and eternal law of God. B.—Here Christ displays the same conscious, lofty superiority so often manifested in his disputes with the Pharisees; instead of softening down the offensive doctrine, he presents it more and more forcibly in proportion as they take offence. N. 15. Nothing from without a man can defile.** Nothing that is and remains external to man, and enters only into his body, not into his heart to become part of his character, can defile. The Pharisees feared defilement from their food; of this defilement our Lord speaks. L. A.—Words clear enough to us, but grand beyond thought when uttered, for they were the knell of caste, of national divisions and hatreds, and of the religious worth of external observances as such; and the inauguration of a universal religion of spirit and truth! Nothing external, they proclaimed, made clean or unclean, holy or unholy. Purity and impurity were words applicable only to the soul and its utterances and acts. The charter of spiritual religion: the abrogation of the supremacy of forms and formula forever, was at last proclaimed; the leaven of religious freedom cast into the life of humanity, in the end to leaven it throughout! G. M. 13. The reply of Jesus was an expression of calm indifference to earthly judgment, a reference of all worth to the sole judgment of God as shown in the slow ripening of events. F.—All merely human growths—everything not planted by God—must fall; the whole Pharisaic system shall come to the ground. Let not their talk trouble you; blind are they, and those that follow them; both leaders and led are going on to destruction. N. —14. Let them alone. This seems at first a singular counsel respecting the teachers of error. It is, however, different from, Let the error alone, or, Let the pupils of error alone. Christ very rarely entered into direct controversy with false teachers. In no single instance did he invite to or provoke a controversy with them. He devoted himself to the affirmative work of preaching the truth, and, for the most part, let the preachers of error alone. And God has rooted up their plants. Christ is, in this respect, an example to the modern Christian teacher in dealing with modern antagonisms to Christianity. Fall into the ditch. Christ's disciples had been assailed for eating with unwashed hands, because this was in the eyes of the Pharisees an uncleanness. Christ's response to his disciples embodies the idea that the guidance of the Pharisees will lead directly to the foulest uncleanness. L. A. 15. The disciples were still too much ruled by Jewish views to apprehend correctly the full force of Christ's figurative language. The form of expression was simple enough in itself; it was the strange thought which made it difficult. It was only at a later period that even Peter could learn, and that, too, by the illumination of the Holy Ghost, that everything is pure, for men, which comes pure from the Creator's hand. "Do ye not yet understand," said he, "that what enters a man's mouth from without cannot defile the interior life? It is the product of the heart, it is that which comes from within, that makes a man unclean." N.— 21. Evil thoughts—like one tiny rill of evil, and then the burst of all that black overwhelming torrent! F. THE Pharisees had refined the law into a microscopic casuistry which prescribed for every isolated act, but Jesus brought it into the compass of a living principle in the soul. A lifetime was hardly enough to learn the rabbinical precepts respecting offerings, but Jesus virtually abrogated them all by the short utterance that "mercy was better than sacrifice." The schools had added to the simple distinctions of the law between clean and unclean beasts, endless distinctions respecting different parts of each, and the necessary rites; the simple rule of Jesus was—It is not what enters the mouth that defiles a man, but what comes from the heart. The rabbis contended after what uses vessels should be purified in running, after what in drawn water, and how wooden and metal dishes were to be minutely discriminated. Jesus waived aside this trifling and deadly pedantry, and told his hearers to take care to have what was within clean, and then the outside would be clean also. Even the Sabbath laws, with their countless enactments, were as briefly condensed. "It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath-day." "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." Such teaching was unheard of in Israel. It was revolutionary in the grandest sense. G. ## Section 71.—The Syrophenician Mother's Faith. Heals One Deaf and Dumb. Borders of Phenicia. Decapolis. Mk. 24 AND from thence Jesus arose and departed into the borders or coasts of Tyre and Sidon; and entered into an house, and would have no man know it; but he could not be hid. For behold, a woman of Canaan, out of the same coasts, whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came, and fell at his feet: and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed 26 with a devil. (The woman was a Greek, a Syrophenician by nation,) and she besought M. 23 him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter. But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth 24 after us. But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house 25, 26 of Israel. Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But Jesus answered and said unto her, Let the children first be filled; for it is not meet to take 27 the children's bread, and to cast it unto the dogs. And she answered and said unto him, Truth, Lord, yet the dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs, which fall from 28 their master's table. Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: for this saying, be it unto thee even as thou wilt. Go thy way: the devil is gone Mk.30 out of thy daughter. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour. And when she was come to her house, she found the devil gone out, and her daughter laid upon the bed. 31 And again, departing from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, he came unto the sea of Gali- 32 lee, through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis. And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to put his hand 33 upon him. And he took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, 34 and he spit, and touched his tongue; and looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith 35 unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened. And straightway his ears were opened, and 36 the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain. And he charged them that they should tell no man: but the more he charged them, so much the more a great deal 37 they published it; and were beyond measure astonished, saying, He hath done all things well: he maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak. WHY was it that in this woman's case, to use the words of an old divine, Christ "stayed long, wrest- ling with her faith, and shaking and trying whether it were fast-rooted" or no? Doubtless because he knew that it would stand the proof, and that she would come out victorious from this sore trial; and not only so, but with a stronger, higher, purer faith than if she had borne away her blessing at once. Now she has learned that men ought always to pray and not to faint; that, with God, to delay a boon is not therefore to deny it. She won the strength which Jacob had won before, from his night-long struggle with the angel. Here is the same persevering struggle on the one side, and the same persevering refusal on the other; the stronger is at last overcome by the weaker. God himself yields to the might of faith and prayer; for a later prophet, interpreting that mysterious struggle, tells us the weapons which the patriarch wielded: "He wept and made supplication unto him," connecting with this the fact that "he had power over the angel and prevailed." The two histories, indeed, only stand out in their full resem- blance when we keep in mind that the angel there, the angel of the covenant, was no other than that Word who, now incarnate, "blest" this woman at last, as he had blest Jacob at Peniel—in each case re- warding a faith which had said, "I will not let thee go, except thou bless me." Yet, when we thus speak of man overcoming God, we must never for an instant lose sight of this, that the power whereby he over- comes the resistance of God, is itself a power supplied by God. T. This Syrophenician woman is still, after the lapse of eighteen hundred years, the model supplicant. Her very coming to Jesus was an act of heroic faith; for she came not only without invitation or promise, but in the face of fearful discouragements. Somehow she believed beforehand in his love to her, a poor Gentile mother; and this was great faith indeed. And her faith grew stronger, and shone more brightly through the progress of a trial which would have utterly extinguished that of any ordinary believer. It is faith alone which brings us into that living sympathy with God in which lies the possibility and prevailing power of prayer. Z. E. JESUS retires from Galilee, first to the region of Tyre and Sidon; then he returns to the Decapolis; and goes afterward to the district of Cesarea Philippi, now Banias. All these were districts not un- der the jurisdiction of Herod, whose domain in- cluded only Galilee and Perea. R. Mk. 24. The borders of Tyre and Sidon. (See map, p. 270.) It is not probable that our blessed Lord actually overpassed the limits of the Jewish land; and the true meaning is, that he came into the confines of that heathen land. T.—He had proclaimed the supreme truth that God was the great Father of all mankind, and that the human race round the world were brethren in his great household. But pity for his own nation—the Israel of the old covenant—forbade his going forth, for the time, to all races. It would at once have sealed the fate of his people, for what was offered to the heathen would have been instantly rejected by the fanatical Jew. G. 26. This woman was by birth a Canaanite, and a Syrophenician; by position a Roman subject; by culture and language a Greek; and her appeal for mercy to the Messiah of the chosen people might well look like the first-fruits of that harvest in which the good seed should spring up hereafter in Tyre and Sidon, Carthage, Greece, and Rome. F.—Phenician was the general name given to a race whose colonies were widely spread in very ancient times. One division of this race occupied the country from which they were driven out by the Israelites; and as that country bordered upon Syria, they were called Syrophenicians by the Greeks and Romans. It was to this tribe that the woman belonged. It is a pure and simple case of one belonging to the great world of heathendom coming to Jesus. H. M. 23. Answered her not a word. He knows with whom he has to do, and he has different ways for souls differently disposed. To the feeble he makes advances, and accommodates himself to their infirmities; the strong, it pleases him to make to wait, to provoke to holy combat, in order to exercise their courage, and, at the same time, to display before the eyes of men and angels the beautiful spectacle of their victory. Thus he strengthened the faith of the woman of Canaan, while he instructed his disciples so much the more. “What coldness in his language!” you say. Yes, but what love in his heart! A. M.—Send her away. The twelve learned, at last, that even heathen “dogs” were not to be sent away unheard. G. 25. Lord, help me!** Sent to me, or not, here thou art, oh! Saviour of the unfortunate! Called, or not, here am I, a wretched mother! Thou must hear me, thou must cure my daughter, thou must drive away this demon; I will not let thee go, until thou hast delivered me! A. M.—Her words are few, but quantity is compensated by intensity of feeling and truth of conviction. Tears and cries, not words and periods, for him who hears not with human ears; who regards not the tongue, but listens to the beating of the heart. W. A. B. 26. Dogs.** She knew that, in comparing the Jews to the children of God’s family, and the heathen to the dogs without, he simply used the comparison and statement common among his people, as expressing the relation between them, without meaning to give personal offence. K.—To the Jew, and, in general, to all the nations of the East, the dog was an unclean animal, the type of profane and persecuting impiety, as the swine, with which he was associated, was the type of an inordinate and sensual impiety. A. M. 27. Such an answer might well have struck a chill into her soul; and had he not foreseen that hers was the rare trust which can see mercy and acceptance even in apparent rejection, he would not so have answered her. But not all the snows of her native Lebanon could quench the fire of love which was burning on the altar of her heart, and prompt as an echo came forth the glorious and immortal answer: Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs. F.—She, like the centurion, and under still more unfavorable circumstances, was mighty in faith; and, from the very word which seemed to make most against her, she drew an argument in her own favor. She entangled the Lord, himself most willing thus to be so entangled, in his own speech. Upon these words Luther, who has dwelt on all the circumstances of this little history with a peculiar love, and seems never weary of extolling the mighty faith of this woman, exclaims: “Like her, thou must give God right in all he says against thee, and yet must not stand off from praying, till thou overcomest as she overcame, till thou hast turned the very charges made against thee into arguments and proofs of thy need—till thou too hast taken Christ in his own words.” She consents to Christ’s declaration, not immediately to make exception against the conclusion which she draws from it, but to show how in that very declaration is involved the granting of her petition. T.—With a presence of mind that we should admire, if our attention was not absorbed by a spectacle far more beautiful, that of her faith, she arms herself against the Lord with the very weapon with which he had just pierced her: “A single crumb of that bread with which thou satisfieest the desires of thy chosen people, a single word, a single look, and my daughter shall be healed!” A. M.—To us it requires some reflection to see the exquisite fitness of this rejoinder, and to understand the strength of the faith that could stand up under such reiterated discouragement. But Jesus felt it all in one moment; and he was all the while, not merely hearing her words, but looking upon her heart. His voice altered, his countenance relaxed, and she beheld the King in all the beauty of his benignity and tenderness. K. 28. For this saying.** The words of the woman of Canaan open the heavens, triumph over the Lord, drive away the devil, and accomplish whatever she wishes. It was because these were the words of faith. Faith gives us some mysterious share in the omnipotence of God himself. If it is written: "With God, all things are possible," it is also written: "All things are possible to him that believeth." Fear not that pride may be engendered by this glorious power; it is exercised only in humility; it escapes when the heart is inflated; the woman of Canaan is all-powerful at the moment when she abases herself most profoundly. A. M.—The time is not passed when he comes down to wrestle with men, to be a seeming opponent to them in the great conflicts of the soul, and not surrender his blessing until it has sometimes been wrung from him by agonies of importunity; but all the while he wrestles on their side, and draws out their strength that it may lay hold of his, and so prevail. Ker.—It is voluntarily, and without prejudice to his sovereign power, that the Lord is overcome, or rather that he suffers himself to be overcome, in the contest into which he enters with us. It is he himself who has established this double rule, that unbelief should receive nothing, and that faith shall obtain all things. A. M. O woman, great is thy faith! Many things besides had there been to commend in her—her strong maternal love, her earnestness, her perseverance, her deep humility. Over all these the Saviour passes, or rather he traces them all up to their common root—her faith in him, her trust in front of all difficulties, in opposition even to his own words and acts; her trust in his good-will to her, in his disposition to pity and help. Two instances only are recorded in which Jesus passed such an approving judgment; and it is remarkable that they are those of two Gentiles—the Roman centurion and the Syrophenician woman. H.—It is precisely this sense of unworthiness and unconditional submission to God, when revealed in his omnipotence and mercy; it is precisely faith, in this peculiarly Christian sense, which is made, throughout the New Testament, the condition of all manifestations of the grace of God. . . . The transaction affords another lesson. The Christian may comfort himself under the hardest trials and severest struggles—nay, even when his most ardent prayers appear to be unheard and unanswered—with the consoling belief that behind the veil of harshness the Father's love conceals itself. N. Mk. 31. Decapolis. The name given to a large and undefined region which lay around ten cities, to which peculiar privileges were granted by the Romans after their conquest of Syria. All of these, with a single exception, lay to the east and southeast of the Sea of Galilee. H.—It was a confederacy of ten free cities, in a district which, on their return from exile, the Jews had never been able to recover, and which was therefore mainly occupied by Gentiles, who formed a separate section of the Roman province. F. 33. Put his fingers. Afflicted as this man was, all other avenues of communication, save by sight and feeling, were of necessity precluded. Christ by these signs would awaken his faith, and stir up in him the expectation of a blessing. Took him aside. His purpose in this was, that apart from the tumult and interruptions of the crowd, in solitude and silence, the man might be more recipient of deep and lasting impressions; even as the same Lord does now oftentimes lead a soul apart when he would speak with it, or heal it; sets it in the solitude of a sick chamber, or in loneliness of spirit, or takes away from it earthly companions and friends. He takes it aside, as this deaf and dumb out of the multitude, that in the hush of the world's din it may listen to him; as on a great scale he took his elect people aside into the wilderness, when he would first open their spiritual ear, and speak unto them his law. T. 34. He sighed. Why did he sigh? In a few moments, this imprisoned mind will be rejoicing in the full restoration and liberty of its action. And certainly there was no occasion for sadness in the faith of the friends who brought the man to the Healer's feet. For nothing in all the offices of friendship is more precious to him than its intercessions. Why, then, should he sigh? There can be but one answer. In all common sights Christ saw more than our common eyes can see. To him everything, whether in nature or in man, was set into divine connections and bore some spiritual meaning. His thought passes from the one case of wretchedness before him to the vast accumulations of physical sickness and anguish, which sometimes make the earth itself look like a hospital. He sees that, back in its deep root and secret origin, not only death but disease comes by sin; that as sure as there is agony, God's good law must somewhere have been broken. In the groan of every ailing body the Saviour heard an echo of the retributive lamentation of the whole groaning and travailing creation in its pain, crying out for his cross, and waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God. What wonder if he sighed with it? All this suffering, these stripes, he must take up, in the wonderful capacity and fulness of his reconciling work, into his loving and glorious person. More than once, these premonitions of the Garden and Calvary fell upon him; as he came to the burial-place at Bethany, as he was on the eve of working those very miracles where his perfect mastery over every kind of evil seemed to be proved, he was sad at heart, he sighed, and he wept. And this expression of his sadness shows how perfectly Christ was man. Beholding only the displays of his miracle-working omnipotence, seeing the winds and the sea, the sick and the dead, obey him, vigorous life flushing again through the paleness and stiffness of death just as light and motion did through the universe on the morning of the first creation, we might fix our attention only on his supernatural majesty, and so lose the tender sense of his human oneness with ourselves. But the sound of this sigh—such as only a human breast could heave—the sight of tears such as only a nature fashioned in all points like our own could shed—this brings him to our side. We look into those moistened eyes, and believe him. We lean on that sighing breast, and are at peace with him. Jesus sighs, and thereby the sighing soul of man is invigorated. F. D. H. After the sigh came the utterance Ephphatha, a word belonging to that dialect of the old Hebrew language called the Aramaic, or Syro-Chaldaic, which was then current in Judea. It has recently been established by a great variety of proof, that in the days of our Saviour the Jews knew and spoke two languages; all the grown-up educated population using the Greek as well as the Aramaic tongue. Assuming that Greek was the language ordinarily employed by our Saviour, it would very naturally occur that occasionally he reverted to the old dialect, and that when he did so the words that he used should have been preserved and interpreted. H. Be opened. It is because he proceeds instantly from sighing for the sick man to acting for him, that we know sympathy is not meant to waste itself in mere feeling, but to stimulate our active energies for useful service. All sorrow, all faith, all work are reconciled in him. For he sighs, he looks up to heaven, and then he opens the ears of the deaf, and loosens their tongues, for his praise. Give no place to that irreligious sorrow which does not look up to heaven, but only sighs on earth. Grief has two comforters, two angels that sit in the empty tomb: the prayer of faith, and work, for suffering men. F. D. H. 36. Charged them that they should tell no man. The probable reasons for these injunctions of secrecy were, his wish to avoid as much as possible the opposition of the Pharisees, which might have caused attempts upon his life before the purposes for which he came into the world were accomplished; and also to prevent any sedition or tumult among the people, arising from their mistaken notions of the Messiah as a temporal king and deliverer; by which means his enemies would have obtained the advantage they desired. Stanhope. 37. He hath done all things well. Everywhere, under all circumstances, he is animated by the same spirit, he sheds the same light, he proclaims the same law. He fulfils every duty to God, to man, and to himself, with perfect ease and freedom, and exhibits an entire conformity to the law, in the spirit as well as the letter. His life is one unbroken service of God in active and passive obedience to his holy will; one grand act of absolute love to God and love to man; of personal self-consecration to the glory of his heavenly Father, and the salvation of a fallen race. In the language of the people who were “beyond measure astonished at his works” we must say, the more we study his life: “He did all things well.” F. G. We are daily passing through changes of our earthly history, some of bitterness, some of sweetness; some expected, some unexpected. We feel at times a difficulty in judging of these, for many of them seem so much against us; but knowing that here we see in part and know in part, remembering the love and the wisdom under whose direction all these things are happening, we put away the suggestions of unbelief, and let Faith speak out in her firmest, gladdest tone, “He hath done all things well;” and, “What we know not now, we shall know hereafter.” But when wandering by the banks of the river of the water of life, or along the jewelled walls of the New Jerusalem, we recall our past life, and, with far fresher memory than now, pass from scene to scene, remembering time’s prosperities or its adversities, its joys and sorrows; our calms and our storms, our weariness and our rest; hope blighted, hope fulfilled, disappointment, bereavement, perplexity—all the windings of our earthly route; and finding in what glory they have landed us; how blessedly they have, each of them, great and small, wrought out our holiness, our progress, and our endless recompense—then shall we know that “He hath done all things well.” An. ## Section 72.—Multitudes healed. Four Thousand fed. East Side of the Lake. M. 29 And he went up into a mountain, and sat down there. And great multitudes came 30 unto him, having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many oth- 31 ers, and cast them down at Jesus' feet; and he healed them; insomuch that the multi- tude wondered, when they saw the dumb to speak, the maimed to be whole, the lame to walk, and the blind to see: and they glorified the God of Israel. Mk. 1 In those days the multitude being very great, and having nothing to eat, Jesus called 2 his disciples unto him, and saith unto them, I have compassion on the multitude, 3 because they have now been with me three days, and have nothing to eat; and I will not send them away fasting to their own houses, lest they faint in the way: for divers 4 of them came from far. And his disciples answered, and say unto him, From whence should we have so much bread here in the wilderness, as to satisfy so great a multitude? 5 And Jesus asked them, How many loaves have ye? And they said, Seven, and a few 6 little fishes. And he commanded the people to sit down on the ground. And he took the seven loaves, and gave thanks, and brake them, and gave to his disciples to set 7 before them; and they did set them before the people. And they had a few small 8 fishes: and he blessed, and commanded to set them also before them: so they did all eat, and were filled; and they took up of the broken meat that was left, seven baskets M. 38 full. And they that did eat were four thousand men, beside women and children. 39. And he sent away the multitude; and straightway he entered into a ship with his disciples, and came into the coasts of Magdala, into the parts of Dalmanutha. In the profound yet unconscious wisdom, in the serene purity, in the tenderness, the forbearance, the persevering love, the combined magnanimity and lowliness of that faultless life of Jesus, we "behold, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord." As we follow in his mission of unwearied beneficence, that gentle compassionate being in whom sorrow ever found its best consoler, and penitence its pure yet pitying friend; as we note how, wherever he came, the cry of the wretched awaited him—wherever he went, the blessings of them that were ready to perish followed his steps; how the hungry blessed him for food, the homeless for shelter, the heavy-laden for rest; how, one touch from his hand and the frozen blood of the leper flowed with the warm pulse of health—one word from his lips, and the eyes of the blind gleamed back their gratitude upon him; how, too, far deeper ills than these—the pangs of conscious guilt, the woes of the troubled conscience, the incurable wound of remorse, the inner maladies that oftenest baffle mortal skill, found ever in him their most tender yet most potent healer; and finally, as we observe in the agent of all this wondrous working a simplicity, a self-forgetfulness, a certain calm unobtrusiveness, that in his mightiest acts bespeaks no effort and courts no observation or applause; as we witness all this prodigality of goodness and majestic ease of power, does not the mind involuntarily ascend to that Being whose name is Almighty Love—does not the exclamation rise spontaneously to the lip, "Surely God is here?" C. It is implied that those with whom our Lord associated on these shores were accustomed to out- door life. They meet on the mountain to hear him preach; they follow him into a desert place to be fed; they spend whole days there without any ap- parent provision for either shelter, sleep, or food; they are found in the open courts of houses or on the shore of the lake at all times. Now all the specifications are here, just as they should be—the mountain, the desert place, the shore, the open court, the climate so warm as to lead the people into the open air, the present habits of the people— everything in exact accord with the gospel narra- tives. The inhabitants not only go forth into the country as represented in the New Testament, but they remain there, and sleep in the open air, if occasion require, without the slightest inconvenience. Instructions addressed to such a people, assembled in the open country or on the seaside, would naturally, almost necessarily, abound in illustrations drawn from country life and from surrounding objects. No others would so seize upon their attention, be so readily comprehended, or so tenaciously remembered. Accordingly, we hear the divine Teacher exclaim at Shechem, "Lift up your eyes to the fields, already white to the harvest. Pray ye the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers into the fields." Thus, too, he speaks of the vineyards; of the good branches purged; of the dry ones gathered for the fire; of the penny-a-day laborers standing in the market waiting to be hired, and of their receiving their wages at the close of each day. Such things as these we now see constantly, daily, and to the minutest shade of verbal accuracy. All these allusions are perfectly natural and appropriate to the country, the people, the Teacher, the age, and every other circumstance mentioned or implied in the evangelical narratives. We have the originals still before us. The teachings and illustrations of our Lord would have been out of place in any other country except this. They could not have been uttered anywhere else. W. M. T. The events which follow describe a period of apparent retirement, spent partly in Galilee, partly north of Galilee in the districts about Cesarea Philippi. This period, up to his departure from Galilee to fulfil the ministry more fully described by John, is devoted chiefly to instructing his disciples respecting the kingdom of God. L. A. 2. Three days they had now been with him, and, as many of them came from a distance, their food was exhausted. Jesus pitied them, and seeing their faith, and unwilling that they should faint by the way, once more spread for his people a table in the wilderness. F. 4. Their question here hardly indicates a doubt; it is elicited by Christ's previous question, and is such as they might readily have proposed, if they wished merely to leave all to Christ without suggesting, as they never did throughout all his ministry, the performance of a miracle. L. A. 6. His miracles in bread and in wine were far less grand and less beautiful than the works of the Father they represented, in making the corn to grow in the valleys, and the grapes to drink the sunlight on the hill-sides of the world, with all their infintudes of tender gradation and delicate mystery of birth. But the Son of the Father be praised, who, as it were, condensed these mysteries before us, and let us see the precious gifts coming at once from gracious hands—hands that love could kiss and nails could wound. McD.—It is as instructive as it is remarkable, that on only two occasions did our Lord create food; and miraculously provide money on only one—leaving the law of God not only to its righteous but beneficent course, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." Guthrie. (Compare Section 66, Feeding of 5,000.) M. 39. Dalmanutha. Just before reaching Mejdel (Magdala) we crossed a little open valley, with a few corn-fields and gardens straggling among the ruins of a village, and some large and more ancient foundations by several copious fountains, probably identified with Dalmanutha. H. B. T. (See illustration and map, Section 26.) ## Section 73.—Accuses Pharisees, and cautions Disciples. Magdala. Plain of Butaiha. M. 1 THE Pharisees also with the Sadducees came forth, and began to question with him; 2 and, tempting him, desired that he would shew them a sign from heaven. He answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather, for 3 the sky is red; and in the morning, It will be foul weather to-day, for the sky is red and lowering. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not Mk.12 discern the signs of the times? And he sighed deeply in his spirit, and saith, Why doth this wicked and adulterous generation seek after a sign? Verily, I say unto you, 13 there shall no sign be given to this generation, but the sign of the prophet Jonas. And he left them, and entering into the ship again, departed to the other side. 14 And when his disciples were come to the other side, they had forgotten to take 15 bread; neither had they in the ship with them more than one loaf. Then Jesus charged them, saying, Take heed, and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees, and of the leaven of Herod. And they reasoned among themselves, saying, It is 16 because we have taken no bread. Which when Jesus perceived, he said unto them, O ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves, because ye have brought no bread? 17 Perceive ye not yet, neither understand? Have ye your heart yet hardened? Having 18 eyes, see ye not? And having ears, hear ye not? And do ye not remember? When I brake the five loaves among the five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments 19 took ye up? They say unto him, Twelve. And when the seven loaves among the four thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up? And they said, Seven. 20 M. 11 And he said unto them, How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees? Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. He sighed deeply in his spirit. Everywhere as he looked he saw that soul that had sprung a pure, holy, happy thing from his hands, now filled with selfishness and pride, and envy and impurity, and all ungodliness—that soul that had been destined for the companionship of God and angels, now ripening for the blackness of darkness forever! And can we doubt that his was an anguish at the sight into which no finite mind can enter? He could feel for external sufferings. He looked up to heaven and sighed for the deaf. He wept, and groaned in spirit for the dead. But what were external suffering and death to this? To him the world was strewn with a more awful than material desolation—with the wreck of spiritual grandeur, the memorials of lost and ruined souls. C. 1. The multitude having been fed [on the eastern shore] and sent away, Jesus had sailed across the lake, landing on its western shore [at Magdala] between Tiberias and Capernaum. He had scarcely reappeared in the neighborhood in which most of his wonderful works had been wrought, when, once again, in their old spirit of contemptuous challenge, the Pharisees demand that he would show them a sign from heaven. Now, however, for the first time, the Sadducees appear by their side, leaguing themselves with the Pharisees in a joint rejection of Christ—in slighting all that he had already said and done—in counting it insufficient to substantiate any claim on his part to be their Messiah, and in demanding the exhibition of some great wonder in the heavens. H.— The Pharisees were accompanied with their rivals and enemies the Sadducees, that skeptical sect, half-religious, half-political, to which at this time belonged the two high-oriests, as well as the members of the reigning family. Every section of the ruling classes—the Pharisees, formidable from their religious weight among the people; the Sadducees, few in number but powerful from wealth and position; the Herodians, representing the influence of the Romans, and of their nominees the tetrarchs; the scribes and lawyers, bringing to bear the authority of their orthodoxy and their learning—were all united against him in one firm phalanx of conspiracy and opposition, and were determined above all things to hinder his preaching, and to alienate from him, as far as was practicable, the affections of the people among whom most of his mighty works were done. F. 3. Discern the times. The Jews had been, and were, most blind to the signs of the times, at all the great crises of their history; and particularly to the times in which they were then living. The sceptre had departed from Judah, the law-giver no longer came forth from between his feet: yet they discerned none of these things. A.— Christ's question is, Cannot ye discern the signs or tokens of the time appointed, by symbol and prophet in the O. T., for the coming of the Messiah?—in the overthrow of the throne of Herod and the subjection of Israel to Rome, in the degradation, political and moral, of the realm, in the coming of John the Baptist in the spirit of Elijah, and in the miracles wrought for the blessing of the people in fulfilment of such prophecies as that of Isaiah 61: 1-3. L. A. Mk. 12. Why seek a sign? No "sign" could avail where there was no sympathy. The truth he came to proclaim appealed to the heart, and must be its own evidence, winning its way by its own divine beauty into humble and ready breasts. External proofs could only establish external facts. G.—A third time Jesus repels them with an allusion to the great “sign” of his resurrection. H. M. 13. He left them.** He did not press his mercies on those who rejected them. As in afterdays his nation were suffered to prefer their robber and murderer to the Lord of life, so now the Galileans were suffered to keep their Pharisees and lose their Christ. He left them as he had left the Gadarenes—rejected, not suffered to rest even in his home; with heavy heart, solemnly and sadly he left them—left them then and there—left them, to revisit, indeed, once more their neighborhood, but never again to return publicly—never again to work miracles, to teach or preach. F. 15. The Pharisees were the formalists of the first century, the Sadducees the rationalists, the Herodians the unprincipled and worldly politicians. The leaven against which Christ warns his disciples is that of formalism and pretence, of sneering unbelief, and of the craft and cunning of worldliness. L. A.—Leaven. It is from the penetrating and diffusive power of leaven that the comparison, for good or bad, is derived. The Herodians were more a political than a religious sect, the dependents and supporters of the dynasty of Herod. These, though directly opposed to the Pharisees, were yet united with them in their persecution of our Lord. And their leaven was the same—hypocrisy. A. 19,20. Baskets . . . twelve . . . seven.** Profuse as were our Lord’s miracles, we see from this that they were not wrought at random, but that he carefully noted their minutest details, and desired that this should be done by those who witnessed, as doubtless by all who read the record of them. Even the different kinds of baskets used at the two miraculous feedings—so carefully noted in the two narratives—are here also referred to; the one smaller, of which there were twelve, the other much larger, of which there were seven. B. M. 12. The doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Religious error commonly wears the semblance of truth; often begins in the distortion or perversion of some particular truth to the neglect of other truths in their systematic and harmonious relations to the body of doctrine. Error in religious faith or practice is likened to leaven, because, being within the system, its tendency is to spread, to infect whatever it touches, and to cause fermentation. The Church of Christ has need to be on the lookout for signs of the two kinds of leaven indicated by our Lord—the Pharisaic leaven of formalism, the Sadducean leaven of rationalism. J. P. T. ## Section 74.—Heals a Blind Man. Peter’s Great Confession and Christ’s Reply. Bethsaida Julias. Cesarea Philippi. Mk. 22 And he cometh to Bethsaida; and they bring a blind man unto him, and besought him to touch him. And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town; and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw aught. And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees walking. After that he put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly. And he sent him away to his house, saying, Neither go into the town, nor tell it to any in the town. 27 And Jesus went out, and his disciples, into the coasts and towns of Cesarea Philippi. And it came to pass, as he was alone praying, his disciples were with him. And by the way he asked them, saying, Whom do men say, that I, the Son of man, am? And they answered, Some say that thou art John the Baptist; but some say, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or that one of the old prophets is risen again. And he saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said unto him, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, shall be loosed in 20 heaven. Then he straitly charged and commanded his disciples, that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ. WE, in this distant age, acknowledge Jesus as the Christ, our Redeemer and Lord. With the thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands who in the ages past have loved him, and now praise him in heaven, with all the living of every kindred and people and tongue who now trust and serve him, we bow before him, and join the great confession: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Him we behold a sorrowful man in the dimness of a far-off age and land, burdened and smitten by the power of sin, suffering for us, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God. Him we behold above the convulsions of the ages, the halo about his majestic head shining as the sun down all the tract of time, his voice speaking promise and peace amid the confusion of human affairs. Him we behold seated on the right hand of majesty on high, all power given unto him in heaven and on earth, and on his head are many crowns. Him we joyfully confess "King of kings and Lord of lords;" we offer the prayer which he has taught us: "Thy kingdom come;" we accept the command and the promise which he has given us: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you;" and, in the expectation that his kingdom shall fill the earth, we consecrate our lives to his service. And, entering into the joy of all the redeemed, with all who have tasted and sſen that the Lord is gracious, we offer him our homage: "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing; for thou hast redeemed us to God out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father, unto him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen." S. Harris. ABOVE Perea the tetrarchy of Philip reached to the slopes of Hermon on the north, and away to the desert on the east. It included the provinces of Gaulonitis, Iturea, Trachonitis, Auranitis, and Batanea. Gaulonitis—still known as Golan—reached from Cesarea Philippi, or Panias, on the slopes of Mount Hermon, to the south of the Sea of Galilee, stretching back twenty to thirty miles, in barren uplands of volcanic origin, to the green pastures of Batanea or Bashan; with the district of Iturea on its north, the lava plateau of Trachonitis on its east, and the equally waste tract of Auranitis, or the Hauran, on the south. Gaulonitis looked over toward Galilee from a range of hills running parallel with the Jordan, north and south. Besides Cesarea Philippi, at its extreme north, the province boasted the town of Bethsaida, rebuilt by Philip, and called after the daughter of Augustus. It lay in a green opening at the upper end of the Lake of Galilee. In the lifetime of Christ, a large Jewish population lived in all these districts, in the midst of much larger numbers of Syrians, Arabs, Greeks, and Phoenicians, under the rule of Philip, the son of Herod and of Cleopatra of Jerusalem. The best of Herod's sons, he retained not only the good-will of his family, but was held in high esteem by the Romans, and the Jews especially honored him as sprung from a daughter of Zion. During a reign of thirty-seven years, he was no less gentle to his subjects than peaceful toward his neighbors. His reign continued through the whole life of our Lord; but he is not mentioned in the gospels, though it is a noble tribute to him that Jesus once and again took refuge in his territories. G. From the eastern side of the Lake of Tiberias, Jesus went with his disciples up the course of the Jordan, staying at Bethsaida, where he healed a blind man, to Cesarea Philippi, near the sources of the river. This city, at the very extremity of the Holy Land, marking the northmost limit of our Saviour's travels, was the scene of some most memorable events; events designed to prepare the disciples for the consummation now rapidly approaching. Now the time was come for a full and intelligent profession of their faith. Mk. 22. Bethsaida. There were two places of this name: 1. The native place of Andrew, Peter, and Philip was on the west side of the lake. Dr. Robinson places it at 'Ain et-Tabigah, a short distance north of Khan Minyeh, which he identifies with Capernaum. 2. The town here mentioned was northeast of the lake. It was formerly a village, but rebuilt and adorned by Philip the tetrarch, and raised to the dignity of a town under the name of Julias, after the daughter of the emperor. S.—About two miles up from the entrance of the Jordan into the lake is the ford and the mound or "tell" of Bethsaida Julias. It is necessary to notice the distinctness of the two Beth-  saidas. Here, on the east side, our Lord fed the five thousand, and then sent the people away to the other side, toward the other Bethsaida. H. B. T. (See map, page 247.) 23. The Lord links on his power, as was frequent with him, to forms in use among men; working through these forms something higher than they could have produced. Thus he bade his disciples anoint the sick with oil—one of the most esteemed helps for healing in the East. Not the oil, but his Word was to heal, yet without the oil the disciples might have found it too hard to believe in the power which they were exerting—those who through their faith were to be healed, in the power which should heal them. 25. Not all at once are the old errors and confusions put to flight; not all at once do they see clearly: for a while there remains much of their old blindness; they see men but as trees walking. Yet in good time Christ finishes the work which he has begun; he lays his hands on them anew, and they see every man clearly. T. 27. Cesarea Philippi. A town, Baal-Gad—named from the Canaanite god of fortune—had occupied the site from immemorial antiquity, but Philip had rebuilt it splendidly, three years before Christ's birth, and, in accordance with the prevailing flattery of the emperor, had called it Cesarea in honor of Augustus. The worship of the shepherd god Pan, to whom a cave out of which burst the waters of the Jordan was sacred, had given its second name, Panias—now, Banias—to the place. It was one of the loveliest spots in the Holy Land, built on a terfilled with the ruins of a temple. From the cave, from the ruins, from every chink and cranny in the soil and rocks around, waters gush forth, which soon collect into a torrent, dash in sheets of foam down a rocky bed, and at length plunge over a precipice into a deep, dark ravine. This is one of the great fountains of the Jordan. . . . But a deeper and holier interest is attached to the spot. Beneath the shadow of that battlemented height, and along the banks of that stream, our Lord and his disciples wandered; and on one of those peaks above, Peter, James, and John obtained a glimpse of heaven's glory in the Transfiguration. J. L. P.  One Source of the Jordan. race of rock, part of the range of Hermon. From the hill on which the town stood—one of the lower spurs of Hermon—the view ranged over all northern Palestine, from the plains of Phenicia to the hills of Samaria. In the northwest rose the dark gigantic mountain-forms of Lebanon; to the south stretched out the rich table-land of the Hauran. From Hermon, not from Zion or the Mount of Olives, one beholds "the good land, the land of brooks, of waters, of fountains, of depths that spring out of the valleys and hills." G. We wandered for hours among the ruins of Cesarea Philippi, where hewn stones, massive foundations, and fragments of granite columns testify alike to former strength and grandeur. The site, unlike most others in Palestine, is not less remarkable for natural beauty than for classic and sacred associations. Here are rugged mountain and wooded vale, battlemented height and gushing stream, crumbling ruin and wide-spreading plain, all combined in one glorious picture. Behind the ruins rises a cliff of ruddy limestone. At its base is a dark cave, now nearly 29. Whom say ye that I am? He had never openly spoken of his Messiahship. John indeed had borne witness to him, and to those who could receive it he had indirectly intimated that he was the Son of God. But it was his will that the revelation should dawn gradually on the minds of his children; that it should spring more from the truths he spake, and the life he lived, than from the wonders which he wrought. It was in the Son of man that they were to recognize the Son of God. F. M. 16. Thou art the Christ of God. It was, indeed, an amazing utterance. The twelve had been the daily witnesses of the human simplicity and poverty of his life, his homelessness, his weary wanderings afoot, and all the circumstances of his constant humiliation, which might have counterbalanced the great memories which their privileged intimacy had afforded, and obscured their spiritual significance. Yet they had broken through the hereditary national prejudice of their race; they had disregarded the judgment of their spiritual rulers and leaders; risen above the utmost ideas of those around; and had seen in their lowly rejected Master the true Lord of the new kingdom of God. Nor is the fact less wonderful that the life and words of Jesus, seen thus closely, should have created such a lofty and holy conception of his spiritual greatness, amid all the counteractions of outward fact and daily familiarity. In spite of all, he was the Malka Meschicha—the King-Messiah—to those who had known him best. G.—This acknowledgment itself might have been made by Peter at an earlier period; but the way in which he made it at that critical moment, and the feeling which inspired it, showed that he had obtained a new intuition of Christ as the Son of God. It was for this that Christ called him "blessed," because the drawing of the Father had led him to the Son, and the Father had revealed himself to him in the Son. N. 17. Never did even the lips of Jesus utter more memorable words. It was his own testimony of himself. It was the promise that they who can acknowledge it are blessed. It was the revealed fact that they only can acknowledge it who are led thereto by the Spirit of God. It told mankind forever that only by heavenly grace can the full knowledge of that truth be obtained. It was the laying of the corner-stone of the Church of Christ, and the earliest occasion on which was uttered that memorable word, thereafter to be so intimately blended with the history of the world. F.—In the faith which thus expressed itself, Jesus saw the germ of all that living faith by which true believers of every age were to be animated—that faith which was to form the very life and strength of the community, the Church, which he was to gather out from among the nations—the fruit of God's own work within human souls. H. 18. This rock. Banias, the site of Cesarea Philippi, is one of the most grand and picturesque places in all Palestine. Immediately behind, Hermon, the highest peak of Anti-Libanus, rises to a height of ten thousand feet, densely wooded on its side, and its summit diademed with eternal snow, pure as the azure sky above it. A little way to the left of the village, there stands the majestic ruin of the castle of Banias, built on the rocky crest of a projecting spur of Hermon, which rises a thousand feet above the village, and it is itself several hundred feet higher. Is it possible to doubt that the eye of the great Master and his disciples was turned, while he spoke, to that castle upon its rocky base, filling up the whole view eastward, and that he doubled the impression of his sayings, as he so often did, by surrounding them with the framework and casting on them the coloring of a natural picture? A. Thomson. Thou art Peter, etc. The word petra, here translated rock, has the generic sense, a mass of rock, and is never used in the signification of petros (Peter), a single stone. It is employed here, not only to distinguish the word from petros, the proper name in thou art Peter, but as more consentaneous with the idea of foundation, which, in the case of edifices designed to be durable, was composed, if possible, of the living rock. J. J. O.—The end and aim of his question is not Peter but Christ. Here is the clew to the interpretation of our Lord's words to Peter, "On this Petra I will build my Church." And hence we are led to believe that the Rock is CHRIST. Again, in the O. T., as far as the word Rock is used figuratively as a foundation to build upon (as it is used here), it is used of God and of him alone. The language of the N. T. is similar. He who builds on Christ's words, builds on a rock (M. 7 : 24, 25). And Paul says (1 Cor. 3 : 11), "Other foundation can no man lay than that which lieth"—not, is laid, as the apostles are laid on the foundation, but which lieth by its own spontaneous act, as the foundation—JESUS CHRIST, i. e., he who is JESUS as man, and CHRIST as the Son of the living God; which is Peter's confession here. What He says is this: "I myself, now confessed by thee to be both God and man, am the Rock of the Church. This is the foundation on which it is built." And because Peter had confessed him as such, he says to Peter, "Thou hast confessed me, and I will now confess thee. Thou art a genuine Petros of me, the divine Petra. And whosoever would be a living stone, a Peter, must imitate thee in this thy true confession of me the living Rock; for upon this Rock, that is, on myself, believed and confessed to be both God and man, I will build my Church." W. The word petros, in its highest figurative sense of "a stone," when applied to Peter, can represent only one true believer, or faithful member of Christ's Church, that is, one out of the great multitude of true believers in Christ, who, as figurative stones, form altogether the glorious spiritual building of Christ's Church, and not the foundation on which that Church is built; because that figurative character cannot, consistently with truth, be applied to any other person than to God, or to Christ alone. A due consideration also of the second noun, petra, "a rock," will demonstrate that the supreme title of the rock, which, in other texts of Holy Scripture, is applied to Jehovah, or God, alone, most certainly was not intended by our Lord to be understood as applicable to his disciple Peter; but only to that true testimony which Peter had just before declared concerning the divine dignity of the Messiah—"Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." G. T. The true interpretation is to be found in the Hebrew custom of giving significant names, not solely, or even chiefly, to describe qualities in the persons who bore them, but to commemorate truths in which they were concerned. It is simply absurd to insist on finding in the words, "Thou art Peter," the necessary antecedent to "on this rock will I build my Church." The true connection is this: "Thou art rightly called Peter," for thou hast uttered a confession which embodies the foundation of Christian truth, the divine nature and the true Messiahship of Jesus Christ; and upon this rock will I build my Church. The concurrent testimony, both of prophecy and of the New Testament, points to Christ himself as the Rock, and the only foundation of his Church; and surely it must be his strength, and not Peter's, which forms a basis too steadfast for the powers of destruction ("the gates of Hades") to prevail against! But still, in a secondary sense, the apostles are spoken of, together with the prophets, as the foundation on which the Church is built, but in subordination to "Jesus Christ, the chief cornerstone;" and in this sense Peter himself was one of the first stones of the edifice, of which he himself calls all believers "living stones." His position in the Church is then illustrated by another figure (verse 19), which has been equally perverted; as if the servant who has charge of the keys of a house were almost on a level with the master himself. The event furnished the simple and natural interpretation, when, on the day of Pentecost, Peter was the first to admit a multitude of the believing Jews, and afterward, in the house of Cornelius, a number of Gentile proselytes, into the Christian Church. He did both as the organ of the other apostles, who shared his action in the first case, and confirmed it in the second; for to them Christ afterward gave the same privilege that he now gave to Peter. The only distinction between him and the other apostles is a priority in time, corresponding to the priority of his confession of Christ. S. We find Simon Peter, not only in the lists of the apostles, but also in their history, prominent on various occasions before the rest. Sometimes he speaks in their name; sometimes answers when all are addressed; sometimes our Lord addresses him as principal even among the three favored ones; sometimes he is addressed by others as representing the whole. He appears as the organ of the apostles after our Lord's ascension; the first speech, and apparently that which decided the council, is spoken by him. All this accords well with the bold and energetic character of Peter, and originated in the unerring discernment and appointment of our Lord himself, who saw in him a person adapted to take precedence of the rest in the founding of his Church. That, however, no such idea was current among the apostles as that he was destined to be the primate of the future Church is as clear as the facts above mentioned. For (1) no trace of such a preëminence is found in all the epistles of the other apostles; but when he is mentioned it is either, as in 1 Cor. 9: 5, as one of the apostles, one example among many, but in no wise the chief; or, as in Gal. 2: 7, 8, with a distinct account of a peculiar province of duty and preaching being allotted to him, viz., the apostleship of the circumcision, as distinguished from Paul, to whom was given the apostleship of the uncircumcision; or, as in Gal. 2: 9, as one of the principal pillars, together with James and John; or, as in Gal. 2: 11, as subject to rebuke from Paul as from an equal. And (2) wherever by our Lord himself the future constitution of his Church is alluded to, or by the apostles its actual constitution, no hint of any such primacy is given, but the apostles are spoken of as absolutely equal (Matt. 19: 27, 28; 20: 26, 28; Eph. 2: 20). Again (3), in the two epistles which we have from his own hand, there is nothing for, but everything against, such a supposition. He exhorts the presbyters as being their co-presbyter; describes himself as a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed; addresses his second epistle to them that have obtained the like precious faith with ourselves, and makes not the slightest allusion to any preëminence over the other apostles. A. Three times after this the dispute arises among them which should be the greatest—a dispute which never could have arisen had Jesus already openly and distinctly assigned the primacy to Peter—and a dispute, we may add, which never would have been settled as Jesus in each case settled it, had any such primacy been ever intended to be conveyed by him. H.—Were it not a matter of history, it would have been deemed incredible that on so baseless a foundation should have been rested the fantastic claim that abnormal power should be conceded to the bishops of a Church which almost certainly Peter did not found, and in a city in which there is no indisputable proof that he ever set his foot. The immense arrogancies of sacerdotalism; the disgraceful abuses of the confessional; the imaginary power of absolving from oaths; the ambitious assumption of a right to crush and control the civil power; the extravagant usurpation of infallibility in wielding the dangerous weapons of anathema and excommunication; the colossal tyrannies of the Popedom, and the detestable cruelties of the Inquisition—all these abominations are, we may hope, henceforth and forever, things of the past. But the Church of Christ remains, of which Peter was a living stone. The powers of hell have not prevailed against it. F. This is the first occasion on which Jesus used that word—the church; and he named it in his own lifetime but once again. He did everything to lay the true and only foundation of that Church; but he did almost nothing with his own hand to erect or organize it. H.—The word church occurs but once besides in the gospels, and there in the same sense as here, viz., the congregation of the faithful; only there (M. 18: 17) it is one portion of that congregation, and here the whole. A. 19. All that was said here to Peter was said twice afterward by Christ to all the twelve and to all the Church. You have but to read M. 18: 18, 19, and J. 20: 19–23, to be fully satisfied that, put what interpretation you may upon the words spoken at Cesarea Philippi to Peter, they conveyed to him no power or privilege beyond that which Jesus conferred upon the entire college of the apostles, and in its collective capacity upon the Church. H.—In his Hebrew and Talmudical Exerciations, Lightfoot shows that the words “to loose and to bind” were first used in doctrine and in judgments concerning things allowed or not allowed in the law. Secondly, that to bind is the same with to forbid, or to declare forbidden. To think that Christ (he continues), when he used the common phrase, was not understood by his hearers, in the common and vulgar sense, shall I call it a matter of laughter, or of madness? To this, therefore, do these words amount: When the time was come wherein the Mosaic law, as to some part of it, was to be continued and to last forever, he granted Peter here, and to the rest of the apostles (chap. 18: 18), a power to abolish or confirm what they thought good; being taught this, and led by the Holy Spirit, as if he should say, “Whatsoever ye shall bind in the law of Moses, that is, forbid, it shall be forbidden, the divine authority confirming it; and whatsoever ye shall loose, that is, permit, or shall teach that it is permitted and lawful, shall be lawful and permitted.” Hence they bound, that is, forbade, circumcision to the believers; eating of things offered to idols, of things strangled, and of blood for a time, to the Gentiles; and that which they bound on earth was confirmed in heaven. They loosed, that is, allowed, purification to Paul, and to four other brethren, for the shunning of scandal (Acts 21: 24): and, in a word, by these words of Christ it was committed to them, the Holy Spirit directing, that they should make decrees concerning religion, as to the use and rejection of Mosaic rites and judgments, and that either for a time, or forever. G. T. 20. Tell no man.** Because the apostles were not as yet fully schooled in the doctrine of the true nature of Christ’s kingdom and office, and would not be so till the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon them; also because Christ desired not to exasperate his enemies, but allow them longer time to consider the evidence of his works. W.—The prohibition was doubtless given with a view to prevent them from diffusing the expectations of Messiah which they then entertained, and thus leading the people to political undertakings in opposition to the objects of Christ. N. 16–19. The declaration of Peter being suppressed, the Church and Christianity became only vain words, the ministry only a usurpation, the sacraments a sacrilegious sport. The meaning, the truth of all these things is only in these words of Peter, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God!” Thou art the Christ, the anointed of the Lord, possessed of that threefold unction, which, under the ancient law, was shared between kings, priests, and prophets. Thou art the King of mankind; thou art the sovereign Prophet to whom the Spirit was given without measure; thou art the eternal Priest, offering to God in thy life and in thy death the reparation of which sacrifice is only the emblem. Thou art the Son of the living God, of that God who has manifested himself within the circle of time, has mingled his history with our history, and become a personal God, a true God. Thou art the Mediator, uniting in thyself all the fulness of divinity, and all the fulness of humanity, the living tie between God and man; in whom are reconciled the eternal Creator, and the creature formed in his image. Yes, thou art less than nothing for conscience and salvation, or thou art indeed the Christ, the Son of the living God. Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, or there is no Church—no hope, no future, no heaven, no God; and a little dust moistened with a few tears expresses the whole destiny of poor human nature. A. V. ## Section 75.—Peter rebuked, and Disciples urged to Self-denial. Cesarea Philippi. M. 21 And from that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples, and to teach them, how that he, the Son of man, must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. And he spake that saying openly. Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord; this shall not be unto thee. Mk.33 But when he had turned about, and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men. 34. And when he had called the people unto him, with his disciples also, he said unto them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross 35 daily, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will 36 lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it. For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul, or be cast away? 37 Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Whosoever therefore shall be 38 ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his M. 27 Father's, and of the holy angels. For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father, with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. 28 And he said unto them, Verily, I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God come with power, the Son of man coming in his kingdom. PETER, elated with his own spiritual insight and the blessing pronounced upon himself and his confession, with the impetuosity of his nature attempted to take his Lord to account for apparently contradicting that confession by announcing his sufferings and death. But Jesus thus linked his humanity to his divinity, his work of redemption upon earth to his glory as the Son of God. The kingdom of heaven would be opened through his sacrifice upon the cross, and ever after through the preaching of Christ crucified. The confession of Christ, the Son of God, must be coupled with the confession of Jesus, the suffering Redeemer. Hence his disciples must follow him in the spirit of self-renunciation—each for himself taking up his cross. The true life consists in spiritual union with Christ, in the culture of the soul in holiness, and in the realization of fellowship with God. This is the only blessedness. He who seeks his happiness in this world and its belongings will miss the inner life of the spirit, which is the life eternal. And when he quits the world, and the world itself passes away, all that he had gained of earth will avail nothing for the peace and salvation of his soul. The crucified Son of man shall one day manifest himself as the Son of God in the glory of his Father. They who would then be owned as in his kingdom must here confess and serve, with humility and sacrifice, their crucified Lord. J. P. T. M. 21. First, he simply proclaims, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand;" then he explains the principles and laws of that kingdom in the Sermon on the Mount; then in the parables by the sea, he sets forth in figures the nature of its progress and the obstacles it will encounter; but not until, by no direct word of his, but by gradual acquaintance with him, the disciples have come to the full faith that he is the Messiah, the Son of God, does he begin to foretell to them his cross. L. A.—Christ confirmed his apostles in their confession of his Messianic dignity. But he knew that their minds were still tinctured with the ordinary ideas and expectations of a visible kingdom to be founded by Messiah; and he, therefore, gradually taught them that it was by his own sufferings that the kingdom of God was to be established. N.—When their own faith was confirmed beyond all wavering by the mighty fact of his resurrection, when their hearts had been filled with the new Shechinah of God's Holy Spirit, then, but not till then, would the hour have come for them to go forth and teach all nations that Jesus was indeed the Christ, the Son of the living God. But although they now knew him, they knew nothing as yet of the way in which it was his will to carry out his divine purposes. F. One coming unto his own, and by his own received not; walking in lowliness all his days; a man of many deeply-hidden griefs, misunderstood by the mass of the people, despised and rejected by their rulers, judged and condemned as a deceiver of the people, a vilifier of Moses, a blasphemer against God; crucified at last as a malefactor—it had never entered into their thoughts that such a one could be their Messiah. He might suffer somewhat, perhaps, at the hands of his own and Israel's enemies; possibly he might have to submit to death, the common lot of all men; but that he should suffer at the hands of the very people over whom he came to reign, and that by their hands he should be put to death—no throne erected, and no kingdom won—this was utterly contradictory to their conceptions and their belief. Yet all this was true; and from their earlier and false ideas the disciples had to be weaned. During all his previous converse with them he had carefully abstained from saying anything about his approaching sufferings and death. He had allowed them to take the natural impression which his teaching and miracle-working, and the whole tenor of his life and conversation, were fitted to make upon honest, devout-minded men. Their knowledge of him, their faith in him, he had left to grow, till now, as represented in the confession of Peter, it seemed strong enough to bear some pressure. They might now be told what it had been out of time to tell them earlier. H.—Therefore he began, calmly and deliberately, to reveal to them his intended journey to Jerusalem, his rejection by the leaders of his nation, the anguish and insult that awaited him, his violent death, his resurrection on the third day. F. Elders, chief priests, and scribes. The elders were leaders in the Jewish nation. Their office dates from the patriarchal era. Their age gave them their authority as counsellors and leaders; hence their name. These elders exercised certain not very well-defined political functions; were organized by Moses into a body; but existed as a recognized class of men before his time. From them were selected certain representatives of the lay element in the Sanhedrim, the supreme court of the Jewish nation in the time of Christ. The chief priests were the heads of the priestly courses; the scribes were the Jewish rabbis, the writers and teachers of the law. Christ's language here represents the Sanhedrim, which was composed of these three classes, laymen, priests, and teachers, and constituted the tribunal before which he was tried, and by which he was condemned to death. L. A. Mk. 33. As the Saviour had just before exalted Peter so highly, when he testified to that which had not been revealed to him by flesh and blood, but by the Father in heaven, so now he reproved him as severely for an utterance inspired by a love too much debased by flesh and blood. N.—Christ saw with the lightning glance of his spirit in the words of Peter a suggestion not so much of his as of Satan's; as he had in the wilderness suggested more directly, that there was a shorter way to the kingdom of his glory than by the cross of his shame; and to him the words are properly and primarily addressed; although in reaching him enough glances off from them to constitute a most real rebuke for Peter. T.—In calling Peter an offence, Jesus compared him to a stone in the path over which the wayfarer stumbles. The comparison must have sunk deeply into the apostle's mind, for he too in his epistle warns his readers against some to whom, because they believe not, the headstone of the corcorner became "a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence." F. 34. He would seize the opportunity to proclaim once more that not in his own case alone, but in the case of all his true followers, self-denial, self-sacrifice, must be undergone. A number of the people, who had assembled at the sight of Jesus and his apostles passing by, he called to him, as if wishing to intimate that what he had now to say was meant for all—was to be taken up, repeated, and spread abroad, as addressed to the wide world of mankind. H. Will come. As soon as you begin to turn your feet in coming, you will feel the cross, but as soon as you feel the cross you will feel that it is eased for you. Pain will not vanish, but become a privilege. Self-denial will not be annihilated, but will be welcome. A new power will come. F. D. H. Deny himself. The essence of that repenting enjoined by the gospel is the change of mind to which reflection and compunction lead—a change of the whole mind in desire, feeling, thought, purpose, action, a change in the whole spirit and intent of life as toward God and his truth, and all that affects character; and inasmuch as the heart has yielded to carnal, selfish, worldly desires and aims, it must renounce this way of life as the first step toward the kingdom of God. Hence Christ insisted so much that if any man would become his disciple, he must begin by denying himself—must put self down in order to set up Christ as his king. J. P. T. Take up his cross daily. The thing imparted in this daily cross is self-denial, and with self-denial more or less of pain; of pain that has many alleviations, but that in few cases can ever be expected wholly to cease, and that no earnest pilgrim of Zion should ever wish to wholly cease. Think of all the fettered but impatient vices, the tolerated imperfections, the residues of old follies, the rash impulses of even the better nature, the self-deceits, the masked and plausible weaknesses, the self-excusings, the concealed reluctances, that beset even the holiest among us, and we will incline to the conviction, that where life is but too short for discipline we ought not to covet too much repose before the grave. Circumstantially the cross may vary, but its purpose is the same in all; and that purpose our Lord has here, with great precision, assigned. W. A. B. The point of duty for us, as for the Master, is not to seek the cross, but by the cross to seek the glory of the resurrection, which is found in no other path. The cross, for the cross, never; but the cross for the Lord, always; for no man can accept the crucified one without the cross, except he take the shadow for the substance. Christianity without the cross is Christianity without Christ. A. M.—Every one is to take up his cross: not the trouble of another man, but that which is sent for his own trial, and adapted to his own case. Many complain that they could have borne anything else but that present evil under which they are suffering! God knew that, and therefore sent it, to teach them patience, and to make them fly to him for help and support under the pressing sense of their own weakness. W. J.—After all, the self-made trial is a poor disciplinarian weapon. There is a subtle, masterly irritant and provoking point in the genuine natural trial, and in the natural crossness of events, which the artificial cannot manage; we can no more make our trials than we can make our feelings. In this way moderate deprivations are in some cases more difficult to bear than extreme ones. And so it is often the case that what we must do as simply right, is just the hardest thing to do. J. B. M. "It is difficult," said an old thinker in the things of faith, "and yet not difficult, to be a Christian; only be in earnest, and take not up the gospel as a trivial thing, but upon both thy shoulders. Make not light of thy load for Christ, and Christ will make it light for thee." Our faith is for the life that now is, or else it is no faith to fit us for the life to come; and it works out its hallowed alleviations for all the disquietude of these laboring and heavy-laden hearts, not by transforming the conditions of their lot, but, while leaving these just as they are, by bringing the inner man into such one-ness of life with the Master, that he, the great burden-bearer of all our humanity, shall be their perpetual passover and their peace. F. D. H. 36. What is a man profited? A question which comes the most home to every man's concern, of any that can possibly enter into his thoughts. It implies that the salvation of a man's soul is so infinitely more important to him, so beyond and above anything he can get or anything he can lose, anything he can enjoy or suffer on this side the grave, that nothing which the world offers can make up for the loss of it, or be a compensation when that is at stake. Paley.—There was one living who, scarcely in a figure, might be said to have the whole world. The Roman Emperor Tiberius was at that moment the most powerful of living men, the absolute, undisputed, deified ruler of all that was fairest and richest in the kingdoms of the earth. There was no control to his power, no limit to his wealth, no restraint upon his pleasures. What came of it all? He was, as Pliny calls him, confessedly "the most gloomy of mankind." And from the home of his hidden infamies, from the island where on a scale so splendid he had tried the experiment of what happiness can be achieved by pressing the world's most absolute authority, and the world's guiltiest indulgences, into the service of an exclusively selfish life, he wrote to his servile and corrupted senate, "What to write to you, Conscript Fathers, or how to write, or what not to write, may all the gods and goddesses destroy me worse than I feel that they are daily destroying me, if I know." F. 37. Exchange for his soul. For if a man once lose his soul, where shall he find an equivalent in value for it; that by which it can be redeemed or bought again? H.—It is of all things most certain that a soul living consciously in sin is living without God, and to be without God is to be without hope. This, too, is certain, that the longer a man thus lives the more does absence from God deepen the sense of dislike, and the more difficult and improbable will be his return. The thought of this may not trouble some very much at present, because they feel as if they can live without God in a very pleasurable way, and they do not see why they should ever have a greater necessity for him. They can put friendships and occupations in his room, and contrive to forget him. But when these pass, as pass they must, and perish like flowers on the edge of a gulf, the awful depth of the chasm will be seen. When fold after fold which now closes the eye of the soul is torn off, and it is compelled to look on eternal realities, how will it stand the gaze? This loss of God must then be felt to be that loss of the soul of which the Saviour speaks, when he asks, What shall a man give in exchange for it? And when he who made the soul, and loved it so much, puts the issue before us so solemnly, should it not bring us seriously to question ourselves, and to resolve to give place to nothing that will cloud our clear view of God, and never to betray Christ and the homage we owe him for the whole world? Ker. 38. What hinders many from a full embrace of Christ and all the blessings of his salvation, is a desire to go with the multitude; a shrinking, through shame, from anything that would separate them from the world. Upon the ears of such the solemn words of our Lord fall with power: "Whosoever shall be ashamed of me, and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his glory." H.—Come in his glory. He clearly points out that the glory which they had expected to attend the present coming of the Messiah was reserved for a future time. K.—And as clearly indicates that their cross-bearing and self-denial was, like his own, but for a time, and to eventuate in "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." J. G. B.—The evident tendency of these words was to prepare the minds of his disciples for the treatment which both he and they were to undergo, and at the same time to raise their drooping spirits by setting before their eyes his own exaltation, and their glorious rewards in another life. P. M. 28. I find no satisfactory explanation of this prediction except in that mightiest judgment act of the Son of man, which the world has yet seen, the destruction of Jerusalem. This event, when the Lord spake, was some forty years distant, or more. To men of full age it was not then a mere nugatory prediction, that they should live to see this event, at once so terrible and so magnificent; as these words of Christ compel us to believe that, if only for one apostle, yet for more than one of the disciples then standing there, it was fulfilled. T.—This declaration refers, certainly not to the Transfiguration which follows (for the expression “some of them,” etc., indicates a distant event), but to the destruction of Jerusalem, and the full manifestation of the kingdom of Christ by the annihilation of the Jewish polity: which event, in this aspect as well as in all its attendant details, was a type and earnest of the final coming of Christ. This dreadful destruction was indeed judgment beginning at the house of God. A.—If, as all Scripture shows, “the kingdom of the Son of man” be understood in a sense primarily spiritual, then there can be no difficulty in understanding this prophecy in the sense that, ere all of them passed away, the foundations of that kingdom should have been established forever in the abolition of the old and the establishment of the new dispensation. Three of them were immediately to see him transfigured; all but one were to be witnesses of his resurrection; one at least—the beloved disciple—was to survive that capture of Jerusalem and destruction of the temple which were to render impossible any literal fulfilment of the Mosaic law. F. The World and the Soul.—The seat of life is the soul. There is the centre of all movement, the spring of power, the point of intense concern. All greatness proceeds thence. All well-directed anxieties converge thither. Blind as we become to the magnificent fact, whatever interests agitate markets and families and states—whatever influences play through street, shop, congress, the academy and college, no less than the church—terminate at last in the soul. For that, in the original design, however we as individuals pervert or come short of it, the farmer’s tillage rears and reaps the summer’s grain on all the quiet meadows and slopes; for that the arms of labor swing in ten thousand workshops; for that the printing-press is worked and types are cast; for that, at last, if the Sermon on the Mount is true, the lily blossoms and the sparrow flies. Institutions are founded, whether their founders remember it or not, statute-books are written, cities are built, new countries are colonized, factories occupy the streams, exploring expeditions animate the commercial map of the world, for the soul. It is not, after all, for the fortunes that are made, the fabrics woven, the speed attained, the money multiplied, the world’s fairs exhibited. These are only means to an end; and that end is man’s spiritual education. By far the deepest question you can ask respecting any of these mighty agencies is, What kind of souls is it helping to rear? what sort of characters is it fashioning? Is it leaving men with a larger or leaner humanity, with a purer or weaker piety? And the most momentous question any individual can put to himself, respecting all these forms of outward activity and acquisition, is this old evangelical and personal one: “What shall it profit a man, though he gain the whole world and lose his soul?” F. D. II. Oh! the untold world of agony contained in that expression—“a lost soul!” agony exactly in proportion to the nobleness of original powers. For it is a strange and mournful truth, that the qualities which calculate to shine are exactly those which minister to the worst ruin. God’s highest gifts—talent, beauty, feeling, imagination, power—they carry with them the possibility of the highest heaven and the lowest hell. It is the awful warning, and not the excuse of evil, that the light which leads astray is light from heaven. F. W. R. ## Section 76.—The Transfiguration. Spur of Mount Hermon. L. 28 AND it came to pass after six days, or, about an eight days after these sayings, Jesus taketh Peter, and James, and John his brother, and leadeth them up into an high mountain apart by themselves, to pray. And as he prayed, he was transfigured before them, and the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow, or as the light: so as no fuller 30 on earth can white them. And, behold, there talked with him two men, which were 31 Moses and Elias; who appeared in glory, and spake of his decease which he should 32 accomplish at Jerusalem. But Peter and they that were with him were heavy with sleep: and when they were awake, they saw his glory, and the two men that stood with 33 him. And it came to pass, as they departed from him, Peter said unto Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here; and if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias; not knowing what he said. For he wist 34 not what to say: for they were sore afraid. While yet he thus spake, behold, there came a bright cloud that overshadowed them: and they feared as they entered into the 35 cloud. And, behold, there came a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my be- M. 6 loved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him. And when the disciples heard it, 7 they fell on their face, and were sore afraid. And when the voice was past, Jesus came 8 and touched them, and said, Arise, and be not afraid. And suddenly, when they had lifted up their eyes and had looked round about, they saw no man any more, save Jesus only with themselves. 9 And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them that they should tell no man what things they had seen, till the Son of man were risen again from the dead. Mk.10 And they kept that saying with themselves, questioning one with another what the rising from the dead should mean. And they told no man in those days any of those things which they had seen. 11 And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes, that Elias must first 12 come? And he answered, and told them, Elias truly cometh first, and restoreth all 13 things. But I say unto you, that Elias is indeed come already, and they knew him not, M. 12 but have done unto him whatsoever they listed, as it is written of him: likewise also it is written of the Son of man that he must suffer many things of them, and be set at 13 nought. Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist. THERE comes "a voice out of the cloud," which is sufficient, if we will hearken to it, to guide us through the dark into the light, where the sun is never dim. Nay, it will infuse light through all the cloud itself; and that, instead of a cavern of blackness breathing deadly night-winds, becomes a pillar of fire, a token that our Leader is near, a luminous temple of peace and rest. If we are not buried in the cloud, and lost there, by a faithless and obstinate impenitence, then we shall be permitted, after patience and through faith, to behold this transfiguration. For the voice says, "This is my beloved Son, hear him." Hear him, and he will scatter the cloud from about you with the breath of his mouth. Hear him to believe, and you will be willing to let the cloud remain all God's time, for even the night will be light about you. Hear him to obey him, and you are sure that the upward path he has appointed shall be brighter and brighter, till the light of the moon shall be as the sun, and the light of the sun sevenfold. Hear him to love him, and, in cloud or sun, health or sick chamber, in a glad house or sitting by the gravestone, living or dying, you will never be afraid again, because perfect love casteth out fear. The departure of the Christian believer is a mortal transfiguration begun. Whatever the aspect physical disorder and emaciation may wear, the cloud has another side turned to the unfading sun. We need not ask that our friends should die in transport. Yet if their trust is in the crucified and transfigured One, it is a bright cloud that receives them up out of our sight. The voice speaks out of it. And on the other side of it is the wide spiritual tabernacle, that has no need of the sun, or the moon, or the stars—where worship, before the throne of God and the Lamb, John and Peter and James and Moses and Elias, and "a multitude that no man can number!" F. D. H. It was to minds on the one hand full of unre- | the Messiah in all his temporal greatness, on the pressed hopes of the instantaneous revelation of | other, embarrassed with the apparently irreconcilable predictions of the humiliation of their Master, that the extraordinary scene of the Transfiguration was presented. H. M.—It stands between the Temptation and the Agony, as the culminating point of our Lord's ministry on earth. To them who had just heard of the sufferings of Christ there was here vouchsafed a prophetic glimpse into the glory which should follow, that in the strength of this they might not be troubled nor offended at the prospect of these sufferings now, nor at the sufferings themselves which presently should arrive. The Transfiguration was a prelude and a pledge of that which should be hereafter. In that it was clearly shown that he spoke not at random, who spoke of his kingdom. It was shown that he had a kingdom to come in; a glory ready at any moment to burst forth, however for the moment it might be concealed from the eyes even of those who were in closest communion with him. The Transfiguration is an earnest in hand of a glory hereafter to be revealed. T. The Transfiguration of Christ was intended to remove the inveterate prejudices that prevailed among the apostles and the Jewish converts in general: (1) with regard to his sufferings, which they conceived to be inconsistent with his dignity; and (2) with regard to the ceremonial law, which they were persuaded was not done away with by the gospel, but that they were to exist together in full force, and to be equally obeyed. This prejudice continued for many years after our Lord's resurrection. Paul tells us (Acts 21: 20), "several thousand Jews believed, and yet were all zealous of the law." The very mentioning of Christ's death by such men as Moses and Elias, without any marks of surprise or dissatisfaction, was of itself sufficient to cause a great change in the sentiments of the disciples respecting those sufferings. Christ's assumption of this glorious appearance at the very time was a visible and striking proof to his disciples, that those sufferings were perfectly consistent with the dignity of his character, and the highest state of glory to which he could be exalted. The other great purpose of the action on the mount was, to give a figurative signification of the abrogation of the Mosaical law, and the commencement of the Christian dispensation, upon which it was to be established. Moses and Elias, as the representatives of the law and the prophets, acknowledged the accomplishment of all their prophecies, and that the Messiah's kingdom was established on the law and the prophets; and God himself proclaimed, This is my beloved Son, hear—HEAR YE HIM. Moses and Elias instantly disappear, overshadowed by the bright cloud, and Christ alone remains the undivided object of all their worship. But, besides this primary design of the Transfiguration, that event answered other purposes of great utility. It afforded a striking additional proof of the divine mission of Christ; for here was one of the few occasions in which God himself was pleased personally to interpose, and to make an open declaration from heaven in favor of his Son. And further, a particular attestation was given on the mount to two of the principal doctrines of Christianity: a general resurrection, and a day of retribution. The visible and illustrious representation of these doctrines in the glorified appearance of Christ, and Moses, and Elias, is appealed to by Peter, who saw it, as one convincing proof, among others, that "he had not followed cunningly devised fables, when he made known the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." P. The position which Christ assumed toward the Jewish priesthood and the Mosaic ritual was not a little perplexing. He separated himself from the priesthood; he discountenanced many of their practices; he taught and practised a religion that made but little of holy rites and outward observances. The religion of the heart, the home, the secret chamber, the broad highway, the solitary mountain-side—a religion that in its heavenward aspects opened a way direct for any sinner to God—that in its earthward aspects found its occupation in the faithful discharge of the thousand duties of human brotherhood—such a religion the scribes, the Pharisees, the hierarchy, the whole body of the Jewish priesthood disliked; they took up the tale that Jesus was ill-affected to the law and the prophets. But if there entered into the apostles' minds a doubt as to the actual harmony between their Master's teaching and that of Moses and the prophets, the vision on the mount—the sight of Moses and Elias, the founder and the restorer, the two chief representatives of the old covenant, entering into such fellowship with Jesus, owning him as their Lord—must have cleared it away, satisfying them that their Master came not to destroy the law and the prophets—not to destroy, but to fulfil. In mercy to all their weaknesses, one sight was given of the Lord's transfigured form, one visible manifestation of the place he held in the invisible kingdom, one glimpse of the heavenly glory, with Jesus standing in the midst. Sense stretched out its vigorous hand to lay hold of blind and staggering Faith. And long afterward—thirty years and more from the time the great manifestation was made—in Peter's person, Faith, when she had got over her difficulties, and stood serene, secure, triumphant, looked back and owned the debt, and published abroad her obligation, saying, "We were eye-witnesses of his majesty." H. L. 28. An eight days after these sayings—including the day on which this was spoken, and  that of the Transfiguration. Matthew and Mark say, "after six days," excluding these two days. B. The Three who seem to have been the best prepared to enter into the higher meaning of the Christian life, and were therefore admitted whenever the Saviour's divine power was more mysteriously manifest—John, Peter, and James—were called up to witness this immortal interview, where the two great prophets of the elder and preparatory covenant were to meet, in transfigured forms, with the Messiah of the Fulfilment, and there, in the serenity and splendor of the mount, to converse together of "the decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem;" a theme vast and solemn enough even for that august audience. Moses the Law-giver, Elijah the Reformer, Jesus the Redeemer! F. D. H.—The flower and crown of the apostolic band, Peter, who loved him so much, John, whom he loved so much, and James, who should first attest that death could as little as life separate from his love; the same three who should hereafter be witnesses of his humiliation in the Agony of the garden, and who therefore were thus fitly forearmed by what they now beheld against what they should then behold. T. Mountain. The supposition that the mountain intended was Mount Tabor has been engrained for centuries in the tradition of the Christian Church. The rounded summit of that picturesque and wood-crowned hill had probably from time immemorial been a fortified and inhabited spot, and less than thirty years after this time, Josephus, on this very mountain, strengthened the existing fortress of Itaburion. This, therefore, was not a spot to which Jesus could have taken the three apostles "apart by themselves." Nor is there the slightest intimation that the six intervening days had been spent in travelling southward from Cesarea Philippi, the place last mentioned; on the contrary, it is distinctly intimated by Mark (9 : 30), that Jesus did not "pass through Galilee" (in which Mount Tabor is situated) till after the events here narrated. F.—Standing amid the ruins of Cesarea, one does not need to ask where the Mount of Transfiguration is. Hermon, the grandest and the most beautiful of all the mountains of Palestine, has established its claim to the title of "holy mount." J. L. P.—The shades of evening were falling as Jesus climbed its sides. He loved, we know, the stillness of the night, the solitude of the mountain. He sought them for the purposes of devotion—in the loneliness, the calmness, the elevation, finding something in harmony with prayer. H. 29,30. His face did shine as the sun. And behold two men, Moses and Elias.** And that face, day by day known to them, it is strange and unendurable, for it is as the sun—pulsing, swimming in glory. Is it earth, or have they been translated into heaven? Well might they doubt, for now borne visibly through the night are present two celestial forms known to them by the loftier spiritual instinct into which they are rapt—the servant of God who spoke with him face to face in the cloud on Sinai—the prophet of Jehovah who was borne up from Jordan in the chariot of fire. A.—31. Moses represented “the law,” Elijah “the prophets,” and both together the whole testimony of the O. T. Scriptures, and the O. T. saints, to Christ; now not borne in a book but by living men, not to a coming but a come Messiah, visibly, for they “appeared,” and audibly, for they “spake.” B.—Thus, while false Judaism rejects the Messiah, the true owns and adores him in the persons of its two most illustrious representatives. The old covenant and the new meet together on the glorious mount, as righteousness and peace shall soon meet on that other hill which is already before the eye of Jesus. De P. Heaven could not give two fitter companions, more admirable to the Jews for their miracles, more gracious with God for their faith and holiness: both of them admitted to the conference with God in Horeb; both of them types of Christ; both of them fasted forty days; both of them for the glory of God suffered many perils; both divided the waters; both the messengers of God to kings; both of them marvellous, as in their life, so in their end. A chariot of angels took away Elias; he was sought by the prophets, and not found: Michael strove with the devil for the body of Moses; he was sought for by the Jews, and not found: and now both of them are found here together. Moses the publisher of the law, Elias the chief of the prophets, show themselves to the God of the law and prophets. Bp. H.—They came, solemnly, to consign into his hands, once and for all, in a symbolical and glorious representation, their delegated and expiring power. A. His decease. They speak not of the glory they were themselves enshrouded in, and the glory which he was so soon to reach. Their one subject is his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem. B.—That “decease” prefigured by the types of the law (Num. 21: 9; Exod. 12: 46), fore-announced by the oracles of the prophets (Zech. 12: 10; Isa. 53: 9). T.—The very theme for touching which one of these three had rudely chidden the Son of man with his “This shall not be to thee;” the very words which their hopeful spirits refused to hear or understand: these are sounding amid the dazzling light of those wonderful forms. A.—As envoys from the Eternal Majesty, they audibly affirmed that it was the will of the Father, that with his own precious blood he should make atonement for sin. They impressed a new seal upon the ancient, eternal truth, that the partition-wall which sin had raised could be broken down by no other means than by the power of his sufferings; that he, as the good Shepherd, could only ransom his sheep with the price of his own life. Such was the substance of the conversation on the holy mount. Krum. 32,33. “Having kept themselves awake throughout” (for this, and not “when they were awake,” is the right rendering), “they saw his glory, and the two men that stood with him.” As they departed. The unity of the old and new covenant is wonderfully attested in this apparition of the princes of the old in solemn yet familiar intercourse with the Lord of the new; and with this unity the subordination of the old to the new; that “Christ is the end of the law,” and the object to which all prophecy pointed; that therefore the great purpose of these had now been fulfilled. All this was declared by the fact that Moses and Elias, belonging to a merely preparatory dispensation, vanish; but Christ, who is the head of an everlasting dispensation, after whom we do not look for another, remains. T. Make three tabernacles. The request appears to have proceeded from right motives. Was it not really good to be there? Was not the King in his beauty there? The glory of the Son of man had never been seen by them as now; neither had the love of the Father been so experienced. They felt themselves abundantly satisfied in the contemplation of all this. They wished to lengthen this incomparable moment. Krum.—But there was even at that very moment a poor demoniae in the valley, waiting their descent, in order that he might be cured. No! it could not be. Before Peter himself were the Pentecost, the prison, and the cross, for he was to be one of God’s chosen vessels for the carrying of the gospel to mankind. He must leave the scene of privilege for the field of toil. W. T.—Not for Moses, not for Elijah, shall the disciples have to build. Jesus was left alone; for him they will have to build: not on Hermon, not on Zion, but in themselves; for there is the place where he will dwell: in their hearts by faith. A. 34. All devout Jewish poetry finds in the clouds a fit dwelling, chariot, or pavilion for the Most High. In the New Testament, the highest and clearest manifestations of the Son of God robe themselves in this mystery—as at the Transfiguration, the Ascension, and the predicted Judgment. “As they beheld, a cloud received him up out of their sight." "They shall see the Son of man coming in a cloud, with power and great glory." The Apocalypse repeats these representations. F. D. H.—A bright cloud, the Shechinah, is throughout the O. T. dispensation employed as a symbol of God's presence, entitled "the glory," or "the glory of the Lord." It appeared first to Moses in the bush, burning but not consumed; led Israel through the wilderness; rested on Mount Sinai when Moses went up for conference with God; filled the tabernacle on its completion; appeared from time to time as an accompaniment of special communion with God. After the death of Moses, just previous to which it is seen, it disappears from Jewish history to reappear at the dedication of Solomon's temple. Ezekiel describes its solemn departure from Israel, but prophesies its return, to which also there appear to be references in the other prophets. This symbol of the "glory of the Lord" appeared to the shepherds at the time of Christ's birth, and received Christ at his ascension. Since then it has disappeared again from earth, but will surround him at his second coming, and will receive the ascending saints. L. A. 35. Behold, a voice out of the cloud. The same voice which had once before been heard at the Baptism, and which should salute him again as he stood on the threshold of his Passion; thus at the beginning, at the middle, and at the close of his ministry. T.—It was not enough that Moses and Elijah had honored him—a voice from the midst of the cloud added a still higher testimony—"This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him." G.—Peter, speaking for the band, had said, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God;" and, lo! as they gazed on his robe of light, they had ocular demonstration of the truth to which Peter confessed, while the voice out of the cloud left no room for any lingering doubt as the great God himself proclaimed, "This is my beloved Son." W. T.—Such a confirmation of the great confession of Peter was never to be forgotten. Almost a generation later, when he wrote his second epistle, the remembrance of this night was as vivid as ever, "For he received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory." G.—This voice came from no far-distant height, but from the overshadowing cloud. It was the voice of the everlasting Father, in human language audibly testifying concerning the Son. The testimony comprehends the sum of the Old Testament, and refers to the three offices of our Lord. This is my Son, is from the Psalms (2 : 7), and shows us Christ as a King. In whom I am well pleased, is out of the prophets (Isa. 43), and points him out as the Mediator and High-Priest, in whom God reconciles the world unto himself. Hear ye him, represents to us that Prophet of whom Moses said, "Unto him ye shall hearken" (Deut. 18). Krum.—My Son, not as Moses and all the prophets were, my servants. Him and him only ye are now to hear; he is from henceforth to be your Lord, your Legislator, and your King. The evangelical law being established, the ceremonial law must cease, and Moses and the prophets must give way to Christ. The conclusion, too, of the whole scene harmonizes with this declaration: Moses and Elias instantly disappear, and "when the disciples lift up their eyes, they see no man, save Jesus only." The former objects of their veneration are no more; Christ remains alone, their unrivalled and undisputed Sovereign. P. M. 8. Better is it that no one can say exactly where this took place. The words and deeds are glorious and thrilling, but they are meant for the whole earth, and not for a single spot to make its own. From this farthest point of his walk of mercy through Israel, the Saviour turned back again to scenes of agony and death. J. M. 9. Tell no man. The mystery of Christ's Sonship should not be revealed to the world, till it was attested beyond all doubt, till he was "declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead," and by that ascension, which was, so to speak, the necessary complement of his resurrection. T. Mk. 11. Fully acknowledging, on the evidence before them, the certainty that their Master was indeed the Messiah, they now ask, "How, then, say the scribes that Elias must first come?" That is, Since thou art come as the Messiah, how is it that Elias, as we have now seen him, did not precede thee? He replied that Elias had preceded him; and went on so to speak as to show them that he referred to John the Baptist. K.—12, 13. It was true, what these scribes had said, that Elias must first come. But they were in error when they looked for a personal visit from the old prophet as the precursor of the first advent of Christ. They had failed to see in the person and ministry of John one coming in the spirit and power of Elias. They had taken too hastily the Baptist at his word when he said he was not Elias, as in a literal sense he was not. Once more, therefore, does Jesus renew the testimony he had already borne to the Baptist: "I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed." H. # Section 77.—Expels a Demon which the Nine could not cast out. Foot of Mt. Hermon. Cesarea Philippi. L. 37 And it came to pass, that on the next day, when they were come down from the hill, Mk.14 much people met him. And when he came to his disciples, he saw a great multitude 15 about them, and the scribes questioning with them. And straightway all the people, 16 when they beheld him, were greatly amazed, and running to him saluted him. And he 17 asked the scribes, What question ye with them? And, behold, a man of the company came to him, and kneeling down, cried out, saying, Master, I have brought unto thee my son. I beseech thee, look upon and have mercy on him: for he is mine only child. For he is a lunatic, and sore vexed, and hath a dumb spirit. And, lo, the spirit taketh 18 him, and he suddenly crieth out; and wheresoever he taketh him, he teareth him, that he foameth again and gnasheth with his teeth and pineth away; and bruising him, hardly departeth from him. And I brought him to thy disciples, and besought them to 19 cast him out, and they could not cure him. Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? Bring thy son hither unto me. 20 And they brought him unto him. And as he was yet a coming, when he saw him, straightway the devil threw him down, and tare him, and he fell on the ground, and 21 wallowed, foaming. And he asked his father, How long is it ago since this came unto 22 him? And he said, Of a child. And often times it hath cast him into the fire and into the waters to destroy him: and if thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and 23 help us. Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that 24 believeth. And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, 25 I believe; help thou mine unbelief. When Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I 26 charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him. And the spirit cried, and rent him sore, and came out of him: and he was as one dead; insomuch that many said, 27 He is dead. But Jesus took him by the hand, and lifted him up; and he arose. And the child was cured from that very hour; and he delivered him again to his father. And they were all amazed at the mighty power of God. 28 And when he was come into the house, then came the disciples to Jesus privately, M. 20 and asked him, Why could not we cast him out? And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard-seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence unto yonder place, and it shall remove; 21 and nothing shall be impossible unto you. Howbeit, this kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting. Mk. 30 And they departed thence, and passed through Galilee; and he would not that any man should know it. MORE even than by this contact with human misery does our Saviour seem on this occasion to have been impressed by his contact with unbelief. And he appears to have selected this as the first occasion on which to announce, not only the need and the benefit, but the illimitable power of faith. He could easily have arranged it so that no application had been made to his disciples in his absence, but then they had wanted the lesson the failure carried in its bosom. He could easily have cured that maniac boy at once and by a word; but then his father had missed that lesson which, in the short conversation with him, was conveyed. And through both the great truth is made known that in this world of sin and sorrow the prime necessity is, that we should have faith in God and faith in Jesus Christ—not in certain truths about God or about Jesus Christ—but simple, childlike trust in God as our Father, in Jesus as our Saviour; a faith that will lead us in all times of weakness and exposure, temptation and distress, to cast ourselves upon a help that never was refused to those who felt their need of it. H. Mk. 14, 15. The old adversaries of our Lord, the scribes, had taken advantage of his absence on the mount of Transfiguration, to win a temporary triumph, or something like one, over his disciples. T.—In that short tour, when they had been sent out to go two by two through Galilee, Jesus had given them power over unclean spirits—a power which they had exercised without check or failure. And now, when they are left alone, and this most painful case is brought to them, in their Master's name they command the unclean spirit to go forth, but their words return to them void. Some scribes are there, ready enough to take advantage of the dilemma into which they had been thrown. A great multitude had in the mean time assembled; a scoffing spirit had been stealing into the hearts of many, when Jesus and the three are seen coming down from the hill-side. The suddenness of his appearance—his coming at the very time that his disciples were hard pressed, perhaps, too, the very calmness and majesty of his appearance, as some of that glory of the mountain-top still lingers around him—produces a quick revolution of feeling in the fickle multitude. Straightway a kind of awe—half admiration, half alarm—comes over them, and, “greatly amazed,” they leave the scribes and the discomfited disciples, and they run to him and salute him. H. 16,17. Our Lord, however, takes no notice of what had attracted them; but addressing himself to the scribes, he demands the subject of their discussion, ready to meet them where they had pressed hard upon his half-instructed and as yet timid apostles. Ere they had time to reply, the father of the boy, whose case had occasioned the dispute, himself steps forward and answers the question. B.—Lunatic. Lunacy and demoniacal possession are not one and the same thing, though both may be united in one person. The demon took advantage of the child's lunacy. Demoniac possessions seemed to cease when Jesus rose from the dead. When Jesus came in the flesh, Satan seems to have come in the flesh also, for demoniac possessions took place then that had not before. But this is now the dispensation of the Spirit; and Satan does not take possession of the body, but he still “worketh in the children of disobedience.” J. C. 18. And they could not. The faith of the disciples wavered by the plain difficulty of the thing which seemed impossible to overcome, when so many evils were digested into one—deafness, dumbness, frenzy, and possession of the devil; and all these from the cradle. J. L.—19. The disciples are not exclusively aimed at, nor chiefly, but rather the multitude and the father: they, however, are included in the rebuke. T.—20. The spirit tare him.** Still Jesus does nothing, but keeps conversing with the father about the case—partly to have its desperate features told out by him who knew them best, in the hearing of the spectators; partly to let its virulence have time to show itself; and partly to deepen the exercise of the father's soul, to draw out his faith, and thus prepare both him and the by-standers for what he was to do. B. 22-24. But if thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us.** Genuine and pathetic utterance of fatherly affection, identifying itself with the object of its love, and intent upon the getting that child cured; all right here in the father's feeling toward his son; but something wrong, something defective in the feeling toward Christ which, for the man's own sake and for his son's sake, and for the sake of that gathered crowd, and for the sake of us, and of all who shall ever read this narrative, Jesus desired to correct. “If thou canst do any thing,” the father says. “If thou canst believe,” is our Lord's quick reply. “It is not a question as to my power, but altogether of thy faith; for if thou canst but believe, all things are possible, this thing can easily be done.” Receiving the rebuke in the spirit in which it was given, at once seeing that it was his want of faith that stood in the way of his son's cure, sensible that he had been wrong in challenging Christ's power, that Christ was right in challenging his faith, with a flood of tears that told how truly humble and broken his spirit was, the man cries out, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” H.—The little spark of faith kindled in the father's soul revealed to him the deeps of unbelief which were there. Thus it is ever: only in the light of the actual presence of grace in the soul does any man perceive the strength and prevalence of the opposing corruption. Only he who believes, guesses aught of the unbelief of his heart. T.—Few utterances that have come from human lips have carried more in them of the spirit that we should all seek to cherish; nor would it be easy to calculate how many human beings have taken up the language this man taught them to employ. H. Faith is here, as in all other cases, set as the condition of healing; on other occasions it is the faith of the person; but here, that being impossible, the father's is accepted instead; even as the Syrophenician mother's in the room of her daughter's. T.—Jesus requires faith as the condition and means of obtaining peace and rest: but this faith is not required to be, and of its own nature cannot be, mature and perfect. Therefore, in all hours of temptation and disquietude, cry to the Lord to increase your faith, to help your unbelief. By every motive of God's past blessings, and your present infirmities, need, and imagined desertion and destitution, pray to him for more of help, more of mercy and compassion; and entreat of him, in his strength to perfect your weakness. Thus shall light spring out of darkness, and mourning be turned into thanksgiving and joy. Dean Wordsworth. 17-27. Compare Sections 27 and 59. M. 20. Jesus took the opportunity which this private interview with his disciples afforded—as he had taken the opportunity of his interview with the importunate father—to proclaim the great power, the omnipotence of faith. This obviously was the one great lesson which, in this passage of his earthly history, Jesus designed to teach. H.—As the secret of all weakness is in unbelief, so of all strength is faith; and this our Lord teaches them. T.—“Removing mountains” was among the Jews a common hyperbole for the conquest of stupendous difficulties. A great teacher was called by the rabbis “uprooter of mountains.” See many instances in Lightfoot. F. 21. The faith which shall be effectual against this must be a faith exercised in prayer, that has not relaxed itself by compliance with the demands of the lower nature, but girt itself up to an austerer rigor and self-denial. T.—There are forms of spiritual, physical, and moral evil so intense and so inveterate, that they can only be exercised by prayer, united to that self-control and self-denial of which fasting is the most effectual and striking symbol. F. # Section 78.—Foretells his Death and Resurrection. The Temple Tribute. Passing through Galilee. L. 43 But while they wondered every one at all things which Jesus did, and while they abode in Galilee, Jesus taught his disciples and said unto them, Let these sayings sink down into your ears: for the Son of man shall be betrayed and delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him; and after that he is killed, he shall rise again the third day. But they understood not that saying, and it was hid from them, that they perceived it not: and they were afraid to ask him of that saying. And they were exceeding sorry. M. 24 And when they were come to Capernaum, they that received tribute money came to Peter, and said, Doth not your Master pay tribute? He saith, Yes. And when he was come into the house, Jesus prevented him, saying, What thinkest thou, Simon? of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute? of their own children, or of strangers? Peter saith unto him, Of strangers. Jesus saith unto him, Then are the children free. Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea, and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up: and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money: that take, and give unto them for me and thee. It is a just and pregnant remark of Neander that “the image of Christ could never have sprung from the consciousness of sinful humanity, but must be regarded as the reflection of the actual life of such a Being.” Literature, confessedly, shows no parallel to it. The Hebrew mind, uninventive, bigoted, full of prejudice and of pride, desiring intensely secular advancement, must have seen and felt this spiritual splendor before it could portray it. Indeed any genius that has appeared among men must have been in like manner illumined, before it could have written or suggested the gospels. Homer never sang, in his resounding epic verse, such a singular combination of properties and parts, such a marvellous and unparalleled person as this. Plato, the most copious of all Grecian thinkers, the highest in philosophical and moral intuition, the most affluent in culture, never delineated and never imagined such a character. His ideal good man is weak and lifeless in comparison. The supposition that the rude and untrained Hebrew fishermen—not poets at all, nor philosophical artists, not by nature saintly men, nor gifted with extraordinary spiritual insight, but common in fibre, engaged from childhood in manual occupations, and pervaded with the meanness of sentiment and of sympathy which belonged to the Jew—that they imagined this, each for himself, and knit their fancies into the compactness of this personal life, making its childhood so lovely and its manhood so majestic, and then told of it, each in his own plain way, without having seen it, leaving it to be the wonder of the world, and the superlative marvel of history, while still all unreal—it is too incredible to ask refutation! R. S. S. L. 43-45. After the cure of the demoniac, Jesus proceeded on his way. Aware that this remarkable miracle, and the manner in which his presence had silenced the scribes, were likely to exalt the expectations of his disciples; and conscious that the three apostles had gathered nourishment to the like expectations from what they had witnessed on the mount, our Lord again spoke very plainly of his betrayal, his death, and his resurrection. Nothing could be plainer than his words, to which he bespoke their earnest attention: "Let these sayings sink deep into your ears." But it is said that "they understood not"—mainly because they were not willing to understand—how such humiliation, which would seem to frustrate all their hopes and expectations, could consist with the earthly greatness of the Messiah in which they expected to share. It is to be recollected, that in these intimations their future benefit, more than their present enlightenment, was what Jesus had in view. After all had passed, their faith would be strengthened by remembering his declarations, that this humiliation was not only consistent with the purpose for which he came into the world, but was the very purpose itself. K. M. 24-26. Those who put this question were not the publicans or ordinary tax-gatherers, who levied the dues laid upon the Jews by the Romans. Nor was the question one about the payment of any common tax. The very form of the question, had it been literally rendered, would have indicated this—"Doth not your Master pay the didrachma?" a coin then modern and in circulation, equivalent to the old half-shekel, which, having gone out of use, had become rare. Every Jew of twenty years old and upward was required to give a half-shekel yearly for the maintenance, first of the tabernacle, and afterward of the temple. H.—This didrachma (two drachmas) was exactly the sum we find mentioned (Exod. 30: 11-16) as the ransom of the soul, to be paid by every Israelite above twenty years old, to the service and current expenses of the tabernacle or temple. Josephus mentions that it was an annual payment in his time. T.—This tax was paid by every Jew in every part of the world, whether rich or poor; and, as on the first occasion of its payment, to show that the souls of all alike are equal before God, "the rich paid no more, and the poor no less." It produced vast sums of money, which were conveyed to Jerusalem by honorable messengers. F. Yes. In such an instant acknowledgment of the obligation, there was an overlooking on Peter's part of the dignity of Christ's person, and of his position toward the temple. To remind him of this oversight, without waiting for any communication as to what had occurred, Jesus said, "What thinkest thou, Simon? of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute? of their own children, or of strangers?"—those who are not members of their own family. Peter saith, "Of the latter; of strangers." Then are the children free. Upon this simple principle Christ would have Peter to recognize his immunity from that tribute which was now claimed—for was he not greater than the temple? Did he not bear to that temple the relation of the Son in the house of his Father? And did he not as such stand free from all the obligations which the King and Lord of that house had laid upon his servants—his subjects? H.—It is not as one of many, not as the first among many sons, but as the true and only Son of God, he claims this liberty for himself; and the reasoning itself is a strong and convincing testimony to the proper Sonship, and in the capacity of Son to the proper relationship of Jesus Christ to the Father. T. 27. Notwithstanding, lest we offend. This tax is for upholding my Father's house; as his Son the tax is not due by me. Yet let us pay it lest we offend (be a stumbling-block to) them who know not my relation to the Lord of the temple. B.—Being engaged, through Peter's hasty imprudence, to the rendering of the didrachma, he did it in the remarkable way of this present miracle—a miracle which should testify that he was Lord over nature, and having nothing, yet truly possessed all things. Here, as so often in the life of our Lord, the depth of his poverty is lightened by a gleam of his glory. T.—He would pay the contribution to avoid hurting the feelings of any, and especially because his apostle had promised it in his behalf: but he could not pay it in an ordinary way, because that would be to compromise a principle. "He pays the tribute, therefore," says Clarius, "but taken from a fish's mouth, that his majesty may be recognized." F.—There was no need, only a becomingness, in the payment; in the same way as there was no necessity for his baptism; nor yet for the circumcision which he received in his flesh; but he took on him the humiliations of the law, that he might deliver from under the law. And here comes out the deeper meaning of the Lord not paying for himself only, but for Peter, the representative of all the faithful—"for me and for thee;"—he came under the same yoke with men, that they might enter into the same freedom which was his. T. In the great temple of the visible creation Jesus was a Son; all things there were ready to serve him —the flowers of the field, the birds of the air, the fish of the sea. At Christ's bidding one of the latter was to have in its mouth the stater, the four-drachma piece, the very sum required from two persons for the yearly temple-tax. H.—As in the miraculous draught of fishes, the miracle does not lie only in a foreknowledge on the Lord's part that so it should be in the first fish which came up, for it was not merely that he foreknew the fact; but he himself, by the mysterious potency of his will, which ran through all nature, drew the particular fish to that spot at that moment, and ordained that it should swallow the hook. Compare Jon. 1: 17, "The Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah." Thus we see the sphere of animal life unconsciously obedient to his will; that also is not out of God, but moves in him, as does every other creature (1 Kings 13: 24; 20: 36; Amos 9: 3). T. ## Section 79.—Ambition rebuked. The Little Child. Capernaum. M. 1 At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the Mk.33 kingdom of heaven? And being in the house, he asked them, What was it that ye 34 disputed among yourselves by the way? But they held their peace: for by the way they had disputed among themselves, which of them should be greatest. 35 And Jesus, perceiving the thought of their heart, sat down, and called the twelve, and saith unto them, If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and ser- vant of all: M. 2 And he called a little child unto him, and took and set him in the midst of them, and 3 said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye 4 shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And when he had 5 taken him in his arms, he said unto them, Whoso shall receive one such little child in my name, receiveth me: and whosoever shall receive me, receiveth not me, but him that sent me; for he that is least among you all, the same shall be great. Mk. 38 And John answered him, saying, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name; and he followeth not us; and we forbade him, because he followeth not with us. 39 But Jesus said, Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my 40 name, that can lightly speak evil of me. For he that is not against us, is on our part. 41 For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink, in my name, because ye belong 42 to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward. But whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a mill- stone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into and drowned in the depth of M. 7 the sea. Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences Mk.43 come: but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh! Wherefore if thy hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, to be cast into the fire that never shall 44, 45 be quenched: where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into everlasting fire: where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God, into life, with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell-fire: where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another. To know Christ is not to have seen him in the flesh; to follow Christ is not to follow his person. To know and to follow him is to recognize him as God manifest in the flesh, to rest upon his promises, to breathe his spirit. Did these men, whom Jesus had chosen, not for what they were in themselves, but in order more fully to illustrate in them his power, really follow Jesus Christ? Did they follow him, when they disputed among themselves who should occupy the first places in heaven? Did they follow him, when they besought him to bring down fire from heaven, to destroy an unbelieving city? Did they follow him, when they asked from him indemnities and pledges for a sacrifice scarcely commenced? How many times, in the midst of that company of apostles, was the Son of God alone! The sole confidant of his own high designs, the sole auditor of his own divine thoughts, how often did he seek around him in vain for a single soul that comprehended him, a single heart that loved him as he wished to be loved! What, then, did these disciples claim when they said, "This man followeth not with us?" What difference did that establish in their favor; and how could they know that this unknown person did not follow Jesus better than they did themselves? How does intolerance here, as in all other cases, show itself the close companion of weakness, and tolerance the associate of greatness! Jesus is the most tolerant of beings, because he is the most holy. Everything which affects his person as a man disturbs him not, wounds him not. What is it to him that this man does not follow him with the twelve? He casts out demons, and casts them out in the name of the Son of God. It is enough; this man is for him. A. V. M. 1. The kingdom of heaven. As to the nature of this kingdom, even to his closest followers, his language was most perplexing and contradictory. An unworldly kingdom, a moral dominion, a purely religious community, held together only by the bond of common faith, was so unlike the former intimate union of civil and religious polity, so opposite to the first principles of their theocracy, as to be utterly unintelligible. The real nature and design of the new religion seemed altogether beyond their comprehension. And it is not remarkable to trace it as it slowly dawned on the minds of the apostles themselves, and gradually, after the death of Jesus, extended its horizon till it comprehended all mankind within its expanding view. H. M. Mk. 34. Which should be greatest. They had as yet no other notion of the kingdom that was shortly to appear than that it would be a temporal one; that their Master was to become a powerful prince, with places, honors, wealth, at his command. And what more natural than that they whom he had chosen to be confidential attendants in the days of his humiliation should be then signally exalted and rewarded? H.—Christ takes off his disciples from the consideration of his power, to fix their minds upon that of his humiliations; and they leave this profitable subject to think of their own greatness, and how to raise themselves above others. Q.—They seemed to realize that some strange and memorable issue of Christ's life, accompanied by some great development of the Messianic kingdom, was at hand; and this unhappily produced the only effect in them which it should not have produced. Instead of stimulating their self-denial, it awoke their ambition; instead of confirming their love and humility, it stirred them up to jealousy and pride. F. In his answer, Jesus gives us to understand that questions of this sort ought not to be moved at all. That the indispensable condition of entrance into the kingdom of heaven is in every case a childlike simplicity. To such an extent, indeed, does this hold good, that all ideas and questions of degree, of the great and the little, the more and the less, the wiser and the simpler, are excluded among the children of God. C. B.—His lowly meekness had led him to despise all worldly honor, and it was now bearing him, with a kingly grandeur, to the abasement of the cross, that he might open to his nation, and to mankind, the way to peace with their Father in heaven, and found a kingdom of holiness, truth, and love; to ennoble and bless the present, and expand into eternal felicity in the world to come. It was vital, therefore, for his disciples, then, as now, that they should have the same heavenly temper. Without it, they could neither be efficient instruments in spreading his kingdom, nor have any share in it themselves, for it was itself the kingdom—the reign of God in the soul. G. 35. This first outbreak of selfishness and strife, among his chosen companions, was a great occasion in the sight of Jesus. It might and it did spring to a large extent from ignorance, and, with the removal of that ignorance, might be subdued; but it might and it did spring from sources which, after fullest knowledge had been conveyed of what the kingdom was and wherein its distinctions lay, might still have power to flood the Church with a host of evils. Therefore it was that Jesus would signalize this occasion by words and an act of particular impressiveness. If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last. If any man, actuated by selfish, ambitious motives, seek to be first in my kingdom, he shall be last. But if any man would be first within that kingdom, first in usefulness, first in honor there, let him be last, willing to be the servant of others, prepared to take any place, make any sacrifice, render any service, provided only that others' welfare be thereby advanced. In humbling himself so, that man shall be exalted. H.— M. 2. He did not directly reprove them further; but in a few words, made impressive by a vivid illustration, he set before them the worthlessness of their contention, and its utter antagonism to the spirit which must rule in the kingdom of God. Taking a little child, he placed him in their midst, and said, "Let this child, in its unassuming ingenuousness, be your model; he among you that is most childlike and unassuming, that thinks least of himself and his own worth, he shall be greatest (shall be of most importance to the kingdom of God)." N. 3. Become as little children.** Unless ye become as unambitious and unaspiring, as meek, as humble and contented, as little concerned about worldly honors and distinctions, as the child before you, ye cannot "enter into the kingdom of heaven," ye can never be considered as true objects of Christ's kingdom here, or be capable of inheriting the rewards of heaven hereafter. P. 4. It shall not be the wisest, the wealthiest, the most powerful, but whosoever shall most humble himself, and in humility be likest to this little child, the same shall be greatest in the kingdom of heaven. H.—The principle thus announced by Christ struck at the root of the contention among the disciples. Their false emulation could have no place, if their actions, whether great or small, were alike in value, if alike done in the name of Christ; and to magnify themselves, or their claims, would have been absurd in view of such a rule of action. N. 5. Receive such little child in my name.** How can parents be said to receive children in the name of Christ? Plainly enough, it is not by lavishing upon them a sentimental admiration, or an indulgent fondness; not by rejoicing over them with a selfish sort of pride, as the heirs of our property or the upholders of our worldly reputation; not by carelessness of their spiritual training and neglect of their souls. I know of hardly any gloomier sight in the world than one of these homes ruled by this world's temper, where this unsanctified pride in children's beauty or attainments, however strong or kind, is nothing under the sun but an extension of poor self-love—the celestial quality, the divine element, of parental affection perished from it; homes where the spiritual law and life in Christ find no grateful recognition, exercise no binding control; homes where everything else is done for children except that one thing without which all else is worthless, receiving them in the name of Christ; where parents gaze into the child's face only to see a reflection of their own personal satisfaction, and cling to the frail body all the more tenaciously and desperately because there is no tranquil looking forward beyond the bodily separation. The spiritual obligation involved in receiving children in the name of Christ requires that we esteem them, even in childhood, as sharers with ourselves in a divine covenant. By regarding them as the lawful inheritors of Christ's spiritual promises—as the intended members of his Church, and imitators of his life, and partakers of his redemption—as the appointed subjects of baptism, of prayer, and of inward renewal, as being born, each one, to yield the world a Christian character, and thus as being profanely and terribly wronged whenever an irreligious indifference cheats them of this immortal portion—this, Christ would teach us, is to receive children in his name. This is to take them for what they are; solemnly to take them into our hands, as out of the hand of God, and while clasping them to our breasts with natural human love, to look reverently up to their higher Father, and lift consecrating petitions that they may be saved in the life everlasting. And now, to this day, whatever Christian parent, out of a living and supreme faith in Christ, recognizes the sanctity of a child's life, and diligently trains him up to be a disciple, receives that child in the name of Christ, and gives the surest evidence that he has received Christ himself. He helps to fulfil the final and inspiring prediction with which the prophet of the old dispensation ushered in and described the new—that the hearts of the fathers should be turned to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers. F. D. H. Mk. 38. The expression “in my name” seems to have suggested to John a sudden question, which broke the thread of Christ’s discourse. They had seen, he said, a man who was casting out devils in Christ’s name; but since the man was not one of them, they had forbidden him. Had they done right? F.—There is here an intimate connection with what our Saviour had just spoken. It is as if John had said: Was it then right for us to forbid one to cast out devils in thy name, when the receiving of even a little child in thy name is the same as receiving thee? J. J. O. 39,40. “No,” Jesus answered; “let the prohibition be removed. He who could do works of mercy in Christ’s name could not lightly speak evil of that name. He who was not against them was with them.” F.—Put no check on efforts for Christ, however ill-judged, however self-willed, however imperfect as to grasp of doctrine or entire allegiance to him as others judge it. He who knows the heart, let him be judge of the heart’s intents. Aim not at, expect not, conformity. All think not alike, feel not alike, act not alike. Christ came for all, is wide enough for all, is deep enough for all: let all come to him—let all work for him. A.—Jesus here taught the disciples (and the lesson was a most weighty one for their coming labors) that they were not to require a perfect faith and an immediate attachment to their communion from men at once; that they were to recognize preparatory and intermediate stages; to drive back no one whose face was turned in the right direction; to hinder none who might wish to confess or glorify Christ among men in any way; in a word, to oppose no one who sought the same end, and thus advanced the object of their ministry, even though out of their own communion, and not seeking to glorify Christ precisely in the same sense and by the same methods as themselves. N. In his answer, what a lesson there is to contending, narrow-minded religionists, who can see nothing good beyond their own circle! “We must not narrow,” as if he had said, “the cause of God to our own party, but rejoice in goodness wherever it appears. If we are right, it is all coming our way.” What an admonition to those who would impose their own way of work upon every other! Ker.—We know how thoroughly that spirit of fanaticism was at last subdued in the heart of the meekest and most loving of the twelve, and how he moved afterward among his fellow-men with step of Christ-like gentleness, and became the “guardian spirit of the little ones of the kingdom.” H. 42. And then, gently resuming his discourse—the child yet nestling in his arms, and furnishing the text for his remarks—he warned them of the awful guilt and peril of offending, of tempting, of misleading, of seducing from the paths of innocence and righteousness, of teaching any wicked thing, or suggesting any wicked thought to one of those little ones. F.—To “offend,” in the Scriptural use of the word, is to cause any one to fall from the faith, or to renounce his belief in Christ; and against every one who makes use of violence or artifice to terrify or seduce the sincere, humble, and unsuspicuous believer in Christ from his faith and obedience to his divine Master, the severest woes and the heaviest punishments are here denounced. P. 43-47. Their punishment is represented by two metaphors, drawn from the different ways of burying the dead, in use among the Jews. Bodies of men interred in the earth are eaten up of worms which die when their food falleth; and those that are burned, are consumed in fire which extinguishes itself, when there is no more fuel to feed it. But it shall not be so with the wicked; their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched. M.—This worm is that worm of conscience, which preys upon and stings the soul with bitter reflections, of what it might have been and of what it is, of the happiness it hath lost and the misery it hath incurred. Those corroding passions, envy, hatred, shame, rage, and despair, all shall feed and exasperate that worm which dieth not, but eats with such inward and excessive anguish, as can be expressed only by perpetual weeping and gnashing of teeth. Besides the never-dying worm, there is the unquenchable fire. Bisse.—Hell . . . hell . . . hell-fire. Thrice repeated, how awful this, of itself, tremendous word sounds from the lips of LOVE INCARNATE! But when to this he adds, thrice over in the same terms, “where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched”—words enough to make both the ears of every one that heareth them to tingle—one carinot but loathe the sentimentalism which condemns all such language in the mouths of his servants, as inconsistent with what they presume to call “the religion of the meek and lowly Jesus.” It is just the apostle who breathed most of his Master’s love whose epistles express what would be thought the harshest things against vital error and those who hold it. It is love to men, not hatred, that prompts such severity against what will inevitably ruin them. B. 49,50. The persecutions, struggles, and sufferings of the disciples were to be as salt to preserve and freshen the divine life in them; to make them more and more fit sacrifices to be consecrated to God. But (verse 50) the salt must be there, the spirit of self-sacrifice, springing from the divine life within, before outward trials can serve to purify the heart. The disciples were, therefore, exhorted to keep it within them. "Have salt in yourselves." N.—Have peace one with another. The disciples not merely conversed as to their preëminence in the kingdom of God, but fell into a sharp contest on the point. In the altercation, they not only wounded each other's feelings, but gave such offence to any individuals who might be present, that their faith might be shaken alike in the reality of any higher life as existing among the Saviour's companions, and in his own exalted character and destination. This explains why Christ successively discoursed of humility, of offences, of grace toward sinners, and of reconciliation. He teaches his disciples that in the divine kingdom the power of self-sacrificing, devoted, self-abasing love (which, in the Saviour himself, is seen in its glorious perfection) is the one turning-point on which all preëminence depends; while, conversely in the world, he who rules is wont to make use of the governed simply for himself, his own benefit, his reputation, his glory. The fleshly minds of the disciples, therefore, mistaking the idea of God's kingdom, had induced them in the future manifestation of Christ's glory to look for the gratification of selfish hopes. These the Lord overthrows by intimating that only he who has divested himself of all self-seeking, and who lives in pure love and lowly self-renunciation, shall there reign, or exert commanding influence. O.—43-50. The meaning of the passage may be paraphrased thus: Cut off the right hand or the right foot, or pluck out the right eye, i. e., sacrifice what is dearest to you, rather than suffer it to lead you or others into sin; for every one of my disciples must be salted in the fire of trial, i. e., prepared to become a living sacrifice by fiery trial, even as, under the O. T. dispensation, every sacrifice is required to be salted with salt. Ye are, as I have before told you, the salt of the earth. But if the salt hath lost its saltness, i. e., the Christian the spirit of voluntary self-sacrifice, by which alone his purifying influence is exerted, whence shall it derive its moral power? Have salt in yourselves, have, that is, this spirit of self-sacrifice, and you will have peace one with another, there will be an end to unseemly strife as to which shall be the greatest. L. A. ## Section 80.—Tenderness toward his Own. Offences among Christians. Promises to Two or Three. Capernaum. 10. TAKE heed that ye despise not one of these little ones: for I say unto you, That in 11 heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven. For 12 the Son of man is come to save that which was lost. How think ye? if a man have 13 an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray? And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep, than of the 14 ninety and nine which went not astray. Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish. 15 Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault be- 16 tween thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of 17 two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be 18 unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. Verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven. 19 Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth, as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. Our Lord teaches that association in prayer is so exceedingly profitable, that even if two only should embark in it, there would be grand results. Let three, four, or a hundred and twenty, of one accord, of one mind, seek to utilize the promises; commensurate fruits shall appear in some early day of Pentecost. The great thing is not the numbers, but the agreement. The prayer of two whose souls are attuned to exactly the same key, and who have learned to merge their separate interests in one common interest, shall prevail more than the prayer of tens of thousands, whose minds are occupied, more or less, with lingering considerations of purely personal good. The little companies that come together in upper chambers and by-places, in the name of Christ, remembering his promises, seeking his presence, cherishing his spirit, honoring his word—in these little companies Christ is to be found. He is present in the word which they read, hearken to, believe. He is the subject of their conversation. They dwell upon his life, sufferings, and love. He is present by the Spirit, that takes of him and shows unto them. They are convinced of sin, confess it, and forsake it. They behold his glory, and rejoice greatly in him. Such effects of Christ's words and glances often take place in these meetings, as greatly surpass what took place when he was visibly present with those twelve disciples of old. He is present as a righteous advocate and intercessor. They are his plenipotentiaries. He gives them their instructions, and clothes them with power. If Christ be in these assemblies, then are they the true centres from whence the mightiest influences flow abroad over the world. G. B. 10,11. Take heed that ye despise not. Take care that ye do not treat with scorn or contempt such little children as ye now see before you, or those believers in me who resemble these children in docility, meekness, humility, and indifference to all that the world calls great and honorable; for your heavenly Father condescends to take them under his protection; he sends even his angels, those ministers of his that do his pleasure, to guard and watch over these little children, and these humble Christians who are like them in innocence of mind. One thing is most clearly proved by this text, as it is confirmed by a multitude of others; namely, the doctrine of a particular providence, which, either by ministering angels, or by the all-comprehending and omnipotent eye of God himself, watches over those true disciples of Christ, who approach most nearly to the humility, the meekness, the innocence, and the simplicity of a child. P.—Not only, he adds, are the angels thus employed, but it was the very purpose for which even the Son of God came into the world, to seek and bring back those who had strayed away. Mann.—The fundamental idea is, that the highest angels of God in heaven represent the smallest subjects of his kingdom on earth. The eye of God rests in special protection on the young seed in his kingdom (Matt. 19). But as Christ is the Angel of his presence in a unique sense, while here we read of angels of the presence in the plural, it follows, that Christ himself, as the great Advocate and Intercessor, is himself the central point of this angelic guardianship. Lange. The general sense is plain, that if the highest angels do not disdain to perform services of protection and friendship for the meanest Christian, much less should fellow-disciples disdain to do it. To behold the face of God may signify waiting near his throne, and be an allusion to the office of chief ministers in earthly courts who have nearest access to their princes. The argument enforcing the precept is twofold: First, the highest angels do not disdain to minister unto such; secondly, even the Son of man came, not to reign and triumph upon earth, but by all the offices of humility and endearment to save such, and he takes a constant oversight of the least as well as the greatest of his redeemed ones. D.—The whole object and errand of the Son of man into the world is to “save the lost.” Take heed that ye, by causing “offences,” do not lose the saved. B. 13. Rejoiceth more. Rejoiceth rather; i. e., at the recovery and restoration of the one lost sheep, his joy is rather directed to that particular sheep than to all the rest; and why? Because that particular sheep is now delivered from that condition of misery over which he had so much grieved, and because it is restored to the company and condition of the other sheep who have not strayed and in whom he joys so much. W.—The shepherd does not set a greater value on the lost sheep than he does on those that are safe: but his joy for the moment, at the recovery of the lost sheep, is greater than he receives from all the rest, because he has regained that, and is sure of all the rest. The meaning therefore of this parable is, that God's parental tenderness extends to all, even to the sinner that goes astray, and that he rejoices at the recovery and conversion of every the meanest individual, and most grievous offender. P.—So much does he long to draw souls in, that he opens gates in all the walls, on the four sides of the city, which lies four-square to all the points of the compass—the city of holiness and rest. He never shuts them. If they ever seem “strait,” and the way to them “narrow,” it is only because, without obedience and a likeness to the self-denying Lord of the place, they that enter would not be at home there, but uneasy prisoners at the court of a goodness which judges them. His heavenly economy is not to bar out but to invite in. He suffers ten thousand stammering tongues, of scanty wisdom, to teach and preach him, if only they will heartily repeat his name. If there are not ordained and official hands to baptize new-born children into his family, they shall not be left outcasts and homeless for want of outward and inward water, and a welcome. The Son of man is come to save the lost! F. D. H. 15-17. After having, in what goes before, warned believers against offending weaker brethren, the discourse brings to view the opposite point of the contrast, and describes how a believer should conduct himself if injury be inflicted upon him, and specially if it be done by a fellow-believer. O.—With those who have ill-treated and injured us, we should first try the effect of private, gentle, and friendly admonition; if that fail, then call in two or three persons of character and reputation, to add weight to our remonstrances; and, if that has no effect, we are then justified in bringing the offender before the proper tribunal. P. 17. The fundamental principle of the Christian community is, that there shall be no other subordination than that of its members to God and Christ, and that this shall be absolute; while, in regard to each other, they are to be upon the footing of complete equality. Christ himself drew a striking contrast between his own community and all political organizations in this respect. Christ only prepared the way for the foundation of the Church, according to its inner essence and its outward form; as he gave no complete doctrinal system, so he erected no Church fabric that was to stand through all time; his work was rather to implant in humanity the new spirit, which was to adapt to itself such outward forms as would meet the wants of human progress in successive ages. N.—The Church, the ecclesia, is the body of Christ’s followers, called out from the unspiritual world, from the kingdom of darkness, and brought into spiritual obedience to him as their head. Matthew represents Jesus as identifying the Church with the kingdom of heaven, and giving it his divine authority. And the kingdom of heaven, as manifested in the Church, is thus seen to be a spiritual organization, independent of all temporal and worldly organizations. D. S. G. 19. It shall be done for them.** All that is really a part of the divine gospel is in the form of promise. I will give. I come to do this or that. Ask of me, and I will grant. Nothing is thrown upon us, but that which the weakest and the humblest can best perform; to believe, to ask, to wait, and to accept. V. ## Section 81.—How to forgive. The Unmerciful Servant. Capernaum. 21. THEN came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, 22 and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until 23 seven times: but, Until seventy times seven. Therefore is the kingdom of heaven 24 likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants. And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents. 25 But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife 26 and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee 27 all. Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and 28 forgave him the debt. But the same servant went out, and found one of his fellow-servants, which owed him an hundred pence: and he laid hands on him, and took him 29 by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest. And his fellow-servant fell down at his 30 feet, and besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. And he 31 would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he should pay the debt. So when his fellow-servants saw what was done, they were very sorry, and came and told unto 32 their lord all that was done. Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O 33 thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me: shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow-servant, even as I had pity on thee? 34. And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all 35 that was due unto him. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses. 1. And it came to pass that when Jesus had finished these sayings, he departed from Galilee. THERE was a fundamental error in Peter's question, for in proposing a limit beyond which forgiveness should not extend, there was evidently implied the notion, that a man in forgiving gave up a right which he might, under certain circumstances, exercise. The purpose of our Lord's answer—in other words, of the parable—is to make clear that when God calls on a member of his kingdom to forgive, he does not call on him to renounce a right, but that he has now no right to exercise in the matter: asking for and accepting forgiveness, he has implicitly pledged himself to show it. T. God, rich in mercy, shows it more abundantly than we ask, when we ask it as we ought. He cannot, as one may say, withstand humility: this disarms his justice, and opens the treasures of his mercy. God never grants anything short of a full pardon; he forgives the greatest debts as easily as the least. Q. 21,22. Then came Peter to him.** For further instruction as to the duty of forgiveness inculcated in the preceding verses. He wanted a specific rule limiting the obligation of forgiveness. The rabbis limited it to three repetitions of an offence. Peter, with a glimmering idea that the rule should be enlarged, proposed seven as the limit. Christ's reply "seventy times seven" refuses to assign any limit. Living in a kingdom of grace, we are to exercise it as we depend upon it, without limitation. L. A.—The duty of forgiving injuries has no limit: however frequently you are injured, if real penitence and contrition follow the offence, a Christian is always bound to forgive. P.—It is one excellency of our Saviour's rules, that they are either never mistaken, or never so mistaken as to do harm. Notwithstanding our Lord bade his followers "forgive their enemies seventy times seven times," the Christian world has hitherto suffered little by too much placability or forbearance. Paley. 23. Take account. This is not, as is plain, the final reckoning, not identical with that of M. 25:19; 2 Cor. 5:10; but rather such a reckoning as that of L. 16:2. T.—Servants.** Not slaves, but ministers or stewards. The individual example is one of high trust, or his debt could not have reached the enormous sum mentioned. 24. Ten thousand talents.** This is the sum at which Haman reckons the revenue derivable from the destruction of the whole Jewish people. David prepared for the temple 3,000 talents of gold, and the princes 5,000; the Queen of Sheba presented to Solomon 120 talents; and the King of Assyria laid on Hezekiah 30 talents of gold. A. —The sum here is immense, whatever talents we suppose these to have been; if the Hebrew, it would be perfectly enormous; yet only therefore the fitter to express the greatness of every man's transgression in thought, word, and deed, against his God. 28. An hundred pence.** This sum is so small as the other was so large, to show how little man can offend against his brother, compared with the amount in which every man has offended against God, so that, in Chrysostom's words, these offences to those are as a drop of water to the boundless ocean. T.—The moment of close dealing between God and the soul has passed. The man goes out from that solemn and searching communion. He has not been converted; he has only been frightened. Arnot. 34. Before he had dealt with him as a creditor with a debtor, now as a judge with a criminal. "The tormentors" are not merely the keepers of the prison as such; but those who also, as the word implies, shall make the life of the prisoner bitter to him. T. 35. So likewise.** In this spirit, for God cannot mistake the character of those he pardons, as men often do. In this beautiful parable it is presupposed that God's forgiveness of us precedes our forgiveness of each other, begets the forgiving disposition in us, and furnishes the grand model of mercy which we are to copy. B.—The description given of the servant who owed the talents can with no propriety be applied to a true child of God, but applies only to a professing Christian. Our Lord, in this parable, urges not the bare duty of forgiveness, but the forgiving from the heart. It shows his utter want of heart in not forgiving, and represents him as utterly insensible of the benefit the master had conferred upon himself. D. K. D. And thus the last lesson which our Lord taught in Galilee reëchoes the first with which he opened the Sermon on the Mount. Indeed, the whole discourse (Sections 79-81) forms a most impressive climax to the teaching which was so begun. Christ's own example, in coming to seek and save the lost, is held forth as the great motive to compassionate love and mutual forgiveness. The power of binding and loosing is now extended to all the apostles; his presence is promised in all their assemblies; and his Father's answer to all their prayers. Once more the solemn warning is repeated, concerning resistance to sin, and decision between the Master and the world; and the note of future judgment, already struck in the Sermon on the Mount, concludes the whole. S. ## Section 82.—Instructing and sending out the Seventy. Capernaum. Mk. 1 And he arose from thence, and cometh into the coasts of Judea, by the farther side of Jordan: and the people resort unto him again; and great multitudes followed him; and as he was wont, he taught them again, and healed them there.L. 10 And he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And behold, there 11 was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, 12 and could in no wise lift up herself. And when Jesus saw her, he called her to him, and 13 said unto her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity. And he laid his hands on her: and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God. 14 And the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because that Jesus had healed on the sabbath-day, and said unto the people, There are six days in which men ought to work: in them therefore come and be healed, and not on the sabbath-day. 15 The Lord then answered him, and said, Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the 16 sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering? And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, 17 these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath-day? And when he had said these things, all his adversaries were ashamed: and all the people rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by him. 18 Then said he, Unto what is the kingdom of God like; and whereunto shall I resemble 19 it? It is like a grain of mustard-seed, which a man took, and cast into his garden, and it grew, and waxed a great tree; and the fowls of the air lodged in the branches of it. 20, 21 And again he said, Whereunto shall I liken the kingdom of God? It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened. “He went about doing good.” He wiped away many a tear; he made many human hearts glad; and many others connected with them felt the benignant and genial influence of his earthly ministry. He relieved and removed a great amount of physical suffering; he created and planted in the world a great amount of physical happiness. He devoted himself to the work of blessing man; and in both regions of his life, in his acts and in his words, in the healing spiritual truths which he imparted, and in the unnumbered material kindnesses which he bestowed, we discover one reigning motive—love of man, deep, enduring, redeeming love. Never passed before the imagination of man, and never but once alighted on this earth so heavenly a vision. Once, in all human history, we meet a being who never did an injury, and never resented one done to him, never uttered an untruth, never practised a deception, and never lost an opportunity of doing good; generous in the midst of the selfish, upright in the midst of the dishonest, pure in the midst of the sensual, and wise far above the wisest of earth's sages and prophets, loving and gentle, yet immovably resolute; and whose illimitable meekness and patience never once forsook him in a vexatious, ungrateful, and cruel world. Y. DESCRIPTIVE of a period of our Lord's life and ministry, which otherwise would have been an utter blank, as telling us what happened away both from Galilee and Judea during the five months that immediately preceded the crucifixion. Evidently the chief scene or theatre of our Lord's labors throughout the period was in the region of Perea, east of the Jordan. It is not likely that he had ever before gone so leisurely through this district. Certainly he had never visited it in the same manner. He came among this new population with all the prestige of his great Galilean name. He came sending messengers before his face—in all likelihood the seventy expending their brief but ardent activities upon this virgin soil. He came as he had come to the Galileans at the opening of his ministry, among whom many of the notices of what occurred here strikingly remind us. But while these coincidences as to events, and repetitions as to discourses, do occur, there occur along with them many things both in the spirit and actions of Christ appropriate exclusively to this particular epoch of his life. No allusions to the time or manner of his own death, no reference to his departure and return, no pressing upon his disciples of the great duty of waiting and watching for his second advent, no prophecies of the approaching overturn of the Jewish economy, came from the lips of Jesus during his sojourn in Galilee. But now all the reasons for reserve are nearly if not entirely gone. Jesus has set his face to go up to Jerusalem to die. He waits and works only a little longer in this remote region beyond Jordan, till the set time has come. Nothing that he can say or do here can have much effect in hastening or retarding the day of his decease. He may give free expression to those thoughts and sentiments which, now that it is drawing near, must be gathering around the great event. And there was a shortness, a decisiveness, a strength of utterance in all Christ's sayings of this period, whether addressed to friends or foes. His instructions, counsels, warnings to his own disciples, he expressed in the briefest, most emphatic terms. This section of our Lord's life and labors has been greatly overlooked—thrown, in fact, into the distance and obscurity which hangs over the region in which it was enacted. A careful study will guide to the conviction that in it Christ occupied a position intermediate between the one assumed in Galilee and the one taken up by him at Jerusalem in the days that immediately preceded his crucifixion. H. Mk. 1. The farther side of Jordan. The region east of the river Jordan, including Bashan and Gilead, because lying beyond the river Jordan, called Perea (beyond). In the time of Christ it was fertile and populous, and inhabited by a mixed population, partly Roman, partly Jewish. It is said that the Jordan valley alone contains the ruins of 127 villages. Most of the events and incidents in Luke (chaps. 10-18) occurred in this district. L. A. L. 14. The ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation. These remarks he has neither the courage to address to Jesus himself, nor the candor to address to the poor healed woman, but preaches at them both by rebuking the multitude, who had no concern in the action at all, beyond the fact that they had been passive spectators of it! F.—Blaming them for coming to be healed, he indeed is thinking not of them, but means that rebuke to glance off on him who has put forth on this day his power to help and to save. 15. Every word of Christ's answer is significant. It is not a defence of his breaking the Sabbath, but a declaration that he has not broken it at all. T.—Their absorbing attachment to the Sabbath, the frenzy which filled them when he set at naught their Sabbatarian uncharities, rose from many circumstances. They were wedded to the religious system which had long prevailed among them, because it is easy to be a slave to the letter, and difficult to enter into the spirit; easy to obey a number of outward rules, difficult to enter intelligently and self-sacrificingly into the will of God; easy to entangle the soul in a network of petty observances, difficult to yield the obedience of an enlightened heart; easy to be haughtily exclusive, difficult to be humbly spiritual; easy to be an ascetic or a formalist, difficult to be pure, and loving, and wise, and free; easy to be a Pharisee, difficult to be a disciple; very easy to embrace a self-satisfying and sanctimonious system of rabbinical observances, very difficult to love God with all the heart, and all the might, and all the soul, and all the strength. F.—I have no heart to dwell on their absurd superstitions, their intense fanaticism, or their social and domestic institutions and manners, comprising an incredible and grotesque mélange of filth and finery, Pharisaic self-righteousness and Sadducean licentiousness. The following is a specimen of the puerilities enjoined and enforced by their learned rabbis: A Jew must not carry on the Sabbath even so much as a pocket-handkerchief, except within the walls of the city. If there are no walls it follows, according to their perverse logic, that he must not carry it at all! To avoid this difficulty, here in Safed, they resort to what is called erüv. Poles are set up at the end of the streets, and strings stretched from the one to the other. This string represents a wall, and a conscientious Jew may carry his handkerchief anywhere within these strings. I was once amused by a devout Israelite who was walking with me on his Sabbath. When we came to the end of the street the string was gone, and so by another fiction he was at liberty to go on without reference to what was in his pocket, because he had not passed the wall. The last time I was here they had abandoned this absurdity, probably to avoid the constant ridicule it brought upon them. W. M. T. 16. The “ought not” catechetically answers, with infinite condescension, the inconsiderate, proud, and unintelligent “ought” of verse 14. “Men ought” was the theme there; so now the “ought” is abundantly returned; “ought not she, according to the law of love, which specially ordains God’s works for the Sabbath, as man’s labor for the remaining days, to be loosed from this misery?” F. 19–21. The first of these parables sets forth the inherent power of the “kingdom of heaven.” Small and insignificant at first to outward sense—begun by a man ignominiously crucified, with a few illiterate followers, having no countenance or support from the ordinary forces of the world—it has yet daily become greater and greater, and at length it shall be for shelter to all the inhabitants of the earth. This parable assures us of the inherent power and outward glory and triumph of the Messiah’s kingdom on the earth. The parable of the leaven shows that, coextensive with this, there is proceeding an inward process of “penetrating and assimilating,” so that the dwellers under the shadow of the kingdom shall also have it “within them.” D. K. D. (Section 57.) ## Section 101.—Entrance into the Kingdom. Message to Herod. Perea. M. 3 THE Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful Mk. 3 for a man to put away his wife for every cause? And he answered and said unto them, 4 What did Moses command you? And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of 5 divorcement, and to put her away. And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the M. 4 hardness of your heart, he wrote you this precept. And he said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning of the creation made them male and 5 female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall 6 cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorce-ment, and to put her away? He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives; but from the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.Mk.10 And in the house his disciples asked him again of the same matter. And he saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her. And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery. His disciples say unto him, If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry. But he said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given. For there are some eunuchs which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it. Then were there brought unto him little children, that he should put his hands on them, and pray; but when his disciples saw it, they rebuked those that brought them.Mk.14 But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and called them unto him, and said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of heaven. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall in no wise enter therein. And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them. And he departed thence. CHRIST is the most unworldly of beings, and yet there is no ascetic sourness or repugnance, no misanthropic distaste in his manner; as if he were bracing himself against the world to keep it off. The more closely he is drawn to other worlds, the more fresh and susceptible is he to the humanities of this. The little child is an image of gladness, which his heart leaps forth to embrace. The wedding and the feast and the funeral have all their cord of sympathy in his bosom. H. B. While we are striving to be strong in the faith, let us not despise the faith of the weakest; for there will come a day to us all when, in the giving way of the powers of nature, and the pouring in of the great water-floods, we shall grasp at something which may hold us up and carry us over. And then, not how much we have searched out and known, not how much we have prevailed, will help us, but how much we have lived on Christ, and heard in our souls of his own life-giving voice, and how much we have shown in the world of his meek and lowly example. A. M. 3. Lawful to put away his wife? A question of difficulty and danger, with which they here tempted him; for he was now under the jurisdiction of Herod Antipas. Herod had imprisoned John for declaring that it was not lawful for him to put away his wife. J. G. B.—4. Nothing is lawful to any man who doubts its lawfulness. Jesus, therefore, instead of answering them, directs them to the source where the true answer was to be found. Setting the primitive order side by side with the Mosaic institution—meeting their “Is it lawful?” with “Have ye not read?”—he reminds them that God, who at the beginning had made man male and female, had thereby signified his will that marriage should be the closest and most indissoluble of all relationships—transcending and even, if necessary, superseding all the rest. F. 6. Jesus sends them back to the original constitution of man as one pair, a male and a female; to their marriage, as such, by divine appointment; and to the purpose of God, expressed by the sacred historian, that in all time one man and one woman should by marriage become one flesh, i. e., so long as both are in the flesh. This being God's constitution, let not man break it up by causeless divorces. B.—He declared that marriage is, according to its idea, an indissoluble union, by which man and wife are joined into one whole, constituting but one life. As it was his work everywhere to lead back all human relations to their original intention, so he decided that the idea of marriage represented in Genesis, as originally the basis of its institution by God, should be realized in life. N. 8. This verse is a key to much of the Mosaic legislation, which only reflected so much of the divine will as could be enforced by civil government. L. A.—“Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts (your rude and carnal condition), suffered you to put away your wives (as state laws do not aim to realize moral ideas or to create a moral sense, but to bring about outward civilization, the laws being adapted to the standpoint of the nature); but from the beginning it was not so.” But Christianity, from its very nature, can make no such condescensions. It is her problem everywhere to realize the ideals of the creation; a task which the new life imparted by God makes possible to her. In fact, Christ’s decision in this particular case illustrates the entire relation of Judaism to Christianity; there, condescension to a rude condition of the natural man, which could not be removed by outward means; here, the restoration of that which was in the beginning. Judaism, in a word, stood midway between the original and the renewal. N.—The law of Moses went as far as it was practicable to go, in view of the debased condition of the people. To have attempted more would have been to accomplish nothing. It laid a degree of restraint upon lawless passion and caprice. It was a license in form, but a restriction in reality. *But it did not, and could not, embody the true idea of the conjugal relation, as that idea lay at the beginning in the Creator’s mind. The New Testament law on this subject was the fulfilment of the Levitical rule. G. P. F. 9. This statement swept away forever the conception of woman as a mere toy or slave of man, and based true relations of the sexes on the eternal foundation of truth, right, honor, and love. To ennoble the house and the family by raising woman to her true position was essential to the future stability of his kingdom, as one of purity and spiritual worth. By making marriage indissoluble he proclaimed the equal rights of woman and man within the limits of the family, and, in this, gave their charter of nobility to the mothers of the world. For her nobler position in the Christian era, compared with that granted her in antiquity, woman is indebted to Jesus Christ. G. Mk. 12. If a woman shall put away her husband. The practice of divorcing the husband, unwarranted by the law, had been, as Josephus informs us, introduced by Salome, sister of Herod the Great, who sent a bill of divorce to her husband; which example was afterward followed by others. By law it was the husband’s prerogative to dissolve the marriage. G. C.—M. 12. His decision was opposed not only to the old Hebrew notion that celibacy was per se ignominious, but also to the ascetic doctrine which made it per se a superior condition of life; a doctrine so widely diffused in later times. It involves his great principle, that the heart and disposition must be devoted to the interests of the kingdom of God, and for it must voluntarily modify all the relations of life as necessity may require. N. 13. Brought little children. He had the ideal childlike spirit, and delighted to see in little ones his own image. Purity, truthfulness, simplicity, docility, and loving dependence, made them his favorite types for his followers. The apostles needed the lessons their characteristics impressed; and though enforced before, he gladly took every opportunity of repeating them. G.—Mk. 14. Forbid them not.** He turned the rebuke of the disciples on themselves. He was as much displeased with them as they had been with the parents and children. F.—To refuse children access to his grace was to misrepresent his spirit, his mission, and his kingdom. In bringing the children at that moment, the mothers interrupted him in an important doctrinal discourse; yet Jesus suspended his teaching, and gave place to a sentiment, a symbol, a sacrament; for the blessing was of the nature of a sacrament. It signified that there was a place in his thought, in his heart, in his mission, in his Church, for children who were too young to understand his teaching. Myriads of children are in heaven, beholding the face of his Father; and the kingdom of grace and salvation upon earth is also for little children. It is pleasing to Christ that parents should bring their children to him in loving consecration, and that children should be embosomed within his Church. J. P. T. Of such is the kingdom of heaven. Then, beyond a doubt, in that kingdom shall all the little ones be found. For it is not as children of Christians, it is not as baptized, but it is as children, that of such is that kingdom. Untainted by duplicity, by impurity, by the schemes of ripened selfishness, in them the great redemption takes effect at once and unquestioned. A.—If all that Jesus meant had been that of suchlike, that is, of those who resemble little children, is the kingdom of heaven, we can see much less appropriateness in the rebuke of the disciples, and in the action of the Lord which followed immediately—his taking the little children up into his arms and blessing them. We accept, then, the expression as implying not simply that of suchlike, but of them, is the kingdom of heaven. It is not, however, upon any single saying of our Lord that we ground our belief that those who die in infancy are saved; it is upon the whole genius, spirit, and object of the great redemption. They will share in the benefit of that life which the second, the spiritual Head of our race, has brought in and dispenses. "Your little ones," said the Lord to ancient Israel, speaking of the entrance into the earthly land of promise—"Your little ones, and your children which in that day had no knowledge between good and evil, they shall go in thither." And of that better land into which for us Jesus as the forerunner has entered, shall we not believe that our little ones, who died before they had any knowledge between good and evil, shall go in thither, go to swell the number of the redeemed, go to raise it to a vast majority of the entire race, mitigating more than we can well reckon the great mystery of the existence here of so much sin, and suffering, and death? H. 15. Receive the kingdom as a little child. This single saying expressed the whole nature of the gospel proclaimed by Christ. It implied that he viewed the kingdom of God as an invisible and spiritual one, to enter which a certain disposition of heart was essential, viz., a childlike spirit, free from pride and self-will, receiving divine impressions in humble submission and conscious dependence; in a word, all the qualities of the child, suffering itself to be guided by the developed reason of the adult, are to be illustrated in the relations between man and God. Without this childlike spirit there can be no religious faith, no religious life. N.—16.** It is surely not to be conceived that all our Lord meant was to inform us that seeing grown people must become childlike in order to be capable of the kingdom of God, therefore they should not hinder infants from coming to him, and therefore he took up and blessed the infants themselves. Was it not just the grave mistake of the disciples that infants should not be brought to Christ, because only grown people could profit by him, which "much displeased" our Lord? And though he took the irresistible opportunity of lowering their pride of reason by informing them that, in order to enter the kingdom, "instead of the children first becoming like them, they must themselves become like the children," this was but by the way; and returning to the children themselves, he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them and blessed them, for no conceivable reason but to show that they were thereby made capable, as infants, of the kingdom of God. B. And he took them up in his arms. May the great Shepherd gather us all, us and our little ones, the fathers, the mothers, the children, into his immortal fold; out of the far country of a wilful and worldly and alienated life, into the Church on earth, into the larger Church, the household undivided and everlasting in heaven! F. D. H. ## Section 112.—The Rich Young Ruler. Peter's Selfish Question. Perea. Mk. 17 AND when he was gone forth into the way, behold, a certain ruler came running, and kneeled to him; and asked him, saying, Good Master, what good thing shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God. But if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou knowest the commandments: Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Defraud not, Honour thy father and thy mother, and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. The young man answered and said unto him, Master, all these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet? Now when Jesus heard these things, beholding him he loved him, and said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing; if thou wilt be perfect, go thy way, sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross and follow me. But when the young man heard that saying, he was very sorrowful, and went away grieved; for he was very rich, and had great possessions. And when Jesus saw that he was very sorrowful, he looked round about, and saith unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. And the disciples were astonished at his words. But Jesus answereth again, and saith unto them, Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God! And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. When his disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying among themselves, Who then can be saved? But Jesus looking upon them saith, With men this is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible. 27. Then answered Peter, and said unto him, Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed 28 thee; what shall we have therefore? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging 29 the twelve tribes of Israel. And verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake and the gospel's, or for the kingdom of God's sake, who shall not receive an hundred-fold now in this present time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come shall inherit ever- 30 lasting life. But many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first. EARTHLY riches are a great obstacle to salvation, because it is hard to possess without loving them. Truth itself affirms this, yet scarce any one hears or believes it. A man is not rich, in the sense here intended, unless he loves riches; and he is properly enough poor in the midst of his treasures, when he uses them, not as a proprietor, but as the steward of God. A rich man is not properly one who only possesses great wealth, but one who is possessed thereby; not one who distributes it as being only a steward, but one who makes it the instrument of his own will, and places his supreme good and happiness therein. The wealth of such a man is like food incorporated and changed into the substance of his heart: to take away the former is to tear out the latter. He alone can do this who has the heart of the covetous person in his hand, and can take out his stony heart, and give him one of flesh. A man may be rich without riches: he may leave all, without having ever possessed anything. By the heart we cleave to earthly possessions; by renouncing them in our heart we disengage ourselves from them. We leave them, when we cease to desire and love them, because we possess them more by desire and love than by possession itself. We properly leave or forsake anything only when we do it by the Spirit, and for the sake of Christ, and in order to follow him; otherwise, whatever our hands let go, is retained by the desire of our hearts. Q. M. 17. That I may inherit eternal life. Jesus saw that he was putting all upon moral goodness; some higher virtue to be reached by his own effort entitling him to the eternal life. He saw that this idea regulated even his conception of Christ's own character, whom he looked upon rather as a preëminently virtuous man than one having any peculiar relationship to God. Checking him, therefore, at the very first—taking exception to the very form of his address, he says, "Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God." H.—He does not decline the epithet good as such, but only in the superficial sense of the rich youth who regarded him simply as a distinguished rabbi and a good man; not as one with God. He did not say, I am not good; but no man is good—much less in comparison with God. P. S.—He could have had but one object—to raise the youth's ideas of Himself, as not to be classed merely with other "good masters," and declining to receive this title apart from the "One" who is essentially and only "good." This indeed is but distantly hinted; but unless this is seen in the background of our Lord's words, nothing worthy of him can be made out of them. B. 18. Jesus, as the youth wanted to do something, tells him merely of the second table, for, as has been well remarked, "Christ sends the proud to the law, and invites the humble to the gospel." F.—20. All these have I kept. There was no doubt great ignorance in this reply. He knew but little of any one of these precepts in the strictness, spirituality, and extent of its requirements, who could venture on any such assertion. Yet there was sincerity in the answer, and it pointed to a by-gone life of singular external propriety, and that the fruit not so much of constraint as of natural amiableness and conscientiousness. As he gave this answer, Jesus beholding him loved him. It was new and refreshing to the Saviour's eye to see such a specimen as this of truthfulness and purity among the rulers of the Jews. H.—Our own experience tells us of not a few on whom we have looked with wistful regret, that they should have all the setting of fairest human jewels, of loveliness and grace, while in the centre, the absence of the one thing needful, the pearl of price, revealed a profound and irreparable blank. The Lord Jesus Christ, who had an eye for all that is fair in God's creation, did not cast a chilling look on anything that is beautiful in human nature. He acknowledged it as good so far as it went, and sought to gain it for the divine and eternal. Ker. 21. Go, sell, and give.** Beneath the pleasing show of outward moralities Christ detected in the young ruler's breast a want of any true regard to God, any recognition of his paramount claims. His heart, his trust, his treasure, were in earthly, not in heavenly things. He needed a sharp lesson to teach him this, to lay bare the true state of things within. Christ at once thrusts the probe into the very heart of the wound. He embodies the claim which he knew the young ruler was unprepared to honor, in that form which struck directly at the idol of his heart, and required its instant and absolute dethronement. H.—Christ commands him to follow, just as he was, without delaying to care for his possessions; expressing, in this particular command, the general thought: "The one thing which thou lackest, and without which none can enter into eternal life, is the denial of thyself and of the world, making everything subordinate to the interests of the divine kingdom." He chose the particular form, instead of the general rule, in order to convince the rich man of his lack the more strikingly, by pointing out his weakest side; for he clung to his wealth with his whole heart; to teach him, from his own experience of his love of the world, how far he was from possessing that love which is the essence of obedience to the law. N. 22. He went away grieved.** It silenced, it saddened, it sent away. No answer was attempted. No new question was raised. The demand was made in such broad, unmitigated, unambiguous terms, that the young ruler, conscious that he had never felt before the extent or pressure of such a demand, and that he was utterly unprepared to meet it, turned away disappointed and dissatisfied. H.—When riches or heaven, on Christ's terms, were the alternative, the result showed to which side the balance inclined. Thus was he shown to lack the one all-comprehensive requirement of the law—the absolute subjection of the heart to God—and this want vitiated all his other obediences. B.—Religion cannot yield us the fulness of its blessing till it brings the heart under the completeness of its gentle captivity to Christ. Submission first; then peace, and joy, and love. "Jesus beholding him, loved him;" yet sent him away sorrowing. How tender, and yet how true! tender in the sad affection—true to the stern, unbending sacrifice of the cross! It is because he would have us completely happy that he requires a complete submission. "One thing" must not be left lacking. Whosoever would enter into the full strength and joy of a disciple must throw his whole heart upon the altar. F. D. H. Mk. 24. Jesus notices the surprise that his saying had created, and, aware of the false track along which his disciples' thoughts were running, proceeded to explain the real meaning of what he had just said. "Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God!" It is not the having but the trusting that creates the difficulty. It is not the kind or quantity of the wealth possessed, but the kind or quantity of the attachment that is lavished upon it. The love of the penny may create as great impediment as the love of the pound. Nor is it our wealth alone that raises a mighty obstacle in the way of entering into the kingdom. It is anything else than God and Christ upon which the supreme affection of the spirit is bestowed. H.—The kingdom of glory is equally open to all true disciples of Christ, rich or poor; for it is not the condition we are placed in here, whether it be high or low, but the use we make of it, that will determine our condition in the life to come. Mann. M. 24. Easier for a camel. The camel being the largest animal with which the Jews were acquainted, its name became proverbial for denoting anything remarkably large; and "a camel's passing through a needle's eye" came, by consequence, as appears from some rabbinical writings, to express a thing absolutely impossible. G. C.—The explanation that the small side gate of a city, through which a laden camel could only crush with the utmost difficulty, was called a "needle's eye" is more plausible, but seems to need confirmation. F.—The similitude here used implies an absolute impossibility; yet, according to every rule of interpreting Oriental proverbs, it is intended only to express a great difficulty. These expressions of our Lord allude to the difficulty of embracing the gospel in his time, and apply properly to those who trust in riches; yet to all rich men they hold out this most important admonition, that their situation is at best a situation of difficulty and danger; that their riches furnish them with so many temptations to intemperance, pride, forgetfulness of God, and contempt of everything serious, and sacred, that they have peculiar need to take heed to their ways, to keep their hearts with all diligence, and, above all, to implore that assistance from above, which may enable them to overcome all the enemies with whom they have to contend. P. "With God all things are possible," is the same as saying, "All things are possible to him that believeth." This, which it is impossible for man to accomplish in his own strength, namely, such a making of himself poor in spirit, such a loosening of himself from the bands which bind him so fast to the world and to the creature, shall yet be possible for him in the strength of God. The impossible thing, which yet is possible with God, is not the saving of the rich man, but the making of the rich man poor, one of God's poor, and so an inheritor of his kingdom. T. 27. The young man had sought eternal life on the score of his own merits. Yet hardly had Peter seen the catastrophe, and heard the warning, than he comes putting in a claim of merit under cover of devotion to Christ, and saying, "Behold, we have forsaken all; what shall we have therefore?" Guthrie.—In the following parable Jesus warns them against any question of this sort, originating in greed for reward. It shows that the recompense to be received from the Lord will not be determined by the length of time during which we may have followed him, but rather by the character of our service, its affection and heartiness. Hence it is possible that the first in length of service may eventually prove the last in promotion and reward. No doubt all shall be blessed, for they have all labored, all been servants of the Lord. C. B. 29. Every one that hath forsaken. This promise of our Saviour extends to all his faithful servants in every age who part with anything which is dear to them for the sake of the gospel. Whoever gives up his pleasures, his interests, his fame, his favorite pursuits, his fondest wishes, and his strongest passions, for the sake of his duty, and in conformity to the will of his heavenly Father, may rest assured that he shall in no wise lose his reward. P.—Experience abundantly testifies to the fact, that in the Lord, and in fellowship with his disciples, we receive even here below compensation a hundred-fold for any sacrifice we may make. C. B. 27-30. First indeed the Lord answered the question, "What shall we have?" As they indeed and in sincerity had forsaken all for Christ's sake, he answers them fully—the reward shall be great. But having answered so, his discourse takes another turn, as is indicated in the words, "But many that are first shall be last;" and he will warn them now against giving place to that spirit out of which the question proceeded; for there was therein an invidious comparison of themselves with others, a certain attempt to bring in God as their debtor. In short, the spirit of the hireling spoke in that question, and it is against this spirit that the parable following is directed, which might justly be entitled, On the nature of rewards in the kingdom of God—the whole finding a most instructive commentary in Rom. 4 : 1-4, which passage supplies a real parallel with the present. T. ## Section 113.—The Laborers in the Vineyard. 1. Fon the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went 2 out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard. And when he had agreed 3 with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And he went 4 out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and said unto 5 them, Go ye also into the vineyard; and whatsoever is right, I will give you. And 6 they went their way. Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour, and did like- 7 wise. And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and 8 saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle? They say unto him, Because no 9 man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard; and whatsoever 10 is right, that shall ye receive. So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith 11 unto his steward, Call the labourers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last 12 unto the first. And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they re- 13 ceived every man a penny. But when the first came, they supposed that they should 14 have received more; and they likewise received every man a penny. And when they 15 had received it, they murmured against the goodman of the house, saying, These last 16 have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne 17 the burden and heat of the day. But he answered one of them, and said, Friend, I do 18 thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny? Take that thine is, and go 15 thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee. Is it not lawful for me to do 16 what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil because I am good? So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen. Is the vineyard of the Lord there is something for every one to do. No disciple can claim a dignity of position, or a length of service, that should exempt him from the duty of work; nor are any so feeble or so humble that they can do nothing for the Master. Our duty is to work where he has placed us: we can trust his love for the reward. J. P. T. To see God as he is—this is the reward which he has for all his people, the penny unto all; to each what he would make it. For if the vision of God constitute the blessedness of the future world, then they whose spiritual eye is most enlightened will drink in most of his glory; then, since only like can know like, all advances which are here made in humility, in holiness, in love, are a polishing of the mirror that it may reflect more distinctly the divine image, a purging of the eye that it may see more clearly the divine glory, an enlarging of the vessel that it may receive more amply of the divine fulness; and, on the contrary, all pride, all self-righteousness, all sin of every kind, whether it impair or altogether destroy the capacities for receiving from God, is in its degree a staining of the mirror, a darkening of the eye, a narrowing of the vessel. T. THIS parable stands in closest connection with the last four verses of the preceding section, and can only be rightly understood by their help. The parable is directed against a wrong temper and spirit of mind, which all men in possession of spiritual privileges have need to be warned against. The warning was primarily addressed to the apostles, as the chiefest and foremost in the Christian Church, the earliest called to labor in the Lord's vineyard—"the first," both in time, and in the amount of suffering and toil which they would have to undergo. They had seen the rich young man go sorrowful away, unable to abide the proof by which the Lord had revealed how strongly he was holden to the things of the world. They (for Peter here, as in so many other instances, is the representative and spokesman of all) would fain know what their reward should be, who had done this very thing from which he had shrunk, who had forsaken all for the gospel's sake. The Lord answers them first and fully, that they and as many as should do the same for his sake, should reap an abundant reward. At the same time the question itself, "What shall we have?" was not a right one; it was putting their relation to their Lord on a wrong footing; there was a tendency in the question to bring their obedience to a calculation of so much work, so much reward. There was also a self-complacency lurking in this speech; a comparison between themselves and the young man who had found the requirement too hard for him. 1. Laborers into his vineyard. In other words, the manner of God's dealings with those whom he calls to the privileges of working in his Church—that is, his kingdom in its present imperfect development—is similar to that of a householder who went early in the morning to hire laborers. T. 6. We observed every morning (in Persia) before the sun rose a numerous band of peasants with spades in their hands, waiting to be hired for the day to work in the surrounding fields. Passing by the same place late in the day, we found some standing idle, and, on putting this very same question to them, they answered us, "Because no man hath hired us." Morier.—The greatest man of business in worldly things is a mere idle gazer, if he has not yet entered on the true work which alone is worth anything, or gains any reward. Stier.— None can take encouragement from the eleventh-hour laborer, except those who to the question, Why stand ye here idle? can reply, No man hath hired us. Each laborer went to work at the first call. L. A. 12. The less value we set upon that which we do for God, the greater will its value be in his account. We should employ our minds less on what we do and suffer for his sake than on what he does in us by his grace to enable us; since we have nothing but what we have received, and are still of ourselves but unprofitable servants. Q. 13,14. No wrong. The sum you agreed for is paid you. To grudge the benevolence shown to others, when, by your own showing, you have been honorably dealt with, is both unworthy envy of your neighbor and discontent with the goodness that engaged and rewarded you at all. B.—With mine own. Whatever believers receive from God is of grace, and not of works. What he gives them is not their own, but his own. D. K. 15. Thine eye evil. It was to root out this evil self from us, and to put love in its room, that Christ died and the Holy Ghost comes. Let not that death and that coming be in vain for you. Cease not to cry out, weary the ears of God with prayer, until he frees you from all selfishness, and from that worst mark of it, a grudging and evil eye. A. W. Hare. 16. First shall be last.** The lesson taught to Peter and to all disciples in all times is, that those who seem chiefest in labor, if they forget that the reward is of grace and not of works, and exalt themselves above their fellow-laborers, may altogether lose the things which they have wrought. T. 1-16. How important a thing it is for us that a parable exhibiting the doctrine of free and ununmerited grace, so strongly put forth by Paul, has been preserved to us! Taken in connection with that of the pounds (Section 116), it forms a complete whole (the two parables being mutually complementary to each other) of Christ's truth: on the one hand, that the gifts of grace are equally bestowed, and are to be received by all alike in humility of heart; and, on the other, that there are various stages of Christian progress, depending upon the use that is made of the grace given: on the one hand, the humble receiving of grace is contrasted with the asserting of one's own merits; and, on the other, a self-active zeal is opposed to slothful inactivity. N. ## Section 114.—The Last Journey. Serving greater than Ruling. Mk.32 And they were in the way going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus went before them: and they were amazed, and as they followed they were afraid. And he took the twelve disciples apart in the way, and began to tell them what things should happen unto him; and said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished. For he shall be betrayed, and delivered unto the chief priests, and unto the scribes; and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him to the Gentiles, to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him. And he shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on: and they shall scourge him, and put him to death: and the third day he shall rise again. And they understood none of these things: and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken.M. 20 Then came to him the mother of Zebedee's children, with her sons, worshipping him, and desiring a certain thing of him. And James and John come unto him, saying, Master, we would that thou shouldest do for us whatsoever we shall desire. And he said unto them, What would ye that I should do for you? They said unto him, Grant unto us that we may sit, one on thy right hand, and the other on thy left hand, in thy glory. And the mother saith unto him, Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on thy right hand, and the other on the left, in thy kingdom. But Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? And they said unto him, We are able. And Jesus said unto them, Ye shall drink indeed of the cup that I drink of; and with the baptism that I am baptized withal shall ye be baptized: but to sit on my right hand and on my left hand, is not mine to give; but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father.Mk.39 And when the ten heard it, they began to be much displeased with James and John, and were moved with indignation against the two brethren. But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: and whosoever among you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. THE two disciples really mean to be true to his interests; but they are not so far spiritualized as not to be thinking that they can at the same time serve his interests and advance their own. They are following, but following half unconsciously for a personal reward. Christ's answer is not for these seekers of office only, but for all men who would think of being Christians for a compensation, in whatever form we give that compensation shape—in public prosperity, in agreeable society, in our neighbor's confidence, votes, trade, esteem, or in personal happiness. He says, Think nothing about sitting on my right and my left, in my new kingdom, which is even far newer and stranger than you imagine. Follow on in my path. Do all the daily work of a disciple. Take up my cross and learn what its great redemption means. Warm and enlarge your hearts with my Holy Spirit. Be concerned about your service and sacrifice, not about the recompense. Religion will never yield its true rewards to those that seek it for the sake of its rewards. It deals very frankly with us, having no concern to make proselytes under false pretences. It is willing we should understand that those who court it for anything else than its Giver's sake, will meet perpetual disappointment. Whatever else they may get, it will not be Christian peace. Men may carry their selfishness into their religion, or rather into certain religious formalities and observances, as into everything else. But they will bring, away only what they take in. For of our Christian religion the badge is a cross—even as self-forgetfulness is the spirit, love is the motive, disinterestedness is the principle, faith is the inmost spring, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ" the first lesson and the last. F. D. H. Mk. 32, 33; L. 32-34. Were amazed, and as they followed were afraid. There was that in his aspect, attitude, and actions that filled them with wonder and with awe. It was not long till an explanation was offered them. He took the twelve aside, and, with still greater minuteness of detail, told them what was about to happen within a few days at Jerusalem. H. Once more—for the third time—with fuller, more startling particulars, he told them that he should be betrayed to the priests and scribes; by them condemned; then handed over to the Gentiles; by the Gentiles mocked, scourged, and—he now for the first time revealed to them, without any ambiguity, the crowning horror—crucified; and that, on the third day, he should rise again. But their minds were full of Messianic hopes; they were so preoccupied with the conviction that now the kingdom of God was to come in all its splendor, that the prophecy passed by them like the idle wind; they could not, and would not, understand. F.—They had so strong a prepossession that the resurrection of Christ (which they, no doubt, understood in a purely Jewish sense) should introduce the earthly kingdom of the Messiah, that no declaration of our Lord could remove it from their minds; they always "understood not what was spoken." And it is observable that their ambitious disputes concerning primacy or preference usually follow the mention of Christ's death and resurrection. H. M. M. 20. The mention of thrones (Section 112), as in reversion for the twelve at "the coming" of their Master in his glory, neutralized this announcement of his death. His open triumph was expected as very near at hand; his death they did not understand, and could not reconcile with his other statements. Dreams of ambition, thus kindled, had risen, especially in the minds of James and John, who, with Peter, were the most honored of the apostles. They had been in a better social position than most of their brethren, and, with Salome, their mother, had given all they had to the cause of their Master. G.—Then came the mother. Salome was, nevertheless, a faithful disciple of Jesus. She was one of those women who ministered of their substance to his support. She forsook him not when he hung on the cross, and sought the sepulchre with purchased spices to anoint his body. But, like all her people and those nearest Christ, she shared in the hope of a visible Messianic kingdom. J. G. B. Mk. 35. James and John. They had made up their minds that he was the Messiah. He had himself lately confirmed them in that faith. But with their notions of the Messiahship, such sufferings and death as were actually before Jesus were utterly inconsistent. They could be but figurative expressions, then, that he had employed, intended to represent some severe struggle with his adversaries through which he had to pass before his kingdom was set up and acknowledged. One thing alone was clear—that the time so long looked forward to had come at last. This visit to Jerusalem was to witness the erection of the kingdom. All other notions lost in that, the thought of the places they were to occupy in that kingdom entered again into the hearts of two of the apostles. H. M. 22. Jesus bore gently with their selfishness and error. They had asked in their blindness for that position which, but a few days afterward, they were to see occupied in shame and anguish by the two crucified robbers. Their imaginations were haunted  by twelve thrones; His thoughts were of three crosses. They dreamt of earthly crowns; He told them of a cup of bitterness and a baptism of blood. F.—We are able. Through all the selfishness and ambition, and the ignorance of the future that their request revealed, there shone out in this prompt and no doubt perfectly honest reply a true and deep attachment to their Master, a readiness to suffer with him or for him. And he is far quicker to recognize the one than to condemn the other. H. Mk. 39. Ye shall drink. One of these brethren was the first of the apostles to drink the cup of suffering and be baptized with the baptism of blood (Acts 12:1); the other had the longest experience among them of a life of trouble and persecution. A.—They cannot do it now, but in due time they shall follow him, they shall rise to their calling and bravely meet all its risks and hardships. He would teach us what great capacities and hidden powers lie in a true disciple's life, capacities which are never suspected until they are called into exercise. No man knows his own strength, far less is he able to foresee the divine strength which shall be added to his own. When the night comes and the light of our souls has gone down, it is not total darkness forever. God has created other lights to rule the night. New mercies, new sources of light and trust arise, new hopes are awakened, new links between heaven and earth are created, and we learn how little we knew our own capacity for bearing the cross. 40. On my right hand, etc. In a worldly kingdom, if one sits at the right hand and another on the left, that special honor prevents any one else from obtaining it; but in Christ's kingdom there is no such exclusiveness. By the very nature of spiritual greatness it seeks to make others as great. The more a man progresses in truth the more does he desire to see all others true; the greater his love to God the more does he long to see this character spread in the earth. Not mine to give.** Place and honor are not to be given by him, for the reason that the whole character of such a kingdom as Christ founded is spiritual, and its honors and recompense are spiritual also; and spiritual greatness is something which lies in the heart and life, not in the lot of men. In the kingdom of God the most honorable place is held by those whose character is likest God. Truth, affection, purity, righteousness, charity, are the substance and strength of the kingdom of God; and these are not things to be given as a jewel or a title to an estate can be made over to a friend or favorite. All the best and divinest treasures of God are wrought into the heart and life of good men, and are not merely transferred by his power and will. And no gift or grace is to be appropriated without the secret force of assimilation, and without the operation of God's law for moulding and perfecting the human spirit. A. W. Christ puts the disinterested spirit at the very centre and core of the whole message: Drink of my cup, be baptized with my baptism—no matter where you sit, on thrones or footstools! Do good and lend, hoping for nothing again, and your reward shall be great; for ye shall be the children of the Highest. F. D. H.—And so our Lord teaches us that nearness to him in character and life here is the one essential preparation for being with him forever. If we have this character and life we need not ask whether he will acknowledge us. Where Christ's spirit is there is Christ himself; and he who has the love of God in his heart has within his heart that heaven which now exists, and which can never pass away. A. W. M. 25. Calling the whole twelve, offenders and offended, round him, therefore, he pointed out how utterly they had misapprehended the nature of his kingdom, notwithstanding all his teaching through the past years. G.—Princes exercise domin- ion. Ambition and tyranny belong to the world, but in the kingdom of God the duty required is to minister, not to domineer. C. B.—Mk. 43. But so it shall not be among you. In the kingdom about to be set up this principle shall have no place. All my servants shall there be equal; and the only "greatness" known to it shall be the greatness of humility and devotedness to the service of others. He that goes down the deepest in these services of self-denying humility shall rise the highest and hold the "chiefest" place in that kingdom; even as the Son of man, whose abasement and self-sacrifice for others, transcending all, gives him of right a place above all! B. 44. Servant of all.** The word "minister" in the former verse is a name given to any who occasionally attended others, or was statedly employed to render a particular kind of service; but "servant" here (or slave) signifies one whose whole business is to serve, and who is the property of another. The words "of all" increase the gradation. D. 45. To give his life a ransom for. The sacrificial and vicarious nature of Christ's death is here expressed by himself as plainly as the manner of his death is foretold a few verses before. B.—The principal uses of ransom are the following: a payment as equivalent for a life destroyed, Ex. 21: 30; the price of redemption of a slave, Lev. 25: 51; "propitiation for," Prov. 13: 8. For many.** Many is placed in opposition to the one life which is given, and not with any distinction from all. In the usage of these two words, as applied to our redemption by Christ, all is the objective, many the subjective designation of those for whom Christ died. He died for all objectively; subjectively, the great multitude, whom no man can number (many), will be the saved by him in the end. A.—In this, as well as in numberless other passages of the New Testament, it is as plain as words can make anything, that the death of Christ is proposed to us as our sacrifice and reconciliation, our atonement and redemption. It is not possible for any one who considers these expressions to imagine that Christ's death was only a confirmation of his gospel, a pattern of a holy and patient suffering of death, and a clear proof of a resurrection. It is plain that Christ's death was our sacrifice; by which is meant that God thought fit to offer pardon in such a way as should demonstrate both the guilt of sin and his hatred of it; and yet, with that, his love of sinners, and his compassion toward them. Burnet. Wonderful is the Saviour of sinners—wonderful in divine power and glory—wonderful in the humility of manhood; example for the highest; consolation for the saddest; companion of the lowliest. No more is he the Redeemer of men by his passion than Leader by his life. No less do they become his disciples when walking in the steps of his ministering, than when baptized with the blood falling from his cross—greatest when ministers to their brethren, chiefs when servants of all, kings and priests of his kingdom and gospel when with his spirit perpetuating one of his own offices. R. B. T. ## Section 115.—Bartimeus. Zaccheus. Jericho. L. 35 And they came to Jericho; and as he went out of Jericho with his disciples, a great multitude followed him. And behold, a certain blind man, Bartimeus, the son of 36 Timeus, sat by the highway side begging. And hearing the multitude pass by he 37 asked what it meant. And they told him, that Jesus of Nazareth passeth by. And 38 when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out, and say, Jesus, thou 39 Son of David, have mercy on me. And the multitude which went before rebuked him and charged him that he should hold his peace: but he cried so much the more a great 40 deal, O Lord, thou Son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stood still, and com- Mk.49 manded him to be brought unto him. And they call the blind man, saying unto 50 him, Be of good comfort, rise, he calleth thee. And he, casting away his garment, rose L. 40 and came to Jesus. And when he was come near, Jesus asked him, saying, What wilt 41 thou that I shall do unto thee? And the blind man said unto him, Lord, that I may 42 receive my sight. And Jesus said unto him, Receive thy sight: go thy way: thy faith 43 hath made thee whole and saved thee. And immediately he received his sight, and followed him, glorifying God: and all the people, when they saw it, gave praise unto God. L.1, 2 And Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. And behold, there was a man named 3 Zaccheus, which was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich. And he sought to see Jesus who he was: and could not for the press, because he was little of stat- 4 ure. And he ran before, and climbed up into a sycomore tree to see him; for he was 5 to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and saw him, and said unto him, Zaccheus, make haste and come down; for to-day I must abide at thy 6, 7 house. And he made haste, and came down, and received him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all murmured, saying, That he was gone to be a guest with a man that 8 is a sinner. And Zaccheus stood, and said unto the Lord, Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accu- 9 sation, I restore him fourfold. And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to 10 this house, forasmuch as he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. THE cure of a man depended upon no uncertain or arbitrary movement of the feelings of Jesus. He was always ready to heal. No one was ever refused who asked him. It rested with the man: the healing could not have its way and enter in, save the man would open his door. Hence the question, and the praise of the patient's faith. There was no danger then of that diseased self-consciousness which nowadays is always asking, "Have I faith?" searching, in fact, for grounds of self-confidence, and turning away the eyes in the search from the only source whence confidence can flow. How shall faith be born but of the beholding of the faithful? This diseased self-contemplation was not indeed a Jewish complaint at all, nor possible in the bodily presence of the Master. Hence the praise given to a man's faith could not hurt him; it only made him glad and more faithful still. McD. Christ's standard of right was high—higher than ever man had placed it before. Not moral excellence, but heavenly, he demanded. The Sermon on the Mount tells of a purity as of snow resting on an Alpine pinnacle, white in the blue holiness of heaven; and yet he the All-pure had tenderness for what was not pure. He who stood in divine uprightness that never faltered, felt compassion for the ruined, and infinite gentleness for human fall. Broken, disappointed, doubting hearts, in dismay and bewilderment, never looked in vain to him. Very strange, if we stop to think of it, for generally human goodness repels from it evil men; they shun the society and presence of men reputed good. But here was purity attracting evil; that was the wonder. The Son of man was ever standing among the lost, and his ever predominant feelings were sadness for the evil in human nature, hope for the divine good in it, and the divine image never worn out wholly. F. W. R. L. 35. "As he was come nigh unto Jericho," are Luke's words. According to Matthew and Mark this healing occurred "as he went out of Jericho." This discrepancy has not been satisfactorily explained. Further, Matthew mentions "two blind men," while Mark and Luke (whose narrative we have given above) speak only of one, by name. Concerning this difference, Archbishop Trench remarks: "The silence of one narrator is not to be assumed as the contradiction of the statement of another; thus Mark and Luke, making especial mention of one blind man, do not contradict Matthew, who mentions two." Dr. Brown observes: "Many ways of accounting for slight divergences of detail have been proposed. Perhaps, if we knew all the facts, we should see no difficulty; but that we have been left so far in the dark shows that the thing is of no moment any way. One thing is plain, there could have been no collusion among the authors of these gospels." And Dr. Fisher, while asserting that "the discrepancy confirms rather than weakens the evidences of Christianity," adds: "Richard Baxter in his day complained of those who assert that the Bible presents no signs of human imperfection, stake the truth of the Christian religion upon the correctness of every item of history, genealogy, number, or word, and assert that every one who doubts that a single word is true, or was dictated by the Holy Spirit, may with equal reason doubt the whole gospel. And here, says Baxter, I must tell you a great and needful truth, which ignorant Christians, fearing to confess, by overdoing tempt men to infidelity. The Scripture is like a man's body, where some parts are for the preservation of the rest, and may be maimed without death. The sense is the soul of Scripture, and the letters but the body or vehicle. Now, as always, it is essential to remember that the letter killeth. Concessions which the progress of Bible criticism renders imperative, deprive infidelity of its most available weapon of attack upon the general credibility of the gospel history." J. G. B. 37. They told. This divine, disinterested Redeemer, who had come from heaven to speak to what was deepest and best in their hearts, to take all their burdens and sicknesses upon himself that he might call them more effectually to honor and immortality, was walking their streets and waiting at their doors. It was told along the highways, in villages and cities, "Jesus of Nazareth is passing by." They neither hindered nor followed him. The routine of the day's business, family festivities, social pleasure, bargains to be begun or closed in the market, each one's little busy world of care or display or profit, was enough. What if the Lord of all life, the healer of all miseries, and final judge of all souls, is passing by? Let him pass. Give us a little more of this world; give us the meat that perisheth; give us popular envy and ascendancy; give us to-day's abundance. What is Nazareth or its prophet to us? Answer him as he stands at the door and knocks, and tell him there is no room for him in our houses; we are engaged and cannot see him; in this great tavern of a world, as in the inn at Bethlehem, there is no room for him. The world ignores its King. F. D. H. 38. It was a great act of faith in this blind man to call him the Son of David, whom the people pointed out as being JESUS OF NAZARETH. Beng.—The cry was a recognition of his dignity as the Messiah; for this name, "Son of David," was the popular designation of the Messiah, as the one who should come, according to the words of Isaiah, to give sight to the blind. T.—Have mercy on me. The emphasis naturally falls on the word "me," for Bartimeus, hearing "that it was Jesus" and knowing his own disadvantage from his blindness in the crowd, fears he may be overlooked. O. E. D. 41. The Lord's question, "What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?" is, in part, an expression of his readiness to aid, in part uttered for the calling out into yet livelier exercise the faith and expectation of the petitioner. T.—Blindness of heart is the only blindness of which men very seldom complain, and from which they scarcely ever beg to be delivered. It is one part of this blindness not to perceive it, and to think that our sight is good. Q. 1. It was necessary to rest at Jericho before entering on the rocky gorge which led from it to Jerusalem, and formed a rough, almost continuous, ascent of six hours, from six hundred feet below to  Blind Bartimeus. nearly three thousand feet above the level of the Mediterranean. F.—Coming from Jerusalem the gorge opens suddenly at a turn of the path about two miles before reaching the plain of Jericho, where the traveller finds himself in front of a precipice five hundred feet high, pierced by many inaccessible caverns, and with a steep, rugged hill above. From the top of the gorge we enjoyed one of the finest views in Southern Palestine. At our feet lay stretched a bright-green forest. Beyond it a long brown expanse which divides it from the Jordan, whose course we could just trace by the depression marked by a dark-green line of trees. Beyond rose a little higher the plains of Moab, green, rich, and wooded as they retire from the river; and above these stood out clear and sharp the long even range of the hills of Moab. To the right was the calm Dead Sea. H. B. T. The small but rich plain sloping gently upward from the level of the Dead Sea, 1,350 feet under the Mediterranean, to the stern background of the hills of Quarantana, had the climate of Lower Egypt, and displayed the vegetation of the tropics. Its fig-trees were famous: it was unique in its groves of palms of various kinds: its crops of dates were a proverb: the balsam-plant, which grew principally here, furnished a costly perfume, and was in great repute for healing wounds: maize yielded a double harvest: and wheat ripened a whole month earlier than in Galilee. Rising like an amphitheatre from amidst this luxuriant scene, lay Jericho, the chief place east of Jerusalem—at seven miles' distance from the Jordan—on swelling slopes, seven hundred feet above the bed of the river. G.—It was directly on the road from the lower Jordan to Jerusalem; and the Galileans, on their way south to the annual festivals, were accustomed, in order to avoid Samaria, to cross the Jordan near the Sea of Galilee, descend by the river on its eastern side, and recross it to the west on reaching Judea—passing up to Jerusalem through Jericho. N. C. B. (See maps, pages 50 and 395.) Jericho was a Levitical city, and hence the residence of a great many priests: its position as the centre of an exceptionally productive district, and also of the import and export trade between the two sides of the Jordan, made it also a city of publicans. It had much the same place in Southern Palestine as Capernaum—the centre of the trade between the sea-coast and the northern interior, as far as Damascus—held in Galilee. The transit to and fro of so much wealth brought with it proportionate work and harvest for the farmers of the revenue. Hence, a strong force of customs and excise collectors was stationed in it, under a local head, named Zaccheus. G.—Whether he was one of the publicani, the farmers of the revenue, or held some intermediate rank between these and the portitores, the actual collectors of the customs and taxes, is uncertain; but the latter is the more probable supposition. T. 4. The sycomore, or "Egyptian fig"—not to be confounded with the sycamine-tree or "mulberry" of L. 17: 6, or with the sycomore—is exceedingly easy to climb. F. 5. He, who knows how to find his own in the most unlikely places, who had seen Nathanael under the fig-tree, with sure and unerring glance discerned Zaccheus in the sycomore. To-day I must abide at thy house. Words of an extraordinary grace, for while the Lord accepted many invitations into the houses of men, yet we do not read that he honored any but this one by thus offering himself to his hospitality. T.—If Zaccheus had not been alert now, he would have failed of his only opportunity. That is always a memorable time in any man's history, when, through a book, a letter, a personal interview, a sermon, a special providence, he is brought into contact with that spiritual power which arrests his waywardness and changes the whole current of his being. W. A. 6. Earthly goodness draws admiration on itself. The heavenly imparts itself—inspires a spirit. And such preëminently was the holiness of Christ. Had some earthly great or good one come to Zaccheus's house, his feeling would have been, "What condescension is here!" But when he came whose every word and act had in it life and power, no such barren reflection was the result; but, instead, the beauty of holiness had become a power within him, and a longing for self-consecration. F. W. R. 8. Fourfold. The Roman law required this; the Jewish law, but the principal and a fifth more. There was no demand made for either; but, to testify the change he had experienced, besides rendering the half of his fair gains to the poor, he voluntarily determines to give up all that was ill-gotten, quadrupled. B.—He had been hitherto no extortioner. Had he been conscious that his were in the main treasures of wickedness, gotten together by fraud and wrong, it would have been ridiculous to offer as a gift half of them to the poor, before it was seen whether the whole might not be swallowed up in acts of restitution, with such addition as the law required. Without having been this extortioner, he yet feels that, according to that higher standard of right which he recognizes now, some of his gains may prove to have been unfairly acquired. Any such injustice he will make largely good. T. One particular and eminent fruit of true repentance is the making satisfaction and restitution to those whom we have injured. And this, as it is one of the best signs and proofs of a true repentance, so is it one of the most proper and genuine effects of it: for this is, as much as in us lies, to undo what we have done, and to unsin our sins. Tillotson.—All this which he now announces of a giving of his own, and a restoring of that which is another's, is rather to be taken as the first-fruits of Christ's visit, the outward utterance of the mighty inward change that had passed upon him. T.—A new man is this, a converted man, a Christianized publican; and in all these purposes which he avows there is an air of honesty, a whole-heartedness, which proves that the change is thorough and worthy to be recorded. This avowal is the free act of a grateful and penitent sinner; it is the evidence of a new affection; it is the cheerful resolution of a man who has come to see how much he owes to that mercy by which he is forgiven and saved. W. A. 9. These words are spoken to Zaccheus, but in the hearing of the multitude, and for them no less than for him. This appears in the third person, under which he is addressed. As meant for him, they are an acceptance, on the Lord's part, of this offering of his goods as the true expression of a higher offering, even of a dedication of himself to God: "This day is salvation come to this house." As addressed to the multitude, they contain a further justification of the grace shown to this man that was a sinner. Sinner as he is, salvation has yet come to his house, "forasmuch as he also is a son of Abraham." T.—10. His repentance and faith should secure to him the gracious promises made to Abraham, his father. And then he added, You see the end of the Son of man's coming on the earth: he came to save that which was lost. W. G. THUS it is, as the time is now so near, that he holds up his death as the payment of the great price of our redemption, the ransom given by the Living One for the lost.—Such is the free spontaneous mercy in either case exercised by our Lord; such is the way in which he meets simplicity of faith, ardor of desire, strenuousness of effort, as seen in the blind beggar and in the rich publican. Two better instances illustrative of how the sinner and the Saviour are brought together, of what true faith is, and what true repentance, you could not well desire, than those of Bartimeus and Zaccheus. Let us but be as earnest to see him as those two men were, as careless of what others say or do, as resolute to overcome all difficulties, and we shall find that he will be as ready to hear, to heal, to come to us, to take up his abode with us, to bring salvation with him, to gather us, the lost, into the fold of the saved. . . . Jericho is changed from what it was. So little is left of the city, of its hippodrome and amphitheatre, its towers and its palaces, that it is difficult to determine its site. Its gardens and its groves are gone, not one solitary palm-tree for a blind beggar to sit beneath, nor a sycomore for any one to climb. The City of Fragrance it was called of old. There remains now but the fragrance of those deeds of grace and mercy done there by him who in passing through it closed his earthly journeyings, and went up thence to Jerusalem to die. H. ## Section 116.—The Pounds. Jericho. J. 12 On the next day much people that were come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus 13 was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet him.L. 29 And it came to pass on the next day, when they drew nigh unto Jerusalem, when he was come to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount called the mount of Olives, Jesus 30 sendeth forth two of his disciples, saying unto them, Go ye your way into the village over against you; in the which at your entering straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt tied with her whereon yet never man sat: loose them, and bring them hitherMk. 3 unto me. And if any man say unto you, Why do ye this? Thus say ye unto him, The 4 Lord hath need of them; and straightway he will send them hither. And the disciples that were sent went their way, and did as Jesus commanded them, and found the colt, even as he had said unto them, tied by the door without, in a place where two ways L. 33 met: and they loose him. And as they were loosing the colt, the owners thereof that 34 stood there said unto them, Why loose ye the colt? And they said unto them, even as 35 Jesus had commanded, The Lord hath need of him; and they let them go. And they brought the ass and the colt to Jesus, and they cast their garments upon the colt; and they set Jesus thereon.M. 4 All this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, 5 as it is written, Tell ye the daughter of Zion, Fear not, behold, thy King cometh unto J. 16 thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass. These things understood not his disciples at the first: but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of him, and that they had done these things unto him. 17 The people therefore that was with him when he called Lazarus out of his grave, and 18 raised him from the dead, bare record. For this cause the people also met him, for that they heard that he had done this miracle. L. 36 And as he went, a very great multitude spread their garments in the way; and others cut down branches off the trees, and strewed them in the way. And when he was come nigh, even now at the descent of the mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice, for all the mighty works that they had seen. And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he, the King of Israel, that cometh in the name of the Lord: Blessed be the kingdom of our father David, that cometh in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest! And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples. And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out. The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? Behold, the world is gone after him. THE next morning he took up his sorrowful journey again, and moved slowly toward the Temple. As the Passover, with its sacrifices, was just at hand, companies of pilgrims, driving sheep for the altar, would be seen in the highways, all gathering up from the four quarters, to the centre of the nation's faith. Among them goes the Lamb of God—the one sacrifice—final, perfect, and sufficient, whom these typical altars of thousands of years had heralded with their banners of smoke and flame. The day to see that marvellous fulfilled Scripture, that the Lamb should be slain in the fulness of ages and yet slain from the foundation of the world, is, at last, close by; "the hour" of which he so often spoke, as if all reckonings of days, in the knowledge of history, ran to and from that central point of time. But then he is not only Sacrifice and Priest; not only Prophet and Fulfilment; but another of his comprehensive characters is Kingship. So, in token of that royal office whereby he is to reign forever, he must enter the city of his sacrifice with kingly honors, in meekness, to die, yet in majesty, to triumph. F. D. H. J. 12. Much people that were come to the feast. Josephus estimates the numbers present on a Passover occasion at about three millions, little short of half the population of the two provinces. The number of lambs slain is stated to have been 256,500. H.—Heard that Jesus was coming. Jesus of Nazareth had now, for three years, assumed the character of a public teacher; his wonderful works were generally acknowledged; all considered him an extraordinary being; but whether he was the Messiah still hung in the balance. And now the Passover rapidly approached; the roads from all quarters were crowded with the assembling worshippers. Not only the great mass of the inhabitants of Palestine, but many foreign Jews thronged from every quarter—from Babylon, Arabia, Egypt, from Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy, probably even from Gaul and Spain. Through all this concourse of the whole Jewish race, animated more or less profoundly with the same national and religious feelings, rumors about the appearance, the conduct, the pretensions, the language of Jesus, could not but have spread abroad, and be communicated with unchecked rapidity. H. M. L. 29. Bethphage and Bethany. Of Bethphage, "the house of figs," no trace has been discovered. Bethany has continued, beyond question. On the eastern slope of Mount Olivet, screened from sight of Jerusalem by the crest of the hill, stands the little mountain hamlet, containing little more than twenty houses, scattered irregularly in a labyrinth of narrow lanes and ruinous walls: a shrivelled and decaying place. H. B. T.  He determines to enter Jerusalem publicly, with such circumstance as would openly announce his claim to be the Messiah. G.—Jesus was now in circumstances to come forward in his Messianic character, as king, after having demonstrated, by his doctrine and walk, for three years, of what kind his kingdom was. The style in which he made his entrance was such as must have proved to every reflective spectator that he had no intention, at least at his first advent, to act the part of an earthly monarch, but only that of the King of hearts. C. B. 35. He had seldom if ever before used this mode of travelling, one not having any special dignity in our eyes, but one that highest dignitaries in the East, kings and princes, prophets and priests, might not unsuitably, upon the most important occasions, make use of. H.—M. 4, 5. As it is written. Five hundred years before, the prophet Zechariah had foretold that the King of Zion would one day appear “riding upon an ass.” At the time of the prophecy, there were no kings in Jerusalem. The kingdom had ceased at the captivity. J. 16. Remembered they had done these things. Long after the triumphant entry, the disciples found that they had been unconscious actors in a mighty accomplishment of Scripture. A thought for us all. During the greater part of our lives, many of God’s purposes on earth are being carried on through us and by us, without our being conscious of it. J. C. R. L. 36. A very great multitude. 37. That went before and that followed. Two vast streams of people met on that day. The one poured out from the city, and, as they came through the gardens whose clusters of palm rose on the southeastern corner of Olivet, they cut down the long branches, as was their wont at the feast of Tabernacles, and moved upward toward Bethany with shouts of welcome. From Bethany streamed forth the crowds who had assembled there the previous night. The two streams met midway. Half of the vast mass, turning round, preceded; the other half followed. A. P. S.—And when the two streams of people met—those who had accompanied him from Bethany, and those who had come to meet him from Jerusalem—they left him riding in the midst, and some preceding, some following him, advanced, shouting “hosannas” and waving branches, to the gate of Jerusalem. At the descent of the Mount of Olives. There, through the clear atmosphere, rising out of the deep, umbrageous valleys which surrounded it, the city of ten thousand memories stood clear before him, and the morning sunlight, as it blazed on the marble pinnacles and gilded roofs of the Temple buildings, was reflected in a splendor which forced the spectator to avert his glance. F. 38. They hail him as their Messiah, their King. He does now what he never so fully did before: he accepts the title, he receives the homage. All is true, then, that they had been thinking and hoping. It is openly and avowedly as Christ their king that he is about to go into Jerusalem. Then let all the honors that they can give him be bestowed. It is but little of outward pomp or splendor they can throw around this regal procession. They cannot turn the narrow mountain-path into a broad and covered roadway for their king, but they can strip off their outer garments, and cast them as a carpet beneath his feet. They can cut down leafy branches from the olive-trees and strew them in his way. Royal standards they have none to carry, they have no emblazoned flags of victory to wave. No choice instruments of music are here, through which practised lips may pour the swelling notes of joy and triumph; but they can pluck the palm-tree branches (nature’s own emblems of victory) and wave them over his head, and they can raise their voices in hosannas round him. He allows all this, receives it all as seemly and due. Swelling in numbers, freer and more animated in its expressions, the procession moves on till the ridge of the hill is gained, and the city begins to open to the view. The mighty multitude breaks out into acclamations of praise; those going before and those following after vie with one another, and fill the air with their hosannas—applying to Jesus, and this entry into Jerusalem, passages that all understood to relate to the Messiah. H.—The transient popularity of Jesus arose from the enforced admiration of his commanding demeanor, and the notoriety of his wonderful works; but it was no doubt supported in the mass of the populace by a hope that even yet he would conform to the popular views of the Messiah’s character. Their present brief access of faith would not have stood long against the continued disappointment of that hope. And it was no doubt by working on the reaction of this powerful feeling that the Sanhedrim were able so suddenly to change the prevailing sentiment. H. M.—The angelic hymn which was earliest sung in heaven in honor of the Saviour’s birth, is reëchoed by the band of disciples as he approaches Jerusalem for the last time before the close of his work. B. F. W. 40. The stones would cry out. Hitherto the Lord had discouraged all demonstrations in his favor. On this one occasion he seems to yield his whole soul to the wide and deep acclaim with a mysterious satisfaction, regarding it as so necessary a part of the regal dignity in which as Messiah he for this last time entered the city, that if not offered by the vast multitude, it would have been wrung out of the stones rather than be withheld. B.—In the mouth of any other, even the greatest of men, these words would have been an unjustifiable self-exaltation; uttered by him, they showed the weighty import which he gave to his manifestation. Christ’s conduct in this respect, moreover, shows that such an entry into Jerusalem formed part of his plan. N. CHRIST undertakes a plan, universal in extent, perpetual in time; viz., to unite all nations in a kingdom of righteousness under God; laying his foundations in the hearts of the poor, as no great teacher had ever done before, and yet without creating ever a faction, or stirring one partisan feeling in his followers. He is never warped by the expectation of his friends; always in a balance of truth, swayed by no excesses, running to no oppositions or extremes; clear of all superstition, and equally clear of all liberalism; presenting the highest doctrines in the lowest and simplest forms; establishing a pure, universal morality, never before established; and, with all his intense devotion to the truth, never anxious, perceptibly, for the success of his doctrine. Finally, to sum up all in one, he grows more great and wise and sacred, the more he is known, and this, we say, is Jesus, the Christ; manifestly not human, not of our world. H. B. Receive Christ as the disciples received him, as the true God and eternal life. Sages of the earth, he is the key of your problems; troubled spirits, your peace; lovers of wealth, your true treasure; he is the word which solves the enigma of life and conquers the power of death. Without him, wandering through life between an unknown past and a gloomy future, by turns the sport of our passions and our reason, a prey to infinite desires which nothing can satisfy, reduced laboriously to construct poor imitations of happiness, tired of living and afraid to die; above all, afraid to be judged, we must approach, without guide or support, that frightful limit where the earth gives way under our feet. Looking, then, to the Finisher of our salvation, rejoicing in his advent, scattering at his feet tears and palms: these tears shall be wiped away by a divine hand; these palms shall become our crown in the city of peace, when, quenching our thirst at the fountain of all perfection and felicity, we shall repeat the acclamations of the ancient believers, "Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest!" A. V. ## Section 119.—Weeps over the City. The Fig-tree cursed. Sunday and Monday. L. 41 And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou 42 hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy 43 peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep 44 thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knowest not the time of thy visitation.M. 10 And Jesus entered into Jerusalem, and into the temple. And when he was come 11 into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is this? And the multitude said, 14 This is Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee. And the blind and the lame came 15 to him in the temple; and he healed them. And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying in the temple, and say- 16 ing, Hosanna to the Son of David, they were sore displeased, and said unto him, Hear- est thou what these say? And Jesus saith unto them, Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise? 17 And when he had looked round about upon all things, and now the eventide was come, he left them and went out of the city into Bethany with the twelve: and he lodged there.Mk.12 Now on the morrow, in the morning as he returned from Bethany into the city, he was 13 hungry. And seeing a fig-tree afar off in the way, having leaves, he came to it, if haply he might find anything thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing thereon but 14 leaves only; for the time of figs was not get. And Jesus answered and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward: no man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard it. And presently the fig-tree withered away. WHEN we conceive him surveying on the one hand the multitudes of giddy, thoughtless, infatuated beings around him, engrossed with the affairs of the passing hour, trifling with the grandest concerns in the universe—gay, sportive, careless, hurrying on to the verge of life; and then, on the other hand, turning to behold the dread futurity, the awful gulf of ruin flaming forth the wrath of the Almighty God against the impenitent—is there not in this an explanation that may well appall the sinner, of the compassion, the grief, the yearning expostulations of Jesus? It was an awful testimony to the grandeur of the event that was taking place when, at the death of Jesus, the sun in heaven was darkened, and the solid earth beneath was rent; but surely it testifies to a still more terrible catastrophe, when the face, not of the sun, but the sun's Creator, is overshadowed—when, not the material earth is moved, but the spirit of him who made it is rent with anguish. Surely it is impossible for imagination to conceive a more awful measure of the guilt and danger of sin than the grief of Jesus. C. THOUGH there are three paths from the mount to the Holy City, the triumphal entry was by that round the southern base of Olivet. Paths, like wells, are in the East the most unchanging of human institutions. It is little more than fifteen furlongs. Bethany stands in a shallow hollow, scooped out of the shoulder of the hill. The path follows this till the descent begins at a turn where the first view of the temple is caught. First appeared the castles and walls of the City of David; and immediately afterward the glittering roofs of the temple, and the gorgeous royal arcade of Herod, with its long range of battlements overhanging the southern edge of Moriah. H. B. T.—The triple temple of Jerusalem—the lower court standing on its magnificent terraces, the inner court raised on its platform in the centre, and the temple itself rising out of the group and crowning the whole—must have formed, when combined with the beauty of the situation, one of the most splendid architectural combinations of the ancient world. Fergusson. L. 41. As they approached the shoulder of the hill, where the road bends downward to the north, Jerusalem in its glory rose before them. The City of God, seated on her hills, shone at the moment in the morning sun. Straight before stretched the vast white walls and buildings of the temple, its courts, glittering with gold, rising one above the other; the steep sides of the hill of David crowned with lofty walls; the mighty castles towering above them; the sumptuous palace of Herod in its green parks, and the picturesque outlines of the streets. Over all rested the spell of a history of two thousand years; and the mystic Holy of Holies linked the seen to the invisible. The whole scene was overpowering to Jesus. He was crossing the ground on which, a generation later, the tenth Roman legion would be encamped, as part of the besieging force destined to lay all the splendor before him in ashes. Knowing the future as he did, his heart was filled with indescribable sadness. G. Forgetting his own momentary glory, he beheld only the mighty misery of the rebellious people. He knew what lay beneath that fair exterior; the queenly city, overflowing that very hour with streams of pilgrims, that Zion of the prophets, was an accursed city, which had not "known the day of her visitation." Glory and suffering are with him always inseparable, and in this triumphant King of Zion we behold the man of sorrows! De P.—He had dropped silent tears at the grave of Lazarus; here he wept aloud. All the shame of his mockery, all the anguish of his torture, was powerless, five days afterward, to extort from him a single groan, or to wet his eyelids with one trickling tear; but here, all the pity that was within him overmastered his human spirit. F. 42. "In this thy day, when, all his other messengers rejected, the Father has sent forth his own Son to thee—if thou in thy day hadst known the things belonging to thy peace spoken so often, so earnestly by him." The sentence is cut short. For a moment the bright vision rises of all that Jerusalem might have been had she but known the time of her visitation. The pause, the tears, the lament over the doomed city, must have produced a deep impression on those around. How little could they understand the meaning of what Christ said, or the source of the emotion he displayed! One thing was clearly shown: the absence of all anticipation on the part of Jesus of any present individual success and triumph. How impressively are we here taught that the day of grace, the opportunity of return to and reconciliation with God, has its fixed limits,  Mount of Olives. narrower often than the day of life! Apparently Jerusalem's day of grace extended for years beyond the time when he uttered the words of doom, and let fall the tears of sympathy. Miracles were wrought in her streets, exhortations and remonstrances addressed to her children; but to that all-seeing eye before which the secret things of God's spiritual kingdom lie open, the things belonging to her peace were from that time hid from her eyes. The door was shut, the doom was sealed. H. 43,44. Sternly, literally, terribly, within fifty years, was that prophecy fulfilled. F.—A trench—rampart: first of wood, and, when this was burnt, a built wall, four miles circuit, built in three days—so determined were they. This "cut off all hope of escape," and consigned the city to unparalleled horrors. B.—Who save he to whom the future was as the present could have spoken as Jesus did of the days when the enemy should cast a trench, and raise a mound, and compass it round, and keep it in on every side? Josephus tells us how to the very letter all this was fulfilled—how at an early stage of the four months' siege, Titus, the Roman general in command, summoned a council of war, at which three plans were discussed: to storm the city, or to repair and rebuild the engines that had been destroyed, or to blockade the city and starve it into surrender. The third was the method adopted, and by incredible labor, the whole army engaging in the work, a wall was raised, which compassed the city round and round, and hemmed it in on every side. H. Thy children within thee. While Titus was completing his preparations at Cesarea, almost the whole Jewish population left in the desolated country districts flocked to Jerusalem, to keep the Passover of A. D. 70, just one generation after that Passover at which they had refused their day of visitation and cut off the Messiah. Her children were still within her when, after an attempt to storm the city, the siege was converted into a blockade, and the fugitives, who fled from the unutterable horrors of famine and faction within the walls, perished between the lines, or were crucified in attitudes of cruel mockery to deter imitators. S.— Even with the ground. The Romans burnt the most extreme parts of the city, and dug up the foundations of the walls, reserving only three towers, and a part of the wall, as a memorial of their own valor, and for the better encampment of the soldiers. Afterward, we read in the Jewish Talmud, and in Maimonides, that Terentius Rufus, who was left to command the army, did with a plough-share tear up the foundation of the temple; thereby signally fulfilling the prophecy of Micah 3: 12. Eusebius too affirms that it was ploughed up by the Romans, and that he saw it lying in ruins. So literally were our Saviour's words accomplished, in the ruin and desolation of the city and of the temple! G. T.—Titus did not wish to sacrifice the temple—nay, he made every possible effort to save it—but he was forced to leave it in ashes. He did not intend to be cruel to the inhabitants, but the deadly fanaticism of their opposition so extinguished all desire to spare them, that he undertook the task of wellnigh exterminating the race—of crucifying them by hundreds, of exposing them in the amphitheatre by thousands, of selling them into slavery by myriads. Josephus tells us that, even immediately after the siege of Titus, no one, in the desert waste around him, would have recognized the beauty of Judea. F. (Read Section 185.) M. 15. Even in the temple itself, the children prolong the acclamations; and as the sick, the infirm, the afflicted with different maladies are restored at once to health or the use of their faculties, the same uncontrolled acclamations from the younger part of the multitude are renewed with increasing fervor. H. M.—Pleasant ever to the eye of Jesus was childhood with its charm of freshness, simplicity, buoyant freedom and open ardent love and trust, and sweet ever to his ear the strains of juvenile devotion, but never so pleasant as when he saw these bands of children clustering round him in the temple; never so sweet as when—no others left to do it—they lifted up their youthful voices in those hosannas, the last accents of earthly praise that fell upon his ear. H. 16. Have ye never read?** Psalm 8:2. This Psalm is frequently cited in the New Testament of Christ. In understanding such citations as this, we must bear in mind that the external fulfilment of a prophecy is often itself only a type and representation of that inner, deeper sense of the prophecy which belongs to the spiritual dealings of God. A.—He did not finish the passage, but left it to them to supply the words, “that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.” N. A. We must imagine the agitation and tumult of the crowded city, or we shall be unable fully to enter into the beauty of the calm and unostentatious dignity with which Jesus pursues his course. He preserves the same equable composure in the triumphant procession into the temple, and in the hall of Pilate. At every step he feels himself more inextricably within the toils. Yet he moves onward with the self-command of a willing sacrifice, intimating that his death was necessary, to secure indescribable benefits for his followers and for mankind. Yet there is no needless exasperation of his enemies; he observes the utmost prudence, though so fully aware that his prudence can be of no avail; he never passes the night within the city. And it is only by the treachery of one of his followers that the Sanhedrim at length make themselves masters of his person. H. M. Mk. 13. A fig-tree having leaves. There is a kind of tree which bears a large green-colored fig that ripens very early. I have plucked them in May, from trees on Lebanon, a hundred and fifty miles north of Jerusalem, and where the trees are nearly a month later than in the south of Palestine; it does not, therefore, seem impossible but that the same kind might have had ripe figs at Easter, in the warm, sheltered ravines of Olivet. The reason why he might seek fruit from this particular tree at that early day, was the ostentatious show of leaves. The fig often comes with or even before the leaves, and especially on the early kind. If there was no fruit on this leafy tree, it might justly be condemned as barren. W. M. T.—In walking along this same Bethany road we came upon just such a precocious fig-tree. It was, in all likelihood, the very road on which our Lord had travelled; it was the same week in the year, for it was the Passover week when we were on Olivet; and while in general the few fig-trees that we saw were showing little more than the first signs of life, there was one more favorably placed, which was several weeks in advance of all the others, all green with foliage, and with ripe fruit underneath it. We plucked a branch and brought it home with us. The large leaves had shrivelled, but the fruit was still sweet, two months afterward. A. Thomson. 13,14. The fig-tree was the type of the Jewish people (L. 13:6-9). They had the law, the temple, all rites of worship, the externals of righteousness; but bore none of its fruits. Andrews.—Yesterday, he had bewailed the foreseen desolation of Israel, as having been unfaithful to her covenant promises, and about to frustrate her covenant hopes. To-day, he teaches the same fact by symbols. The tree is Israel. He—the same who planted it in times of old—goes to it, expecting the fruit which its fair appearance warranted; but finding none, he pronounces judicially upon it the sentence of destruction. K.—They had a divine revelation to guide them, by which they were distinguished from all nations; they had the worship of God established among them; they had the appearance of sanctity and religion, but all was outside show, hypocrisy, and dissimulation, without any solid and substantial goodness: they had nothing besides leaves, and therefore, by a just judgment, that which they had was to be taken from them. Jortin. Our Lord had already spoken the parable of the fig-tree that bore no fruit. This miracle was but the acted parable. Here was an opportunity in their very path of enforcing, by a visible sign proceeding from himself, one of the most important truths he had striven to teach them. He condemned the tree to become in appearance that which it was in fact—a useless thing. McD.—Christ did not attribute moral responsibilities to the tree, when he smote it because of its unfruitfulness, but he did attribute to it a fitness for representing moral qualities. All our language concerning trees, a good tree, a bad tree, a tree which ought to bear, is exactly the same continual transfer to them of moral qualities, and a witness for the natural fitness of the Lord’s language—the language indeed of an act, rather than of words. He did not, like Moses and Elijah, make the assertion of God’s holiness and his hatred of evil at the cost of many lives, but only at the cost of a single unfeeling tree. His miracles of mercy were unnumbered, and on men; his miracle of judgment was but one, and on a tree. It was punished not for being without fruit, but for proclaiming by the voice of those leaves that it had such—not for being barren, but for being false. And this was the guilt of Israel, a guilt so much deeper than the guilt of the nations. The other trees had nothing, but they did not pretend to have anything; this tree had nothing, but it gave out that it had much. So was it severally with Gentile and with Jew. The Gentiles were bare of all fruits of righteousness, but they owned it; the Jews were bare, but they vaunted that they were full. T.—And as the fruitless tree, failing to realize the aim of its being, was destroyed, so the theocratic nation, for the same reason, was to be overtaken, after long forbearance, by the judgments of God, and shut out from his kingdom. N. The tree was a fit type of that premature outward show of devotion with which he was even now welcomed by the people, the fruit of whose “Hosannas” would soon be “Crucify him!” and it was on such a deceitful show that his sentence really fell. In any case, let us remember that he was the Lord of the creation; and this, his only miracle of destruction, furnished a most emphatic warning to the people who had often been described as trees of the Lord’s planting, but as often warned that they would be rooted up, if they bare no fruit worthy of repentance. S.—And should the great Creator desire to deal with any barren human spirit as he dealt with that barren fig-tree, what has he to do in order to punish it for its barrenness? He has but to desert that spirit, and call away after him as he goes all those powers and influences that had been at work there so long and so fruitlessly, to leave it finally and forever to itself. Poor, solitary, forsaken spirit, cut off from God, and cast adrift upon a wild and shoreless sea, with thine own vulture passions in thee, let loose from all restraint, to turn upon thee and torture thee, and prey upon thee forever! What darker, drearier hell than that? The soul breeding within it the worm that never dies; itself kindling the fire it cannot quench. H. ## Section 120.—Cleansing of the Temple. Lesson of the Withered Tree. Monday and Tuesday. Mk. 15 And they come to Jerusalem. And Jesus went into the temple of God and began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money-changers, and the seats of them that sold doves; and would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the temple. And he taught, saying unto them, Is it not written, My house shall be called, of all nations, the house of prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves. And he taught daily in the temple. But the chief priests, and the scribes, and the chief of the people heard, and sought how they might destroy him; and could not find what they might do: for they feared him, because all the people were very attentive to hear him, and were astonished at his doctrine. And when even was come, he went out of the city. L. 37 And in the day-time he was teaching in the temple; and at night he went out, and abode in the mount that is called the mount of Olives. And all the people came early in the morning to him in the temple, for to hear him. Mk. 20 And in the morning as they passed by, when the disciples saw the fig-tree dried up from the roots, they marvelled, saying, How soon is the fig-tree withered away! And Peter, calling to remembrance, saith unto him, Master, behold the fig-tree which thou cursedst is withered away. And Jesus answering, saith unto them, Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, That if ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig-tree; but also whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; it shall be done, and he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them; and all things ye 25 shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive. And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you 26 your trespasses. But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses. THOUGH Jesus taught that prayer is influential as a direct appeal to our Father in heaven, he also announced certain conditions upon which prayer, to be efficacious, must proceed. The object prayed for must be in harmony with the divine wisdom as seeing, and the divine love as choosing always that which is best for the suppliant. Mere importunity ought not to procure for us anything which, upon the whole, is not for our good. Prayer must be offered in faith; not as an experimental essay with Providence, nor for the manipulation of our own feelings; but with the earnest conviction that the thing we pray for will be bestowed, if, on the whole, this is best for us, and if, under all the circumstances, this is wisely possible. In praying for temporal benefits we should have in view chiefly the spiritual benefit to be attained through freedom from worldly anxieties. By the virtue that is lodged in the prayer of faith, whosoever will may approximate himself to God in character. "This is the will of God, even your sanctification." J. P. T. 15,16. For the convenience of the Jews from a distance who wished to offer sacrifices, booths had been erected in the temple-court, in which everything necessary for the purpose was kept for sale, and money-changers were also allowed to take their stand there; but, as might have been expected from the existing corruption of the Jewish people, many foul abuses had grown up. The merchants and brokers made everything subservient to their avarice, and their noisy huckstering was a great disturbance to the worship of the temple. N.—The second cleansing of the courts of the temple appears to have taken the custodians of the holy place as much by surprise as did the first. They made no attempt to interrupt it, nor did they interfere with Jesus in the use to which he turned the courts that he had cleansed. He remained to keep guard over the place, not suffering any man to carry even a common vessel across the court, which the Jews had turned into a common thoroughfare. He remained for hours to occupy it unchallenged; the people flocked into it, and he taught them there. All this while the priests and the Levites, the rulers and the temple-guard, are looking on bewildered, their earlier antipathy kindled into a tenfold fervor of hate. H. 17. My house shall be called the house of prayer. All the sacrifices which were offered from the beginning of the world, all the incense of the tabernacle, all the smoke of the altar, were the vehicles of prayer, intercession, and atonement. Prayer ever was, and ever will be, the vital part of religion: without it there is no religion. The devotion of the congregation upon earth is preparatory to the felicity of heaven; and he must pray with Christians in this vale of tears, who would join in the worship of angels in the sanctuary above. An. As once near the beginning, so here at the close of his great work of life, the Son of God cleanses his Father's house, with holy and indignant zeal, of its secular profanations. What does the purifying mean? It means that every true, right work in this world must begin and end with the reverent acknowledgment of God our Father; it means that in every Christian life, of man or woman, youth or child, large and clean and unobstructed place must be made for prayer; it means that business must be marked off from worship with a fully drawn and definite line, not suffered under any pretext or apology to take more than its share of time or thought, or to intrude into the sanctuary, or to do what is just as bad—hold men out of the sanctuary. It means that neither outwardly, in sordid acts, nor inwardly, in selfish, exclusive, uncharitable dispositions, are we to make our Father's house a house of merchandise. F. D. H. 18. At the rebuke and the quotation, the baffled scribes and high-priests retire to mature their plans, to wait for the morrow, and see what it will bring forth. So closed the last day but one of the active ministry of Jesus. H. 20. Trees were made for men; they have no volition, and therefore cannot sin, and have no feeling of punishment. And this barren fig-tree, withered by Christ's word, bears fruit forever in the garden of Scripture by the warning it gives against hypocritical ostentation and luxuriant unfruitfulness. Our Lord was going to his crucifixion, and he therefore confirmed the minds of his disciples by this assurance of his power. W. 23. Say to this mountain, Be thou removed. It was a common saying among the Jews, when they intended to commend any of their doctors for dexterity in solving difficult questions, that he was a rooter up of mountains. In allusion to this adage, Christ tells his disciples that if they had faith they might say to a mountain, Be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea, and it should be done; that is, in confirmation of the Christian faith, they should be able to do the most difficult things. Burder.—Shall not doubt. Whoever does not make a difference between great and lesser miracles, or hesitate because he thinks the miracle too great, but really believes that God can do it, and has commissioned him to do it, shall undoubtedly succeed. It shall be to him whatever he may say, i. e., command or predict in God's name and by his authority. J. A. A.—We accept it then as true to its whole extent, that at that time, and as to these men, there was no miracle of power needful or useful for the furtherance of their apostolic work, which their faith, had it been perfect, might not have enabled them to accomplish. Prayer, it has been said, moves the arm that moves the universe. But it is faith which gives to prayer the faculty of linking itself in this way with Omnipotence, and calling it to human aid. And so you find that Jesus couples faith and prayer together. Wonderful words, assigning an absolutely unlimited efficacy to faith and prayer—but words of truth and soberness, notwithstanding the compass of their embrace, if we remember that true faith will confide in God or Christ only for that as to which he invites and so warrants its confidence; and true prayer will ask for that alone which is agreeable to the will of God, and will promote the spiritual and eternal good of him upon whom it is bestowed. These are the conditions—natural and reasonable—which underlie all that Christ has said of the power of faith and prayer. H.—From the nature of the case put by our Lord—that they might wish a mountain removed—it is quite plain that what he designed to teach was the great lesson that no obstacle shall be able to stand before a confiding faith in God. And certainly when one thinks of the “mountains” that have already been “removed and cast into the sea” by the victorious faith of Christ's disciples—the towering paganisms of the old world which have fallen before the Church of Christ—we may well exclaim of all other obstacles whatever to the triumphs of the cross, “Who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain.” B. 24. What ye desire, ye shall have.** Longing desire prayeth always, though the tongue be silent. If thou art ever longing, thou art ever praying. When stayeth prayer? When desire groweth cold. Aug.—All things ye ask, believing, ye shall receive. Not, believing that ye shall receive what ye ask, but, believing in God as a faithful promise who will answer your prayer; it may be, by giving the thing asked, or by giving something else which he sees more desirable and better for you. The spirit in you, of faith, is the thing upon which the receiving turns. Without this, no receiving. With this, always a receiving, either the object asked, or something better. J. G. B.—Who, it may be said, ever received all the blessings he prayed for? But this is answered by asking again, Who ever, when he prayed, believed that he received what he asked for in the full meaning of our Saviour's words? For by such belief it should seem that he meant full trust in him, and entire submission to his will. Any person thoroughly willing to let God choose for him, would in reality always believe that he receives of God what he prays for. For he would be more sure of God's love and disposition to do the very best for him, than of his own love for himself. Therefore, how earnestly soever he may feel and utter any particular wish, it will always be tempered with this conviction that, however God may appear to deny him, yet the blessing he asks for will come somehow, in a way which God knows to be better. Keble.* 25,26. To prevent the obvious inference from the fulfilment of his malediction against the fig-tree, Jesus mingles with his promise of power to his apostles to perform acts as extraordinary, the strictest injunctions to the milder spirit inculcated by his precept and his example. These prayers were to be for the forgiveness, not for the providential destruction, of their enemies. H. M.—When praying, forgive. Our Lord has reference to the twelve apostles still; and after stating the necessity of faith and of believing prayer in working miracles, reminds them that the same moral dispositions were required in this as in all other prayer, particularly specifying that forgiving temper which he may have seen to be especially deficient in some of them. J. A. A.—The connection between the two is so constant, invariable, that neither can you ever find the humble, contrite heart, which sues for mercy at the throne of grace, without finding there also the meek and gentle spirit that goes forth forgivingly toward others; nor do you ever meet with such free, full, generous forgiveness of others, as from those who have themselves partaken of the pardoning grace of God. H. # Section 121.—His Authority questioned. The Two Sons. The Temple. Tuesday. Mk. 27 AND on one of those days they come again to Jerusalem: and when he was come into the temple, it came to pass, as he was walking, as he taught the people and preached the gospel, there came unto him the chief priests, and the scribes, and the L. 2 elders of the people: and spake unto him, saying, Tell us by what authority doest thou 3 these things? or who is he that gave thee this authority? And Jesus answered and said unto them, I will also ask you one thing, which, if ye tell me, I in like wise will tell you by 4 what authority I do these things. The baptism of John, whence was it? from heaven, or 5 of men? answer me. And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If we shall say, From 6 heaven; he will say unto us, Why then believed ye him not? But if we shall say, Of men, we fear the people: all the people will stone us, for they all be persuaded 7 that John was a prophet indeed. And they answered and said unto Jesus, We cannot 8 tell whence it was. And Jesus answering said unto them, Neither tell I you by what authority I do these things. Mk. 1 And he began to speak unto them and to the people by parables. But what think ye? M. 28 A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work to-day 29 in my vineyard. He answered and said, I will not: but afterward he repented, and 30 went. And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I 31 go, sir: and went not. Whether of them twain did the will of his father? They say unto him, The first. Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That the publicans 32 and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not; but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him. SIN may have its enormity measured in speculation without being bitterly repented of and forsaken. God and his ways may be justified without being loved. The plan of salvation through atoning blood may be saluted as a grand solution of a stupendous moral problem, without being made the stay of hope; welcomed as a relief to reason, but not applied as a healing power to the wounded heart. "The head can as easily amuse itself with a living and justifying faith in the blood of Jesus, as with any other notion." As of the doctrines, so also of the duties of our religion. These duties may be objects merely of belief, arrayed in well-ordered systems, and acknowledged to be the proper code of life, without being actually reduced to practice. The study of God's word, the keeping of holy time, prayer and praise, a clean heart and a clean life, with self-denying exertions, in all feasible and hopeful ways, for the good of others, may all be clearly recognized as Christian duties, without being discharged. The most sacred duty may thus decay into a dogma, asking only to be believed. "I go, sir," answered the son in the parable, "but went not." R. D. H. 27. The teachings contained in Sections 121-127 were all given publicly in the temple on Tuesday. They constitute the close of Christ's public ministry. Tuesday, the 4th day of April, was by far the most eventful in the life of Christ, prior to his passion and death. When he first entered the temple, it was evident that systematic plans had been formed to silence him. Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians united against him; assumed to be his disciples; mingled their questions with those of honest inquirers; endeavored to entrap him into answers that should arouse popular prejudice or embroil him with the Roman government. L. A. Chief priests, scribes, elders. Of these three sections of the Sanhedrim, the first was composed of priests (perhaps heads of the twenty-four classes, not deposed high-priests); the second, of expounders and transcribers of the law; the third, of the heads of the principal families of Israel. E.—The chief priests, the learned scribes, the leading rulers, representatives of all the constituent classes of the Sanhedrim, were there, to overawe him—whom they despised as the poor ignorant prophet of despicable Nazareth—with all that was venerable in age, eminent in wisdom, or imposing in authority in the great council of the nation. F.—The qualifications for membership of this court, as stated by Jewish writers, are curious. They must be religious, and learned in arts and languages. They must have some skill in physic, arithmetic, astronomy, astrology, and be acquainted with what belonged to magic, sorcery, and idolatry, that they may know how to judge of them. They must be without maim or blemish of body; men of years, but not extremely old, because such are commonly of too great severity; and they must be fathers of children, that they might be acquainted with tenderness and compassion. When Judea became a Roman province, the Sanhedrim either, as is more likely, assumed for the first time, or recovered, its station as a kind of senate or representative body of the nation; possessed itself of such subordinate functions of the government as were not actually administered by the Roman procurator. It is the Sanhedrim, under the name of the chief priests, scribes, and elders of the people, who take the lead in all the transactions recorded in the gospels. Jesus Christ was led before the Sanhedrim, and by them denounced before the tribunal of Pilate. H. M. L. 2. They demanded of him his warrant for thus publicly assuming the functions of rabbi and prophet, for riding into Jerusalem amid the hosannas of attendant crowds, for purging the temple of the traffickers, at whose presence they connived. F.—Their question seems a fit and fair one. They are the constituted keepers of the temple, of the only public building of the city that the Romans have left entirely under Jewish control. There has been a manifest invasion of the territory committed to their guardianship, of the offices that they alone are held competent to discharge; for who is this that, being neither priest nor Levite, nor scribe nor elder, deals with the sacred place as if it were his own? H. 4. The Baptism of John, whence?** The Sanhedrim had heard two years before (J. 1 : 19) from the mouth of the Baptist an indirect answer to the very question they were now proposing; meet, then, was it that they should first declare the estimation in which they held him who had so answered them. E.—If they had recognized the divine mission of John, they must also have acknowledged the authority by which Jesus did these things, for John expressly declared that he was sent to testify of him, and bore witness to having seen the Holy Spirit descend and rest upon him. A. 7. We cannot tell.** It was ignorance in a sphere wherein ignorance was for them inexcusable. They, the appointed explainers of the law—they, the accepted teachers of the people—and yet to be compelled, against their real convictions, to say, and that before the multitude, that they could not tell whether a man of immense and sacred influence, a man who acknowledged the Scriptures which they explained, and carried into practice the customs which they reverenced—was a divinely-inspired messenger or a deluding impostor! F.—They could at least have told what they themselves believed. They could, but dared not; and so by this piece of cowardice and hypocrisy they forfeit the title to have any other or fuller satisfaction given them as to the nature and origin of that authority which Jesus exercised, beyond that which was already in their hands. H. 8. Neither tell I you.** An answer, not to their outward words, “We know not,” but to their inward thoughts, “We will not tell.” A.—He well knew—as the form of his answer showed—that their “do not know” was a “do not choose to say.” Since, however, their failure to answer clearly absolved him from any necessity to tell them further of an authority about which, by their own confession, they were incompetent to decide. F. Mk. 1. Our Lord now becomes himself the assailing party, and commences that series of parables, in which his adversaries might see themselves, the impurity of their hearts, their neglect of the charge laid upon them, their contempt of the privileges afforded them, the aggravated guilt of that outrage against himself which they were already meditating in their hearts. T.—In this series of parables and discourses of our Lord with his enemies, he develops, more completely than ever before, his hostility to their hypocrisy and iniquity—and so they are stirred up to compass his death. A. M. 28. A certain man had two sons. Here, as at L. 15 : 11, are described, under the image of two sons of one father, two great moral divisions of men, under one or other of which might be ranged almost all with whom our blessed Lord came in contact. In one are included all who have sought a righteousness through the law, and by the help of it have been kept in the main from open outbreakings of evil. In the second class are contained all who have thrown off the yoke, openly and boldly transgressed the laws of God, done evil with both hands earnestly. 31. The Lord immediately makes the application of the words which have been reluctantly wrung from them, “Verily, I say unto you, that the publicans and harlots go into the kingdom of God before you." When he says, they "go before you," or take the lead of you, he would indicate that the door of hope was not yet shut upon them—the others indeed had preceded them, but they might still follow, if they would. T.—True repentance saves the greatest sinners; a false righteousness does but blind and harden the worldly-wise the more. Men recover more easily from gross disorders than from a false righteousness and secret pride, which corrupt the whole life and lull the sinner asleep. Q. 32. Ye repented not, that ye might believe him. It was the treatment given to John and to his ministry that Jesus had been setting forth in the conduct of the two sons to their father. They, the chief priests and elders of the people, were the second son; and those publicans and harlots, who repented at the preaching of the Baptist, were the first. H.—When the Baptist came unto them "in the way of righteousness," and summoned to earnest repentance, to a revival of God's work in the hearts of the entire people, then many of those hitherto openly profane were baptized, confessing their sins; and like the son who at first contumaciously refused obedience to his father's bidding, "repented and went;" while, on the other hand, the real unrighteousness of the Pharisees, before concealed under a show of zeal for the law, was evidently declared: professing willingness to go, they yet "went not." T. In its modern application, the parable teaches, not that there is more hope for a flagrant sinner than for a virtuous man, but that the flagrant sinner who forsakes his sins enters the kingdom of heaven before the orthodox and moral man who clings to his sins. The first son is commended, not because of the daring wickedness of his reply, but because he regretted it and showed his regret by his action. The second son is not condemned for his answer, but in spite of it, and because, having promised obedience, he refused to render it. L. A. ## Section 122.—The Faithless Husbandmen. The Temple. Tuesday. M. 33 HEAR another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen; and went into a far country for a long time. And at the season, when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent to the husbandmen a servant, that he might receive from the husbandmen of the fruit of the vineyard. But the husbandmen caught him, and beat him, and sent him away empty. And again he sent unto them another servant; and at him they cast stones, and wounded him in the head; and they beat him also, and entreated him shamefully, and sent him away empty. And again he sent a third; and they wounded him also, and cast him out. And again he sent another; and him they killed, and many others; beating some and killing some. Then the lord of the vineyard, having yet one son, his well-beloved, said, What shall I do? I will send my beloved son: it may be they will reverence him when they see him. Therefore he sent him also, last of all, unto them. But when the husbandmen saw the son, they reasoned among themselves, saying, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance, and it shall be ours. And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him. When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen? He shall come and miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons. And when they heard it, they said, God forbid. And Jesus beheld them, and said, Did ye never read in the scriptures this that is written, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes? Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the 44 fruits thereof. And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder. 45 And when the chief priests and the scribes and Pharisees had heard his parables, they perceived that he had spoken against them; and the same hour they sought to lay hands 46 on him; but they feared the multitude, because they took him for a prophet. And they left him, and went their way. THE guilty consciences of the chief priests and Pharisees addressed, felt instinctively that in these parables he had pointed to them. The vineyard of God, separated from the wilderness of heathenism, was clearly Israel. The husbandmen were the priests, rabbis, and Pharisees, to whom he had left his vineyard, with the charge to tend it, and to render him duly its fruits. The servants sent were the prophets, from their first appearance in the distant past to John the Baptist. They had been despised, beaten, martyred. Only one could follow them—the last and highest representative of God, who should have commanded respect even from murderers—his only and well-beloved Son, the Messiah; who had come, not as the nation fancied, to bring them political glory and earthly prosperity, but to receive the fruits which, kept back for hundreds of years, could no longer be left unrendered. But Jesus, the Messiah, had long foreseen his fate. He had had it before his eyes every hour since his public entry to Jerusalem. He, the rightful heir of the vineyard, had been received by the husbandmen with jealous eyes and deadly purposes. The revolt he had come to end had grown rampant. It had risen from a refusal to render the fruits, to a rejection of their dependence and a daring resolution to take the vineyard into their own hands: to cast out God in casting out him whom he had sent. The fierce anger of God could not long delay. The rebels, smitten by his wrath, must perish. The vineyard must pass into other hands. But “the others” could only be the heathen whom Israel despised. Loyal to the Son whom Israel had rejected and slain, disciples and followers gathered from other nations, would be intrusted with the inheritance. Changing the figure, these would willingly accept, as the foundation and chief corner-stone of the new kingdom of God, him whom the first builders—of whom those now before him were the representatives—had rejected. Was there any doubt that God would transfer that kingdom to those thus loyal to his Son? G.—By the great Architect he had been laid of old in Zion, the chief foundation of the great spiritual edifice to be reared out of the ruins of the Fall. For many a generation he had been a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence. All these wrongs of the past he passively had borne, and now in his own person he is to submit to reproach and suffering and death; but the hour that was to see him exalted because of this, and proclaimed to be the head of the corner, was to see him coming also in judgment. H. 33. He looks back to the treatment which these men’s forefathers had given to messenger after messenger of the Most High, and he looks forward to that which they, fit sons of such sires, were about to give himself; and bringing the past, the present, and the future into the picture, he tells of a vineyard, well fenced, well furnished, let out to husbandmen. H.—One of the few instances—perhaps the only one—in which an image of the Old Testament is almost exactly repeated in the discourses of Christ. A. P. S. The explanation of the hedging round the vineyard is suggested by passages like Ephes. 2:14, where the law is described as “the middle wall of partition” between the Jew and Gentile. By their circumscription through the law, the Jews became a people dwelling alone, and not reckoned among the nations. That law was a hedge at once of separation and of defence. Outwardly also Judea, through its geographical position, was hedged round—on the east by the river Jordan and the two lakes, on the south by the desert and mountainous country of Idumea, on the west by the sea, and by Anti-Libanus on the north—for so, observes Vitringa, had God in his counsels determined, who willed that Israel should dwell alone. T. Built a tower. These watch-towers are sometimes as high as forty or fifty feet. Those which I examined had a small door near the ground, and a level space on the top, where a man could sit and command a view of the plantation. Some of the towers near Hebron are so built as to serve as houses; and, during the vintage, it is said that the inhabitants take up their abode in them in such numbers as to leave the town almost deserted. H. B. H.—Let it out to husbandmen. These must be the spiritual leaders and teachers of the people, while the vineyard itself will then naturally signify the great body of the people, who were to be instructed and taught, to the end that, under diligent cultivation, they might bring forth fruits of righteousness, and so realize the idea of the kingdom of God. Mk. 5. The servants, that is, the prophets, and other more eminent ministers of God in his theocracy, were sent, being raised up at particular times, having particular missions. The patience of the householder is thus brought out and magnified that it may set forth the yet more wonderful forbearance and long-suffering of God: "Howbeit I sent unto you all my servants the prophets, rising early and sending them, saying, Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate" (Jer. 44: 4). "Nevertheless they were disobedient, and rebelled against thee, and cast thy law behind their backs, and slew thy prophets who testified against them, to turn them to thee, and they wrought great provocations" (Neh. 9: 26). The whole confession made in that chapter by the Levites is in itself an admirable commentary on this parable. T. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/butler/ 1,2. AND Jesus answered and spake unto them again by parables, and said, The kingdom 3 of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son, and sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding: and they would not come. 4 Again, he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them which are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my dinner: my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: 5 come unto the marriage. But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his 6 farm, another to his merchandise. And the remnant took his servants, and entreated 7 them spitefully, and slew them. But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. 8. Then saith he to his servants, The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were 9 not worthy. Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to 10 the marriage. So those servants went out into the highways, and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good: and the wedding was furnished with guests. 11. And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on 12 a wedding garment: and he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither, not 13 having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then said the king to the ser- vants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer dark- 14 ness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen. IN Theophylact's words, "the entrance to the marriage feast is without scrutiny, for by grace alone we are all called; but the life of those that have entered, hereafter shall not be without scrutiny: the King will make a very strict examination of those who, having entered into the faith, shall be found in filthy garments"—a most needful caution, lest any should abuse the grace of God, and forget that while they were freely called, they were yet called unto holiness. What this guest lacked was righteousness. He had not, according to the image of Paul, "put on Christ;" in which putting on of Christ, both faith and holiness are included. By faith we recognize a righteousness out of and above us, and wherewith our spirits can be clothed, which righteousness is in Christ, who is the Lord our Righteousness. A time arrives when every man will discover that he needs this covering, this array for his soul. It is woe unto him, who like this guest only discovers it when it is too late to provide himself with such; and then suddenly stands confessed to himself in all his moral nakedness and defilement. The fact of his being but one, brings the matter home to every man: "So diligent and exact will be the future scrutiny, that not so much as one in all that great multitude of men shall on the last day escape the piercing eyes of the Judge." T. The crown of the Saviour is still incomplete; the marriage feast of the Lamb is not yet full: the Comforter is still gathering jewels for that crown, and calling guests to that feast; and we may be among those jewels, in the number of those happy guests. Hare. 1-14. The whole scheme of these words is a figurative description of God's vouchsafing to the world the invaluable blessing of the gospel, by the similitude of a king, with great magnificence solemnizing his son's marriage, and with equal bounty inviting all about him to that royal solemnity—together with his severe animadversion, both upon those who would not come, and upon one who did come in a very unbesemming manner. R. S.—The appearance of the householder (of the previous parable) as the king, announces that the sphere in which this parable moves is the New Testament dispensation—is the kingdom, announced before, but only actually present with the coming of the king. That last was a parable of the Old Testament history; even Christ himself appears there rather as the last and greatest of the line of prophets and teachers, than as the founder of a new kingdom. In that, a parable of the law, God appears demanding something from men; in this, a parable of grace, God appears more as giving something to them. There, he is displeased that his demands are not complied with—here, that his goodness is not accepted; there he requires, here he imparts. And thus, as we so often find, the two mutually complete one another; this taking up the matter, where the other left it. T. 2. The kingdom of heaven resembles the marriage feast itself in all its parts—the preparation, the invitation, the acceptance of the invitation, and the participation. C. B.—It entered quite into the circle of Jewish expectations, that the setting up of the kingdom of the Messiah should be ushered in by a glorious festival. The two favorite images under which the prophets of the old covenant set forth the blessings of the new, and of all near communion with God, that of a festival, and of a marriage, meet and interpenetrate each other in the marriage festival here. 3,4. The invitation first went forth at the constitution of the Jewish nation, and ran through all their history. It was taken up and repeated by each succeeding prophet, as he prophesied of the crowning grace that should one day be brought to Israel in the actual presence of its Lord and King, and summoned the people to hold themselves in a spiritual readiness against that day. Yet they never did more than thus bid the guests, for they only spoke of good things to come. The actual calling of “them that were bidden” pertained not to them. John the Baptist was the first in whose time the kingdom was actually present, the wedding feast prepared, the king and the king’s son manifested, and the long-invited guests summoned. By the first band of servants I should certainly now understand John and the apostles in their first mission—that which they accomplished during the lifetime of the Lord. 4. Let us not miss in the parable or in its application the infinite grace which gives to the guests the opportunity of coming to a better mind, and making good their first contempt. “Tell them which are bidden,” so tell them that they cannot mistake, that every anterior preparation is made, and that now “all things are ready.” And exactly thus was it with the apostles after the crucifixion; how willing were they to look upon all that was past in the mildest possible light! thus Peter, “And now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it”—how did they refuse to dwell upon the past sin, urging rather the present grace! 6. Slew them. So there are ever in the world two kinds of despisers of the gospel of God: some who take the trouble perhaps of saying, “I pray thee have me excused”—others in whom it excites feelings of a positive enmity. T. 7. He sent forth his armies. This points out in the plainest terms the Roman armies under Vespasian and Titus, which, not many years after this was spoken, besieged Jerusalem, and destroyed the city, with an immense number of its inhabitants. P.—This bringing in of armies, this mention of a city and its destruction, teaches us to connect the parable of the marriage feast with that of the wicked husbandmen; both intended to set forth the terrible punishment of the Jewish people—the taking of the kingdom from them, and the giving it to others. H.—Their city. It is their city, not any longer the city of the great King, who owns it no more for his own. With a similar threatening Christ says, “Your house is left unto you desolate.” T.—The occurrence of this seventh verse before the opening of the feast to the Gentiles is strictly exact; for although the gospel was preached to the Gentiles forty years before the destruction of Jerusalem, yet the final rejection of the Jews and the substitution of the Gentiles did not take place till that event. A. 9. As many as ye find, bid to the marriage. At all seasons and in all forms goes forth the proclamation of a God who still waiteth to be gracious, the invitation of the ever-merciful King to the whole multitude of his subjects. His offer is universal, for he would be absolved before heaven and earth when that offer is despised. Man’s own reason shall have to acknowledge that man, if condemned, was not unwarned; that if he did not come to God, it was not that God did not come to him. Conscience, overpowered on earth, shall assume a terrible activity in the world of punishment; and in the abode of ruin itself, the miserable attestation shall be uttered, of the long-suffering of God, of neglected mercies whose remembrance shall produce the deepest bitterness of its despair. W. A. B. 10. Gathered together all. Allusion is here made to the calling in of the Gentiles to the privileges of the gospel, after they had been rejected by the Jews. This was first done by Peter in the instance of Cornelius, and afterward extended to the Gentiles at large by him and the other apostles. And in this invitation, no exceptions, no distinctions were to be made. All that they found, both good and bad, men of all characters and descriptions, were to have the offer of salvation, even the very worst of sinners. F. 11. Had not on a wedding garment. The wedding garment, it is thought, was a robe, which it was usual for the master of the feast to furnish for those guests who were unable to provide themselves with it. We find traces of this custom in classical writers, and even in modern entertainments in the East. It was highly indecorous and offensive to intrude on the festivity of the feast without this garment. P.—Besides the separation between those who come and those who refuse, it shall be also tried at the last who among the actual comers have walked worthy of their vocation and who not; and according to this rule there shall be a second sifting and separation. We have had the judgment on the avowed foe; that on the false friend is yet to find place. It was the servants’ work to gather in the guests to the heavenly banquet; but it is not their office to separate finally and decisively between the worthy partakers and the unworthy intruders. The garment which distinguishes these from those is worn, not on the body, but on the heart: and only “the Lord trieth the hearts.” T. 12. How camest thou? It is implied that it was owing to his own culpable carelessness, as well as to his own disregard of what was due to the king, that he appeared without a wedding garment. D. K. D.—We may and ought, when God calls, to come as we are; but we may not, if we would see his face and enjoy his last feast, remain as we are. Stier. Speechless? It is the terrible silence of conviction. Hardly the most thoughtless have failed to be struck with the force and significance of this part of the representation. Of all the multitude of excuses that now pass current to justify the world’s forgetfulness of its Maker, not one rises to his lips. W. A. B.—He did not feel that he had anything to say for himself; with no plea to allege for his contemptuous behavior, he stood self-condemned, and judgment therefore immediately proceeded against him. Within the palace was light and joy, but without it was cold and darkness—into this the unworthy guest, with no power of resisting the fulfilment of the decree, for his hands and feet were first bound, was to be cast. T.—Not for us is it to sound those depths of despair, that flame unquenchable, that worm undying, that wall impassable, those mournings unpitied, that future without hope and without end. The faculties of man must be enlarged for even the conception of such misery as that. If there be a glory too bright for human eye to gaze on, there is an anguish too dark for human eye as yet to penetrate. If this little, dream-like life, slipping so rapidly away through our hands, can never again be repeated, but all we do must now be done, and all we are to be forever we now must learn to be; if nothing crosses the grave with any man but the garb of the soul that he bears to the court of the heavenly King; if God gives us ample opportunity for making our calling and election sure, so that every excuse shall then be vain, and every culprit speechless: can any infatuation equal the infatuation of those who, knowing all this to be certain, can yet defer this mighty work? W. A. B. ## Section 124.—Question about the Tribute Money. The Temple. Tuesday. M. 15 THEN went the Pharisees, and took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk. L. 20 And they watched him, and sent forth spies, certain of their disciples with the Herodians, which should feign themselves just men, that they might catch him in, and take hold of, his words; that so they might deliver him unto the power and authority of the M. 16 governor. And when they were come, they say unto him, Master, we know that thou art true, that thou sayest and teachest rightly; neither carest thou for any man, for 17 thou regardest not the person of men, but teachest the way of God in truth. Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful for us to give tribute unto Cesar, or not? 18 Shall we give, or shall we not give? But Jesus perceived their wickedness, knowing their craftiness and hypocrisy; and said unto them, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites? 19 Shew me the tribute money; bring me a penny, that I may see it. And they brought 20 unto him a penny. And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? 21 And they answered and said unto him, Cesar's. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Cesar the things which are Cesar's: and unto God the things that are 22 God's. And they could not take hold of his words before the people: and when they heard, they marvelled at his answer and held their peace, and left him, and went their way. CHRIST is never a radical, never a conservative. He will not allow his disciples to deny him before kings and governments, he will not let them renounce their allegiance to Cesar. He exposes the oppressions of the Pharisees in Moses's seat, but, encouraging no factious resistance, says, "Do as they command you." His position as a reformer was universal; according to his principles almost nothing, whether in Church or state or in social life, was right, and yet he is thrown into no antagonism against the world. With a reform to be carried in almost everything, he is yet as quiet and cordial, and as little in the attitude of bitterness or impatience, as if all hearts were with him, or the work already done; so perfect is the balance of his feeling, so intuitively moderated is it by a wisdom not human. H. B. L. 20. The Herodians were not a religious sect, but a political party, who began to grow eminent in the days of Herod the Great, as favoring his claims, and those of his patrons the Romans, to the sovereignty of Judea. This party, having begun in the time of Herod, may well be supposed to have continued long afterward in favor and power, by the indulgence of the Herods, and influence of the Romans. Percy.—It was their principle to promote intimacy with the Roman power by flattery and unlimited submission; and, above all, by introducing into Judea the usages and customs of the Roman people. This union with idolatry, on the ground of worldly policy, was probably the leaven against which our Lord cautioned his disciples, as it involves hypocrisy. J. A.—The Pharisees with the Herodians. 'Twas a well-arranged combination: religious hypocrisy and political craft, hierarchical prejudice and royalist sympathies; each party scarcely tolerating the other except for temporary and special purposes, and yet both of them, for the time and the occasion, working harmoniously together, concurring in the proposal of the most perplexing and dangerous question that could then have been devised—the tributary relations of a conquered to a conquering people. E. M. 17. Tribute to Cesar. The reigning Cesar was Tiberius, the step-son and successor to Augustus, the first emperor. The tax was based upon property or income, of which a report was exacted from every Jew. J. G. B.—The systematic and direct taxation of the country by Rome was an inextinguishable subject of hatred and strife between the rulers and the ruled. The Jewish law recognized taxes and free gifts only for religious objects; and, according to the rabbis, the very holiness of the land rested on every field and tree contributing its tithe, or gift of wood, to the temple. How, it was asked, could this sacredness be maintained, if a heathen emperor received taxes from the sources consecrated by these tithes and gifts to Jehovah? G. Shall we give, or shall we not give? No door seems open to evade or to decline an answer. A simple affirmative or a simple negative must be given. On either side, the difficulty and the danger to Jesus seem nearly equal. If he shall say it is lawful to give tribute to Cesar, his favor with the people is gone; his pretensions to be the Messiah are scattered to the winds. Should he say that it is not lawful, they have but to report him to Pilate as a stirrer-up of sedition, and prove their charge by his own declaration made in the presence of the people. H.—19. While the people stood round in wondering silence they brought him a denarius, and put it in his hand. On one side were stamped the haughty, beautiful features of the Emperor Ti- Tiberius, with all the wicked scorn upon the lip; on the obverse his title of Pontifex Maximus! F. 21. Things which are Cesar's. Putting it in this general form, it was impossible for sedition itself to dispute it, and yet it dissolved the snare. And to God.** How much there is in this profound but to them startling addition to the maxim, and how incomparable is the whole for fulness, brevity, clearness, weight! B.—By this singular reply the hypocrisy and inconsistency of his questioners are at once exposed. The mere payment of the tribute is but a secondary matter after all. The true question was, Should the Roman rule be submitted to or not? was it or was it not lawful to bear the foreign yoke? This question the Jewish people and these Pharisees, their most influential leaders, had so far decided. They had yielded to and accepted the foreign yoke. There was this manifest token of subjection, that Roman money was circulating among them as the common and accepted coin of the realm. H.—The very word which he used conveyed the lesson. They had asked, "Is it lawful to give?" He corrects them, and says, "Render"—"Give back." It was not a voluntary gift, but a legal due; not a cheerful offering, but a political necessity. It was perfectly understood among the Jews, and was laid down in the distinctest language by their greatest rabbis in later days, that to accept the coinage of any king was to acknowledge his supremacy. By accepting the denarius, therefore, as a current coin they were openly declaring that Cesar was their sovereign. But Jesus could not leave them with this lesson only. He added the far deeper and weightier words—"and to God the things that are God's." To Cesar you owe the coin which you have admitted as the symbol of his authority, and which bears his image and superscription; to God you owe yourselves. F. Far from separating political from religious obligation, or accepting the question in the alternative form, our Lord returns an answer which shows that it was not a question for either yea or nay; that obedience to Cesar and duty to God were not things to be put in competition with each other. E.—His answer taught them that their obligations to Cesar were not inconsistent with their duties to God; on the contrary, that the latter constituted the basis of the former. At the same time, it reminded them of a duty to which they were most unfaithful, viz., to give truly to God what is God's; as man, bearing the stamp of his image, belongs to him, and should be dedicated to him. And the "giving to God what is God's" not only affords the basis, but also fixes the just limitations of the civil obligations growing out of relations brought about by divine providence. N.—Christ defined in principle the distinction of man's life as it regards religion, and man's life as it concerns society; the bounds, in fact, of Church and state. Cesar has no right to intervene, with his laws and material force, between the soul of man and his God. And the faithful worshipper of God is bound to fulfil toward Cesar the duties which the necessity of the maintenance of civil order imposes. The independence of religious faith, and at the same time its subjection to the laws of society, are alike the sense of Christ's reply to the Pharisees, and the divine source of the greatest progress ever made by human society. Everywhere before Christ, religions were national local religions, which established between nations, classes, individuals, enormous differences and inequalities. Everywhere, also, before Christ, man's civil life and his religious life were confounded, and mutually oppressed each other. But in this catholicity of religious faith, in this independence of religious communities, we recognize new and sublime principles, and see in them flashes from the light of heaven, that God caused first to beam forth from the life and teaching of Jesus Christ. F. G. Thus this answer establishes the limits, regulates the rights, and distinguishes the jurisdiction of the two empires of heaven and earth, of the spiritual and temporal powers. Q.—It affirms that in rendering to Cesar the things that righteously are Cesar's, we can never be keeping from God the things that righteously are God's. And if the things that are God's be duly and fully rendered, Cesar shall get what is his as one of the very things that God requires at our hands. The second precept, in fact, embraces the first as the greater covers the less. H. "RENDER unto God the things that are God's." Have you ever taken pains to think how much ground of your heart and your life that covers? What are these "things that are God's?" What share has He; what rights of ownership, creation, preservation; what title, what claims, in your bodily strength, in your time, in your real or personal estate, in your mind and its education, in your tongue and its speech, in your business and its profits, in your social influence and its motives, in your home happiness and the fruits of it? In your habitual way of estimating these things, and talking about them, do you treat them as His, in any sense—His so as to be used for him—His to be left with you or taken away from you as may be his perfect will—His to be accounted for to him? Or is it the habit of your mind to regard them all as your own, in some exclusive and self-gratifying way, as if your rights in them would never be invaded—as if no hand but yours could be laid upon them? F. D. H. ## Section 125.—Question about the Resurrection. The Temple. Tuesday. L. 27 THEN the same day came to him certain of the Sadducees, which say that there is no 28 resurrection; and they asked him, saying, Master, Moses wrote unto us, If any man's brother die and leave his wife behind him, and leave no children, that his brother should M. 25 marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. Now there were with us seven brethren: and the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, and having no issue, left L. 30 his wife unto his brother: and the second took her to wife, and he died childless: and 31 the third took her likewise; and in like manner the seven also; and they left no chil- 32, 33 dren, and died. Last of all the woman died also. In the resurrection therefore, when 34 they shall rise, whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her to wife. And Jesus answering, said unto them, Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God? The children of this world marry, and are given 35 in marriage: but they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor 36 are given in marriage; but are as the angels of God which are in heaven. Neither can they die any more; for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, 37 being the children of the resurrection. And as touching the resurrection of the dead, that the dead are raised, even Moses shewed. Have ye not read in the book of Moses that which was spoken to you by God, how in the bush God spake unto him saying, 38 I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him. Ye therefore do greatly 39 err. And when the multitude heard this, they were astonished at his doctrine. Then certain of the scribes answering said, Master, thou hast well said. As Christ deduces from the covenant relationship in which God stood to the patriarchs the preservation of their entire being, and the clothing it with a deathless immortality, even so from the relationship in which Jesus stands to all who are in vital union with him, does the Apostle Paul draw the very same conclusion. In taking their nature on him, in bearing their sins, in dying that they might live, Jesus took their whole humanity, and so identified it with his own being, that as in him they live, with him they must rise again, his life and his resurrection involving theirs. Mysterious incorporating union with Jesus Christ! that begins with the simple act of trust and love which binds our weak, sinful spirit to our Redeemer, and brings us into such close fellowship with God, that we can hear him say to us, “I am thy God, even as I was the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and of the faithful in all ages!”—what a linked array of incalculable blessings does it carry in its train! This among the rest: that he shall change these bodies of ours and make them like to his own glorious body; and associate them as meet companions of the purified spirits of heaven. “If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.” H. THOUGH constituting a powerful party, it is not till the closing scene of the Saviour’s life that the Sadducees appear to have taken any active part against him. They looked with contempt upon what they regarded as the groundless beliefs and superstitious practices of the great bulk of their countrymen. In common with them they believed indeed in the divine origin of the Jewish faith. They admitted the divine authority of the laws and institutions of Moses. But they rejected that oral tradition which had grown up around the Mosaic revelation, which had come to be regarded as of equal authority with it. They accepted the other books of the Old Testament, but there seems good reason to believe that they held the Pentateuch in preëminent esteem. Into their religious creed the Sadducees would admit nothing which Moses had not directly announced. The freethinkers or rationalists of their age and nation, they were incredulous as to any other existences or powers influencing human affairs beyond those that lay open to the observation of their senses. They did not—as professed disciples of Moses they could not—repudiate the agency of God as exerted in the creation and government of the world. But they limited that agency to a general supervision and control which left full scope to human volition and effort. So far as their professed faith would let them, they were materialists. They could not deny that beings called angels had occasionally, in the history recorded by Moses, appeared to take some part in earthly affairs. But, disbelieving in the existence of any other spirit save that of the Supreme, whatever their explanation of these angelic manifestations, it was one that left them at liberty to deny that there was any separate order of beings called angels standing between men and God. They said that there was “no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit” (Acts 23 : 8). They believed in the soul of man only as exhibited in and by the body which enshrined it; with that body it perished at death. The future state, a world of rewards and punishments hereafter for the things now done in the body, was but a dream. 34. Do ye not err?** His charge against them is not one of hypocrisy, but of error, that error having a twofold source: 1. Their ignorance of the meaning of the Scriptures, of that very book of Moses from which they had quoted; 2. Their ignorance of the power of God, particularly of the way in which it should be exercised in effecting that resurrection which they denied. H.—With them, as with the Pharisees, he struck at the root, and traced their errors to ignorance of the Scriptures and of the omnipotence of God. Had they known the Scriptures, he showed them, not only in the letter, but the spirit, they could not fail to see a necessary connection between the faith revealed there and the doctrine of an eternal, individual life for man. Had they known the omnipotence of God, they would not have supposed that the forms and relations of the present life must be preserved in the future; God could bestow the new existence in a far different, nay, in a glorified form. N.—Had they not been ignorant of the power of God, they would not have imagined that the life of the children of the resurrection was a mere reflex and repetition of the life of the children of this world. In that heaven beyond the grave, though love remains, yet all the mere earthlinesses of human relationship are superseded and transfigured. F. 36. As the angels. The saints after the resurrection partake of the immortality of the angels. They will then have no more passions, no more occasion for food, and no more fear of dying, than pure spirits. They will have no other father but the Father of the world to come, who will restore life to the members as he has restored it to the Head, by the eternal and immortal Spirit working in them. They will no longer have anything of the life of Adam, but will be wholly regenerated to a new life, and become entirely the children of God both in soul and body. Q.—They are equal unto the angels. The highest angels in heaven are God's ministers and messengers, and are glorious and happy in their obedience: and the very meanest of the sons of men, if not wanting in the duties of their present station, whatever it be, will be advanced to the same likeness. The lowest offices in God's service become the steps of our highest advancement. Ogden.—Children of God, children of the resurrection.** The Father, who has regenerated, has regenerated that he may immortalize. Sooner shall he yield his heavenly throne than hold it and forsake us; sooner shall God be no longer God, than the children of God fail to be the children of the resurrection. W. A. B.—But children of a blessed resurrection, of the resurrection unto life, we can only be by becoming now the children of God. H. 37. Hitherto Jesus has encountered the objection of the Sadducees against the resurrection; he now brings forward the positive proof for it. I am the God of Abraham, etc. Unless Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had survived their decease, God could not at the time of Moses have called himself their God, still less could he have adduced his relationship to them as the reason why he was pleased to succor the Israelites. C. B.—If these words are to be understood in any way worthy of God, then must the fathers still exist as persons, as their names indicate, inasmuch as He thus speaks of them. Stier. 38. God is not the God of the dead.** By a clear inference from the words of Scripture, our Saviour here shows that although the bodies of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, had long been in their graves, yet their souls had survived, and were at that moment in existence. P.—The words are "I am," not "I was;" therefore God was then the God of those three patriarchs; therefore those patriarchs were still living and endowed with intelligence, somewhere or other, when God declared he was still their God; that is, they were alive as to their souls. Thus the Sadducees, who denied the separate subsistence of souls or spirits, were confuted at once, and that by a very clear and plain text, produced even from the books of Moses. Waterland. The Sadducees denied the immortality of the soul, as well as the resurrection of the body. Our Lord's answer is directed against both errors. The words "I am thy God" imply a covenant. There is another side to them: "Thou art mine" follows upon "I am thine." When God therefore declares that he is the God of Abraham, etc., he declares their continuance, as the other parties in this covenant. It is an assertion that could not be made of an annihilated being of the past. And notice also that Abraham's body, having on it the seal of the covenant, is included in this. Thus the burden of the law, "I am the Lord thy God," contains in it the seed of immortality and the hope of the resurrection. A.—Our Lord teaches us to find immortality and a resurrection in the Old Testament, but he teaches us to find it in the spirit rather than in the letter, to look for it, not as a revelation, but as implied in and underlying all revelation. He shows us how inevitably a resurrection follows, from the very recognition of that relation between God and man of which Moses speaks. If the eternal God has made men his friends, if he has taken them into covenant with himself, and declared to them his counsel, if he has given them their names, singling out his friends from the world, and vouchsafing in infinite grace to call himself their God, then he does not mock them with fleeting hopes and transitory promises. He does not bid them stay themselves on him for threescore years and ten, and then cast them into the abyss of annihilation. Even a human father would not let the day come, if he could help it, when his child should cease to know and love him; even a human friend would never cast from him the friend whose heart was bound up in his own. Much less does the eternal Father and the eternal Friend, much less does he whose name is life and love, suffer his children and his friends to perish. God is not a man that he should lie or change. His is an everlasting love. And because he calls the man his friend, because he calls himself the God of the individual, singled out by name, therefore the whole man must survive the shock of death. And so it was that the saints of old "confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims" here, and "desired a heavenly country, and looked for a city which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God." Perowne. All live unto him. That is, for him and in his sight, all men continue to exist even after death. Only for us are the departed really dead. The purpose of this addition is further to illustrate the proof of the resurrection. C. B.—Would it have been possible that he should deign to call himself the God of dust and ashes? How new, how luminous, how profound a principle of Scriptural interpretation was this! The Sadducees had probably supposed that the words simply meant, "I am the God in whom Abraham and Isaac and Jacob trusted;" yet how shallow a designation would that have been, and how little adapted to inspire the faith and courage requisite for an heroic enterprise! To what, if there were no resurrection, had their trust come? To death, and nothingness, and an everlasting sisilence, after a life so full of trials that the last of these patriarchs had described it as a pilgrimage of few and evil years! But God meant more than this. He meant—and so the Son of God interpreted it—that he who helps them who trust him here, will be their help and stay for ever and ever, nor shall the future world become for them "a land where all things are forgotten." F. The reserve of our Saviour concerning the future state should be well observed, because it repels all suspicion of enthusiasm; for enthusiasm is wont to expatiate on the condition of the departed above all other subjects, and with a wild particularity. The Koran is half made up of such descriptions. Paley. ## Section 126.—The Scribe's Question. The Two Commandments. Christ's Question. The Temple. Tuesday. M. 34 But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they Mk.28 were gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer and one of the scribes, came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the first 29 commandment of all, the great commandment in the law? And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God is one Lord: 30 and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first and great commandment. 31 And the second is like unto it, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: there is none other commandment greater than these. On these two commandments 32 hang all the law and the prophets. And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou 33 hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he: and to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all the whole burnt 34 offerings and sacrifices. And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. M. 41 While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, while he taught in the 42 temple, How say the scribes that Christ is the son of David? What think ye of Christ? 43 whose son is he? They say unto him, The son of David. He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call him Lord? For David himself saith by the Holy Ghost, in the 44 book of Psalms, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make 45 thine enemies thy footstool. David therefore himself calleth him Lord; how is he then his son? 46 And no man was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions. And the common people heard him gladly. Jesus teaches that a divine unity pervades the law, a unity that cannot be broken; all its separate commands resting upon a common, immutable basis; also connected in spirit and obligation, that you cannot truly obey one without obeying all, nor break one without breaking all. Looking at the law in this oneness of character, Jesus points to the two requirements of love to God and love to one another as containing the sum and substance of the whole. First we are called upon to love the Lord as our God, with all our heart. It is not a mere faith in his divinity, a bare acknowledgment of his sovereign right, a studious observance of prescribed forms of worship, the presenting of offerings and sacrifices, that is required. Nothing but the supreme love of the heart can meet this great demand. All idolatrous self-love, creature-love, world-love, must be renounced in order that this first and greatest of the commands be kept. And thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: a mode and measure of loving others which can be truly obeyed only when love to God has predominated over natural self-idolatry; for if a man love himself supremely, he can love no other as he loves himself. You cannot love the God of love as he requires, without loving your neighbor also. "What think ye of Christ? whose son is he? How can he be David's son and David's Lord?" These last words of our Lord's public ministry, which filled the temple courts of old, and found there no reply, are they not still going forth wherever the gospel of his grace is preached, waiting a response? Nor can any fit response be given till we see and acknowledge that in him, our Saviour, there meet and mingle all divine and human attributes—David's Lord in his divinity, David's son in his humanity; till we own him, and cleave to him as at once our elder brother, and our Lord and our God; the morning star that heralds the bright, the cloudless, the unending day. H. Mk. 28. The rabbinical schools, in their carnal, superficial spirit of word-weaving and letter-worship, had spun large accumulations of worthless subtlety all over the Mosaic law. Among other things they had wasted their idleness in fantastic attempts to count, and classify, and weigh, and measure all the separate commandments of the ceremonial and moral law. They had come to the conclusion that there were 248 affirmative precepts, being as many as the members in the human body, and 365 negative precepts, being as many as the arteries and veins, or the days of the year: the total being 613, which was also the number of letters in the decalogue. They arrived at the same result from the fact that the Jews were commanded (Num. 15: 38) to wear fringes (tsitsith) on the corners of their tallith, bound with a thread of blue; and as each fringe had eight threads and five knots, and the letters of the word tsitsith make 600, the total number of commandments was, as before, 613. Now surely, out of such a large number of precepts and prohibitions, all could not be of quite the same value; some were "light," and some were "heavy." But which? and what was the greatest commandment of all? F.—Is it a ceremonial or a moral precept? This was a disputed point among the Jewish doctors; some contending for the law of circumcision, others for that of sacrifices, and others for that of the phylacteries. And though it was a rule among them, that the law of the Sabbath was to give place to that of circumcision, yet they were not agreed as to the rest, which was the principal precept; only in general they were inclined to give the preference to the ceremonial part. D. 29. Hear, O Israel. This every devout Jew recited twice every day, and they do it to this day, thus keeping up the great ancient national protest against the polytheisms and pantheisms of the heathen world, the great utterance of the national faith in one Living and Personal God. 30. Love. Had the essence of the divine law consisted in deeds, it could not possibly have been expressed in a single word; for no one deed is comprehensive of all others embraced in the law. But as it consists in an affection of the soul, one word suffices to express it—but only one. Love is an all-inclusive affection, embracing not only every other affection proper to its object, but all that is proper to be done to its object; for as love spontaneously seeks to please its object, so, in the case of men to God, it is the native well-spring of a voluntary obedience. It is, besides, the most personal of all affections. One may fear an event, one may hope for an event, one may rejoice in an event; but one can love only a person. It is the tenderest, the most unselfish, the most divine of all affections. Such, then, is the affection in which the essence of the divine law is declared to consist. Soul—i. e., feeling, or what we call warmth: mind—intelligence, in opposition to a blind devotion, mere devoteeism: strength**—intensity. In other words, with all our powers. Thus, one single word—love—expresses all that the law of God fundamentally demands. And as God is to be the object of this love, so he will have a sincere, fervid, intelligent, energetic love. And he will have these in their most perfect exercise: he will have the love of "all our heart"—in perfect sincerity; he will have the love of "all our soul"—in the utmost fervor; he will have the love of "all our mind"—in the fullest exercise of an enlightened reason; and he will have the love of "all our strength"—with the whole energy of our being! B. This is the first and great commandment. And it is so: In antiquity, being as old as the world, and engraven in our very nature. In dignity, as directly and immediately respecting God. In excellence, being the commandment of the new covenant, and the spirit of the divine adoption. In justice, because it alone renders to God his due, prefers him before all things, and secures to him his proper rank in relation to them. In sufficiency, being sufficient of itself to make men holy in this life, and happy in the other. In fruitfulness, because it includes all the other commandments, and is the root of them all. In virtue and efficacy, because by this alone God reigns in the heart of man, and man is united to God. In extent, leaving nothing to the creature which it does not refer to the Creator. In necessity, being indispensable. In duration, as being never to be discontinued on earth, and to continue eternally in heaven. Q.—The reply was at once our Lord's final triumph over error, and the very central truth of all his doctrine. Heedless of their refinements, he marks that as the first and great commandment which is the sum and root of all the rest, LOVE to GOD; created as a principle in the heart, imbuing the soul—the whole nature of the living man, formed into a sound doctrine by the mind, and carried out practically with all his strength. It deserves remark, that the tongue, which is so often the only instrument of professing love to God, is not here mentioned. To complete the lesson, and to leave no room for perverse distinctions between duties to God and man, our Lord makes the second commandment, the necessary result and complement of the first. S. 31. Love to God issuing in love to man—love to man, our brother, resulting from love to our Father, God—on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. F.—Love to God is the grand leading principle of right conduct, the original source and fountain from which all Christian graces flow; from which the living waters of religion take their rise, and branch out into all the various duties of life. A man without any religion may act laudably by chance; his virtue may break out sometimes in sudden temporary gleams; but whoever wishes to be habitually and uniformly good, must have the vital principle of piety working at his heart, and by a constant regular warmth producing constant and regular fruits of righteousness. P.—All human conduct, however it affects our fellow-man, has supreme respect to the known will of God. All truth and honesty, all just and kind dealing toward man, have their vital spring in the heart's homage and obedience to God. And all injustice and deceit, all unkindness and wrong toward men, have their secret source in the heart's disobedience and rejection of God. Simply recognizing this cardinal fact of human action, in the sore remembrance of his blood guiltiness toward Uriah, David said, Against thee, thee only, have I sinned. And it is this double foundation truth that Christ asserts in the Judgment-allegory by the words, Ye did it, and, Ye did it not—unto me! J. G. B.—The love of God never can be inconsistent with the love of our neighbor. In all cases where our duty toward our neighbor is clear and plain, we may be certain that our duty to God concurs with it. Sherlock. Is like: as demanding the same affection—love. As thyself: therefore, not "with all thy heart," etc. Thus, this is a condemnation of the idolatry of the creature. As sincerely "as ourselves" we are to love all mankind, and with the same readiness to do and suffer for them, as we should reasonably desire them to show to us: the golden rule. All the law. It is the whole law of human duty, simple, brief, comprehensive, and unchangeable. It is inconceivable that God should require from his rational creatures anything less, or in substance anything else, under any dispensation, in any world, at any period. And this incomparable summary of the divine law belonged to the Jewish religion; and this could, therefore, be none other than a God-given religion. B. If our Saviour could say, that the sum of the Jewish religion, as delivered by Moses and the prophets, did consist in those two things, the love of God and the love of our neighbor, much greater reason have we to say, that the religion which he taught may be summed up in these two duties. For in the Jewish law there were many precepts which concerned indifferent matters, and did not seem to have any immediate reference to loving God and our neighbor, but in our Saviour's institution there is hardly one thing recommended to us that is not either an instance wherein we are to express our love to God and our neighbor, or a means whereby we may be furthered in the practising of those duties; or an argument, motive, and encouragement, to excite us to the practice of them. It is the design of all his doctrines to give us right notions of God and our neighbor; to teach us how excellent God is in himself, and how kind, how gracious to us; and, therefore, what infinite reason we have to love and serve him; and to love and serve all mankind, who are our neighbors, for his sake. It is the design of his precepts, to give rules in what manner, and in what degree, we are to express our love to God and our neighbor; and to oblige us, under the highest penalty, not to fail in these matters. It is the design of his promises, to encourage us in the constant and sincere performance of these duties, by offering greater assistances, and proposing greater rewards to the performance of them, than mankind had ever yet heard of. And, lastly, it was the design of his whole life and conversation in the world, to give us a true pattern and example of love to God and man, in all the several instances wherein it is our duty to express it. Sharp. 33,34. The scribe showed that he had read the Scriptures to some advantage by summarizing some of those grand free utterances of the prophets which prove that love to God and love to man is better than all whole burnt-offering. F.—This was the last lesson of positive doctrine that our Saviour taught in public. He had begun his ministry by declaring that he came to fulfil the law and the prophets: he closed it by announcing that “Love is the fulfilling of the law.” Scarcely less interesting than the truth itself is the effect it had on the hearers. The very scribe who had proposed the question, seeing the harmony of the answer with Scripture, and catching a glimpse of its spiritual meaning which all his learning had never given him before, was the first to confess its truth in words worthy of being adopted as the Christian creed, and with a heartiness which called forth from Jesus the reply, “Thou art not far from the kingdom of God.” S.—And in this he intended no more and no less than the words themselves conveyed. Had he considered an earnest moral striving, such as this man expressed, to be sufficient, he would have acknowledged him as not only near but in the kingdom of God. He tells him, however, that he is on the way to it, because he was freed from the Pharisaic delusion of the righteousness of works, and knew the nature of genuine piety; and could, therefore, more readily be convinced of what he still lacked of the spirit of the law, which he so well understood. N. This scribe had seen through that external sanctimoniousness which was cultivated all around him with such sedulous care. But he had not yet come to see all that the first and greatest of the law’s commands required, nor to feel how far short of its requirement his obedience had fallen. He wanted the humble, contrite heart; and so Jesus says to him, “Thou art not far from the kingdom of God;” not far from, but yet not in; nearer by many a step than those who are going about to establish a righteousness of their own before God, but still not across the border-line of that kingdom which we must enter in the spirit of penitence and faith. H.—This man had hold of that principle in which law and gospel are one. He stood, as it were, at the door of the kingdom of God. He only wanted (but the want was indeed a serious one) repentance and faith to be within it. The Lord shows us here that even outside his flock those who can answer discreetly, who have knowledge of the spirit of the great command of law and gospel, are nearer to being of his flock than the formalists; but then, as Bengel adds, “If thou art not far off, enter; otherwise it were better that thou wert far off.” A. There are circumstances and associations in life that still bring some men closer to the gospel than others. There are dispositions of mind and attitudes in certain persons toward it which make us very anxious that they should take but one decided step, which cause us to wonder why, when they are so near, they go no further. They speak so discreetly about religious things, and have so amiable and reverent a spirit, that we feel as if Christ would still single them out, as he did this scribe, and say tenderly, regretfully—may we not add hopefully?—“Thou art not far from the kingdom of God.” We have all of us met with persons who had a perfection of human grace and attractiveness about them, like the fragrance of a flower, that comes without consciousness or effort. They are wild flowers of nature that with the inclosure of Christ’s garden and the hand of divine culture would put on a rare beauty. The sight of them makes us long to see them in the only safe soil, and they have an affinity for it which brings them near. . . . While in this mixed and imperfect world it is impossible to exclude all harsh and cold things from the kingdom of God, we may aim at having all naturally beautiful things included in it, and at having the graft of heaven inserted in the best of earth. This is certain, that when what is best in nature does enter in, it will be the first to confess that its own was poor and worthless compared with the new aim which God sets before it. Its seeming is made real, and its real rises to a height unthought of before. Its sense of rightness puts on a transparent purity, and its kindness a tenderness of sympathy, that make such a character become one of the most beautiful things our world can look upon. But, while the human graces and virtues may bring a man at times close to the boundary of the kingdom, there is still a limit between, which is of vast importance in the inner life, and which shows itself more openly as time advances. It is as if a man were standing on the shore, close to where a ship is moored. There is but a line between, and a step may cross it. But the one is fixed, the other moves, and all the future of existence depends on that step—new lands, a new life, and God’s great wide world. In the spiritual sphere to stand still is to fall away, to be left on that shore, doomed to decay and death. To pass into God’s kingdom is to move with it, not only up to the grandeur of his universe, but into the heritage of himself. . . . Whether the scribe whom our Lord here addressed finally entered the kingdom we are not told. We may hope that, like Nicodemus, he was led on to a full decision, and that perhaps, “when a great company of the priests became obedient to the faith” (Acts 6 : 7), he was of the number. It may be for a good reason that the result is concealed, to fill us with a salutary awe when symptoms are so favorable, and to urge us to bring them to an undoubted issue. Ker. M. 41-44. Warned by the discomfiture of all the parties in dispute with Jesus, the Pharisees appear to have stood wavering and uncertain how to speak or act. Jesus seizes the opportunity of still further weakening their authority with the assembled multitude. In his turn, he addresses an embarrassing question as to the descent of the Messiah. H. M.—How then doth David call him Lord? Could Abraham have called Isaac and Jacob and Joseph, or any of his own descendants near or remote, his lord? If not, how came David to do so? There could be but one answer—because that Son would be divine, not human—David's son by human birth, but David's Lord by divine subsistence. F.—Christ quoted the Psalm in order to unfold the higher idea of the Messiah as the Son of God, and to oppose, not the idea that he was to be Son of David, but a one-sided adherence to this, at the expense of the other and higher one. As he had before used Psalm 82 : 6 to convince the Jews on their own ground that it was no blasphemy for him to claim the title "Son of God" in the highest sense, so now he used Psalm 110 to convince them that the two elements were blended together in the Messianic idea. N.—The Jews admitted that these were prophecies touching the Messiah. But the bright vision that had floated for ages before the eyes of the people was that of a king who was to raise the Jewish commonwealth to supremacy over the nations; the vision of an earthly, visible, world-wide monarchy to be set up by the son of David; a vision clung to with an enthusiastic devotion which ennobled them as a nation, and had crowned with glory their last wars with the Romans, but which sunk them into spiritual blindness, and kept them from understanding the very prophecies upon which it was founded. It was this vision, baseless as it was bright, which Jesus seeks to dissipate by putting to them his pointed inquiry: "If Christ be David's son, how could he at the same time be David's Lord?" The true key to that announcement in the 110th Psalm, and to many similar prophecies, was wanting to the Jews so long as the true and proper divinity, as well as the true and proper humanity, of their Messiah remained unperceived and unacknowledged. H. 45. They could not answer, because they would not answer. And they would not answer, because they could not answer without confessing that the Christ of the Hebrew Scriptures must needs be both God and man. R. D. H.—The only possible answer was that full admission of the spiritual nature of the kingdom of Christ, which would have identified him in all points with Jesus, and rather than confess this, their obstinate silence rejected the last opportunity of offered grace. S.—46. Heard him gladly. The multitudes appear almost always to have gladly received our Lord, except when instigated to a contrary course by his enemies, the ruling and hierarchical party, the Jews of John's gospel. E. ## Section 127.—Denunciations against the Scribes and Pharisees. The Temple. Tuesday. M. 1, 2 THEN spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples, saying, The scribes and the 3 Pharisees sit in Moses' seat: all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe 4 and do: but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not. For they bind heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they 5 themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of 6 their garments. Beware of the scribes, which love to walk in long robes, and love the 7 uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the 8 markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi. But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is 9 your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father upon 10 the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters: 11 for one is your Master, even Christ. But he that is greatest among you shall be your 12 servant. And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.13 But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are 14 entering to go in. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayers: therefore ye shall receive the 15 greater damnation. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he is made, ye make him twofold more 16 the child of hell than yourselves. Woe unto you, ye blind guides! which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of 17 the temple, he is a debtor. Ye fools, and blind! for whether is greater, the gold, or the 18 temple that sanctifieth the gold? And, Whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; 19 but whosoever sweareth by the gift that is upon it, he is guilty. Ye fools, and blind! 20 for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift? Whoso therefore 21 shall swear by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things thereon. And whoso shall 22 swear by the temple, sweareth by it, and by him that dwelleth therein. And he that shall swear by heaven, sweareth by the throne of God, and by him that sitteth thereon. 23 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint, and anise, and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and 24 faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. Ye blind 25 guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within 26 they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is 27 within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all unclean- 28 ness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of 29 hypocrisy and iniquity. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because 30 ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them 31 in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore, ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are 32 the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your 33 fathers. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? 34 Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes; and some of them ye shall kill and crucify, and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and 35 persecute them from city to city: that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel, unto the blood of Zacharias, son of 36 Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily, I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation. 37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen 38 gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left 39 unto you desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. CHRIST'S voice, as heard on earth, was not always one of gentleness and love. Never were severer epithets employed, never more terrible denunciations uttered, than those heaped upon the heads of the Pharisees. Yet no mingling here of sinful human passion, no absence even of love. Lightning lurks amid the warm soft drops of the summer shower; a consuming fire may come out of the very heart of love. Christ is the world's great Saviour; he is also the world's great Judge. It was as our Saviour he came down to this earth, and gentle and still indeed was the voice in which that office was discharged. But lest we should misinterpret, and imagine that his spirit was too soft ever to kindle into wrath, once and again, as here, he assumes the office of the Judge and speaks with a startling sternness. Compare for contrast Christ's farewell to his friends, and his farewell to his enemies: the one composed of words of comfort, closing in that sublime intercessory prayer which he left behind him as a type of his advocacy for us in the heavenly places; the other composed throughout of terrible denunciations, types and preludes of those awful judgments which he shall pronounce and execute upon the finally impenitent. And what does all this teach us but that the religion of Jesus Christ has a twofold aspect? If here it speaks peace, there it speaks terror; if to some it has nothing but words of tenderness and encouragement, to others it has nothing but words of warning and of woe. And yet it is not in tones of wrath that the last accents of this farewell of our Lord to his enemies fall upon our ear. The fire of righteous indignation that burns within him cannot but go forth. But under that fire the inner heart of Jesus at last dissolves into tenderness. Pity, infinite pity, pours her quenching tears upon it, and with another look and in altered tone, in which the compassion of the God-head reveals itself, he exclaims, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy children together, and ye would not!" The willingness is all with him, the unwillingness with us. May the very thought of this take our unwillingness away; that at the last our house be not left desolate, that it be no other than the home that he hath prepared for all who love him. H. HERE we read our Lord's final outpouring of just indignation on the false and profligate teachers who had long led on the people, like the blind leading the blind, to the ruin they were soon to consummate. The woes denounced on the "scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites," by the voice of God's own Son in his holy temple, in the character of a judge, and as a foretaste of the last judgment, stand in a striking contrast to the blessings uttered on humble disciples from the mount, just as the crimes that called them down were the very opposite to the virtues there inculcated: saying and not doing—binding grievous burdens for other men's shoulders, while they would not so much as touch them—loving all marks of outward honor, even in the house where God only should be honored, and displaying all forms of ostentatious devotion, while their lives were full of rapacity and vice; converting proselytes to the law, only to make them twofold more the children of hell than themselves—frittering away the most solemn obligations, and at the same time extenuating the greatest crimes, by their false casuistry—cleansing the outside of cup and dish, which reeked within with abomination that they swallowed as their daily food—their hypocrisy could find no fitter image than the whited sepulchres, which they were so fond of garnishing without, while the mass of corruption was still festering within. At last the utterance of wrath dies away in tones of the greatest pity, as he repeats his lamentation over Jerusalem, and her doom of desolation till his coming. S. 5. Phylacteries. These had their origin from the law, Deut. 6: 8. "Thou shalt bind them (the divine precepts) for a sign upon thine hands, and as frontlets between thine eyes." This precept, which enjoined a constant remembrance of God's law, the Jews in later times interpreted literally. Hence they fastened to their foreheads, and on their left arms, portions of the law written upon parchment, scrolls, and called them in their own language prayers. But in Greek they were named phylacteries or watch-posts, from their use, which was to put them in mind to keep the divine precepts. M.—The Jews bound them on the forehead and on the left arm, or the left side near the heart, to remind them that the law should be in the heart and in the head. The Pharisees made these broad for ostentation. J. P. T.—The borders.** The fringes which the Jews were commanded to wear (Num. 15: 38) as a mark and memorial of their being God's peculiar people, to be distinguished from other nations. These too the Pharisees enlarged for purposes of vanity and ostentation. Hammond. 5-7. The Pharisees were more than a sect. They were emphatically the popular party, which had the ear of the Jewish public. It was a matter both of principle and policy to multiply the external signs by which they were distinguished. Tassels on their dress; scrolls and small leather boxes fastened on their forehead, head, and neck, inscribed with texts of the law; long prayers offered as they stood in public places; rigorous abstinence; constant immersions: these were the sacramental badges by which they hedged themselves around. A. P. S.—The salutations in the market-place, the reverential kiss offered by the scholars to their master, or by rabbis to each other, the greeting of Abba, father, the long robes with the broad, blue fringe, all these go to make up the picture of a scribe's life. Drawing to themselves, as they did, nearly all the energy and thought of Judaism, the close hereditary caste of the priesthood was powerless to compete with them. Unless the priest became a scribe also, he remained in obscurity. The order, as such, became contemptible and base. For the scribes there were the best places at feasts, the chief seats in synagogues. S. (Section 180.) 8. One is your Master.** Or Teacher. Probably not Christ, as supplied here, but the Holy Spirit. If this be so, we have God, in his Tri-unity, here declared to us as the only Father, Master, and Teacher of Christians; the only one, in all these relations, on whom they can rest or depend. They are all brethren: all substantially equal; none by office or precedence nearer to God than another; none standing between his brother and God. A.—9. The prohibition, Call no man your father, forbids the exercise of spiritual authority over the conscience, and equally forbids the disciples of Christ from submitting to such authority. It condemns both the ambition which seeks authority over the conscience, and the spiritual indolence which yields to such claims in order to avoid the necessity of personal search for the truth. This prohibition is interpreted by such passages as Rom. 14 : 4, 10, 12; 1 Pet. 5 : 3; Gal. 2 : 5; 2 Cor. 10 : 1. L. A. One is your Father. In all the labors of his life, in his teaching and in his cross, one grand design was to reveal to men what God really was, that they might be constrained to return to him. The question, therefore, is inexpressibly momentous. What does Jesus say concerning God, how does he represent the relation in which he stands to intelligent beings? Only one reply can be given to this question, Jesus reveals God as the Father of souls. The human spirit is the offspring, the immediate and direct offspring, of the Ever-living Spirit. It is capable of bearing and does bear, and it is the only thing that bears or is capable of bearing, a resemblance to God. When we have said that God created the heavens, the earth, and all material things, we have exhausted all of which the subject admits. But it is not simply true that he created minds also, He is the Father of minds and of nothing else. Y. 11. Your servant.** It may serve to show how little the letter of a precept has to do with its true observance, if we reflect that he, who of all heads of sects has most notably violated this whole command, calls himself, “Servus servorum Dei”—Servant of the servants of God! A. 13-29. And then, solemnly and terribly, he uttered his eightfold “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,” scathing them in utterance after utterance with a flame which at once revealed and scorched. And does not Jewish literature itself most amply support the charge brought against the Pharisees by Jesus? “Fear not true Pharisees, but greatly fear painted Pharisees,” said Alexander Jannæus to his wife on his death-bed. “The supreme tribunal,” says R. Nachaman, “will duly punish hypocrites who wrap their talliths around them to apappear, which they are not, true Pharisees.” Nay, the Talmud itself, with unwonted keenness and severity of sarcasm, has pictured to us the seven classes of Pharisees, out of which siz are characterized by a mixture of haughtiness and imposture. F.—It is not alone the hypocrisy of Jerusalem which is denounced. In this marvellous picture, every line of which is drawn in ineffaceable colors, the Pharisaism of every age sees its own image. Wherever are found formal worship, false devotion, proud scorn of the small ones of the world, inordinate self-estimation—wherever virtue is only a fiction, the holy imprecations of Christ resound with their solemn severity. It is not offended holiness only which speaks, it is also love—the true charity which cannot suffer that which kills the soul. —De P. These terrible denunciations were not uttered against gross and scandalous sins, but against hypocrisy, which in his view was the most grievous of all sins. In the whole course of his ministry he had been opposed, hindered, denounced, threatened, by the men who professed to be their religious guides. Under the veil of piety they were covetous, exacting, tyrannical, extortionate. J. P. T. 15. To make one proselyte.** Proselytes were, in the time of our Lord, a numerous body. Some were proselytes of the gate only (as they were called); and had simply pledged themselves to renounce all idolatry, and to worship the true God. This class had all heard of the coming of Messiah, and had generally little sympathy with Jewish prejudice. Others were proselytes of righteousness. These took upon themselves all the obligations of the Mosaic law, and joined in offering sacrifice in the outer court of the temple to the God of Israel. The Pharisees took great pains to make these proselytes, and were aided by the fading authority of the old religions, and the reverence in which the God of the Jews was held even by the heathen. As these teachers had no true idea of their religion, they could impart none. Their converts, therefore, only changed their superstition, and became twofold more the children of hell than before. They were ever among the bitterest enemies of the Christian faith. J. A. 23,24. Ye pay tithe. Ye are superstitiously scrupulous and precise in things of smaller moment; but matters of great and eternal obligation, justice and equity, mercy and charity, faithfulness and truth toward God and men, ye wholly slight and neglect. S. C.—Strain at a gnat. Better rendered in the old English translation, “strain out a gnat.” The custom prevailed all over the East of passing wine through a strainer, that no gnats or flies might get into the cup. Pearce.—Camel.** The largest animal known to the Jews, as opposed to the gnat, the smallest insect—both alike unclean. B.—They worshipped the letter, but misconceived the essence of Scripture: treated morality as a trifle, and trifles as the only religion. In trifles the most exact minuteness was required, but in greater matters the principles of morality were boldly undermined or surrendered. The tithing of mint, dill, and cummin—mere garden-herbs—was vital, but grave questions of right and wrong were treated with indifference. This moral prudery, which strained the wine before drinking it, lest a fly might have fallen into it and made it unclean, but made no trouble of swallowing a camel, was the hypocritical righteousness against which Jesus directed his bitterest words. G. 27,28. Whited sepulchres. As an occupied tomb was regarded as unclean, it was the custom to whiten the sepulchres, both for appearance' sake, and as a ready warning against the defilement that would come by touching them. So these characters of fair and polished outward sanctity should rather be shunned than admired; for they harbored nothing but death and corruption within. J. P. T.—The hierarchy of Judaism had become, in fact, what Jesus openly declared them—whitewashed sepulchres—pure to the eye, but with only death and corruption within. They had proved that they were so, by rejecting him, because he demanded moral and religious reform. Wedded to the false and immoral, they rather killed him than let him lead them back to God. G.—29-32. Against what are his terrible denunciations pointed? Not against either skepticism or infidelity. Not against those sins, to which one or other of the passions prompt when allowed unbridled sway. It is among those making the largest professions of piety, priding themselves on their position and the respectability of their lives, that Jesus discovers the materials for the severest denunciations that ever came from his lips. 33-36.** Christ's feet are upon the pavement of the earthly temple, but he speaks as from the throne of heaven. A vision of judgment is to be revealed. As he reveals it, he almost unconsciously realizes his own position as Judge. H. 37. O Jerusalem, etc. It is the very heart of God pouring itself forth through human flesh and speech. It is this incarnation of the innermost life and love of Deity, pleading with men, bleeding for them, and ascending only to open his arms to them and win them back by the power of this story of matchless love, that has conquered the world, that will yet "draw all men unto him," and beautify and ennoble humanity itself! As a hen her chickens.** Was ever imagery so homely invested with such grace and sublimity as this, at our Lord's touch? And yet how exquisite the figure itself—of protection, rest, warmth, and all manner of conscious well-being in those defenceless, dependent little creatures, as they creep under and feel themselves overshadowed by the capacious and kindly wing of the mother-bird! How significant all this of what Jesus is and does for men! Under his great mediatorial wing would he have "gathered" Israel. B. In all the superhuman beauty of the character of Jesus, nothing is more affecting and impressive than the profound melancholy with which he foretells the future desolation of the city, which before two days were passed was to reek with his own blood. In fact, there was an intimate moral connection between the murder of Jesus and the doom of the Jewish city. It was the characteristic disposition of the people that now morally disqualified them "from knowing the things which belonged to their peace," which forty years afterward committed them in their deadly and ruinous struggle with the masters of the world. Christianity alone could have subdued or mitigated that stubborn fanaticism, which drove them at length to their desperate collision with the arms of Rome. As Christians, the Jewish people might have subsided into peaceful subjects of the universal empire. They might have lived, as the Christians did, with the high and inalienable consolations of faith and hope under the heaviest oppressions; and calmly awaited the time when their holier and more beneficent ambition might be gratified by the submission of their rulers to the religious dominion founded by Christ and his apostles. They would have slowly won that victory by the patient heroism of martyrdom, and the steady perseverance in the dissemination of their faith, which it was madness to hope that they could ever obtain by force of arms. But the same vision of worldly dominion, the same obstinate expectation of a temporal deliverer, which made them unable to comprehend the nature of Christ's redemption and kingdom, continued to the end to mingle with their wild and frantic resistance. H. M. 38. Your house is left desolate.** When Christ had risen, the temple, though still retaining to the eyes of the Jews its old glory, had lost it to the spiritual and instructed disciples. Its sacrifices were unmeaning after the great oblation of Golgotha. Its veil was rent at the crucifixion, and its holy place made common. In prospect of this event Christ disowned it: "Your house is left unto you desolate." It was still rich in marble, and purple, and gold; but its Great Inhabitant was gone, and it was a temple no more. J. A.—The day of his earthly life and of his ministry was about to close: dark night was already casting its gloom over the temple, the city, the nation, the world. Thus Jesus departed from the temple, never to return. The holy and beautiful house was left desolate. Z. E.—And has not that denunciation been fearfully fulfilled? Never was a narrative more full of horrors, frenzies, unspeakable degradations, and overwhelming miseries, than is the history of the siege of Jerusalem. (Section 185.) Never was any prophecy more closely, more terribly, more overwhelmingly fulfilled than this of Christ. The men going about in the disguise of women with swords concealed under their gay robes; the rival outrages and infamies of John and Simon; the priests struck by darts from the upper court of the temple, and falling slain by their own sacrifices; "the blood of all sorts of dead carcasses—priests, strangers, profane—standing in lakes in the holy courts;" the corpses themselves lying in piles and mounds on the very altar slopes; the fires feeding luxuriously on cedar-work overlaid with gold; friend and foe trampled to death on the gleaming mosaics in promiscuous carnage; priests, swollen with hunger, leaping madly into the devouring flames, till at last those flames had done their work, and what had been the Temple of Jerusalem, the beautiful and holy house of God, was a heap of ghastly ruin, where the burning embers were half slaked in pools of gore. And did not all the righteous blood shed upon the earth since the days of Abel come upon that generation? Did not many of that generation survive to witness and feel the unutterable horrors which Josephus tells? F. ## Section 128.—The Widow's Gift. Greeks seek Jesus. Voice from Heaven. The Temple. Tuesday. M. 1 And Jesus departed from the temple: and as he went out, his disciples came to him to shew him the buildings of the temple. And some spake how it was adorned with goodly stones and gifts; and one of his disciples saith unto him, Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here! And Jesus answering said unto them, See ye not all these great buildings? Verily I say unto you, As for these things which ye behold, the days will come, in the which there shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down. 3 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, over against the temple, the disciples Peter and James and John and Andrew came unto him privately, and asked him, saying, Master, tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming and 4 of the end of the world, when all these things shall be fulfilled? And Jesus answered 5 and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many: and the time draweth near; go ye 6 not therefore after them. And ye shall hear of wars, and rumours of wars. But when ye shall hear of wars, and commotions, see that ye be not terrified, and troubled: for 7 all these things must first come to pass; but the end is not yet. Then said he unto them, Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and great earthquakes shall be in divers places; and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and troubles; and fearful sights, and great signs shall there be from heaven. These are the beginnings of sorrows. Mk. 9 But take heed to yourselves; for before all these, they shall lay their hands on you, and persecute you, and deliver you up to councils, and to the synagogues, and into prisons, to be afflicted; and in the synagogues, ye shall be beaten: and ye shall be brought before rulers and kings for my sake; and they shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake. And it shall turn to you for a testimony against them. 11 But when they shall lead you, and deliver you up, settle it therefore in your hearts, and take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither premeditate what ye shall answer: but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye L. 15 that speak, but the Holy Ghost. For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist. M. 10 And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one Mk. 12 another. The brother shall betray the brother to death, and the father the son; and children shall rise up against their parents, and shall cause them to be put to death. L. 16 And ye shall be betrayed both by parents, and brethren, and kinsfolks, and friends. 18, 19 But there shall not a hair of your head perish. In your patience possess ye your souls. M. 11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity 12, 13 shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, 14 the same shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom shall first be preached in all the world, for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come. THE developments of Divine Providence filled up the outline of the Divine Word, and no man with the Word of God in one hand and the history of the Jews in the other can fail to see a most minute and perfect correspondence between the two. And so long as the world reads the words of Jesus, and beholds those words fulfilled in Jerusalem still trodden down of the Gentiles, and in the Jews still scattered and homeless among the nations, it has an argument for the infallibility of the founder of Christianity, and for the truth of the religion proceeding forth from him and his teaching, which nothing can gainsay or resist. Out of the dust and ashes of the Holy City, for eighteen hundred years, has risen a voice in attestation of the Messiahship of him who was crucified without her walls; and the people who denied the Holy One and the Just, in all their dispersion, have, for an equal period, been proclaiming him their true though rejected Lord. H. S. Kelsey. M. 1. As he withdrew, the gracious presence of God left the sanctuary; and the temple, with all its service, and the whole theocratic constitution, was given over to destruction. B.—To shew him the buildings of the temple. That is, to draw his attention to the magnitude, the splendor, the apparent solidity and stability of that magnificent structure. P.—One of them was eager to call his attention to its goodly stones and splendid offerings—those nine gates overlaid with gold and silver, and the one of solid Corinthian brass yet more precious; those graceful and towering porches; those double cloisters and stately pillars; that lavish adornment of sculpture and arabesque; those alternate blocks of red and white marble, recalling the crest and hollow of the sea-waves. 2. To him the sole beauty of a temple was the sincerity of its worshippers, and no gold or marble, no delicate sculpturing or votive gems, could change for him a den of robbers into a house of prayer. The builders were still busily at work, as they had been for nearly fifty years, but their work, unblessed of God, was destined to be destroyed before it was finished. Briefly and almost sternly Jesus answered, as he turned away from the glittering spectacle, "Seest thou these great buildings? there shall not be left one stone upon another which shall not be thrown down." F. Josephus tells us that Titus having held a council of his generals, who were for burning the temple, declared that he would by all means save that edifice, as an ornament to the empire. But one greater than Titus had determined and declared that it should be destroyed. Accordingly the soldiers burnt it without paying any regard to his orders. M.—There was scarcely anything more remarkable in this celebrated temple than the stupendous size of the stones of which it was constructed. In the superstructure there were stones of the whitest marble, upward of sixty-seven feet long, more than seven feet high, and nine broad. This circumstance gives peculiar force to our Saviour's prediction here, which was fulfilled almost in a literal sense. For when the Romans had taken Jerusalem, Titus ordered his soldiers to dig up the foundations both of the city and of the temple. The Jewish writers themselves acknowledge that Terentius Rufus, who was left to command the army, tore up with a ploughshare the foundations of the temple, hereby fulfilling the prophecy of Micah, chap. 3 : 12. P.—Titus himself was amazed at the massive structures of Jerusalem, and saw in his conquest of it the hand of God. Thirty-five years afterward that temple sank into the ashes of its destruction; neither Hadrian, nor Julian, nor any other, were able to build upon its site; and now that very site is a matter of uncertainty. F.—Inasmuch as we are now under a dispensation of forbearance, the thunders of God go softly over the earth: and so gentle is their voice that the ears of most men hear them not. But the downfall of Jerusalem is a gracious admonitory sign written on the page of history, that there is a righteousness of God, which, although it may long retain its thunder, will in the end let it fall, certainly, irresistibly fall, upon the head of the guilty. A. T. 3. Many questions as to the time, the manner, the causes, the consequences of it, would at once arise to trouble the disciples' mind. Their Master, however, is already on his way to the gate which leads out to Bethany, and they follow. Silent all and thoughtful they follow him; they descend into the valley of Jehoshaphat, cross the Kedron, begin the ascent of Olivet, have reached a height which commands the city, where Jesus pauses and sits down—as that accurate narrator Mark informs us, "over against the temple." H.—Jesus paused before passing the ridge of Olivet, and sat down with his disciples, to look back upon Jerusalem for the last time. The sun was setting, and the whole city, with the surrounding valleys and hill-sides alive with the camps of pilgrims, lay beneath him in the evening light. The history of a thousand years, the divine oracles speaking by a thousand voices, the monuments of prophets, patriarchs, and kings, the visitations of angels, miraculous interpositions in judgment and in blessing, from the offering of Isaac and the building of the temple, were present to him, as he looked upon Moriah and Zion, and heard the murmur and the evening songs of a million people gathered within and around the walls of the holy city. Nowhere on earth was it possible to find another scene of such commanding interest as that which lay before the eye of Jesus, when he turned to look upon Jerusalem for the last time. March. It is impossible to conceive a spectacle of greater natural or moral sublimity than the Saviour seated on the slope of the Mount of Olives, looking down almost for the last time on the whole temple and city of Jerusalem, crowded as it then was with near three millions of worshippers. It was evening, and the whole irregular outline of the city, rising from the deep glens which encircled it on all sides, might be distinctly traced. The sun, the significant emblem of the great Fountain of moral light to which Jesus and his faith had been perpetually compared, may be imagined sinking behind the western hills, while its last rays might linger on the broad massy fortifications on Mount Zion, on the stately palace of Herod, on the square tower Antonia at the corner of the temple, and on the roof of the temple fretted all over with golden spikes which glittered like fire; while below, the colonnades and lofty gates would cast their broad shadows over the courts, and afford that striking contrast between vast masses of gloom and gleams of the richest light, which only such an evening scene can display. Nor, indeed (even without the sacred and solemn associations connected with the holy city), would it be easy to conceive any natural situation in the world of more impressive grandeur than that of Jerusalem, seated upon hills of irregular height, intersected by bold ravines, and hemmed in almost on all sides by still loftier mountains; and itself formed in its most conspicuous parts of gorgeous ranges of Eastern architecture, in all its lightness, luxuriance, and variety. The effect may have been heightened by the rising of the slow volumes of smoke from the evening sacrifices, while, even at the distance of the slope of Mount Olivet, the silence may have been faintly broken by the hymns of the worshippers. H. M. The quiet spot, the evening hour, the serene attitude, his words so lately spoken, all conspire to draw the disciples' thoughts upon the dark and doubtful future. H.—When shall these things . . . and what the sign? The double question of the disciples—first, respecting the destruction of Jerusalem, and especially the time when it was to happen, and second, respecting the signs of his advent, and of the end of the world—required a double answer; the two parts referring each to one of two events. C. B.—Our Lord's answer to these questions was framed to afford all the information needful to them, or useful for their guidance, but little to gratify a vague curiosity. Neither did he answer their questions categorically, but so intermingled his replies that it required after-knowledge and experience to discriminate more than was actually needful for their safety and warning to know. We can now distinguish that he spoke of his coming, not personally, but by the fulfilment of his predictions concerning Jerusalem, and for the final uprooting of that theocracy which had become obstructive to the progress of the gospel; and again of his final coming to judge the world, of which also they inquired. Much that our Lord said might be applicable to both these great events—both these “comings,” being in fact comings to judgment; but toward the close, his language grew more distinctly applicable to his final coming to judge the world. K.—Many generations before, the prophet Zechariah, foretelling the final coming and judgment, for which the world is still looking, saw the curtain lifted, and wrote thus: “His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east.” Now, in most unforeseen coincidence, as the evening shadows gather, the Messiah, standing on that very spot of Olivet, declares to the ages that one solemn prediction which should always keep them in expectation of his reappearing, ending, “Then shall they see the Son of man coming with power and great glory; and he shall send his angels, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” F. D. H. Josephus furnishes the best commentary on this chapter. It is a wonderful instance of the care of Providence for the Christian Church, that Josephus, an eye-witness of so great credit, should be preserved to transmit a collection of facts which exactly illustrate this prophecy in almost every circumstance. D.—6-8. First come “wars, commotions, rumors of wars; nation set against nation, and kingdom against kingdom:” and the whole East was in a ferment, and Judea in open insurrection, while the armies of Spain and Gaul and Germany, Illyricum and Syria, converged upon Italy, to decide who should succeed to Nero’s purple. The throes of inanimate nature seemed to sympathize with the travail of the world—and the histories of the age are full of “famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in divers places.” “Fearful sights and great signs from heaven” appeared to mark the very spot at which the great judgment was to descend—a comet shaped like a scimitar hung over the devoted city during the whole year before the war. Other portents are recorded, in the very exaggeration of which we trace how “men’s hearts failed them for fear, and for looking after those things which were coming on the earth”—an agitation which found a voice for several successive years in the monotonous cry of the fanatic, Jesus the son of Ananus, “Woe! woe to Jerusalem! Woe! woe to the city and to the temple.” “All these were the beginning of sorrows.” S. Mk. 9. Every circumstance here mentioned was minutely verified, as appears in the Acts of the Apostles. Their lives were one continued experience of persecution of every kind. They were imprisoned, beaten, brought before councils and kings; many were put to death, were hated of all nations for the sake of Christ; that is, for being called by his name. The very name of Christian exposed them to every species of indignity and cruelty. P.—How fully these particulars were accomplished, we learn also from the Roman historians, Tacitus and Suetonius. M.—It shall turn to you for a testimony. God will turn all this to your advantage and his glory. For, by these means, your innocence and sincerity, and their malice, will be made manifest; the doctrine of the gospel will be more inquired into, and more effectually published to the world, and the truth of it more firmly established. S. C.—This and the succeeding verses indicate four dangers which will assail the Church: persecution from without; apostasy, schism, and controversy from within; false doctrine; and worldliness and consequent backsliding. Each of these dangers came in a small measure upon the Apostolic Church before the destruction of Jerusalem. And in the subsequent history of the Christian Church the reader must look for a larger fulfilment. L. A. M. 14. Shall be preached in all the world. The fulfilment of this part of the prophecy we learn chiefly from the writings of the New Testament, which inform us that the gospel was preached by Paul in Arabia, and through the vast tract from Jerusalem to Iconium in Lycaonia, and in Galatia, and through all Asia Minor, and in Greece, and round about to Illyricum, and in Crete, and Italy, probably also in Spain and Gaul. Besides, we find him writing to Christians who had never seen his face. Also we have Peter’s epistles to the converted Jews in Pontus, Asia, Cappadocia, and Bithynia. Probably the gospel was preached in these and many other countries, by the Jews who sojourned there, and who, having come up to Jerusalem to the Passover, were converted on the day of Pentecost. The Ethiopian eunuch, converted by Philip, would carry it likewise into his country. But whatever way it happened, the fact is certain, that in most of these countries churches were planted within thirty years after Christ’s death, or about ten years before the destruction of Jerusalem. Hence we find the apostle telling the Romans (10 : 18), that the sound of the preachers of the gospel had gone forth into all the world, and their word to the end of the earth. Hence likewise he tells the Church at Col. 1 : 6, 23, that the truth of the gospel was come not to them only but to all the world, being preached to every creature. The preaching of the gospel through the whole world by twelve illiterate fishermen, and the destruction of Jerusalem, were events extremely improbable, and therefore the prediction and accomplishment of them deserve to be particularly taken notice of. M.—It appears from credible records, that the gospel was preached in Idumea, Syria, and Mesopotamia, by Jude; in Egypt, Marmorica, Mauritania, and other parts of Africa, by Mark, Simon, and Jude; in Ethiopia, by Candace's eunuch, and Matthias; in Pontus, Galatia, and the neighboring parts of Asia, by Peter; in the territories of the seven Asiatic churches, by John; in Parthia, by Matthew; in Scythia, by Philip and Andrew; in the northern and western parts of Asia, by Bartholomew; in Persia, by Simon and Jude; in Media, Carmania, and several eastern parts, by Thomas; through the vast tract from Jerusalem round about unto Illyricum, by Paul; as also in Italy, and probably in Spain and Gaul; in most of which places Christian churches were planted in less than thirty years after the death of Christ, which was before the destruction of Jerusalem. D. And then shall the end come. The fulfilment of this part of the prophecy we learn from Josephus, who wrote seven books of the wars of the Jews, wherein he described with great exactness this scene of desolation in all its dreadful circumstances; and by a variety of dates showed that it happened about forty years after our Lord's death, consequently immediately after the gospel was preached through the whole Roman Empire. M.—God never sends judgment without previous warning; and there can be no doubt that the Jews, already dispersed over most known countries, had nearly all heard the gospel "as a witness," before the end of the Jewish state. The same principle was repeated and will repeat itself to the end. B. ## Section 131.—Signs of Coming Destruction. Mount of Olives. L. 20 AND when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing, where it ought not, in the holy place (whoso readeth, let him understand), then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto. And let him which is on the housetop not go down into the house, neither enter to take any thing out of his house; neither let him that is in the field turn back again to take up his garment. For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! And pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath-day. 19 For in those days shall be great tribulation, such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time, no, nor ever shall be. For there shall be great distress in the land, affliction and wrath upon this people. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. And except that the Lord had shortened those days, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake, whom he hath chosen, those days shall be shortened. 21 And then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ; or, lo, he is there; believe him not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders: insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. 23 But take ye heed: behold, I have foretold you all things. Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not. For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west: so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together. 29 But immediately after the tribulation of those days, there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars. The sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven; and upon the earth shall be distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the 30 powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of 31 man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And then shall he send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of hea- L. 28 ven. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads: for your redemption draweth nigh. 29 And he spake to them, saying, Now learn a parable of the fig-tree, and all the trees: 30 When the branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye see and know of your own 31 selves that summer is now nigh at hand. So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand, even at the 32 doors. Verily I say unto you, That this generation shall not pass away, till all these 33 things be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass Mk. 32 away. But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but my Father only. THE destruction of Jerusalem may well be called the coming of the Son of man, not only in just judgment upon those who had rejected him; not only as a sovereign visits with desolation a rebellious province that has refused all offers of mercy: but as the completion of the first great step in the establishment of his kingdom upon earth. And since this is the most momentous revolutionary epoch in the religious history of the world, that ever was or that ever shall be, it is fitly made, in the rest of the discourse, the type of the "coming of the Son of man in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory," to destroy all that is earthly and corrupt in the Church and world, to "gather his elect from the four winds of heaven," to judge the quick and the dead, and to establish his everlasting kingdom. S. It was far from Christ's intention to give them a complete view of the development of the kingdom of God up to its final consummation. He imparted only so much as was necessary to guard them against deception, to stimulate their watchfulness, and confirm their confidence that the end would come at last. Much, indeed, was at that time beyond their comprehension, and could only be made clear by the enlightening influence of the Spirit, and by the progress of events. N. L. 20. We know that two years before the city was invested by Vespasian, a Roman army under Cestius Gallus approached and invested it. It strangely enough happened that as Titus surprised the city at the time of the Passover, Cestius surprised it during the feast of Tabernacles, when all the male population of Judea was collected in the capital. As the Hebrew converts to Christianity continued to observe the greater ceremonies of their ancient faith up to the time of the fall of Jerusalem, they too would be there along with the rest. They would see Jerusalem compassed with armies, and would know that the time for their flight had come. H. M. 15. Abomination of desolation. Before the foundations of the second temple were laid, the prophet Daniel had predicted its desolation by the overspreading (or siege) of abominations, as an event following the cutting off of the Messiah. That word abomination had a definite sense to a Jewish ear, denoting the objects of heathen worship. S. —It is clear that "the abomination of desolation" denotes the Roman army which besieged Jerusalem, and which Daniel, in the place here alluded to, calls "the abomination that maketh desolate." The Roman army is here called an abomination, because upon its standards were depicted the images of their emperor and the tutelary gods whom they worshipped; and idols were held by the Jews in the utmost abhorrence, and called by the very name here used, "an abomination." The word "desolation" is added because this mighty army brought ruin and desolation on Jerusalem. This city, and the mountain on which it stood, and a circuit of several furlongs around it, were accounted holy ground; and, as the Roman standards were planted in the most conspicuous places near the fortifications of the city, they are here said to stand in "the holy place." P. 16. The admonition to "them who were in the midst of Jerusalem to depart out" shows that the "encompassing with armies" here spoken of was such as in the end would permit the inhabitants to flee out of the city. Cestius Gallus in the beginning of the war invested Jerusalem, and took the lower town, Bezetha. Josephus says, "If he had continued the siege but a little longer, he would have taken the city. But Cestius removed his army; and having received no loss, unadvisedly departed from the city." In this manner the providence of God verified the prophecy of Christ, and interposed for the deliverance of the disciples. Josephus further tells us that, "immediately after Cestius's departure, many of the Jews daily fled from the city, as from a sinking ship." Among these were many Christians, who, remembering this admonition of the Master, foresaw what was to happen. M.—By such warnings the Christians were preserved. Before John of Giscala had shut the gates of Jerusalem, and Simon of Gerasa had begun to murder the fugitives, so that "he who escaped the tyrant within the wall was destroyed by the other that lay before the gates"—before the Roman eagle waved her wing over the doomed city, or the infamies of lust and murder had driven every worshipper in horror from the temple courts—the Christians had taken timely warning. F.—Taking advantage of the space before the siege was formed by Titus, they departed in a body to Pella, a village beyond Jordan, which became the seat of the "Church of Jerusalem" till Hadrian permitted their return. S. Mk. 18. The siege by Cestius, sent as a warning to them as the after-siege was sent as a punishment to their unbelieving countrymen, occurred in the month of October. Their flight, therefore, was not in the winter. It has been proved that the day on which Cestius, in a panic which never could be accounted for, suddenly called off his troops and retreated from the city, was a Tuesday. Their flight, therefore, was not upon the Sabbath. H.—At the beginning of A. D. 70, when Titus made his appearance, the zealots themselves were divided into two parties: that of John of Giscala and Eleazar, who held the temple and its courts and the Antonia—8,400 men; that of Simon Bar-Gioras, whose headquarters were in the tower Phasaëlus, and who held the upper city, the lower city in the valley, and the district where the old acra had formerly stood, north of the temple—10,000 men and 5,000 Idumeans: in all a force of between 23,000 and 24,000 soldiers, trained in the civil encounters of the last two years to great skill and thorough recklessness. S. 19. Tribulation, such as was not from the beginning of the world. Whoever will turn to the history of this war by Josephus, and there read the detail of the horrible and almost incredible calamities endured by the inhabitants of Jerusalem during the siege, not only from the fire and sword of the enemies without, but from famine and pestilence, and continual massacres and murders from the fiend-like fury of the seditious zealots within, will be convinced that the very strong terms used by our Lord do not go beyond the truth. Indeed Josephus himself says: "No other city ever suffered such miseries, nor did any age, from the beginning of the world, ever breed a generation more fruitful in wickedness than this was." And again: "If the miseries of all mankind from the creation were compared with those which the Jews then suffered, they would appear inferior." The prediction of our Lord, and the accomplishment of it as described by the historian, are exact counterparts of each other, and seem almost to have been written by the same person. Yet Josephus was not born till after our Saviour was crucified; and he was not a Christian, but a Jew. P.—Our Lord wept at the foresight of these calamities; and no humane person can read the relation of them in Josephus, without weeping also. These were the days in which all the calamities predicted by Moses, Joel, Daniel, and other prophets, as well as those foretold by our Saviour, met in one common centre, and were fulfilled in the most terrible manner on that generation. G. T. L. 24. Captive into all nations. The number of those who perished by sword and famine is stated by Josephus to have been not less than 1,100,000. The number of those that were made captive was 97,000, who were subjected to every kind of cruel treatment, being either sold, or dispersed through the provinces of the Roman Empire, to be torn to pieces by wild beasts. Hammond.—The falling by the edge of the sword is not to be confined to what happened at the siege. It comprehended all the slaughters that were made of the Jews in the different battles, and sieges, and massacres, both in their own land and out of it, during the whole course of the war—such as at Alexandria, where 50,000 perished; at Cesarea, 10,000; at Scythopolis, 13,000; at Damascus, 10,000; at Ascalon, 10,000; at Apheck, 15,000; upon Gerizim, 11,000; and at Jotapata, 30,000. And thus was verified what our Lord told his disciples, that wherever the carcass was, there the eagles should be gathered together. M. Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles. After the Jews were almost utterly destroyed by death and captivity, Vespasian commanded the whole land of Judea to be sold. Jerusalem in particular, with its territory, becoming Vespasian's property, was sold to such Gentiles as chose to settle there. M.—And Jerusalem has never since been in the possession of the Jews. It was first in subjection to the Romans, afterward to the Saracens, then to the Franks, next to the Mamelukes, and now to the Turks. Thus has the prophecy of Christ been most literally and terribly fulfilled, on a people who are still preserved, as continued monuments of the truth of our Lord's prediction, and of the truth of the Christian religion. G. T.—Palestine was the cradle of the gospel; the Jews the people first divinely appointed to expound it. The destruction—never to be repaired—of their material temple cut the cords which bound the new faith to its local habitation, and launched it, under the hand of Providence, on its career of spiritual conquest. H. M.—While every dispersed people mentioned in history has been swallowed up of the nations among whom they were dispersed, without leaving the smallest trace of their ever having existed, the Jews continue, after so many ages, a distinct people in their dispersion. In all countries, by openly separating from the nations who rule them, they have subjected themselves to hatred and derision; nay, they have exposed themselves to death, by bearing about with them the outward marks of their descent. By this unexampled constancy they have preserved themselves a distinct people everywhere. But of this constancy can any better account be given than that it is the means by which God verifies the prediction of his Son? He has declared that when the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled, the Jews shall be converted; and therefore, through the whole course of their dispersion, they must continue a distinct people. If the hand of Providence is not visible in these things, I cannot tell where it will be found. M. Until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. The meaning, in the light of Rom. 11 : 12, 15, is this: Jerusalem shall lie waste until the full completion of the number of converts to Christianity which was to result from the downfall of Judaism, and the universal proffer of the gospel resulting therefrom. J. J. O.—Till the Gentiles have had their full time of that place in the Church which the Jews in their time had before them—after which, the Jews being again “graffed into their own olive-tree,” one Church of Jew and Gentile together shall fill the earth. B.—On any theory of prophetic interpretation, it appears highly probable that in the progress of Christianity, Palestine, no longer under the misrule of barbarians and the blight of false religion, shall become a goodly land, its cities be rebuilt, and a large portion—if not the whole body—of the Jewish people be found in the old home of their fathers, honored amid the family of nations, in proportion as through the ages they have been so generally despised. N. C. B. Mk. 22. There shall arise false Christs. Our Lord had already cautioned his disciples against believing the false Christs and false prophets who would appear before the siege; and he now warns them against those that would rise up during the siege. This, as Josephus tells us, they did in great abundance, and flattered the Jews with the hope of seeing their Messiah coming with great power, to rescue them from the Romans. And they pretended to show “signs and wonders;” the very words used by that historian as well as by our Lord. P. M. 28. The eagles be gathered. The meaning is, that as the eagles collect together wherever they find their prey, so shall the Roman armies follow the call of divine vengeance. It is a beautiful allusion to the eagles of the Roman standards. Newcome. 29. The sun shall be darkened, etc.** These which follow are strong figurative expressions, denoting that the Jewish state should be utterly destroyed. By similar figures we frequently find described in Scripture an utter desolation, and terrible destruction brought upon nations and capital cities. So Isaiah of Babylon, chapter 13; and of the Idumeans, chapter 34; and Ezekiel of Egypt, chapter 32. Whitby.—The desolation and calamity here spoken of may be most appropriately referred to the overthrow and complete extirpation of the Jewish people fifty years later under Adrian; when they were sold as slaves, and utterly driven out from the land of their fathers. This was the final war and catastrophe of the Jewish nation under the celebrated and mysterious Bar-Cochba, “Son of a Star.” The figurative language of these verses (Matt. 24 : 29–31, etc.) is similar to that of many passages in the Old Testament, which refer to civil commotions and historical events, of far less importance than the destruction of Jerusalem and the overthrow of the Jewish state. R. 30. Then shall appear the sign of the Son of man.** The Jews many times asked for a sign; now a sign will appear, that he is the true Messiah whom they despised, derided, crucified. He shall give proof of himself, not indeed in any visible form, but in vengeance and judgment, so visible that all the tribes of the earth shall be forced to acknowledge him the avenger. J. L. Mk. 32. Of that day and hour knoweth no man. This ignorance is made by Christ an argument for watchfulness, as if any day might prove “the day,” and any hour “the hour.” The attitude of faith is that of listening for the footfalls of an approaching Redeemer. Christians are described as those who “are waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” They are “looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour, Jesus Christ.” It is the obedience of faith, neither to postpone the second advent to a distant future, nor to say that it has actually come, or is coming at a specified date. The Christian should always associate the future with the coming of his Lord, his actual and visible coming, or some spiritual preparation for it. To his believing outlook every event has something to do with him, and may be a precursor of the advent. It is more in accordance with Christian believing and living, to think of the coming of Christ, than of the coming of death. W. I. B. Not the angels. Here the Son of God is contrasted both with men and angels. Whoever the Son was, he was distinct from men, and above the angels, being clearly contrasted with both, not here in respect of knowledge, but in degree as being. The gradation is, “no man,” “no angel,” not even the Son. J. P. T.—That day knoweth neither the Son. Christ does not know it as man, and it is not his office to declare it as the Son of God. By saying that the angels do not know it, he checked the disciples from desiring to know it. The times and seasons are in the Father’s own power, and they are not therefore for the Son to reveal. It is in this sense only that he says that they are not known by him. W.—The Son here is Christ, considered as the Son of man, as the prophet sent into the world to reveal his Father’s will; not as delivering to the world what he as “the Word” knew, but, according to his frequent declarations concerning himself, what the Father which sent him gave him commandment to say. Whitby. What was wanted was a Saviour coming forth out of the Godhead, “very God of very God,” at once divine in his nature and human in his sympathies, to restore, to redeem, to rescue man from himself—to heal a fatal alienation, to put lost man and the Holy Father at one again. Who else but God manifest in human flesh was competent to this? While accomplishing it, is it very strange that he should sometimes speak of himself, in this condescending and peculiar office, as unable to know or to do certain things as of himself without the Father, with whom he ever dwells in perfect oneness, each in each; or that in this human sojourn he should declare himself dependent on that whole and undivided Deity, that entireness of the Godhead, from which he came forth into the world? For that also, and for all the blessed spiritual comfort, light, strength, hope, assurance, promise, salvation, it gives us, let us be humbly and most devoutly thankful. And let us look reverently up to that Lord and Redeemer who in the beginning “was God”—who left the Father’s bosom for our deliverance from the law of sin and death—who hath ascended up where he was before—who has put it past all doubt or question that he and his Father are one, and who with that Father reigns in consubstantial glory, ever one God, world without end. F. D. H. ## Section 132.—Transition to His Final Coming. “Watch!” Mount of Olives. L. 34 AND take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. 35 For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. But M. 37 as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the 38 days that were before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in 39 marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood 40 came, and took them all away: so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. Then 41 shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left: two women shall L. 36 be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Take ye heed; watch therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man. For ye know not M. 43 what hour your Lord doth come. But know this, that if the good man of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would 44 not have suffered his house to be broken up. Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as you think not the Son of man cometh Mk. 34 For the Son of man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to M. 45 watch. Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over 46 his household, to give them meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his 47 lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Verily I say unto you, that he shall make 48 him ruler over all his goods. But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My 49 lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to smite his fellow-servants, and to eat and 50 drink with the drunken; the lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh 51 not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of; and shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Mk.35 Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, 36 or at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning: lest coming suddenly, he 37 find you sleeping. And what I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch. CONCERNING that great and notable day of which he here spoke, two facts only he announces—the certainty of its coming, and its suddenness. The element of uncertainty in death, in the second advent of Christ, in the day of judgment, is intended, not to excite the imagination to curiosity, but to arouse the conscience to vigilance, and the heart to fidelity. "It is the fundamental law of watchfulness to be always watching." Yet the watching is not to be that of anxious waiting, but of faithful doing. Men steeped in worldliness are heedless of death and the judgment to come. They lose the thought of conse- quences, and grow reckless and unscrupulous as to the methods by which they gratify their desires. But the servant of Christ holds everything in trust for his Lord, and uses time, talents, means, life itself, for his glory. Such fidelity to trust shall be rewarded with confidence and honor from his Lord. But sad and hopeless shall be the doom of such as waste life's opportunities, and live only for self and sin. J. P. T. M. 37-39. As in the times of Noah, men and women shall be employed in their ordinary work. These verses show us that to the last the elect of God will be mingled in companionship and partner- ship with the children of this world. They also confirm, by his mouth who is truth itself, the his- toric reality of the flood of Noah. A. 41. Two women shall be grinding. At Nazareth, we beheld two women grinding at the mill, preparing flour to make bread. Seated on the ground, they held between them two round flat stones. In the centre of the upper stone was a cavity for pouring in the corn, and by the side of this an upright wooden handle for moving the stone. As the operation began, one of the women, with her right hand, pushed this handle to the woman opposite, who again sent it to her companion, thus communicating a rotatory and very rapid motion to the upper stone; their left hands being all the while employed in supplying fresh corn, as fast as the bran and flour escaped from the sides of the ma- chine. E. D. Clarke, 1801.—In the village of Siloam, we heard a sound from one of the houses, which we guessed to be that of a hand-mill on which corn was being ground for the afternoon's meal. We entered and found a young woman seated on the earthen floor, and busily at work with her mill. In- terpreting our wishes, she took off the upper circular stone, showed us the iron pivot in the lower stone on which it revolved, and also the hollow slant by which the meal escaped after it was ground. As we were examining it, a second girl entered, and sit- ting down on the opposite side, and laying hold of the well-worn handle, the little mill went round more rapidly than ever. A. Thomson, 1876. L. 36. Watch . . . pray. The two great duties which in prospect of trial are constantly enjoined. These warnings, suggested by the need of preparedness for the tremendous calamities ap- proaching, and the total wreck of the existing state of things, are the general improvement of the whole discourse, carrying the mind forward to judgment of another kind, and on a grander and more awful scale —not temporal but eternal—when all safety and blessedness will be found to lie in being able to "stand before the Son of man" in the glory of his personal appearing. B.—The discourse of our Lord up to this point is to be regarded as a whole, which is here completed; having reference to his coming for the overthrow of Judaism. Our Lord here makes a transition, and proceeds to speak of his final coming at the day of judgment. R.—In the discourse from this point we meet with no signs by which this greater coming of our Lord is her- alded. But the whole burden, onward to the de- scription of the judgment (Section 135), is the most solemn and urgently repeated exhortation to watchfulness, and a constant readiness to meet the Son of man at this his great and final coming. J. J. O. The judgment over the degenerate theocracy, and the final judgment of the world; the first free development of the kingdom of God, and its final and glorious consummation, correspond to each other: the former, in each case, prefiguring the latter. And so, in general, all great epochs of the world’s history, in which God reveals himself as Judge, condemning a creation ripe for destruction, and calling a new one into being; all critical and creative epochs of the world’s history correspond to each other, and collectively prefigure the last judgment and the last creation—the consummation of the kingdom of God. N. Mk. 34. Left his house. The Christian Church is here compared to a great house or palace left for a time by its Lord and Master, the Son of man. He left his Church at his ascension, and he will return again to take account of it at the general judgment in the end of the world. He comes at the same time to every individual at his death. The Son of man at his departure gave authority to his servants, that is, not merely to the office-bearers of his Church, but to all his servants, authority to transact in his room, to maintain due order in the house, and seek its good. There is meanwhile no other above them in the house, no earthly master, but only the Word of Christ, which under the teaching of his Spirit he has left for their guidance. To every man his work. Work is the common duty of all in Christ’s house. The first thing we read of God doing for man when he made him was to assign him work. Before he gave him a right to eat of the fruit of the trees “he put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” When man is translated to the heavenly Eden it is not to idleness—“they serve him day and night in his temple.” He who made all worlds has said, “My Father worketh hitherto and I work.” It would be strange then if the Christian Church, which was intended to be the beating heart to all this world’s activities, were exempted from a law so universal. It was for this end that Christ called its members into it—“why stand ye here all the day idle?” and then “gave to every man his work.” The porter to watch. While the mode of labor in the house may vary, there is something common to all who are in it—the duty of watchfulness. The porter must stand at the door of every heart while that heart pursues its work. To watch is to do all our work with the thought of his eye measuring it, as of a friend who is ever present to our soul, gone from us in outward form, sure to return, and meanwhile near in spirit—to subject our plans and acts to his approval, asking ourselves at every step how this would please him, shrinking from what would cloud his face, rejoicing with great joy in all that would meet his smile. Ker. M. 45–51. Observe the contrast between the good and the evil servant. The good servant is faithful, to his lord and in his trust; prudent, in watching for his lord’s coming; beneficent, using his power as a trust, for others; patient, in continuing his well-doing till the coming of his lord; and his blessing is an enlarged honor, and a grander sphere of activity in the future. The evil servant becomes a practical disbeliever in Christ’s second coming, uses his power to oppress his fellow-servants, and to gratify himself, finds his companions with the self-indulgent, not with the self-denying; and to him judgment comes suddenly, unexpectedly, without warning, and with terrible and final condemnation, that separates him from the saints, and allots his portion with sinners. L. A. Mk. 35–37. It was never meant by the framer of the prophecies that any distinct vision of the future should, by help of them, be obtained by us. There is such variety of construction in the different parts, that much must remain of double or doubtful import, till the interpreting event occurs. It has been so with all that section of the prophetic writings of which the fulfilments are already before our eyes. It must be so with all that lies over to be accomplished in the future. But with all the obscurity thus intentionally thrown around the day and the hour of Christ’s coming, let us not forget that no obscurity, no uncertainty, hangs around the great event itself; that the same Jesus whom the clouds received out of the apostles’ sight shall come again the second time without sin unto salvation. In all that future which lies before us, these are the only two events of which we are absolutely certain: our own approaching death, our Lord’s approaching advent. Our faith in the certainty of the one rests on the uniformity of nature; our faith in the other on the sure testimony of our Lord himself—a testimony that we put above the other, for he says, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.” We must all die, and we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ. H.—There is nothing more certain than death; nothing more uncertain than the time of dying. I will therefore be prepared at all times for that which may come at any time, must come at one time or another. I shall not hasten my death by being ready, but sweeten it. It makes me not die the sooner, but the better. Warwick. I say unto all, Watch. Watch, therefore, and pray that we may be able to stand before the Son of man. Nor shall vigilance and prayer be ineffectual. On those who mock at God’s threatenings, and reject his promises, on these only the severity of wrath will fall. But for those who lay these warnings to heart, who dread the pollutions of the world, and flee from sin as from a serpent; who fear God's displeasure more than death, and seek his favor more than life, though much of frailty will to the last adhere to them, yet these are the objects of the Father's mercy, of the Redeemer's love. For these he died, for these he pleads, these he supports and strengthens with his spirit, these he shall lead with him triumphant to the mansions of glory, when sin and death shall be cast into the lake of fire Horsley.—Who is he that overcometh, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Christ? and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith—faith in the unseen Saviour; faith in his having lived and died for us on earth; faith in his having passed into the heavens, appearing there in God's presence for us; faith in his future coming to take us to himself. By watchfulness, by prayer, by all good fidelity to our absent Lord, let us nourish this vital principle of faith within us; so that when at last it is said to us, "Behold, he cometh!" the ready answer of our spirit may be, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus!" II. Mount of Olives. 1. THEN shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, 2 and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were wise, and five were 3, 4 foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: but the 5 wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. While the bridegroom tarried, they all 6 slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom 7 cometh; go ye out to meet him. Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. 8 And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. 9 But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go 10 ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. And while they went to buy, the 11 bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and 12 the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to 13 us. But he answered and said, Verily, I say unto you, I know you not. Watch there- 14 fore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh. THE purpose of the parable is, as we learn from the Lord's concluding words, to impress upon the members of his Church their need of vigilance. Regarded in one view, it is a warning that they be careful to maintain good works—that they be not satisfied with saying, Lord, Lord, while they do not the things that he says. Regarded under another aspect, it is a warning that they be watchful over their inward state—over their affections; that they seek to have a continual supply of the Spirit of Christ Jesus in their inmost hearts, to approve themselves before God. They are like the wise virgins, who foresee a life of toil and self-denial before the kingdom shall come unto them—and who consequently feel that it is not a few warm excited feelings which will carry them successfully through all this—which will enable them to endure unto the end. They feel that principles as well as feelings must be engaged in the work—that their first impulses and desires will carry them but a very little way, unless they be revived, strengthened, and purified, by a continual supply of the Spirit of God. On the exclusion of the foolish Bengel observes, that there are four classes of persons: those that have an abundant entrance into the kingdom, entering as it were with sails set into the haven; those again that are saved, as shipwrecked mariners reaching with difficulty the shore; on the other side, there are those who go evidently the broad way to destruction, whose sins go before them; while, again, there are those who, though they seemed not far off from the kingdom of God, yet miss it after all. Such were these five foolish virgins, and the fate of these, who were so near and yet fell short, must always appear the most miserable of all. T. THE parable illustrates the vigilant and expectant attitude of faith, in respect of which believers are described as “they that look for him” and “love his appearing.” In the last parable it was that of servants waiting for their absent lord; in this, it is that of virgin-attendants on a bride, whose duty it was to go forth at night with lamps, and be ready on the appearance of the bridegroom to conduct the bride to his house, and go in with him to the marriage. This entire and beautiful change of figure brings out the lesson of the former parable in quite a new light. B. We are to understand by the virgins all who profess to be waiting for the Son of God from heaven, and to love his appearing. This they have all in common, that they confess to the same Lord, they profess to have the same hope in him. The numbers make nothing to the case—only the division is essential. They are not distinguished into good and bad, but as the hearers at M. 7 : 25–27, into “wise” and “foolish,” for as a certain degree of good-will toward the truth is assumed there in the foolish from their relation as hearers, and then attempting to build, so here from their going forth to meet the bridegroom. We have them described—the wise, 2 Pet. 1 : 5–8, and the foolish, 2 Pet. 1 : 9. The customs alluded to hold in full force to the present day, and form as important a part of the nuptial ceremony as they did in ancient times. The bridegroom, accompanied by his friends (“the children of the bride-chamber”), goes at night to the house of the bride, and brings her with pomp and gladness to his own home. She is accompanied from her father’s house by her young friends and companions, while other of these, the virgins of the parable, at some convenient place meet and join the procession and enter with the rest of the bridal company into the hall of feasting. 4. Oil in their vessels with their lamps.** It is clear that whatever is merely outward in the Christian profession is the lamp—whatever is inward and spiritual is the oil laid up in the vessels. When we contemplate with James faith as the body, and the works as that which witnesses for a vivifying soul, then faith is the lamp, the works the oil in the vessels; but when we contemplate with Paul the works as only having a value from the living principle of faith out of which they spring, then the works are the lamp, and faith the oil which must feed it. Yet in either case, before we have fully exhausted the meaning of the oil, we must get beyond both the works and the faith to the Spirit of God which prompts the works and quickens the faith, and of which Spirit oil is in Scripture the standing symbol. 5. All slumbered and slept.** Perhaps by this slumbering and sleeping more may not be meant than that all, having taken such measures as they counted needful to enable them to meet the bridegroom as they would wish, calmly awaited his approach. For had the foolish virgins been in a condition to mark the lapse of time and the gradual waning of their lamps, they would naturally have bestirred themselves before the decisive moment arrived to procure a new supply. And had the wise virgins not slept—had they been represented as watching while the others were sleeping—it would have seemed like a lack of love not to have warned their companions of the increasing dimness with which their lamps were burning, while yet help was possible. T.—Observe the implication: if the Christian has grace in his heart, he is always ready, though asleep; if not, he is unready, though he were wakeful and seemingly watching. Not what death finds us doing, but how death finds us furnished, is the important question. L. A. 8,9. Of course the request and the refusal—like the discourse between Abraham and Dives—are only the outer garb of the truth—but of truth how important!—that we shall look in vain from men for that grace which God only can supply. T. 10. They that were ready went in with him to the marriage.** The future everlasting blessedness in store for all the true followers of Christ is spoken of here, as so frequently elsewhere, as a royal banquet or feast. “Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb.” Scene of unrivalled glory, of exhaustless joy; rich and rare the food provided for the guests in the great banqueting hall of immortality! Other viands at other feasts pall on the sated sense; but for those viands upon which the spirits of the blessed shall for evermore be nourished into a growing likeness unto God, the appetite shall ever grow quicker the more that is partaken, and the relish be ever the more intense. H. 13. Now we labor, and our lamps fluctuate among the gusts and temptations of the present world; only let us give heed that our flame burn in such strength, that the winds of temptation may rather fan the flame than extinguish it. Aug. # Section 134.—The Talents. Mount of Olives. 14. For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own 15 servants, and delivered unto them his goods. And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and 16 straightway took his journey. Then he that had received the five talents, went and 17 traded with the same, and made them other five talents. And likewise he that had re- 18 ceived two, he also gained other two. But he that had received one, went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord's money. 19, 20 After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them. And so he that had received five talents, came, and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I have gained beside them five talents 21 more. His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou 22 into the joy of thy lord. He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents: behold, I have gained two other talents beside 23 them. His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the 24 joy of thy lord. Then he which had received the one talent came, and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering 25 where thou hast not strewed: and I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the 26 earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine. His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather 27 where I have not strewed: thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the ex- 28 changers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury. Take 29 therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents. For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that 30 hath not, shall be taken away even that which he hath. And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. WHATEVER we are in capacity, in ability, in position, in means, is the gift of God. Our talents are "his goods." The variety of distribution is also from his hand. A period of probation, until Christ's second advent, is appointed for testing character. Every position has its responsibility, and every lot its compensations. In every case there exists a personal trust, and responsibility is measured by the "several ability." The award is made, not to absolute or relative success, but to fidelity, which does not depend upon the amount committed to one's care. The trust and the ability to use it create the obligation. Neg- ligence is punished upon its own showing. The plea of inability is false, and the plea of severity contra- dicts itself. The time and the labor of the slothful servant belonged to his Lord; and his punishment was just, because he did not use for God the gifts that he had received from God. But, while a selfish disregard of the sacred trust of life receives merited punishment, the reward of fidelity transcends all human estimate—the public commendation and welcome of Christ, exaltation with Christ in his joy, and dominion in his kingdom. J. P. T. THE parable of the pounds (Section 116), though having a prominent point of contact with this, was spoken at a different time and place, and to the multitude as well as the disciples. This, in the innermost circle of his own most trusted followers, of those to whom he was about to confide the carry- ing forward of the great work which he had himself commenced on earth. T.—Christ's voice in this parable, as in that of the pounds, is, not “Wait for your Lord,” “Love his appearing,” but “Occupy till I come.” Blessed is that servant whom his Lord when he cometh shall find, not only watching, as in a former parable, but—working! B. 14. While the virgins were represented as waiting for the Lord, we have here the servants working for him: there the inward spiritual rest of the Christian was described—here his external activity. There, by the end of the foolish virgins, we were warned against declensions and decays in the inward spiritual life—here against sluggishness and sloth in our outward vocation and work. That parable enforced the need of keeping the heart with all diligence, this the need of giving all diligence also to the outward work, if we would be found of Christ in peace at his appearing. It is therefore with good reason that they appear in their actual order, that of the virgins first and the talents following, since the sole condition of a profitable outward work for the kingdom of God is that the life of God be diligently maintained within the heart. T. Delivered unto them his goods. It is from the relationship which of old existed between a master and his slaves that the imagery of this parable is taken. A slave in those days might not only be called to do the ordinary work which fell to the lot of an ordinary domestic: but if he had the talent for it, his master might allow him to engage in trade or to practise in any profession, the master receiving the profits, the slave reaping the benefit of better position and better maintenance. H.—Slaves in antiquity were often artisans, or were allowed to engage in business, paying a fixed yearly sum to their master: or, as here, they had money given them to trade on his account or to enlarge their business, and to bring him in a share of their profits. 15. His ability.** The natural gifts are as the vessel, which may be large or small and which receives according to its capacity; but which in each case is filled. T.—Our Master is not here personally to assign to us our different places and our different work; he is not here directly to inspect, and at each day’s close to make the reckoning with us. But not the less, rather the more, are we under obligation to work for him; for has he not left us to deal with that portion of his goods he has put into our hands as to each of us seemeth best? has he not left us to cultivate each the special talent he has bestowed, in cultivating which we may be still serving him? H. Christ not only startles the indolent by the inquiry, “Why stand ye here all the day idle?” and by the command, “Work while it is day, for the night cometh wherein no man can work;” but our life in his hands is converted into a lamp which, like the virgins in the parable, we are to keep bright and burning; and into a stewardship, concerning every item of which we are to render him finally a faithful account. Our “every word,” our various endowments, whatever they may be, are so many talents which he expects us to multiply by constant use. He will not require the possessor of two talents to account for three, but neither will he permit him to account for one only. The very fact that he possesses two, constitutes his call and his obligation to employ them; nor is he at liberty to set any limits to his endeavors short of those which his means and opportunities prescribe. And as Christian influence multiplies itself by use, he is held responsible, not only for the right employment of his two talents, but for the other two, which that employment would have added to them. J. H. 16. Traded and made other five talents. Whoever, in allegiance to his divine Master, by his diligent use of God’s gifts, adds to the spiritual value of his own character, or to the true welfare of his fellow-men, fulfils the part of a faithful servant. The result is a true addition to God’s wealth. L. A.—19. After a long time.** Embraces the whole period intervening between the first and second coming of Christ. T. 21. Neither the toil nor the gain receives notice, but the fidelity is commended and rewarded. J. G. B.—No earthly lord or master ever dealt so generously with those who had tried to serve him, as our heavenly Lord and Master will deal with us, if honestly, sincerely, devotedly, though with all our manifold imperfections, we give ourselves to the doing of his good and holy will. H.—Enter into the joy. Leighton’s words on this entering into the joy of the Lord are beautiful: “It is but little we can receive here, some drops of joy that enter into us, but there we shall enter into joy as vessels put into a sea of happiness.” T. 24,25. The good and faithful servant performs his master’s will, without arguing concerning it. It is only the wicked and slothful servant who disputes so much, and does nothing. Q.—He did not believe in his lord’s forgiving love, and in his gracious acceptance of the work with all its faults, which was done for him out of a true heart and with a sincere desire to please him. This was his wilful and guilty ignorance concerning the true character of the master whom he was called to serve. In his speech, half cowering and half defying, and in this respect a wonderful picture of the sinner’s bearing toward God, he shrinks not from attributing to him the character of a harsh unreasonable despot. 26,27. “Wicked,” in that he defended himself by calumniating his lord, and “slothful,” as his whole conduct has shown. Grant me to be such as thou describest, severe and exacting, yet even then thou art not cleared, for thou oughtest to have done me justice still; and there was a safe way by which thou mightest have done this; and thereby have obtained for me, if not large gains, yet some small but certain return for my moneys. 28. This taking away of the unused talent which will find its complete consummation at the day of judgment, is also in this present time continually going forward. And herein is mercy, that it is not done all at once but by little and little, so that till all is withdrawn there is still the opportunity of recovering all: at each successive withdrawal there is some warning to hold fast what is left, "to strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die." It is true that at each successive stage of the decline, the effort required for this is greater—the strength for it less: but to complain of this is to complain that sin is sin, that it has any curse with it; and however this is the mournful truth, yet it remains always possible till the last spark is extinguished to blow up that spark again into a flame: even the sense of the increasing darkness may be that which shall arouse the man to a serious sense of his danger, and to the need of an earnest revival of God's work in his soul. T. 30. Observe that the same condemnation is visited on the unprofitable servant as on the guest without a wedding-garment, the hypocrites, and the workers of iniquity. L. A.—A fearful picture of the condemned sinner; even on his own ground how justly condemned! The opportunities and the place which he had left unused, and has therefore forfeited, God (as his rule is) hands over to another. And not only is the talent forfeited, but the unprofitable servant is himself cast into outer darkness. While within there is joy, and light, and feasting, to celebrate the master's return, the blessedness he might have gained is forever lost. J. A. SEEING that all are called in their measure to edify one another, that all Christians have a spiritual vocation, and are intrusted with gifts, more or fewer, for which they will have to render an account, the parable is applicable to all. It has relation to all gifts and endowments, as wealth, reputation, ability, which are given to men that they may be sanctified to the Lord and consecrated to his service, and for the use or abuse of which the possessors will have also to render an account. Our English word "talent" has come to signify any mental endowments, faculties, or powers whatever, a use which is entirely the growth of this parable. T.—All receive their native capacities and their opportunities, their characters and their circumstances, from God. He bestows them not as a gift, but as a trust; and for their use thereof they will be called to account. Our Lord admonishes us that nonuse is a sin as well as misuse, neglect as truly as flagrant disobedience. The whole parable pivots on the words unprofitable servant, and it is one of solemn warning to every person who is so living as neither to grow in grace himself nor to edify others. L. A. ## Section 135.—Description of the Judgment. Mount of Olives. 31. WHEN the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then 32 shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the 33 goats: and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. 34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, 35 inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, 36 and ye took me in: naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in 37 prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when 38 saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw 39 we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee 40 sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily, I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. 41. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into ever- 42 lasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was an hungered, and ye gave 43 me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. 44 Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? 45 Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily, I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not 46 to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into ever- lasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal. THESE blessed of the Father, brethren of the Son, and heirs of the Kingdom, stand amazed that the Son of man, now come in his glory with all the holy angels, should so overwhelm their trifling services with a glorious reward. Nay, they can hardly recollect any service at all. The ministries were so trifling, and were bestowed on objects so inconsiderable, often with such mixture of bad motives, and such deficiency of good, that it amazes them to find every transient item legible in the book of the Judge, now seated upon the throne of his glory. Mark how he receives them, how he gathers up the bruised, withered, scattered flowers which seemed dying in our hands, and makes of them a garland; binds them on his brow as a diadem; points to them before his angels as an honor. The self-condemning disciple sees no beauty or worthiness but in his prince. Conscious of shortcoming, he hears the plaudit, and looks around among the right-hand myriads in quest of him whom it may befit. Not me, assuredly. "When saw I thee, in sorrow, and ministered to thee!" Yes, thee, blushing saint—thee; the Master's eye seeketh thee. What a Master! Who will not love him and serve him! Hear the words of Bishop Andrewes: "There is glory which shall be revealed; for when the Judge cometh, some shall be placed on the right, and shall hear those most welcome words, 'Come, ye blessed.' They shall be caught up in clouds to meet the Lord; they shall enter into gladness, they shall enjoy the sight of him, they shall be even with him. These alone, only these, are blessed among the sons of men." J. W. A. THE same day of which the parables of the virgins, of the talents, and of the pounds specially testify, is the day spoken of here. It is the day of the bridegroom's return. This parable merely gives a more enlarged, grand, and solemn view of what is the main subject of the preceding parables. They all give in detail the separation of the wise from the inconsiderate, the righteous from the wicked. D. K. D. The sublimity of this description surpasses all imagination. Christ, as the Son of man, the Shepherd, the King, the Judge, as the centre and end of all human love, bringing out and rewarding his latent grace in those who have lived in love; everlastingly punishing those who have quenched it in an unloving and selfish life; and, in the accomplishment of his mediatorial office, causing even from the iniquities of a rebellious world his sovereign mercy to rejoice against judgment. J. P. T.—It will heighten our ostimation of the wonderful sublimity of this description, when we recollect that it was spoken by the Lord only three days before his sufferings! A. A large field of reflection is before us—to consider Jesus Christ as a God in his majesty, as a King upon his throne, as a Judge on his tribunal, and as a Shepherd amid his flock, wherein the goats continue mixed with the sheep even to the last day! See here a spectacle very different from that of the cross, where the Son of God, disfigured, forsaken by his disciples, encompassed with his enemies, and seated between two thieves on the throne of his humiliations and ignominies, did in those two exhibit an emblem of the separation here described. Q. Christ the divine Saviour is one with Christ the divine Judge; nor is there any consideration more appalling to conscious guilt and conscious neglect than this, that it is none other than the Shepherd who yielded life itself for the sheep, that is yet to sit in judgment on that day when justice alone shall be visible on the throne of God! W. A. B.—There is no manifestation of the nature of God, in opposition to sin and in retribution against the incorrigibly ungodly, so calm, determined, decided, severe, and awful, as that which is made in the words and yet will be made in the person of that Man by whom He will judge the world. J. T. D. 31. The Son of man in his glory. The Humanity of Christ is made prominent in this reference to the judgment, as his Divinity was made prominent in reference to the resurrection. The dead shall hear the voice of “the Son of God”—the divine power and majesty will be most strikingly expressed through the voice that shall raise the dead; but “the Son of man,” our representative and glorified humanity in Christ, shall come into view in the solemnities of the judgment. His personal connection with humanity, his experience of its trials and temptations, his sympathy with its sufferings and sorrows, will throw an air of benignity and tenderness over a scene that must of itself possess so much of majesty and awe. The purpose of the incarnation is the moral wonder of earth and heaven—that God entered into humanity to redeem, ennoble, enthrone it; and this sublime wonder of the incarnation will stand out in Jesus, the appointed Judge, because he is the Son of man—the unveiling of that awful mystery, the Incarnate God, the Redeeming Man; all angels his servants; principalities, powers, and dominions gathered beneath his throne! J. P. T. 32. As before that final decision the faith of the gospel will have been spread among all nations, so all nations are represented as brought to the bar; but, among these, genuine believers will be separated from those whose fidelity has not been proved by their lives. This representation of the final judgment aims to set forth, most vividly and impressively, the great and fundamental truth, that no faith but that which proves itself by works can secure a title to the kingdom of heaven. N.—To whatever communion they belong, let none fancy they belong to Christ unless they are found working in his service. For them to talk of being saved by faith is to dishonor the gospel and to deceive themselves. Faith without works is dead, and, like all dead things, is an offence. Guthrie. 33. There is no intermediate station provided for those who are lukewarm and indifferent, who do not reject the gospel, but give themselves little concern about it: who, instead of working out their salvation with fear and trembling, leave that matter to take care of itself. Those who are not set on the right hand, must go to the left. Those who are not rewarded, are consigned to punishment. P. 34. The King.** Here for the first and only time does the Lord give himself this name. A.—It is the King, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, who speaks. Before the assembled universe shall Jesus of Nazareth be enthroned. He who on earth veiled his glory, took no higher title than the Son of man, was content to stand before an earthly judgment-seat and be doomed to die—shall come with power and great glory. He shall come, as we are told in one place, in his own glory; as we are told in another, in the glory of the Father. With all the essential glory which he had with the Father before the world was—with all the additional glory of his triumph over death and hell for us men and for our salvation, shall he be then visibly invested. Inherit the kingdom! Rejoice, all ye who, following Christ as your great leader and exemplar ever before you, day by day are carrying on this inward warfare. The struggle is not to last forever. The enemies, so many, so powerful, within and without, by whom you are so often overcome, are not forever to haunt and harass and assault. At death they shall cease to have power; and when on that great day you stand on the right hand of the Judge, then shall the full, the perfect, the undivided reign of holiness commence, and every thought, affection, and desire of your heart doing willing homage to the Redeemer, the kingdom shall be yours, Christ shall reign in you, and you shall reign through him. But this kingdom is to come to you by inheritance. It is not one that you are to acquire in virtue of any sacrifices made, any labors undergone, any victories achieved. You must first become children of God by faith that is in Jesus Christ, and, being children, then shall ye be heirs, heirs of God, joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. H. 37. The righteous answer. The commendation bestowed upon the righteous seems to proceed upon the ground of the good works they had done. Did our Lord then teach or imply a doctrine of salvation by works, or of merit? The very statement contradicts that supposition; for they who do such works have no thought of merit in them; they are astonished and overwhelmed at the enumeration: “Lord, when saw we thee!” What they did was not in the endeavor to merit heaven, but was the acting out of a true love to Christ in dependence upon him. 40. Ye have done it unto me.** Without thought of personal reward, without a calculation of merit, under the promptings of the Saviour’s love, they had carried out his spirit in ministering to others. To act in all things from love to Christ denotes that vital union with Christ which qualifies the participant for the felicity of heaven. J. P. T. It is everywhere taught by him that brotherly love is a peculiar fruit of faith, the very test of its genuineness; we cannot wonder, therefore, to find it made so prominent in this passage. Believers are represented in it as following the impulses of a true brotherly love, founded upon love to Christ, and as manifesting this love in kind acts to their brethren without respect to persons. Yet they attach no merit to their works, and are amazed to find the Lord value them so highly as to consider them done unto himself. N.—Even thus will it be in the moment of his awakening, with all that a Christian has done through his Master's grace in the days of his flesh. How will he find in that hour that nothing had been overlooked, nothing forgotten, of all that had been truly done for Christ! Every hearty prayer and every earnest effort, every struggle with self, every victory over sin, every endeavor to benefit man and to bring honor to God, will then be seen to have borne its proper fruit, and to be blessed with its due recompense of reward. He may say to himself then, How has much come to little, and little come to much! Great may be the surprises which have been enumerated in other kinds, but greatest, perhaps, to a humble Christian, the discovery of his own reward, the discovery that God had marked indeed what man never saw, and crowned with his eternal blessings deeds which the doer had forgotten. An. What thoughts crowd upon us as we listen to such a description of the scenes of the Last Judgment! Lo! he casts his entire cause in the earth upon the love of his people. His own poverty was to have an end, but that of his Church was to take his place. His personal conflict "finished," that of his cause was then only to begin. The whole story of his necessities and endurances from the world, was to be repeated in the Church, which was to "fill up that which was behind of the afflictions of Christ." B. 41. Prepared for the devil and his angels. Even in rejecting from his presence the selfish and the unpitying, the Saviour shows his pity to the end. The kingdom, the salvation, the blessing, were prepared for all who should give themselves to Christ: the curse, the woe, were prepared for the devil; and it is only of their own perversity in sin that any of the human race fall under that condemnation. J. P. T.—From one central will, alienated from the will of God, the Scripture derives all the evil in the universe; all gathers up in a person, the devil, who has most truly a kingdom, as God has—a kingdom with its subordinate ministers—"the devil and his angels." Thus man's sin is continually traced up to Satan; the Scripture not thereby denying that the evil of men is truly their evil, but affirming with this, that it has its ground in a yet higher evil. It is their evil, since it is an act of their will which alone gives it leave to enter. T. 41-45. The Judge does not in their case bring forward an opposite kind of actions to confront with those attributed to the righteous. Against the cited deeds of mercy he does not set up as many deeds of selfishness, or unkindness, or cruelty. He puts the whole stress of the condemnatory sentence simply upon the non-performance of the service of love to his brethren, and through them to himself. The great primary requirement, the presence or absence of which fixes the position of each class on the right hand or upon the left of the Judge, is love to Christ, likeness unto him, as tested and exhibited in deeds of kindness done unto his poor, afflicted, suffering children. H. 46. The punishment of the wicked is said to be everlasting, and the reward of the righteous eternal. Everlasting, and eternal, signify the same thing in our language, and are put for one and the same word in the Greek original: wherefore in that passage of Scripture they are to be taken as precisely importing the same thing; because it cannot be supposed, that any writer, much less that Christ, could have two very different senses to the same word, repeated in the same short sentence, without giving the least warning of his change of meaning, or adding any mark of limitation to it in either place of that sentence.—And are not the punishments of the wicked said to be eternal, in terms the most express? Are they not called "everlasting burnings?" Isa. 33:14; "everlasting shame and contempt?" Dan. 12:2; "everlasting fire?" Matt. 18:8; "eternal judgment?" Heb. 6:2; "the blackness of darkness forever?" Jude 13. Were these expressions thrown out only to frighten us into our duty with false terrors? Doth God, who forbids us "to do evil that good may come," use equivocal words, and pious frauds, in order to make us honest men, and lovers of truth? Skelton.—Everlasting punishment. A TRUTH—great, terrible, and certain; planted deep in the nature of God's attributes, and therefore unfathomable as all things are that are of him; but, withal, addressing itself to the simplest and strongest feelings of man—his dread of pain, his horror of shame and misery and death; meeting him at every turn to evil, and casting a fearful shadow across those pleasures which are not of God; and warning that all the temporal results of sin—the ruin of prospects, the destruction of health, the loss of reputation, the early grave—all are but shadows of its overwhelming penalty, when restraining mercy shall have ceased, and the sin and the punishment, passing together into the world of eternity and still bound in inseparable links, shall become themselves alike eternal! W. A. B. Life eternal. In this and many other passages of a similar nature, we are expressly assured that both our existence and our happiness hereafter will be, in the strictest sense of the word, everlasting. This none but God himself could promise, or, when promised, fulfil. It is more than the utmost sagacity of human reason could discover, more than the utmost perfection of human virtue could claim. Eternal life, therefore, is constantly and justly represented in Scripture as the gift, the free gift of God, through Jesus Christ; and, were it on this account only, it might be truly said, that life and immortality were brought to light through the gospel. P. 31-46. What claims does “the Son of man” here put forward for himself! He is to come in his own glory; all the holy angels are to come with him; he is to take his seat on the throne; it is the throne of his own glory; all nations are to be gathered before him; the awful separation of the two great classes to be his doing; the word of decision on both—“Ye blessed!” “Ye cursed!” and the word of command to the one, “Come!” to the other, “Depart!”—“To the kingdom! To the flames!” all this is to be his doing. But most astonishing of all, the blissful or the blighted eternity of each one of both classes is suspended upon his treatment of him—is made to turn upon those mysterious ministrations from age to age to the Lord of glory, disguised in the persons of those who love his name: “Ye did thus and thus unto me—Come, ye blessed! Ye did it not to me—Depart, ye cursed!” In that “me” lies an emphasis, the strength of which only the scene itself and its everlasting issues will disclose. Verily, “God is Judge himself,” but it is God in flesh, God in One who is “not ashamed to call us brethren.” B. Jerusalem. L. 1 Now the feast of unleavened bread drew nigh, which is called the Passover. And it M. 1 came to pass, when Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said unto his disciples, Ye 2 know that after two days is the feast of the passover, and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified. 3 Then assembled together the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders of the people, 4 unto the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, and consulted and sought 5 how they might take Jesus by subtilty, and kill him. But they said, Not on the feast-day, lest there be an uproar among the people; for they feared the people. L. 3 Then entered Satan into Judas surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve. 4 And he went his way unto the chief priests and captains, and communed with them how 5 he might betray him unto them. And when they heard it, they were glad, and promised to give him money. And he said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver 6 him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver. And he promised, and from that time sought opportunity how he might conveniently betray him unto them in the absence of the multitude. Mk. 12 Now the first day of the feast of unleavened bread, when the passover must be killed, the disciples came to Jesus, saying unto him, Where wilt thou that we go and prepare 13 for thee, that thou mayest eat the passover? And he sendeth forth two of his disciples, Peter and John, and saith unto them, Go ye into the city, and behold, when ye are entered into the city, there shall meet you a man bearing a pitcher of water; follow him 14 into the house where he entereth in. And wheresoever he shall go in, say ye to the good man of the house: the Master saith unto thee, My time is at hand, I will keep the passover at thy house; where is the guest-chamber where I shall eat the passover with 15 my disciples? And he will shew you a large upper room furnished and prepared: there 16 make ready for us. And his disciples went forth, and came into the city, and found as he had said unto them: and, as Jesus had appointed, they made ready the passover. SCARCELY had Jesus commenced his work, when covetousness lifted itself up against him; it everywhere intruded upon his path; it disputed every step that he took. It misunderstood and forsook him, in the person of the rich young man; it excited his holy anger in the person of the sellers in the temple; it hated him; it railed at him; it persecuted him in the person of the Pharisees; and in the person of Judas it tithed the fruit of his charity for the poor; it begrudged the honor destined to his burial; it betrayed him, it delivered him up, it sold him. Oh, prophetic crime, which casts a sad light upon the future of the Church of Jesus Christ! This same crime of him, who for thirty pieces of silver sold the blood of the Son of God, is the very crime which will show itself most active in depriving men of the ineffable benefit of this shed blood; for covetousness will oppose equally the salvation of the individual, the fidelity of the Church, and the conversion of the world. A. M. M. 1. 2. Jesus sat down upon the Mount of Olives, over against the temple; and as the shadows of evening deepened in the valley of Kedron, he addressed to his wondering disciples the prophecies and parables preserved in the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth chapters of Matthew's gospel. It was after he had finished all these sayings that he said to his disciples, "Ye know that after two days is the feast of the Passover, and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified." He had previously in his discourse been dealing with a broad and distant future, been sketching the world's history, describing its close—giving no dates, leaving much as to the sequence of events shadowy and undefined. Now he turns to a nearer future, to an event that was to happen to himself; and in terms free of all indistinctness he announces that the day after the next he would be betrayed, and afterward crucified. H. L. 3. Then entered Satan. But not yet in the full sense. The awful stages of it were these: 1. Covetousness being his master-passion, the Lord let it reveal itself and gather strength by intrusting him with "the bag," as treasurer to himself and the twelve. 2. In the discharge of that sacred trust he became "a thief," appropriating its contents from time to time to his own use. Satan, seeing this door into his heart standing wide open, determines to enter by it, but cautiously; first merely "putting it into his heart to betray him," suggesting the thought to him that by this means he might enrich himself. 3. This thought was probably converted into a settled purpose by what took place in Simon's house at Bethany. 4. Starting back perhaps, or mercifully held back, for some time, the determination to carry it into immediate effect was not consummated till, sitting at the Paschal supper, "Satan entered into him," and conscience, effectually stifled, only rose again to be his tormentor. B. 5. Thirty pieces of silver.** The price of a slave that had been slain (Ex. 21 : 32). Thus the prophecy was fulfilled in which it had been particularly specified (Zech. 11 : 12, 13). The sum was equivalent to about fifteen dollars. D. 6. For a man to accuse Christ of nothing and not to complain of him while he betrays him, is to justify Him and to condemn himself. He who nourishes any passion in his heart is in great danger of delivering up Christ to his enemies upon every temptation. When a man hopes for anything from the world, he ought to fear everything from himself. Q.—The life of man furnishes many analogies that may help to clear up the enigmatical conduct of Judas. He who does not follow the impulses of good which he receives, but gives himself up to the selfish propensities which those impulses are meant to counteract, becomes finally and irrecoverably enslaved to them; all things that ought to work together for his good serve for his harm; the healing balm becomes for him a poison. This is the severe judgment upon which our free agency is conditioned; and to it may we apply the saying of our Lord: "From him that hath not, shall be taken away even that which he hath." N. In the absence of the multitude. The Jews, having an opportunity of seizing Jesus privately in the night, determined to have him examined by the high-priest and condemned by the Roman governor early in the morning, before the people came together. Therefore Judas sought opportunity to betray him in the absence of the multitude. W. G. Mk. 12. The 15th of Nisan was the first day of the feast. But, as all leaven was scrupulously removed about noon on the 14th, in preparation for the feast, it was not unnatural to call this "the day," or as Matthew and Mark have it, "the first day of unleavened bread." So Josephus, in one place, makes the 14th of Nisan the first day of the feast, which he elsewhere fixes to the 15th; and he assigns eight days as its duration. S. (See variant opinion of Robinson: Section 155, J. 14.) 13. Sendeth forth Peter and John.** In sending them before the others, he could easily have indicated where the room was in which they were to meet in the evening. Instead of this he gives them a sign which was to conduct them to it. This way of ordering it, whatever was its real purpose, served effectually to conceal from the others the locality of the guest-chamber, and may have been meant to keep the traitor in the mean time in ignorance. H. —A man bearing a pitcher of water. To bring home water is part of woman's work, in the East. So singular would be the sight of a man thus engaged, that our Saviour here gives it as a sign to his disciples, that a man should meet them bearing water, as though in all the throng not more than a single instance of the kind would occur. N. C. B. 14. "Where is the guest-chamber where I shall eat the Passover?" the Master saith. It is a personal question, a proposal to the inner life of us all. It is an offer of the one infinite divine blessing, for, in receiving the Master, Christ, the Son of Mary and the Son of God, we receive all the real good there is in earth and heaven. There seems to be in this question just that twofold sound of invitation and authority, offer and command, which is always to be found in the word of the Saviour when he proposes to take up his abode in any of our hearts. He offers to come in if we will suffer him; for the act must be free. He commands us to suffer him, because he has a right there; and though faith holds the key, we cannot keep him out without disobedience to him, and guilt and misery following. This is what our Christian life—part a task and part a delight, part duty and part privilege, part drudging and part festival, part of law and part of grace—must always include, the proportions of the service of obligation and the service of joy constantly varying, according as we have more or less of the Master's own spirit, and live nearer to him. F. D. H. ## Section 137.—The Passover Meal. Washes the Disciples' Feet. The Guest-Chamber. J. 55 AND the Jews' passover was nigh at hand: and many went out of the country up to Jerusalem before the passover, to purify themselves. Then sought they for Jesus, and spake among themselves, as they stood in the temple, What think ye, that he will not come up to the feast? Now both the chief priests and the Pharisees had given a commandment, that, if any man knew where he were, he should shew it, that they might take him. 1. Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead. There they made him a supper in the house of Simon the leper, and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him. Then, as he sat at meat, came Mary unto him, having an alabaster box with a pound of ointment of spikenard, very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on his head; and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with 4 her hair; and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. Then saith one of 5 his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him, Why was not this 6 ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what Mk. 4 was put therein. And there were some disciples that had indignation within them- 5 selves, and said, To what purpose is this waste? for this ointment might have been 6 sold for much, and given to the poor; and they murmured against her. When Jesus understood it, he said unto them, Let her alone: why trouble ye the woman? for she 7 hath wrought a good work upon me. For ye have the poor with you always, and when- 8 soever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always. She hath done what she could: for in that she hath kept this ointment and poured it on my body, she is 9 come aforehand to anoint it for my burial. Verily, I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that this woman hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her. J. 9 Much people of the Jews therefore knew that he was there: and they came, not for Jesus' sake only, but that they might see Lazarus also, whom he had raised from the 10 dead. But the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death; 11 because that by reason of him many of the Jews went away, and believed on Jesus. THE inspiration of a loving heart has the gift of prophecy. Its insight is foresight, because it is taught of God. And what a rebuke to those who would bring down everything that is lovely and of good report to the hard utilitarian measurement, and, in the pretended interest of fruit, would strike off all the spontaneous blossoms of Christian affection! Ker.—The Lord's eye beheld more in this anoint- ing than Mary could understand. She had done what she could; she had deposited her whole love in this sacrifice of anointing, but in holy simplicity she had done more than she knew. This is our Saviour's manner; thus does he interpret the love of his disciples. Let us only do what we can, and then will he do what we cannot do; if we put into our doing all that we can, then will he put therein what far exceeds our power and thoughts. "In the works of the children of God there are often hidden myste- ries which they themselves understand not," says an experienced Christian. How shall we marvel, when in the light of eternity we review our earthly course; when for the first time we shall fully under- stand all that God meant by what he led us to do through his Spirit! R. B. J. 55. Many went, to purify themselves. Thousands of devout Jews came anxiously before the Passover to be made ceremonially clean and fit for the feast. All strict Jews were careful to go through ceremonial washings, purifications, and atonements, before eating the Passover. J. C. R. —57. That was not to be allowed to come to pass which his enemies were planning to effect, that they should bring him by force to Jerusalem; instead of that, he was to enter in triumph, and that too as Zion's King, on Palm-Sunday. "Not on the feast- day," they afterward said; but, nevertheless, the hour for the presenting of the sacrifice, full of grace and truth, was ordained to be on the great feast of deliverance. R. B. 2. Made him a supper.** All our human- ity, with all its possible moods and conditions, is somehow included and mastered and interpreted by him. He goes with us in our recreation as well as in the funeral procession; he sits in the full circle of health at festivals, as well as with the mourner by the new-made grave, or amidst the fragments of ruined plans; he comes to Bethany when the three there are well, not only when Lazarus is dead. All the rooms of our houses are for him, to come in and abide, as well as the chambers of sickness or of the laying out of the dead. F. D. H. Martha served. The natural temperament of this good woman comes out here as elsewhere. She could not sit still and do nothing while her Lord was in her house. She must be actively stirring and trying to do something. Grace does not take away our peculiar characteristics. J. C. R.— This, with what is afterward said of Mary's way of honoring her Lord, is so true to the character in which those two women appear in L. 10: 38-42, as  Bethany. to constitute one of the strongest confirmations of the truth of both narratives. B. 3. Mary was not occupied like her sister in the active ministrations of the feast, but she sat and thought and gazed until the fire burned, and she felt impelled to some outward sign of her love, her gratitude, her adoration. So she arose and fetched an alabaster vase of Indian spikenard, and came softly behind Jesus where he sat, and broke the alabaster in her hands, and poured the precious perfume first over his head, then over his feet, and then—unconscious of every presence save his alone—she wiped those feet with the long tresses of her hair, while the atmosphere of the whole house was filled with the fragrance. It was an act of devoted sacrifice; and the poor Galileans who followed Jesus, so little accustomed to any luxury, so fully alive to the costly nature of the gift, might well have been amazed that it should have all been lavished on the rich luxury of one brief moment. None but the most spiritual-hearted there could feel that the delicate odor which breathed through the perfumed house might be to God a sweet-smelling savor; that even this was infinitely too little to satisfy the love of her who gave, or the dignity of him to whom the gift was given. F. Poured it on his head. This act, however strange to us, was perfectly conformable to the customs of ancient times, not only in Asia, but in the more polished parts of Europe; and, among the Jews particularly, the custom of anointing the head seems to have been almost as common a custom as that of washing the face. P.—Kingly guest at royal banquet could not have had a costlier homage of the kind rendered to him. That Mary had in her possession so rich a treasure may be accepted as one of the many signs that her family was one of the wealthiest in the village. That she now took and spent the whole of it upon Jesus, was but a final expression of the fulness and the intensity of her devotion. 4. Judas Iscariot. Love so ardent, sacrifice so costly as that of Mary, he could not appreciate. He disliked it, condemned it; it threw such a reproach by contrast upon his own feeling and conduct to Christ. H.—6. Cared for the poor. The true friends of the poor, who give most and do most for them, will always be found among those who do most for Christ. It is the successors of Mary of Bethany, and not of Judas Iscariot, who really “care for the poor.” A thief, and had the bag.** Than the love of money, no besetting sin seems more thoroughly to wither up and harden the heart. No wonder it is called “the root of all evil.” J. C. R.—A dreadful thing is this love of money! It disables both eyes and ears, and makes man worse to deal with than a wild beast, allowing him to consider neither conscience, nor friendship, nor fellowship, nor salvation. Chrys.—Christ trusts a thief with his money, because he sets no value upon it; but he keeps souls in his own custody, and redeems them with his blood, because, having received them of his Father, he values them more than all the world besides. He suffers his money to be stolen from him, but never his sheep. Q. Mk. 6. “She hath done a good work,” he said —“one not only far from censure, but worthy of all praise. She hath done it unto me, done it out of pure, deep love—a love that will bring the best, the costliest thing she has, and think it no waste, but rather its fittest, worthiest application, to bestow it upon me.” Upon that ground alone, upon his individual claims as compared with all others, Jesus might well have rested his vindication of Mary’s act. It does not require that we should assign to her any preeminence of faith. It was the intensity of the personal attachment to Jesus that her act expressed which drew down upon it the encomium of the Lord. H.—On Me, the Lord says; because “on Him,” therefore Mary’s work had its goodness and beauty, as all good works. Love to Christ is the rich source and the living soul of every other love which reckons as such before God. R. B. The inherent grace and beauty of the act forbade any direct reproof; and so jealousy meanly suggests that the precious perfume might have been better sold, the price given to the poor, and this woman have rendered her demonstrations of gratitude in some more “practical” or active way. The answer of Jesus not only rebukes the littleness which these censures betrayed, but it instructively vindicates the woman’s cordial, unstudied sacrifice; and not hers only, but the offerings of humble loyalty and silent love to him in all time and over all the earth. It is the acceptance, by the Son of God, of lowly and retiring goodness. It is the legitimation and approval of all hearty gifts to the Master, by the Master’s voice. It is the eternal benediction of the gospel on despised fidelity and neglected love. . . . We ought not to forget that God may have, that he asks, that he requires of us that there shall be, servants of his love as self-denying, as heroic, as resolute, of whom hospital never knew and poetry never sang, right here in these homely houses and these prosaic streets. And to all that sit at his feet and follow in his steps in the spirit of her who poured the fragrant offering on his head, he is ready to speak the same benediction with his infinite love—hiding in it the sure promise of life everlasting. F. D. H. 7. The poor with you always, but not me.** The Bible is such a friend to the poor, such an enemy of luxury, prodigality, and mere bodily gratification, that it seems an unnatural thing to have, even in appearance, Judas taking the side of the poor, and Christ standing in their way. But the position of the parties has a deep truth underlying it. Judas the thief takes the side of poverty that he may plunder it; and Christ, who became poor that he might make many rich, teaches that there are more ways of doing good than almsgiving. All heavenly charity is not bound up in bags of flour. “Not that he cared for the poor,” is the truth about the one; “because he cared for the poor,” is the motive of the other. Try to measure the amount of bread which would have been provided by the three hundred pence with the fragrance that has exhaled from this woman’s deed into millions of weary hearts among the poorest of the poor. Ker. 8. If Judas could yet have been saved, the Lord’s patience and gentleness must have brought him on his knees before him. There he stood, his whole heart before Jesus laid bare. And the Lord does not thrust him out, does not upbraid him with being a hypocrite and a thief, and presently about to become a murderer. He only knocks gently at the door of his heart with the foretelling of his death. It is as if he had said to him: “Mary has made me ready for my burial; and thou, Judas—how canst thou will to make me ready for death?” Judas could bear unmoved the Lord’s look, and he went out to betray him. R. B. She hath done what she could. The whole spiritual meaning of gifts consists in the disposition of the giver. Distinctions of weight and measure, standards of value, calculations of outlay, vanish before that simple and royal touchstone in the breast. Christ’s eye falls, not on the box of ointment, but it falls on Mary’s secret, inmost soul. That being sound, all is sound. She believes, she trusts, she loves; therefore “she hath done what she could.” Out of that deep and rooted affection all manner of obedient fruits must grow, in time, as surely as love is the willing servant of the beloved. To anoint it for my burial. Her gift, he seems to add, is an unconscious embalming before my agony. These most sacred impulses of divine reverence are greater than any common almsgivings. Let each have its due. Whoso loveth me will love my poor, and serve them in the time and place. Let the heart be fastened personally on me as a living Redeemer, and Christian duties will soon fall into their order, and abound. F. D. H.—“For my burying”—clearly, therefore, his condemnation and burial were near at hand. This was another death-blow to all false Messianic hopes. No earthly wealth, no regal elevation could be looked for by the followers of one who was so soon to die. F. 9. Jesus is surrounded by men looking joyously forward to days and years of success and triumph. But he knows what they do not—that on that day week his body will be lying in the new-made sepulchre. And he accepts the anointing at Mary’s hand as preparing his body for the burial. With serene eye he looks down into the future, and abroad over the earth, and speaks of it as a thing of certainty that this gospel—the gospel of glad tidings of salvation in his name—was to be preached throughout the whole world. H.—We cannot but be struck with the majesty of this prophetic announcement; conveying by implication the whole mystery of the gospel which should go forth from his death as its source—looking forward to the end of time when it shall have been preached in the whole world—and specifying the fact that this deed should be recorded wherever it should be preached. A.—While the victories of many kings and generals are lost in silence, and many who have founded states and reduced nations to subjection are not known by reputation or by name, the pouring of ointment by this woman is celebrated throughout the whole world. Time hath passed away, but the memory of the deed she did hath not waned away. Chrys.—Fourteen hundred years have passed and gone since in the great church of St. Sophia at Constantinople Chrysostom uttered these words, but still wider and wider is the tale of Mary's anointing of her Master being told, the fragrance of the ointment spreading, yet losing nothing of its sweetness; such fresh vitality, such self-preserving power, lodging in a simple act of pure and fervid love. H. J. 9, 10. Lazarus is mentioned throughout the incident as forming an element in the unfolding of the hatred of the Jews which issued in the Lord's death. Notice the climax, from mere connecting mention in verse 1, then nearer connection, verse 2, to his being the cause of the Jews flocking to Bethany in verse 9, and the joint object with Jesus of the enmity of the chief priests in verse 10. A. 11. Believed on Jesus.** An intellectual conviction that Jesus must be the Messiah. This was the state of mind in which many hundreds of Jews were before the crucifixion, the resurrection, and the day of Pentecost, convinced but not converted, persuaded that Jesus was the Christ of God, but afraid to confess him. Hence on the day of Pentecost many hundreds of Peter's hearers were prepared to believe. J. C. R.—What served further to nurture in the breasts of the high-priests, the lawyers, and the Pharisees the design to put Jesus to death, appears in the transaction of the following day, viz., the entrance into Jerusalem. Accordingly, in the incidents of these first two days of the great week we perceive the human cause of the sufferings and death of Jesus. C. B. ## Section 118.—Public Entry into Jerusalem. J. 1 Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. L. 14 And in the evening when the hour was come, he sat down, and the twelve apostles 15 with him. And he said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this passover with 16 you before I suffer. For I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof, until it be 17 fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, 18 Take this, and divide it among yourselves. For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come. 24 And there was also a strife among them, which of them should be accounted the 25 greatest. And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over 26 them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is 27 chief, as he that doth serve. For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? is not he that sitteth at meat? but I am among you as he that serveth. J. 2 And supper being ended (the devil having now put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, 3 Simon's son, to betray him); Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his 4 hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God; he riseth from supper, and 5 laid aside his garments, and took a towel, and girded himself. After that, he poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the 6 towel wherewith he was girded. Then cometh he to Simon Peter: and Peter saith 7 unto him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet? Jesus answered and said unto him, What I 8 do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter. Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part 9 with me. Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands, and 10 my head. Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but 11 is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all. For he knew who should betray him: therefore said he, Ye are not all clean. 12 So after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down 13 again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me Master, and 14. Lord; and ye say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your 15 feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that 16 ye should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not 17 greater than his Lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them. HUMAN characters are always reduced in their eminence, and the impressions of awe they have raised, by a closer and more complete acquaintance. But it was not so with Christ. With his disciples, in closest terms of intercourse, for three whole years; their brother, friend, teacher, monitor, guest, fellow-traveller; seen by them under all the conditions of public ministry, and private society, he is yet visibly raising their sense of his degree and quality; becoming a greater wonder and holier mystery, and gathering to his person feelings of reverence and awe, at once more general and more sacred. And it will be discovered in all the disciples, that Christ is more separated from them, and holds them in deeper awe, the closer he comes to them and the more perfectly they know him. He grows sacred, peculiar, wonderful, divine, as acquaintance reveals him. At first he is only a man, as the senses report him to be; knowledge, observation, familiarity, raise him into the God-man. And exactly this appears in the history, without any token of art, or even apparent consciousness that it does appear—appears because it is true. H. B. J. 1. He loved them unto the end. It was when he drew near the end that our Lord's love was most severely tested. But, in the most trying circumstances, to the end he said and did everything to maintain and strengthen the confidence of all who had once trusted in him. He interested himself, too, in their condition to the end. In all that he suffered, our Lord could not have been adjudged selfish if it had occupied his thoughts almost to the exclusion of the dangers that surrounded his followers, since he suffered voluntarily in their behalf; but they had his counsel and sympathy and prayers as freely as if he had not been the first to suffer—as if they alone had anything to dread. When assailants, led by Judas, came upon him again after falling backward to the ground in his presence, he was ready to surrender himself, but not his afflicted brethren: "Let these go their way." When a great company followed him on his way to the crucifixion with their lamentations, he turned to them with more pity for their doom than dread of his own. So also he bore with the inconstancy of his disciples to the end. Often indeed they had stood in need of his forbearance, and in all his treatment of them on such occasions he showed himself a lenient Master; but as the end drew near they wavered most in their allegiance. If ever their devotion could be grateful to his heart, it was not when the multitude crowded about him with wonder and applause, but rather when he prayed alone in agony and then was treacherously kissed and arrested; yet it was in the conclusion of that very scene, when he was finally in the hands of malignant foes, that "all the disciples forsook him and fled." But he did not forsake them. When Peter thrice denied him, the Master, who had before rebuked his rash violence, only turned and looked upon him, and his silent love broke down the fear and pride of that follower, who now wept the more bitterly because Jesus loved him to the end. But the love that endured so long survived the end, and in itself was without end. It could not die on the cross, nor be stifled in the sepulchre. It rose with him; and again he associated with them, inspired them with new confidence, concerned himself with their wants, and bore with their folly, as in the case of Thomas. And the same love was drawn up to heaven as he ascended, thence to "drop as the rain" and "distil as the dew" upon them, till they ascended to enjoy it unutterably in their abode with him in paradise. To this hour he has never ceased to love his own. He loves them "from everlasting to everlasting." O. E. D.—The few hours that intervened between the end of Christ's public ministry and his arrest were devoted to instructing and comforting his disciples in view of his approaching departure, and the severe conflicts they were to undergo. In these conversations he displayed all his heavenly love and calmness of soul; his loftiness and his humility. N.—From first to last, his love was a self-forgetting love, even upon the cross; his love was to the very last a Saviour's love. Instead of thinking of his own sufferings, he thought of the guilt of others. A. T. L. 14. The supper began with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, which, when the Master and the rest of the company had tasted, one of the younger persons present—generally a child—asked the reason of what was peculiar in that feast, which introduced the haggadah, that is, the showing forth or declaration of it (in allusion to which we read of showing forth the Lord's death). Then the Master rose up and took another cup, and washed his hands again before the lamb was tasted; and in this interval it is supposed Christ also washed the feet of his disciples. Then, after eating the Passover, followed another cup, which (after having delivered to each a piece of bread) was the sacramental cup at this supper. Then, after some discourse, the whole family, having drunk at least a fourth cup, sang some psalms of praise; and so the solemnity ended. A. 15. This passover.** Among all the types the Passover holds the foremost place, floating down through the old dispensation to tell of its greatest deliverance, as the Communion has come down to us to tell of the great redemption of the new. It was now about to resign its charge, for it had served its purpose. It had stirred, year by year, the ashes of memory in the Jewish heart, and kindled them into the flame of hope—had taught men to look for a greater prophet than Moses, and to long for a higher salvation than the freedom from Egypt. And now, with this last Passover, it has come. The foreshadowed sufferings of that ancient covenant all meet in his cross, and its promised blessings all flow from it. He is the victim and the offerer, the Passover and the Moses; he endures and does, suffers and saves. He passed through a deeper than Egypt's darkness—was baptized with the baptism of blood—was the slain lamb, and stricken first-born for our sins. He led his chosen to the sea which barred the way, and stretched over it his delivering cross, and it opened, and a way was made through the deep for the ransomed of the Lord to pass over. He is the heavenly manna—the water and the smitten rock—the pillar of defence and light—the ark of the covenant that dries up Jordan's stream—the tree of life that scatters its healing leaves and sheds its fruit through all the goodly land. The divine history of the past now completes its cycle, and this last Passover begins to speak the word of the cross—"It is finished." Before I suffer! They seem strange words from such lips—from him who had already earned his title to be "the man of sorrows"—who had passed through privation and reproach and grief, and who seems to count all these as nothing to that which lay before him. It is because he is standing on the verge of Gethsemane, and beneath the shadow of his cross, and such words, "before I suffer," tell us that there was an agony of endurance in view which was to cast into the shade all that laid behind him. It is this suffering that makes the death of Christ the centre of gospel truth, and that brings us together to remember him who was bruised for our iniquities. Ker.—Clear before the Saviour's eye were all the scenes of the impending midnight hour in the garden, the next forenoon in the judgment-hall, the afternoon upon the cross. A few quiet hours lay between him and his entrance into the cloud. He wished to spend those hours with his apostles, to take his last leave of them, to give his farewell instructions to them. He had never before partaken of the Passover with them. He desired to do it this once. He knew that this was virtually the last Jewish Passover: that with the offering up of himself in the great sacrifice of the following day that long line of Passover celebrations that had run now through fifteen hundred years, down from the night in Egypt when the first-born were slain, was to be brought to its close. He knew that all which this rite prefigured was then to be fulfilled, and that that fulfilment was to issue in the erection of a spiritual kingdom, in which other kind of tables were to be spread, and other kind of wine to be drunk. H. 16. Will not eat. 18. Will not drink. A declaration of the fulfilment of the Passover rite in both its usual divisions—the eating of the lamb, and drinking the cup of thanksgiving. Henceforward he who fulfilled the law for man will no more eat and drink of it. 17. The cup.** This is generally supposed to have been the first cup in the Passover meal, with which the whole was introduced. It has no reference to the subsequent cup in verse 20 (Section 140). That was the institution of a new rite; this, the abrogation of an old one, now about to be fulfilled in the person of the true Lamb of God. A.—"It is to be your last as well as mine, until the kingdom of God come" (verse 18). It was the point of transition between two economies and their two great festivals, the one about to close forever, the other immediately to open and run its majestic career until from earth it be transferred to heaven. B.—Henceforth the Levitical sacrifice was to cease, being transfigured into an evangelical sacrament. W. 24. Spring up how it might, we have the fact that around the first communion-table among the apostles, in the presence of their Master, in the critical and solemn position in which he and they stood, there was actually a quarrel about their individual rights and privileges; a petty ambition, the love of place and power, finding its way into the hearts of those most honored of the Lord, entering to defile the most sacred season and solemnity. H.—This was not the first time that the followers of the meek and lowly one had striven for the highest place. It is a fearful proof of the strong hold which ambition has upon the human heart, that the disciples, after a two years' training in the school of humility, had yet made so little progress, that at such an hour as this they could feel disposed to begin quarrelling about precedence. R. B.—It showed how little, as yet, even these his chosen followers had entered into the meaning of his life. It showed that, even now, they had wholly failed to understand his many and earnest warnings as to the nature of his kingdom, and the certainty of his fate. Not by mere verbal reproof, but by an act more profoundly significant and touching, he determined to teach to them, and to all who love him, a nobler lesson. F.—Our Lord showed the greatest kindness in his manner of correcting their false ideas. Having stated the difference between his kingdom and worldly ones, exaltation among his followers depending on their humility, he proposes to them his own example during his intercourse with them, and enforces his words by a most eminent act of humility in washing their feet, a condescension which he exhorts them to imitate in their general conduct toward each other. Newcome. J. 2. Being ended. Rather having begun. P. S.—The devil put into the heart. Literally “cast.” The heart is the seed-plot which Satan sows. Suggestion is one of his chief weapons. The sin of man consists in opening his heart to the suggestion; giving it a place and letting it sink down. This is obvious in the first temptation in Eden. J. C. R.—3. Jesus came from God, not leaving him, and went to God, not leaving us. Bernard.—4. Riseth from supper. He rose from the supper-table before the repast had fully commenced. The guests had taken their half-recumbent positions around the table in the usual Oriental style, reclining upon the left side, resting on the elbow, leaving the right hand free for service in eating, and with feet extended outward. H. C. (See p. 182.) 5. The master of the house had relinquished for the strangers the best apartment of his dwelling, and furnished it as well as he could. He saw that in the room the necessary apparatus for the washing, the basin and the water and the towel, were all provided, but he left it to the guests themselves to see that it was done. But which of the twelve will do it for the others? H.—He into whose hands the Father had given all things, with those same hands washes, not the hands, but the feet of his disciples. Aug.—Verily, the heart of man never could have imagined such a scene! All that the world can show that is great and high vanishes into nothing before this lowliness. R. B.—In this act Jesus became a servant of servants to his disciples. He showed that to serve was the business of his life, and in his view was not to his shame but to his glory. It was an example to illustrate a principle. All that his example meant then, it means now. The real service which the law of Christ demands of us is not abated by the least jot or tittle in consequence of the change in social customs which renders it improper now to wash one another’s feet. It were more than a misfortune to lose the sweet power of this divine example; it were worse than a blunder to miss its precious influence toward the crucifying of human selfishness and the culture of Christian humility and of loving service toward all the Christian brotherhood. H. C. 7. Not now, but hereafter.** God’s ways may appear inscrutable, and indeed must be so, for life on the earth is but a beginning and a fragment, a beginning to find its end, and a fragment to be made whole, in the all-revealing life beyond the grave. But looking at our life, in the light shed upon it by Christ’s, and meekly receiving what God sends in submission and hope, we will be learning more and more now, and all hereafter. The teaching of the Spirit, it is enough to say, becomes the providence of the Christian. It is of less consequence for him to know what betides him, than to have the assurances begotten of the Spirit, that come what may, God will fit him for it, carry him through it, and make it, in the end, the best possible experience for him. If one have but the meekness to pray, to do, and to wait, the issue cannot be otherwise than happy. God’s word and Spirit are our warrant. The world is God’s, and its heirs are God’s people. W. I. B. 8,9. If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me.** This at last carries the disciple away, for whither should he go if he were to have no part with him who was his life? Vehement as he was in refusing, he is now still more vehement in submitting. He answers in the language of devoted love—love which, though inconsiderate, is yet perfect love. R. B.—“If to be washed of Thee have such significance, then not my feet only, but hands, head, and all, be washed!” This artless expression of clinging attachment to Jesus, and felt dependence upon him for his whole spiritual well-being, furnishes such evidence of historic verity as no thoroughly honest mind can resist. 10. He that is washed—in this thorough sense, to express which the word is carefully changed to one meaning to wash as in a bath: needeth not—to be so washed any more: save to wash his feet—needeth to do no more than wash his feet (and here the former word is resumed, meaning to wash the hands or feet): but is clean every whit—or, “as a whole.” This sentence is singularly instructive. Of the two cleansings, the one points to that which takes place at the commencement of the Christian life, embracing complete absolution from sin as a guilty state, and entire deliverance from it as a polluted life, or, in the language of theology, justification and regeneration. This cleansing is effected once for all, and is never repeated. The other cleansing, described as that of “the feet,” is such as one walking from a bath quite cleansed still needs, in consequence of his contact with the earth. It is the daily cleansing which we are taught to seek, when in the spirit of adoption we say, “Our Father which art in heaven—forgive us our debts.” B.—And where we make this confession, then he who washed his disciples’ feet is faithful and just to forgive us our sin, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Aug.—When burdened with the sense of manifold shortcomings, as what tender spirit of a Christian is not? is it not a relief to be permitted thus to wash our feet after a day’s contact with the earth? This is not to call in question the completeness of our past justification. Our Lord, while graciously insisting on washing Peter’s feet, refuses to extend the cleansing farther, that the symbolical instruction intended to be conveyed might not be marred. And ye are clean—in the first and whole sense: but not all**—important, as showing that Judas, instead of being as true-hearted a disciple as the rest at first, and merely falling away afterward—as many represent it—never experienced that cleansing at all which made the others what they were. B.—Concerning this twofold purification: that which is once performed through justification, and that which takes place daily through sanctification, the Lord speaks also in John 15: 2, 3. He says: “Now ye are clean,” and yet at the same time “he purgeth them.” R. B. 14–17. He their Lord and Master had washed their feet. He had done it to teach them humility, to teach them self-denial, to teach them love: blessed they if they learned the lesson! He should be chief among them who, for the sake of others, gladly laid on himself the lowliest burdens, and sought for himself the humblest services. Again and again he warned them that they were not to look for earthly reward or earthly prosperity; the throne, and the table, and the kingdom, and the many mansions were not of earth. F.—His own act stands before us, not as a model act to be exactly copied, but as an act representative to us of the whole circle of kindly offices that we are called upon to render to one another, and as illustrative of the humble, self-denying spirit in which all these offices should be discharged. H.—Whoever serves his brother in self-denying love is obeying this command of the Lord, in whatever way he may be called upon to do it, whether it be by washing his feet, or whether it be by filling his hand, or whether it be by drying from his eyes the tears, or whether it be by watching and praying for his soul. It is not what we do, so much as the mind with which we do. And this the disciples and the first Christians, who glowed with brotherly love, well knew. They drew from this feet-washing no literal law, but have sought to enter into the spirit of him who, Lord over all, yet dwelt among his own as a servant, to whom no lowliness was so lowly that the height of his love did not stoop down thereunto. Jesus’ serving love was writing in their hearts this fundamental principle in the kingdom of God, namely, that every office, even the highest, the apostolic office, is appointed to serve. How easy this to learn, but how difficult to do! “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.” R. B. All our noblest enlargements of power and of peace are sacrificial: there is something hard to do, or hard to bear—human nature being what it is. But the yoke is eased if by it you help other men. Learn to love the brotherhood. Hate nothing so much as hatred—dropping every grudge and every revenge, every bitter or cruel vestige of the old satanic life out of your heart, forgiving even them that will not forgive. Live fairly and generously with men. God makes the path of obedience to himself to be the path of honesty and sweet temper and loving-kindness to his children. Let thine eyes look right on, and thine eyelids straight before thee. Then it will prove that you are blessed children of the Father. You walk at large, like sons of God. The road of duty will still be narrow, but, travelling in it, you will breathe the immortal air, and every deepening breath will be an inspiration of the life eternal. Your daily landscape will be the scenery of both worlds—all things yours, because ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. F. D. H. CHRIST never conforms to an expectation, even of his friends. When they look to find a great prophet in him, he offers nothing in the modes of the prophets. When they ask for places of distinction in his kingdom, he rebukes their folly, and tells them he has nothing to give, but a share in his reproaches and his poverty. When they look to see him take the sword as the great Messiah of their nation, calling the people to his standard, he tells them he is no warrior and no king, but only a messenger of love to lost men; one that has come to minister and die, but not to set up or restore the kingdom. Every expectation that rises up to greet him, is repulsed; and yet, so great is the power of his manner, that multitudes are held fast, and cannot yield their confidence. Enveloped as he is in the darkest mystery, they trust him still; going after him, hanging on his words, as if detained by some charmed influence which they cannot shake off or resist. Never was there a teacher that so uniformly baffled every expectation of his followers, never one that was followed so persistently. H. B. # Section 138.—One of You shall betray Me. # The Guest-Chamber. L. 28 Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations; and I appoint unto 29, 30 you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me; that ye may eat and drink at J. 18 my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen; but that the scripture may be fulfilled, He 19 that eateth bread with me, hath lifted up his heel against me. Now I tell you before 20 it come, that when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am he. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth me; and he that receiveth me 21 receiveth him that sent me. When Jesus had thus said, he was troubled in spirit; and as they sat and did eat, he testified and said, Behold, the hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table. Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you which eateth 22 with me shall betray me. Then the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom he spake; and they began to inquire among themselves, which of them it was that should M. 22 do this thing. And they were exceeding sorrowful, and, one by one, began every one 23 of them to say unto him, Lord, is it I? And he answered and said unto them, It is one of the twelve, that dippeth his hand with me in the dish; the same shall betray me. 24 The Son of man indeed goeth, as it is written of him: but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! good were it for that man if he had never been born. 25 Then Judas, which betrayed him, answered and said, Master, is it I? He said unto him, Thou hast said. J. 23 Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved. 24 Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him, that he should ask who it should be of whom 25, 26 he spake. He then, lying on Jesus' breast, saith unto him, Lord, who is it? Jesus answered, He it is, to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it. And when he 27 had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. And after the sop 28 Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly. Now 29 no man at the table knew for what intent he spake this unto him. For some of them thought, because Judas had the bag, that Jesus had said unto him, Buy those things that 30 we have need of against the feast; or, that he should give something to the poor. He then, having received the sop, went immediately out: and it was night. “AND after the sop Satan entered into him.” There is something appalling in the successive stages by which he reached the climax of his guilt. First, “the devil (simply) put it into his heart to betray” him. But many a struggle may he have endured ere he could nerve himself for the deed. Even with the thirty pieces of silver in his hand, he probably still quailed at the thought of such an act, and for such a sum—the price of the lowest slave! When Jesus stooped to wash his feet, the last struggle may have been only reaching its crisis. But that word, about one that did eat of his bread lifting his heel against him; the still more explicit announcement that a traitor was at the table; the inquiry which was forced out of him, after it had come from all the rest, “Master, is it I?” and above all, the answer (certainly not audible to the rest), “Thou hast said it”—would make the feeling irresistible, “I am detected, it is now too late to draw back.” And the sop given, and Satan now seated in his breast, he went immediately out (thus severing himself forever from that holy society with which he never had any spiritual sympathy); and it was night—but far blacker night in the soul of Judas than in the sky over his head. B.—O night the most criminal, dreadful, and dark, and yet the most holy, hopeful, and bright!—since the Son of God is therein betrayed, sold, and delivered up by the most execrable sacrilege, and since he therein gives, delivers up, and sacrifices himself, leaves the most divine pledge of his love, and teaches therein the sublimest truths of that religion which he institutes! Q. L. 29. I appoint a kingdom. Who is this that dispenses kingdoms, nay, the kingdom of kingdoms, within an hour or two of his own apprehension, and less than a day of his shameful death? B.—He undertakes to organize a kingdom of God, or kingdom of heaven on earth. His purpose includes a new moral creation of the whole human race. H. B.—The first conception is due to the mind of Jesus Christ, and in his teaching the conception is presented, not vaguely and confusedly, but with luminous precision. It is the reign of God in men, when the Father of minds shall be known, loved, and revered by his children. It is the reign of righteousness, purity, truth, love, and peace, the universal reception and dominion among men of all true, just, holy, generous and divine principles. Y.—It is a plan as universal in time, as it is in the scope of its objects. It does not expect to be realized in a lifetime, or even in many centuries to come. His expectation reaches boldly out beyond his own death; that, in fact, is to be the seed of his great empire—“except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth,” he says, “alone.” Is this great idea, which no man ever before conceived, the raising of the whole human race to God, a plan sustained with such evenness of courage, and a confidence of the world’s future so far transcending any human example—is this a human development? Regard the benevolence of it, the universality of it, the religious grandeur of it, as a work readjusting the relations of God and his government with men—the cost, the length of time it will cover, and the far-off date of its completion—is it in this scale that a Nazarene carpenter, a poor uneducated villager, lays out his plans and graduates the confidence of his undertakings? H. B.—His great central conception of the kingdom of God—a kingdom based on truth, administered by moral influences, pervaded by love, and holiness, and joy, and open to all of whatever class or clime—is a conception as magnificent as it is original. And, with this, all the rest of his doctrine is in perfect and beautiful harmony, every line of truth being like a radius starting from and conducting to this central idea, and the whole forming one perfect sphere of knowledge. W. L. A. (Read Section 174.) J. 18. Hath lifted up his heel. Ps. 41: 9. It was fulfilled in the case of Judas in the sense that this case filled out fully the very idea of David in the Psalm. The same thing befell David’s greater son which befell David. 21. Troubled in spirit. The same word we met in the scenes at the grave of Lazarus (John 11: 33)—indicating deep and painful emotion—it seemed so inexpressibly sad that one of his chosen twelve—one who had sat beside him at table; was sitting (perhaps) next him at this moment—who had been lifted so high in privilege and honor, and in the possibilities of a noble life, should turn against him in the foulness of the basest treason! H. C.—To the apostles he had said, “Ye are clean;” but, as this could not be applied to Judas, he added, “yet not all.” Intimations of this kind he threw out more and more frequently, partly, as he himself said (verse 19), to prepare them for the act of treachery, that it might not take them unawares, and lead them to infer that he, too, had been deceived; and partly, perhaps, in order to rouse, if possible, the conscience of Judas himself. But his foresight of the awful deed—that one who had been a special object of his love should disarm him and become a tool of his enemies—and of the conflict with depravity that he must go through, even up to his last hour, moved him most deeply; and he now spoke more plainly, “Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me.” N.—That night all, even the best beloved, were to forsake him, but it was not that; that night even the boldest-hearted was to deny him with oaths, but it was not that; nay, but one of them was to betray him. F.—M. 22. Lord, is it I? Their language expresses in the original a much stronger negation than in our version. Surely not I, Lord? L. A. 24. A great crime is made to minister to the greatest act of the divine love, yet the criminal is stripped of no part of his guilt. “The Son of man goeth as it is written;” that writing is but the expression of the divine will; that will is sovereign, just, and good; yet woe to the man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! human freedom, human agency, human guilt taken up into that vast and complicated machinery by which the counsels of the Most High God are carried out. H.—It were good for that man if he had not been born? “Words,” it has been well said, “of immeasurable ruin, words of immeasurable woe”—and the more terrible because uttered by the lips of immeasurable love; words capable, if any were capable, of revealing to the lost soul of the traitor all the black gulf of horror that was yawning before his feet. F.—25. Thou hast said. No man at the table then could have heard that answer of our Lord; we can scarcely imagine how it could be but by supposing that Judas lay upon the seat immediately next to Jesus on the one side, as John lay upon the one nearest to him on the other. Assuming this, Jesus might easily have spoken to one so near in such an undertone that none could overhear. H. J. 23. Leaning on Jesus’ bosom. The rare combination of contemplativeness and passion, of strength and sweetness, in the same soul—the perfect faith which inspired his devotion, and the perfect love which precluded fear—these were the gifts and graces which rendered him worthy of leaning his young head on the bosom of his Lord. F.—In modest self-concealment, and under a sense of the deepest gratitude, John designates himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” P. S.—25. Lying on. Rather, leaning back on. A.—26. Two men of the twelve now knew to whom the Lord referred—Judas, on the one side, to whom Jesus had directly said, “Thou art the man,” and John, now, on the other, to whom the sign was as explicit as any words could be—a sign, however, only to John himself, the others not having heard the words that gave the act its meaning. H.—But for the concluding scenes of the history, no reader of it would gather that one of the twelve differed in character from all his fellows. If there was a radical defect in the moral and religious character of Judas, it certainly remained undeveloped to his constant associates up to the fatal night when they all met for the last time together. B. 27. After the sop, Satan. At first Satan came to make the heart of Judas his own; now he enters, because it is his own. Bp. H.—The kingdom of evil, as well as that of good, has a personal head. That he should have the power of tempting is no more strange than that human spirits should possess it. He can no more compel than they, and he gains in influence only as we yield him place. Ker.—That which thou art doing, do more quickly.** Reproving his lingering, and his pretending to share in the general doubt. A. 29. Huy things needed. Our Lord did not work miracles to procure the necessaries required by himself and his disciples. Give to the poor. The supposition shows our Lord’s custom in the matter of almsgiving. He sanctified and adorned the practice of caring for the poor by his own example. Judas had the bag.** Snares attend the possession and handling of money. The man who has the care of the money in our Lord’s little company is the man that makes shipwreck of his soul, through the love of money. J. C. R. 30. In that bewildering chaos of a soul spotted with mortal guilt, the Satanic had triumphed over the human; in that dark heart earth and hell were thenceforth at one; in that lost soul sin had conceived and brought forth death. And so from the lighted room, from the holy banquet, from the blessed company, from the presence of his Lord, he went immediately out, and—as the beloved disciple adds, with a shudder of dread significance letting the curtain of darkness fall forever on that appalling figure—“and it was night.” F. ## Section 139.—Foretells the Denial of Peter, and the Dispersion of the Twelve. The Guest-Chamber. M. 26 And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had blessed, or given thanks, he brake it and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body, which is given, broken, for you: this do in remembrance of me. Likewise also after supper he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; and they all drank of it. And he said unto them, This cup is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for you and for many, for the remission of sins. This do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. Verily I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my 1 Cor. Father's kingdom. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew 26 the Lord's death till he come. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/butler/ M. 3 THEN Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, 4 saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What 5 is that to us? see thou to that. And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself. 6 And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them 7 into the treasury, because it is the price of blood. And they took counsel, and bought 8 with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in. Wherefore that field was called, 9 The field of blood, unto this day. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that 10 was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value; and gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord appointed me. 1 And straightway, when the morning was come, all the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council, against Jesus to put him to 2 death. And the whole multitude of them arose, and when they had bound Jesus, they led him away from Caiaphas unto the hall of judgment, and delivered him to Pontius J. 28 Pilate the governor. And it was early; and they themselves went not into the judgment hall, lest they should be defiled; but that they might eat the passover. 29 Pilate then went out unto them, and said, What accusation bring ye against this man? 30 They answered and said unto him, If he were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered him up unto thee. Then said Pilate unto them, Take ye him, and judge him according to your law. The Jews therefore said unto him, It is not lawful for us to put 32 any man to death: that the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled, which he spake, signifying what death he should die. And they began to accuse him, saying, We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Cesar, saying, that he himself is Christ a King. J. 33 Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall again, and called Jesus. And Jesus stood before the governor; and the governor asked him, saying, Art thou the King of the 34 Jews? Jesus answered him, Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee 35 of me? Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation, and the chief priests, have 36 delivered thee unto me. What hast thou done? Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence. 37 Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth, heareth my 38 voice. Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all. Mk. 3 And the chief priests and elders accused him of many things: but he answered nothing. And Pilate asked him again, saying, Answerest thou nothing? hearest thou not 5 how many things they witness against thee? But Jesus yet answered him to never a word; insomuch that the governor marvelled greatly. L. 4 Then said Pilate to the chief priests and to the people, I find no fault in this man. 5 And they were the more fierce, saying, He stirreth up the people, teaching throughout all Jewry, beginning from Galilee to this place. WHAT human heart can be untouched by the demeanor of Jesus toward Judas when sin had begun to do its work? On the one hand, there is that divine earnestness with which, from time to time, he uttered the voice of prophetic warning in his ear. And on the other hand, that considerate love with which, in these warnings, he ever spared him before the disciples, never mentioning his name, just as if he was addressing a secret word to his heart alone, by which he constantly and unweariedly wooed his heart—ever up to that majestic close, when he washed the traitor's feet! And by all that, Judas was untouched; to all he was insensible. For he that has himself ceased to love, can no longer understand the love of others. In his dead heart all is voiceless and mute. But he awoke at last. Then the pent-up storm burst within the conscience of the traitor. And as he heard a voice cry out against him from every fold of that conscience, the feeling that awoke within him was—“Once I loved; once I was loved by him!” But alas! he had then no longer power to believe or love! A. T. As the death of Jesus was designed to atone for all guilt, nearly all guilt combined to accomplish it. It was covetousness that betrayed him; it was perjury that bore false witness against him; it was envy that delivered him up. Cruelty scourged and crowned him with thorns. Popular fickleness chose Barabbas, and rejected Him; while, in the soldiers, coarse brutality buffeted and mocked him. If we look beneath the outward acts of human conduct to the hidden principles from which they spring, it will be found that the guilt of crucifying the Lord is oft repeated—by avowed disciples, who desert and deny, and would even sell him, and with him every principle of conscience; by those who would aid his cause, but that to identify themselves too closely with Christ might compromise them with the world; by those who believe but do not confess; whose admiration ends when they feel the pressure of the morality of his gospel, and the self-denying character of the Christian life; and by those who in every age have preferred the specious to the real, or who have mocked with empty lip-service that divine King who is satisfied with nothing less than the homage of the heart! J. A. M. 3. Judas stands alone in sacred history as a man devoted by name, by the voice of the Lord himself, to perdition. He is the most marked type of those false disciples who joined Christ in the expectation of an earthly kingdom; and when our Lord’s repeated announcements of his sufferings and death showed this to be a vain hope, he prepared to sell himself and his Master to the rulers. S. Judas had made ready his own nature for the tempter. He, and none but he, could have rendered himself capable of yielding. And now that he has yielded, the power at work becomes apparent in the disenchantment which follows. After sin has made a man so that he cannot look steadily into his own soul, it ends by destroying his enjoyment in that fictitious pleasure for which it has induced him to sell all that is divine and real. It cheats him of the substance for a shadow, and of that shadow it robs him, or changes it into a frightful phantom, from which he would escape if he could—as Judas from the hire of his treachery. The remorse of Judas at this moment can be perfectly explained by the full consequences of his act now looking him in the face. It is the murderer’s horror when the deed is committed and cannot be undone—that awful revulsion which, among all calculations, is never reckoned on. For now, not only Christ’s guiltlessness of the charge, but his spotless and loving character—the good he had received at his hands, and never evil—the gentle considerateness—the unwearied patience—the pitying tenderness he had shown him and his fellow-disciples—rose up before the soul of his betrayer, and smote him with unutterable remorse. No one word, no one act, could he call up that would help his own thoughts to justify his treachery. Ker. Judas repented himself. There are two Greek words used in the N. T., both of which are rendered repent. The one signifies literally to know after, and hence indicates a change of mind or purpose; the other signifies literally to care after, and so to carry a burden of sorrow for the past. The latter is the word used here. The distinction is well stated by Trench: “He who has changed his mind about the past is in the way to change everything; he who has an after-care may have little or nothing more than a selfish dread of the consequences of what he has done.” This appears to have been the state of mind of Judas. It is manifested in remorse for the past, not in any new purpose for the future; and it leads not to a new life in Christ Jesus, but to a despairing death. Repentance inspires to a new life, remorse leads to despair and death; repentance seeks forgiveness, remorse oblivion; repentance conducts Peter to Christ, remorse drives Judas from him. L. A. 4. I have sinned . . . innocent blood.** What a testimony this to Jesus! Judas had been with him in all circumstances for three years; his post as treasurer to him and the twelve gave him peculiar opportunity of watching the spirit, disposition, and habits of his Master; while his covetous nature would incline him to dark and suspicious, rather than frank and generous, interpretations of all that he said and did. If, then, he could have fastened on one questionable feature in all that he had so long witnessed, no such speech as this would ever have escaped his lips, nor would he have been so stung with remorse as not to be able to keep the money and survive his crime. B. What is that to us? This answer of the chief priests was perfectly natural for men of their character. Men who had any feeling, any sentiments of common humanity, or even of common justice, would naturally have paused under these circumstances; would have examined Judas, and investigated the grounds of his repentance. But with the guilt or innocence of Jesus they did not concern themselves. All they wanted was the destruction of a man whom they hated and feared, and whose life and doctrine were a standing reproach to them. This was their sole object; as to the justice of the case, they were utterly indifferent. P. If Christ is innocent it is not their concern. The traitor who knew him so well should have thought of this when he surrendered him. And in this they touch the very point which stung Judas to the quick, the one thing which made his guilt blacker than theirs. He knew Christ better, and sinned more against the purity and love of his nature. See thou to that. Even Judas himself could not complain. They had kept their share of the contract, and he must abide by his. This is the remorseless logic which belongs to these cases, and among such men it is all-powerful. And this is the natural end of all alliances that are made for mutual aid in the pursuit of revenge or unhallowed ambition, of unjust gain or sinful pleasure. Ker. 5. Terribly soon did the Nemesis fall on the main actor in the lower stages of this iniquity. When the morning dawned upon that chilly night, and he knew the decision of the priests and of the Sanhedrim, and saw that Jesus was now given over for crucifixion to the Roman governor, then he began fully to realize all that he had done. In Judas, as in so many thousands since, this opening of the eyes which follows the consummation of an awful sin to which many other sins have led, drove him from remorse to despair, from despair to madness, from madness to suicide. F.—We only see in his fearful end the most dread instance of the regular development and enhancement of sin in the individual that is contained in the history of man, and with awe we behold in him the only one who received his sentence in person before the last day. E. 6. Not lawful to put them into the treasury. These very men, who had no scruple at all in murdering an innocent person, yet had wonderful qualms of conscience about putting into the treasury the money which they themselves had given as “the price of blood.” P. 2. Pontius Pilate the governor. The Roman provinces were of two kinds, senatorial and imperial. The latter were governed by military officers, who held their office and power at the pleasure of the emperor. They looked after the taxes, paid the troops, preserved order, and administered a rude sort of justice; from their decisions there was ordinarily no appeal, except in the case of a Roman citizen. Judea was an imperial province; Pontius Pilate was its governor or procurator, and was directly amenable to the emperor, Tiberius Cesar, for his administration. L. A.—Pilate had arrived from Cesarea, to secure in person the preservation of order in the dangerous days of the feast. His quarters were in the new palace, built by Herod the Great on Zion. It was the pride of Jerusalem. G. It was probably about seven in the morning that, thinking to overawe the procurator by their numbers and dignity, the imposing procession of the Sanhedrists and priests, headed, no doubt, by Caiaphas himself, conducted Jesus from their hall of meeting over the lofty bridge which spanned the valley of the Tyropæon, in presence of all the city, with the bound hands of a sentenced criminal, a spectacle to angels and to men. “SUFFERED under Pontius Pilate”—so, in every creed of Christendom, is the name of the Roman procurator handed down to eternal execration. Yet of all the civil and ecclesiastical rulers before whom Jesus was brought to judgment, Pilate was the least guilty of malice and hatred, the most anxious, if not to spare his agony, at least to save his life. F. J. 28. The Pretorium, translated “hall of judgment,” was the headquarters of the Roman military governor, wherever he happened to be. S.—One of the ground apartments of Herod’s palace on Zion appears to have been the procurators’ Pretorium, mentioned here; as Josephus informs us that the Roman governors took up their quarters in the palace, and set up their tribunal in front (i. e., at the eastern entrance) of it, namely, on the “Pavement” (of John 19 : 13). Strong. Lest they should be defiled. Jewish authorities on defilement inform us that going into the house of a Gentile made a Jew unclean for one day. Notice how sanctimoniousness and crime consort together in the same bosoms—the spirit of murder firing their hearts, yet afraid to defile their hallowed garments or soil their holy feet by going into Pilate’s judgment-hall! H. C. Eat the passover. The word passover is employed in the New Testament in three different and specific acceptations, viz.: 1. The paschal lamb. 2. The paschal meal. 3. The paschal festival. The last may be taken in its literal and widest sense. Then, to eat may be understood to keep or celebrate the passover. Or, the paschal festival may be taken in the sense of paschal sacrifices; that is, the voluntary peace-offerings and thank-offerings, made more especially on the 15th day of Nisan. There is nothing in the language of John, nor in the attendant circumstances, which, upon fair interpretation, requires or permits us to believe that he intended to correct the unquestionable teaching of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The language of these three evangelists is full, explicit, and decisive, to the effect that our Lord’s last meal with his disciples, as recorded by them all, was the regular and ordinary paschal supper of the Jews, introducing the festival of unleavened bread, on the evening of the 14th day of Nisan. R. (Section 155, J. 14.) 31. Take ye him, and judge him. Pilate’s Roman knowledge of law, his Roman instinct of justice, his Roman contempt for their murderous fanaticism, made him not choose to act upon a charge so entirely vague. F.—As he had heard of no disturbance produced by Jesus, the statement made by the Sanhedrim appeared by no means credible; and, suspecting that religious disputes were at the bottom, he wished to get rid of the whole affair, and told them “to take him, and judge him according to their law.” N. It is not lawful for us to put to death. Judea was now under the Roman yoke; one badge of its servitude being this, that while the old Jewish courts were permitted to try and to punish minor offences, the final judgment of all capital offences was reserved for the Roman tribunals. A Roman judge must pass the sentence, or, at least, must sign the warrant that consigns the criminal to execution. At Jerusalem, these reserved cases were brought up for adjudication at the time of the great festivals, when the Roman procurator, who resided ordinarily at Cesarea, visited the capital. For the last six years, Pontius Pilate had held this office in Judea, and he was now in the city on occasion of this Passover. H. 32. Signifying what death he should die. It stood written in the eternal councils that Christ was to die by that Roman form of execution which inspired the Jews with a nameless horror, even by crucifixion; that he was to reign from his cross—to die by that most fearfully significant and typical of deaths—public, slow, conscious, accursed, agonizing—worse even than burning—the worst type of all possible deaths, and the worst result of that curse which he was to remove forever. F. The Lord was not to be stoned, according to the Jewish custom; for his holy body must be preserved from all mutilation. R. B.—This remark John makes for the strengthening of our faith, and to show us how wisely everything was ordered by the counsel of God under such complicated circumstances. His enemies dared not do what they would, but throughout the whole trial of Christ everything was ordered by God’s decree, determined long before. But this very Providence, which watched over our blessed Saviour from his birth to his death, will watch over us in our hours of life and death, if only we yield ourselves wholly up to it, and commit all our ways to God alone. Rambach. L. 2. They here bring three different accusations against him, not one of which—in the sense they desire Pilate to understand them—is true; and one of which, the second, they know is absolutely false. But it suits their object to represent the accused to Pilate as stirring up sedition, refusing to pay custom, claiming to be king of the country in his own right. H. The grounds on which the Sanhedrim condemned Christ were not sufficient to induce Pilate, the Roman procurator, to inflict capital punishment upon him. To serve the purpose, recourse was had to his claim of Messiahship, on which they had professed to found their own decision, with the addition of a political element: “He has claimed to be a king;” and hence “he perverts the nation (contests the Roman authority), and forbids to give tribute to Cesar.” An accusation of this sort could be the more readily admitted, as the Roman authorities were well aware that the Jews felt themselves degraded and disgraced by paying taxes to a heathen power. N. J. 33. Jesus stood before the governor. The future Judge of quick and dead stood before this earthly judge. He stood there, a King in bonds. Pilate beheld him, and his impression that this was no malefactor was legible on his countenance. Then began the Lord’s accusers to bring forward the accusations upon which they had previously agreed. He had confessed that he was Christ; therefore they represent him to the governor as a rebel, who had called himself an anointed king; and thereto add that he seduced the people and refused to pay tribute to the emperor. They make out the Lord to be just the kind of Messiah which they were hoping for; and in this character they deliver him up to the heathen Pilate. R. B.—The hypocrites! They were hunting Jesus to death simply because he would not identify himself with them, and use his supernatural power to drive out the Romans, and set them on the vacant throne. They were demanding his death on the pretext that he had threatened to use force to establish his kingdom, when the truth was—his real offence, in their eyes, was that he would not use force! G. 36,37. My kingdom is not of this world. He does not say “not over,” but “not of this world”—i. e., in its origin and nature; therefore “no such kingdom as need give thee or thy master the least alarm.” Our Lord only says whence his kingdom is not—first simply affirming it, next giving proof of it, then reaffirming it. This was all that Pilate had to do with. The positive nature of his kingdom he would not obtrude upon one who was as little able to comprehend it, as entitled officially to information about it. B. As the Lord owned himself the Son of God before the most exalted theocratic council, so he confessed his regal dignity in presence of the representative of the highest political authority on earth. O.—The words implied that in another sense he certainly claimed to be both a king and the founder of a kingdom. He then defined more exactly the sense in which he was both. N. “Thou art a king, then!” said Pilate to him, in astonishment. Yes! but a king not in this region of falsities and shadows, but one born to bear witness unto the truth, and one whom all who were of the truth should hear. F.—For my kingdom is an empire of truth. “Every one that is of the truth,” whose heart receives and loves the truth, hears my voice and is one of my subjects; a member of my kingdom. In the sense in which he is a king, his claim to be one is no crime. H. C. The only weapon of which he made use was spiritual truth. His life, his words, all the manifestations of his character, are consistent only with the design to achieve, not a material, but a moral conquest, and to effect not a political, but a spiritual revolution in the world. He had the conception of a purely spiritual reign, the conception of a palace and a throne for God in the soul of man, the conception of the regeneration of man’s inward nature. Y. After he had disclaimed any purpose of setting up an earthly kingdom, affirming at the same time that he was King in a certain sense, he added that he came into the world to testify of the truth. These three propositions, taken together, set forth his purpose to found his kingdom, not by worldly means, but by the testimony of the truth. But he testified of the truth by his whole life, by his words and works, comprising the entire self-revelation of him who could say, “I am the Truth.” N. Then Christ is a King of Truth. Should not Pilate have desired to behold a King of Truth, a witness whose possession the truth is, in the midst of the fruitless search which the heathen world was making after the true God? To a Jew he might perhaps have said, salvation; to the heathen Pilate he holds out salvation as an object of attraction under the form of the truth. To reveal in his own person this saving truth, that God’s holy love desires the redemption of sinners—for this purpose it was that Christ was born and became man, a born King of Truth; for this cause did he come into the world, of which he is not; to this end did he live in the world, and preach, and work, and suffer. Jesus, the friend of souls, bears witness to that which our soul is seeking for; and his word would fain sound to us like the sweet accents of home. R. B. Our Lord’s reply was particularly adapted to the position, acquirements, experience, of him before whom he stood—a Roman official of high rank, educated, cultivated; a man of large experience of men—men in different countries and of different creeds; not given much to thought about religious matters, yet sufficiently acquainted with the rival schools of philosophy and religion by which the Roman commonwealth was distracted. Truth, moral and religious truth, was the proclaimed object of research, of which some were saying, Lo, here it is, and others, Lo, there it is; but of which he, Pilate, in pursuit of quite a different object, had learned to think that neither here nor there nor anywhere was it to be found. “Here,” thinks Pilate, “is a new rival of those old Stoics, who were ever teaching that every wise man was a king—the setter-up of a new system. One thing at least is clear enough, that it is a quite empty charge these Jews are urging against him. He may sit as long as he likes upon that ideal throne of his, without the throne of Tiberius being endangered; he may get as many subjects as he can to enter that ideal kingdom, and my master, the emperor, have not a loyal subject the less.” 38. And so with that passing question to Jesus, “What is truth?”—a question he does not stay to get answered, as he has no faith that any answer to it can be given; a question not uttered sneeringly or scoffingly, but rather sadly and bitterly, he himself having come to regard all truth as a phantom; and with a tolerant, half-pitying feeling toward Jesus—with that question put to Jesus by the way, Pilate goes out to the Jews. H. It was the half-pitying question of the practical man of the world, who felt that truth was a phantom, a word that had no political import, and regarded the attempt to connect it with a kingdom and matters of real life as a delusion of harmless though pitiable enthusiasm. E.—He wholly set aside the idea of an unearthly royalty; he saw in the prisoner before his tribunal an innocent and high-souled dreamer, nothing more. F. That the peace of a nation or the life of an individual should be endangered on account of the truth or falsehood of any system of speculative opinions, was so opposite to the opinion and feeling of the Roman world, that Pilate inquired what he meant by truth; what truth had to do with a question of life and death. Apparently despairing, on one hand, of bringing this blameless enthusiast to his senses; on the other, unwilling to attach importance to what appeared to him in so different a light, he wished at once to put an end to the whole affair. He abruptly left Jesus and went out to the Jewish deputation at the gate. H. M.—To them he pronounced his first emphatic and unhesitating acquittal: “I find in him no fault at all.” F. Mk. 3 5. He answered nothing. The silence of Jesus was the most dignified and speaking reply to such charges as they had to bring. B.—One observes an almost exact parallel as to his silences and his speakings in our Lord’s conduct before the Jewish and the Gentile courts of justice. So far as we can understand the principle determining the time to speak and the time to be silent, it was this: that when the matter directly concerned his divine Sonship and Kingship, he will help his judges in every way he can; nay, he will himself supply the evidence they want. Upon that count he will coöperate with his enemies in bringing about his condemnation; but will leave the attempts to fasten on him any other charge to break down of themselves, that it might be solely as the Son of God, the King of Israel, that he should be convicted, condemned, and crucified. H. WITH what meek majesty did Jesus confront the representative of the greatest empire of the world, declaring himself a king in that higher realm of spiritual powers where truth rules over all! Even the temporizing truckling governor was awed by this strange assertion of a kingdom which his power could not touch, and to which every soul must bow. Yet the Roman empire long ago crumbled away, while Christ's kingdom lives and grows. J. P. T. The Kingship of Christ rests on a foundation which forms part of the very throne of God. His dominion is established in human hearts. It is founded in willing submission. It is maintained by spiritual authority. It is established in righteousness. It will ultimately unite heaven and earth. It begins in individual conversion. Its grandest earthly manifestation will be seen in the general extension of truth; the richest and noblest manifestation of all will be seen in heaven. Christ's death founds it; Christ's Spirit forms it; Christ's will, ever in harmony with the will of the Father, rules it; Christ's glory (which is also the glory of the Father, and comprehends the full blessedness of the redeemed) is its end. J. A. ## Section 154.—Before Herod, and Pilate again. Barabbas preferred. L. 6, 7 WHEN Pilate heard of Galilee, he asked whether the man were a Galilean. And as soon as he knew that he belonged unto Herod's jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who himself also was at Jerusalem at that time. 8. And when Herod saw Jesus, he was exceeding glad: for he was desirous to see him of a long season, because he had heard many things of him; and he hoped to have seen 9 some miracle done by him. Then he questioned with him in many words; but he answered him nothing. And the chief priests and scribes stood and vehemently accused 11 him. And Herod with his men of war set him at nought, and mocked him, and arrayed 12 him in a gorgeous robe, and sent him again to Pilate. And the same day Pilate and Herod were made friends together; for before they were at enmity between themselves. 13 And Pilate, when he had called together the chief priests, and the rulers, and the 14 people, said unto them, Ye have brought this man unto me, as one that perverteth the people: and, behold, I, having examined him before you, have found no fault in this 15 man, touching those things whereof ye accuse him: no, nor yet Herod: for I sent you 16 to him; and, lo, nothing worthy of death is done unto him. I will therefore chastise him, and release him. M. 15 Now at that feast, the governor was wont to release unto the people a prisoner, whom- 16 soever they desired. And they had then a notable prisoner, called Barabbas, a robber, who, for a certain sedition made in the city, and for murder, was cast into prison with them that had made insurrection with him. And the multitude crying aloud, began to desire him to do as he had ever done unto them. (For of necessity he must release one unto 17 them at the feast.) Therefore when they were gathered together, Pilate said unto them, Ye have a custom, that I should release unto you one at the passover: whom will ye therefore that I release unto you? Barabbas, or Jesus, which is called Christ? will ye 18 that I release unto you the king of the Jews? For he knew that the chief priests had delivered him for envy. 19 When he was set down on the judgment seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream, because of him. 20 But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas, and destroy Jesus. The governor answered and said unto them, Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you? And they cried out all at once, Away with this L. 20 man, and release unto us Barabbas. Pilate therefore, willing to release Jesus, spake again to them, saying, What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ? him 21 whom ye call the king of the Jews? And they all cried out again, saying, Crucify him, 22 crucify him. Then Pilate said unto them the third time, Why, what evil hath he done? I have found no cause of death in him; I will therefore chastise him, and let him go. 23 And they cried out the more exceedingly, they were instant with loud voices, requiring that he might be crucified. And the voices of them and of the chief priests prevailed. M. 24 When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the 25 blood of this just person: see ye to it. Then answered all the people, and said, His 26 blood be on us, and on our children. Then Pilate, willing to content the people, gave sentence that it should be as they required. And he released Barabbas unto them, that for sedition and murder was cast into prison, whom they had desired; but he delivered Jesus to their will. DECISIVE, great, and strong, Christ is yet all this, even the more sublimely, that he is invested in the lovely but humanly feeble garb of innocence. And that this is the true conception is clear, in the fact that no one ever thinks of him as weak, and no one fails to be somehow impressed with a sense of inno- cence by his life. When his enemies are called to show what evil or harm he hath done, they can specify nothing, save that he has offended their bigotry. Even Pilate, when he gives him up, confesses that he finds nothing in him to blame, and shuddering with apprehensions he cannot subdue, washes his hands to be clear of the innocent blood! Thus he dies, a being holy, harmless, undefiled. And when he hangs, a bruised flower, drooping on his cross, and the sun above is dark, and the earth beneath shudders with pain, what have we in this funeral grief of the worlds, but a fit honor paid to the sad majesty of his divine innocence? H. B. L. 7. Pilate sent Jesus to Herod, hoping thus to escape the dilemma of an unjust condemnation or of an unpopular release. B. 8,9. Herod hoped to see some miracle. Nothing but the craving of an empty curiosity, the thirst for some showy exhibition of knowledge or of power. Herod asks and asks again that some sign may be shown, some token of his alleged power exhibited. Jesus makes not a single move- ment to comply. Herod is the only one of all his judges before whom Jesus preserves an unbroken silence. H. 10,11. Though the chief priests and scribes stood about his throne, instigating him to a fresh and more heinous act of murder by their intense ac- cusations, he practically showed that he thought their accusations frivolous, by treating them as a jest. F.—Greatly galled, yet in no way softened, when he could make nothing of this mysterious man, he and his men of war found nothing else to do than to set Christ at naught, and mock him, and array him in a white robe, and send him back to Pilate. 12. For some fancied interference with his ju- risdiction, Herod had taken offence at Pilate. The recognition of his jurisdiction, then, by sending to him for trial such a notorious person as Jesus, would be the very kind of compliment most soothing to his kingly vanity. Herod appreciated the compli- ment; and Pilate got the quarrel between himself and Herod healed. 15. Jesus was sent back to him by Herod; sent back in such a way as to indicate that Herod made light of this poor Galilean's pretensions to be a king—thought it, in fact, more a matter for mock- ery and ridicule than for serious judicial entertain- ment. H.—Is done unto him. Rather, hath been done by him. P. S. 16. Will chastise and release him. Pi- late wanted to release the Lord to satisfy his con- science; he wanted to chastise him to satisfy his fear of man. He imagined that a king who had been disgraced by scourging would no longer be an object of envy to the chief priests. He has already gone thus far in deciding against the Lord. He will scourge him. R. B. It was a weak and unworthy concession, the first faltering of Pilate's footstep. He cannot but say that he has found nothing worthy of death in this man; he is himself thoroughly satisfied that there is nothing in him worthy of any punishment; but it will please his accusers, it will conciliate the people, it may open the way to their readier acquiescence in his after-dismissal, to inflict on him some punishment, a proposal springing rather from the wish to protect Jesus from the greater penalty by inflicting on him the less, yet one that weakened his position, that made those sharp-sighted Jews at once perceive that he could be moved, that he was not ready to stand firmly and fixedly upon the ground of Christ's innocence. H. M. 16. Barabbas was plainly a ringleader in one of those fierce and fanatic outbreaks against the Roman domination, which fast succeeded one another in the latter days of the Jewish commonwealth. This at once explains how it was possible for the chief priests, with their religious pretensions, to show the interest on his behalf which they did, and explains no less the enthusiasm with which the Jewish populace demanded his liberation. Whether, indeed, Barabbas had actually played the part of a false Christ, setting himself up as the true, we have no means of knowing. It is far from unlikely. Keeping in mind the significance of names in Scripture, we can hardly fail to recognize a fearful mockery in his name, Barabbas, or "son of the Father;" as though in the very name which he bore, not to speak of the work which he wrought, he should be the devil's counterfeit and caricature of the true Holy One of God. He had wrought, we may well believe, in that false Messias spirit, which was filling with wild and insane hopes the whole nation, and rapidly hurrying it to that final conflict with the Roman power, in which, as a nation, it should be forever broken in pieces. T. 18. For envy. Pilate knew very well that no such sedition as they charged could have existed without his knowledge, or would have disturbed these restless, seditious Jews if it had been never so serious. He knew they were ready enough to throw off the Roman yoke if only some leader powerful enough might appear, to be their head. Hence he saw that they were pushing this prosecution "for envy." H. C.—From all he had learned, Jesus was only a well-meaning enthusiast, and he could easily see how such a man might well be dangerous to the vested interests and mock-holiness of the Jewish magnates, but not at all so to Roman authority. G. 19. His own wife—Claudia Procula—ventured to send him a public message, even as he sat there on his tribunal, that in the morning hours she had had a troubled and painful dream about that just man; and, bolder than her husband, she bade him beware how he molested him. F.—That she should have learned so much of Jesus as to think and speak of him as "that just man"—that she should have been so much concerned when she heard that her husband had been asked to try him, as to take this uncommon step of sending a warning to him on the judgment-seat—may be regarded as a proof how wide-spread and deep the impression Christ had made. H. 20. Cried out. While Pilate was receiving this message from his wife, and waiting the answer to his question, "Whom will ye that I release?" the chief priests and elders were busy in the crowd, persuading them what answer to give. L. A. The people, persuaded by their priests, clamored for the liberation of the man who not only was what they falsely said of Christ, a leader of sedition, but also a robber and a murderer. To him every hand was pointed; for him every voice was raised. For the holy, the harmless, the undefiled—for him whom a thousand hosannas had greeted but five days before—no word of pity or of pleading found an utterance. "He was despised and rejected of men." F.—Thus they committed the great sin which Peter charges upon them not long after: "Ye denied Jesus in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go. Ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you." J. C. R. The same moral state of the people now led them to reject Jesus and demand the release of Barabbas, which, forty years later, provoked the unrelenting vengeance of Titus. It was the brooding hope of sovereignty, at least of political independence, moulded up with religious enthusiasm, which rendered it impossible that the pure, humane, unworldly, and comprehensive doctrines of Jesus should be received, or his character appreciated. And the nation which could thus incur the guilt of his death was prepared to precipitate themselves to such a fate as at length it suffered. H. M. L. 20. What shall we do with Jesus, if we make him not our Mediator, our Saviour, our life, our refuge in all our evils, and the object of our adoration, love, and confidence; since God has made him our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption? Q. 21,22. Crucify! It is the first time the word has been named in Pilate's hearing, the first time they tell him articulately what it is they desire to have done with Jesus. Crucify him—give up to that most ignominious of all deaths this meek and gentle man, who he is sure has done no wrong; whom he sees well enough that the chief priests seek to get rid of from some religious antipathy that they have taken against him: can the people mean it? Why, what evil hath he done? H. Crucifixion, entirely foreign to the Jewish code, had been introduced into Jerusalem by the proconsuls. Crosses had been planted at the same time as the Roman eagles on the soil of Judea, and were the tokens of a detested rule. But enmity against Jesus overmastered hatred of the foreigner in the hearts of the Pharisees. Thus they did not hesitate to demand for the Galilean a sentence of death, the very thought of which, on other occasions, would have roused all their indignation. De P. 23. The very mention of letting him go stirs the crowd to a tenfold frenzy, and now the voices of the chief priests themselves are heard swelling and intensifying the cry, “Crucify him! crucify him!” Before a storm like this who can stand? He has done—so Pilate thinks—the most he can. If he go further, he will raise another city tumult which it will cost many lives to quell, and the quelling of which by force may expose him to the very same charges of tyranny and cruelty which, upon more than one occasion of the kind before, had actually been transmitted to Rome against him, and drawn down upon him the rebuke and displeasure of the emperor. The yielding is but the sacrifice of a single life, which may be made without involving the governor in any danger. But the resisting—who can tell in what that might land? Still, however, he is not at ease. H. M. 24, 25. The dream of Pilate’s wife, and the symbolic purification of the governor himself, express the influence which the righteousness of the Saviour exercised upon their imagination and judgment. B. F. W.—First a ceremony was enacted between the governor and the Jews, vain on his part, but of awful significance on theirs! Pilate washed his hands before the people, protesting, “I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it;” and they accepted the tremendous responsibility: “His blood be on us and on our children.” The providence of God took them at their word, when their last efforts for freedom ended in their dispersion over all the world. No less signal was the retribution which befell the other actors in this greatest crime of the world’s history. S. Before the dread sacrifice was consummated, Judas died in the horrors of a loathsome suicide. Caiaphas was deposed the year following. Herod died in infamy and exile. Stripped of his procuratorship very shortly afterward, on the very charges he had tried by a wicked concession to avoid, Pilate, wearied out with misfortunes, died in suicide and banishment, leaving behind him an execrated name. The house of Annas was destroyed a generation later by an infuriated mob, and his son was dragged through the streets, and scourged and beaten to his place of murder. Some of those who shared in and witnessed the scenes of that day—and thousands of their children—also shared in and witnessed the long horrors of that siege of Jerusalem which stands unparalleled in history for its unutterable fearfulness. They had forced the Romans to crucify their Christ, and they and their children were themselves crucified in myriads by the Romans. They had given thirty pieces of silver for their Saviour’s blood, and they were themselves sold in thousands for yet smaller sums. He must be blind indeed who does not see that when the murder of Christ was consummated, the ax was laid at the root of the barren tree of Jewish nationality. Since that day Jerusalem and its environs, with their “ever-extending miles of gravestones and ever-lengthening pavement of tombs and sepulchres,” have become little more than one vast cemetery—an Acel-dama, a field of blood, a potter’s field to bury strangers in. F. They put Jesus to death, when the nation was assembled to celebrate the Passover; and when the nation too was assembled to celebrate the Passover, Titus shut them up within the walls of Jerusalem. The rejection of the true Messiah was their crime: and the following of false Messiahs to their destruction was their punishment. They preferred a robber and murderer to Jesus, whom they crucified between two thieves: and they themselves were afterward infested with bands of thieves and robbers. They put Jesus to death, lest the Romans should come and take away their place and nation: and the Romans did come and take away their place and nation. They crucified Jesus before the walls of Jerusalem: and before the walls of Jerusalem they themselves were crucified, in such numbers, that it is said room was wanting for the crosses, and crosses for the bodies. Bp. Newton. PILATE’S CHARACTER.—The fair statement seems to be that Pilate was a thorough type of the later Roman man of the world. Stern but not relentless, shrewd and world-worn, prompt and practical, haughtily just, and yet self-seeking and cowardly, able to perceive what was right, but without moral strength to follow it out, he stands forth a sad instance of a man whom the fear of endangered self-interest drove to act against the deliberate conviction of his conscience, to commit an act of the utmost cruelty and injustice, even after his convictions had been deepened by warnings, and strengthened by presentiment. E.—Agrippa the elder speaks of the iniquity of his government in the strongest terms: “He feared lest they should examine and expose the misdeeds of his former procuratorship, the taking of bribes, the acts of violence, the extortions, the tortures, the menaces, the repeated murders without any form of trial, the harsh and incessant cruelty.” G. R. The secular history shows that the state of the public mind in Judea, as well as the character of Pilate, harmonize in the most remarkable manner with the narrative of the Evangelists. The general expectation of the Messiah, the impatience of the Roman sovereignty, the extraordinary excitement of the more fanatical part of the people, the rigid prudence of the chief priests, lest the slightest indication of revolt should compromise the safety of the city and the temple—these circumstances of the times sufficiently account for the reception of such a teacher as Jesus at Jerusalem. Appearing with doctrines so alarming to the authority of the priesthood, so full of disappointment to the fanatic populace, so repugnant to the national pride, and, above all, openly assuming the mysterious title, the Son of God—it excites less astonishment than sorrow that the passions of such a people should at once proceed to the most awful violence against a Teacher whose tenets were too pure and spiritual for their comprehension, and whose character was so remote from their preconceived notions of the expected Messiah. H. M. # Section 155.—Jesus scourged, mocked, and delivered up. M. 26 THEN Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him. And when he had scourged 27 Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the common hall, called Pretorium, and gathered unto him the whole band of sol- 28, 29 diers. And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe. And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand: and they bowed the knee before him, worshipped and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of 30 the Jews! And they spit upon him, and smote him with their hands, and took the reed and smote him on the head. J. 4 Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to 5 you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him. Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man! 6 When the chief priests therefore and officers saw him, they cried out, saying, Crucify him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Take ye him, and crucify him: for I find no 7 fault in him. The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God. 8, 9 When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was the more afraid; and went again into the judgment hall and saith unto Jesus, Whence art thou? But Jesus gave him no 10 answer. Then saith Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not unto me? Knowest thou not 11 that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee? Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin. 12 And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release him. But the Jews cried out, saying, If thou let this man go, thou art not Cesar's friend: whosoever maketh himself a king, 13 speaketh against Cesar. When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment seat, in a place that is called the Pavement, but in 14 the Hebrew, Gabbatha. And it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth 15 hour. And he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King! But they cried out, Away with him! Away with him! crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your 16 King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Cesar. Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified. "BEHOLD the man!" Pilate unwittingly spoke a word in which is contained the secret of our redemption, our deepest disgrace, and our highest glory. In the man Christ Jesus, the only Mediator, we see at once our sin and our righteousness, our curse and our blessing, our shame and our glory; both what we deserved and what he deserved. "Therefore (so Luther exhorts) do thou learn Christ, the crucified Christ, till, having lost all trust in thyself, thou canst extol him, and say: Thou, my Lord Jesus, art my righteousness, while I am thy sin. Thou hast taken upon thee what is mine, and thou hast given me what is thine. Thou hast taken to thyself that which thou wast not, and thou hast given to me that which I was not!" When, in the hour of temptation, the devil shall cast our sins in our teeth, and whisper to us: Behold the man thou art! then may we also answer him: Behold the man! while we point the accuser to our surety, who, in the crown of thorns and the purple robe, expiated our sins, and through his blood so abundantly shed, has obtained for us abundant forgiveness. Under suffering and the cross, if we hear such whispers as these: Behold the man thou art! by God and man forsaken—where is now thy God? and if we are ready to lose patience, and utterly despair, let us make answer to the tempter: Behold the man! and let us flee to our dear Lord, who, for our sakes, has suffered far greater and more heavy woes than we, and has sanctified our every burden. He opened not his mouth, no cry of impatience escaped his holy lips; and should we murmur and fret over the sufferings which are made so precious by his sympathy with us as his members? We should rather rejoice in any conformity to the likeness of his suffering; for then in glory too we shall be like him; "because as he is, so are we in this world." Behold the man! The sight will not weary us. It will continue to refresh us until we shall behold our King in his beauty, and recognize him by the marks of his passion, as the "Lamb that hath been slain." R. B. 26. Scourged him.** The word used for the scourging implies that it was done, not with rods, for Pilate had no lictors, but with what Horace calls the "horribile flagellum," of which the Russian knout is the only modern representative. F.—According to the Roman custom, his hands are bound fast to a low pillar, and his breast and back are bared. The soldiers then approach. They hold in their hands whips plaited with thongs, tipped with iron wire. Therewith they strike, heaping lash upon lash. Consentingly and patiently does the Lord submit his body to these painful lashes, that sacred body, intended and prepared for sacrifice. "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities. The punishment lay upon him, that we might have peace, and with his stripes we are healed." R. B. Behold affronts and indignities which the world thinks it right never to pardon, which the Son of God endures with a divine meekness! Let us cast at the feet of Jesus Christ, thus unworthily treated by his creatures, that false honor, that quick sense of affronts, that mischievous refinement which is punctilious about a trifle, which exaggerates everything and pardons nothing, and, above all, that devilish determination in resenting injuries. Q. 27-30. After the scourging, fresh scorn and shame were heaped upon the suffering Jesus. He had said: "I am a King;" therefore the soldiers of the governor now began to mock his royalty, just as the servants of Caiaphas had before derided him as Prophet. And the governor allows it all. He even desires that Jesus should be thus pitifully treated, hoping that thereby he might perhaps even yet escape the guilt of his death. R. B. They went through the whole heartless ceremony of a mock coronation, a mock investiture, a mock homage. Around the brows of Jesus, in wanton mimicry of the emperor's laurel, they twisted a green wreath of thorny leaves; in his tied and trembling hands they placed a reed for sceptre; from his torn and bleeding shoulders they stripped the white robe with which Herod had mocked him—which must now have been all soaked with blood—and flung on him an old scarlet war-cloak. F. 29. They platted a crown of thorns, and put it on his head. This they did to deride and torture him. To torture him, for with their harnessed fists they press the sharp thorns into his brow; to deride him, for they placed on his head the crown of thorns, in order to adorn his mock royalty. And, yet, what crown could have been imagined for our King Jesus which should have so exactly suited him as this crown of thorns? He who came to obtain for us the blessing, bears what the curse-laden earth brings forth, being made a curse for us. The thorns might with justice have been turned into instruments of our torture, for they are emblems of our earthly lusts and cares, growing and flourishing in our heart, and choking there so many noble grains of seed; but now they torture him—and to us the crown of glory is given, the crown of life and righteousness. R. B. 30. Then, when they have got him robed, and crowned, and sceptred thus, they bow the knee, and hail him as a king. But they tire even of that mock homage; the demon spirit that is in them inspires the merriment with a savage cruelty; and so they snatch the reed out of his hand, and smite with it the crown of thorns, and drive it down upon his pierced and bleeding brow, and spit upon him, and smite him with their hands. H. Not one member of the Lord's only, but his whole body, had to suffer the most cruel torture; his head was wounded by the crown of thorns, by smiting with the reed; his face suffered spitting and cuffs with the hand; his whole body was mangled with scourging, it was stripped, it was covered with a cloak of scorn; his hands held the reed; and afterward his tongue was forced to taste vinegar and gall. Because in all our members sin dwells and works, therefore has Christ willed for our sins to suffer in all his members. Chrys.—And so, amid the conflict of human passions and the advancing tide of crime, the Scripture was fulfilled which said, in Messiah's name, many hundred years before he came into the world, "I gave my back to the smiters and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair; I hid not my face from shame and spitting." (Is. 50 : 6.) B. J. 4-6. All this is done in an inner court or guard-room, out of sight of the crowd that is still waiting without. Pilate sees it all; makes no attempt to mitigate the suffering or the mockery; is absorbed in wonder as he gazes upon Jesus—such a picture of silent, meek, unmurmuring, uncomplaining patience! standing there, and taking all that treatment as though no strange thing were happening, as if he had expected all, were prepared for all. There is no weakness in that patience; but a strength, a power, a dignity. The sight moves Pilate's heart: may it not move even the hearts of those people without? may it not satisfy their thirst for vengeance to see the suffering Jesus reduced to such a pitiable plight as this? He will try at least what the sight can do in the way of stirring such sympathy. He goes forth, with Jesus following, and says to the multitude, "Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him;" then, turning and pointing to Jesus, as he stood wearing still the purple robe and the crown of thorns, bearing on his face and person the marks of all the sufferings and indignities of the guard-house, Pilate says, "Behold the man!" "behold and pity, behold and be satisfied—behold, and suffer me, now that I have thus chastised him, to let him go!" H. I find no fault in him. It was meet that he who had the chief hand in slaying the Lamb of God, should three times publicly declare that he found no spot or blemish in him. Three times he vainly tried to evade condemning our Lord, or to make the Jews desist from their bloody design: once by asking the Jews to choose between Christ and Barabbas—once by sending him to Herod—and once by scourging him. J. C. R. 6. But his appeal only woke a fierce outbreak of the scream, "Crucify! crucify!" The mere sight of him, even in this his unspeakable shame and sorrow, seemed to add fresh fuel to their hate. In vain the heathen soldier appeals for humanity to the Jewish priest. The Roman who had shed blood like water, on the field of battle, in open massacre, in secret assassination, might well be supposed to have an icy and a stony heart; but yet icier and stonier was the heart of those scrupulous hypocrites and worldly priests. F.—If God ever showed his long-suffering great, it was here, when this outcry for the blood of his Son rose up into his ear, and yet he held his peace. 7-9. They had failed in bringing Christ to the cross as a rebel; they therefore now brought forward the accusation upon which he had previously been found guilty of death by the Sanhedrim. "He made himself the Son of God!" R. B.—The name "Son of God," the lofty sense evidently attached to it by his Jewish accusers, the dialogue he had already held with him, and the dream of his wife, all working together in the breast of the wretched Pilate, he went again into the palace, and saith to Jesus, Whence art thou?—beyond all doubt a question relating not to his mission but to his personal origin. B.—No answer. His silence is a judgment. By his silence he judges and by his silence he condemns a high-priest, a king, and a governor. A. T. 11. From above. Thus did Christ declare that no human will limited his life, but that his death took place in consequence of a higher necessity ordained by God, for a higher end. N.—He that delivered me.** The words appear to refer to Caiaphas as the official representative of those who formally gave over our Lord to the Roman governor, and to imply that his guilt was greater, because, when he had no power granted him from above against our Lord, he gave the Lord up to one who had, and whose power was plenary. E. Therefore—the Lord says—because thou imaginest that it is out of thine own power that thou canst judge me, because thou knowest not what is above, nor him who is from above, therefore is thy sin less heavy than the sin of Caiaphas and the chief priests; for these wilfully refuse to know who I am, that I am Christ, the Son of the true God, and their King. R. B.—Thou art indeed committing a great crime—but Judas, Annas, Caiaphas, these priests and Jews, are more to blame than thou. Thus, with infinite dignity, and yet with infinite tenderness, did Jesus judge his judge. In the very depths of his inmost soul Pilate felt the truth of the words—silently acknowledged the superiority of his bound and lacerated victim. F. There is something surely very impressive here; that, sunk as Jesus was beneath the weight of his own sufferings—sufferings so acute that they well might have engrossed his thoughts and feelings—he yet so calmly weighs in the judicial balance the comparative guilt of the actors in this sad scene, and excuses, as far he is able, the actings of Pilate. It had something of its proper effect upon the procurator. Instead of diminishing, it but increased the desire he already had to deliver him. H. The extreme reluctance of Pilate to sentence Christ, considering his merciless character, is signally remarkable; and, still more, his repeated protestations of the innocence of his prisoner, although he generally made no scruple of confounding the innocent with the guilty. But he was unquestionably influenced by the overruling providence of God, to make the righteousness of his Son appear in the clearest light, by the fullest, the most authentic, and the most public evidence. Hales. The words, and the whole bearing of Jesus, struck into the heart of the Roman. Presence of mind and self-respectful dignity, even in the most helpless victim of injustice, have an irresistible power over the oppressor. How much more such a unique grandeur as diffused itself round this mysterious man! Pilate was more than ever resolved to release him. Returning once again to the tribunal, Jesus at his side, he strove to bring the priests and the crowd to content themselves with what their victim had already suffered. G. 12. Thou art not Cesar's friend.** That Cesar was the dark and jealous Tiberius. Up to this period the Jewish nation, when they had complained of the tyranny of their rulers, had obtained a favorable hearing at Rome. Even against Herod the Great their charges had been received. On their complaint Archelaus had been removed from his throne. Not yet had their turbulence and insubordination effaced the influence of that attachment to the Cesarean family, which had obtained for their nation distinguishing privileges. In what manner such a charge, of not being "Cesar's friend," might be misrepresented or aggravated, it was impossible to conjecture; but the very strangeness of the accusation was likely to work on the gloomy and suspicious mind of Tiberius. H. M. 13. If he could have dared to show his real instincts, he would have driven them from his tribunal. But Pilate was guilty, and guilt is cowardice, and cowardice is weakness. His own past cruelties, recoiling in kind on his own head, forced him now to crush the impulse of pity, and to add to his many cruelties another more heinous still. He knew that serious complaints hung over his head. Panic-stricken, the unjust judge, in obedience to his own terrors, consciously betrayed the innocent victim to the anguish of death. He who had so often prostituted justice, was now unable to achieve the one act of justice which he desired. He who had so often murdered pity, was now forbidden to taste the sweetness of a pity for which he longed. He who had so often abused authority, was now rendered impotent to exercise it, for once, on the side of right. F. 14. Preparation of the passover.** Not "the hour for preparing the Passover meal." It means "this was the day before the great Sabbath of the Passover week, a day well known among the Jews as 'the preparation,' or day of preparing for the Passover Sabbath, which was peculiarly a high day." Mark (15 : 42) expressly says this. J. C. R. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/butler/ M. 2 AND, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from 3 heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. His coun- 4 tenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: and for fear of him the keep- ers did shake, and became as dead men. Mk. 1 And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him. L. 1 Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning when it was yet dark, as it began to dawn, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had Mk. 3 prepared, and certain others with them. And they said among themselves, Who shall 4 roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre? And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away: for it was very great. J. 1, 2 And Mary Magdalene seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. Then she runneth and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved. L. 3 And they [the other women] entered in [the sepulchre] and found not the body of 4 the Lord Jesus. And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments. And they saw a young man sitting on the 5 right side, clothed in a long white garment: and they were affrighted. And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: be not affrighted: for I know that ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, 6 which was crucified. Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here; for he is risen, as he said: come, see the place where the Lord lay. Remember how he 7 spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, saying, The Son of man must be delivered M. 7 into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again. And go quickly, and tell his disciples, and Peter, that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him, as he said unto you: lo, I 8 have told you. And they remembered his words, and they departed quickly, and fled from the sepulchre; for they trembled and were amazed: neither said they any thing to any man: for they were afraid; and with fear and great joy did run to bring his disciples word. J. 2 And [Mary] saith unto them [Peter and John], They have taken away the Lord out of 3 the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him. Peter therefore went forth, 4 and that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre. So they ran both together: and 5 the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre. And he stooping 6 down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in. Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes laid 7 by themselves: and the napkin that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, 8 but wrapped together in a place by itself. Then went in also that other disciple which 9 came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed. For as yet they knew not the 10 scripture, that he must rise again from the dead. Then the disciples went away again unto their own home, wondering at that which was come to pass. JESUS CHRIST proves himself the Redeemer of the human race, in the act of enduring death himself, and then rising victorious over it. This one event proves, by the majesty of facts, and not by uncertain reasoning, that the Being who invites our faith in himself has shown that Death is disarmed; that there is a power superior to his dread and cold touch. We come to the sepulchre now, though it be with reverent step, sorrow bearing her burden there with a most becoming awe; yet it is with thanks to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Come to the vacant sepulchre of Christ, and sing for joy. Death is abolished; let us rejoice and be glad. Angels, those spirits of purity and love, hasten to meet us here with their message of joy. They too are interested in the redemption of Christ; for they sung on the night of his advent; they ministered to the sufferer in the garden of agony; they rejoice over every sinner that repenteth; and they bear the spirits of the righteous to the bosom of God. Heaven and earth, angels and men, meet happily together at the open tomb of Christ. Sorrow may be for a night; joy cometh in the morning. With grateful hearts, with a head lifted up, and with a full-toned voice should we ever repeat the great articles of our faith: "I believe in Jesus Christ, who was crucified, who died, and was buried; who rose again from the dead; and who is now at the right hand of God: I believe in the forgiveness of sins, in the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting." W. A. # OUR LORD'S INTERCOURSE WITH THE DISCIPLES AFTER HIS RESURRECTION (Sections 160-166). OUT of the forty days there were but six on which he held intercourse with any human being, and in those six days he did not give more than as many hours to fellowship with those to whom he showed himself. How brief, too, and abrupt the meetings! In the twilight of the garden; in the dim-lighted upper chamber; in the gray dawn of the lake-side—he appears, speaks but a few sentences, and vanishes as mysteriously as he had appeared. What impression was all this studied distance and reserve fitted to make upon the minds of his disciples? Remember that not one of them before his death had risen to any thought or belief in his divinity; that from all their earlier earthly notions of him they had to be weaned; that after days and years of the easiest companionship with him, they had to be raised to the belief that it was the very Lord of heaven and earth with whom they had been holding converse; yet that belief was to be so formed within them as not to militate against the idea of his true and proper humanity. See, then, what an important part in the execution of this needful but most difficult task must have been fulfilled by his mode of dealing with them during the forty days. For let us only conceive what should have happened if one or other of two alternatives had been realized: If at once, after a few interviews, sufficient simply to do away with all doubt as to his resurrection, Jesus had passed up into the heavens; let us imagine that the descent of the Spirit had immediately ensued; that the day of Pentecost had followed immediately on the day of the resurrection; that the eyes of the apostles had thus at once and fully been enlightened, and the great truth of their Master's Godhead had been flashed upon their minds—the danger undoubtedly would have been that, seen in the blaze of that new glory, the man Christ Jesus had been lost, the humanity swallowed up in the divinity; nor would it have been so easy to persuade those men that, ascended up on high, seated at the right hand of the Father, he was the same Jesus still—a brother to them as truly as when he lived among them, equally alive to all human sympathies as when he walked with them by the way, or sat down with them in the upper chamber. Take, again, the other alternative: That, after his resurrection, Christ had immediately resumed and continued—even, let us say, for no longer a time than these forty days—the exact kind of life that he had led before—would not such a return on his part to all the old familiarities of his former intercourse have had a tendency to check the rising faith in his divinity; to tie his disciples down again to a knowing of him only after the flesh; to give to the humanity of the Lord such prominence as to make it overshadow the divinity? Can you conceive a treatment more nicely fitted to the spiritual condition, to the spiritual wants of those men at that time, than the very one which the Lord adopted and carried out—so well fitted as it was, gradually, gently, without violence, to lead those disciples on from their first imperfect, unworthy ideas of his person, character, and work, on and up to clearer, purer, loftier conceptions of him? In what better way could a faith in their Master's divinity have been superinduced upon their former faith in him as a man, a friend, a brother, so that the two might blend together without damage done to either by the union; their knowledge of him as human not interfering with their trust in him as divine; their faith in him as God not weakening their attachment to him as man? H. The various manifestations which the Saviour made of himself to his disciples, as recorded by the Evangelists and Paul, may be arranged and enumerated as follows: 1. To the women returning from the sepulchre. Only by Matthew. 2. To Mary Magdalene at the sepulchre. Reported by John and Mark. 3. To Peter, perhaps early in the afternoon. By Luke and Paul. 4. To the two disciples going to Emmaus, toward evening. By Luke and Mark. 5. To the apostles (except Thomas) assembled at evening. By Mark, Luke, John, and Paul. N. B. These five appearances all took place at or near Jerusalem, upon the first day of the week, the same day on which the Lord arose. 6. To the apostles, Thomas being present, eight days afterward at Jerusalem. Only by John. 7. To seven of the apostles on the shore of the Lake of Tiberias. Only by John. 8. To the eleven apostles and to five hundred other brethren, on a mountain in Galilee. By Matthew and Paul. 9. To James, probably at Jerusalem. Only by Paul. 10. To the eleven at Jerusalem, immediately before the ascension. By Luke in Acts, and by Paul. Then follows the ascension. R. [The numbers 1 and 2 in the above outline we have exchanged in our arrangement. J. G. B.] Any one who will attentively read the narratives of these appearances on the first day of the resurrection will see that they have only been preserved for us in general, interblended, and scattered notices, which, in strict exactness, render it impossible to produce from them a certain narrative of the order of events. Our belief in the resurrection as an historic fact, as absolutely well attested by subsequent and contemporary circumstances as any other event in history, rests on grounds far deeper, wider, more spiritual, more eternal, than can be shaken by divergences of which we can only say that they are not contradictions, but of which the true solution is no longer attainable. As Lange finely says, the great fugue of the first Easter tidings has not come to us as a "monotonous chorale," and mere verbal criticism cannot understand the common feeling and harmony which inspire the individual vibrations of those enthusiastic and multitudinous voices. Westcott points out the differences in the narrative of the four Evangelists. Matthew dwells chiefly on the majesty and glory of the resurrection; Mark insists upon it as a fact; Luke, as a spiritual necessity; John, as a touchstone of character. F. It is not possible to determine certainly the order of events in this and in the following section. The fair inference from the four accounts is, that Mary Magdalene came with the other women to the sepulchre, saw that the stone was rolled away and the sepulchre empty, but saw not the angels; then instantly turned and went to report to Peter and John. The interview of the women with the angels having taken place, they had scarce gone when Peter and John, running in advance of Mary, came, saw the empty tomb, and turned homeward again. (Thus far this section.) Then Mary comes again, Jesus appears to her, and gives her a brief message. A little afterward, before the other women had found the now scattered disciples, Jesus meets them, and confirms the specific message already given by the angel in the sepulchre. It may be added that, while there are differences (readily perceived in our arrangement of the text), seeming discrepancies in the four accounts, there are no contradictory statements. J. G. B. Mk. 1. No writer of a fictitious story, had he previously put into Christ's lips such distinct foretellings of his death and resurrection, would have attributed to his followers such an entire forgetfulness of these predictions, such an utter prostration of all faith and hope, as that which the Evangelists describe as coming upon all our Lord's disciples immediately after his death. Yet, after all, is it not true to human nature, that upon the minds and hearts of those simple, uncultivated men and women, filled as they had been with other quite different expectations, the shock of such a shameful death, coming in such a way upon their Master, was so sudden and stunning, that all power of forming a new conception of their Master's character, and taking up a new faith in him, was gone; the power even of remembering what he had said about himself beforehand for the season paralyzed? But love lives on, even where faith dies out, among those disconsolate and utterly hopeless friends and followers of our Lord. H. It was night in the disciples' hearts. Their love was crucified, their glory dishonored, their hope destroyed, their life was waste and desolate. The seven stars of those words from the cross were fading fast away behind the stormy clouds of their soul. They wept and lamented. Scattered without hope, united again without hope, one thing alone occupied their thoughts and sight and words, and that was his grave. R. B. L. 1. First day. The portion, however brief, of this day (according to Jewish reckoning) that Jesus remained in the tomb is reckoned as one day, like the brief interval between his burial and the Friday's sunset, and thus he remained three days in the earth. S. Mark says, "at the rising of the sun." These various popular forms of expression present some of the finer points in proof of the truth of the narratives. Their meaning is substantially the same—somewhere between the night and the sunrising, in the morning twilight. J. G. B.—Mark first specifies the time by very early. He used the phrase "rising of the sun" in a broad and less definite sense. As the sun's earliest rays produce the contrast between darkness and light, between night and dawn, so the term sunrising might easily come in popular language to be put for all that earlier interval, when his rays, still struggling with darkness, do nevertheless usher in the day. R. On Sunday he chose to rise, because on this day began the creation of the world with the calling into being of light: the light which is the life of the created world was to have one birthday with the life which is the light of the restored world. Sunday, the day of Christ's resurrection, is the Lord's day (Rev. 1: 10); this day has been set apart by the Church gathered together through the preaching of the resurrection, as the day for their services of divine worship. R. B. As the resurrection of Christ is the great fact, so the day of its occurrence is the great day of Christianity. From the time of the apostles its weekly return has been called by the name of the LORD'S DAY; and to this epoch of the new creation of all things, marked by the new life of Christ, all the permanent sanctity of the primeval Sabbath was transferred. S.—Henceforth it was not only God the Creator that was to be chiefly remembered, but God the Saviour and Regenerator of mankind. To mark this great event the Sabbath was changed from the seventh to the first day of the week—changed most clearly by our Lord. The early Christian Church, those who received the gospel direct from the apostles, kept this day. Hence the apostles must have kept the first day as the Sabbath. They were Jews, and would not have changed the day themselves. Christ only is Lord of the Sabbath. He only could have given the necessary authority. And now we are to keep the Sabbath-day holy, in remembrance of both Maker and Redeemer. The obligation therefore is twofold. Bartlett. (Read Section 184.) Mk. 4. Altogether secret, the exact time and manner unnoticed and unknown, was that great rising from the dead. The clearest and amplest proof was afterward given of the fact that, some time between sunset of the last and sunrise of the first day of the week, the resurrection had taken place; but it pleased not the Lord who then arose to do so under the immediate eye or inspection of any human witness. H.—In the dark recesses of the sepulchre, through almighty power, his spirit revived, unseen and unknown to every mortal eye. Angels ministered unto him, and opened before him the door of the tomb. R. His cross was surrounded by thousands of beholders of his shame, many saw his sufferings, observed how he bowed his head and gave up the ghost; John, from the wound of the spear, saw blood and water flow: but his resurrection was to have no beholders but the angels—he was already risen when the women came. The rising Christ is King of a kingdom which comes not with outward observation, whose glory is an inward glory, and whose visible form is the cross. And not to all the people did the risen one appear, but only to those in whose hearts he had already found a place as the crucified one. R. B. J. 2. The disciple whom Jesus loved. Through the whole fourth gospel, while the Apostle John is never named, there moves an unnamed, as it were, veiled form, which sometimes comes forward, yet without the veil being entirely lifted. How natural to suppose that he designates himself with that name which expresses the highest contents and the whole joy of his life—as "that disciple whom Jesus loved!" The objection of Weisse, that this would have been an arrogant assumption, shows that he has not entered into that joyous pride, mingled with all humility, which grows out of the consciousness of having been loved, without desert on his part, by him who is the object of his own supreme love. Hase. L. 4. Two men. Mark and Luke describe the persons as "men," according to the appearance; Matthew and John as angels, according to the reality. That there were two angels is clear from John's more minute account, confirmed by Luke. Matthew and Mark mention only one angel, perhaps because they knew only of one, not getting the details fully, perhaps because one was prominent as the speaker. L. A. Stood. The difficulty as to the position of the angels (Mark, sitting) vanishes when we take this word of Luke in its appropriate and acknowledged usage: they suddenly appeared, were suddenly present. R.—A young man. The angel of the Lord described just as he appeared to the eye, in the bloom of a life that knows no decay. 7. Remarkable it is to hear angels quoting a whole sentence of Christ's to the disciples, mentioning where it was uttered, and wondering it was not fresh on their memory, as doubtless it was in theirs. B. M. 7. Tell his disciples. The disciples, after their Lord's crucifixion, appear to have entertained no hopes of his resurrection. Shocked and confounded, dismayed at finding him condemned to the ignominious death of the cross, they forgot everything he had said to them respecting his rising again. Most of them seem to have given themselves up to sorrow and despair. They had not even the courage or the curiosity to go to the sepulchre on the third day to see whether the promised event had taken place or not. Thus it is perfectly clear that nothing but the most irresistible evidence would convince them of a fact which they seemed to think in the highest degree improbable. P. There is in the apostles no impassioned enthusiasm, no exaggeration in their trustfulness and devotedness. Even with them Jesus sees himself confronted by all the vacillations and weaknesses of humanity. He persuades them, he wins them, he preserves them only by great exertion. They only really believe in him after having witnessed the accomplishment of his sacrifice and his last miracle, when they had seen his crucifixion and his resurrection. Only then they believed; but from that moment their faith became absolutely superior to all perils and all trials; full of the Holy Spirit, and associated in a certain measure to their divine Master, they pursue his work with unshaken confidence and firmness, without pretending to any merit, without any impulse of personal pride. F. G. And Peter. Mark's Gospel being drawn up (as all the earliest tradition states) under the eye of Peter, or from materials chiefly furnished by him, there is something deeply affecting in the preservation of this little clause by Mark alone, as well as in the clause itself, which it is impossible not to connect with the cloud under which Peter lay in the eyes of the eleven, not to say in his own also. B. —Was it not most wonderful that there should be such a remembrance of Peter by that Master whom he had so lately denied? Peter had his rising hopes confirmed, his doubts and fears all quenched, when, some time in the course of that forenoon, waiting till John and he had parted—waiting till he could meet him alone, and speak to him with all the greater freedom and fulness—Jesus showed himself to Peter. Before he met the others to speak peace, he hastened to meet Peter to speak pardon. One of the first offices of the risen Saviour was to wipe away the tears of the penitent. J. 6, 7. Linen clothes. . . . napkin by itself. Who had arranged them thus? Was it the hand of the great Sleeper himself, on his awakening within the tomb? or was it some angel's hand that took the death-garments as they dropped from around the risen one, and thus disposed them? Whoever did it, there had been no haste; all had been done calmly, collectedly. Neither earthly friends nor earthly foes had done it: the one would not have stripped the garments from the body; the other would have been at no pains so carefully to arrange and deposit them. H. 8. He saw, and believed.** Evidently, that the Lord had not been taken away out of the sepulchre, but that he had gone forth out of it. R. B. —It is especially to be observed, that although Christ had actually arisen and was there, these two men, Peter and John, did not see him. They went back into the city, not knowing what had taken place. And it is only then, when they have gone, that to other eyes than theirs, to another kind of nature, of finer mould and quicker sight, a woman—a soul in which the mighty wonder of another resurrection had been first achieved, weeping because they seemed to have taken away her Lord, and she knows not where they have laid him—it is to her that the Lord first appears. F. D. H. 10. The disciples went to their own home.** [To the home of John.] The love and tender charity of John's character came out beautifully in his affection for Peter, even after his denial of Christ. He clings to him, and has him under his own roof, wherever that was. All through the Gospels and Acts, Peter and John seem to have been peculiarly drawn together, and to have been close friends and companions. J. C. R. WE have all a nearer, a more special interest in this deserted tomb of Jesus Christ. For us he died, and for us he rose again. Firm and fast as the grave now seems to hold the buried generations of our race, it is doomed, as a fruit of Christ's resurrection, to relax its grasp and yield them up again. Empty as was Joseph's sepulchre when the angel spake to the women, so empty shall be every grave of earth when another angel shall sound his trumpet, and it shall ring through the regions of the dead, and stir all to life again. Blessed was that morning which dawned upon the empty tomb at Calvary, but more blessed to us shall that other morning be which shall dawn upon the empty graves of earth, if only now we live in Christ; if at death we sleep in Jesus; if at that resurrection we be numbered with those who shall share the resurrection of the just. H. Fit is it that we sing unto the Lord a new song! and with thankful hearts, on his own day and on every day, congratulate the triumph of his rising from the dead, and rejoice in this birthday of our hopes! Now is the justice of God amply satisfied, or the prisoner had never been released. Now is the reproach of the cross ceased, and turned into glory. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is now, through the death and resurrection of his dear Son, become our Father and our God. D. # Section 161.—Appears to Mary, then to the other Women. Watch bribed. Disciples disbelieve. Mk. 9 Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils. J. 11 But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and as she wept she stooped down 12 and looked into the sepulchre; and seeth two angels in white, sitting, the one at the 13 head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away 14 my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him. And when she had thus said, she 15 turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where 16 thou hast laid him, and I will take him away. Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned 17 herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni, which is to say, Master. Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God. Mk. 10 Mary Magdalene came to the disciples, as they mourned and wept, and told them that 11 she had seen the Lord, and that he had spoken these things unto her. And they, when they had heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, believed not. M. 9 And as they [the other women] went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, say- 10 ing, All hail. And they came, and held him by the feet, and worshipped him. Then said Jesus unto them, Be not afraid: go tell my brethren, that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me. 11. Now when they were going, behold, some of the watch came into the city, and shewed 12 unto the chief priests all the things that were done. And when they were assembled 13 with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers, saying, 14 Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept. And if this 15 come to the governor's ears, we will persuade him, and secure you. So they took the money, and did as they were taught: and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day. L. 9 And [the women] returned from the sepulchre, and told all these things unto the eleven, 10 and to all the rest. It was Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women 11 that were with them, which told these things unto the apostles. And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not. BEFORE he descended to the tomb, Messiah had finished transgression and made an end of sin. There was nothing to take him thither, except the Scripture which must be fulfilled, and the last enemy which must be destroyed; and except the great stone and the pontifical seals, there was nothing to keep him there. Vainly did the King of Terrors watch over his strange captive, and vainly did the grave boast of its mysterious and mighty inmate. He opened his eyes, and death was abolished; he stood up, and the grave had lost its victory; and yielding to the touch of heaven's herald, the seals and the great stone gave way, and Jesus was "declared the Son of God, with power in his resurrection from the dead." Delivered for our offences, he was raised again for our justification: and along with him rose all his ransomed—that glorious Church of countless members which left the grave of Jesus acquitted, accepted, legally justified, virtually saved. "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us." Because he lives, they shall live also. From the great life-fournain, the Mediator's person, their souls have imbibed immortality, and their union with Christ secures them an eventual share in Christ's own resurrection. Hamilton. Two of the most unqualified declarations of Christ's essential deity were made to him, and sanctioned by him, after his resurrection: this one of the actual paying of divine honors to him, which was repeated by the disciples just before the ascension, and Thomas's hearty confession, "My Lord and my God!" We see in this just that steady development of gospel truth which is most natural. Up to the time of his death on the cross, marvellous as the tokens of the Lord's superhuman character were, both in his words and in his acts, it was the human side of his nature that was kept constantly in view. A being having all the visible attributes of a man, subject in the body to mortal limitations—to weakness, pain, fatigue, sleep, hunger, tears—moving and feeling as other men move and feel, must leave on all about him the impression of a human nature; nor would it be very strange if the daily sight of these external qualities should partly obscure, for the time, the marks of a loftier origin, and make a belief in his divinity difficult. But the sepulchre had now put a different aspect on all these mortal signs; the resurrection had transfigured them and, as it were, divinized them. It had never been heard before that a man lifted himself, by his own will, out of the grave and asserted his superiority to all the forces of destruction. Surely here must be nothing less than the Creator's majesty. The divinity broke through the mortal investiture. In the glorified form the "Son of God" stood revealed not less than the "Son of man." They worshipped him, and he received their worship. F. D. H. Is not the fragmentary character of each of these four separate accounts just what we might have expected, considering the time and manner of the events narrated—the obscure light, the women coming, it may have been singly, or in different groups by different routes, the surprise, the terror, the running in and out, to and from the city—all this within the compass of an hour or two? Which one of the spectators or actors in these busy and broken movements, if asked afterward to detail what occurred, but might have given an account of it differing from that of all the others? H. The confusion which confessedly exists in this part of the narrative, and the consequent difficulty of reducing it to one continuous account, is not the fault of the historians, but the natural effect of the events themselves, as impressed upon the senses and the memory of different witnesses. If it had pleased God to inspire a single writer as the historian of the resurrection, he would no doubt have furnished as coherent and perspicuous a narrative as any other in the sacred volume. But since it entered into the divine plan, as a necessary element, to set before us not a single but a fourfold picture of our Saviour's life and death, we must purchase the advantage of this varied exhibition by submitting to its incidental inconveniences. Among them is the difficulty, just referred to, of combining all these views, taken from different points of observation, into one complete view to be seen at the same moment. The historical problem is as hard to solve as the pictorial, not more so; and the seeming inconsistencies, resulting from the effort to amalgamate the narratives, ought no more to destroy our faith in their eventual harmony, than similar points of disagreement in four photographic views of the same edifice or landscape ought to make us question either the identity of the object or the absolute truth of the delineation. J. A. A. Mk. 9. First to Mary Magdalene. She had gone with the other women to the sepulchre; parting from them before their interview with the angel, and finding Peter and John, she had followed them back to the spot; and it was then that Jesus appeared to this Mary. To a woman was this honor given to be the first that saw the risen Redeemer; and that woman was not his mother. B. A great injustice has been done to Mary Magdalene, in identifying her with the woman who was a sinner, who anointed the Lord's feet with ointment, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. The name of that woman is not mentioned in the record of the incident in which she took so prominent a part. The incident occurred not in Magdala but at Nain. It was after Christ had left Nain that the first mention of this Mary meets us in the gospel narrative: "And the twelve were with him, and certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils, and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto him of their substance." Named thus along with one whose husband held an important office in Herod's household, named as one of those who ministered to our Lord of their substance, Mary Magdalene does not appear to have been a woman of a low or poor condition. (Section 46, page 185.) J. 11. Mary stood weeping. The Master had been to her the kindest and best of friends. Her grateful love, living in her sorrow, makes her cling, even when John has left it, to the spot where in death he had reposed. Mary Magdalene, standing alone weeping thus before the empty sepulchre, presents herself to our eye as the saddest and most inconsolable of all the mourners for the Crucified. H. 12,13. Seeth two angels.** The whole character of this representation seems to show clearly, that Mary had not before seen the angels; and also that she had not before been told that Jesus was risen. R. 14. She turns away even from an interview with angels, from converse with those who may have had as their purpose, in putting to her that question, to tell her about her risen Lord. She turns away even from them, to weep out, without further interruption, her most bitter grief. But now, from other lips, the same question, "Woman, why weepest thou?" salutes her ear. She sees, but scarcely notices, the person who thus speaks to her. He is not directly before her, and she cares not to turn, or make any scrutiny of his person. Even had she done so, seeing him through the veil of dropping tears, she might have failed to recognize him. She cares as little, in fact, about who this speaker is, as she had cared about who those angels were. H.—So absorbed in her sorrow, and so utterly without hope or expectancy of such a blessing, that she speaks to the supposed stranger without recognizing him. E. Her heart was covered by so thick a cloud of sorrow, that she could not recognize him whom she yet was so earnestly seeking. And believers are often as near to Jesus as their soul is to their body; their tears and sighs, their love and longing, testify to the faith that is in their heart; and yet at times they cannot perceive him whom their soul loves and seeks. Scriver. 15,16. Woman, why weepest thou?** The first word from the mouth of the risen Lord! This is what Christ's resurrection exclaims to every troubled sinner; for therefore is he risen, that our sorrow might be turned into joy. R. B. Mary. With one word, and that word her name, the Lord awakens all the consciousness of his presence: calling her in that tone doubtless in which her soul had been so often summoned to receive divine knowledge and precious comfort. (That she turned herself seems to imply that she had not been looking full at him before.) A. Since that day when the Lord had healed her and received her among his own, she had with blessed joy often heard her name from his lips. Who but He could it be, whose cry of Mary now struck upon her heart? Who could it be but he, the Good Shepherd, who knows his sheep and is known of his—who calleth his own sheep by name and they know his voice? R. B. They that were spiritually best prepared, by affection, by earnestness, by sympathy with the spirit of his life and cross, and by love for him, had the clearest and earliest disclosures of his glorified presence. It is just so now. They that are least occupied with themselves, least engrossed with a business that is all of this world, or with a social life and its fashions that are all afar off from the simplicity of his beatitudes, they that are trying to do and bear his will in their houses, they that are busy looking after his lost sheep, they that are ready to believe more because they use the faith they have, they that repent most sorrowfully and put not their boast in anything that they do—these are the souls to which he will unveil the glory of his face, whose eyes he will touch and open that they may see more and more of his truth, and in whose hearts he will dwell, as he dwells in no temple that is made with hands. F. D. H. 17. In the very difficult words, "Touch me not," two things seem clearly implied: a solemn declaration of changed relations of intercourse with the risen Lord, and a consolatory assurance that what is prohibited now shall (in another form) be vouchsafed hereafter. E.—It meant that the day for personal, physical presence, for merely human affection, for the grasp of human tenderness, was over now. Henceforth he was to be with his people more nearly, more intimately, because in spirit. F. He allowed a physical touch to the fear of the other women and to the unbelief of Thomas; but he taught the higher spiritual truth to the unfearing, believing Mary, when he gently disallowed a similar touch to her ardent love. J. G. B.—The "Touch me not" was a prophetic protest against all the miserable forms which mistaken devotion has invented in the course of ages. De P. She would have touched him, as if he had been the same as he was before; but he was not the same, and the season for such touching was over. Another kind of touching must begin; and when his disciples shall apprehend him as he is—when they shall fully realize the spiritual glory of him who has as yet been little more than a loved companion and friend—when they shall “see” that he has gone to his Father, they shall behold him, hear him, touch him, as those who are indeed his “brethren.” W. M. “I am not risen from the dead that I may again in body walk the earth, but in order that I may ascend up to the Father. Therefore, believe that I am going to the Father, where I shall rule and reign with him forever, and bring you also out of your death and out of every sorrow. Then will ye have me with you to be truly seen and touched by you; then will ye forever enjoy an everlasting communion with me and with my Father.” Luther. Brethren. Indirectly to assure the disciples that the Lord was still truly man, and in this respect still stood on the same relations with them as before. E. —“My brethren.” Blessed Jesus, who are these? Were they not thy followers? yea, thy forsakers? How dost raise these titles with thyself? At first they were thy servants; then disciples; a little before thy death they were thy friends; now, after thy resurrection, they were thy brethren. Bp. H. A name of yet closer fellowship, a glorious, a precious name, is here given to believers—brethren of Jesus Christ. How must this brother’s greeting have comforted and refreshed the scattered disciples, so wholly unworthy of it, they who had forsaken and denied the Lord! And to all of us poor sinners also belongs this tender name of brethren, and not to the first disciples alone; for the apostle tells us we are predestinated to be conformed to the likeness of the Son of God, “that he might be the first-born among many brethren.” R. B. I ascend. His stay in his then form was to be but transient; only after his ascension could he remain permanently, and that in another form. Therefore he did not commission Mary to announce his sensible coming, but his ascension to the Father, and his subsequent revelation to them; making no mention of the intermediate and brief manifestation that was only to prepare the way for the higher and permanent one. N. The Lord does not here send word to his disciples respecting his already accomplished resurrection, but proclaims to them his speedy ascension. The disciples were to turn their thoughts toward those heavenly blessings which Christ dispenses in his kingdom; they were to see in their risen Lord the only-begotten Son of the Father and his glory. His resurrection was to be followed by no fresh dying; the risen one ascends to heaven, and lives and reigns forever. R. B. My Father and your Father: my God and your God. All the deepest of the Church fathers were wont to call attention to this, as expressly designed to distinguish between what God is to him and to us—his Father essentially, ours not so; our God essentially, his not so; his God only in connection with us; our God only in connection with him. B. Christ desires to “proclaim to his brethren,” that his passion and his rising again have obtained this for us, that his Father has also become our Father, his God also our God. The Lord himself brings into view this fruit of his resurrection, that we may now venture, as Christ’s brethren, to call God our Father with a good conscience, as Peter speaks. The other fruit of the Lord’s resurrection, namely, our resurrection, is bound up in this comforting discourse. Since God calls himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob live before him; for God is not a God of the dead, but of the living. So Christ teaches the resurrection of the dead. Here he calls God our God. Even, then, as it was impossible that Christ should be holden of death because God is his God, just so is it also impossible that we should be holden of death because God is our God—a God, not of the dead, but of the living. R. B. • Paul answers the question, “Who is he that condemneth?” by saying, “Christ hath died—yea, rather hath risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.” The death, the resurrection, the ascension, the intercession of Christ, are four great facts that should never be separated. J. C. R. M. 9. Jesus met them. The second appearance of Jesus was to the other party of women, as they returned to the city, and, perhaps, separated to find out the different apostles, to whom when assembled they related the whole of their adventure. H. M. Saying, All hail! Words of exulting congratulation to mourners weeping for the dead. His work was done, a new era had begun; death was conquered in his person; life and immortality were brought to light for the world. But what will be his joy when he returns in glory to utter a last “All hail!” to sea and land, to the graveyard of the world, to the dust of every one which has been marked by his eye, and precious to his heart! N. M. Worshipped him. By a variety of persons, and on a variety of occasions, was he worshipped upon earth, nor do we once read of his rejecting these honors; he received them without a single mark of disapprobation: on the contrary, when worship was offered to Peter, Paul, and Barnabas, they rejected it in the most pointed terms of abhorrence; nor would an angel suffer John the Divine to fall down at his feet to worship him: “See thou do it not,” says he, “for I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren the prophets: worship God!” Nares. Those institutions and movements in the world, however moral or religious their object, and however brisk their activity, seem to have no deep or strong or permanent life in them which are without this living and conscious connection with the presence and person of Christ, so as to draw their constant supplies of power from him. Those, on the other hand, however few their numbers, or scanty their treasuries, or apparently insignificant their results, which are rooted and grounded in him, animated by the daily breath of prayers to him, in their members and leaders consecrated to him personally, holding him by the feet and worshipping him—these seem to have in them a certain tranquil and immortal power for good, and to be the salt of the earth. So too with the souls of men. With whatever good intentions, honorable aims, charitable feelings, and abundant energy, they that are without this conscious connection with the living and personal Head seem like streams, however full, which run from a cistern and not from the fountain in the hills. They have all that human goodness and zeal can have without that one secret and ineffable element of Christian love, eternal and inexhaustible; and therefore, while they are never to be judged uncharitably, they are not to be trusted as we trust what Christ holds in his almighty hand and stamps with his cross. He does not say to them, “All hail!” and they do not hold him by the feet and worship him. F. D. H. The Messages by Mary and by the Women.—Christ had said to the eleven, “I leave the world and go to the Father.” To inform them that, though now risen, he had not yet ascended—gone to the Father—but that he would soon ascend, was the object of the word to Mary, “Go, say to them, I ascend.” Besides this information, it was essential that they should understand, before he showed himself, that with him this was a brief transitional period, a passage-time from the earthly and natural to the heavenly and spiritual; and that during this brief interval until his ascension, the terms of their intercourse with him, especially the old familiar personal relations, were to be changed, to accord with his own changed relations to nature and humanity. The communication of this fact was made directly to Mary Magdalene in the gentle prohibition “Touch me not,” and in the reason assigned, “For I am not yet ascended;” and it was conveyed through her indirectly to the disciples. This double message to Mary was the first, because the most important. And it was conveyed through Mary, who had neither fear of the angels, nor fear or question of the risen Saviour; through Mary, because her spiritual susceptibility and perception were signally deep and clear, as her faith was exceptionally simple and strong, and her devotion true and pure. And without demur this unfearing, discerning, trusting Mary of Magdala received and conveyed the word, and the enacted instruction, to the disciples. But these dull-minded, disheartened men needed a positive, strong assurance of the Lord’s actual resurrection; to know directly, by unquestionable testimony, fortified by sight and hearing and touch, that he was indeed risen in the same body. Hence the double message to the fearing, half-believing women. First they had a direct assurance from the angel: “Fear not—go, tell his disciples that he is risen, and goeth into Galilee!” Then, a little after, Jesus presented himself to their vision, allowed their touch, and with his own voice repeated the angel’s word, “Fear not; go tell my brethren.” And so, with their feebler faith strengthened, and fear allayed, they could, as they did, convey this double assurance of the fact of his actual resurrection in the body. Thus the significance of those two appearances of our Lord may be interpreted. Through Mary the disciples were instructed, first, that the ascension was yet to come; and second, that during the brief transition interval there would be no recurrence to the former familiarity of intercourse. Through the women they were directly and positively assured that the Master had risen from death and the grave, and lived again in the body. J. G. B. 11. Thus these heathen soldiers became the first preachers of Christ’s resurrection, and witnesses of the truth of it to the most inveterate of his enemies. But neither soldiers nor priests were affected by what the one saw or the other heard. 13. Stole him away.** It was absurd to pretend to say with any certainty what passed while they were asleep; so that this was in effect only hiring them to say that they knew nothing of the matter. D. L. 11. As idle tales, they believed them not. Nothing appears more clearly on the face of every narrative than the total want of expectation, the incredulity, the unwillingness to be convinced, which marked the disciples. Yet how often the Saviour intimated not only his death but his resurrection to his followers! But it is their doubts that make their after-faith so valuable and so satisfying to us. They were not too anxious, they were only too unready to believe. On the other hand, the enemies of Jesus attached more meaning to what he said of his approaching resurrection than his friends. W. M. How could those who were so slow to believe in the resurrection have been its inventors? And yet they did believe, and this faith in the resurrection became their lever to move the world. De P.—Within six weeks of the resurrection, that great event was the unshaken faith of every Christian; within a few years of the event the palpable historic proofs of it and the numerous testimonies of its reality—strengthened by a memorable vision vouchsafed to himself—had won assent from the acute and noble intellect of a young Pharisaic zealot and persecutor whose name was Saul. F. THE ascension itself began in the resurrection. It is in the tomb that we find the great dividing line between humiliation and exaltation; and when, on the third morning, Jesus burst the bands of death, his glorification had begun. He was, indeed, still to appear from time to time on the earth, but that was in itself no humiliation. The labor, the suffering, the sorrow, had ceased forever. W. M. That resurrection light illumines all things. It reveals to us the righteous love of God, the all-sufficiency of Christ's atonement, the certainty and glory of eternal life, and the redemption of the body new and transfigured. The day has dawned that shall never end; and in the heaven of heavens, on the right hand of God, we behold him, the God-man, as our Intercessor, Advocate, sympathizing Friend, and glorious Head. A. S. ## Section 162.—Walk to Emmaus with Two Disciples. M. 16 THEN the eleven disciples went away into Galilee. J. 1 After these things Jesus shewed himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias: 2 and on this wise shewed he himself. There were together Simon Peter, and Thomas called Didymus, and Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two 3 other of his disciples. Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing. They say unto him, We also go with thee. They went forth, and entered into a ship immediately; and that night they caught nothing. 4 But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore; but the disciples 5 knew not that it was Jesus. Then Jesus saith unto them, Children, have ye any meat? 6 They answered him, No. And he said unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find. They cast therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for 7 the multitude of fishes. Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved saith unto Peter, It is the Lord. Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fisher's 8 coat unto him (for he was naked), and did cast himself into the sea. And the other disciples came in a little ship (for they were not far from land, but as it were two hun- dred cubits) dragging the net with fishes. 9 As soon then as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid 10 thereon, and bread. Jesus saith unto them, Bring of the fish which ye have now caught. 11 Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land full of great fishes, an hundred and fifty 12 and three: and for all there were so many, yet was not the net broken. Jesus saith unto them, Come and dine. And none of the disciples durst ask him, Who art thou? 13 knowing that it was the Lord. Jesus then cometh, and taketh bread, and giveth them, 14 and fish likewise. This is now the third time that Jesus shewed himself to his disciples, after that he was risen from the dead. 15 So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord: thou knowest that I love thee. 16 He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. He saith to him again the second time, Simon son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord: thou knowest that I love 17 thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. He saith unto him the third time, Simon son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou 18 knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep. Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another 19 shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God. And when he had spoken this, he saith unto him, Follow me. 20 Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved, following (which also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee?). 21, 22 Peter seeing him, saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? Jesus saith unto 23 him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me. Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die: yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that 24 to thee? This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true. PRAISED be God, he stands ready with his help close to the sea where his servants are fishing; his voice reaches across to them from the shore, forwarding the work of their hands. But when, at the end of the world, the great draught of fishes, taken in the unbroken net of the one gospel, shall be gathered in the harbor of peace, then, at the sight of the redeemed around the throne of the Lamb, they will clearly perceive that the Lord had indeed no need of their labor; and will adore the graciousness of his free love, which has so ordered it, that lost sinners are to be turned to righteousness by means of pardoned sinners. The personal love which exists between the believing soul and the Saviour is the deep working of the Holy Spirit, of which no one knows anything save the soul which experiences it; and he who is favored with the blessed assurance of loving with true actual love him who is God's and Mary's Son, who though in heaven is yet infinitely near to faith; he who embraces him and lays himself on his breast, crying, "My Lord Jesus!"—such a one rejoices with trembling, and rests his sure comfort on this, that the Lord knows what is the mind of the Spirit, when the Spirit's unutterable "groanings" are the only language we can employ. R. B. Lovest thou me? All down through time, the question, in various ways, is presented to living souls. The human race is, and will be, divided by that one test. It will be uttered again from the throne of judgment, that throne high and white, before which a departed world shall pass to his right hand and his left. That throne will be occupied by the resplendent form of incarnate Love, and the destiny of every man will be—must be—as are his affinities in regard to Him. He that loveth is of God; and they who are like God shall be gathered to his bosom. W. A. THE gospels have been brought to a fit and, it seems, an intended conclusion, at the end of the twentieth chapter of John; but yet another chapter is added, as if dictated by some after-thought, which in its effect links the whole gospel record to the book of Acts which succeeds it. The miracle which had already foreshadowed the work of the fishers of men is repeated, but with altered circumstances, typical of the change which was at hand. For now the Lord is no longer with them in the ship, but stands dimly seen upon the shore; yet from thence issues his directions, and shows the presence of his power working with them in their seemingly lonely toil. Then the charge is left to feed his sheep, and lastly the future destinies of the two chief apostles are suffered to be faintly seen. T. D. B. Third appearance of Jesus to the apostles (seven of them) by the Lake of Galilee—the seventh in all. Their meeting with Jesus in the mountain he had appointed them must have been subsequent to that morning by the Lake of Galilee, of which John has given us so full and touching an account. S.  Sea of Tiberias. Bethsaida beach recalled bright pictures of our Saviour's life. Here was the cradle of Christianity, and years afterward here again was "the third time that Jesus showed himself to his disciples after that he was risen from the dead." Almost the same persons are this time on the shore again: Peter, and Thomas, and Nathanael, and James, and John; but only "that disciple whom Jesus loved" could at first recognize his Lord. Peter, who had before cast himself into the same sea to go to Jesus, now did so again; but the Lord now thrice called him "Simon," as if the unstable one had by his three-fold denial lost his better title. J. M. He would recall to the memory of his disciples all that they had witnessed in the early days of his ministry. Above all he would stir the hearts of Peter and James and John, by saying some of his last things to them, at the place where he had first called them to leave their boats and nets, to follow him, and to become fishers of men. J. C. R. 1. There is a significance to be found in the words, “Jesus showed,” or manifested, “himself,” that his body after the resurrection was only visible by a distinct act of his will. From that time the disciples did not, as before, see Jesus, but Jesus appeared unto or was seen by them. The language is changed, and in language of this kind all his appearances after the resurrection are related. It is the same with angels, and all heavenly manifestations: men do not see them, as though it lay in their will to do so or not; such language would be inappropriate: but they appear to men; are only visible to those for whose sakes they are vouchsafed, and to whom they are willing to show themselves. T. He appears in such a manner as to prove to them most conclusively that he is their risen Lord, yet with an air of strangeness about him which inspires them with awe, and which admonishes them that former familiar fellowship is not to be renewed. N. C. B. 3. That night they caught nothing. Three years before, in the same place, Simon Peter and his companions had also labored a whole night and taken nothing. 5. Children. He calls them by the tender name of children; they were his brethren, his friends, his dear children. He is indeed called “the Everlasting Father.” 6. This time the net did not break, but came whole to land, although they had not at hand the crew of a second ship to help them to draw. R. B. On both occasions the miraculous success was given after a night of disappointment. In the former case, there was no record of the fish; in this they were carefully counted. Then the fish were taken into the boats on the lake; now they are drawn at once to the shore. Then the net was in danger of breaking; here there was no sign of any such weakness manifested. After the first miracle they were called to be fishers of men; after the second, they are invited to eat with Christ. W. T. Multitude of fishes. The correspondence of this account with the former fishing is very remarkable, as is their entire distinctness. The disciples must have been powerfully reminded of that; and after the “fishers of men” of the former, the whole could not but bear to them a spiritual meaning in reference to their apostolic commission: their powerlessness without Christ, their success when they let down the net at his word. A. 7. That disciple whom Jesus loved. This is John’s modest way throughout his gospel: he hides himself whenever he can; and when he must refer to himself at all, he leaves out the name. The noblest spirits are the meekest. Those who have most in them that is worth showing are least anxious to show it. This best-beloved apostle is always thinking of his Saviour, not of himself. That is one reason why he is the best-beloved. And so, although he is to have all Christendom, in all ages, for his vast and admiring audience, he is altogether unconscious and natural in his narrative, as we all are when we are describing something because of the feeling and impression in ourselves, and not trying to produce an effect for ourselves. F. D. H. Girt his fisher’s coat. In this hot climate it is common to fish with nothing but a sort of shawl or napkin tied round the waist. The fisher’s coat which he girt about him was the short ‘abdyeh which they now wear, and which they very often lay aside while fishing. They can doff and don it in a moment. When worn, it is girt tight about the loins with the zunnar, and Peter did this when hastening to meet the Lord. W. M. T. Five fishermen came to my camp in their boat by invitation, and were most courteous and intelligent in their talk. All wore the same kind of dress—a cloak, or scarf (the “fisher’s coat”), and below it a short kilt. When a man had only this latter garment on, he was said to be “naked.” J. M.—In all the languages of the East a person is said to be “naked” when he is simply divested of his outer garments. Van Lennep. Both apostles come out in their proper characters: he of the eagle eye first detects the presence of the Beloved, and Peter, the foremost in act, as John is profoundest in speculation, unable to wait till the ship should be brought to land, throws himself into the sea that he may find himself the sooner at the feet of his Lord. 10. As that large capture of fish was to them the pledge and promise of a labor that should not be in vain, so the meal, when the labor was done, a meal of the Lord’s own preparing, and upon the shore, was the symbol of the great festival in heaven with which, after their earthly toil was over, he would refresh his servants, when he should cause them to sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom. And as they were bidden to bring of their fish to that meal, so should the souls which they had taken for life help and contribute to their gladness then. And after the Lord has opened the eyes of his apostles to the greatness of their future work, and given to them in type a prophetic glimpse both of their successful labor and their abundant reward, he declares to them the conditions both of accomplishing this work and inheriting this reward. Love to Christ, and the unreserved yielding up of self to God—these were the sole conditions. T. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/butler/