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WORKS BY THE REV. JOHN CUMMING, D.D.
Minister of the Scottish National Church, Crown Court,
Covent Garden.
THE CHURCH BEFORE THE ELOOD.
New Edition, handsomely bound and gilt, in /cap. 8vo.
price 9s.
" For a well-considered, and at the same time eloquent exhibition of the
fundamental principles deduced from the history of primeval humanity, we
confidently refer the reader to the present work, with a full conviction that he will
not consult it in vain. In a series of chapters which are marked by an easy
flowing style, these questions are incidentally discussed with a force and clearness
that cannot but be effectual in arming many with efficient arguments against an
insinuating infidelity, and in building them up in their holy faith." — Morning
Herald.
" The result of deep thought and reading of a most varied character. "We do
not, in the ' Church before the-Flood,' miss any of the earnest as well as elegant
rhetoric by which Dr. Cumming's previous volumes are distinguished. At the
same time many deep and interesting problems are treated in a manner that
brings them within reach of numerous minds and degrees of capacity."— The
Britannia.
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volume may be read with profit by all professing Christians." — Church and State
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" A series of Lectures on the hook of Genesis, in which the chief events recorded
*n that interesting portion of holy writ are explained and commented upon in
Dr. Cumming's usual clear and attractive style. We have derived much
pleasure from the perusal of the Book, and we have no doubt that all its readers
will be equally gratified, and, we trust, instructed." — Morning Advertiser.
" The truly Catholic spirit pervades every one of its pages. A large amount
of highly poetical imagery will, as usual, be met with in the elucidation of the
learned Doctor's very difficult subject ; but this only serves to supply inducements
to the general reader to persevere, to whom eloquence may he made useful, under
Providence, to his best interests." — Bell's Messenger.
"This last publication is well fitted to sustain the high reputation of its author.
As the title indicates, it comprises all the leading events in the course of the
sacred narrative, which bore on the early development'of the purposes of divine
grace. It is formed somewhat on the plan of Jonathan Edwards' History of
Redemption. But the filling up is entirely Dr. Cumming's, and that is marked
by all that variety and richness of illustration, as well as those attractive elegances
of style, which characterise all the works of this popular author. There is one
excellence which distinguishes this volume, and, in our opinion, stamps it with
peculiar interest and value, and that is, that while it traverses ground on which
many able writers have recently shed the lights of archaeological inquiry, oriental
illustration, and theological learning, Dr. Cumming has adapted the strain of
his exposition to the present state of religious opinion — meeting the new and
Proteus forms which infidelity and error have assumed in our time. The volume
is learned, eloquent, and withal thoroughly pervaded by a healthy evangelical
spirit. We heartily commend this work to the attention of our readers."—
Glasgow Constitutional.
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DR. GUMMING ON THE TESTAMENT.
SABBATH EVENING READINGS ON
ST. MATTHEW;
By the Rev. John Cumming, D.D.
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PREFACE.
The first volume of these Sabbath Evening Readings is now
before the public. The Author is truly thankful at hearing of
the very extensive demand for the Weekly Numbers of which it
is composed. He has made additions to the expositions larger
and more numerous than he first intended, but these are calcu-
lated, he believes, to impart additional instruction, interest, and
light.
These comments are slightly critical, but sufficiently explana-
tory of difficult passages, to enable the ordinary reader to ascer-
tain with the least possible obstruction the mind of the Spirit.
They may prove useful to schools, Scripture readers, families far
off from an edifying and instructive ministry, to travellers, and
many others, who have neither time, nor talent, nor taste, to in-
vestigate learned and elaborate works. The reason why these
expositions, and those that will follow, appear in numbers, is the
Author's desire to reach and benefit the poor.
IN THE SAME SERIES.
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" A work which well proves that the author can be eloquent upon other
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present. There are some truly eloquent and graceful passages in the little
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" A work not of great magnitude, but of great interest. This work will
amply repay perusal. Notwithstanding occasional evidences of rapid com-
position, it contains many instances of great beauty of thought." — Church of
Scotland Review.
" A little volume which abounds in beauties both of thought, style, and
illustration." — The Church Journal.
"Eloquent, demonstrative, and useful." — Wesleyan Methodist Magazine.
LECTURES AT EXETER HALL.
THE ROMISH CHURCH A DUMB CHURCH;
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CANON LAW; or, the Canonical Punishment
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" It has been the design of the author, in these Lectures,
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they were not mere feats of power, or proofs of Divine
beneficence, but installations of the future age j — specimens
on a smaller scale of what will be realized when the pre-
diction of the last two chapters of the Apocalypse shall
have become actualized in full and lasting fact."
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extensive circulation." — Bell's Messenger.
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unceasingly dissatisfied with that barren view which would restrict
the notion of a miracle to a deviation from the course of nature.
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few were then afraid that the Author might be led into rash and questionable
theories in investigating a subject confessedly beset with difficulties ; but, by
the blessing of God, and the exercise of caution and prayerful study, all has
ended more than satisfactorily. The unprecedentedly large masses of persons of
every denomination, and of no denomination at all, who overflowed the spacious
hall in which they were delivered, and the growing attention excited in the
minds of these audiences, and the saving and very striking impressions made on
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and tokens that call for humble gratitude to God.
" Numerous requests were made for their publication. A short-hand writer
was therefore engaged, who took a verbatim report of every Lecture. These
reports the Author has now corrected ; and trusts that the work will be found a
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prayer that these, and all his labours, may redound to the glory of God, and the
good of souls."
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CONTENTS.
FALLEN HUMANITY.
SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS.
THE PLACE OF SAFETY.
THE DEATH OF CHRIST THE
LIFE OF HIS PEOPLE.
THE TWO CHARACTERS.
THE ONLY SOURCE OF SUCCESS.
ROYAL RESPONSIBILITY AND
REWARD.
POSTHUMOUS INFLUENCE.
THE RIVER OF GOD.
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FORESHADOWS.
VOL. I.
New Edition, Uniform,
LECTURES ON THE PARABLES;
/nrming tip famir Mnm
OF
FORESHADOWS.
BY THE REV. J. GUMMING, D. D.
FRONTISPIECE
Water made Wine.
P. 1.
FORESHADOWS;
LECTURES ON OUR LORD'S MIRACLES,
i&msis nf ttjE 3gi to Cmnr.
THE REV. JOHN'CUMMING, D. D.
MINISTER OP THE SCOTCH NATIONAL CHURCH,
CROWN COURT, COVENT GARDEN.
AUTHOR OF "APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES," "LECTURES ON DANIEL," ETC.
Neto IStntton, tot'tfj illustration*.
LONDON:
ARTHUR HALL, VIRTUE, AND CO.,
25, PATERNOSTER ROW.
SOLD BY
J. F. SHAW, SOUTHAMPTON ROW, RUSSELL SQUARE.
PATON AND RITCHIE; J. MENZIES, EDINBURGH.
JOHN ROBERTSON, DUBLIN.
1853.
JOHN CHILDS AND SON, BUNGAY
PREFACE
TO THE SIXTH THOUSAND.
This, and the other volume, forming what the
author has called " Foreshadows," or hints
and intimations drawn from the Parables and
Miracles of the things of the age to come,
were not in their earliest editions as correct
in all respects as so important a subject ne-
cessarily demands. The author has therefore
carefully examined the whole contents of these
two volumes, and has introduced many new and
useful corrections and additions. He has also
added to the work on the Parables several
subjects omitted in former editions, such as
" The Lost Sheep," " The Prodigal Son," and
others. Some of the incidents in these volumes
VI PREFACE.
have also been very beautifully illustrated by
wood engravings of great artistic excellence,
which will be found in their proper places.
Altogether the author thinks his work will now
prove as instructive and useful to his readers as
it has been interesting to himself.
September, 1853.
CONTENTS.
LECTURE PAGE
I. WATER MADE WINE .... 1
TL THE nobleman's SICK SON . . 34
III. THE SOLDIER'S SICK SERVANT . . 68
IV. THE DISCIPLES IN THE STORM . 97
V. THE SORROWING SISTERS . . .130
VI. THE LORD AND GIVER OF LIFE . 159
VII. THE GREAT TYPICAL DISEASE . .188
VOL LONELY THANKFULNESS . . . 215
IX. MATERNAL LOVE . . . .241
X. THE CALMER OF THE STORM . . 266
XI. BETHESDA AND ITS BLESSINGS . . 294
XH. THE FISHERMEN .... 326
Xin. NATURE SITTING AT THE FEET OF JESUS 356
XIV. NATURE SITTING AT THE FEET OF JESUS 385
Vlll CONTENTS.
LECTURE PAGE
XV. THE RESTORED SON . . . .413
XVI. THE RESTORED DAUGHTER . . 438
XVn. CREATIVE GOODNESS . . . 462
XVIII. THE BLIND MAN .... 490
XIX. THE WITHERED HAND . . .524
XX. ELOQUENT NATURE . . . 551
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
WATER MADE WINE .
THE NOBLEMAN'S SICK SON .
THE DISCIPLES IN THE STORM .
THE SORROWING SISTERS
BETHESDA AND ITS BLESSINGS .
THE FISHERMEN .
THE RESTORED SON .
ELOQUENT NATURE
PAGE
Frontispiece
. 34
97
. 130
294
. .326
413
. 551
LECTURES.
LECTUBE I.
WATER MADE WINE.
And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee ,
and the mother of Jesus was there : and both Jesus was called,
and his disciples, to the marriage. And when they wanted
wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine.
Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee ?
mine hour is not yet come. His mother saith unto the serv-
ants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. And there were
set there six waterpots of stone, after the manner of the pu-
rifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece.
Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And
they filled them up to the brim. And he saith unto them.
Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And
they bare it. When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water
that was made wine, and knew not whence it was : (but the
servants which drew the water knew;) the governor of the
feast called the bridegroom, and saith unto him, Every man
at the beginning doth set forth good wine ; and when men
have well drunk, then that which is worse : but thou hast
kept the good wine until now. This begirming of miracles
did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory ;
and his disciples believed on him. — John ii. 1 — 11.
I have undertaken this series of lectures, on the
miracles ■wrought bv our Lord. Each of these is
2 FORESHADOWS.
full of instruction. I have selected the present,
because it is the first, and not on any other
ground, or because of any peculiar appropriate-
ness in it.
I will preface each of my lectures by some in-
troductory remarks on some branch of the evi-
dence that may be adduced from the miracles.
In my first I will give a brief exposition of what
is meant by a miracle, and notice how a miracle
is defined and designated throughout the word
of God.
There are three great expressions by which
miracles are designated — the first, a " miracle,"
or "wonder;" the second, a "sign;" and the
third, a " power." Very often our translation
renders the same original word, tvvafiet?, in the
plural — works, powers, miracles ; but this is a
rather loose way of translating it : each word is
perfectly clear and well defined, wherever it is
employed. The first epithet is that of " won-
der." This presents the miracle in one of
its aspects, but in its weakest and poorest aspect,
and implies simply the impression which the
performance of a miracle may make upon the
senses of him that sees it. It merely implies that,
by the act just witnessed, wonder, awe, amaze-
WATER MADE WINE. 3
ment is created; all that it is designed in this cha-
racter to do is to break the slumber of the senses,
to disturb the continuity of apathy, and to rouse
man to a perception of a presence greater and
mightier than himself. Hence, the very first
result of the performance of a miracle is, the ar-
rest of the attention, the awakening of the thought
of those that are present, and in the midst of
whom the miracle is done.
The second name given to a miracle is a higher
and more expressive one — a " sign." All signs
are not miracles, but all miracles are signs. A
sign means a substance. Wherever we say
there is a sign, we imply that there is something
that is signified. When, therefore, a miracle is
performed, it is, in this light, a sign of the pre-
sence of God. As a wonder, it startles ; as a
sign, it teaches ; the one strikes, the other speaks ;
and hence, a miracle is not only startling to the
senses, but it is significant and instructive to the
mind : in other words, it not only creates awe,
amazement, arrest, but it conveys meaning and
instruction, the chiefest point of which is, that
men may here trace the finger, the foot-prints,
and the marks of Deity.
The third name by which a miracle is known
B 2
4 FORESHADOWS.
in Scripture is, a " power." The word is some-
times rendered " works/' sometimes " mighty
works," and sometimes it is rendered " powers ;"
and it is so called, because a miracle is the ma-
nifestation of power ; not necessarily of a greater
power than is already manifested in creation, as
I shall explain, but the manifestation of that
power in a new formula, in an unexpected shape,
in a way in which we have not seen it so mani-
fested before, and which, therefore, is more
completely fitted to arrest the mind.
Let me show you how these three names can
be applied to the miracle which I have now
read. First, I said a miracle is called a wonder.
At the tenth verse of this chapter, we read of the
sense of wonder in the mind of the chief person
at the feast. " And he saith, Every man at the
beginning doth set forth good wine ; and when
men have well drunk, then that which is worse :
but thou hast kept the good wine until now."
" There is some mysterious change," he says ;
" this is a new phenomenon ; I am astonished,
surprised ; something more than usual is here."
The " power " of the miracle was felt when that
which was water blushed into wine, as the Lord
looked upon it. The miracle was also a " sign,"
WATER MADE WINE. 5
for it was so full a manifestation of the glory of
Jesus, that it is said, " His disciples believed on
him." You have thus the three characteristics
of a miracle embodied in that, the account of
which I have now read.
Now a miracle itself is not a mere action, or a
mere operation of nature, and yet it need not
imply any more power than is already put forth
in creation. For instance, in casting a handful
of wheat into the soil, and making it grow up
till it produces two or three bushels, there is as
much power of God manifested as there is in
making a few loaves grow into a few thousand.
There is the same power exerted in making a
seed cast into the soil grow up into many seeds,
as there is in making one loaf grow into many
loaves. The difference between what we call a
natural thing and what God pronounces a mira-
culous thing, is not so much the extent of power
that is manifested, as the manner of the manifest-
ation of that power. Thus we read in the Epistle
to the Romans, that the invisible things of God
" are clearly seen, being understood by the things
that are made, even his eternal power and God-
head." So that all creation, we are told, in its
action, as clearly intimates and proves the power
FORESHADOWS.
of God as any miracle, strictly and properly so
called, could prove it. But where is the dif-
ference, you ask, between a miracle and the
natural laws, as they are called, or operations of
nature ? I answer, one difference arises from the
new and strange formula, shape, mode, or man-
ner in which that power is put forth. Another
difference arises from the fact, that the miracle of
the seed cast into the earth growing into many
bushels, is a miracle occurring every year, and
witnessed by every individual upon earth ; but
the miracle of one loaf being multiplied into ten,
twelve, or twenty, is a thing that occurred only
once, and was witnessed by a few ; and to that
few only, and by their testimony to others, is
that miracle addressed. The water coming from
the clouds, and descending from springs and
rocks, proves abundantly the power of God-
That the ocean should be a mighty cistern, that
the sand and the rocks of the earth should con-
stitute so many perfect filters, that the water
should be constantly supplied through these for
us to drink, that the steam which evaporates from
the sea should shape itself into clouds, and meet-
ing with cold currents of air, should become
condensed, and fall in the shape of prolific and
WATER MADE WINE. 7
fertilizing showers ; all this is an evidence of the
power of God — as great evidence of that power
as one conld possibly have. But the water
turned into wine is not, as I have said, the
manifestation of a greater power, bnt it is the
manifestation of the same power, relieving the
monotony which has dulled the impressiveness
of the former ; lifting, as it were, the veil behind
which God works, enabling us to see, not dead
laws which the philosopher owns, but a living
hand put forth on the springs of nature, control-
ling, originating, and creating all. Thus, then,
the water from the clouds, falling upon the soil,
ascending the trunk of the vine, and ultimately
issuing in grapes, and those grapes passing into
wine, is one process, and in every stage of this
process God's power is manifested ; but when
God turns water into wine, all that he does dif-
ferently is to shorten the process. The ordinary
process, is that the water in the sea should rise
into the cloud, then fall from the cloud in co-
pious showers, give refreshment to the vine and
fertility to the earth, develop itself in sap, in
blossom, in grapes, in fermentation, in wine —
this is the long process ; the short process is,
the water turning into wine at Christ's word;
8 FORESHADOWS.
but it is equally Christ in both; it is equally
Divine power in both, only we have got so
accustomed to the long process, that we say
it is the natural thing, and are so little accus-
tomed to the short process, that the senses are
startled and the mind is awakened. The differ-
ence is here too — that in the one case we see a
succession of continuous causes, and in the other
we see the actor come forth himself, lay aside
the machinery by which he has acted heretofore,
and in one word say, " Let this water be wine;"
and, recognising its Creator and its God, it be-
comes so.
In the next place, a miracle is not, as some
have tried to show, contrary to nature. Never
accept this definition of it, because, as I shall
show you in subsequent lectures, Strauss, one of
the most subtle and most able infidels of modern
times, (but who, I rejoice to say, has been re-
plied to by his own countrymen, JSTeander, Tho-
lock, and many others whose genius and piety
are unquestionable,) has laid hold of this, and
tried to do great mischief by it. A miracle is
not a thing against nature, but something above
and beyond what we call nature. For instance,
when we read of our Lord's healing the sick, and
WATER MADE WINE. 9
in other instances raising the dead, we hear it
said this is contrary to nature. It is no such
thing. We call it contrary to nature, because
we think that sickness is natural. Sickness is not
natural ; it is an unnatural thing ; it is a discord
in a glorious harmony ; it is a blot upon the fair
creation ; it is most unnatural ; and was never
meant originally to be. When we see our Lord
raising the dead, we say it is unnatural ; yet it is
not so, because death is the unnatural thing, and
the natural thing is putting an end to death, and
bringing back everlasting and glorious life.
Thus, then, the healing of the sick and the
quickening of the dead are not contrary to na-
ture, but the perfection of nature ; it is the
bringing back of nature to her pristine state ; it
is restoring the primeval harmony ; it is the
evidence of ancient happiness, and the augury of
future ; it is the demonstration to us that all the
prophecies that describe the glorious paradise
that is to be are possibilities : and hence, every
miracle of our Lord was a flower snatched from
the paradise that is to be, a tone of the everlast-
ing jubilee sounding in the depths of the human
heart; a specimen of that new Genesis, under
which there shall be no more sickness, nor sor-
10 FORESHADOWS.
row3 nor trial, but wherein former tilings shall
have passed away, and all things shall be made
new. Therefore a miracle is not contrary to
nature, but it is the expansion, the perfection,
the ennobling of nature, it brings nature back to
what it was. And that teaches us what I think
I ought to impress, that we ought never to be
satisfied with this world, as if it were what it was
meant to be ; it is all out of course ; and it al-
ways seems to me, therefore, that the physician
is carrying forward, as it were, the work that
Christ does perfectly ; that he is here as a testi-
mony to us, that the great Physician will one day
do perfectly what his earthly agent does imper-
fectly. And so with every other curative pro-
cess that goes on ; it is an augury and foretaste
of the perfection that will be ; it is a testimony
that nature has gone wrong, and an earnest that
nature will yet be put right by nature's Lord.
But besides all this, a miracle is something
more ; it is an addition of a new and a nobler law
to the law that previously was ; it is not the de-
struction of any existing law, but it is super-
adding to that law a more perfect and glorious
one. Thus, when I raise my arm, the power of
gravitation ought to make that arm instantly
WATER MADE WINE. 11
fall ; but when I keep that arm up it is not by
the destruction of the law of gravitation, but it
is the superadding of a higher law, the great law
of life. So, we can conceive that when Christ
does a miracle, it is not the extinction of that
which is really a right law, but it is the bringing
from heaven a nobler law, to be superadded to,
and render more glorious, the law that is. I
will not dwell longer upon this subject at pre-
sent, but reserve a portion of my remarks upon
it for next lecture. I proceed, therefore, at
present to unfold, the illustration and the in-
stance of what I have said in that beautiful
miracle, the first that Jesus performed, in Cana
of Galilee.
Before I enter upon this miracle clause by
clause, let me notice how graciously Christ be-
gins his career of miracles and mercies. The
day begins, not with a burst of meridian splen-
dour, but its dawn peeps from behind the hills,
tinges the sea with its beautiful and rosy
colours, and then shines more and more " unto
the perfect day." So rose softly, beautifully,
and progressively the Sun of righteousness.
His first miracle was not a miracle of tremen-
dous power, but one of quiet and gentle be-
12 FORESHADOWS.
neficence. The Saviour's first miracle dawned
in the form of a nuptial benediction upon a
young couple, beginning the journey, and about
to attempt the battle of life. He heightened do-
mestic joys before he went forth to mitigate
domestic sorrows. He began rejoicing with
them that do rejoice before he went on his pil-
grimage to " weep with them that weep." Jesus
sympathized first with the happy before he went
forth to succour the miserable and the unhappy.
And who was it that so sympathized ? Who was
it that had a heart thus opened to the softest and
most responsive sympathies ? He on whose soul
there pressed the load of a world's transgressions.
He who saw a long and rugged road before him,
and at the end of that road the cross to which he
should be nailed. He whose spirit was thus
heavy with the prospect of coming agony,
could yet pause in that rough road, and step
aside to that little cottage in that sequestered
hamlet, to show that whilst he could expiate a
world's sins, he would recognise the remains of
Eden happiness and Eden bliss even in the
humblest and poorest of mankind. And it is at
such a time, let me add, such a time of happiness
and joy, as that which is described at the mar-
WATER MADE WINE. 13
riage feast of Cana, that we need the presence of
our Lord. Hence I must correct a very com-
mon misapprehension. When we are placed in
affliction, or trial, when we have lost the near
and the dear, or when our property has been
swept away, at such a time we are very willing
to say, " This is God's doing ; " but is it not
strange, when joyful things come, and bounding
hearts testify that they have come, when pros-
perity sheds its splendours upon us, and hope
draws us forward to scenes of increasing hap-
piness, that we then think " this is our own
doing " ? If we are in affliction, we begin to
pray, I speak of Christians, but strange that in
prosperity we should never think of beginning
to praise. Does it not indicate the original sin
of our hearts, that we associate God and wrath
together, instead of associating God with every
thing that is beautiful and holy, beneficent and
bright? "We come to think Christianity is a
capital thing for burials, but that it will do
bridals no good at all ; we come to suppose that
the gospel is most appropriate when we weep,
but that it is not fit to be put in the same cate-
gory with rejoicing. My dear friends, you mis-
take it ; it sweetens and sanctifies, not saddens,
14 FORESHADOWS.
the happiest ; and it sustains, and cheers, and
strengthens the sorrowful and the suffering. It
was more needed at the marriage -feast of Cana
in Galilee than it was at the death-bed of
Lazarus. It is as much needed to sweeten and
to sanctify our joys as it is to mitigate and
diminish our sufferings and our sorrows. Let
us then ask the presence of a Saviour at sick-
beds and funerals, but let us also ask the pre-
sence of a Saviour at marriages and at festivals :
let us pray that he may be present when the
cup is empty, or filled with gall ; or when the
cup is full and overflows, and the trembling
hand can scarcely hold it steadily.
I notice in this parable, that our Lord came
not to destroy society, but to descend into its
depths, and sweeten, and cement, and sanctify
it. He came not like the Goth to raze, or like
the Socialist and the Communist to disorganize,
but, like the Christianity of which he is the
Alpha and the Omega, to illuminate, to in-
spire, and to sanctify. He did not come to
build in the wilderness a huge convent for all
Christians to withdraw from the world and dwell
in, but he did better ; he came to uphold, to
sanctify, and sweeten human life, human joy, and
WATER MADE WINE. 15
human sorrow; lie came, not to put an end to
common life, but he came to bring the gospel
into its hidden recesses and its deepest depths,
to make all its paths beautiful, all its voices
harmony. Christianity does not call upon you
who are tradesmen to shut up your shops, but to
be Christian shopmen ; it does not call upon you
not to marry, but to marry in the Lord ; nor to
lay aside your titles, as a recent denomination
does, but to be Christian peers and peeresses ; it
does not call upon you to detach yourselves from
society, in order to avoid its evil, but to go into
the midst of society, and meet its hostility, mas-
ter its evils, and make it reflect the glory, the
beneficence, and the goodness of God. Hence,
the first act of the ministry of Jesus was not
isolation from society, but going right into the
heart of society, beginning at its root and centre,
in order to bless, to beautify, and make it good.
We gather, too, from this parable, that our
Lord (and this is perhaps cne of the most remark-
able proofs of his prescience, or, in other words,
of his Divinity) had, in many things that he said
and did, an ulterior reference. Thus what he
said about the virgin Mary, as I will explain to
you, had a clear ulterior, practical reference. So
16 FORESHADOWS.
had also the fact that his first miracle was per-
formed at a wedding. He knew that a section
of his professing church would rise which would
say that marriage is prohibited in some, and that
celibacy is a holier, purer, and nobler state.
All this is destroyed, neutralized, swept away,
by the fact that the marriage instituted in Para-
dise has been reconsecrated in Cana of Galilee.
I allege, therefore, that there is not a holier
thing on earth than the domestic roof, and there
is not a more divine nook of humanity than a
Christian family.
Mary introduces the miracle which Jesus was
about to perform by the simple remark, " They
have no wine." We read that " there was a mar-
riage in Cana of Galilee ; and the mother of
Jesus was there : and both Jesus was called, and
his disciples, to the marriage. And when they
wanted wine, [or, literally translated, " when the
wine began to fail," ] the mother of Jesus saith
unto him, They have no wine."
Perhaps I should explain that Cana of Galilee
was a few miles north-east of Nazareth, a place
that was most familiar to our Lord, and situated
between Nazareth and the Lake or Sea of Gen-
nesareth. It is described bv a modern traveller
WATER MADE WINE. 17
(the site of it being perfectly well ascertained,
and even its name retained) as a pretty Turkish
village, gracefully situated on two sides of a hol-
low of fertile land, with surrounding hills, and
covered with oaks and olive trees. It is still a
small village, but the mosque is there instead of
the Christian temple.
Mary states then the fact which led to the per-
formance of this miracle : " They have no wine."
Some have been anxious to ascertain why she
said so. It has been suggested that the couple
that were married were Mary's own immediate
relatives, and that she felt for their poverty.
The virgin Mary was a poor sinner by nature,
and became a saint, not by the fact that she was
the mother of the Lord's humanity, but by the
fact that she was a subject of the sanctifying
power of the Holy Spirit of God. Mary had
the pride of humanity, the vanity of a weak wo-
man, and she thought and felt that poverty was
a shame, and that wherever there was poverty,
there, if possible, it should be hidden. And yet
the holy gospel teaches us that poverty is beau-
tiful, that the gospel came first to the poor ; and
certainly the Sun of righteousness, like the sun
in the firmament, sends his beams into the case-
18 FORESHADOWS.
ment of the poor man's cottage as fully as into
the oriel- window of the great man's hall. Mary
fancied poverty was a shame, and she says to the
Saviour, " They have no wine." Perhaps, too,
she meant by that, " we had better not stop ; the
wine they have is so little, it will not serve the
company that are already come, and perhaps we
had better retire, and not draw upon that which
is already altogether insufficient." At all events,
it is plain that it was a sense of poverty that
caused Mary to make the remark.
Notice our Lord's reply : " Woman, what
have I do with thee?" The Roman Catholic
church has exhausted all its ingenuity and talent,
and has written much, in order to show that this
does not mean what it means. And many other
divines have imitated the Roman Catholic church
in this respect with other parts of the Bible. It
is plain that in the answer of our Lord there
was no disrespect. The word u woman," in
fact, in ancient Greek, yvvai, is equivalent to
" lady." To prove this, you have only to read
the words used on the cross, " Woman, behold
thy son ;" an expression of respect mingled with
affection. The words " what have I to do with
thee?" seem to us Protestants, when we read
WATER MADE WINE. 19
our Protestant Bibles, to denote that Jesus had
required no partnership in his sufferings, and
could have no partnership in the expressions of
his mighty power. But the Roman Catholic
church has translated it, " Woman, what is to
thee, and to me ? " which is utterly unintelligible ;
it conveys no meaning at all. The Greek words
are, t« epol ical aol (what to me, and to thee) ?
and every one who knows the elements of the
Greek grammar, knows that this is an idiom,
that, like all other idioms, it has its peculiar sig-
nification, and that literally translated into our
tongue, it means, " What have I to do with
thee ?" or, " What hast thou to do with me?"
Among other passages in which the same words
occur, I may name Judges xi. 12 ; 1 Kings xvii.
18 ; 2 Kings ix. 18 ; Mark v. 7. I might enu-
merate ten different parts of the Bible, speaking
of the Septuagint version of the Old Testament
and the Greek New Testament, in which the
words T6 ejuol ical aol occur ; five times in the
singular, and in the plural five times more. I
have looked at every one of these instances in
the Roman Catholic Bible, and I find that nine
times the words are translated exactly as we
translate them, but in the tenth instance (John
c 2
20 FORESHADOWS.
ii. 4) they are rendered, " What is to thee, and
to me?" Certainly this looks suspicious — that
the Roman Catholic church should pursue the
same interpretation which we adopt in nine cases,
and only in the tenth should deviate, and assume
a new and strange translation. Can we be called
uncharitable, if we suspect that she felt that, as
she would not bring her worship up to the height
of God's word, she would dare, in her awful
blindness, to bring down God's word to the level
of her worship.
It is plain to us, then, that our Lord here
taught a very great lesson — that Mary had no
partnership in his glory, nor might have any
share in his extraordinary sorrow ; that even the
tears of a weeping mother might not mingle with
the shed blood of a dying and atoning Son ; that
he must tread the wine-press alone, and that not
even a mother must be with him to participate in
his agony, or to lay claim to a single gleam of
that glory which exclusively belongs to him.
Does not this seem prophetic ? Does it not seem
to imply that some portion of his church would
rise in which Ave Marias should supersede the
more glorious ascription, " Abba, Father," and
the intercession of a glorified saint should be
WATER MADE WINE. £1
made to take the place of the intercession of the
glorious and the almighty Son ? I will give you
a remarkable instance of this. The present pope
of Rome has issued, on the subject of the imma-
culate conception, an encyclical letter from
Gaeta, where he was lately a prisoner and an
exile. To show how true is the Apocalyptic
description, " They repented not of their sins
and their blasphemies/' I will read what the
present pope has written, and what was read
in the course of 1849 in every Roman Catho-
lic church throughout the world. " We also
(says Pope Pius IX.) repose all confidence in
this — that the blessed Virgin, who has been
raised by the greatness of her merits above the
choirs of angels up to the throne of God, and
has crushed, under the foot of her Son, (the head
of the old serpent,) and who, placed between
Christ and the church, fall of grace and sweet-
ness, has ever rescued the Christian people
from the greatest calamity, from the snares and
attacks of all her enemies, taking pity on us with
that immense tenderness which is the habitual
outpouring of her maternal heart, to drive away
from us, by her instant and all-powerful pro-
tection before God, the sad and lamentable mis-
22 FORESHADOWS.
fortunes, the cruel anguish, the pains and anxie-
ties which we suffer, and turn aside the scourges
of Divine wrath which afflict us by reason of our
sins, to oppose and divert the frightful streams
of evil with which the church is assailed on all
sides." The pope continues to say, " You know
perfectly well, venerable brethren, [addressing
the archbishops, bishops, and prelates of the
Romish church throughout the world,] that the
foundation of our confidence is in the most holy
Virgin, since it is in her that God has placed
the plenitude of all good, in such sort, that if
there be in us any hope, if there be any spiritual
health, we know that it is from her we receive
it, because such is the will of Him who willed
that we should have all by the instrumentality of
the Virgin Mary." Such are the deliberate
sentiments of Pope Pius IX., literally translated
from the Latin, which I have now before me.
I have said then that this clause, " What have
I to do with thee ? " is prophetic ; and certainly
it is so. But our Lord gives a reason for what
he said, and adds, " mine hour is not yet come."
I do not think that the expression " hour " here
is used in that solemn sense in which it is used
in another portion of the gospel, where our Lord
WATER MADE WINE. 23
exclaims, " Father, the hour is come." The word
may be rendered fairly and justly " opportu-
nity ; " and all that our Lord seems to me to
teach by the expression is simply this : " The
moment for me to perform the miracle is not yet
arrived ; the wine only begins to fail, I will Avait
till it is exhausted : if some of the wine remain
in the vessels the impression I desire to produce
by the miracle may be dissipated; they might
say it was the wine that was left, and not wine
instantly created by my mighty power ; therefore,
Mary, wait ; you do not know, you must not in-
terfere ; I know the moment when it will be
most for the good of the creature, and most for
the glory of me."
It is said, " And there were set six water-pots
of stone," or, as it might be translated, " water-
jars of stone." I cannot but notice here a hidden
feature that shows the perfect reality of the story.
When a story is concocted, you may detect points
in it which will show that it is a fiction, that it
does not cohere. Now these water-pots of stone
were large jars which were brought in to every
festival, and the guests drew water out of them
for the washing of their hands before they sat
down to their meal. The order was given, " Fill
24 FORESHADOWS.
the water-pots with water ; " and this shows that
the guests must have washed their hands, and that
the water was nearly drawn out of the vessels ;
they were quite full at the beginning, and it
must have been towards the close of the festival
that our Lord wrought the miracle, and replen-
ished the jars with wine. It was said at the be-
ginning that the wine began to fail at the close of
the feast, and it is shown by the water being ex-
hausted from the water-pots that it was so. We
have evidence in all this of consistency, or under
current of coherency, that demonstrates it was
not a fiction, but an actual transaction — a
fact. To indicate still more the force of the
miracle, I may mention, that if our Lord had
created the wine in the wine bottles that had
been exhausted, they would have said, " It is
not new wine, but it is the old wine, which
escaped our observation." Or if he had told them
to pour water into the vessels that had been
emptied of wine, and had then changed it, the
guests would have said, " It is only water fla-
voured by the remains of the wine that was in the
vessels previously." But here were the serv-
ants who took the water-jars, and poured water
into them, and knew that it was water ; in
WATER MADE WINE. 25
fact that the vessels were not used for holding
wine at all, and therefore there could be no de-
ception. It is added, too, in a subsequent part
of the miracle, that the servants who drew the
water knew whence it came ; they poured it into
the jars, they saw that it was water, and that
nothing but water was there. Thus, there was
such a preparation as must have incontestably
demonstrated the reality of the miracle perform-
ed. If our Lord had told them to bring jars
from a distance, and place them there, it might
have been said that it was by some sleight of
hand, or by some preconcerted arrangement;
but the jars were there as was usual at every
Jewish festival, and he bade the servants fill
them with water, that there might be no possi-
bility of mistake ; he then spake the word, and
the water was turned into wine.
Let me notice the remark of the governor of
the feast. " When the ruler of the feast had
tasted the water that was made wine, and knew
not whence it was, (but the servants which drew
the water knew,) the governor of the feast called
the bridegroom, and saith unto him, Every man
at the beginning doth set forth good wine ; and
when men have well drunk, then that which is
26 FORESHADOWS.
worse : but thou hast kept the good wine until
now." Many Christians have been perplexed
by the expression " when men have well drunk/'
as if it meant drinking to excess at a festival con-
secrated by the Saviour's presence. It really
means no such thing. It does not describe what
took place at the festival ; the governor of the
feast does not speak of the company over which
he presided, but he describes what is the common
practice at the common festivals of worldly men,
where they present the best wine first, and
after the taste has been blunted by drinking a
sufficient quantity of it, the inferior wine is intro-
duced, and from their blunted taste they are un-
able to appreciate the difference. The governor
of the feast makes the remark, not the Saviour ;
and he does not describe what took place under
his eyes, but what usually and notoriously took
place among others ; therefore there need be no
misapprehension of the morality of the miracle,
as if it implied that our Lord sanctioned by his
presence (which he did not, and which no re-
mark made by any one concerned in the miracle
can in the least indicate) drinking to excess.
But it has been objected by one of the Ger-
man infidels, that our Lord did not show a deep
WATER MADE WINE. 27
sense of the danger of wine when he created at
this feast so excessive a quantity — some hundred
gallons — by an act of omnipotent power. Would
not this objection apply to every vintage ? If
God gives a plenteous vintage, you would not
say, This is a temptation to men to drink to
excess. There was no more temptation to drink
to excess from his filling many large water-jars,
than in his being pleased to give the sun-beams
and rain-drops that make an abundant vint-
age. The secret of temperance is not in the
cellar, but in the heart of the landlord of the
wine-cellar. A Christian man will not become
intoxicated if he drinks from a cask ; a drunk-
ard will become intoxicated if he drinks from a
bottle. It is not in the quantity before you that
the element of temperance is, but in the grace of
God that has been planted in your hearts. Now
it does seem to me, without the least expression
of disrespect towards those who differ from me,
that if God had designed that men should be uni-
versally what is called tee-total— that is, should
not taste wine, or any thing that has the least
alcoholic element in it, he would have prohibited
the growth of the vine, and rendered ferment-
ation absolutely impossible, because if there were
28 FORESHADOWS.
no fermentation there could be no alcoholic ele-
ment generally. But he has not done so ; he
does give the vintage, and he does give the fruit
of the vine ; he has created fermentation just as
truly as he has created vegetation ; therefore, it
seems to me that temperance is to arise, not from
the absence of wine, but from the presence of
Christian principles, and that we are to be sober
because it is a Christian duty, and not by insu-
lation from all the elements for being the re-
verse. It does appear to me that character is
perfected, not by being placed beyond the reach
of temptation, but by being placed within the
reach of it, and there gloriously triumphing by
the grace of God over all its suggestions and its
temptations.
It is remarkable, (and I submit it to those who
differ from me,) that our Lord ministered not to
supply, as you perceive, a necessity, but to add
an enjoyment. I admit teetotalism has done
much good, and I recognise the perfect liberty of
every man to adopt it who is satisfied that it will
do good. I would not say one word against
the Teetotal Society, because they have done
good, and I pray that they may do more : but
while they claim the liberty of holding their sen-
WATER MADE WINE. 29
timents, I must not shrink from the duty of
expounding what is plainly God's word. Most of
the letters of complaint I receive are upon three
great topics, — first, capital punishment ; second-
ly, teetotalism ; and thirdly, war. . I candidly
say, that if I could, by a wish, substitute the
arbitration of peace for the unsheathing of the
sword, I would do it; but it is not what we
would like, but what we are driven to tolerate
and to have. So in reference to drunkenness.
If I could, I would make every man sober;
but my prescription, if you will allow it, is
not a mechanical change, but a moral revo-
lution in the unregenerate and unsanctified
heart. {i But there is danger," you say, "in
wine." So there is, and there is danger in other
things ; there is danger in tampering with the
word of God ; there is danger in reading the
Bible in the light of teetotalism, instead of
reading teetotalism in the light of the Bible ; for
we may depend upon it, whenever a man begins
to adopt another mode of life than that which
the Saviour gave, he soon begins to adopt another
rule of faith than that which the Bible affords.
Let us, therefore, be jealous of the glory of God ;
and let us not shrink from faithfully expounding
30 FORESHADOWS.
what seems to be the mind and spirit of God.
And so I may speak with reference to capital
punishments, on which subject I receive many
remonstrances. I say I abhor them, I shrink
from them, I wish society could do without
them ; but I cannot conceal from myself plain
facts, and I may reply to some of the notes I
receive by alluding to them : It is said that the
stronghold of all that advocate capital punish-
ments (remember, I do not advocate them, I
deplore the deep and terrible necessity for
them) is in the text, "Whoso sheddeth man's
blood, by man shall his blood be shed." I
made the remark that arose from the chapter
in which the text occurs, that here is distinct
permission, at least, to the civil magistrate to
put to death the murderer. I said this was
not the Levitical law, because it was given
before the law of Levi was in existence. The
objection of one correspondent is this, — that God
did not take away Cain's life, when Cain com-
mitted murder. I answer : Perfectly true ; but
what God does in his sovereignty is one thing,
and what God enjoins in his word upon us is
quite a different thing. God ever tries the
mildest means before he has recourse to more
WATER MADE WINE. 31
terrible ones. Well, he tried the mild means ;
he desired it to be seen if sparing the murderer
would put an end to murder. And what took
place ? At the end of two thousand years, the earth
was filled with i( violence/' a word that means
murder, cruelty, rage ; and then God enacted a
severer law, that is, "Whoso sheddeth man's
blood, by man shall his blood be shed." I can-
not get over this. It is not my prejudices that
influence me. I feel I am here the interpreter
of that word, the glory, the perfection, the
beauty of which shine forth more and more. I
must bring all my likes and dislikes, all my
preferences and prejudices, to God's law and
to God's testimony ; I dare not say what is not
here, I will not shrink from saying what is here.
A few have left my congregation because I will
not be a teetotaller. I have no liking to wine;
I can do without it as freely as any of you ;
but what my Lord consecrated by tasting, I will
not pronounce unholy ; what he has set a pre-
cedent of using, I too feel that I may use in
moderation ; and thus I teach, whether you like
it or dislike it. I am placed in this pulpit, not
to preach to your prejudices, or to echo your
opinions, but to proclaim, as responsible at the
32 FORESHADOWS.
judgment bar of God, what is true, and that, by
God's grace, I am determined to persevere in
doing.
I therefore gather from this passage, to return
to the subject before us, that wine is lawful,
that it is not unholy ; that the temperate use of
it is legitimate ; that its employment as a medi-
cine is right. I have tried the teetotal system,
and literally and truly it did not suit me ; I have
tried the other system, I use but do not abuse
it, and I find I am stronger and can do more
work, enjoy better health, and put forth greater
energy. I must, therefore, put my experience
against an opposite experience. I never drank
to excess in my life, and I hope none of you
do. Nothing can be more degrading to a
human being than drunkenness ; nothing can
be more disgraceful to a Christian man than
excess. The great law, the beautiful law, is, —
the time is short : it remains for them that marry
to be as though they married not, for them that
sell as though they sold not, and them that buy
as though they bought not ; thus using the
world, and not abusing it, for the fashion of
this world speedily passeth away.
Thus I have tried to expound this miracle.
WATER MADE WINE. 33
The issue of it was, that Christ's glory shone forth
in it, shone forth as the Lord of creation, and as
the Lawgiver to his creatures ; and what I pray
may be the issue of the exposition of it is, that
you shall admire his power, be charmed with his
mercy, believe in his sacrifice, rest upon his in-
tercession, and anticipate that blessed day when
the marriage festival shall not be that of a poor
couple in Cana of Galilee, but when the bride-
groom shall be the Lord of glory, and all
redeemed saints shall constitute his chosen and
his beautiful bride, and the marriage supper of
the Lamb shall come, and we too shall be among
those who have made themselves ready. Then
it will be seen that this bridal miracle in Galilee
was a foreshadow of that great act at the restor-
ation of all things, in which Jesus says, (i Be-
hold, I make all things new."
LECTURE II.
THE NOBLEMAN'S SICK SON.
So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where he made the
water wine. And there was a certain nobleman, whose son
was sick at Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus was
come out of Judaea into Galilee, he went unto him, and be-
sought him that he would come down, and heal his son : for
he was at the point of death. Then said Jesus unto him,
Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe. The
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. And as he was now going down, his serv-
ants met him, and told him, saying, Thy son liveth. Then
inquired he of them the hour when he began to amend. And
they said 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 him-
self believed, and his whole house. This is again the second
miracle that Jesus did, when he was come out of Judaea into
Galilee John iv. 46 — 54.
My last lecture was on the first miracle per-
formed by Jesus, at the marriage in Cana of
Galilee. I then showed how gently the power
of the gospel dawned upon a world that needed
The Nobleman's Sick Sc
P. 34.
THE NOBLEMAN'S SICK SON. 35
it; how Christ came to perform a miracle to
sanctify a wedding festival, before he came to
do a miracle that was to sweeten all but a funeral
bereavement. It is very clear that the gospel
teaches humanity, in all its varied phases, to go
to Christ. Is any man afflicted ? What is he
to do ? To despair ? No, but to pray. Is any
man merry ? What is he to do ? Be extravagant ?
No, but to praise. Thus our prayers, our sor-
rows, and our joys equally lead us to Jesus ; our
smiles and our tears, our sweets and our suffer-
ings, all the heights and depths, the lights and
shadows of human experience lead the child of
God to him who can add new beauty to the one,
and communicate sustaining strength and com-
fort to the other.
I also noticed in my last lecture, that Jesus
wrought a miracle to provide, not for an absolute
necessity, but a luxury. The wine failed, and
Jesus wrought a miracle, by producing more than
a sufficient quantity ; he turned the water into
wine. I inferred from this the fact that, whether
it be expedient to drink wine or not, it is not sinful
to do so ; that certainly wine is not condemned
and reprobated in Scripture as an unchristian
thing. Whether it be a poisonous thing, I suppose
D 2
36 FORESHADOWS.
people's experience, with that of medical men,
will show; but whether it be an unscriptural
thing, common sense, with the Bible open, can
surely judge. If it be an unscriptural thing,
Christ had not wrought a miracle in order to
supply it. It has been urged, that the quantity
of wine created by Christ must have been cer-
tainly a very tempting thing. Might he not, it is
asked, have supplied just as much as the necessi-
ties of the company required ? According to the
statement given, he supplied some ninety or a
hundred gallons. I answered, there is no more
temptation to a sober man to be intoxicated when
he drinks from a cask than when he drinks from
a wine-glass. The secret of temperance is not in
the wine-cellar, but in the landlord; it is not in
what the man has, but what the man is ; it is not
circumstances that make a man sober, but the
grace of God. Here is the grand mistake. People
are constantly supposing that holiness and hap-
piness depend upon, and result from, something
outward; while, in truth, they depend on, and
spring from, something inward. The world's
prescription is to change the bed, God's is to heal
the patient ; the world's prescription is to give
man something which man has not, or to take
THE NOBLEMAN'S SICK SOX. 37
away from man something which, man has ;
God's prescription is to make man what man is
not. Put a sober man amid all the wine that
Spain can produce, and he will be a sober man
still ; put a drunkard any where, and he will be
a drunkard still. It is the grace of God, and
that alone, that can make men sober, righteous,
and godly in this present world, looking for that
blessed hope, the glorious appearing of Jesus
Christ our God and Saviour.
I also prefaced my last exposition by a few
remarks upon the nature of miracles. I en-
deavoured to show that a miracle is not some-
thing which contradicts all the laws and ordi-
nances of creation, but something rather which
supplements them; but supplements them so
gloriously and sublimely, that we can feel
and see that creation's Lord is present. The
miracle, for instance, that Jesus did when he
turned water into wine, was not in contradiction
to the laws, as they are called, of nature, but the
most beautiful and triumphant completion of
them. The ordinary law is, that the rain-drops
and the dew-drops shall fall upon the vine-leaVes
and blossoms, and upon the vine-roots and fibres,
and that these rain-drops and dew-drops absorb-
38 FORESHADOWS.
ed, shall, by a process that requires a year to
mature it, be converted into generous wine. The
difference between the dew-drops and rain-drops
falling upon the vine, and being turned into
grape-juice, and that fermented into wine, and
the miracle wrought by our Lord, when he
turned water in a minute into wine, was not a
difference of kind, but simply a difference in
time. What it usually takes a year to produce,
it took Christ a minute to produce ; the evidence
of creation's Lord being present amid creation's
product, was in the speed and instancy of a pro-
cess which it usually takes months, or a year, to
achieve. You have, therefore, in the miracle,
not a discord introduced into creation's harmony,
but heaven's harmony come down to creation's
discord ; you have a pre-libation, as it were, a
foretaste of that glorious epoch, when all things
that are wrong by sin shall be righted, and the
world, as it began with paradise in its morning
beauty, shall close and merge in paradise in its
meridian glory.
I will preface the miracle to which I now call
your attention by a few additional remarks on
the nature of miracles.
First. Is there such a thing as a miracle not of
THE NOBLEMAN'S SICK SON. 39
God ? Is it possible, or have we reason to be-
lieve from Scripture, that any power hostile in its
principles to Deity, can produce a supernatural
thing ? Do we read in Scripture of mere jug-
glery, or do we read of supernatural feats, done
by supernatural power, as allies to Satan's king-
dom, and antagonisms to Christ's ? I believe the
latter : whether it be so or not,. you can judge by
what I state. And here I must state what it is
always humbling to any one to state, that on this
I have seen reason to alter my opinion ; I find
I have not altered a conviction upon any one
vital, essential principle, but upon subordin-
ate things I have changed,, and probably I
may do so again. I trust we all grow wiser
as we grow older. No man should be ashamed
to say, "I have altered my mind since I ob-
tained more light." That man must be per-
fectly wretched who is constantly looking be-
hind him to see that he does the deed to-day
in perfect harmony with the deed done years
ago, and that he holds the opinion to-day which
dove-tails exactly with the opinion he held five
years ago. We have nothing to do with con-
sistency, but to accept the truth as God reveals
it, and act accordingly. I have stated that I
40 FORESHADOWS.
thought the miracles performed by the magicians
in Egypt to be jugglery. I was perplexed, and
felt difficulties in reconciling all the details of
their performance with this opinion. I found
this interpretation was held by many eminent
men who were very competent and judicious cri-
tics. I have discovered that another opinion has
been held by equally learned men, and by those
who seem to be equally competent judges, name-
ly, that these miracles performed by the magi-
cians of Egypt were not mere legerdemain, not
mere shams, but that they were feats of power
performed by supernatural influence, and meant
to rival and eclipse the deeds that omnipotent be-
neficence performed by the hand of Moses. This
seems to me the truth. God says, " Against
the gods of Egypt will I execute judgment/'
Now the word translated "gods," might through-
out Scripture, in the New Testament certainly,
be rendered " demons." These demons are sup-
posed to be fallen spirits, but the heathens
imagined that they were the spirits of glorified
heroes. Here the term seems so applied as to
convey that supernatural agency was concerned
in enabling these magicians to attempt to rival,
and to endeavour to eclipse, the feats that Moses
THE NOBLEMAN'S SICK SON. 41
and Aaron did. And we shall see that this is the
more probable, if we remember the fact that the
whole religion of Egypt was an emanation from
the evil one. It had its priests, its prophets, and
its emissaries, charged and commissioned by the
evil one, while the religion of Israel was an
inspiration from God, the Holy One, having
for its priests, its ministers, and its messengers,
Moses and Aaron, and all the people of God.
The collision that was commenced at paradise
has been carried on ever since. Supernatural
powers are at this moment engaged in battle.
The woman's seed shall bruise the serpent's
head, but it is after conflict. At every dawn
of a new dispensation on the part of God, there
was a new collision between the powers of dark-
ness and the powers of light. The issue was in
every instance the bruising of the serpent's
head, whilst this involved the injury of the heel
of the " woman's seed."
Some one may say, " But does it not look
something approaching to puerile, that God
should come into collision with Satan, or that
God's agents, commissioned by omnipotence,
should come into contact and controversy with
agents that might now and must ultimately be
42 FORESHADOWS.
crushed?" You might just say, " Why does God
suffer sin and holiness to war in this world ?
Why does he suffer loyalty and rebellion ? Why
does he suffer his own people to be depressed
and discouraged at times, and his enemies to
triumph ? " There is many a " why " we can put,
when we cannot give an answer that will satisfy ;
but it is a matter of fact that it is so. God
might pronounce a word at this moment that
would go down into the depths of creation, and
rise to its greatest heights, and make the whole
universe blossom like the rose, and all mankind
holy and happy. But he does not do so. He
has told us that there will be a conflict before
there will be a crown, that there will be hot battle
before there shall be the prize : he has com-
mitted his cause to earthen vessels, that the ex-
cellency of the power may be of God and not of
man.
At the incarnation, which was a second epoch
in the history of God's dealings with mankind,
we discover, what we do not find before to the
same extent, demoniac possessions, as if to
prove, that whenever God has a great work
of good in the world, Satan will always have a
counter-work of evil. Whenever you see good
THE NOBLEMAN'S SICK SON. 43
coin circulated, you will find bad coin is put
into circulation. Satan does not directly oppose
the good, but he gets up something so like it
that the unsuspecting may be deceived, insnared,
and destroyed. When Christ came into the
world, what was the great fact? God mani-
fested in the flesh. And what was the great
work that Satan set up as a counter-fact ? De-
mons took possession of human beings, and made
them their sport and their prey. I do not be-
lieve that these demoniac possessions were dis-
eases. The language of our Lord is utterly in-
compatible with such a view. They were evil
spirits that took up their habitations in the hearts
of men, just as God entered into humanity, and
was manifested in the flesh. It is also worthy
of notice, as corroborative proof, that when our
Lord came he was taken into the wilderness,
and there he openly encountered Satan. I can-
not believe, with the German Rationalists, that
was a mere dream, or eloquent myth. If that
was a dream, the whole Bible is a dream ; if
that was not a literal historical fact, there is
no literal historical fact in the Bible. The
tendency introduced by Origen is perpetuated
by the Rationalists still — that of trying to make
44 FORESHADOWS.
every thing a myth ; and the issue of it will
be, that they will land where Berkeley's scep-
ticism landed him, when he believed that he
himself was a myth, that he was not a bodily
substance, and that there was no such thing as
matter in the world. We thus find Satan, the
moment that our Lord appeared to commence
his ministry, interposing with all his force, com-
bining in one desperate assault, the power, and
genius, and resources of the archangel, with the
malignity, the subtlety, the cunning of the fiend ;
hoping to destroy Jesus, and thus to arrest the
final blow which he believed was brought nearer
in that fact, namely — that the woman's seed
should bruise the serpent's head.
In coming down to the dispensation in which
we now are, we shall find indications given by
the Spirit of God, that there will be super-human
feats to be perhaps witnessed by us, and that right
speedily ; for our Lord himself says, " For there
shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and
shall show [not the mimickry of, but shall show]
great signs and wonders, insomuch that, if it
were possible, they shoidd deceive the very
elect:" showing us, that none but God's own
people shall escape ; that such shall be the splen-
THE NOBLEMAN'S SICK SON. 45
dour, such the power, such the attractions of
the deeds they shall do, that all who have but a
name to live by, and whose names are not written
in the Lamb's book of life, shall be deceived and
ensnared thereby. We read in the Epistle to
the Thessalonians, that one of the characteristics
of the great antichrist is, " coming after the
working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and
lying wonders, [not pretended wonders, but
wonders that would teach and inculcate lies,]
and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness,
in them that perish." In the Apocalypse (chap,
xiii. 13) we have another statement of the
same kind, where one of the beasts is said to do
" great wonders, so that he maketh fire to come
down from heaven on the earth, in the sight of
men ; and deceiveth them that dwell on the earth
by means of those miracles, which he had power
to do in the sight of the beast." We have,
therefore, plain indications that super-human
deeds will be done in defence of error by
Satanic agency. Why should we suppose this
impossible ? We admit that Satan is a fallen arch-
angel ; once the highest, the brightest, the most
glorious intelligence, next to the Deity, that we
know of. If Satan retains the archangel's wis-
46 FORESHADOWS.
dom, (and the Bible constantly asserts this,) and
is able by that wisdom to originate, concoct, and
carry on things in this world that are full of the
most subtle deception and mischief, why should
Ave refuse to admit that Satan may retain, with
the archangel's wisdom, the archangel's power,
and do feats as well as invent schemes which are,
in themselves, super -human — signs, and won-
ders, and lying miracles?
But you say, u How are we to be guided ?" I
do not now enter upon the intricate question
how a miracle is to teach, irrespective of revela-
tion ; I merely enter upon the question, how we,
who have a revelation, are to receive such mira-
cles, should they come. In the first place, a
miracle, or super-human deed, does not prove
that the man who does it is from God ; it simply
says, " You must listen to this man; he is a
spirit from hell, or a spirit from heaven; he
comes armed with great power, he tells you
he has a message to deliver, and you are bound
to listen to the man, judging not of the mes-
sage by the miracle, but of the miracle by
the message, and of both by the word of God."
We are expressly told in Deuteronomy, xiii.
1, 2, at a time when these directions were still
THE NOBLEMAN'S SICK SON. 47
more important than they can be to us now :
" If there arise among yon a prophet, or a dreamer
of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder,
[to confirm his mission,] and the sign or wonder
come to pass whereof he spake unto thee, say-
ing, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast
not known, and let us serve them ; thou shalt not
hearken unto the words of that prophet or that
dreamer of dreams : for the Lord your God
proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord
your God with all your heart and with all your
soul." So we are told in reference to the whole
Bible, " If any man shall add unto these things,
God shall add unto him the plagues that are
written in this book." Then we are told again,
that " God, who at sundry times and in divers
manners " — at sundry times, before the flood,
during the days of the patriarchs, under the dis-
pensation of the law ; in divers manners, some-
times by dreams, sometimes by prophets, some-
times by types, sometimes by direct messages
from heaven — " spake in time past unto the
fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days
spoken unto us by his Son." That is the final
communication; revelation is now closed, the
Bible is complete. If then a spirit were to come
48 FORESHADOWS.
on earth, and turn water into wine, or raise the
dead to life, in my presence, and if he were to
say, " I do so because you ought to learn that it is
lawful to worship the Virgin Mary," or, "that the
doctrine of transubstantiation is true," or, "I
have another book to add to the Bible," I would
reject the miracle and the miracle-worker to-
gether. The apostle says, " If we or an angel from
heaven preach unto you any other gospel than that
ye have received, let him be anathema." Keep
close to the Bible then, as God's complete testi-
mony. All the miracles that angels from beneath
can work, or pretended apostles can show, will
not make me believe that they have any thing ad-
ditional to this book, or accept any thing contrary
to this book, as if God had changed his mind,
and were about to give us a new or contradictory
revelation. Our safety is within the boards of the
Bible ; we have a complete and sufficient Bible.
The Bible has not grown old, as they say in Ger-
many— humanity has not outgrown the Bible.
Certainly in this old country of ours we believe
that England's Bible is England's pole-star ;
and that therefore we have peace, loyalty, and
love : in other countries they believe that they
have outgrown the Bible ; but they show that
THE NOBLEMAN S SICK SON. 49
they have outgrown common sense at the same
time, for every man's hand seems to be against
his neighbour, and his neighbour's hand against
him.
There is a distinction of great importance that
I ought not to overlook here, the distinction be-
tween a discovery and a revelation. A disco-
very is what man can make, and man can enlarge
and improve ; a revelation is what God alone can
give, and man cannot add to nor may take from.
When Columbus arrived at America, he made a
discovery, and subsequent visits have enlarged,
perfected, and extended that discovery; but
when God completed the Bible, he made a reve-
lation ; and no flight of ours can reach the height
from which it came, and therefore no genius of
ours can add to the perfection by which it is now
stamped and transparently characterized.
All true, heavenly miracles have this one grand
feature : they have a redemptive character ; they
go to counteract and reverse the effects of the
fall. If we try every miracle performed by
our Lord by this test, we shall find it stand.
When, for instance, Jesus healed the sick, raised
the dead, and cured the leprous, he reinstated the
subjects of these diseases in the place in which
50 FORESHADOWS.
they were meant to be when God created them,
and pronounced them " very good." Again, when
he fed the thousands with a few loaves and fishes,
he gave an instalment of the reversal of the curse
of barrenness, which fell upon the whole earth
when man was sent forth from Eden to water it
with his tears, and fertilize it with the sweat of
his brow. And when he walked upon the yield-
ing waves, and beckoned to the obedient winds,
and the former slumbered at his feet like gentle
babes, and the latter came to him like his own
hired servants, he then showed that he was crea-
tion's Lord, about to retune creation's tangled
strings, and bring it back again, like an iEolian
harp, to its ancient order and perfection, when
God's Spirit shall sweep over it, and bring
out glorious and inexhaustible melody. You
find in all Christ's works and miracles, the
stamp of the Redeemer, — the evidence of re-
demptive power, — a proof that a new, a Divine,
a beneficent Being is touching Nature, and
bringing her back to what she was. So with
many things that we see existing now. When
you see a physician, you recognise in that physi-
cian's presence a testimony that sin has diseased
humanity, and in him the standing exponent of
THE NOBLEMAN'S SICK SON. 51
man's convulsive effort to bring things back to
what they were. And the day will come, I believe,
when all this restoration will be realized, when
Christ shall speak that glorious word which shall
make the desert rejoice and the wilderness blos-
som as the rose ; when there shall be no more
sickness, nor sorrow, nor trial, but the former
things shall have passed away, and all old things
shall have become new.
With these prefatory remarks, I enter upon
the miracle which I have read — namely, the
healing of the nobleman's son. This noble-
man, it seems, was the prime minister, or head
steward, or satrap, under Herod, a person there-
fore of great rank and dignity ; but, though high
in rank, he shared in the common humanity of
us all. It is a great mistake to suppose that a
nobleman differs from a commoner in any thing
save in extrinsic and relative position. This
nobleman felt the love to his child that the poor-
est person in Herod's realm felt ; and at this
moment our beloved queen does not love her
prince or her princess better than that poor
ragged mother in Drury Lane loves the little
babe that she clasps in her bosom, and can
scarcely shield from the summer's heat or protect
E 2
52 FORESHADOWS.
from the winter's winds. Underneath all the
pomp and splendour and noise of state there is
heard the great under-tone of our common hu-
manity ; amid all the distinctions and the differ-
ences, which are beautiful, and graceful, and
strengthening to the social fabric, there yet run,
cohering together, the roots of our common
nature, the traces of our common ruin, and,
blessed be God, sparkling amid these the hopes
of our final restoration.
Greatness of rank does not exempt people
from sickness and death. Great men and no-
blemen are sometimes tempted to believe so.
One thinks a battalion of bayonets around him
can give him safety ; another thinks that the
splendour of equipage, a readiness of ministry
and wealth and innumerable resources, can keep
out sickness. It is a great mistake ; experi-
ence shows it to be so ; there are sick-beds in
palaces, and there are aching temples upon beds
of down ; many a time when a poor man goes
to his work with a merry heart, and with few
thorns and cares to pierce it, the head that has
a coronet or a crown on it aches all the day
long, and has little rest by night. The rich,
instead of being the least exempt, are the most
THE NOBLEMAN'S SICK SON. 53
exposed. The loftiest trees are first rent by
the lightning, and the highest pinnacles are first
smitten by the thnnder-bolt.
This nobleman, one of the greatest in the land,
had a sick son, and so far was placed on a level
with the poorest and meanest in the land. That
sick son was his greatest mercy. God makes
sickness and illness in our families contribute to
our common good. If this nobleman's son had
not been sick, that nobleman's soul had never
found a Saviour. It is thus that God makes what
we think the most painful experience the pioneer
of the greatest happiness, even eternal happiness
and joy. It is thus that the leech is applied; it
feeds itself at our expense, but the physician
stands by, and overrules it for our safety and
future health. For such ends God sends sickness
into the cradle, affliction into the family. At times,
when the sky is overshadowed, when the heart
droops, and the hopes fade, we begin to look up to
the everlasting hills ; and, blessed be God, many
a one, noble and ignoble, has learned this lesson
— that what prosperity could not do sickness has
done, and that the full cup which we worship
has been mercifully displaced by the empty cup,
54 FORESHADOWS.
which Christ afterwards filled with special and
unspeakable blessings.
Let us learn also from this parable, that it is
possible to have very high conceptions of Jesus,
and yet not to have conceptions of him high
enough. This nobleman " went to him and be-
sought him that he would come down and heal
his son ; for he was at the point of death."
He believed Jesus had power to heal, but he be-
lieved it was limited power, that it was restricted
to personal contact; and he had to learn that
Jesus had more power than he believed him to
possess, by the happy deliverance of his son.
Jesus replied to him in what seemed to be a re-
buke, " Except ye see signs and wonders, ye
will not believe." This was to teach us that the
nobleman was driven to Christ by the sense, the
foreboding sense, of the loss of his son ; not drawn
to Christ by a dear and beautiful perception of
the blessings that Christ had to give. Yet, mark
the fact : Christ nevertheless received him.
What a blessed truth is this, that Christ will ac-
cept you, if drawn to him by a sight of his ex-
cellences and mightiness to save ; while he
will not reject you if you are rejected by all the
THE NOBLEMAN'S SICK SON. 55
world besides, and come to him as a last re-
source for mercy and forgiveness ! His bosom
has room to welcome the refugee from the trials
and sorrows of the world, as well as the refugee
from the condemnation of sin, seeking deliver-
ance and acceptance before him.
The nobleman scarcely listened to his rebuke,
but persisted in his cry, " Come down ere my
child die." He was so overwhelmed with a
sense of the suffering of his child, and with the
fear of that child's death, that he scarcely heard
the rebuke. How true to human nature is
this ! how like what we are ! He could scarcely
listen to the divine lesson, so mighty within
him was the human and the paternal sym-
pathy. Herein we are taught the secret of
persevering prayer. This nobleman persevered
in begging so hard because he felt so deep an
attachment to his child. The secret of our per-
severing in seeking blessings from God, is in the
depth of our sense of the want of them. To say
to people, " Pray fervently, pray constantly," is
almost to waste one's words ; the first thing is to
convince them that they have great sins, that
they are in deep peril, that relief is possible ;
then bid them pray fervently, and with impor-
56 FORESHADOWS.
tunity. The nobleman had great suffering ; the
fear of great loss overcame all obstructions, and
brought the highest man in the realm, who had
all eyes fastened on him, and many tongues ready
to deride and laugh at him, to Jesus, the carpen-
ter's son, Jesus of Nazareth, because he, and he
alone, could cure and restore his child.
Our Lord at first seemed to repulse and
drive him away ; but at the very time that he
seemed to reject him, he was preparing to do
what he requested. This teaches us another
lesson — that we are not to suppose that Christ
withholds an answer to our prayer because he
does not answer that prayer always in the way
that we wish. Christ answered the nobleman's
prayer, but not in the way that the nobleman
expected. So will he do with us. We hear the
noise of what we think an approaching doom,
and lo ! it is the first tones of that sweet and
beautiful voice which rung so musically amid
the storm of old, " Be of good cheer ; it is I, be
not afraid." We see the cloud dark, and black,
and ominous, and we fancy it is the chariot of
the judgments of the Lord ; but lo ! it is only
sweeping past to disclose to us a brighter sun,
and to allow us to bathe in the beams of a
THE NOBLEMAN'S SICK SON. 57
balmier and a better day. For Christ immedi-
ately added, " Go thy way, thy son liveth."
What was true then is so now. Christ's word
spoken at Cana provoked its echo at Capernaum ;
sickness recognised in it the healer of diseases,
fled from his victim, and left this memorial in
its flight, "Truly this was the Son of God."
Christ is now in his holy place, and we are upon
the earth ; but if his word could travel five
miles, and heal that nobleman's son on that dis-
tant sick-bed, the same word can travel from his
throne in the loftiest heaven, cleave its way, un-
spent in its transit, unweakened by the distance,
and go into the sick man's heart, into the dead
man's grave, into the guilty man's conscience,
and into the sad home's loneliness, and into
the matron's agony, and leave on the place that it
strikes the first flower of paradise regained, and
kindle in the heart that it visits the first rays of
the everlasting day. His arm is not shortened,
that it cannot save ; his word is not less mighty,
that it cannot still comfort. He is what He
was. There is a connecting and transmissive
wire between heaven and earth; there is a
communication with the skies and with us. Let
us rejoice that it is thus ; and let us feel that
58 FORESHADOWS.
along that electric wire that knits the heart of
our Redeemer to us his children, there travel
instantly all his sympathies down to sanctify us,
and all our prayers up to receive an answer ex-
ceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask,
or think, or desire.
What adds to the glory of this miracle per-
formed by our Lord is this — the nobleman was
brought to Christ by the sickness of his child.
We find that the miracle had a double effect.
The same word that cured the sickness of the
son, cured the scepticism of the father, for it is
added, "And the nobleman believed." This
teaches us the great lesson, that no man ever
interests himself in the welfare of another with-
out receiving a reflex blessing in doing so. I
have read of a mother who waited upon a parish
minister in Scotland, and who, on seeking ad-
mission to the Lord's table, complained that she
could not pray. The minister said to her : " You
have an only child, who is in delicate health
(which was the fact) ; go home and pray for that
child, and come to me next week." She went
home and prayed as directed, and when she went
to the minister the next week, she said, " I have
been praying for my child, and in doing so, I
THE NOBLEMAN'S SICK SON. 59
have learned to pray for myself." It will be so
with you ; if you try to do good to others, you
will find the good done chiefly to yourself; if
you will go and teach in a Sunday school, you
will find you will be taught richly and dis-
tinctively yourself; if you will feed the hungry,
clothe the naked, minister to the wants and ne-
cessities of the poor, you will find a reflex influ-
ence that will make you feel more happy, and
find yourself vastly more rich. It is God's
great law, that in watering others we shall be
watered ourselves. Who are the happiest men ?
Always the busiest men. We shall find that
the reason of all that miserable feeling which
people do not know how to get over, and which
leads them to play-houses, operas, balls, and all
the " broken cisterns " which the world can
supply, is just because they are doing nothing
good. Begin to do good, and you will begin to
be happy. It is God's great ordinance, and man
cannot reverse it. I have read of one who in
despair and under derangement had resolved to
commit suicide by drowning himself, — and no
man ever does so who is not deranged, and whose
responsibility, therefore, has not ceased, — and as
he went to do so, he met a poor miserable woman
60 FORESHADOWS.
in rags who begged a halfpenny from him. In-
stead of that he gave her sixpence. Her face
glowed with delight, and she thanked him in
snch terms that it went to the very depths of the
man's heart. " Surely," said he, " if I can be
the means of creating such happiness in one'
human being, God has something more for me
to do ;" and this was the means of saving his life.
Learn then to be beneficent men, not merely
benevolent men. We have plenty of benevolent
people, who wish well; but what we want is
beneficent people, who do well, who carry their
wishes out into practical operation. I say, God's
great law is, that we shall find happiness in doing
good. The happiest people are the people who
abound most in good works. I think I have
told you that all the words in our language that
convey happiness, mean coming out of self, doing
something for others, — " transport," to be car-
ried beyond one's self ; " ecstasy," standing out
of one's self, and the like : every word denoting
the intensest happiness, denotes that which is
the most self-sacrificing, doing good for the love
of others.
I may notice also one thing remarkable in this
miracle ; namely, a point of contrast between it
THE NOBLEMAN'S SICK SON. 61
and an analogous miracle, related in Matt. viii. :
" And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum,
there came unto him a centurion beseeching him,
and saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick
of the palsy, grievously tormented. And Jesus
saith unto him, I will come and heal him. The
centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not
worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof :
but speak the word only, and my servant shall be
healed." Notice here the contrast. The noble-
man came and asked Christ to come to his house
and heal his son, believing that unless he per-
sonally came, his son could not be healed. This
centurion, a very much humbler person, came to
our Lord, saying, Speak the word only, you
need not come, and my servant shall be healed.
Jesus in the one case spoke the word where he
was asked to come, but did not come; in the
other case he came, where he was asked only to
speak the word. Is there any lesson taught in
this distinction ? It may be this perhaps — that
little faith, as in the case of the nobleman, was
invigorated into great faith by Jesus not going
as he wanted him ; and in the case of the cen-
turion his humility was deepened by Jesus con-
descending to come when he only asked him to
62 FORESHADOWS.
speak the word. Perhaps also this lesson was
to be taught us, that Christ is no accepter of
persons ; and this is not the least beautiful
feature in it. A nobleman asks the Son of God
to come and heal his son, his heir ; a duke asks
him to come and heal a marquis. Our Lord
does not go, but speaks the word. A poor ser-
geant in the army, a non-commissioned officer,
asks him to speak only, and heal his domestic
servant, and Jesus visits that servant on the sick-
bed. This precious lesson is thereby taught,
that the house of God ought to be, as I trust
it will be, a sequestered nook — sequestered
from ambition and conflict, from frivolity and
folly, in which the rich and the poor shall
meet together, and feel that the Lord is the
Maker of them all. I do not like to see a con-
gregation of aristocrats merely, and I do not like
to see a congregation of ragged people merely ;
I love to see the greatest aristocrat of the land
and the humblest beggar from the streets listen-
ing to the same gospel, hearing the same truths,
and made to feel that they have points of iden-
tity lasting like the stars, but points of dis-
tinction evanescent as the morning dew. So
our Lord taught that in the house of God, as
THE NOBLEMAN'S SICK SON. 63
in the grave, there should be no distinction of
persons.
We notice next the interesting fact, that the
servants rushed forth to tell their master the joyful
news that his son was healed. I like this trait; the
servants did not feel, as they are too much taught
to feel in this commercial capital, that they are
hired to do so much work, and when they have
done this work to think there is not a point of
contact with the family besides. These servants
sympathized with the nobleman ; they felt that
his joy was their joy, his happiness their happi-
ness, and his interest their interest.
The nobleman, not expecting an instant cure,
asked the question — and this brings out the
exquisite truth of the narrative — at what hour
his son began to amend. He expected the cure
would be, like all other cures, a gradual and
progressive one. When the servants informed
him, however, he learned that Christ had an-
swered his prayer far above what he thought.
His query was, M When did he begin to amend f "
The joyful answer was, "The fever left him."
And he found, on comparing notes, that it
was at the very same hour at which Jesus s^id,
fi Go thy way, thy son liveth." Before, he be-
64 FORESHADOWS.
lieved in the possibility of a special act; now,
lie believes in Christ his glorious Saviour ; and
not only himself but his whole house believed.
This son was under his roof; he was ill at home ;
and when he was miraculously cured, the whole
house, from the highest to the lowest, recognised
the claims of Jesus, accepted the good news,
and became followers of the Lamb of God !
Whilst noble and ignoble are on a level in the
sight of God, yet it is a great point gained, when
a person of high rank, great power, extensive
influence, is brought to know, and love, and feel
the gospel. You ask why ? Because he occupies
a loftier pinnacle, he is the observed of all ob-
servers ; and according to a law in this world,
the example of those who tread the high places of
the land descends with rapid power, so much so
that a country reflects very much its court ; as
the high are, the humble generally become. I
believe, therefore, that on the aristocracy of
the land there rests a weighty responsibility.
Therefore I rejoice to see, in the present day,
our nobles taking the chair, and appearing
on the platforms, at meetings of our Sunday
schools, day schools, and ragged schools, and
advocating, what is really the substance and
THE NOBLEMAN'S SICK SON. 65
the sinews of our strength and stability, the
Christian enlightenment of the humbler classes
of society. We may rest assured, if the lower
stratum of the pyramid becomes disorgan-
ized, the apex, however it may reflect the sun-
beams, will soon be overturned. The safety of
the country is in the Christianization of the great
masses that lie below ; and those noblemen and
persons in the highest classes, who wish to learn
how tottering their position may be, should oc-
casionally take a plunge into the alleys and lanes
of London, and they will see how much is to be
done, before they can lay their heads upon their
pillows, and feel that they are secure; before,
above all, they can stand at the judgment-seat,
and remember they have done what they ought
to have done.
In the next place we learn, from the study of
this miracle, that we may pray — and here is a very
precious lesson — that temporal affliction may be
averted from us. Is there any one present
who feels the touch of death is upon him,
that the cold shadow of the grave, as the issue of
some lingering disease, begins to overcloud and
darken him? It is not forbidden to you, my
brother, my sister, to pray that you may be
F
66 FORESHADOWS.
healed. Is there any one in this assembly who
has a friend labouring under some lingering
disease, a son or daughter drawing near to
the gates of the tomb ? It is not forbidden to
you, it is not unscriptural, to pray, to pray fer-
vently, that God would be pleased to spare that
son, and preserve that daughter, and keep to you
that friend. The nobleman so prayed for his
son, and his heart's desire was answered. Is
there a mother here whose babe is dying ? Do
you gaze sadly upon its fading life — pronounced
to be so by the skill that has attended it ? May
you pray, " O Lord, spare this beautiful flower,
this memorial of departed Eden; let it not be
blasted ; we would gather it into our bosom ;
we would tend it, water it, and nurse it, a little
longer ; spare it, O Lord " ? May you pray so ?
Who will forbid you ? Not Jesus, for he prayed,
in his agony, " Father, if it be possible let this
cup pass from me ; " but he added, what I trust
you will have grace to add, " Not as I will, but
as thou wilt."
My dear brethren, if we thus bring the sicknesses
of our friends, our sons and daughters, to the Sa-
viour, may we bring especially their souls to him.
We can bring their spiritual condition, in the
THE NOBLEMAN'S SICK SON. 67
sight of God, to the Saviour any where. Bring
your children to Christ, to be blessed by him ;
by sympathy, by Christian education, by love,
by prayer, and, lastly, by your example. They
are precious. These children in the streets are
not weeds, and are not to be crushed under the
feet of the thoughtless traveller ; they are flow-
ers, faded flowers, I admit, soiled and injured
flowers ; but your hand may replace them, raise
them, and nurse them, and bring them below
the beams of a better sun, the rains of a better
influence, and they will bloom again like flowers
of Paradise. So we shall hasten to that day in
which the inhabitant shall not say, " I am sick,"
and the healing of the nobleman's son shall
prove a faint foreshadow of the healing of all
that is diseased.
F 2
LECTURE III.
THE SOLDIER'S SICK SERVANT.
And when Jesnswas entered into Capernaum, there came unto
him a centurion, beseeching him, and saying, Lord, my serv-
ant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. And
Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him. The cen-
turion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou
shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and
my servant shall be healed. For I am a man under authority,
having soldiers under me : and I say to this man, Go, and he
goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my
servant, Do this, and he doeth it. When Jesus heard it, he
marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto
you, I have not found so great 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. But the children of the kingdom
shall be cast out into outer darkness : there shall be weeping
and gnashing of teeth. And Jesus said unto the centurion,
Go thy way ; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto
thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour.—
Matt. viii. 5 — 13.
I will preface the exposition I give of this in-
teresting miracle by some remarks in continu-
ation of those I have already made on the nature
of the miracles of our Lord.
THE SUBALTERN'S SICK SERVANT. 69
It is not uninteresting to contrast the miracles
performed by our Lord with those performed by
his most distinguished servants in the Old Testa-
ment dispensation. In looking at the miracles
performed of old, and prior to the advent of
Christ, it seems as if they were done with
greater difficulty, not because God was less
mighty, but because his omnipotence was not so
largely bestowed. For instance, Moses, in re-
moving the leprosy of his sister, wrestles and
persists in prayer, " Heal her now, O God, I
beseech thee ; " but when we read the record
of the Saviour's miracle in an analogous cir-
cumstance, we find simply his touch; his ac-
cents are, " Be thou clean," and the party is so.
Elijah prays long, and sends his servant seven
times before the rain begins to appear ; Christ
speaks, and the winds are hushed, and the waves
are still. Elisha, with great effort, and after par-
tial failure, restores the life of the Shunammite's
child ; our Lord speaks to the dead, " Come
forth," and the dead come forth accordingly.
This was owing partly to the less glorious dis-
pensation ; partly to the greater remoteness from
that day when the earth shall be restored, and
all its discord shall be reduced to harmony ; and
70 FORESHADOWS.
partly to illustrate a principle which pervades
the Acts of the Apostles, as well as Genesis and
the Pentateuch, namely, that Christ's miracles
(and this is a very important and striking evi-
dence of the deity of Christ) were done directly
by himself, while the miracles performed by the
apostles and patriarchs and prophets were done,
as acknowledged by themselves in fact, in vir-
tue of a delegated power. Thus, for instance
when Moses divided the Red Sea, " Stand still,
and behold the salvation of God, which he will
show unto you," he referred the miracle, whatever
it might be, to the instant power, and therefore
to the exclusive glory, of God. When the apos-
tles performed miracles, as recorded in the Acts
of the Apostles, they were done with such
a preface as the following : " In the name of
Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk," and
again, " Eneas, Jesus Christ maketh thee whole."
But when Christ performed a miracle, he said,
cl I will, be thou clean ; " and again, " I say unto
thee, arise." Now you have, in the very pe-
culiar language used by the apostles when they
put forth miraculous power, proof that theirs
was a borrowed power, a reflected influence ; but
when Jesus performed the miracles, you can see
THE SUBALTERN'S SICK SERVANT. 71
that it was not the act of man, but the touch
of that finger that created the stars, and wields
them in their orbits, and that made all things,
visible and invisible.
There is another contrast between the miracles
of the Old and of the New Testament perhaps
worth noticing ; it is this, that all the miracles
recorded in the Old Testament Scriptures were
more in contact with external nature ; they were
more visible, more colossal, and if I might use
the expression without being misconstrued —
more gross in their character. It was the rend-
ing earthquake, the fire losing its power to con-
sume, the wild beasts their ability to devour —
great, startling, portentous acts, fitted to awe and
subdue the senses of all that beheld them. But
when we look at the miracles of the New Testa-
ment, we find they are neither the whirlwind that
rushes in its fury, nor the earthquake that spreads
its terrible vibrations, nor the fire that consumes
all that approaches it, but the " still small voice,"
— miracles that relate more to man's soid than to
man's body, and occupy, as it were, a loftier
sphere, hold communion with sublimer things,
and give evidence of a new, and nobler, and
more glorious dispensation.
7£ FORESHADOWS.
Having made this contrast between the mira-
cles recorded in the Old Testament and those
in the New, I may also contrast the miracles of
the New Testament with the pseudo or pretend-
ed miracles ascribed to our Lord in those silly
legends composed in the second and third cen-
tury, and, by courtesy, called the New Gospel,
such as what was called " The Gospel of the
Infancy," and " the Gospel of Nicodemus."
They were legends concocted in cells, and palm-
ed, some by superstitious, and others by wicked,
persons upon the world, all bearing internal
and external evidence of their utter absurdity
and forgery. One of the most striking proofs of
their absurdity, an indirect, but very powerful
proof, is to be seen in the miracles they record
as performed by Jesus. There are other proofs
of their forgery, such as their making allusion
to facts which did not occur till centuries after
they were written, and their containing things
that are positively contradictory, absurd, and
ridiculous ; but the most complete proof of their
falsehood is in an investigation of the miracles
which they ascribe to Jesus. In the gospel every
miracle performed by Jesus was subordinated
to some great truth he was teaching, or associ-
THE SUBALTERN'S SICK SERVANT. 73
ated with the moral and spiritual well-being of the
person who was its subject; and you are less
struck with the miracle than with the worker of
the miracle. Every miracle that Jesus did with-
draws you from the deed of beneficence and
power, and surrounds the doer of it with a halo
of imperishable and refulgent glory. But the
miracles ascribed to Jesus as recorded in these
false legends which I have alluded to, are mere
portents, they are fitted to make people stare, and
wonder, and be amazed; they are more like the
deeds of a magician than the doings of the Son
of God. You cannot conceive a more complete
contrast than that between the simple and grand
feats of power, reflecting glory on the doer, re-
corded in the Gospels, and the silly, puerile por-
tents, influencing merely the senses of the reader,
recorded in what have been called the " pseudo-
gospels," written afterwards. We may notice, too,
this peculiarity ; every miracle recorded in the
New Testament is related to have been done
by Christ during the three years of his ministry ;
and all the miracles recorded in the false gospels
are all described to have been done by Jesus
when he was an infant. The grandeur of the
gospel is, that it speaks of nothing but what con-
74 FORESHADOWS.
tributes in some shape to the glory of God and
to the edification of the church ; the peculiarity
of these legends is, that they speak of nothing but
what is calculated to startle, to amaze, or to make
the beholder stare and wonder. You have in them,
too, a direct contradiction to what is expressly
stated in the Gospel. In the second chapter of the
Gospel of St. John we are told that the miracle
performed at the marriage feast was the beginning
of Christ's miracles, but these Gospels record mi-
racles said to have been performed when he was a
child or a babe ; the one, therefore, directly con-
tradicts the other. There is also this peculiarity
about the miracles ascribed to Christ in these false
legends, that none of them have the redemptive
and restorative character of the miracles of Christ.
Every miracle that Christ did seems to bring
nature back to her primeval harmonies, casting
out the disease, the discord, the intrusive and dis-
organizing elements that sin introduced, and
giving, as it were, an earnest and a foreshadow
of that blessed day when all sounds shall be
harmony, all lessons shall be light, and all affec-
tions shall be love.
Thus, then, we see the position that the mira-
cles in the New Testament occupy with refer-
THE SUBALTERN'S SICK SERVANT. 75
ence to past genuine miracles recorded in the
Old Testament Scripture, and with reference to
the psuedo-miracles subsequently ascribed to
Christ in legends that impiously assumed his
name. Having made these remarks, I will turn
your attention now to the miracle immediately
before us.
Jesus, we are told, had entered into Capernaum,
and a centurion, that is, a subaltern in the Roman
army, approached him, anxious for the health
and recovery of his servant or slave. This cen-
turion was what was called " a proselyte at the
gate," he was one of those Gentiles who felt the
worthlessness of heathenism, the absurdity of its
polytheistic rites, and saw in the doctrines of
the Jews, interpolated as they were, mutilated
as they had become, a response to what was
deepest and most earnest in his heart ; he abjured
the heathenism which could not satisfy him, and
cleave to that living religion which the Pharisee
had overlaid, but from which truth still broke forth
in much of its primeval purity and brightness.
He was of the same class, plainly, as the centu-
rion spoken of in the Acts of the Apostles : " Cor-
nelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian
band; a devout man, and one that feared God
76 FORESHADOWS.
with all his house, which gave much alms to the
people, and prayed to God alway." Just previ-
ous to the advent of Christ there were many of
these proselytes making their appearance, and
one can see in their development the commence-
ment of a great process. They were the links
that connected the Jew with the Gentile world ;
they were, so to speak, those intermediate persons
who were in communion with the Jew upon the
one hand, and in contact with the Gentile upon
the other hand ; and were the premonitory signs
and symptoms of that great fusion of the human
family, in which there should be neither Jew nor
Gentile, nor Greek nor barbarian, nor bond nor
free, but Christ should be all and in all. They
were, in fact, instalments of that sublime fel-
lowship which knows neither Jew nor Gentile,
which calls no man clean, or unclean, or com-
mon, but recognises all as brothers who bear the
stamp and the superscription of a Divine and
heavenly likeness.
It is a remarkable fact, that whenever God is
about to take a great step in the development of
his kingdom upon earth, he always gives pre-
liminary signs of its approach. The great fact
that was to occur when Christ came was the
THE SUBALTERN S SICK SERVANT. 77
fusion of the Jews and Gentiles into one redeem-
ed family. The preliminary foreshadows, flung
back upon the world from that Sun before he
rose above the horizon, were these proselytes at
the gate— men who were not Jews because they
did not conform to all the rites of the Jews, and
who were not Gentiles, because they rejected the
polytheistic religion of the Gentiles, but who there-
fore constituted the connecting links and bands
between the two, and the pioneers of that brighter
and blessed fellowship, in which Jew and Gen-
tile should be lost in the family name, " Christ-
ian," and Christ should be all and in all. So it
seems to me that, in the day in which Ave live,
we have the preliminary signs of some great
fusion about to take place. We saw that before
the fusion of Jew and Gentile occurred, we had
all these premonitory signs and foreshadows ;
and in the present day we may notice going
on processes and efforts that are oft disappoint-
ed, attempts that are frequently frustrated and
broken, to make all mankind feel the sympathies,
and respond to the touch, of a common and a
glorious brotherhood. It seems to me that all
the discoveries of the age are but the pioneers
and preparations for this. I look upon the tri-
78 FORESHADOWS
umphs of steam, the rail-road, and the electric
wire, the Great Exhibition of 1851, as portions of
that great net which is being cast over the length
and the breadth of the human, family, to teach
all mankind, by extinguishing space, shortening
time, and removing obstructions to the inter-
change of the sympathies of life, that a day comes
with all the speed, as it will dawn with all the
splendour, of the lightning, when Scottish, Eng-
lish, Irish, European, Asiatic, African, shall lose
their distinctive denominational names in that
name which was pronounced in scorn, if pro-
claimed from heaven, at Antioch, but which will
be sounded in the everlasting jubilee, and Christ
and Christian shall be all and in all.
This centurion, then, who was thus te a prose-
lyte at the gate," came to Christ, as it is recorded
in one Gospel, or sent to Christ by his friends,
as it is recorded in another — and what one does
by his representative he does himself; for you
will often see this interchange of terms used in
the New Testament. But his sense of unwor-
thiness was so great, that he said, " I am not
worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof."
He felt that Christ was a high and a holy being,
and that he was, though a proselyte and a wor-
THE SUBALTERN'S SICK SERVANT. 79
shipper of the true God, a sinful and a fallen
man, and therefore he says, with profound, not
feigned, humility, " I am not worthy that thou
shouldest come under my roof." He that ac-
counts his house unworthy of the presence of so
great a Master, has that humility which will lead
Christ to account his heart worthy of his entrance
and abiding. Christ sat in the house of the Pha-
risee ; he took possession of, and dwelt in, the
heart of the Roman soldier.
The profession of this centurion, as the word
plainly implies, was that of a soldier. Many
persons think that soldiers are emphatically sin-
ful and criminal persons, and that the very ex-
istence of a soldier ought not to be. Some seem
to think that to suppose that a soldier can be a
Christian, is to suppose what is impossible ; and
that to think that there can be any heirs of the
kingdom of heaven in the army, is a stretch of
charity which they are not prepared for. Now
I always feel that that is not charity which is
more charitable than God, but the very reverse ;
it is delusion and deception. You will find in
the New Testament Scriptures some of the most
illustrious saints, who wore the uniform and
wielded the weapons of Cresar. I shrink from
80 FORESHADOWS.
war ; I deplore it as a stern, a terrible, an awful
necessity ; and, if I could by a touch, or by the
offering of a prayer, I would turn every sword
into a ploughshare, and every spear into a prun-
ing hook. I would reverse the process of the
modern Romans, in 1848, and would turn the can-
nons into church-bells, and make them the min-
strels of a sweeter and a far more holy music ; I
would turn shot into rails, and men-of-war into
merchantmen in every harbour. If I could, I
would ; and I pray that right speedily what is
the burden of a thousand prophecies may be the
realization of delightful and glorious facts. But
the question is not, my dear friends, Is war de-
sirable ? We are all agreed that war is a most
undesirable thing, and earnestly would we all
pray that the soldier and his stern profession
may become both obsolete together. But there
is the common- sense view of the question,
which we are not at liberty to despise ; and
Christianity is the highest common sense. Sup-
pose now that we were to disband our army and
our navy, what would be the result ? If other
nations would enter into a compact to do the
same, and if we were sure that they would keep
to it, then we might do so ; but if they will not,
THE SUBALTERN'S SICK SERVANT. 81
and do not, but girdle us around, not to defend
but to destroy us, would it be Christianity, or
would it be lunacy, in our country, to disband
its army and break up all its fleet ? If all Europe
were Christian, that is, if the millennium were
come, then, of course, what is now required
would be perfectly expedient; we should have
to extinguish all our police, turn jails into
churches, our soldiers into missionaries, and we
should need neither shot, nor sword, nor sa-
bre, nor cannon; and the nations then "would
learn war no more." But the millennium is not
come, there is the plain, unequivocal fact. By
all means try to prevent war. Get pirates, thieves,
tyrants, autocrats, mobs, fierce, seditious men,
to arbitrate ; but the sad fact is, that these men
insist upon striking first, and arbitrating after-
wards. If they would arbitrate before they
strike — if they would consider and discuss before
they draw, it would be well, but it is a fact that
they do not so, and the more defenceless you
are, the more ready they are to strike. It does
seem to me, with all deference to the wisdom,
and the knowledge, and the experience of those
that know better, that this is the old process, that
has failed so often, of trying to do by conven-
82 FORESHADOWS.
tionalism that which can only be done by Chris-
tianity, attempting by mechanical arrangements
that which can only be effected by spiritual and
moral means. If men would only expend in the
spread of the Bible, in extending the gospel, in
contributing to missionary societies, in praying,
" Thy kingdom come," more time and more
means, they would do more to render war un-
necessary than by any other process that has
been tried. In the beautiful words of an Ame-
rican poet, written when he looked at an arsenal,
with arms piled to the roof : —
" This is the arsenal. From floor to ceiling,
Like a huge organ, rise the burnish'd arms ;
But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing,
Startles the villages with strange alarms.
Ah ! what a sound will rise, how wild and dreary,
When the death-angel touches those swift keys !
What
Will mingle with their awful symphonies !
Were half the power that fills the world with terror,
Were half the wealth bestow'd in camps and courts,
Given to redeem the human mind from error,
There were no need of arsenals and forts ;
The warrior's name would be a name abhorred,
And every nation that should lift again
Its hand against a brother, on its forehead
Would wear for evermore the curse of Cain.
THE SUBALTERN'S SICK SERVANT. 83
Down the dark future, through long generations,
War's echoing sounds grow fainter, and they cease
Like a bell, with solemn sweet vibrations ;
I hear once more the voice of Christ say, " Peace,"
Peace ! No longer from its brazen portals
The blast of war's great organ shakes the skies,
But beautiful as songs of the immortals,
The holy melodies of love arise."
Such we know will be the end, and such alone
are the means by which it can be accomplished.
Here then was a soldier, and yet a Chris-
tian ; and if God has pronounced him clean,
shall we pronounce him unclean ? In the
Gospel by St. Luke it is stated that the soldiers
came to John. I am stating this to show
you, not that war is beautiful, but that being
a soldier is not sinful : it may seem superero-
gation, and yet it is not so, to prove this in the
present day. The soldiers came to John,
and " likewise demanded of him, saying, What
shall we do ?" Did he say, " Your very pro-
fession is a crime, abjure it?" No. ({ He said
unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse
any falsely ; and be content with your wages."
Can I suppose that to be a soldier is thereby and
therefore to be a sinner, or, in other words, that
war is lawful in no circumstances, when John
g 2
84 FORESHADOWS.
thus spake to the soldiers, and gave them his
command and guidance ?
This Christian soldier came to Jesus, and asked
him to interfere in behalf of his sick slave. He
was a brave man, for such a Roman soldier must
be ; he was a humble man, for such a Christian
always is ; and he was a kind, an affectionate,
and a loving man — such the choicest of humanity
is ; and he felt an interest in the health and hap-
piness of his poor sick slave. There were no
servants in ancient times in the sense in which
servants are regarded now; they were bought
and sold in the market ; they were treated by the
heathens with a consummate disregard of every
instinct and feeling of humanity. This soldier,
feeling such a deep interest in the well-being of
his slave, is on the one hand a beautiful trait, and
creditable to him, and on the other hand it is
significant of that great lesson that Christianity
teaches, that the servant and the master, in the
sight of God, stand upon the same platform, and
must be tried at the same tribunal.
When he drew near to our Lord, he ex-
pressed his unworthiness to approach him. His
profession as a soldier served him with argu-
ments as a Christian. He said, " I am a man
THE SUBALTERN'S SICK SERVANT. 85
under authority." At first sight this seems a
strange expression : one would have thought that
he would have said, " I am a man having au-
thority." But no, he argues from the lesser to
the greater : " I am a subaltern, and there is over
me a commanding officer (as if he had said, ' I
am a lieutenant ') ; and if I who am but a subal-
tern, an under-officer, have such power, that I
can say to this soldier, ( Take up that position,'
and to that soldier, ( Be sentinel there,' and to
my servant, ( Do this,' and he doeth it, much
more, surely, thou, who art the commander of all
the armies of the skies, and the ruler of all the in-
habitants of the earth, hast but to speak the word,
and my servant then will be instantly healed."
His idea of the sovereignty of Christ was beauti-
ful and grand. The leading idea in the soldier's
mind was his profession, and that profession sup-
plied him with a conception of the grandeur of
him who is the Autocrat of heaven and earth, the
true Imperator, of whose authority Coesarwas but
an imperfect and poor shadow. The soldier argues,
" If I then, as a subaltern, have so much power
that every man is subject to my authority, — that,
in virtue of the discipline that prevails in the Ro-
man army, instant obedience is rendered to every
86 FORESHADOWS.
command, — then, Lord Jesus, great Saviour,
great King, speak to this disease, and it will in-
stantly obey thee ; breathe a word to my sick
slave, and he will rise and come unto thee ;
thou who art the Lord of all power and might,
thou hast but to say the word, and angels will
come and execute thy will ; or wind, and wave,
and water, and earth, and sky, will meet to-
gether and conspire to do thy behests." We
are thus taught how one's profession may often be
made serviceable to one's Christianity ; and how
lessons may be gathered from all the sequestered
nooks and by-paths of domestic, private, and
professional life, which will cast new lustre on
the truths, and inspire with new force the pre-
cepts, of the everlasting gospel.
Jesus, we are told, admired the confidence and
faith of the centurion, and said he had not seen
" so great faith, no, not in Israel." What does
this teach us ? That Christ is pleased the most
when we put the most confidence in him. We
are not guilty of presumption on the one hand,
or of rash and daring intrusion on the other,
when we lay much upon the shoulder of Christ
for him to bear and endure for us. The more we
trust him, the more he feels he is honoured by
THE SUBALTERN'S SICK SERVANT. 87
tliat trust. Christ is not angry with you because
you have asked too much of him, but he is
grieved and vexed that you should have such
diffidence in his love, such distrust of his om-
nipotence, that you ask too little of him. Ask
great things, and he will give you great things.
He does exceeding abundantly above all that
you can ask or think. We have evidence here
that such asking is not presumption, in the sim-
ple fact, that the deepest humility and the great-
est faith were combined in this Roman soldier of
whom I am now speaking.
We read that our blessed Lord heard his re-
quest, put forth his power, healed his slave, and
restored him to his master ; and he was so
charmed and smitten with this specimen of piety,
like a wild flower gathered from the desert, not
a garden-flower nursed in the vineyard of Israel,
that he said, " Verily I say unto you, many shall
come from the east and the west, and shall sit
down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in
the kingdom of God." In other words, he
teaches us that there are Christians where we
suspect not, in circumstances, in cities, in coun-
tries, and in shapes where the natural eye can-
not see them. There are more Christians in the
88 FORESHADOWS.
world than bigotry will allow on the one hand,
and there are fewer Christians in the world than
latitudinarianism is pleased to think on the other
hand. The eye of true charity can see Christ-
ians where the eye of the world can see none.
The wings of love can cross breadths, and the
feet of love can wade through depths, and find
trophies of the power, and monuments of the
mercy of God, unsuspected and unseen by the
multitude of mankind. Our Lord says, " Many
shall come from the east and the west." I re-
joice in the prospect that the numbers of the
saved will not be a few. The whole language of
Christianity is, " Many shall be saved." The
language of the Apocalypse, (chap, vii.,) so
beautiful and so rich with thoughts descriptive of
the future, is, " I beheld, and lo, a great multitude
which no man could number, of all nations, and
kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before
the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with
white robes, and palms in their hands." And in
the nineteenth chapter we read, " And I heard,
as it were, the voice of a great multitude, and as
the voice of many waters, and as the voice of
mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia : for the
Lord God omnipotent reigneth." I observed
THE SUBALTERN'S SICK SERVANT. 89
in my Apocalyptic Sketches, that this alleluia,
the first Hebrew word in Revelation, is the
Jewish voice. It is at the destruction of Baby-
lon, that the Jews shall return, and sing " Alle-
luia." And I may mention a very interesting
fact — that the Jews were seen circulating the
New Testament, and selling it in the streets of
Rome, in 1848 ; and these Jews, although they
did not believe in the gospel, were actually
quoting 2 Thess. ii., and demonstrating that the
pope is the antichrist, and that the Romans
had better not let him come back, nor have
any thing to do with him ; as if a strong fore-
shadow of that day, when the voice of the
Jew shall join with that of the Christian at the
destruction of Rome, and shall say, " Alleluia !
at length not antichrist, but the Lord God omni-
potent reigneth."
We have an intimation, then, that a great
multitude shall come from the east, and from the
west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and
Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of God. No-
tice here the identity of faith and the identity of
love. Not sect, nor rite, nor nationality are the
bonds of union and communion with each other.
It is not said that only the circumcised, and bap-
90 FORESHADOWS.
tized, or only the Jew shall come, or those that
pronounce the same shibboleth, and worship in
the same form ; but it is said that many from
the north, and the south, and the east, and the
west, shall come, and, having the same Lord,
the same faith, the same hope, the same joy,
shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and
Jacob. This teaches us what is the true bond of
the unity of the church of Christ. It is not all
using the same liturgy, or using the same forms,
or worshipping in the same manner, or worship-
ping in the same place, or being under the same
ecclesiastical government ; but it is in all having
the same centre — Christ ; the same Father, whose
children we are ; the same Spirit, whose sancti-
fied subjects we are. Christ is called the Hus-
band of his church. li Husband " comes from
two Saxon words, meaning " house-bond." The
husband is the house-bond, and Christ is the
great house-bond of his house — all bound and
knit together, finding their unity in subjection to
and in communion with him.
Thus, then, men of all classes, of all castes, of
all forms of worship, shall sit down with Abra-
ham, and Isaac, and Jacob ; men of every clime,
the African from his burning sand, the Lap-
THE SUBALTERN S SICK SERVANT. 91
lander from his everlasting snows. The children
of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, who met once in
the ark, shall meet in Christ the true Ark, and
sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob.
Men of every political dynasty — the accomplish-
ed royalist and the stern republican, the subjects
of good governments and the victims of bad ones,
shall all meet together in heaven, for they have
met in Christ ; men of all ranks, from all circles,
degrees, and positions in social life ; men of all
kinds and degrees of intellect — the philosopher
and the peasant,
" He renown'd for ages yet to come,
And she not heard of half a mile from home,"
shall meet, if believers, and mingle in that glori-
ous fellowship.
We are told that they shall sit down with
Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob : that indicates
perfect repose, perfect rest, the sabbath of the
soul. The " rest that remaineth for the people
of God " will have then begun ; the soldier from
the field of battle, the sailor from the restless
deck, the mourner from his weeping, the martyr
from his flame shroud — all, gathered together
by the attraction of their common Lord, and
92 FORESHADOWS.
pervaded by trie sympathies of a common faith,
shall sit down together with Abraham, and Isaac,
and Jacob.
Notice, too, the dignity of it — they " shall sit
down." Servants stand ; kings and princes sit.
God's people are to sit on thrones. " They shall
be," says the apostle, " kings and priests unto
Christ."
Another idea is that of enjoyment. It will be
a festival — a feast for the imagination, a theme for
the intellect, a fete for the heart ; all the facul-
ties of man's soul will be feasted with things
congenial to their nature. It will be the repose
which all humanity, after its exile and its weary
wanderings below, shall feel to be its home ; and
in which home-born joys, like swallows under
a roof, shall nestle for ever.
And there will be not only dignity, and rich
enjoyment, and true rest, but there will be recog-
nition of each other. " Sit down " with whom ?
With Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob. Can we
sit with them, and not recognise them ? Shall
we know that the promise is performed, if we do
not actually see those patriarchs, and feel that they
are so? I hope when all the shadows of time shall
have ceased, and the pulse of the first resurrec-
THE SUBALTERN'S SICK SERVANT. 93
tion shall have been felt by the sleeping dust,
and realized by the glorified spirits of the re-
deemed of God, that there will be a meeting so
grand, so noble, so glorious, that the imagination
of the brightest poet, even in his happiest ima-
ginings, has never conceived it. I believe I shall
see Adam who first sinned, and was also first
saved, and hear from his lips the story of Para-
dise lost, and Paradise regained. I shall see
Enoch, and learn of one who never tasted death,
but passed from, the life that now is to the eternal
world without having waded the narrow sea that
flows between. I shall see Noah, and hear him
relate the story of the ark, — what he felt, what he
hoped, and how he trembled, how gloriously he
was saved, and how happy he now feels. I shall
meet with Moses the great prophet, and Aaron
the great priest, with John the evangelist, and
with Peter the apostle, and hear each tell the
story of his trials, the secret of his triumphs, and
the happiness he now feels when the battle is
won — when the palm is in the hand, and the
wreath of victory twined about the brow. We
shall see things that are now unseen, and taste
joys that we have now no conception of; and
if we felt all the grandeur and magnificence
94 FORESHADOWS.
that awaits us in reversion, I do believe that,
in the case of the children of God, the re-
luctance would not be to die, but to live ;
and that oftener would this cry rise from the
very depths of the sanctified heart, " Oh that
I had wings like a dove, that I might fly away,
and that I might enter into that rest, and be
with God for ever ! " It is because we are
so long accustomed to the old house, and so
acquainted with all its nooks, its recesses, and
its windings, that we do not like to leave it ; but
if we could only gaze upon that glorious palace,
if we could only measure its splendid halls —
those halls where the altar is Christ, where the
floor is emerald, and the dome is sapphire, and
the very dust is diamond — I am sure we should
thirst and long for an entrance into that blessed
city, which hath no need of sun nor of moon, for
the Lord God almighty and the Lamb are the
light thereof.
It is nearer than many of us think, and either
it will soon come to us, or we must go to it ; one
or the other must be. If we are now the people of
God, the partition-wall that separates it from us
becomes thinner every day. One can feel the
pulses of that great heart of love to which we
THE SUBALTERN'S SICK SERVANT. 95
shall soon draw near ; one can almost hear, in
rapt moments, the first notes of that glorious
jubilee in which we shall take a part. We stand
every moment on the verge of that great and
unsounded sea. Are we ready to set sail ? Are
we clothed in the Redeemer's righteousness ? Are
we actuated by the Redeemer's spirit? Have
we the humility of a Christian ? Have we the
humility of the soldier, the faith of the soldier,
the trust of the soldier, recorded in the miracle ?
How is it that any one, with one foot in eternity
and the other in time, not knowing into which
section of eternity he is about to plunge, there to
be for ever, can remain in such a state for
one single day ? Let me repeat the blessed
truth : Salvation now, this very day, for the
guiltiest of us all ; instant pardon, glorious, suffi-
cient pardon, through the blood of Jesus, for the
chiefest of sinners. My dear friends, God's
great grief is, if I may use such language, that we
are always suspecting him to be a hard Egyptian
task-master, instead of feeling of him, and flying
to him, as to our Father. Father, go home, and
watch the babe in the mother's bosom, and see
where it finds its repose, where its rest and its
confidence are ; and learn that, great and gifted
96 FORESHADOWS.
and celebrated as you may be, it is only when
you can become like that little babe, and feel
toward God as that infant feels to its mother,
that you will be a true, a happy, and exalted
Christian.
The Disciples in the Storm.
P. 97.
LECTURE IV.
THE DISCIPLES IN THE STORM.
And straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a
ship, and to go before him unto the other side, while he sent
the multitudes away. And when he had sent the multitudes
away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray : and when
the evening was come, he was there alone. But the ship was
now in the midst of the sea, tossed Avith waves : for the wind
was contrary. And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus
went unto them, walking on the sea. And when the disciples
saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is
a spirit ; and they cried out for fear. But straightway Jesus
spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer ; it is I ; be not
afraid. And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou,
bid me come unto 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. But when he saw the wind
boisterous, he was afraid ; and beginning to sink, he cried,
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 ? And when they
were come into the ship, the wind ceased. Then they that
were in the ship came and worshipped him, saying, Of a truth
thou art the Son of God.— Matt. xiv. 22—33.
I beg to introduce the beautiful miracle re-
corded in the passage I have read by some ad-
98 FORESHADOWS.
ditional prefatory remarks upon the nature of
the miracles of our Lord. I have prefaced every
exposition of the successive miracles of Christ by
remarks on their nature ; and I come now to
that point of discussion which is of some import-
ance in the present day, namely, are miracles
still continued in the church 1 Ought there to be
in the visible church, or in any section of it
whatever, power to do miracles ? And if we see
not that power exercised, is it a sign that it has
been withdrawn in sovereignty, or is it a proof of
the unfaithfulness of the church that has shorn her
of her prerogative ? or is it the mind of God that
there should be no miracles in the visible church
whatever, and that there is neither a necessity
for them, in the circumstances in which we are
placed, nor power to do them in those who are
either the teachers or the pupils in the church of
Christ ? It is my conviction, founded upon fact
and Scripture, that it is not God's mind that
there should be .now miracles in the church ; that
from the nature of the thing it could scarcely
have been expected that there should ; and that
while there is every reason to believe that mira-
cles were required at each successive epoch or
stage in the progression of God's purposes, there
THE DISCIPLES IN THE STORM. 99
is no proof that they were meant to be every-
day exhibitions by every Christian.
In noticing the miracles of the Old Testament
Scripture, you will perceive (and this is pre-
sumptive evidence that they were not meant to
be always continued) that they cluster around
each great crisis, or epoch, or era ; they are not
spread over the whole dispensation as every-day
things, but they seem to cluster into masses, to
occur at special intervals, or on specific occa-
sions, when there was a great crisis at which the
interposition of omnipotence was necessary; then
and there only omnipotence developed itself.
For instance, we find that at the establishment
of the kingdom by Moses and Joshua miracles
were done, because it was the commencement of
a new and great era. So at the reformation of
the kingdom by Elijah and Elisha, miracles were
again exhibited ; there was another great change
in the progression of God's purposes, a new and
more startling development of his mind to man-
kind at each of these periods.
You will notice now, (and I think this will be
a sufficient reply to those persons who allege
that it is want of faith or want of Christianity that
makes it come to pass that there are now no mi-
H 2
100 FORESHADOWS.
racles,) that the most distinguished saints of the
Old Testament Scriptures did no miracles. This
alone will be evidence that there may be Chris-
tianity without miraculous power. Abraham,
" the father of the faithful/' did not perform one
miracle ; yet, who can doubt that he was a dis-
tinguished Christian ? David did not perform a
single miracle ; miracles were done in his time,
but not by him. Daniel performed no mira-
cle ; it is true miracles were done around him,
and about him, but not by his instrumentality in
any sense or shape. And I think it is one of
those simple, yet striking and expressive evi-
dences of the Divine origin of the Bible, that it
is asserted of John the Baptist, specifically as-
serted, that he did no miracles. Contrast that
one statement with the legends of the canonized
saints, as they are called, of the Church of Rome.
A Roman Catholic saint without a miracle would
be a sun without rays, a star without light, a
non-entity, a phenomenon. There is something
inimitably grand and beautiful in this, that while
of all the pseudo-saints it is constantly said that
they did miracles of all sorts, grotesque, extra-
vagant, ridiculous ; it is said in simple terms,
without assigning any reason, of John the Baptist,
THE DISCIPLES IN THE STORM. 101
that he did no miracles. In looking at past dis-
pensations, then, we have presumptive evidence
that miracles were not to be of every-day occur-
rence, or to be perpetuated always.
There is evidence of this also from analogy.
At the commencement of an epoch, or at the first
development of a kingdom, or at the creation of
a world, you may expect more power to be put
forth than at the continuance of it. For instance,
the first creation of the world required more
power than the continuation of the world does,
and more was accordingly developed. The con-
tinuance of a race, too, requires perhaps less power
than the creation of that race. So the introduction
of God manifested in the flesh was a new epoch
so remarkable, so strange, so unexpected by the
mass of mankind, that you might expect on such
an occasion and such a crisis there would occur
miracles to attest it. What is a miracle ? It
is just God's omnipotence becoming a pedestal
or candlestick on which to plant God's truth ; it
is omnipotent beneficence coming down from
heaven, pointing to a doctrine, or specifying a
person, and saying the one is of God, and the
other is God manifest in the flesh. Now that at
such a crisis a miracle should be done was na-
102 FORESHADOWS.
tural; but when that crisis had passed away,
that the miracle should cease is no less natural.
When the fruit is ripe, the calyx or the petals that
surround it drop away ; when the building is well
founded and complete the scaffolding is taken
down. It is so with miracles. We have now come
to that era when it is not more power that man
needs to see, but more grace that man needs to feel.
All miracles, I would notice too, that have
been performed, or pretended to be performed,
since the apostolic age closed, have been either
lying legends, interruptions of God's harmony
by Satan himself, or they have been gross, pal-
pable deceptions. Let any one read, for instance,
the life of Ignatius Loyola, or St. Francis Xavier,
and judge for himself. One of the ways of form-
ing a higher estimate of God's book, is to read
any other book pretending to be equal, or to be
next to it. The contrast is so vivid and striking
that your impression would be more and more
confirmed that this is the book of God. Let any
one read the life of the Lord of glory, that sim-
ple, sublime biography, which has four penmen,
but one grand original to draw from, and then
let him read the life of St. Francis Xavier, or
Ignatius Loyola, or St. Alphonsus Liguori, or
THE DISCIPLES IN THE STORM. 103
any of the canonized saints of the Church of
Rome, drawing each after him a long string of
grotesque miracles and wonders — most of them so
grotesque that they must make a rational man
smile, and a Christian man weep ; and he will see
at once what wears the impress of God, and what
bears the stamp of the lying legends of man. All
pretended or false miracles lead you to wonder, to
stare, to be amazed ; every miracle that Jesus did
leads you to see beneficence, to learn truth, to dis-
cover that he who preached the one, and perform-
ed the other, was indeed God manifested in the
flesh. The miracles of recent times lead from God,
the miracles of Christ lead directly to God. There
is, besides, this difference, that the miracles of the
New Testament are guardedly alluded to ; they
are never spoken of as evidence of grace; where-
as, if we read the accounts of the miracles per-
formed by Romish saints, we shall see that they
are always quoted as evidence of their sanc-
tity. What is the great evidence that a person
ought to be canonized in the church of Rome ?
That he has done miracles — this is an evidence
of his sanctity. Is this the evidence of the Bible
that a man is a Christian? The very contrary
is its declaration. A man may do many won-
104 FORESHADOWS.
derful works, yet Christ may say, " I know
him not." He may speak in tongues, and have
not charity. Hence the apostle Paul, indicating
the sublime, moral, and spiritual character of
Christianity, bids men not to covet great gifts by
which they may dazzle, but to " covet the best
gifts," that is, love ; for knowledge, in as far as it
is inspired, is gone, and power, in as far as it is
miraculous, has ceased, but love abideth — " now
abideth faith, hope, and love ; but the greatest of
these is love." Covet therefore, not the gift
which dazzles, and may dazzle you to ruin, but
the grace that sanctifies you, and fits you for
eternal happiness. It is these latent points in the
character of the gospel that bring out its Divine
original, and show in the Bible, not a human com-
position, bearing all the traces of man's dark
character, but a Divine gift, bearing on it the
image and superscription of God.
One remark more, before I enter upon the
miracle I have read. The continuancy of a
miracle is an absurdity. This is shown by what
I said about our Lord's turning water into wine.
The present law is, that the vine shall be planted,
that the rain shall fall, and the sun-beams shine ;
that it shall grow first into a blossom, and then bear
THE DISCIPLES IN THE STORM. 105
grapes, that these shall be pressed or squeezed,
and then fermented and turned into wine. All
that Christ did, when he performed the miracle at
Cana of Galilee, was to shorten the process. The
present process is a long one, requiring twelve
months for its completion ; Christ merely com-
pressed the twelve months' process into one
minute's doing. But suppose that every Chris-
tian in this congregation could turn water into
wine by simply invoking the name of Jesus ;
suppose that every man could do it, what would
be the result ? Philosophers would immediately
enter it into their books that this was one of the
laws of nature. There is nothing more miracu-
lous in turning water into wine by a word than
by means of sun-beams and rain-drops. I ques-
tion, indeed, if what we call the natural law be
not the greater and more striking miracle. But
why does the one seem so miraculous ? Because
it is the unusual thing. If the two were inter-
changed, and the twelve months' process were to
come once in a hundred years, people would say
that it was the miracle ; and that what we call the
miraculous process was the natural one. What
was a miracle when done first, would cease to be
a miracle by being done every day. The mira-
106
FORESHADOWS.
cle at present would be to raise a dead man to
life ; but if men were always raised as soon as
they had died, it would cease to be so ; it would
be the natural process, and by becoming a great
law, would cease to be the vivid, startling, em-
phatic witness, calling man's attention to great
truths and solemn facts. You can see, there-
fore, that the demand for miracles in the church
is not Scriptural. To those persons who pretend
that they can do miracles there is but one an-
swer : " Show the miracle, and then we will
believe." It is not what the church should have,
or what you say the church has, or what you say
you can do, but this is our requirement, do it ; a
miracle is an appeal to the senses ; and if my senses
testify that it is no miracle, no pretensions of
yours can satisfy me that you have miraculous
power. But what is the use of more power at pre-
sent ? " If they believe not Moses and the pro-
phets, neither would they believe if one rose from
the dead." There is evidence for the gospel so
conclusive that no miracle can strengthen it. Now
suppose the case of some thoughtless, heartless
person, without fear, without love, fearing neither
God nor man; suppose some spirit, a depart-
ed relative, were to rise from the dead, and appear
THE DISCIPLES IN THE STORM. 107
to him, and reason, in the sepulchral tones of the
grave, of righteousness and temperance, and
judgment ; of the torments of the lost, of the joys
of the saved ; that person's hair would stand on
end, his heart would multiply its beatings, his
whole system would be depressed ; he would be
startled in the morning, and begin to pray, if he
never prayed before; he would begin to feel, to
think, to fear, to be alarmed, to inquire about what
he was to do to be saved ; but day after day the
impression would grow weaker, and at last, when
he had got fairly into the world again, and the
first sharp impression had been blunted, he
would begin to say, " Well, I believed it was
so and so that appeared to me ; I wonder if it
was ; was it a delusio visits after all ? It may have
been something I had eaten that disagreed with
me, the nightmare — some strange fancy that went
across my mind ; perhaps it was no miracle after
all." So it would be in every instance, men
would feel awed while the miracle lasted ; they
would return again to their follies when the mi^
racle had ceased to make its impression. We do
not want power. I would not be a convert to
Christianity by any power that could be made to
exert its pressure upon me. Ruined as my soul
108 FORESHADOWS.
is, it must be won, not driven ; and weak as my
understanding is, it must be convinced, not taken
by storm ; and poor as my heart is, it must be
made to love, or it will not beat in unison with
God's mind at all. Therefore, I want no miracu-
lous power to awe me, to terrify me, to force me ;
I want to see love manifested in Christ, that I may
love him who loved me ; I want to read this
blessed book, and study it, and meditate on it,
and to come to the conviction upon clear grounds,
upon conclusive evidence, that it is God's book ;
and then I shall be willing, in the day of God's
power, to be saved, not against my will, but in
the full exercise of all my faculties and powers.
So far, then, I have proceeded in examining
recent miracles, and contrasting them with those
of the New Testament. Let us now turn our
attention to the beautiful miracle recorded in the
14th chapter of Matthew.
Its facts are so plain that nobody can mistake
them ; few need them to be explained. There
are often passages in the Bible so exquisitely
beautiful and simple, that I have no doubt men
of taste sometimes say to themselves, as they hear
or read my attempts to explain them, " I wish
you woidd let that alone ; it is your touching it
THE DISCIPLES IN THE STORM. 109
that weakens it ; trying to explain it deteriorates
it; it is so simple, so expressive in its lonely
grandeur, that it speaks with the greatest power
when it is left to speak alone." Still there are
lessons we may draw from it ; without explain-
ing the outward miracle we may draw lessons
from it instructive to us in our inner experience.
It is said that Jesus constrained his disciples
to go into the ship. I look upon the ship as a
type, a symbol of the whole church — the true
church of Christ ; I look upon the disciples in
it as a great symbol of Christ's people in this
world ; and I look upon Christ's walking on the
waves, and coming to still the storm, as a lesson
instructive and comforting to us. We notice,
that Jesus constrained his disciples to go into
the ship, which was overtaken by the storm.
We are never to run into affliction unsent ; it is
as sinful to run into affliction that we have no
business with, as it is to run from affliction into
which God has sent us.
While the disciples went into the ship, how
was Christ engaged? He was praying on a
mountain-side apart. While Christ's people
suffer, whatever that suffering be, Christ himself
has not forgotten them, but is pleading and in-
110 • FORESHADOWS.
terceding for them on that loftier mount where
he makes intercession for all who come to God
through him.
It was after the disciples had seen the miracle
of the loaves and fishes, that Jesus sent them
forth to this stormy and tempestuous voyage.
Have we not in this an illustration of Christ's
dealings with his people still ? He never sends
his people into the furnace till, like Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego, he has strengthened
them to bear it. He does not send them to suf-
fer trials till he has first shown what his power
and sympathy are. He fed them miraculously
with loaves and fishes before he sent them to
encounter the storms and waves of an angry
and tempestuous sea. We thus learn this bless-
ed lesson — that no Christian goes a warfare at
his own charges, that God will give him strength,
if he seek it, for his journey, that he will give
him the element of victory for the battle, that
he will first manifest to him the riches of his
o-race. He will then send him into trouble in
order to test his confidence and trust in him.
I may notice another interesting fact. It is,
that Christ always proportions his trials to the
strength and progress of his people. I might illus-
THE DISCIPLES IN THE STORM. Ill
trate this' by referring to the 8th chapter of Mat-
thew, where another storm is spoken of, which
I shall notice on a subsequent occasion. In the
8th chapter of Matthew it was a tempest merely ;
here it was a tempest contrary to them. In the
first storm Christ was in the ship, though asleep ;
here he was not in the ship. In the first storm it
was day -light; here it was darkness. In the
first they were near the shore ; here they were
afar off. In the one Christ was with them ; here,
in the other, it was their complaint that Jesus was
not yet come. So we learn that Christ does not
send his people into a heavier storm till he has
accustomed them to a lighter one, that as they
grow in strength he increases the burdens which
Christians have to bear. And is it not well that
it is so ? The question is sometimes asked —
What would you do if persecution were to come,
and you were called upon to die at the stake
rather than surrender your religion ? The answer
is, it is not what you feel now that is to be the
test of what you are, but what you will do then.
When God suffers martyr times to be, he gives
martyr strength to his people to go through
them ; God fits his people for the crisis, — " As
their day is, so shall their strength be." We are
112 FORESHADOWS.
not to speculate how we shall get through tlais
and how we shall get through that, judging from
our present strength how to meet our future
trials ; but our right course is to trust in the
Lord, knowing that " My grace is sufficient for
you. As thy day is thy strength shall be."
What a childlike position is this, and what a de-
lightful one — that we are not to speculate about
the future at all, but to see that we now trust
implicitly in our Father.
I may notice, too, from this storm, that trials
and afflictions are always the lot of the people of
God. He is not the worst Christian who has
most trials, but, if one may judge at all, he who
has fewest. " Through much tribulation," says
the apostle, " ye must enter into the kingdom of
heaven." " In the world," says our Lord, ec ye
shall have tribulation." This is the great law.
When persons are in affliction, therefore, they
should not think it strange, " as though some
strange thing had happened unto them," but
feel that it is the path, the journey, the road, the
career, chalked out for them. It is as necessary
that you should lose that money, that health, en-
counter that trial, and buffet that storm, as it is
that Christ should die for you, and that you
THE DISCIPLES IN THE STORM. 113
should believe on him. Then this blessed truth
will always comfort, the wave that reaches the
highest only lifts the ship nearest to the sky;
the wind that blows the fiercest only wafts that
ship more speedily to the shore ; and the light-
ning that cleaves the skies and rends the atmo-
sphere serves only to light God's ark to that
glorious haven where it shall rest upon its sha-
dow, and in the enjoyment of perpetual peace.
"Whilst the disciples were buffeting the storm
Jesus was praying for them on a hill-side un-
known to them. What, we may ask under this
head, is it that Christ prays for his people when
they are in affliction ? No doubt it is first, as he
himself has indicated, that their faith fail not.
" Simon, Satan hath desired to have thee, that he
may sift thee as wheat, but I have prayed for
thee that thy faith fail not." I think there is
something exquisitely beautiful in this, that
Christ does not wait till we are in trouble, and
then pray for us ; but that he prays for us first,
and afterwards we are placed in trouble : " I have
prayed for thee that thy faith fail not, before
Satan hath got liberty to sift thee as wheat."
As long as faith remains, let the storm be never
so severe, this faith is still " the substance of
114 FORESHADOWS.
things hoped for, the evidence of things not
seen," the victory, therefore, that overcometh the
world. I can also well conceive that when Christ
intercedes for his people in trouble, it is that their
sins may be forgiven. There is no storm where
there is not sin ; there is no storm in which there
is not a Jonah ; there is a reason for it ; there
is a why and a wherefore ; and if we are Christ's
people, it will be his intercessory prayer that our
sins, which have brought the affliction, may be
blotted out, and then the affliction will be either
removed, or will be made the chariot that wafts us
more speedily to glory, and honour, and immor-
tality. I can conceive that another subject of
Christ's intercessory prayer is that the affliction,
whatever it is, may be sanctified. Of all dreadful
judgments, unsanctified afflictions are the worst.
Those persons who are made to think and feel
seriously under great losses, and then by and by
think as they did before, have come under only
more dreadful judgments; their hearts have be-
come more hardened, and their prospects of feel-
ing the power of the gospel are fainter and fewer.
Another part, I conceive, of Christ's intercessory
prayer must be that we may not, in affliction, use
unlawful means to get out of it. When persons
THE DISCIPLES IN THE STORM. 115
are in sore perplexity, in circumstances of great
pecuniary embarrassment, how many are the
temptations in the commercial world to do some-
thing sinful, something unjust, dishonest, rash,
something altogether unchristian, in order to
escape from the present overwhelming pressure.
If we are Christ's people, he will pray for us,
that we may patiently wait, that we may con-
stantly trust, that we may never have recourse
to anything he has forbidden, in order to escape
from the trial in which he has placed us. Such
then we may suppose to be the substance of
Christ's intercessory prayer for his people in the
midst of affliction.
You may notice another peculiarity here. It
is said that the disciples, in the midst of the
storm, rowed onwards till the fourth watch of the
night. What does this teach us ? That duties
are ours in all circumstances, however difficult,
however trying, or perplexing. You cannot
be placed in any illness where it is not your
duty to get the best advice in your power ; you
cannot be plunged into any perplexity in which
it is not your duty to use every available element
to escape from it. It is a law in God's provi-
dential dealings, that those who do not help
i 2
116 FORESHADOWS.
themselves in sucli matters he will not help.
Means and duties are ours, the issue and the glory
of our deliverance will be exclusively God's.
It is worthy of notice that the disciples here
did not pray — we do not hear that they did
so. Perhaps they were too overwhelmed for
prayer ; yet Christ came' to them. He does not
forget us when we forget him; he does not fail to
intercede for us when we cease to look to him. If
his interest in us were always contingent on our
felt interest in him, few indeed and far between
would be the saved. But, blessed be his name,
often as we forget him he forgets not us ; he
restores our souls, brings us back by his chas-
tisement, and preserves' us through his might,
and to his glory. How consolatory is this !
We read that when Christ came to them, he
came walking on the waves. Moses went through
the channels of a divided sea ; Christ marched
upon the bosom of the undivided sea, turning its
waves into a pavement, and its waters into a pro-
menade, indicating that the Land-lord and the
Sea-lord of the universe was present there, and
that nature felt that he was so. Does not this
teach us that just as the waves of the sea were
under Christ's feet, so all difficulties, all trials
THE DISCIPLES IN THE STORM. 117
all that his people fear, are under his feet still.
Sin, death, and Satan are under Christ's feet;
they are conquered foes; death has been de-
nuded of its sting, the grave of its victory.
Satan's head is bruised ; all are under Christ's
power, trodden down as the pathway on which
he marches to deliver, not standing up as ob-
structions to prevent his approach to us.
While the disciples were placed in great trial,
indeed almost despairing ; yet the glory of their
deliverance made them forget all their past sor-
row and trial. So will it be with Christ's people
still. Their deliverance will be so glorious that
they will think nothing of the storm through
which they have passed ; the better land will be
so beautiful that they will wonder that they did
not wish to reach it long ago. " I reckon," says
the apostle — one who had been in perils by sea,
and in perils by land, and had been also in the
third heaven — " I reckon [he says, from expe-
rience, not from theory] that the afflictions of
this present life are not worthy to be compared
with the glory that shall be revealed."
Another instructive feature of the miracle is,
the time when Christ came to deliver his dis-
ciples. The ancient division of the night was
118 FORESHADOWS.
into three watches, but here the Roman division
is adopted, which was into four. Christ allows
them to struggle in the storm, to get only half
across the sea ; and then he came to them at the
fourth watch, about three o'clock in the morning.
They had struggled from six o'clock the previous
evening, and had made but little way. Was that
late hour the best time for him to come ? It was :
he came at the moment when it was most for his
glory, and best for their good. If he had come
earlier, they would not have felt that their means
were exhausted, and that human strength was
weakness ; if he had waited, and come later, they
would have been plunged into despair, or over-
whelmed. He came at the moment when man's
extremity was God's opportunity, and man's de-
liverance was God's glory. And so it will be in
all the afflictions of his own people. I have no-
ticed in another part of my exposition that they
used means. " Toiling and rowing " is the lan-
guage of one of the evangelists. I have said that
it is our duty in affliction, whatever the affliction
be, to use such means as God has put in our
power. If Christ were God only he would not
sanction the use of means ; if Christ were man
only he would use nothing but means ; but be-
THE DISCIPLES IN THE STORM. 119
cause he is God and man he uses the means,
and gives the blessing in the use of them ; and
oftener is his glory more developed in blessing-
means which are feeble than in working against
means that are strong, or without means altoge-
ther. The blowing of horns led to the downfal
of Jericho — means very inadequate, yet means.
Gideon's lamps led to the victory of the three
hundred men — means, yet seemingly very worth-
less. The apostles triumphed by means that
looked very insignificant in comparison with the
grandeur of the world around them. Sense pro-
nounces means to be inadequate ; faith will not
idolize them, but will use the means, and look
to God for the blessing. What will you do,
when there are no means left, when you are in
such trouble, in such affliction, in such over-
whelming depression, that there is no way of
escape upon the right hand nor upon the left,
when there is nothing that you can do ? You are
just to do as God told his people to do before.
The Israelites said, when Pharaoh was behind
them and the Red Sea before them, " Be-
cause there were no graves in Egypt, hast
thou taken us away to die in the wilderness ?
Wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us, to carry
120 FORESHADOWS.
us forth out of Egypt ? Is not this the word that
we did tell thee in Egypt, saying, Let us alone,
that we may serve the Egyptians ? For it had
been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than
that we should die in the wilderness. And
Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand
still, and see the salvation of the Lord which he
will show to you to-day ; " and the sea divided,
and left a path across its mighty waters. And so
should it be with us. When you are in such
tribulation that you can see no possibility of
escape, in such perplexity that you do not know
how to get out of it, then is the time to stand
still ; not to stand still, and look at your own
shadow, or trust in your own wisdom, but stand
still, and learn, and pray, and see the salvation
of the Lord, which he will show you.
In the next place, when Christ comes to his
people, how often do his people mistake him !
It is said here, that when Jesus went to his dis-
ciples in the fourth watch of the night, they
" saw him walking on the sea, and were troubled,
saying, It is a spirit." The Jews had a popular
belief, that the spirits of the dead visited their
relatives long after death ; and in this instance
they thought a spirit of some departed one was
THE DISCIPLES IN THE STORM. 121
coming to them. Why did they misapprehend
it ? They had known, and seen, and heard Jesus
before. When people are in very great trouble,
they generally look at what way they think it
possible for them to escape, and if they do not see
deliverance coining in that one way, they leap
to the conclusion that there is no escape at all.
These poor discirnes thought there was but one
way of escape from the storm — that was to reach
the other side ; and when Christ came to deliver
them by a new and unexpected way, they misap-
prehended him, and forgot what he had said of
himself — that his way is in the whirlwind, and
his path in the great waters, that his ways are
not as our ways, nor his thoughts as our thoughts.
But there is another reason : when there is sin in
the conscience there is always disturbance in the
heart, and misapprehension in the eye. What
is it that makes cowards of us all ? Sin within
us ; and whenever affliction comes to a man who
lives in sin, as sure as that man lives he will see
his sin in the affliction ; and even when deliver-
ance is come, he is so convinced of his demerit
that that deliverance he misconstrues, and be-
lieves it to be only a more desolating form of the
deserved judgments of God. So with these poor
■>&
122 FORESHADOWS.
disciples. They were conscious of great sins, and
when the deliverer came they looked at him
through the medium of those sins, and expected
only a destroyer. Thus it is said, " they were
afraid."
But how beautifully does our Lord reply to
them, " It is I, be not afraid." That voice which
sounded so musical upon the streets of Jerusalem
— which had spoken such words of power, in
turning a few loaves into many — which had
been sweeter than a mother's to her firstborn
one — that voice rose, and rung out its own
peculiar melody amid the roar of the winds
and the noise of the sea-waves, and carried
consolation to their drooping hearts — " It is
I, be not afraid." Their sorrow was instantly
turned into joy, their faith into absolute assur-
ance ; and they were perfectly happy. But
there is more than this. Strange it is that we
need not only to know doctrines, but we need
grace to enable us to make suitable deductions
from them. Many people pride themselves on
their reason, others on their memory, others on
their imagination ; but, in dealing with God's
word, all three will go wrong if not guided by
God's Spirit. The inference, for instance, of one
THE DISCIPLES IN THE STORM. 123
man, from the fact of the shortness of life, the
certainty of death, and the uncertainty of the
epoch of it, is, " Let us eat, drink, and be
merry, for to-morrow we die." Here is a false
conclusion from true premises. The believer
draws a right conclusion from the same premises
when he says, " Therefore, let us weep as though
we wept not, marry as though we married not,
rejoice as though we rejoiced not, using the
world as not abusing it, for the fashion of it
passeth away." So when Christ here spoke so
beautifully amid the sea-waves, and to the tossed
and tempest-struck ship, " It is I ;" if he had
said nothing more, they would have said, " He is
come to sink us to the bottom of the sea." He
therefore helps their reason to draw a right con-
clusion, as well as informs their understanding of
the right doctrine; "It is I," therefore ', he says,
" be not afraid." There is something very beau-
tiful and very delightful in this to a Christian,
" It is I, be not afraid." Wherever Christ is,
there fear is an unnatural thing ; wherever
Christianity is, there " not afraid " is the legiti-
mate conclusion ; wherever God's grace is in the
heart, that heart ought to bound with present or
expected joy. Hence, as I have repeatedly said,
124 FORESHADOWS.
the more we see and know the Saviour the more
happy we shall be. Christianity is good news.
The voice, " It is I/' is the key-note of a
thousand hymns of joy, and gratitude, and
thanksgiving, and praise. Wherever Christ is,
there is peace and happiness.
Now, my dear friends, are you placed in cir-
cumstances of trial, circumstances of dire and
overwhelming affliction, or distress of any kind ?
Hear, in the depth of it, a still, small, but beau-
tiful voice, " It is I, be not afraid." Are you
in sickness, under the wasting ravages of disease,
anticipating a grave rather than a cure? Are
you pained and overwhelmed by a sense of what
is before you — by the sufferings that are within
you ? Dear brethren, it is not chance, it is not
accident, it is not a random occurrence, to be ex-
plained by secondary causes. Hear, in the midst
of that sickness, around that sick bed, the blessed
truth, " It is I, be not afraid." Are you mourn-
ing and deploring the loss of those that are near
and dear to you ? Hark ! there is sounding from
the grave in which you deposit their dead dust,
" It is I ;" and read upon that tombstone, in the
coming fore-light of the resurrection morning,
" Be not afraid." When that day comes, that a
THE DISCIPLES IN THE ST011M. 125
new voice shall pierce the heights and depths of
the universe, and shall ring, as with trumpet-
sound, through the homes of the living and the
sepulchres of the dead ; and when the dead dust
gathering together from every nook, and cranny,
and corner of the wide world, and, becoming ani-
mate and vocal, shall shout, " We come, we
come," responsive to the terrible summons — then,
brethren, it is " I " that summons you to the first
resurrection ; it is " Be not afraid " that is the
utterance of him who is to be your Judge. And
this shall be your memorial, or rather your new
song, " Blessed and holy is he that hath part in
this first resurrection." Here, then, is the secret
of all peace, the spring of all happiness, to know
that Christ is in the trouble, that Christ has sent
the trial, and that he is overruling it for his glory.
We read that the disciples received Jesus into
the ship, (I do not touch upon Peter walking on
the waters,) and immediately the wind ceased.
What is the secret of happiness then ? Christ in
the heart. It is when Christ is in the heart its
life, when Christ is in the conscience its legisla-
tor, when Christ is in the understanding its light,
that harmony takes the place of discord, sunshine
of cloud, and happiness of misery and woe. You
126 FORESHADOWS.
may rest assured of this, all experience is proving
it, all facts attest it, that there is no such thing
as happiness by any mechanical arrangements
we can make ; it can only be secured by a liv-
ing possession of the living Christ in the hearts
of believers. Christ in the heart will give peace ;
Christ in the home will light it up with new
radiance ; Christ in a nation will give its throne
new stability, and its people new peace ; and
Christ in the wide world will diffuse around a
millennium, just as the sun shoots around him
rays of heat and glory.
I must add, that this stilling of the storm was,
on Christ's part, an earnest of that universal
calm which will be when he whose right it is
will come. I have noticed, I think, before this
interesting feature in all the miracles of Christ —
that they are essentially redemptive in their char-
acter. I explained that every miracle that Christ
did was, not like Loyola's, or Xavier's, or Liguo-
ri's, a wild, arbitrary display of power, but one of
the fore-lights of the restoration of all things, an
earnest of what shall be. When he healed the
sick, for instance, that was an earnest and a fore-
taste of a sickless state; when he stilled the
waves and the storm, it was an earnest of the
THE DISCIPLIS IN THE ST011M. 127
perfect calm tliat shall be ; and when he raised
the dead, it was the first-fruits of the first resur-
rection. And I may notice this most interesting
fact, that, just in proportion as men grow Christ-
like in character, they become Christ-like in
power. I believe that greater skill in medicine,
greater attainments in science, greater loyalty
among our people, are all associated by an indis-
soluble law with greater grace in men's hearts.
It is in the most Christian lands that famine is
the least felt, and that the few loaves are multi-
plied most into the many. It is in Christian
lands, too, that man gains the greatest supremacy
over nature around him. What monarch rules
the waves ? The monarch that rules by the grace
of God — " Dei gratia,''' as the humblest of our
coins tell. What monarch is admiral of the seas ?
The monarch that is most Christian. In pro-
portion as Christianity spreads, you see medical
skill, military power, (as far as it is defensive,)
naval power, scientific knowledge, spreading too.
The fact is, Christianity is a glorious tree; and
science and literature and power are the para
site plants, that twine around it, draw their
nutriment from it, depend for support and en-
durance on it. This is a most delightful fact,
128 FORESHADOWS.
that just as a country becomes Christian, that
country excels in lordship over disease, over sea,
and land, and science, and literature, and phi-
losophy. If you were now to institute a com-
parison between the nations of the earth, you
would find that the land that has most Christian
light in it, has the most science, literature, phi-
losophy, poetry, and genius in it too. I believe
medicine is a science constantly progressing ;
and I have no doubt that, as we become more
Christian, there will be more control over dis-
ease. I look upon the discovery of vaccin-
ation as only a shadow of the great fact of
Christ's healing diseases ; and upon every bril-
liant discovery in medicine, (and many brilliant
ones have been made lately,) as a fore-light of
that day when there shall be no sickness, nor
death, nor any more sin. I believe there is a
deeper and more intimate connexion, underlying
what we see, between grace in the heart, and
light in the intellect, and power over all that is
around us, than many generally suppose. If
this lesson could be impressed upon us — that
they that are richest in grace shall be mightiest
also in power — we might gain, perhaps, another
step towards that glorious consummation, when
THE DISCIPLES IN THE ST011M. 129
Christ shall reign in every heart, and be all and
in all.
The result of this miracle was that the disciples
worshipped Christ. That should be the result of
its study to us. Have you been delivered from
affliction ? Worship Christ. Have you been pros-
pered in the world ? Worship Christ. Have you
escaped a watery grave ? Have you been saved in
a railway accident ? Have you been spared in
circumstances of imminent danger ? Have you
been recovered from disease ? Be thankful for
the physician's skill, for the medicine's power ;
but look beyond the physician, and above the
medicine, and, like the disciples who were de-
livered from the storm, worship Jesus.
LECTURE V
THE SORROWING SISTERS.
Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the
town of Mary and her sister Martha. (It was that Mary
which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet
with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.) Therefore
his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou
lovest is sick. When Jesus heard that, he said, This sick-
ness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son
of God might be glorified thereby. Now Jesus loved Martha,
and her sister, and Lazarus. When he had heard therefore
that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place
where he was. Then after that saith he to his disciples, Let
us go into Judaea again. His disciples say unto him, Master,
the Jews of late sought to stone thee ; and goest thou thither
again ? Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the
day ? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because
he seeth the light of this world. But if a man walk in the
night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him. These
things said he : and after that he saith unto them, Our friend
Lazarus sleepeth ; but I go, that I may awake him out of
sleep. Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do
well. Howbeit Jesus spake of his death : but they thought
that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep. Then said Jesus
unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your
sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe ;
nevertheless let us go unto him. Then said Thomas, which
is called Didymus, unto his fellow disciples, Let us also go,
The Sorrowing Sisters.
P. 130.
THE SORROWING SISTERS. 131
that we may die with him. Then when Jesus came, he found
that he had lain in the grave four days already. Now
Bethany was nigh unto Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs off;
and many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary, to comfort
them concerning their brother. Then Martha, as soon as she
heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him : but Mary
sat still in the house. Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord,
if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But I
know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God
will give it thee. Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise
again. Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise
again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus said unto
her, I am the resurrection, and the life : he that believeth in
me, though he were dead, yet shall he live : and whosoever
liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou
this ? She saith unto him, Yea, Lord : I believe that thou art
the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.
And when she had so said, she went her way, and called
Mary her sister secretly, saying, The Master is come, and
calleth for thee. As soon as she heard that, she arose quickly ?
and came unto him. Now Jesus was not yet come into the
town, but was in that place where Martha met him. The
Jews then which were with her in the house, and comforted
her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up hastily and went
out, followed her, saying, She goeth unto the grave to weep
there. Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and
saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if
thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. When Jesus
therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which
came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled,
and said, Where have ye laid him ? They said unto him,
Lord, come and see. Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, Be-
hold how he loved him ! And some of them said, Could not
this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused
that even this man should not have died ? Jesus therefore
again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave,
and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, Take ye away the stone.
Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him,
Lord, by this time he stinketh : for he hath been dead four
k 2
132 FORESHADOWS.
days. Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if
thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God ?
Then they took away the stone from the place where the
dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Fa-
ther, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew
that thou hearest me always : but because of the people which
stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent
me. And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud
voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came
forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes : and his face
was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them,
Loose him, and let him go. Then many of the Jews which
came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, be-
lieved on him. But some of them went their ways to the
Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus had done. — John
xi. 1—46.
I have read what may seem a long, but what
must appear to you all a beautiful, account of
one of the greatest and most impressive miracles
wrought by our Lord, namely, the resurrection
of Lazarus from the dead. It will be impossible
to enter upon the part which is strictly the ac-
complishment of the miracle in this lecture. It
will be sufficient to dwell upon some of those
exquisite touches of true poetry, of deep senti-
ment, of instructive religion which immediately
precede the actual miracle. Often what accom-
panies the miracle is as beautiful and impressive
as the miracle itself; for, in the whole history of
Jesus, each act of power is set and embosomed
THE SOB ROWING SISTERS. 133
in many acts of goodness, like the full ripe fruit
amid the leaves and petals that surround it.
We may enjoy the fragrance of the last before
we gather and feed upon the preciousness of the
first.
In looking at what is recorded as introductory
to the immediate miracle, we find one great fact :
first, that suffering is the lot of all : there is no
exception. Sorrow enters the heart that is
bounding, and death smites the heart that is
breaking: there is none exempt. God's people
and they that are not are subject to suffering.
We may not trace out who are the Lord's people
by their outward sufferings ; we can onlv trace
this by their inward and moral character. Often
the greatest sufferer is the greatest saint. Fre-
quently God's hand lies the heaviest where
God's heart overflows the most with benefices I
sympathy, and love.
Let us notice where this miracle was done.
It was in a town called Bethany, but it is
distinguished by one characteristic feature ; it
was the town of Mary and her sister Martha.
There is something beautiful in this allusion.
I have no doubt that Bethany had given birth
to some heroes, poets, statesmen, philosopher
134 FORESHADOWS.
and that if you had asked some Rabbi what
was the greatest glory of Bethany, he would
have pointed to some tall tapering spire, some
exquisite specimen of architectural grandeur,
or he would have unfolded the page that con-
tains the name of some great poet who was
born in it, or illustrious hero who bled and
suffered for his country. But these charac-
teristics are all restricted to this world. The
sounds of the fame of heroes, poets, and phi-
losophers, are spent before they reach the
skies, but the sigh of the broken heart is heard
in heaven louder than the seven thunders ; the
simple petition of a contrite spirit rises to God
swifter than an angel's wings can clip, and rises
higher than an archangel's pinions can soar. In
the light of heaven what we call great things are
pressed into little space, and what man calls lit-
tle things are seen to be mighty because moral,
and associated with the glory of God, and the
salvation of immortal souls. So here the only
trace in the history of Bethany that had its re-
flection beside God's throne was this : that two
Christian females were natives of it. It was not
the town of the hero, the statesman, the poet,
but the town of Mary and her sister Martha,
THE SORROWING SISTERS. 135
These two fair, fragrant, and fragile flowers were
in the sight of God the fairest things in Bethany.
But the eye of man does not see it so, and the
ear of man does not hear it so. It needed Chris-
tianity to teach us what is one of the most elo-
quent lessons on its glorious page : that physical
grandeur, even when it is sublimest, is mean and
poor, and that moral glory is alone great and
enduring. These two living temples were more
glorious than the temple of Jerusalem. These
two obscure saints gave a character to the town
where hero's exploits, and poet's hymns, are un-
noticed and unknown, and where alone it is im-
portant to be either noticed or known. Bethany,
the town of Mary and her sister Martha ! May
it not be so still ? We speak of London as dis-
tinguished for the birth of many great ones ; we
refer to Edinburgh, or Dublin, or Paris, as il-
lustrious for some other great fact or feature ;
but perhaps these great cities^ when spoken of in
the language of the ransomed that are about the
throne, are quoted as distinguished by facts that
have no credit in the newspaper column, and no
eclat in the parliaments of this world, but which
alone, amid all that seems magnificent in the his-
136 FORESHADOWS.
tory of those capitals, are recollected and mooted
in heaven in glory.
It is said that it was " that Mary which anoint-
ed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet
with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick."
This record seems the fulfilment of what is ex-
pressly stated in one of the previous Gospels. It
is said of this very Mary, in the 26th of Matthew,
" Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel
shall be preached in the whole world, there shall
also this, that this woman hath done, be told for
a memorial of her." How very striking is this !
Who would have ventured to give this pro-
phecy ? Were some person in this congregation
to do some deed of Christian beneficence, and
were I to say, Wherever the gospel is preached
throughout the whole world this fact shall be
mentioned, men would smile incredulously at
my enthusiasm, and all would feel that it was
extremely improbable that my prediction would
be fulfilled. Well, Jesus had here no outward
glory, nothing that could impress the senses of
mankind, and yet he enunciates it as an abso-
lute prediction, not a probable conjecture, that
wheresoever the gospel should be preached
THE SORROWING SISTERS. 137
throughout the whole world, there this act of
Christian sympathy should be recorded. It is now
recorded in John, it sounds from every pulpit, it
is contained in every Bible ; the prophecy has
swelled into absolute and universal performance.
We see that Jesus knew the end and the begin-
ning, and the impression becomes not more deep,
but more transparent, that Je^us is what he
professed to be, the Christ, the Son of the living
God.
But by whom was this act of beneficence re-
corded ? Not by Mary herself. It is one thing
to sound one's own fame ; it is another to
let others do it: it may be right in others to
do it; it would be wrong in ourselves. And
yet there is a distinction. Some are so sensi-
tive that they are literally afraid that the left
hand should know what the right hand doeth.
It is possible to err in that direction. Others
are so vain-glorious that they cannot give a
guinea without having an advertisement to an-
nounce it. It is possible to hit what is neither
the one nor the other ; to let our good deeds " so
shine before men, that they seeing our good
works may glorify" — not us — there is the dif-
ference, not us, but "our Father which is in
138 FORESHADOWS.
heaven." He that does the act from the right
motive, and makes known the act from the same
motive, does what is Christian in both. And it
is important that men should know, and be made
to feel, that wherever God's grace subdues the
heart, there the hand that was clenched is relax-
ed ; the soul that was narrow is enlarged, and man
feels, for the first time in his experience, that
God's grace has made him a saint, and that that
saintship should lead him to be instantly a servant.
Let me notice another feature here. When
Lazarus was sick, sharing in the common ca-
lamity of his kind, and Mary and Martha
saw and deplored his sufferings, they did what is
a precedent for us to do in kindred or analogous
circumstances. " Therefore," in the third verse
it is said, "his sisters sent unto Jesus, saying,
Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick."
What they did physically we may do as really,
but spiritually, and it is not true that they could
draw closer to Jesus when he walked the streets
of Bethany, than we can do living in the midst
of a great city. He is near to the humble
heart as he was to Mary in Bethany. The arm
that raised the dead from his slumbers is not
paralysed. The voice that rang through the
THE SORROWING SISTERS. 139
chambers of the grave is not hushed. Jesus
is still equally near, is armed with the same
power; and, blessed be his name, his heart
overflows with the same tender and touching
sympathy. Sisters, when your brother is sick,
parents, when your dear babes are ill, you go,
and it is right you should go, and ask the
physician of the greatest skill and the greatest
experience to help you. The means are yours,
and the man who undervalues or despises the
means, undervalues and despises the ordinances
of God. But when you thus have recourse to
the physician that may err, and to the medicines
that may fail, let me ask if you have recourse to
that Physician who sends the sickness, fixes the
hour of its continuance, and has resolved what
shall be the glorious end to which that sickness
shall contribute ? Strange that we should try all
the cisterns of man, and never think of having
recourse to the fountain of Deity. And yet, my
dear friends, I believe that we may ask of God,
when we need them, temporal blessings just as
freely as we may ask spiritual blessings. Does
not Jesus himself set the example, when he said,
" Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from
me " ? Is there some mother whose babe is in the
140 FORESHADOWS.
agonies of death ? May not that mother say,
" Blessed Saviour, if it be possible, let this cup
pass from me. This frail but beautiful blossom
thou hast given me I would tend a little longer ;
this beloved and dear one I would cherish in
my bosom a few years more. Lord, spare it, if it
be thy will " ? Who will forbid her thus to pray ?
Not Jesus ; for he taught us so to pray : " If it
be possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet not
my will, but thy will be done." These sisters so
felt, for they addressed the Saviour in the lan-
guage that indicated the want that was nearest,
deepest, dearest. " Therefore his sisters sent
unto Jesus, saying, Lord, he whom thou lovest is
sick."
Notice another touching trait in this. I fancy
if I had been one of the train that went to Jesus
for relief, and if the relative had been mine, in
my ignorance I would have said, " Lord, he
who has done much to make known thy name —
he who has suffered much for thy sake — he who
loves thee most truly, dearly, deeply, is sick ; "
and I should have thought, in my ignorance,
that to plead what he had suffered and done for
Jesus would have been the straight way to get
Jesus to relieve the suffering. That would have
THE SORROWING SISTERS. 141
been human ; but Mary was taught by him who
was the true teacher, to press another motive, to
present another plea, far more eloquent and
effective than that which I have mentioned. The
sisters did not say, " He who loves thee " —
but, " He whom thou lovest is sick." What is
the great basis of all our appeals to Christ?
Not our love to him, but his love to us. Our
love to him is too frail, and evanescent, and flick-
ering to be the basis for petition ; but his love to-
ward us — that, like some of those springs amid
the blue hills of the north, is much too deep ever
to be frozen by winter's cold, and too over-lapped
and overshadowed by surrounding crags to be
evaporated by the summer's heat — that love
which loved us from the first, and loves us to the
last, and flows with undiminished stream — is the
basis on which we can stand — the strong plea
that we can present. Mary knew, what we
know, that to touch that spring was to touch a
chord that vibrated in the Saviour's heart, and
awoke the sympathy that was deepest, in behalf
of her sick and suffering brother — ts He whom
thou lovest is sick." This was her most success-
ful plea.
She did not say, " Lord, come and help him."
142 FORESHADOWS.
This omission is very fine. The thoughts that
underlie every simple remark in this chapter are
rich and full; and give evidence that no ordinary
teaching was here. She does not say, " Lord, he
whom thou lovest is sick, do come and cure him;"
but she felt that the simple intimation "he is
sick," and a plea and a statement based upon the
great fact that Christ loved him, was all that was
required : " He whom thou lovest is sick ; I
leave that fact with thee, blessed Jesus ; thou
knowest what is best ; it rests with thee to carry
that sickness to its issue, an issue that shall
glorify thy name, and do good and occasion
happiness to me and my brother."
There is yet another trait. Mary, and Mar-
tha, and Lazarus, were bosom friends of Jesus
— for Jesus, let us never forget, was a man. I
believe our great fault in modern times is, that
we so think of Jesus as God, that we do not
sufficiently think of him as a man ; but it is just
as important that we should feel the truth of his
real, but infinitely sinless humanity, as that we
should feel the truth of his real, glorious, and
eternal Divinity. Now Jesus was a man. What
I love that is pure he could love. He had his
friends — his bosom friends. There is not a
THE SORROWING SISTERS. 143
sympathy that nestles in the heart of a saint, that
Jesus had not in all its purity ; there is not a
sorrow that hangs like a cloud over the broken
and wounded spirit of a believer, that Jesus had
not hanging over his ; there is not one pang we
are conscious of, sin excepted, which had not its
echo, and has not its echo still, in the bosom of
our great High Priest ; " for we have not a High
Priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of
our infirmities, but one who was in all points
tempted like as we are, yet without sin."
Mary, knowing that Jesus was a friend, might
have said, " My brother Lazarus is sick." If you
recollect, Mary sat at his feet, and Martha min-
istered unto him ; and theirs was the home he
frequently went to. She might, then, have
argued, " My brother is sick ; I know thou
lovest him, and that therefore, for my sake, thou
wilt come and heal my brother." But she did
not say so. She had renounced what we need to
renounce — our own self, our good self, our
righteous self, our honest self, our family self;
and to feel that in us there is no fulcrum on
which we can lay the stress of that lever which
will lift our wants to God, and, retracing its arc,
bring doAvn blessings from his throne. Never
144 FORESHADOWS.
shall we rise to the loftiest dignity till we feel
that we have been snnk to the deepest hu-
miliation and abasement. It is the humble that
God exalts ; it is the hungry that God sends not
empty away.
This home of Mary and Martha was the
home where Jesus was in the habit of resting
his wearied frame, and seeking that refreshment
and finding that hospitality which* was as need-
ful to strengthen him for the toils of the week,
as it is needful to strengthen us. Weariness,
and hunger, and thirst were his, and he never
supplied the demand of any of them by a miracle
whilst ordinary means were adequate to do so.
One would have thought that if there was but
one home, and that home in Bethany, where that
aching head could rest, and that grieved and
wearied heart could beat in stillness — one would
have thought that if there was one home upon
earth that would be overshadowed with the all-
encompassing pinions of God — if there was one
hearth in Palestine whose flame would never be
shaded, and around which home-born joys, like
swallows, would nestle amid the rafters, and
flutter perpetually — that if there was one abode
upon earth where no sickness should pierce, no
THE SORROWING SISTERS. 145
wants be felt, and death himself should be an
exile, it would have been that home in Bethany
where Jesus went so often, and whose inmates
and tenantry were the friends of his bosom, and
the ministers continually to his wants. But into
that home sickness did enter. But here even is
felt a difference— sickness enters the unconverted
man's home armed with wrath; it enters the
Christian's home winged with mercy and love.
The issue of the sickness showed that what was
felt to be pain was sent in love, for it ended
in greater glory to Jesus, and in greater happi-
ness to them all.
But it teaches us also this lesson — not to judge
of men's characters by what betides them. You
hear of some frightful catastrophe that falls upon
a home, or a nation, or a capital, and you pro-
nounce that home, that nation, that capital, to
have great crimes. You do wrong. You are
not to say that it was more guilty -than we.
" Think ye that those eighteen on whom the
tower of Siloam fell were sinners above all men.
I tell you, nay ; but except ye repent, ye shall
all likewise perish."
Notice, in the next place, from the fourth verse
of this chapter, the end which underlies all the
1 46 FORESHADOWS.
dispensations of God, the great end he has in
view in sending them. "When Jesus heard
that, he said, This is not a sickness unto death,
(that is, final death,) but for the glory of God,
that the Son of God might be glorified thereby."
Sometimes you see in families afflictions which
you cannot explain. You see in one the first-
born cut down by a stroke ; in another, trouble
follow upon the footsteps of trouble, till all God's
waves and billows seem to go over it — the father
a Christian, the mother a Christian, the home
holy, their exercises Christian, their deeds bene-
ficent, and yet all of them the subjects of unpre-
cedented and consuming suffering. You do not
know what to make of it ; you cajmot understand
it ; but there is an end we cannot see — the suffer-
ing is " for the glory of God, that the Son of God
may be glorified thereby." A Scottish Christian
ought to recollect the first part of his catechism,
" Man's chief end is to glorify God," the most
magnificent definition that I know, " and then
to enjoy him for ever." We must be thankful ;
we must acquiesce, and feel that if our health
fails to give God glory, it is well that our sick-
ness does ; if our prosperity does not give him
glory, it is well that our losses and our adversity
THE SORROWING SISTERS. 147
do. We are here to be ministers of his glory.
May he afflict us or prosper us ; but may he
glorify his own name, that his Son may be glori-
fied thereby. Very beautifully does Mr. Evans
say in a book which I would recommend to you,
the fragments of his preaching or of his ministry,
I forget the precise title, " 0 Lord, fashion me,
polish me, cut me, any way that thou pleasest ;
but by me glorify thyself! "
The remark of Jesus must have satisfied Mary
of his omniscience, his sympathy, and know-
ledge ; for if a physician is called in to you, if
he understands the disease, and shows that he
understands it, your confidence in him is in-
creased. When Mary applied to Jesus, and
when Jesus told her the nature of the disease,
the issue and the results of it also, her confi-
dence in him must have been complete. Christ
sees the disease of every soul ; he understands
the " sin that doth most easily beset us ;" he
penetrates all veils, goes through every prejudice,
disentangles every passion, and detects where
the sin is that is the cause of our defalcation,
where the disease is that blights and withers our
Christianity at the very root. Is it no consola-
tion to feel that Christ knows what we are, what
l 2
148 FORESHADOWS.
is best for us, and the prescription that will cure
us ? You may rest assured, that when you are
visited with losses, trials, afflictions, bereave-
ments, that it is as necessary (some may doubt
this ; it is easily stated, but very difficult to feel)
that you, parent, should have lost that son, that
you, son, should have lost that parent, as that
Christ should come from heaven and die upon
the cross for you. There is a " needs-be " in
the calamity that is sorest ; there is an absolute
necessity in the blow that strikes the heaviest.
This is consolatory. But remember who it is
that strikes the blow. The hand that was nailed
to the cross will never strike in wrath, but only
in love, in sympathy, and in mercy. Thus, then,
both sisters were assured that the sickness was
" for the glory of God, that the Son of God
might be glorified thereby."
We read in the fifth and sixth verses, " Now
Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.
When he had heard therefore that he was sick,
he abode two days still in the same place where
he was." This seems to startle us. It seems
like a disappointment, and at the first blush it
appears like cruelty, that knowing that the friend
whom he loved was sick, and feeling that the
THE SORROWING SISTERS. 149
hand that he had but to stretch out could cure
him, and hearing these sisters, whom he also
loved, pleading for him, that he abode " two days
in the same place where he was," as if his heart
had lost its sensibility, as if his ear had become
heavy, and his arm shortened that it could not
save. How do we explain this ? By our own
experience. You are placed in affliction, and
you pray that it may be removed. Day dawns on
day, and the sickness still gnaws the heart, wastes
the strength, consumes our beauty like a moth,
and we fancy that Christ does not hear, that God
has forsaken us, and that our God has forgotten
us. You mistake ; Christ does not say that he will
answer the first petition. " Seek," he says, " and
ye shall find ;" but continue, " ask, and ye shall
obtain ;" and continue still, " knock, and it shall
be opened to you." He has promised an answer,
but the when, and the where, and the how, his
own wisdom and love will determine. So here
he had promised that the sickness should not be
" unto death," but that it should be " for the
glory of God ;" yet he tarries two days, and does
not come to deliver. Our affliction deepens,
our sufferings grow heavier, the cloud becomes
blacker, we pray for mitigation, we ask for
150 FORESHADOWS.
healing, for mercy, for sympathy, for interpo-
sition. All is still, but the cure is being pre-
pared; the voice is about to utter, " Come forth ;"
and what seems delay is only a momentary sus-
pension of the relief that is needed, in order to
nourish and strengthen our faith, and increase
our confidence and hopes in waiting for the
Lord.
Beautifully it is said in another part, " Our
friend Lazarus sleepeth ; but I go that I may
awake him out of sleep." Lazarus was dead,
but he says still, " Our friend Lazarus." Death
snatches the protege from his protector, the child
from the parent, the parent from the child,
friend from friend, brother from brother, but
even death cannot sunder the tie that knits the
meanest saint to the Lord of glory. It is true of
the slumbering dust of a saint, that it belongs to
the friend of Jesus. The mother upon earth,
whose child is in heaven, can still say, " My
babe sleepeth ;" and the child on earth, whose
parent is beyond the skies, can say, " My pa-
rent" still. Those ties outlast the grave ; they
receive new strength, and are covered with a
new glory before the throne. The church in
heaven is not another and different body from
THE SORROWING SISTERS. 151
the church, on earth ; they constitute one glorious
community, the one militant, the other triumph-
ant; the one drinking from the fountain, the
other from the river that flows from that foun-
tain, which is in the throne of God and the Lamb.
" Our friend Lazarus sleepeth."
This symbol is used to denote that which of
all things we dread and deprecate — death.
He calls death a sleep. Now I do think (and
I have often said so) that of all unnatural
things, of all things that are repulsive, of all
things that are most abhorrent to our feelings,
death is the most so. Man was never made
to die ; he was never meant to die. No ! death
is not God's creation, but sin's doing. Sin is
not God's making ; whoever made it, or from
whatever quarter it came, God made not sin ; it
is a blot upon his workmanship ; it is the jar in
the harmony of the universe ; it is a stain upon
what was made good, and bright, and beautiful.
Death is not God's child, but sin's ; and it is
right that we should hate and dislike it, and
shrink from it. But when touched by the cross,
and the sin that is the parent of it is forgiven,
death, which is the child, is transformed from
being the executioner that drags the culprit to
152 FORESHADOWS.
his punishment, into the minister that leads and
guides the believer to his happy and his lasting
home. Hence the Christian's death is called by
the beautiful epithet " sleep." This is not a new
one. We read, that " them that sleep in Jesus
will God bring with him;" " I would not have
you ignorant concerning them that are asleep."
It is a favourite expression, and an expression
that is peculiar, in all the riches of its meaning,
to Christianity itself. I have no doubt, that to
the aged man who is the child of God, and
who falls asleep in Jesus, death is no suffering.
It is a glorious spirit, that has laid aside the
shackles of mortality that it might unfurl its
bright wing (and it was the splendour of the
departing wing that told us an angel had been
with us) ; it is only the removal of the re-
straints that kept it to the earth, that it might
soar until it should sing among the seraphim
beside the throne of God. The part that is
the man, is not that which you see ; we are so
much the creatures of sense, that we see certain
features and hear certain tones, and we say,
" These make up the man ; " and when he is
gathered to his grave, we say our friend is gone.
It is not so. What is the body ? It is no more to
THE SORROWING SISTERS. 153
the soul than the instrument is to the musician.
God has placed me in this material world — and
I need something to enable me to come into con-
tact with it ; I need the apparatus of the senses,
which is that which you see. You only see the
machinery, you do not see the living power that
works the machinery : when the machinery is
worn out, as it must be, it is laid aside in the
grave to rest awhile, until God shall rebuild, re-
store, and re-beautify it. The man that thinks,
that feels, that knows, that loves, has only left
the old ruined house to awake amid the glories
of the sky, and to wait for " a house not made
with hands, eternal in the heavens."
Thus death is sleep ; but it is not unconscious-
ness— do not take up that notion. Absent from
the body is present with the Lord. " To me,"
says the apostle, " to live is Christ, to die is
great gain." The thief upon the cross was ad-
dressed, " To-day shalt thou be with me in Pa-
radise." Therefore while death is sleep, it is
not the suspension of consciousness, of life, of
thought.
But this simile teaches that there is enjoyed
by death, as I will explain more fully, perfect
repose. We sleep at night in order to recruit
154 FORESHADOWS.
our exhausted energies, and to prepare us for
new toils and tasks that are before us on the
morrow. Death is just sleep in as far as sleep
involves the idea of refreshment, rest, and re-
pose. The soldier of the cross has " finished
the good fight," and now wears the laurel beside
the throne ; the labourer has done his day's
work, and he now rests ; the traveller has fin-
ished his journey, the Christian his conflict,
and wearied, they have entered into " the rest
that remaineth for the people of God." " They
rest in their beds, each one walking in his up-
rightness." They rest ; " yet they rest not day
nor night," saying, " Glory, and honour, and
blessing unto the Lamb."
In sleep also there is security. When we lie
down to sleep, we are satisfied, after fastening
all means of access, that we are secure ; we
could not sleep unless we were satisfied that we
were safe from the thief, the robber, and the
assassin. So when the believer sleeps, he enters
into a state of perfect security. The doors that
shut the saint in shut all intruders out. They
that are there never go out, they are perfectly
secure.
The next idea that sleep implies is, restoration.
THE SORROWING SISTERS. 155
We go to sleep, expecting to rise in the morning
refreshed. Even so Jesus died, and rose again ;
and " them that sleep in Jesus will God bring
with him," that is, at the morning of the resur-
rection. " As for me," says David, u I shall be-
hold thy face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied
when I awake with thy likeness." " They," says
Daniel, " that sleep in the dust shall awake, some
to everlasting life."
What a different picture does this give us of
the grave ! The whole of 1 Cor. xv. may be
inscribed, and by the eye of faith will be seen
to be inscribed, upon the tombstone of every son
of God. The grave i* but the resting-place ; it
is the land where God's seed is sown ; it is
the vestibule to glory. In a few years — cer-
tainly a few years to the oldest, and it may be a
few to the youngest, those ties that keep us be-
low shall, if we are the people of God, be re-
moved, and there shall be a gathering together
which shall consummate alike our glory, our
happiness, and our peace.
Beautifully therefore (without entering upon
the subject further) does Jesus say, "Thy bro-
ther shall rise again." Sister, thy brother shall
rise again ; father, thy child shall rise again ;
156 FORESHADOWS.
child, thy father shall rise again; friend, thy
friend shall rise again. They whose dust is in
graves that man has never dug — they whose
sleeping ashes are in the deeps of the desert sea,
with the cold sea-weeds about them, and the
chimes of the ocean's waves for their requiem
— they whose grave is in the desert, whose wind-
ing-sheet is the barren and scorching sand — they
that sleep in the stony chambers of the pyra-
mids, or under their shadows — they who have
been scattered by wind and wave to the four ends
of the earth, or whose bones are bleaching upon
the barren Alps — shall all hear the sound of
the last trumpet ; and tiie king shall obey as
quickly as the beggar. The dust that is in an-
cient urns shall be warmed, and every man shall
come to receive his righteous sentence " accord-
ing to the deeds done in the body, whether they
have been good, or whether they have been evil."
The monument of bronze shall not keep back the
prince; the green turf shall not. keep back the
beggar. The very dust beneath our feet shall be
quickened, and all shall rise again. " Blessed and
holy is he that hath part in the first resur-
rection."
Brethren, are you Christians ! Are you the
THE SORROWING SISTERS. 157
people of God? That is the question of ques-
tions— a question that becomes more instant,
urgent, eloquent every day. Scenes strange
and solemn, as I have told you, are opening on
us; circumstances throughout the whole world
indicate, like petrels, the coming storm. If ever
there was present a crisis, or an epoch in the
world's history, when men should at least have
one sure and fast foot-hold, that revolution
shall not shake, nor dire judgment destroy, it
is the day in which our lot is cast. My dear
friends, seek the Saviour ; open your hearts to
the entrance of his blessed gospel : for every soul
that is without God is without excuse. Every
man who is not a Christian has no reason for ^ot
being so except that he will not. But I am in-
stantly checked, when I think of urging you to
be Christians, by the thought — " Is Christianity
a nauseous and unpalatable thing, that I must
ask men to take that which, all the instincts of
their nature recoil against ? " My dear friends, it
is " good news," it is the pardon of the greatest
sin ; it is the acceptance of the greatest sinner ;
it is joy to the broken heart ; it is hope to the
mourning heart ; it is the panacea for all ills, the
prescription for all diseases ; it is the entrance
158 FORESHADOWS.
into joys below, and into yet fuller joys at the
right hand of God, and pleasures for evermore.
I wonder that any man can have one happy pulse
in his heart or one sweet moment in his rest who
is not a Christian. I wonder, too, that any man
should be depressed, discouraged, or fear, or be
alarmed, who knows that when all things are
moved, he has " a house not made with hands ; "
and that when the mountains are cast into the sea,
and the earth shakes with the swelling thereof,
he can say to his throbbing, his palpitating, his
anxious heart, " Be still, and know that it is
God. He will be exalted among the nations, he
will be exalted in the earth."
LECTURE VI.
THE LORD AND GIVER OF LIFE.
And when she had so said, she went her way, and called Mary
her sister secretly, saying, The Master is come, and calleth
for thee. As soon as she heard that, she arose quickly, and
came unto him. Now Jesus was not yet come into the
town, but was in that place where Martha met him. The
Jews then which were with her in the house, and comforted
her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up hastily and went
out, followed her, saying, She goeth unto the grave to weep
there. Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and
saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if
thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. When Jesus
therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which
came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled,
and said, Where have ye laid him ? They said unto him,
Lord, come and see. Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, Be-
hold how he loved him ! And some of them said, Could not
this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused
that even this man should not have died ? Jesus therefore
again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave,
and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, Take ye away the stone.
Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him,
Lord, by this time he stinketh : for he hath been dead four
days. Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if
thou wouldest believe, thou shouldcst see the glory of God ?
Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead
was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I
160 FORESHADOWS.
thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou
hearest me always : but because of the people which stand by
I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. And
when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus,
come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand
and foot with graveclothes : and his face was bound about
with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let
him go. Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and
had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him. But
some of them went their ways to the Pharisees, and told them
what things Jesus had done. Then gathered the chief priests
and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we ? for this
man doeth many miracles. If we let him thus alone, all men
will believe on him : and the Romans shall come and take
away both our place and nation. And one of them, named
Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto
them, Ye know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedi-
ent for us, that one man should die for the people, and that
the whole nation perish not. And this spake he not of him-
self : but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus
should die for that nation ; and not for that nation only, but
that also he should gather together in one the children of God
that were scattered abroad. Then from that day forth they
took counsel together for to put him to death. Jesus there-
fore walked no more openly among the Jews ; but went
thence unto a country near to the wilderness, into a city called
Ephraim, and there continued with his disciples. And the
Jews' passover was nigh at hand : and many went out of the
country up to Jerusalem before the passover, to purify them-
selves. Then sought they for Jesus, and spake among them-
selves, as they stood in the temple, What think ye, that he
will not come 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 show it, that they might
take him. — John xi. 2S — 57.
We have studied the previous part of this im-
pressive and interesting miracle. I come now to
THE LORD AND GIVER OF LIFE. 161
its end — to that crowning act by which it was so
gloriously closed : the resurrection of Lazarus.
I need not say that every verse might be the
basis of a sermon ; but it is sometimes expedient
and highly useful that we should look at passages
as wholes, and not break them into fragments, in
order to build on every fragment the superstruc-
ture of an appeal, an argument, or an address.
On the present occasion, therefore, I will inci-
dentally examine the whole of the narrative I
have read. In the 28th verse, we read that Mar-
tha hears the sound of joy in the very words that
Jesus had uttered : " I am the resurrection and
the life." What he intends to do with her brother
she evidently knows not; but joy she evidently
felt, and because of the prospect of some good he
was about to achieve for her ; and with that beau-
tiful and unselfish characteristic by which the
people of God ought always to be distinguished,
she is resolved not to have a monopoly of the joy.
She desires to share it with her sister Mary . She
therefore runs to her secretly, and whispers in
her ear the missionary sentiment which this
female evangelist so joyfully conveyed : " The
Master is come, and calleth for thee." To be
missionaries is the duty, yea, rather the privilege,
M
162 FORESHADOWS.
of us all : the sister to her sister, the female to
her friends, as well as the minister upon the
distant isles of the ocean, and amid the untrod-
den deserts of Africa. It is a most erroneous,
nay a popish, idea that we are merely to con-
tribute a sovereign a year to send out a mission-
ary to India or Africa, and that we are excused
by that gift from doing any thing, or saying any
thing, or attempting any thing, to spread the
gospel in our own immediate neighbourhood.
The true idea of missions is, that man, the moment
he is made a Christian, becomes a missionary ; the
unction of the saint is thus expended in the duties
and the sacrifices of the servant. And it is the
feature, the grand ennobling feature, of the
gospel, that he that drinks deepest of its living
water thirsts most to diffuse it. You may estimate
the depth of a man's Christianity by the extent of
what he does, or gives, or sacrifices, or suffers,
to spread it. There may be selfishness among
statesmen, there may be selfishness among lite-
rary men, but there can be no selfishness among
those who are truly Christians ; for the very law
of the economy they belong to is, that God gives
us the largest blessings, that we may diffuse them
the most largely around us.
THE LORD AND GIVER OF LIFE. 163
Mary, we read, runs immediately to Jesus as
her sister invited her, and repeats the words
which had been spoken before by Martha, (ver.
32,) " Lord, if thou hadst been here our bro-
ther had not died." You recollect, when Martha
first met Jesus, and told him of her brother's
sufferings, and then of her brother's death, that
she, too, gave utterance to the same sentiments :
" Lord, if thou hadst been here my brother had
not died." What does this show ? That it had
been a frequent fire-side remark. These two sis-
ters had often said, as they wept together over the
hearth, and gazed upon the flame that reflected
no longer its light upon the face that they loved,
and as their tears fell fast on the stone no longer
trodden by a brother, " If Jesus had been here,
Lazarus, our brother, had not died." And so
deeply had this sentiment taken possession of their
hearts, that Martha utters it in one place as the
feeling that was uppermost in her mind, and Mary
is no sooner introduced to Jesus than she too
gives utterance to the same sentiment. But it
was not a just remark. It indicated faith, and
yet want of faith. It was as fixed a point that
Jesus should not be at the bedside of the dy-
ing Lazarus, as it was that he should stand at
M 2
164 FORESHADOWS.
the grave of the dead Lazarus. The " ifs " of
man are the decrees of God. We say " if," but
that " if " is as fixed as the final close of the fact
to which it refers. And hence, in the remarks
we make about our relatives, we often say, " Ah !
if I had only taken that course ; if I had only done
this ; if I had only sent for that physician ; if I
had only had recourse to this medicine, how dif-
ferent would it have been ! " But all these ifs
are part of the steps by which the relative rose
from earth to glory, and were just as needful,
and as decreed, every one of them, as that he
should fall asleep in Jesus, and live for ever. I
am not a fatalist, yet I believe in the sovereignty
of God. What is the meaning, what is the end,
above all the comfort of the doctrine of elec-
tion ? It is not intended to modify what we do
now. God's election is not our rule of life. It
is God's written word. But when facts have
taken place over which we had no control,
when we have lost the near and the dear that we
loved, then election comes in with all its real and
blessed consolations, and tells us : This was not
an accident ; this was not a chance, a hap-hazard
occurrence, but it was just as fixed as God's
own throne, and Tio power on earth could have
made it otherwise.
THE LORD AND GIVER OF LIFE. 165
The Jews, we read, followed Mary to the
tomb. " When Jesus therefore saw her weep-
ing, and the Jews also weeping which came with
her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled."
These Jews went to the tomb in the exercise of
a humane sympathy : they went to sympathize
with Mary ; but God sent them to be witnesses
to a miracle that was to teach souls. Man pur-
sues his own ends, chalks out his own path, and
acts under the impulse of his own motives ; but
over every man, from the* highest that sits upon
the throne, to the meanest that barely lives in
the wretched attic, there is a controlling hand
guiding, over-ruling, directing all to his glory,
and to the most beneficent designs. So those
Jews took their own way, and went on their own
errand ; but they were afterwards used by God,
as the narrative shows, to make known to the
Pharisees the fact that one was raised from the
dead, and that Jesus was therefore the Son of
God.
An expression occurs in this verse which I
may notice : Jesus " groaned in the spirit."
This is an unfortunate translation; it is not
positively correct, and our translators in other
passages have not so rendered it. It denotes not
166 FORESHADOWS
groaning in spirit, but properly, being indig-
nant. The idea of indignation (I do not know
by what other word I could well express it) is
implied in the word which is here translated
" groaned in spirit." We have the very same
phrase, for instance, in Mark xiv. 5, where the
disciples say, " For it might have been sold for
more than three hundred pence, and have been
given to the poor. And they murmured against
her." That is the very same word in the
original. It also occurs in other passages,
with shades of translation, all of them conveying,
and involving, and implying, the idea of indigna-
tion.. But most persons who have examined it,
and probably noticed this idea, have been per-
plexed by the thought, What could Jesus be
indignant at ? Why should there be indignation
felt in the bosom of the Son of God ? I may state
in answer, in the first place, that anger is not sin.
It is right to be angry when the occasion demands
it ; only " let not the sun go down upon your
wrath;" because anger long continued issues
in malice, malice in revenge, and revenge in mur-
der. Therefore the passion should be nipped
in its sinless state, before it assumes its sinful
and wicked development. Here the indignation
THE LORD AND GIVER OF LIFE. 167
was perfectly sinless. We read in other passages,
"Jesus was angry, being grieved at the hardness
of their hearts ;" and in this place that he was
filled with indignation. But still the question
arises, At what was this indignation ? What was
its cause ? I have no doubt there was a cause,
and I think the circumstances in which Jesus
stood afford the explanation. He called before
his mind the havoc that sin had made from the be-
ginning till that moment. Jesus heard the groan-
ings of nature for two thousand years with awful
depth and intensity. He saw sweep before him
the solemn procession of disease, and death, and
famine, and pestilence. He beheld the graves
of the aged, and the tombs of the young ; and he
recollected that this earth, now so blasted, was
once made so beautiful ; and he was indignant,
righteously indignant at the havoc sin had made,
and at the momentary triumph that Satan had
obtained. The source of his indignation there-
fore was in the circumstances in which he stood ;
and it reveals and unveils to us that blessed
truth, that Jesus,
" Though now ascended up on high,
Yet bends on earth a brother's eye."
168 FORESHADOWS.
When lie looks down upon this earth, he has no
pleasure in the pains, the sins, the sufferings,
and the penalties of his people — in heaven
he still groans or grieves over them ; and he,
too, anticipates with joy (for "he shall see of
the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied ")
that blessed day when all sickness shall depart
like a morning mist; when death shall be de-
stroyed ; when the grave shall be swallowed up
in victory ; and this once fair, and then yet
fairer, earth shall bask in a sunshine that shall
never be shaded by clouds, and all its inhabitants
shall swell that glorious anthem in which there
shall be no discord, and of which there shall be
no suspension, " Worthy is the Lamb to receive
honour, and glory, and blessing, and thanks-
giving for ever and ever."
But this suggests to us a lesson as we pass.
If Jesus was so indignant at the havoc that sin
had made, have we any sympathy with the spirit
of Jesus ? Do we lament it ? do we grieve at it ?
And if we grieve at it, do we have recourse to
the means and prescriptions of his word, to meet,
to neutralize, and to remove it ? The evidence
that we sympathize with him, is the fact that we
THE LORD AND GIVER OF LIFE. 169
co-operate with, him in the modes for its removal
that he himself has pointed out.
It is also added in another text, what has been
called the shortest text in the Bible — that while
Jesus was indignant at what he saw, indignant
at these spoils of the enemy, " Jesus wept."
It was an anger that was mingled with intense
agony of spirit, and sorrow. It may be that he
wept as a friend over a friend ; for we can never
forget that Jesus as man touched our humanity
at every point. He was a Friend, and had his
friends, and reciprocated the emotions of one of
not the least beautiful affections — friendship.
When Jesus' friend was dead, it may be that, as
a friend, Jesus wept. But no doubt there was
more than that feeling in it ; for if he was angry
at the havoc which he saw, and which was the
result and the creation of sin which he did not
make, which is a blot and stain upon that fair
world that was originally made so beautiful,
there was also sorrow, painful sorrow, at all
that he witnessed. He was, we are told, "a
man of sorrows." I know no expression in the
Bible charged with intenser meaning than that
phrase, " a man of sorrows," steeped in sorrow,
saturated as it were with sorrow. These tears
170 FORESHADOWS.
r
that fell from his eyes were but the faint outward
manifestations of an ocean of sorrow within, that
we can neither gauge, nor conceive, nor fathom.
" Jesus wept." What a mixture in this miracle
of the sympathy of man and of the majesty of
God ! Do you ask me, " Is Jesus man?" I point
to his tears ! Do you ask me, " Is Jesus God ?"
I point to his words, "Lazarus, come forth." Do
you ask me what he is ? I answer, man, as I am,
sin excepted ; knowing all my weaknesses, my
sorrows, my sufferings ; deeply, richly, closely
sympathizing with them all ; and yet, in addi-
tion to this, God, able to deliver me from the
sorrows with which he sympathizes, and which
he alone can mitigate and remove. Blessed be
God for such a Saviour ! How blessed are they
that know such a joyful sound ! What a prize is
the Bible ; what a blessing is Christianity ; what
a bright hope may be ours ! And what a contrast
must there be in the death of a Christian to the
death of one who either knows not, or, if he knows,
despises, the gospel. I heard lately of the awfully
sudden, indeed almost instant, death of one who
was notorious for publishing, printing, and cir-
culating the most wicked, atheistic, blasphemous
works that ever disgraced the British press. He
THE LORD AND GIVER OF LIFE. 171
died with the hardened feelings with which he
lived. How very awful ! Yet we are not called
upon to judge. We must see and be silent ; but
this we know, and are bound to proclaim, that
the death-bed that is not illuminated by that
rainbow that
" Spans the earth, and forms a pathway to the skies,"
must be a dark and a dreary one indeed. And
if, my dear friends, you wish to have in this
world the richest joy, drink deep into Christi-
anity : if you want to make sure in the world to
come of the brightest prize, grasp most firmly
that cross which alone is worth glorying in ; and
which, every day that one lives, appears in
greater beauty, and comes home to our hearts
with greater preciousness. I only wonder (not at
you so much as at myself) that Ave so lightly, so
inadequately, feel those truths. I often marvel
that we can hear these things without being
thrilled, and rapt in ecstasy by them ; for sure
I am such words never sounded on the ears of
the heathen ; and if they had, they would have
risen in ecstasy, and the very slave would have
leaped with delight notwithstanding his chains.
The Jews exclaimed, as they saw Jesus weep-
172 FORESHADOWS.
ing, " Behold how he loved him ! " This was
their construction : they meant that he loved
Lazarus as a friend, and no doubt it was true ;
but there was a higher sense also in which it
was true. " Behold how he loved him ! " What
do all the sufferings, the sorrows, the agony, the
bloody sweat, the cross and passion of our Lord,
speak to us but this truth, " Behold how he
loved us?" In the manger, and on the cross,
we read these words, " Behold how he loved
us ;" and loved us, not because we loved him,
but he loved us, and therefore we love him ;
not because we had done any thing good, but he
loved us in spite of our sins ; and, blessed be his
name, if we are his, he will also save us in spite
of our sins. My dear friends, if God did not
often save us in spite of ourselves, we never
should be saved at all ; and when we go to him,
and pray, we are to draw near to him, not be-
cause we deserve — God forbid, and we are not
to be driven back because we dis-serve ; but we
are to go to him in spite of the protests of a
thousand sins, and say, in the face of all, and in
the midst of all, in that still small voice which
shall be heard above the seven thunders in
heaven, " Our Father, which art in heaven."
THE LORD AND GIVER OF LIFE. 173
" Behold how he loved him ! " Others,
again, argued this way, " Could not this man
that did these miracles — that opened the eyes of
the blind, have caused that this man should not
die ? " Of course he could. They admitted
that he had opened the blind man's eyes, and
they argued most logically that he might surely
have quickened the dead man's heart. The one
was just as possible as the other ; and if he had
power to do the one, why not have the power to
do the other ? They argued correctly enough,
but too hastily ; just as we do sometimes. We
often rush to conclude when we see the begin-
ning of a thing ; but we must see the beginning
and the end in order to form a right conclusion.
If they had waited with a little more patience,
they would have seen Lazarus coming forth from
the tomb ; and would have learned that this
man that could open the blind man's eyes, could
quicken the dead man's dust ; and that he was,
what they doubted, alike a light to lighten the
blind, and the life to quicken the dead.
We read again that Jesus approached the
grave, and again groaned in himself. His in-
dignation came again. I do not wonder at it.
When we see the dead, some of us, who are
174 FORESHADOWS.
nervous, are shocked, and some, who are not so,
take it as a matter of course. Others feel pity,
sorrow, pain, compassion. Rarely do we feel
indignation — indignation at what caused all, and
is the source of all. Jesus now, when he saw
death, (shall I use the expression and not be
misconstrued,) was shocked at it, grieved at it.
Death, I repeat, is the most unnatural thing,
and the more one thinks of it, the more horrible
does it appear — that this excellent frame-work,
made originally to live for ever, to bloom in
amaranthine beauty, never to have a grey hair,
or a wrinkle, or a stiff joint, or a deaf ear, or a
darkened eye ; once so beautiful and so good
that it was like God himself — that this exquisite
thing, so fearfully and wonderfully made, should
become so decayed that the dearest one must
bury it out of sight. What hath sin done ! how
is the gold become dim, and the most fine gold
changed ! But, what has Jesus done, who can
enable us to look upon that dead face, and on
that tomb, and say, O death ! where, notwith-
standing all this, is thy sting ? O grave ! where
is thy victory ? To gaze upon the crowded burial-
ground, to feel it true of every saint that sleeps
there, " Thanks be to God, who giveth us the
THE LORD AND GIVER OF LIFE. 175
victory, even here, through Jesus Christ our
Lord ; " this is Christianity. We read here, too,
in this interesting passage, that they evidently
went to a distant place to the grave. It is quite
plain from the statement that they rose and fol-
lowed her, saying, " She goeth unto the grave to
weep there ;" and from what we read at the thirty-
eighth verse," Jesus, therefore, again groaning in
himself, cometh to the grave ; it was a cave, and a
stone lay upon it." All these words imply that the
grave was not in the city. We boast very much
of our being the civilized people of the nine-
teenth century ; in fact it is the great boast of
the day, that science has enabled us to do tilings
that the ancients never dreamed of. One thing,
however, science has not done. Among the
ancient Greeks there was no such thing as a
burial-place within a city ; in the time of the
ancient Jews, too, such a thing as a grave within
the walls of Jerusalem was not known. It is one
of those habits that, with all our science, we seem
most sedulously to cherish ; yet a habit in itself
more unsuitable, in its origin more superstitious,
in its effects more pernicious, I do not know.
The origin of it was this : In Roman Catholic
times, while the good habits of the heathen in
176 FORESHADOWS.
this respect had passed away, people came to be-
lieve that the church was not merely a sacred
place, but that it was, as it were, a part of the
sacrifice and merit of the Saviour ; and in old
Roman Catholic churches you will aWays find
the rich sacerdotal and noble men, buried either
under the altar, or some where near it ; and you
will find the other graves crowding around the
altar in order to get within its sanctifying influ-
ence. This was the origin of the grave-yard
around churches. I admit that a great deal of
beautiful sentiment may arise from it; I feel
that the " Elegy in a Country Churchyard," by
Gray, is extremely beautiful ; but facts tell us
that such churchyards are extremely pernicious,
and otherwise answer no good purpose. They
had their origin only in superstition ; and I think
in the nineteenth century, in this particular, we
may just fall back into the first, and do what
ought to have been done years ago — form ceme-
teries far outside our cities, and henceforth on no
consideration within them.
Martha, it is plain, thought that the body had
gone completely to corruption. There was no
evidence that it really was so ; it was only her
individual impression; and she said so to our
THE LORD AND GIVER OF LIFE. 177
Lord. We then read, " Jesus lifted up his eyes
and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard
me. And I knew that thou hearest me always ;
but because of the people which stand by, I said
it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me."
Now these words seem liable, at first, to miscon-
struction ; as if they meant that Jesus might ask
and not be answered ; or as if they implied that
he was only a petitioning creature, and not also
" the mighty God." But you will see that the
words are to be construed from the circumstances
under which they were uttered. The Jews argued
that the power that he exercised was a power
from beneath. They said it was by Beelzebub
that he cast out devils : this was one of their
great accusations. Our Lord therefore, in ad-
dressing the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of
Jacob on this occasion, showed them by his ad-
dress to God, that the power he exercised was
a power that came from God, and therefore we
hear him saying here, " But because of the
people which stand by I said it, that they may be-
lieve that thou hast sent me ; that they may see
in me one who does these works of greatness by
a power that is Divine, and that in that prayer
they may have a foretaste of my mediatorial and
178 FORESHADOWS.
intercessory work before the throne." Then we
read, " And when he had thus spoken, he cried
with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth." This
was the voice of the trumpet. You recollect
reading of the trump of the archangel. We
are all in the habit of talking of angels and arch-
angels, but there is only one archangel men-
tioned in the New Testament, and I suspect that
archangel is the Lord Jesus Christ. It means,
literally, chief messenger ; as when we read of
angels we might render the word messengers.
In the sentence, " I send my messenger," the
word might have been rendered (t angel." This
voice that sounded in the tomb of Lazarus was
the first note of the trump of the archangel ;
and an earnest of that period when those words,
" Come forth," shall go down into nature's depths,
and rise up to nature's heights, and receive a mag-
nificent response. There is not an atom, not a
disintegrated atom of the- dust of the dear dead
we have left in their resting-places, that shall not
hear the voice of Him that made it. We shall rise,
and this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and
this mortal immortality : and death shall be swal-
lowed up in victory. We need not keep our dead
near the church, as if the church could do them
THE LORD AND GIVER OF LIFE. 179
good ; it matters not where they are. True, one
likes to see a place set apart where their ashes
may rest ; but it is really matter of very little
consequence whether we are devoured by the
fishes of the deep, or by the beasts of the forest ;
or whether the sand of the desert be our wind-
ing-sheet and the song of the ocean's waves our
requiem. It matters little. Every particle shall
hear the voice and trump of the archangel, and
we shall meet again in circumstances of beauty,
of blessedness, and of joy, which, if we knew
and felt as we might, would make one frequently
say, " Oh that I had wings like a dove, that I,
too, might be there and be at rest."
Lazarus heard the voice, and came forth. Here
I may pause to notice how this explains (for I
gather the lessons as I pass) the importance of
speaking to dead souls. Some persons say, Why
preach to a man who is dead in sins, when, from
its very condition, his soul cannot hear you ?
You might as well have said to Jesus, " Why
speak to the dead man Lazarus." Ours is the
duty to address every one, but the Lord has the
power to make that address of use.
Jesus said, " Loose him, and let him go."
What does this teach us ? First, the loosing of him
n 2
180 FORESHADOWS.
was to let them see that it was truly a miracle,
that there might be no carping ; and, secondly,
that Christ never does for man what man can do
for himself. Christ saves us not in indolence,
but he saves us from indolence ; and any man
who will plead, " I cannot read, I cannot pray,
I cannot go to church till God draw me," is
either deceiving me, or deceiving himself. You
can do many things, and it is no excuse to say,
" I cannot do this, and I cannot do that, till God
first move me." I say, rise, pray, hear, read;
and if any man will do Christ's will, he shall
know of the doctrine whether it be of God.
One fact I must not omit to notice here — that
in the records of the coming forth of Lazarus,
there is nothing said about any disclosures made
by him in reference to the unseen world. There
have been many idle stories founded on this
miracle. With many of the ancient Fathers and
writers, when they get any hint from the fu-
ture world, the first thing discussed is the ac-
count of what the person saw, and what he
heard, and what he was, and how he felt. Now
the grand silence which is here preserved is, to
my mind, an indirect and latent evidence of the
truth of this story. Lazarus says nothing of
THE LORD AND GIVER OF LIFE. 181
the other world ; all is silence. Christ alone tells
us afterwards what awaits us in the future. How
did the Jews act upon this occasion ? We see
that, instead of being convinced and converted,
they were only, or seemed to be, exasperated
and roused the more. They ran and told the
Pharisees and the scribes. They argued in this
way : " If we let this man alone, then the Romans
will come and take away our nation." They rea-
soned: « This man pretends to be a king, and if
we let him have his way, Caesar will come and de-
stroy us ; because we thereby show that we cease
to be a province, and assume to have a dynasty
and sovereignty of our own." What a remark-
able illustration have we here of the great fact
that the very thing which they thought would
avert the destruction of their nation, was just the
very thing that brought clown the thunder-bolts
of God's righteous judgments upon them. They
argued that, if they left him alone, it would be
the means of their nation being destroyed. They
did not let him alone. They slew him to save the
nation, and this deed was the cause of their nation
being scattered throughout the earth. The hio-h
priest of that year, a bold, bad man, (qualities that
you will find occasionally developed in the case of
\
182 FORESHADOWS.
great criminals,) dared to give utterance to a
sentiment which all felt. When there is a great
crowd, a revolution brewing, or something of that
kind, there is generally found a vague sentiment
floating in a thousand breasts, waiting for an
interpreter. What makes the orator, the leader,
the man that turns up a celebrated hero ? His
having the boldness to give utterance to the
sentiment that all feel, but which none else
have the courage to express. This was the
case with Caiaphas: he gave utterance to the
sentiment that they had not the cruel courage
to express. He says, " ( Ye know nothing at
all ;' you are a people of no understanding, and
no skill ; listen to me. You do not ( consider
that it is expedient for us that one man should
die for the people ;' ' he meant, " It is expe-
dient we should put this man to death, and get
rid of him — i that one man should die for the
people, and that the whole nation perish not.' '
Thus he dared to suggest the death of Jesus, as the
great panacea for the cure of their ills ; the only
means of securing the constancy and continuance
of their nation. In other words, he was, like
many modern men, a man of expediency; he only
thought of expediency. There are two classes
THE LORD AND GIVER OF LIFE. 183
of men we meet with in this world : some men
who never will move unless their foot can be
upon a principle, a fixed principle, a great truth •
and whose whole conduct shall take its shape, its
tone, and direction, and colouring, from the prin-
ciple they stand on, or the truth they grasp ;
and there are other men who are not acquainted
with principles, who are not much troubled with
a conscience, who have no great truths to stand
upon ; and they merely calculate chances. They
look around, and before, and above, and beneath
(or rather, not above, but every where else) ,
and they say, " If this is done, this will be the
result." They suppose that men are exactly
like a number of pieces upon a draft-board, and
that they have only to calculate the forces and
anticipate the sure movements, and the result will
be so and so ; forgetting that they have corrupted
wills to deal with, and that they have a reigning
God whom they have omitted from their calcu-
lations, and that so great an omission vitiates
all. We shall find, that what is true, and
just, and holy, is always expedient ; and what
is not holy, not true, not just, may be vastly
plausible, fall of promise, very significant of
good, yet, in the end, most inexpedient. The
184 FORESHADOWS.
highest duty is the highest expediency. All
experience proves that it is so. But it is added
here, when Caiaphas made use of those words,
" And this spake he not of himself; but being-
high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus
should die for that nation." Then John adds,
(not Caiaphas,) " And not for that nation only,
but that also he should gather together in one
the children of God that were scattered abroad."
It is very remarkable, that Caiaphas should have
here prophesied. It is an instance of what are
called unconscious prophecies ; and many such
have occurred in the history of the church, and
of the world before. So Balaam, a bad man,
prophesied. And not merely have prophecies
been uttered in the shape of predictions of what
will be, but I believe all facts that ever have
occurred are not only results of the past, but are
also prophets and seers, and earnests of what
will be. Take an instance : Pilate wrote, " Jesus
of Nazareth, the King of the Jews." The
Jews said, " Why, this is just asserting what
we deny. Say that he said, I am the King of
the Jews ?" What did Pilate reply ? " What I
have written I have written." Did he say that
of himself? No, God taught him to say so; and
THE LORD AND GIVER OF LIFE. 185
when he said so he uttered an unconscious
prophecy, just as here the high priest uttered an
unconscious prophecy. So the purple robe, the
sceptre, and the crown of thorns which they put
upon Jesus — what were these ? They were facts,
history says : they were prophecies an(j types,
our experience, enlightened from the word of
God, says. The name Caiaphas is merely a
Hebrew modification of the same word applied
to Peter : Cephas, a rock. There must be some-
thing significant in this, that the last high priest,
as if he were the last type of the true High
Priest, should be called (in mockery, if I might
use the word) a rock ; but a rock that was soon
to be shaken and moved. There is something
striking in this, that just as the priesthood of
Levi passed away, never to be resuscitated, the
Urim and Thummim, the lights and perfections
on his breast, should be suddenly illuminated
with an unearthly glory; so that as a candle,
before it goes out, gives its brightest flame,
the priesthood of Aaron, as it passed away and
perished for ever, gave forth a dying splendour
that indicated it was over, and the true High
Priest was come. So now, in the present day,
facts that are taking place around us, are not
186 FORESHADOWS.
bare naked facts, but significant. Every fact
that occurs is a rehearsal of a greater fact that
will be. The fall of Tyre, of Nineveh, and of
Babylon, all facts in history, are yet declared
distinctly to have been prophecies too. And all
that has taken place in 1848 on the continent of
Europe, is just a rehearsal of what will take place
on a yet larger scale, and with more terrific and
tremendous results, by and by.
All things indicate, as I have said, that we are
passing into the last days. I am more and more
confirmed in this conclusion ; we shall hear
and experience soon such things as have not
been known upon earth before. Never was
there a day, in which I solemnly believe every
one was more called upon to make ready. The
sailor, when he hears the first whistling of the
storm amid the shrouds, begins to put his vessel
in trim, and prepare her to brave the storm.
Should we not also learn a lesson from the signs of
the times, and be ready, knowing not what a day
may bring forth ? This we do know, and with this
I conclude my lecture, that he died — what the
priest prophesied in his ignorance — he died —
what the evangelist added from his light — that
he might " gather together in one the children
THE LORD AND GIVER OF LIFE. 187
of God that were scattered abroad." Christ
is the great magnet, the great centre of at-
traction, the great source and bond of union,
and of unity. " This is a faithful saying, and
worthy of all acceptation," of all men, at all times,
and in all circumstances, " that Jesus Christ came
into the world to save sinners," of whom you, I,
may be the chief; he came to save us, even
us ; not because we are sinners, but in spite of
our sins ; not because we deserved it, but in
spite of what we deserve.
LECTURE VII.
THE GREAT TYPICAL DISEASE.
And it came to pass, when he was in a certain city, behold a
man full of leprosy : who seeing Jesus fell on his face, and
besought him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me
clean. And he put forth his hand, and touched him, saying,
I will : be thou clean. And immediately the leprosy de-
parted from him. And he charged him to tell no man : but
go, and show thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing,
according as Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.
—Luke v. 12—14.
The disease called the leprosy is one which it
is not possible, perhaps, accurately to describe ;
nor is it necessary to do so. Its physical charac-
teristics and symptoms belong to the province
of the physician, not to the discourse of the
minister of the gospel. I take this disease,
which so often occurs, in reference, or allusion,
or judgment, throughout the Scripture, to be the
great typical and teaching disease. It was se-
lected from the rest of those diseases to which
humanity has been subject, not because it was
THE GREAT TYPICAL DISEASE. 189
the worst of them, but in order that it should be
a type, and symbol, and teacher of that more
dreadful disease which has overspread the soul,
the wages of which is death, and the issue of
which is everlasting banishment from the pre-
sence of God.
All diseases are unnatural, monstrous, horri-
ble. Man was never made to be diseased, nor
was he meant to die. Yet there is no such phe-
nomenon on earth as a perfectly healthy man :
there is no such state. The instant we are born
such seeds, and germs, and elements of disease
are in us, as must eventually bring us to the
grave 5 the instant man sinned, that moment
death seized upon him. What is disease itself?
It is death in its beginning. Disease is to death
just what the acorn is to the oak ; it is the first
germ that contains all the rest. All diseases are
the exponents of an inward derangement ; they
are the echoes, heard without, of a disorganiza-
tion that is going on within. And this disease,
called the leprosy, was, as I have said, selected
not because it was the worst, but to be a sort of
awful sacrament, as it were, of that death to
which sin, the counterpart of the leprosy, leads •
and to teach us that a universal plague, worse
190 FORESHADOWS.
than pestilence, famine, and sword, has fallen on
all humanity ; and that there is but one mode of
deliverance from it, that mode which was con-
summated on the cross, and is preached in the
Bible, and enunciated by every faithful minister
of the gospel.
This disease, from its typical nature, to which
I must refer by and by, was called by the Jews
the " finger of God ; " by others of them it was
called " the stroke," from the way in which they
were struck by it. It first attacked a man's
house, it is said ; next, his clothing ; and lastly,
his person : and it was to be healed, mark you,
(and here was its typical nature,) not by the phy-
sician's prescription, but by the priest's treat-
ment. In this respect it is singled out and
made to differ from all other diseases, and there
fore it is what I have called it — a typical and sig-
nificant disease.
In the case of the leprosy, it was not always
the guiltiest that were its victims ; just as in the
case which I explained in reading the chapter
this morning, it was not always the guiltiest who
were most punished ; although when special sins
were committed against the theocracy, that is, the
personal government of Israel by God himself,
THE GREAT TYPICAL DISEASE. 191
we find that this disease was almost always the
judgment that was inflicted. This was the case
of Gehazi, who sinned so grievously against God,
that he went forth " a leper white as snow." You
recollect also the case of Uzziah, who, when he
touched the ark, was smitten with leprosy. These
were especially sinful persons visited with a
special judgment ; but in the case of other per-
sons, we do not know why they were visited. In
the case of the leprous man before us, we cannot
say why he was afflicted. It is the foolish ques-
tion that was asked of old, and is asked still,
" Who hath sinned, this man or his parents, that
he was born blind ? " They were right in tracing
the affliction to sin ; wrong in supposing that in
this dispensation, where there is special individual
suffering, there is therefore special individual
guilt. Our Lord says, in Luke, (and this is
a proper corrective of people's notions still,)
" Think ye that those eighteen upon whom the
tower of Siloam fell and slew them, think ye that
they were sinners above all men?" Human na-
ture is apt to think so. Strange it is, there is a
lingering sense in the depths of man's heart of
the connexion between sin and punishment that
he never can get rid of; but he manifests it
192 FORESHADOWS.
wrongly, and applies his jndgment indiscreetly,
when he assumes that the eighteen who were
made the victims of a signal punishment were
sinners above all men. When yon see one man
smitten down by the sword, another dropping
down by disease of the heart, another by some
epidemic, you are not to say, <( That man was
evidently the guiltiest ; he was a very great sin-
ner, because he is singled out for a special judg-
ment." The lesson you are to learn is this, " Ex-
cept ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish."
I may notice in the next place, that there is
no evidence that the leprosy was what is called
infectious. I say there is no evidence in the
Bible that it could be communicated from one
person to another by contact. On the contrary,
we find that the Levitical priests, whose duty it
was minutely to examine its symptoms, and pro-
nounce upon its existence or its removal, touched
the person, and never, in any one instance,
caught the disease. Where the Levitical laws
were not binding, persons infected with leprosy
moved with others, and took their place in so-
ciety. Here was the commanding officer of a
great army, Naaman, the Syrian, who laboured
under the disease, and yet lived in no separ-
THE GREAT TYPICAL DISEASE. 193
ation. Persons lived twenty, thirty, or forty
years under the leprosy, mixing with man-
kind, and discharging the duties of their re-
spective offices. Gehazi, when smitten with it,
approached the king of Israel, and there was felt
no fear that the disease would be communicated.
And you will recollect, where the law of Moses
was binding, the sojourner and the stranger in
the midst of Israel was not under the laws in
this matter to which the Israelite was subject,
but might freely mix with the people, although
he might be smitten with leprosy. All these
facts thus teach us that this disease was not
infectious. Perhaps no disease is so. And I
believe that as light, and science, and real wis-
dom grow among mankind, they will come to dis-
cover that these books of Moses, with which the
infidel has made so much merriment, are, after
all, not merely exponents of the highest and most
sublime divinity, but are also pharmacopoeias
for prescriptions far more precious than at pre-
sent we are disposed to admit. It may yet be
discovered perhaps, (and experience seems more
and more to confirm it,) that in the case of
diseases which have long been thought con-
tagious there is no contagion at all, and that it
194 FORESHADOWS.
needs some vile churchyard, or some vault below
the floor on which the living are — or some un-
drained neighbourhoods, or excess of eating and
drinking, or destitution of raiment, of food, or
of drink — to be conductors of the otherwise in-
nocuous diseases ; just as the lightning will play-
in all its splendours innocently in the skies, un-
til it find a conductor to carry it down in
order to smite some one, and number him with
the dead. It may be with our worst diseases as
with the lightnings in the clouds, that there
must be a conductor in order to carry down
either. I believe, however, in the present day,
— and I rejoice to see the feeling, for Christian-
ity ministers to and contemplates the well-
being of the body, as well as the salvation of
the soul, — that efforts are being made exten-
sively to diminish these conductors of disease.
I was informed by a physician what I can con-
firm from experience, that few have any idea
of the awful, brutalized, impure physical state
in which the poor are ; so much so that I fear
the efforts of our city missionaries and our
tract-distributors will all be sadly valueless
till something is done to mitigate the physical
suffering, and raise the domestic condition of
THE GREAT TYPICAL DISEASE. 195
our poor at least to a level with the dogs in
many a nobleman's kennel, who are far better
cared for, and far more generously treated. You
need not be informed that that which brings
down the heaviest judgments of God upon a
land, is that land's neglect of the poor. I do
hope that every individual who has and to
spare, and who knows where the poor are —
not rogues, impostors, and vagabonds, who al-
ways will make poverty a stalking-horse on which
to prosecute their iniquitous designs — will seek
them out and minister to them. It is a great
luxury to do so. Help them, cheer them, en-
courage them ; and we shall do more in this
way for the Christianization of the land, by
such pioneering efforts, than we are at first dis-
posed to anticipate. I believe that the gin-shops
would very extensively be closed if we could
only raise the physical condition of the poor.
What makes them crave after alcohol, and drink
to excess, is their frightful physical depression.
Teetotal societies would not be wanted, and
many a chemist's shop would be closed, if the
poor people could only get clean houses, pure
water, and good food to live upon. Encourage
them, minister to them, comfort them, and so you
o 2
196 FORESHADOWS.
will arrest disease that may in turn scathe your-
selves ; for if the poor are left to be great suffer-
ers, it will be seen that the rich will suffer also ;
and it is well ; we are thankful that it is so. If suf-
fering did not reach the healthy, they would never
sympathize with those who suffer. Minister to
the poor, and feel that this is a commission and
a ministry that God has given you. My dear
friends, we are all passing rapidly to that state
into which our money and our resources cannot
sro with us. He that is rich toward God, and
lays up treasure in the skies, will, as a Christian,
have the greatest peace below, and the most
cordial welcome above : for, " Inasmuch as ye
did it unto the least of these my brethren, ye
did it unto me."
But if this disease was not contagious, why, it
may be asked, were there those severe regula-
tions respecting it ? The person who was a leper
was to have his lips covered, to keep his hand
upon his mouth, his garments rent and torn ;
and he was to cry, the moment any one ap-
proached him, " Unclean, unclean." Why so ?
Superficial readers say it was because the dis-
ease was contagious. I believe it was because
the disease was significant. The leper was meant
THE GREAT TYPICAL DISEASE. 197
to be a parable of death — to be, in a sensuous
dispensation, in which, outward symbols were
made the vehicles of spiritual and inner truths,
a voice sounding in the depths of the wilderness,
" The wages of sin is death." Separation from
the healthy, which was part of the law of the
leper, was not because the disease was contagious,
but because it was typical or significant — and was
meant to teach that sin is the great separating
element. When Jesus was crucified, he was
crucified without the camp. Our sins were laid
upon him ; and as, by imputation, he was the
greatest sinner, and so he suffered for our sins,
and in our stead, without the camp. It is said of
the New Jerusalem, that nothing that defileth shall
enter it, and that all polluted, diseased things shall
be outside. Sin is the great rending, splitting,
separating element ; it separates man from man,
and it separates man from God. It has made a
chasm between heaven and earth so wide and so
deep, that it needed God in our nature to span
it, and make a path-way back again to the skies.
All the laws of the leper were designed to teach
us these great and important lessons in reference
to sin. If you wish to see the history of the po-
sition and treatment of the leper, read at your
198 FORESHADOWS.
leisure the loth, 14th, and 15th chapters of the
book of Leviticus, where you will find a full
description of the whole.
Then the cure of the leper was remarkable.
It was not a cure to be achieved by medicine or
by sanitary treatment, although perhaps these
were employed, (for God is a God of means, and
such means are right in their place,) but it was to
be healed by special ecclesiastical or spiritual
rites. There were chosen two birds ; one was to
be slain, and the other was to be dismissed ; the
hyssop was to be dipped in the blood of the slain
bird, and sprinkled on the leper. This will ex-
plain the beautiful expression of David, (Psalm
li.,) "Purge" — or cleanse — "me with hyssop;"
that is, the hyssop thus dipped in the blood of
the slain bird, without shedding of blood there
bein£ no remission of sins. As that blood was
sprinkled upon the leper, and the man was then
pronounced clean, so David, looking through the
outward symbol to the inner and spiritual truth,
says, " Cleanse me with hyssop ; yea, Lord, wash
me in that blood which cleanseth from all sin,
of which the sacrifice of that bird was but the
faint and the imperfect type."
Thus, we see this disease was cured by cedar,
THE GREAT TYPICAL DISEASE. 199
and hyssop, and scarlet, and a sacrifice espe-
cially appointed for that purpose. And this
confirms the view I have taken, that it was a type
significant of what sin is, and what the issues of
sin are, and how it may be put away.
The fact that Jesus healed this disease, is
evidence that he sustained no ordinary office
or character. He did not heal it by that mira-
culous virtue, by exerting which he healed the
ordinarily diseased ; but he assumed, in heal-
ing it, to be the great High Priest, the antetype
of him whose priesthood was about to pass away.
iWhen John asked for evidences that Christ was
the Messiah, we read that one of the evidences (/
given, and not the least expressive, was, " The
lepers are cleansed." That was not a reference
to his power, nor to his mercy, but evidence f ,
that the Aaronitic priesthood was passing into I)
the true priesthood, and the rites of Levi merg-
ing into the realities of the glorious gospel.
When the leper approached Jesus, he used
the very humble, yet very trustful language,
" If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean."
That leper saw in Christ more than a mere healer
of disease by miraculous power. He knew quite
well that leprosy was, if I might so speak, an ec-
200 FORESHADOWS:
clesiastical disease — that it could only be cured
by ecclesiastical prescription, or by Divine power.
When, therefore, he asked Jesus to cure his
leprosy, he recognised him not only as omnipo-
tent, and able to heal the disease, but as a priest
in Israel, able to minister to that peculiar form
of disease which the priest alone was to deal
with. You will notice too, when the leper came
to Jesus no claim was expressed upon his sym-
pathy ; he uttered not a word, that indicated his
feeling that he had a title to his favour ; he ap-
proached him with all the abasement of a sinner,
as we should do ; and yet with all the confidence
of a son, as we may also do. A soul that sees its
sin, and that sin deadly, and sees in Jesus a
Saviour, and that Saviour willing and able, is not
to be repelled or restrained from approaching
him. As the leper in this case trampled down
the Levitical law, which forbade him to touch
any body, and ran to Jesus ; so we are to trample
down all obstructions, and, as the greatest of
sinners, come at once, in spite of our sins, into
contact with the greatest Saviour, and obtain ab-
solution, forgiveness, and remission.
Persons argue, and argue most foolishly, that
they may not go to Christ with confidence be-
THE GREAT TYPICAL DISEASE. 201
cause they are sinners. It is because you are
sinners that you may go ; it is as sinners that
you are invited ; and it is in spite of your sins
that you are to take courage ; in fact, you will
never taste what the freedom and the fulness of
the gospel are, till you feel that the greatest sin
that has stained your history in the past, may
this very moment, on simple application, be
blotted out and remembered no more against
you, through that blood which cleanseth from
all sin.
Jesus treated the Levitical law just as the
leper treated it ; it was no obstruction to the
exercise of his power and goodness. It is said
he touched the leper. If it was contrary to
the Levitical law for the leper to go to Jesus,
it was just as contrary to the Levitical law for
Jesus to touch the leper. This fact that Christ
touched the leper is a gleam of an inner
and a hidden truth, that He was more than
man. If Jesus had been a mere man, to have
touched the leper would have been to defile
himself; but he was more than man, and did
not, therefore, defile himself, but cured the leper
of his leprosy. The sun that shines in the firma-
ment casts his beams upon all that is pol-
202 FORESHADOWS.
luted on the earth below, but retains unscathed
his own purity and splendour. Infinite health
could come into contact with disease, and not be
diseased ; infinite and eternal life could come
into contact with death, and neither be tainted
nor die. The fact therefore that Jesus touched
the leper, and when he did so, cured him,
is the evidence that He was more than man,
the mighty God, the Prince of Peace. And, my
dear friends, is Christ dead? Has he ceased to
be ? No. We do not see him, but he no less
lives ; we do not hear him, but he no less
reigns ; because he is beyond the horizon of our
vision he is not beyond the reach of our prayers,
he has neither ceased to hear prayer, nor to
answer it. He is just as able to keep you from
disease as he is to cure disease. We may ask
him to do so. I am one of those who believe
that we ought to pray for temporal blessings.
He has thus taught us : " Give us this day our
daily bread." You may ask for temporal bless-
ings ; and if they are for his glory, and to your
greatest good, they will be given to you; if
not, then, " Thy will be done on earth even
as it is done in heaven," should be the utter-
ance of our hearts.
THE GREAT TYFICAL DISEASE. 203
When the patient was cured, Jesus said to
him, " See that thou tell no man, but go and
show thyself to the priest." What was meant by
this ? If the man, the instant he was cured, had
blazoned it abroad, the priest would have heard
of it ; he would have looked upon him, and out
of spite and malice (sins by which the priests and
Pharisees were deeply stained at that moment)
he would have said, " There is no cure ; the
man is labouring under leprosy still." But when
the man went quietly, and showed himself to the
proper appointed officer, the priest, not knowing
who made the cure, pronounced, from his own
inspection, that the man was clean. Thus there
was the voice of an enemy testifying that the
finger of God was in the cure of that man's
leprosy. And thus all the miracles of Jesus will
stand the test of all his enemies ; and I may add,
what is equally true, that all the words of Jesus,
all that are contained in this book, will stand
all ordeals, and survive all opposition, and come
forth from all examinations, only bearing a
brighter and more vivid signature that they are
the inspiration of the Spirit, and the teaching
of the Son of God.
Have any of you been cured of sin ? Have
204 FORESHADOWS.
any of you had your sins forgiven ? — it is not
presumption, but piety, to feel so : — then, my
dear friends, you are called upon to go and act.
Our forgiveness is not the ultimate result, but
only the preface to a future life of devotedness,
of service, of activity. Go and do, is the direc-
tion to every one that is healed. First the cure,
then consistent conduct ; first the forgiveness of
our sins, then obedience. And mark the beau-
tiful force of such obedience. When an unfor-
given man tries to do God's will, he does it as a
person hired tries to do the work which he is en-
gaged to do in order to earn the wages promised
him ; he works as a slave, and has the feelings
of a slave, but when a person is forgiven he goes
and does God's will, not in order to obtain
something, but because he has obtained all. The
first works as a slave, the second obeys as a son.
The first does it in bondage, cringes, and shrinks
in the presence of a task-master ; the latter walks
as a son in the sunshine of a father's love, hold-
ing communion and fellowship with one who
delights to bless him and to do him good. Go
you then, my dear reader, do justly, love mercy,
and walk humbly with God. Go and tell what
great things God has done for you. Go and
THE GREAT TYPICAL DISEASE. 205
devote your energies to every cause for which
those energies may be fitted, and for which you
can spare them; not to be justified, but because
you are justified; not to reach forgiveness, but
because you have obtained forgiveness ; and you
will do so then with joyful emotions, an elastic
footstep, and a bounding heart. So much for
the history of this cure. Let me now draw
three practical lessons from all I have stated.
We, too, are the subj ects of a disease far more
terrible than leprosy. That disease is described
by Isaiah, when he says, " The whole head is
sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole
of the foot even to the head there is no sound-
ness in it ; but wounds, and bruises, and putri-
fying sores : they have not been closed, neither
bound up, neither mollified with ointment."
We were shapen in sin, (this terrible disease,)
we were brought forth in iniquity (this worse
than Gehazi's leprosy) ; its sting is poison, its
wages is death. The house is infected, and the
inhabitants too ; the garment is infected, and the
wearer too ; the world is infected, and all that
dwell therein. A miasma far more terrible than
all the plagues that have visited humanity, creeps
through every home, nestles in every heart, in-
206 FORESHADOWS.
fects every soul, taints every thought, pollutes
every conscience, and, unless we are delivered
from its terrible poison, the issue of it must be
everlasting misery and estrangement from God.
In the next place, no human being can atone
for, or cleanse from, this terrible disease. The
Jew felt it in his temple ; the Gentile is con-
scious of it in his pagoda ; and in both temple
and pagoda, from the earliest moment of the fall,
Jew and Gentile, the one by Divine light and
the other by human light, have been trying if
they could propitiate him against whom their
consciences tell them they have sinned, and draw
down from God those blessings which their own
hearts assure them they have justly forfeited.
But no atonement man can make is adequate to
remove it. The prophet says, and says justly
and expressively, " Wherewith shall I come be-
fore the Lord, and bow myself before the high
God ? Shall I come before him with burnt -
offerings, with calves of a year old ? Will the
Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with
ten thousands of rivers of oil ? Shall I give my
first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my
body for the sin of my soul ? " All these are
vain, and utterly profitless. No moral, eccle-
THE GREAT TYPICAL DISEASE. 207
siastical, or sacramental rite can cleanse us ;
all the tears that penitence ever shed cannot
cleanse us ; all the sufferings that martyrs ever
endured at the stake cannot cleanse us ; all we
can pay or promise can never cleanse us. The
dye is too deep for aught human to expunge it,
the guilt is too high for aught that man can do
to reach it. " By deeds of law no flesh can be
justified." This plague none but a priest, the
High Priest who is in heaven, can heal and
remove.
And this leads me, therefore, to announce that
blessed truth, which is the very music and glory
of the gospel, that " In that day there shall be a
fountain opened to the house of David, and to
the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for
uncleanness." If we are all the victims of this
great, wasting, moral plague, if nothing we can
pay, or procure, or promise, or suffer, or do, can
sweep it away, how blessed, how welcome are
these tidings, that the Lamb of God taketh away
— not took away, not will take away, but taketh
away — the sins of the world ; conveying to us
this bright idea, that every moment there is a
transfer of our sins to him who takes them awav
into a land of forgetfulness for ever ! How
208 FORESHADOWS.
blessed to such sin-convinced and plague -smitten
persons is this glorious passage, " The blood of
Jesus Christ, his Son, [not once did cleanse, and
now has lost its efficacy ; not will one day cleanse
when we are more worthy of it; but now,] cleans-
eth from [not this sin, or that sin, or little sin, if
such there be, but it cleanseth from] rt//sin!" and
its virtues are lasting as the wants of humanity ;
its efficacy is a present efficacy. Throw your hope
upon this blessed truth, that the blood of Jesus
cleanseth from all sin. Plead at the mercy-seat
this fact, that he that knew no sin was made
sin for us, that we might be made the righteous-
ness of God in him. Just as God's wrath settles,
and lights, and fastens with a consuming and cor-
roding power upon every soul that is not sprinkled
with that blood, so sure God's love, and mercy,
and peace settle and fasten with saving power
upon every soul that is sprinkled with that pre-
cious blood. But what is it to be sprinkled with
it ? Not to be literally so. The soldiers who
pierced the side of Jesus on the cross were
sprinkled literally with his blood, but they were
not one whit better for that. To be sprinkled
with this blood is to believe God's testimony
about it. It is just to say this to God, "Oh!
THE GREAT TYPICAL DISEASE. 209
my God, the plague is in my heart, consuming,
wasting, sinking me to the depths of hell ; and,
if left so, I must perish for ever. And oh ! my
God, thou hast told me that Jesus died for all
that believe, that he endured the curse for all
that rest on him. I believe, O Lord, what thou
hast told me — the blood of Jesus cleanseth from
all sin ; I believe thy love can lighten where that
blood is, and thy wrath cannot scathe where that
blood is. Lord, I ask of thee to give me thy
peace, to bestow upon me thy mercy, and shed
down upon me thy forgiveness, for no reason in
the wide universe, in me, or out of me, or about
me, but for this reason alone, that Jesus died
that I, a poor sinner, might live." If you say
so, and feel so from the very depth of your
heart, there is no truth in the Bible if you are
not forgiven ; there is no truth in Christianity if
God does not pardon you. He himself says,
" Seek, and ye shall find ; knock, and it shall be
opened unto you; ask, and ye shall obtain."
The gospel, my dear reader, is good news ; and
not good news for to-morrow, but good news for
to-day. And the good news are these — that he
that believcth on the Son of God hath eternal
life. The blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin.
210 FORESHADOWS.
The Lamb of God taketh away the sins of the
world. I am convinced and persuaded that no
man who thus feels and thus prays will ever
perish.
In closing my remarks, let me allude once more
to what I touched upon in a previous lecture in
this work — the great truth, that whilst individu-
als, conscious of individual sin, are seeking that
the blood of the Lamb may sprinkle individual
consciences, how beautiful it would be if the
whole nation would get, as the Israelites of old
got, within the threshold, the blood of the Lamb
being sprinkled upon that threshold without ;
and pray that God would remember them ac-
cording to his covenant and his loving-kindness,
and have mercy upon them, and spare them !
This leads me also to notice what I have
seen as professed philosophy — but which is the
very essence of infidelity — in some of the
papers, in very few of them, I believe, but
in two certainly, where they argue that the
existing epidemic* in the atmosphere is a law
of the world. Perhaps only philosophers know
that the word "law" means a great fact — a
gj
The epidemic of 1849.
THE GREAT TYPICAL DISEASE. 211
thing that must be, a thing that always is. They
argue that the existence of disease in the air is a
great law, just as much as that the wind blows,
the rain falls, rivers roll, stones fall to the
ground ; and that it being a great law, it is most
absurd for a nation to pray that God would be
pleased to remove that which is necessary, and,
with some small evil, is nevertheless doing
gigantic good. Suppose now that it is a law.
Whence did this law come ? Did God make the
atmosphere originally in such a condition ? We
know he did not. Disease arose from sin ; it
is a child of sin. But surely to acknowledge
our sin, and seek forgiveness of it, may lead,
notwithstanding all the boasts of proud philoso-
phy, to its removal notwithstanding. If it be a
law that there shall be a certain taint in the atmo-
sphere, there is another law that these literary
philosophers forget, namely, that conscious weak-
ness, in its sufferings, always feels an instinctive
impulse to appeal to omnipotent power for de-
liverance. If the one be recognised as a law,
why not recognise the other as such ? Instead,
therefore, of the first law being a reason for
trampling on the second, the recognition of the
first should be received by true philosophers,
p 2
212 FORESHADOWS.
and will be received by true Christians, as only
contemporaneous with the practice and observance
of the last, which is, to seek deliverance from
him who is mighty to save. But amid all this
jargon about the laws of nature, I beg to re-
mark, there is an old-fashioned book, commonly
known by the name of the Bible, not an unknown
book in this land, however little it may be known
in some newspaper offices ; and that book tells
us — words we have often heard, and that dying
saints have delighted in, and have had their
hearts kindled with the first rays of glory radi-
ant from its pages — " Is any man afflicted ? Let
him pray." That is a law. " Seek, and ye
shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to
you ; ask, and ye shall obtain." Why, that is a
law too. If the first be a law, that there shall
be a taint in the atmosphere, as they say, then
the last is not only a law, but an express obliga-
tion, privilege, and commandment; and it is
their duty, therefore, if they will observe the
first, not to neglect and despise the second. But
they say, " Can you expect that God will work
a miracle ?" You will recollect that I explained
the nature of a miracle in the case of the water
being turned into wine. Ordinarily, the vine
THE GREAT TYPICAL DISEASE. 213
produces grapes, and the grapes are turned into
wine ; but Jesus did in a minute what it takes a
twelvemonth's process to do in ordinary circum-
stances. The tree is planted, the rain and dews
fall, the grapes grow and are pressed, and the
juice is fermented, and thus turned into wine.
Jesus only shortened the process, and turned the
water by his look into wine. I believe miracles
are wrought now just as truly as they were
wrought then ; only we have got so accustomed
to atheistic philosophy, that what is God's finger
we call in our proud and vaunting wisdom
f( great laws," " vast phenomena," that we must
not meddle with, or dare to touch. But here
may be the difference. When Jesus wrought a
miracle in curing the leper, he did so visibly,
before men's eyes ; but may he not work miracles
still, only not before our eyes ? The whole dif-
ference may be that the miracle, instead of being
done by Jesus on this lower floor, is still done
by him in the upper sanctuary. The process by
which he removes disease we cannot explain ;
but the fact that he answers prayer we rejoice to
know ; and no infidelity shall be able to take it
from us. The instincts of nature are often
nobler in their wreck than the inductions of
214 FORESHADOWS.
modern philosophy. Let a mother hear the
wind whistle, and see the waves roll with tem-
pestuous fury, and let her know that her first-
born, and her only son, is in the frail bark that
is tossed upon the billows ; let that mother see
the ship struggling, and wrestling, and creaking,
amid the terrible waves, do you think she would
be persuaded by the philosophy of newspapers
not to pray to God to preserve her child ? All
the instincts of her nature would rise and pray,
" Oh God, save my child." And these instincts
are the highest philosophy when they are sus-
tained and confirmed by the word of God. Then,
my dear friends, cast the sceptic newspaper to
the dogs ; pity the poor editor who writes such
nonsense, and tries, under the garb of philoso-
phy, to avert national humiliation and national
prayer. Cleave to this, that God does hear
prayer.
LECTURE VIII.
LONELY THANKFULNESS.
And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed
through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. And as he en-
tered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were
lepers, which stood afar off : and they lifted up their voices,
and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he
saw them, he said unto them, Go show yourselves unto the
priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were
cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was
healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God,
and fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks : and
he was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering said, Were there
not ten cleansed ? but where are the nine ? There are not
found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger.
And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way : thy faith hath
made thee whole. — Luke xvii. 11 — 19,
In my last lecture I explained the nature,
or rather the moral and spiritual significance,
of the disease which is here alluded to. 1
did so in commenting upon the cure of the
leper, whom Jesus healed, and then sent to the
priest to show himself, that he might have the
attestation of the priest that it was a cure, and
£16 FORESHADOWS.
that the ordinance of God, as long as it stood,
might be thereby honoured. The physical dis-
ease has all but disappeared from the earth ; its
spiritual and moral significance as the type of
sin, as I explained before, remains, and is in-
structive still. If the leprosy has passed away
like the types of Levi, the spiritual disease of sin
remains coeval with the existence of humanity ;
and, blessed be God, not wider than the cure
that can thoroughly remove it.
We read on the last occasion of one leper ; on
the present occasion we read of ten. These ten
were a mixed company ; there was, at all events,
one thankful Samaritan, and there may have
been more Samaritans, though thankless, and as-
sociated in spirit, as in person, with the Jews.
Let us recollect that the Jew and the Samaritan
were the bitterest antagonists. The one professed
to be a churchman, the other assumed to be a
seceder. This was not probably the proper
modern explanation of their position, but cer-
tainly modern antipathies are the nearest possible
approach to the antipathies that existed between
the Jew and the Samaritan ; for they held even
exclusive dealing : " the Jews have no deal-
ings with the Samaritans." This group, we
LONELY THANKFULNESS. 217
find, are together — two hostile parties constitut-
ing one company apparently without murmur,
protest, or dispute, or expression of the enmity
they felt, and did not hesitate to express, on other
and different occasions. Now what can be the
explanation of their present concord ? Our Lord
could not meet the Samaritan woman without
her reviving the old exasperating controversy,
whether in this mountain or in that men should
worship ; but on this occasion, strange to say,
the ten lepers, Jews and Samaritans, had no
quarrel about where they should worship, but
seem to have prayed in one litany for the
blessing which they felt they must obtain. What
was the reason ? Perhaps it is this — that parties
who, in ordinary circumstances, are full of ex-
asperating feelings, of ill-will, animosity, pride,
exclusiveness, want of forbearance, are, beneath
the heat and pressure of a common calamity,
fused into one, and made to forget in judgment
what they will not forego in love — the deep and
rankling sense of their common quarrels and dis-
putes. A sense of common danger buries all
disputes. Let a storm overtake the gallant ship ;
let the passengers have been at daggers-drawn
in the cabin a few hours before ; when the
218 FORESHADOWS.
masts bend before the gale, and her timbers
creak, and a watery grave threatens every
soul, they all forget their quarrels, and try to
co-operate for deliverance. Let the storm come,
with thunder, lightning, hail, and rain ; and we
shall find churchman and dissenter, tory and
whig, Jew and Gentile, all rush into one shelter,
so thankful for a covert from the storm that they
forget they had been fighting only hours before.
The knowledge of this, then, is the explanation,
perhaps, of the fact that Jew and Samaritan
were here present in peace. And may it not be,
that the severe epidemic that has overflowed the
land, and smitten great masses of the people, has
been sent not only for the reasons which I speci-
fied on a previous sabbath, but also to make men
forget, beneath the pressure of a dire calamity,
what they would neither forget nor forgive amid
the enjoyment of great blessings. I grieve that
there should be any feeling among Christians
that should require such judgment in order to
eradicate it. Esau and Jacob, who quarrelled so
bitterly in their prosperity, when their aged
father died met over his body, and mingled their
tears together in mutual sympathy and earnest
forgiveness. Thus God sometimes drives to-
LONELY THANKFULNESS. 219
gether by the scourge those who will not be
drawn together by the attractions of his mercy.
If any man, then, have quarrelled with another
— if there be any churchman now who is very
bitter to dissenters, or any dissenter who is very
bitter against churchmen, remember that one
of the duties which every judgment God sends
inculcates, is to be tender-hearted, forgiving one
another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath
forgiven us. It is to teach all to pray, and pray
as none ever prayed it before, " Forgive us our
trespasses, O our Father, even as we forgive
them that trespass against us."
These ten, we read, as one man, " stood afar
off." This was duty. I explained this to
be the position that the leper was bound by the
law of the land to assume ; not that the disease
was contagious, but that it was significant or
typical of the great separation that sin makes.
Thus they stood afar off. This the law of the
leper still teaches us, and was meant to teach
the Jew in a sensuous economy, in which ma-
terial things were made mirrors of spiritual
and moral truths, that sin is the great separating,
rending, splitting element. It is this that keeps
us far off from God, and far off from each other.
220 FORESHADOWS.
Nations are separated by seas, and languages,
and deserts ; and these languages, which we
spend our youth in acquiring, are evidences of
the sin and rebellion of man against God.
Churches are separated by forms, ceremonies,
protests, contendings, wrestlings, as they call
them, for things which they deem significant,
but which, when looked at in the right light,
are too paltry, and in some respects worthless.
Individuals are separated by place, by feeling,
by estrangement, by fear, by dread, from one
another ; and all are separated from God ; till at
length the points of repulsion between man and
man, and man and God, grow more numerous
and powerful than the points of attraction that
should bind us into one brotherhood, and all
into one family, with God our Father. These
lepers stand afar off; and they tell us, as they
stand, that sin has made us afar off; and re-
mind us, by contrast, of the blessed truth, that
we who were afar off are made nigh through the
blood of the covenant in Christ Jesus.
The lepers, however, though standing afar off,
prayed. Beautiful is this truth ; there is no
distance from God to which sin can drive us by
its centrifugal force, which the voice of prayer
LONELY THANKFULNESS. 221
cannot span ; there is no chasm between God
and us which the feet of love cannot wade, and
which the wing of love cannot cross. It matters
not how deep we have fallen, or how distant
we have been driven ; the silent, half-choked,
half-suppressed cry, " God, be merciful to me a
sinner," will span that chasm, and cross that
depth, and be heard in God's ear louder than the
thunders, and sound the most musical tone amid
the hosannas and hallelujahs of the blessed; for
there is no shout in heaven more joyful or more
beautiful than when an angel cries, or Jesus pro-
claims, " Behold, he prays." May I not say,
if judgments have led us to pray, how sanctified !
If fear for the safety of the poor casket has made
the jewel think of the Bock from which it was
struck, and to which it may be united, how
blessed has that judgment been !
When these lepers prayed, they showed that
they felt their misery. No man prays for de-
liverance till he feels danger : no one seeks a
cure tills he feels a disease. It is a strange con-
trast between sin in the soul the moral disease
and the leprosy, or any other disease of the body,'
that the worse the bodily disease the more one
feels it, but the worse the spiritual disease the
222 FORESHADOWS.
less one feels it. In the spiritual disease insen-
sibility is the evidence of the greatest peril. No
man is so bad as he who says in his heart, " I am
rich, and increased in goods, and in need of
nothing ;" for it is of that very man that God
utters or registers the verdict in heaven, " Thou
knowest not that thou art poor, and wretched,
and blind, and miserable, and in need of all
things." A deep sense of sin is one of the best
evidences of a true interest in the grace of God,
and in the salvation of the gospel. We do not
say that men are to desire their sin should be
great, but that their sense of their sinfulness
should be deeper, more poignant, more real.
Whenever there is a deep sense of sin created in
the sinner's heart, there is the best evidence that
the Spirit of God has begun that work which
he will consummate in his own good time.
With one voice, then, they prayed that Jesus
would have mercy upon them, expressing their
cure by the word mercy. There is skill in the
cure of disease, and there may be attention, for all
of which we are to be thankful ; but in the cure
of every disease there is also mercy. We need
mercy, to forgive the sin which is the root of
suffering; and it is the end of mercy to heal the
LONELY THANKFULNESS. £23
disease which is only the expression and product
of that sin.
Jesus, on this occasion, bade them go to the
priest, and show themselves. Now, this was
just reversing the process that he pursued on a
previous occasion. In the case of the leper, on
which. I last commented, Jesus first cured the
man, and then bade him go and show himself
to the priest. How can we explain what seems
conflicting ? What would be contradiction in the
case of an ordinary man, who can only judge of
inner feeling by outer acts, is perfect harmony
in the case of Jesus, whose eye could penetrate
the depths of the heart and conscience, and see
what mode of treatment was the best for the
patient who was placecl in his hand. He saw,
truly, that whilst one mode might be most
useful in one case, it would yet be the most
useless in another case. I appeal to every one's
experience. All men are not brought to a know-
ledge of the gospel in the same way. And the
great risk, I think, of what is called experi-
mental preaching ; the highest and holiest and
purest eloquence, proceeding, as it does, from
the depths of a deep acquaintance with the mind
of God, and a rich experience of the gospel of
224 FORESHADOWS.
Christ — the risk, I say, of such preaching, in or-
dinary hands, is that the minister sets up the mode
of his own conversion as a standard and model by
which others are to be converted. This should
not be. God convinces one in one way, and
another in another way. One man he pardons
on his first appeal, and gives him a deep and
joyous sense that he is forgiven ; another man he
allows to grope in darkness, to be oppressed by
doubts, and overwhelmed with fears, and to
have at times a sense of deep despondency,
approaching to absolute despair ; but both men,
the one by a straight line, and the other by a cir-
cuitous and zig-zag, but equally divine line, are
being brought to Jesus for forgiveness and ac-
ceptance before him. Let us then learn that no
man's conversion to God ought to be set up as a
type or model of every other man's ; each must
take mercy from Christ in the shape in which he
is pleased to bestow it. Each must be satisfied
to rest in God, and never to prescribe to God.
I believe that one cause of our disquiet is, that we
think that because God does not come to us in
the way we have laid down, therefore he does
not come to us at all ; or that because he does
not give us now what others obtain at the same
LONELY THANKFULNESS. 225
moment, and under the same circumstances, there-
fore he has forgotten or forsaken us. This is just
imitating the conduct of Naaman the Syrian. It
is said of him, " Elisha sent a messenger unto
him, saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven
times, and thy flesh shall come again unto thee,
and thou shalt be clean." Now this prescrip-
tion was in all outward respects just as im-
probable and unlikely to cure him as " Go and
show thyself to the priest." What did Naaman
say ? " Naaman was wroth, [like many a person
still,] and went away and said, Behold, I thought
he will surely come out to me, [that is, the pro-
phet,] and stand, and call on the name of the
Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place,
and recover the leper." He went with his mind
pre-made up to undergo a certain treatment ; and
if he did not become the subject of that treatment,
he augured that there was no possibility of cure.
Then he added : " f Are not Abana and Pharpar,
rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of
Israel ? ' This prophet is not only adopting a
new process, which, to me, seems empiricism, but
is actually slighting my country, and putting up
his Jordan, that river in which the Jew glories,
in comparison with our splendid Abana and
Q
226 FORESHADOWS.
Pharpar, which are at least as full, and rich, and
beautiful. If I am to wash, therefore, and be
clean, may I not wash nearer home, and save the
long journey, — wash in better water, and thus
be cured ? " " So he turned, and went away in a
rage." Now the servants, who had that rare gift,
common sense, (and Christianity is common
sense in its highest manifestation,) " came near,
and spake unto him and said, My father, if the
prophet had bid thee do some great thing, would-
est thou not have done it ? How much rather,
then, when he saith to thee, Wash and be clean ? "
How true is such philosophy ! If a minister or
priest Avere to bid some go and make a pilgrimage
to Edinburgh, Dublin, or Petersburgh, or Paris,
or Rome, and wear hair-cloth girdles or iron
spikes, and then tell them their sins would be
forgiven — if he were to bid them do some great
things like these, you would do them at once.
" How much rather, then, when he saith unto
thee, Wash and be clean ? " Is it not the strange,
but painful, experience, that we can induce a
man to sleep with nettles, or wear hair-cloth, or
fast as long as we like, in order to obtain for-
giveness, far more easily than persuade him to
renounce a cherished lust, give up a beloved
LONELY THANKFULNESS. 227
passion, put confidence in God, and do God's
bidding- under all circumstances ? So true is it
that human nature, whether it wash in the Jor-
dan, or in Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damas-
cus,— whether personated in Naaman, the Syrian,
or in us, the sinners, is the same human nature,
till transformed by the touch of the Spirit of God,
and so made to see things at another angle, and
to understand them in a very different light.
When the ten lepers were told to go and
show themselves to the priest, they proved by
their obedience that they had great confidence
in him who gave them the commission, for they
instantly rose, we are told, and went. They
knew that the priest could not heal them, the
law being that he could only pronounce whether
they were clean or not. I think I have already
remarked in some former lecture, that we have,
in this, some light cast upon the assumed pre-
rogative of the priests of Rome, and of certain
priests who are going towards Rome, both of
whom profess to have the power of forgiving sins
judicially. It is stated in Leviticus, that the priest
shall cleanse the leper, and they have argued that,
by parity of reason, the modern priests may par-
don sin. Certainly, if to cleanse the leper means
q 2
228 FORESHADOWS.
that the priest could cure the leper, the analogy
would seem conclusive, and the modern priest
might fairly and logically infer that he too might
pardon sin. But the word translated " cleanse,"
is only the Hebrew form, as is explained in
parallel and contiguous passages, fox pronouncing
clean. The power that the priest had was not
to cleanse the leper, but only to examine him,
and say, " He is clean," or " He is not clean."
The Hebrew word for pronouncing clean, is
"cleanse." We read, "Ye shall pronounce
him unclean." In the Hebrew it is, e< Ye shall
unclean him." The literal translation of the
one passage is, " Ye shall cleanse him," and
of the other, " Ye shall uncleanse him." In the
one clause, however, our translators have given
the meaning instead of the word itself; and if
they did it in one clause, they ought, by the same
paraphrase, to have given the meaning in the
other. The modern minister of the gospel, then,
has no power, implied in this illustration, to
forgive sin. This one thing he can do, how-
ever, and so can the layman too, if he sees evi-
dences of love and faith, he can comfort him
that is in doubt, perplexity of mind, and fear, by
assurances, not from any oracle within him, but
LONELY THANKFULNESS. 229 -
from God's word without him, that such a one
gives evidence of forgiveness, and may take the
hope, the comfort, and the joy of it too.
These lepers knew that the priest could only
pronounce clean or unclean, but still they went.
Christ's word is the secret of all possible
virtue. Every precept of Jesus is two-thirds
of it a promise. A command from the lips
of Jesus assumes a different formula from a
command from Mount Sinai. The command
from Sinai is, " Thou shalt," and " Thou shalt
not ; " but the command of Jesus, " Blessed are
the pure in heart, for they shall see God ; "
here is the benediction, or the preface : " the
pure in heart," this is the command : " they
shall see God," this is the promise. Thus, his
command has a benediction for its preface, and
a promise for its peroration, or close. That the
command might not cause terror in those to
whom it is addressed, he makes a blessing in-
troduce it and a promise seal it. Thus, Christ's
commands are two thirds promises.
The lepers heard His command, and gave in-
stant obedience ; and it is said, " as they went
they were cleansed." This teaches us, that if any
man will do Christ's will, he shall know of the
230 FORESHADOWS.
doctrine, whether it be of him. If I now
address any reader who does not see fully, as
I think I see, and as I think, by God's grace,
I could teach him to see, that this blessed book
is God's book, I would say, just act up fully to
the light you have, and pray for more, and you
will never be left in darkness. Let any one act
up to the light that he now has, and be fervent
in prayer for more light, and such a one will
not be abandoned to darkness. It is no excuse
to say, you have not light, when you arc not
walking in what you have. Act up to what you
have, and wait upon God for more ; and see if
he does not honour your obedience to the light
you possess, by giving the light that you are
anxious to obtain.
The lepers were cured as they went. We
have evidence here of the deity of Christ. The
air they breathed became the vehicle of his
power ; the distance, as it lengthened between
them and Jesus, was spanned by his almighty
goodness; his mercy followed its objects, and
neither missed them in its transit, nor misappre-
hended them in its application. " And as they
went they were cured." And is this Christ the
same this year that he was in the year 32 ? No
LONELY THANKFULNESS. 231
doubt of it. His power is not parted with by bis
ascent ; nor is in tbe least spent in its daily pas-
sage to tbe earth, but operates its miracles still.
" Laws of nature/' is but atheistic phraseology
for ordinances of the Lord Jesus Christ. And at
this moment he has but to touch the upper strata
of the air that we breathe, and the under strata
and currents of air shall be restored to their
virgin purity and to their Eden health ; he has
but to speak the word, and all battle, and all
sword, and famine, and pestilence, shall be swept
from the world, and the earth shall put on her
coronation robes and her primal glory, and si-
lently praise him who has transformed her by his
touch, and made her what she is. But if, as they
say, we are not to expect miracles, — if in the
cure of disease God does not alter the air, may
he not suggest lessons to the physician ? I be-
lieve the physician to be a divine officer ; I
believe medicine to be a divine ordinance ; I
believe it to be the yearning efforts of man to
brinsr back nature to what Adam found her
before he sinned. The physician is continued,
by a succession that shall not cease, as the tes-
timony of what once was, what now is, and
what will again be, when the great Physician
232 FORESHADOWS.
shall heal all, and put into the springs of nature
that pure and precious branch which shall
sweeten, and purify, and sanctify them all. May
not, then, he who could thus heal at a distance
— to whom space was no obstruction — who
could say, Go, thy son, or thy daughter, liveth
— may he not, at this moment, when, as I told
you in my Apocalyptic Sketches, the seventh
vial is poured into the air — graciously breathe
into the physician's mind a prescription that
will heal where healing efforts are, during the
existing epidemic, perfectly paralysed ?
Thus, God may breathe into the surgeon's or
physician's mind a new thought, or he may touch
the air and impregnate it with new healing.
In either case it is God. "We may and ought
to ask for temporal blessings : Christ teaches us
to do so, " Give us this day our daily bread."
Why not, " Give us health ? " We need not only
bread, but health to eat it. Every one, there-
fore, should pray that God would be pleased to
give us health and safety and strength ; and not
pray for ourselves only, as if we were selfishly
seeking, but for the numbers of poor who suffer ;
and show thus that we sympathize with them.
The virtue is not in what we eat, but in the
LONELY THANKFULNESS. 283
blessing that accompanies it. The cure is not in
the prescription, but in the prescriber. " As
they went they were cured."
The very first emotion in the hearts of these
ten lepers ought to have been gratitude aaid joy.
These ten men, I say, ought, the instant they
were cured, to have returned and thanked their
Benefactor ; this should have been their instinc-
tive emotion ; but, strange to say, nine snatched
at the blessing, but went away and forgot the
Blesser ; one took the blessing and ran instantly
to him who had given it, and burst forth into
adoring gratitude and praise. And how did
Jesus reply to him ? " Go thy way," he said,
" thy faith hath saved thee." The poor man
was so charmed with the blessing that he was
riveted to the spot in the presence of his Bene-
factor. I have no doubt the man felt, " This is
such a change, such an evidence of power, that I
will cleave to the skirts of this great and Divine
man's robes, so that every body in the world
shall see what he has done for me, what change
he has operated upon me ; and thus all will be-
lieve him to be, what I know he is, the Messiah.
But Jesus said, "Go thy way ; this is not what
I want ; your home is empty, you are needed
234: FORESHADOWS.
there ; your shop is empty, you are needed there ;
your place is vacant, you are needed there : go
thy way; fulfil the functions that God in his
providence has given you ; be a Christian trades-
man, a Christian senator, a Christian shopkeeper,
a Christian soldier or sailor ; and thus you will
glorify me more than by cleaving to me in this
way, and saying how much I have done for you.
And who is this man, so thankful? Surely
this must have been a rabbi ; surely some one
whose trumpet sounded in every synagogue, and
whose phylactery was the brightest and broadest
amid the worshippers ; surely it was covered
with texts, and the wearer almost canonized as a
saint in Israel. You know well it was not. The
Jew had the pure ordinances, the pure liturgy,
the pure Bible, the right temple, and the right hill
to build it on ; the Samaritan accepted but the
Pentateuch, or the Five Books of Moses, wor-
shipped on the wrong hill, (Gerizim,) and was
guilty in his alienation and separation from the
true Israel ; and yet this Samaritan was the
Christian ; the nine Jews showed that they were
no Christians at all. It is possible to use the purest
form, and not to pray at all; it is possible to be
orthodox in our creed, and yet not to be Chris-
LONELY THANKFULNESS. 2S5
tians ; it is quite possible to be raised to heaven
in the enjoyment of the loftiest privileges, and
to sink into the depths of hell by reason of our
misuse and abuse of those privileges. It is not
the privilege, but our use of it, that is of value.
The Gospel of Matthew was written especially
for the Jew ; and the Gospel of Luke, which,
with the Acts of the Apostles, (as every one
knows who is acquainted with the original,) is
the product of a highly educated mind, was
written for the Gentile. Mark the design of
it. The Jew was humbled by the thought that
nine Jews were unthankful; and the Gentile,
for whom this Gospel was more especially de-
signed, was encouraged, and drawn to Jesus, by
this blessed instance of the Samaritan being ac-
cejjted while the Jews were rejected.
Thus, the Samaritan glorified God, and thank-
ed the Saviour for the great blessing he had
experienced. And we read that his coming to
thank him for a temporal mercy was made the
occasion of his receiving a spiritual mercy; for
Jesus added, " Go thy way, thy faith hath saved
thee." Here is a spiritual added to a temporal
blessing. But it may be asked, Is faith a Sa-
viour? Certainly not. Yet in Scripture every
236 FORESHADOWS.
one must have noticed that the same things are
attributed to faith that are attributed to the Sa-
viour himself. Why is this ? The explanation
is simple. Christ is the refuge ; faith runs to
the refuge. Our faith saves us in this sense —
that the refuge, as far as I am concerned, would
be useless if I did not run to it. Christ is the
living bread ; faith eats that bread. It is my
faith, in that sense, that nourishes me, because
in vain there is bread if I do not eat of it.
Christ is the medicine, the physician, the cure ;
faith goes to him, applies to him, accepts him.
Faith saves me, because in vain there is medi-
cine in the druggist's shop, if it is not taken by
the patient who suffers. Christ saves us meri-
toriously ; faith saves us instrumentally. Christ
is the Saviour ; faith the hand that seizes, the feet
that run, the eye that looks, the ear that hears,
the heart that clings. Thus our faith saves us.
Let us then learn this blessed lesson — that if we
are thankful for the mercies that we have, we
may expect new mercies to come. I believe God
honours a thankful man, as he honours also a
happy man ; and that he does not honour mur-
muring, thankless, complaining, and dissatisfied
men. If our sins should humble us, our mercies
LONELY THANKFULNESS. 237
should make us thankful. Sins can never be
over-punished; mercies can never be over-ac-
knowledged. In our sorest sufferings we have
reason to be silent ; in our least mercies we have
reason to be thankful. I believe that he who is
an unthankful possessor of mercies will not be a
long possessor, or a quiet possessor. God treats
your mercies as the bee treats the flower. The
bee gathers its nutriment from the flower ; and
the flower, instead of being injured by the bee's
application to it, is, as the botanists will tell you,
positively benefited and nourished. We are to
receive the blessing, but the tribute God exacts
from us is the tribute of thanksgiving and praise.
If our cup runs over, it is that the overflowing of
it may reach those that need it, and that in the
brightness of it we may see the face of him that
filled it.
Let me gather one or two lessons from this.
First, it is possible to receive temporal blessings
from God, and yet none for the soul. Do not
conclude, therefore, that because it is well with
you in your temporal estate, it is necessarily well
with you in your spiritual state. In the next
place, adversity, tribulation, and affliction make
those friends and brothers who formerly were
238 FORESHADOWS.
enemies. We find there were here Jew and
Samaritan together , when suffering a common
calamity. But it is still possible to be as those
described by God himself, " They poured out
their prayer when under my chastening hand,
but afterwards they forgot me." Read some of
the Psalms, and you will see how often the Jews
were delivered, and how often they forgot their
deliverer.
Let me apply this. Of those who have been
spared in the epidemic, that so severely smote
our country so very recently, how many are
there who will not be a whit more spiri-
tual, more devoted, more thankful ! Think of
this.
God expects thankfulness for the benefits we
receive. Christ said, "Ten have got benefits;
where are the nine ? " So he said, " Lo, these
three years I came seeking fruit from this fig-
tree, and I find none." So he says of his vine-
yard, " I looked for grapes, and it brought forth
wild grapes." God looks at, and counts, and
weighs the privileges, the opportunities, the
means, the money, the influence, the blessings
that we have; and he watches for the use we
make of them ; he waits for gratitude to acknow-
LONELY THANKFULNESS. 239
ledge them, and for a good use to be made of
them.
Let me next draw this lesson — that what
your conscience shows to be right, when that
conscience is enlightened by God's word, you
must not hesitate to do because many do the
very opposite. Nine laughed at the idea of
returning to thank their Benefactor. No doubt
they reasoned, as some newspapers reason on
other benefits : (i It is a change in the weather ;
it is a finer climate we have got into ; no doubt,
in going to the priest, we have eaten some-
thing that has agreed with us ; or it is good ex-
ercise Ave have taken; it is a "great law;"
there is a change in the air, the weather has be-
come colder, or warmer ; and as for the idea
of returning and thanking Jesus of Nazareth,
why, the thing is absurd." And I have no
doubt that the priests, and scribes, and Pharisees,
and rulers of the land agreed with them, and
laughed at and made excellent fun of that pious
Samaritan, who felt the weather and its sunshine
as they did, but returned amid all the weather,
and saw that there was present in his cure the
touch and the goodness of the Lord of life, the
Healer of disease, the Fountain of health. In
240 FORESHADOWS.
these times we must not mind standing alone.
If nine thousand, or nine millions, should go the
wrong way, we must still go the right way.
We must learn to be a peculiar people ; we
must not mind being scoffed at ; we must not
care if newspapers turn us into ridicule, if
the Avhole world should mock at us. Hold by
your duty ; fix your hearts upon what is right,
and true, and holy ; and if the multitude laugh
at you, pity them, and pray for them. "As for
me," let your answer be, " I will serve the
Lord."
LECTURE IX.
MATERNAL LOVE.
Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre
and Sidon. And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of
the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on
me, O Lord, thou Son of David ; my daughter is grievously
vexed with a devil. But he answered her not a word. And
his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away,
for she crieth after us. But he answered and said, I am not
sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then
came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But
he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's
bread, and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord :
yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters'
table. Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman,
great is thy faith : be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And
her daughter was made whole from that very hour. — Matt.
xv. 21—28.
In the Gospel of St. Mark, where the parallel
passage occurs, and in which the same miracle is
related, we read that our Lord would hare no
man know it, when he arrived at the coasts of
Tyre and Sidon ; but the more he seemed to
conceal himself, the more he became known. It
242 FORESHADOWS.
was indeed impossible that such light should be
buried in a world of darkness, that so great a
Physician should be unnoticed in a world of sick-
ness, that the very Fountain of life, that over-
flowed with life, should not be approached where
it was unsealed in a land where death revelled
and spread around him the trophies of his all
but almighty power. His name was as ointment
poured forth, and its perfume penetrated all
obstructions, and diffused itself over the length
and breadth of the land. So will it be with true
Christians in their measure. Christianity cannot
be hidden. To say one's Christianity is hidden,
is equivalent to saying that there is none. If you
live, life will develope itself; if grace be within
you, that grace will show itself. Hide the sun,
and conceal the stars, and you may hide the life
and the love of God existing in your hearts.
This woman, who appealed to Christ, was
a Canaanite, or a Syro-phenician, and there-
fore, of course, a Gentile. Her nation's his-
tory was dotted with judgments from the Lord;
its guilt had risen to heaven and cried for
vengeance, and corresponding retributions had
lighted upon it; but in spite of all the guilt
which cleaved to her land, in spite of all the
MATERNAL LOVE. 243
estrangement which she inherited, as a Canaan-
ite, from a country stained with infamy and sin,
in spite of her own deep sense of personal de-
merit, she rushed to him under whose wings the
guiltiest sinner, seeking forgiveness, may nestle,
and in whose blood the greatest sin may be
washed away. She fled to him, in spite of her
sins that drew her back, and would have plunged
her into despair, and sought forgiveness. I may
notice that, the difference between a conviction
of sin that is saving, and a conviction of sin that
is damning, is this— that the conviction of sin
which is from beneath leads one to despair ; on
the other hand, the conviction of sin that God's
Spirit implants carries us on the wings of an
irresistible impulse to a Saviour's presence, there
to pray and wait till these sins are forgiven.
This woman's prayer is, in these words,
" Have mercy on me, for my daughter is vexed
with a devil." This state was not bodily sickness,
or epilepsy, but literally, truly, an evidence that
one of Satan's fallen spirits, that accompany him
and act wr#him, inhabited and kept possession
of the woman's soul. One reason that confirms this
opinion, is the fact — that where God has a work
of any kind in the world, Satan, ever active, ever
R 2
244 FORESHADOWS.
watchful, sets up a counterpart to it ; wrier ever
he sees God's coin in currency, he circulates his
own forged and false coin. Thus we find, that
when Moses did miracles, Pharaoh and those
that were with him had their mimicry of them.
When God's prophets prophesied, Satan's false
prophets predicted too ; and when God became
incarnate, or manifest in the flesh, the devil
made an effort to mimic it, and in his measure
was incarnate, or manifest in the flesh, too. And
now that we are in the dispensation of the Spirit,
in which the Spirit of God, directly influencing
the heart and making men Christians, is the
grand characteristic, we shall see Satan also
plunging people into fanaticism, scepticism, and
monstrous delusions, so that, if it were possible,
he would deceive the very elect, by his mimicry
of God's work. It is evident that demoniac
possessions were but one step in Satan's pro-
gression, and one among many proofs of his
constant mimicry of God. That these were
literally and strictly demoniac possessions is
evident from this — the demons spo© to Christ ;
they left one person, and took up their habita-
tion in another person; they asked questions;
they deprecated judgment; and all the laws of
MATERNAL LOVE. 245
fair, honest, common-sense interpretation must
lead you to believe that they were literally fallen
•spirits that took up their abodes in fallen man.
I do not believe there are demoniac possessions
in that sense now ; but I do believe that there is
Satanic influence in the great crimes that occa-
sionally stain our land ; and that these great
crimes are suffered in the providence of God,
just to lead us to see how the world would be-
come a pandemonium, and men would become
like devils, if God's restraining grace were with-
drawn, and man and Satan left to work it out
upon a world which sin has so stained and
marred.
Her prayer, then, was, <c Have mercy on me,
for my daughter is vexed with a devil." How
beautifully is developed here a mother's affection
to her child. She seeks mercy for herself, be-
cause her daughter is vexed with a devil : she thus
identifies herself with her daughter; what would
be deliverance to the one would be mercy to the
other. She bare her daughter's burden, as
Christians are still taught to bear each other's
burdens; or perhaps she thought — rightly or
wrongly it is not for me to say — that her own
sins had brought this judgment on her daughter ;
246 FORESHADOWS.
perhaps from a superstitious feeling, such as that
manifested by the disciples, when they asked,
" Who hath sinned, this man or his parents, that
he was born blind ? " She may have thought that
her daughter was thus vexed because she herself
had so sinned.
But let us learn the lesson that her appeal
teaches. Her tribulation led her to her Saviour.
As it is true of sin, so also of afflictions — for
the affliction that leads us from God deeper
into the world for its opiates, its stimulants, or
its follies, is unsanctified ; but the affliction —
national, domestic, or personal — that leads us
to Jesus that he may forgive it first, and sanc-
tify us next, is a visitation for which we shall
have to bless God throughout eternity : it has an
apostle's mission, and it has in it the superin-
tendence of an apostle's Lord.
Our Lord, we are told, when he heard the
woman's appeal, "answered her not a word."
This was unusual ; it startled the poor petition-
er ; she had heard of his infinite beneficence;
she had seen the miracles which streAvcd his
path ; and she could not understand how, if others
had applied, and Almighty Beneficence had re-
sponded to their appeal, that she should apply,
MATERNAL LOVE. 247
and silence, which, in her judgment, was equi-
valent to a refusal, should be all the reception
she could obtain. Many times, in our experi-
ence, we cannot explain God's proceedings ;
many a time we have to trust where we cannot
trace ; many a time we must wait and wonder, and
wonder and wait ; but just as often, after we have
long wondered and long waited, a still small
voice comes from the oracles of heaven, " Stand
still, and see the salvation of God." Be not rash
to judge God. Do not construe rapidly, lest you
misconstrue. Behind a frowning cloud he often
hides a smiling face.
" The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower."
Let us wait. The woman no doubt felt deeply
discouraged, but she did not despair. Though
Christ was silent she persisted still ; so much so .
that " his disciples came and besought him, say-
ing, Send her away : for she crieth after us."
At the first blush one would say, " Here are
the disciples pleading for her. How good these
men must have been ! how sympathizing thus to
interpose and plead ! " But it was not love that
made them say so. " Send her away." Why ?
248 FORESHADOWS.
" Give her what she wants, and send her away ; "
— because she is needy, because she is faint?
No, but "because she crieth after us." Just so
it is with mankind. When a very importunate
beggar comes after them, they fling him sixpence,
not out of love to the beggar, or pity for his sor-
rows, but in order to get rid of him — one of the
most inhuman methods of giving what is popu-
larly called " charity " that one can possibly
adopt. If we cannot give sixpence, give a kind
word, say something encouraging or comforting ;
and whenever we do give let the kindness of
our words be at least equal to the amount of our
gift. The disciples, then, out of selfishness, not
sympathy — out of self-love, not love — wished
to send her away, saying, she torments us ;
she is interfering with our comfort ; " she crieth
after us." But Jesus did not answer the dis-
ciples according to their wish, any more than he
did the woman according to hers ; but " he an-
swered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost
sheep of the house of Israel." Of course, this is
true, because Christ said it ; but what is the ex-
planation of a statement which seems to us at
first somewhat contradictory ? The explanation
lies in this — that his personal ministry had a
MATERNAL LOVE. 249
specialty in it; it was restricted almost exclu-
sively to Judsea : but that this was not the ulti-
mate design of his gospel is plain from his last
words, " Go ye, and teach all nations, baptizing
them [or, literally, go and disciple all nations,
baptizing them] in the name of the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost." In another place he
says, " Go ye into all the world ; " showing that his
mission was to be commensurate with the world.
The meaning then of the expression, " I am not
sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of
Israel," is, plainly, that his personal ministry was
restricted, for great, wise, and righteous ends, to
the land of Judsea. Almost all his miracles were
done there ; almost all his bright and beautiful
and precious discourses were preached there;
his birth was there, his life was there, and his
death was there : and those instances of Gentiles
tasting of his goodness which are here and there
scattered over his life and ministry were but fore-
shadows of what will be — earnests and first-
fruits of the great future. It was to teach the
Jew, that whilst, in compliance with the purposes
of Heaven, his personal ministry was to be re-
stricted to the land of Judaea, when that minis-
try was done, the Spirit should be poured out,
250 FORESHADOWS.
to be bounded only by the bound-lines of hu-
manity, and be carried
" From sea to sea, and shore to shore,
Till suns should rise and set no more."
The woman however, when she heard this re-
mark made by our Lord to his disciples, was not
discouraged : for, it is said, " she came and wor-
shipped him." I do not know that that was re-
ligious worship ; I think it must have been the
respect she had to a great and superior being.
" Lord," (or Master,) she said, " help me." The
more she was repulsed, the closer she crept to
him ; the more he seemed to treat her petitions
with indifference, the more intensely she charged
that petition with the expression of her sorrow,
her sympathy, and her wants. At last Christ
speaks. But if his silence damped her feelings,
his speech must have discouraged her still more.
He said, " Is it meet to take the children's bread,
and cast it to the dogs ?" No doubt this was a
proverbial expression used among the Jews, to
denote a sense of their national superiority and
greatness over other nations ; but, whether or
not the Jews were regarded as nationally God's
adoption, they were the children of Abraham by
MATERNAL LOVE. 251
profession, and their responsibility was to be so
really and truly. Our Lord, then, adopts the
phrase — which does not imply that he called the
Gentiles dogs, and the Jews children — and speaks
in words which that G entile had been accustomed
to, " Why, you know, it is an -aphorism which
you have heard, that it is not meet to take the
children's bread, and cast it to the dogs." It is a
curious fact, worth stating, and rather remark-
able, that throughout the whole Bible the nobler
qualities of the dog are never referred to, but only
his worst qualities. I do not know why it is. We
know that the dog has some of the noblest quali-
ties of any animal, but in Scripture the frequent
illustration is drawn from his baser ones. The
Gentiles were called by the Jews dogs ; and you
recollect one said, " Is thy servant a dog, that he
should do such a thing?" Our Lord says, then,
" If the children are entitled to bread, it is not
meet to take it from them, and cast it to the
dogs." This was enough to daunt any one ; but
so rooted in her heart was confidence in him, and
so ardent was her attachment to her child, that
she turned the very repulse that Jesus uttered in-
to a reason for approaching him yet more closely
and confidentially, and pleading more eloquently
£52 FORESHADOWS.
with him She draws, in fact, an argument in her
favour from what seemed against her ; with the
ready wit that deep feeling ever generates, she
made what would have been a dissuasive into a
persuasive. The ear of love hears what the
ear of the ordinary man cannot ; and her ear and
her heart heard an under-tone of " yea " in the
loud-spoken accents that breathed only "nay."
She argues, therefore, as much as to say, " I
admit I am a Gentile; I admit I am called a
dog ; nay, I will assume that I am really what
the proverb calls me ; but this, instead of ex-
cluding me from food, is an argument for giving
me food. Is it not the experience of humanity,
that if the children sit round the table and eat,
the dogs come and lie down beside them, and
get the crumbs that fall from the table ? I do not
ask a child's place ; but give me the dog's place,
and I am content. It is a law that the dog shall
have food as well as the child ; therefore, blessed
Master, your argument, your remark, your ap-
plication of this proverb, only teaches me that I
am within the reach of thy mercies, not without
them." Just as the poor prodigal said, " Make
me a hired servant, if it be only under thy roof,
and not a son." Thus she says, " Call me a
MATERNAL LOVE. 258
dog, but give me a dog's portion, and I shall be
abundantly satisfied."
We too must learn, in using the promises of
Scripture and turning them into prayer, fully to
admit the truth of all that God says ; and even
from his frowns, his chastisements, his judg-
ments, fetch new arguments, and point new ap-
peals for mercy and forgiveness. And does God
call this presumption? No. We may call it so,
but he never does. He waits to be gracious ; he
longs to hear a people's prayer, that he may let
loose upon that people showers of benedictions.
How did the woman succeed then ? Just as
all ever do who may imitate her example. She
conquered. This is the victory that overcometh
the world — one might add, that overcometh God
— even our faith. Jacob wrestled with the angel
of the covenant a whole night, and Jacob over-
came ; and he was called Israel, because he had
prevailed with God. You say, " How can prayer
have such power?" It has no power in itself.
The brass serpent on the pole had no virtue in
itself; but if God is pleased to command it, it is
ours to pray, and his to give.
The thought here suggests itself — how was it
that this woman was so differently treated from
254 FORESHADOWS.
others in almost similar circumstances ? To one
lie offered mercy before it was asked ; to another,
he complied with the request the moment it was
made; but to this woman he gave repulse upon
repulse. And why ? He knew each man's case,
and, like a skilful physician, he adapted himself
to each man's (if you will allow the word) idio-
syncracy. He knew the tenacity of her faith
before he tried it. And he knew Abraham's
faith before he tried Abraham ; he knew quite
well (and this meets the infidel's objection) that
Abraham would not be obliged to sacrifice the
child, but that his confidence in God would
triumph and prevail. He knew, therefore, that
having such tenacity of faith to deal with, he
might teach a lesson to us who read the glory,
whilst he was trying the strength of that woman's
faith upon the shores of Canaan.
It is interesting also here to remark, that we
have throughout a striking illustration of the
great strength of the woman's faith. In the case
of the paralytic, recorded in the Gospel of Mark,
we find faith or confidence in the Lord breaking
through all physical obstructions. When they
could not come nigh unto him for the press, they
uncovered the roof where he was ; and when they
MATERNAL LOVE. 255
had broken it up, they let clown the bed wherein
the sick of the palsy lay. We have also in the
case of blind Bartimeus, who came to Christ that
he might recover his sight, an instance of faith
overcoming hostile obstructions thrown in his
way by those who were near the Saviour. Many
charged him that he should hold his peace, but
Bartimeus cried the more, " Have mercy on me,
thou Son of David." But in the case of the
woman, we have an instance of faith overcoming
obstructions, not physical, as those of the para-
lytics were, not personally hostile, as those of
Bartimeus were, but obstructions apparently in
Christ himself. Well, therefore, and truly did
he say to her, " Great is thy faith ; be it unto
thee as thou wilt."
Now let us draw one or two lessons from the
whole of this miracle. This woman, we have said,
was an inhabitant of Canaan, a Syro-phenician, a
Gentile, not within the Jewish covenant. There
are Christian brethren, where we think not,
and oft see not; there are believers in the
worst of circumstances, Christians in the most
unpromising of all communions ; there are gems
in the depths of the sea which have never re-
flected the sunshine ; there are flowers in the
256 FORESHADOWS.
untrodden desert ; there are Christians in hea-
thendom ; there are Protestants in the midst of
the papal apostacy; unknown, are weak things
that will yet be monuments of God's power, and
defective things that will yet be the trophies of
God's strength. Let us not judge according
to sense, but judge righteous judgment ; and
rejoice that there will come to God, and sit
down with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob,
from the east and from the west, from the north
and from the south, strangers to us, and also to
communions within whose walls, in our bigotry
and exclusiveness, we imagined there was exclu-
sive salvation.
Let us also draw the lesson — a very import-
ant one — that afflictions bring those to the Sa-
viour whom prosperity would keep away. This
woman's child, suffering under a terrible judg-
ment, was the means of this woman's applying to
a Saviour for acceptance for herself, and cure
for her child. We know quite well, when we
have lost some near and dear one, how it dims
the glory of this world. Never does man feel
money to be so utterly worthless as when he is
labouring under the deep pain of some great,
sorrowful bereavement. These things are sent
MATERNAL LOVE. 257
just to dim the world's sheen, to darken the
world's glory, to weaken the world's attractions.
Sorrow washes away from the eye the films
that intercept the light of the countenance of
God. Affliction is the furnace into which we are
thrown, that the oxides contracted in this world
may be burned off, and that on the pure gold
that remains there may be struck the image and
reflected the likeness and the glory of our God.
He has sharp-cutting tools — the sword, the pes-
tilence, the noisome beast, and the famine. These
cutting tools and files he uses for polishing his
own jewels ; and those very jewels that he means
to reflect his glory most brightly, and that he
deems the most precious in his cabinet, are those
on which these rough tools will be oftenest ; and
the brighter the ultimate lustre, the longer will
the workman be in polishing. Many a one, there-
fore, will say in heaven, what perhaps he cannot
now say, " It was good for me that I have been
afflicted." Let us not forget that the evidence
that an affliction, or judgment, national, social, or
personal, has been sanctified to us, is what it
leaves behind — not what we feel now, precious
as that is, but what it leaves behind. We know
when the storm, and the wind, and the rain
£58 FORESHADOWS.
burst upon your garden in winter, all the effect
is seen in pools, decaying leaves, fragments of
wreck, and wide disorder, with no intervening
hope, at that moment, of a change ; but when
the storm comes in summer, in showers and heavy
rain, it falls upon the flowers, the trees, and the
leaves ; and it is no sooner over than the sun
breaks forth again, and the flowers look only
more beautiful for the bath which they have en-
joyed. So fall afflictions on those to whom
they are not, and on those to whom they are
sanctified. In the case of those to whom they
are not sanctified, they are the winter storms that
leave but wreck, and misery, and chaos ; but
to those to whom they are blessed they are as
the summer storm that beautifies, not blasts, the
vegetation on which it falls. Bereavement, and
affliction, and judgment, make the thoughtless
think, and the prayerless pray, and the thinking
think more deeply, and the praying pray more
fervently ; till all add, as an expression of their
blessed experience, " It was good for me that I
was afflicted."
We learn another lesson. The spiritual
and temporal prosperity of all with whom we
are associated by ties of relationship, neigh-
MATERNAL LOVE. 259
bourhood, country, kith, or kin, should be most
dear to us, and should be borne upon our hearts
when we draw near to God. This woman
brought her daughter to the Saviour along with
herself. The help me is associated with help
her. She fulfilled the royal law of bearing one
another's burdens. We, too, should fulfil the
royal law in another formula, " Thou shalt love
thy neighbour as thyself."
This is not all. True Christians do, and
may, and will meet with many discouragements
in prayer. Some say to me, " I cannot pray as
I could wish ; when I attempt to pray, doubts,
distractions, wanderings, come into my mind,
and perplex me." Let me instruct you that, if
you could pray as you could wish, you would
not be in the church militant, but in the church
triumphant ; if you were what you would be, this
would not be grace, but glory. Thus these are
evidences of grace — not your doubts, and your
distractions, but your sense of, and sorrow for,
them. He, therefore, who has learned from his
prayers that he has never prayed as he should,
and camiot now pray as he would, has been taught
a precious lesson, for it Avill humble him, and
lead him to pray for that strength which is made
s 2
860 FORESHADOWS.
perfect in weakness, and for that aid which ex-
alts the lowly, and abases only the proud.
Another lesson that we may draw from this
interesting miracle is, that the people of God are
to persevere in prayer. God does not say, " Ask
once, and I will give ; " he says, u Ask, and ye
shall obtain ; seek, and ye shall find ; knock, (an
intenser expression,) and it shall be opened unto
you." God has not said that you shall have an
answer after you have prayed once, twice, or
thrice ; he has merely promised to give an
answer. It is yours to pray, and to persist in
prayer — not long prayer, not many words, but
the deep, fervent utterance of a heart that feels
deeply and prays truly — God will answer that
prayer sooner or later. So it was with this
woman : she was repulsed once, twice, thrice,
but she persisted ; she had perseverance ; and,
at last, she found that the stream that had been
only banked up, in the end burst forth from its
channel and overflowed in more glorious abund-
ance. She felt, what you will feel, that the
blessing you have long asked for, and which has
been long delayed, will at length come down
exceeding abundantly above all that you can
ask, or think, or desire. Persist, then, in prayer ;
MATERNAL LOVE. 561
pray always, and not faint. Hear what the
apostle says, that men should " pray always ; "
that men should "'*' pray at all times : " that men
should "pray without fear or doubting;" that
they should " pray every where ; " that they
should pray u with all perseverance." And pray
for what ? " "Whatsoever things ye have need
of." Now whatever be the sorrow that lies
nearest any heart in this assembly, whatever be
the burden that is heaviest, whatever be the suf-
fering that is most pungent and poignant — prav
that that may be removed. It is right, it is duty,
it is privilege. Some say, " I don't know if it be
good for me that it should be removed." That
is not your business ; it is God's. What God
asks is that we shall disclose to him our deep
wants, whatever these wants may be : leaving to
him to determine in his wisdom what is best
and most expedient for us. If you do not ask
temporal blessings, you are saying that the bless-
ings of the footstool are not worth having. But
is not health an inestimable blessing ? Is not
*'•' neither poverty nor riches, but food convenient
for us," an inestimable blessing ? Is not pro-
tection and preservation from danger a blessing ?
Ask these things, then, that he would feed you
262 FORESHADOWS.
with, daily bread, that lie would save you from
" the terror by night, and the arrow that flieth
by day;" that he would keep you under his
feathers ; that he would give you all good things.
Mother, pray for the child; child, pray for
the mother ; healthy, pray for the sick ; ask
temporal blessings, ask them fully, as children
of a Father; and when you ask them, do not
trouble yourself with thinking, " I am afraid to
ask, because I do not know whether it will be
good for me." You are thus intruding into
God's seat: you must leave with him to deter-
mine whether it be good for you. It is for you
to lay bare your aching heart, and its deep
wants, in the presence of your Father ; and you
will find what peace and comfort there is in the
thought, " I have told him what I feel honestly
to be the want that is deepest ; I leave it with
him who knows all things completely, to give it
when and how he pleases, or to withhold it when
it seems to him most expedient. I believe we
have many wrong views of prayer. We ask
things, and doubt whether it is right to ask them
or not. Ask everything you honestly believe
you have need of. Leave it to God, and he will
withhold as his wisdom may see to be most ex-
MATERNAL LOVE. 263
pedient. Do not intrude into God's province ;
take the supplicant's part ; for " v/liatsoever things
ye have need of" you are to ask for; you are to
pray " in all things." "Is any man afflicted?
Let him pray. Is any man merry ? Let him
sing psalms." Let every thing bring you to
God; and tell your heavenly Father of all the
wants you feel, that he may relieve them. Not
that prayer is necessary because God needs in-
formation of what you want. He knows it ; but
it is his law, it is his arrangement, that whatever
you want you are to tell him of it, and he will
give it exceeding abundantly. And if he give you
not that very thing which you ask, he will give
you something ten times better ; he will never
give you worse than you ask, but always better.
" If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts
unto your children, how much more will your
heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them
that ask him." Do not think that God's delay
is unwillingness : his willingness is infinite ; his
unwillingness is seeming, his willingness is real ;
his seeming unwillingness is to make you do as
the Canaanite woman did — persevere ; his will-
ingness waits to bestow more than we can ask
or think. Do not, then, argue, as some have
264
FORESHADOWS.
ignorantly and sceptically argued, that God
knows what we want, and that if he is determined
to give it, he will give it without prayer ; and
that if he is determined not to give it, it is of no
use to pray for it. That is atheism. We are,
my dear friends, to feel satisfied that God, in his
decrees and eternal purposes, has resolved to
give to prayer what he is resolved not to give
without prayer. Prayer may be one of the
wheels on which his purposes move to perform-
ance. It is his law — a law that we are under,
and that we are to receive — that if we ask not
we shall not obtain ; and it is his law, equally ex-
plicit, that if we ask we shall obtain. All that he
requires of you is the unfeigned, earnest, sincere,
persevering disclosure of all your wants — your
little wants, and your great wants : for do not
think, as some think, of his providence, that it
takes care of kings, but does not condescend to
beggars — that it takes care of empires, and not of
atoms — that it takes care of the leviathan, but
not of the emmet or the fly. God's providence
embraces all things — rises to the greatest, and
descends to the minutest — is in the disclosures
of the microscope, as well as the discoveries of
the telescope. So with reference to prayer:
MATERNAL LOVE. 265
God hears prayer for little things as well as
for great things; and little things may be the
hinges on which great ones turn. Therefore,
the lesson that I would again repeat, is, what-
soever ye want or need, ask and pray for, at all
times, every where — lifting up holy hands, no-
thing doubting that the hearer of prayer will
hear, and answer. So our experience on earth,
and our retrospect for glory, will equally prove
that we never sincerely and earnestly prayed in
vain.
LECTURE X.
THE CALMER OF THE STORM.
And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him.
And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch
that the ship was covered with the waves : but he was asleep.
And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord,
save lis : we perish. And he saith unto them, Why are ye
fearful, 0 ye of little faith ? Then he arose, and rebuked the
winds and the sea ; and there was a great calm. But the
men marvelled, saying, What manner of man is this, that
even the winds and the sea obey him ! — Matt. viii. 23 — 27.
Many of the miracles on which I have lectured
have related to the diseases of the body, to which
Christ was the great Physician ; and the death of
that body, to which he had proved himself the
life. This miracle relates not to disease or to
death in the experience of man, but to another
of the effects of sin, the storms and tempests, or
disharmony of nature, of which he alone is the
queller, and from which he alone will one day
retrieve her.
It appears that Jesus, as stated in the record
THE CALMER. OF THE STORM. 267
of the miracle here given, went into a ship.
Never, certainly, did the waves of the sea bear
a more precious burden ; never had ship con-
structed by man a more glorious passenger ; it
was the glory of that sea that its bosom bore
him ; it was an honour to those winds that they
were permitted to waft him ; for it was not one
that had shared with them in nature's shock, but
one who made it holy, — for " all things were
made by him," — and came to right it, for he is
the great Redeemer of all things.
It appears that when he was in this ship, a
storm arose. The sea, commonly called so, is a
large loch or lake ; it was inland, but of great
extent ; and, like all inland seas, as one may be
aware, subject to tempestuous hurricanes, that
rushed down the mountain gorges unexpectedly,
and very frequently buried large vessels in its
waters. It appears that one of these gales or
storms smote the ship in which Jesus and his
disciples were. The fishermen, or the sailors,
plainly felt it to be no common or ordinary
storm, by the very fact that they appealed to him
for deliverance. A sailor will never take foreign
help as long as he has a muscle that he can use,
or a rag of canvass that he can hoist, or an effort
268 FORESHADOWS.
that his skill, his genius, or his physical powers
can have recourse to. Whenever a sailor has re-
course to foreign help on the sea, it is generally
evidence that he has given up all for lost. These
men were accustomed to storms and tempests,
and, no doubt, would not have appealed to Jesus
for miraculous deliverance unless they had been
fully conscious that human strength was weak-
ness, human skill was folly, and that without
such interposition all was hopeless.
We gather from these facts that the presence
of Christ, near and dear to his people, does not
exempt them from affliction. Christ has promised
to conduct us to an everlasting and glorious
haven ; but he has not promised that we shall
also have a fair wind, a smooth sea, and a de-
lightful and serene passage. The passage may
indeed be tempestuous, but the haven will cer-
tainly be reached ; and often the storm by the
way is a necessary element in that process by
which we are fitted for the enjoyment of the
haven that is before us. No one so enjoys the
calm harbour as the long tempest-tossed sailor ;
no one so enjoys his home as the weary traveller
who has come many a mile to reach it ; and the
Christian will find heaven not to be the less
THE CALMER OF THE STORM. 269
sweet, but the more so, that he has buffeted
many a wind, passed through many a storm, and
often felt thoroughly persuaded that there was
no hope or deliverance for him. He shall then
find these tempests not worthy to be compared
with the glory that is to be revealed ; he will
then discover that each trial was just as neces-
sary for him as that Christ should have died for
him ; and instead of being a random accident in
disturbed nature, it was a messenger sent from
on high to help him on his journey, without
whose help he might never have reached the
end.
Jesus, it is said, in the midst of the tempest
which he and his disciples shared, was asleep on
the stern, or hinder part of the ship. Jonah once
slept in his ship, in the midst of a storm ; but
his sleep was the result of the opiate of a dead
and benumbed conscience. Jesus slept in the
storm, but his sleep was because of a pure, an
innocent, and holy conscience. Jonah was the
cause of the storm in which he was ; Jesus was
the queller of the storm in which he was. One
was a fugitive from God ; the other was a mes-
senger of God, coming to do God's work, and
gather in God's people, and glorify God's name.
270 FORESHADOWS.
And may we not see from all this, that the church
of Christ, and the people of God, may very often
seem to be almost cast off — the winds awake, the
waves arise, as if some evil power roused the
one and lashed the other to their utmost fury ;
and what aggravates their state and magnifies
their peril is, that he who alone can quell those
waves, and hush those winds, is asleep — and in
fact seems not to regard them. It was in such cir-
cumstances that the believer, in the Psalms, called
out, " Hath God forgotten to be gracious ? How
long wilt thou forsake me, O Lord ? " Yet let
Christ seem to have forgotten his people — let
there be no Divine word sent from the sky, an-
nouncing deliverance — let there be no rainbow
spanning it, intimating that the storm is about to
pass away — let there be no prescription dropped
from above, to show us that the disease is about
to be healed — let all seem desperate, there is no
depth into which man can be plunged in which
he should not pray, and there is no depth or
distance from God, to which affliction may drive
him, in which prayer may not be heard ; for it
was when the storm was in its fury, and Jesus
was asleep, that they cried, in their agony, " Lord, y
save us. Carest thou not that we perish ?" And
THE CALMER OF THE STORM. 271
yet in that petition of these poor fishermen,
whilst there was faith, there was also a mixture
of infirmity. They said, " Save us ; we perish."
They thought that Christ and they would perish ;
but how impossible is that ! Christ, and his
people whom he knows — some of them born and
re-born ; others of them born, but not re-born ;
others of them not yet born, or re-born; some
circumcised, and others uncircumcised ; some
circumcised, like Abraham ; some baptized, like
Paul, but not circumcised ; and some neither, but
yet chosen in him before the foundation of the
world, the members of his living body, the ransom
of his precious blood ; they are all safe as if they
were already in heaven ; for he himself hath
said, " I give unto them eternal life, and none
shall be able to pluck them out of my hand."
The Lord, it is said, when appealed to, ad-
dressed the men, and rebuked them gently and
tenderly for weakness : " O ye of little faith."
It was not the evidence of their little faith that
they appealed to Christ, but that they were so
alarmed, as to be almost overpowered and over-
whelmed by that alarm. Then, it is said, he
arose and rebuked the winds. AVhen does Christ
interpose to help us ? Just when we have come
272 FORESHADOWS.
to learn the lesson that we cannot help ourselves.
Never does a Christian know what strength is
till he feels what his utter, entire weakness is in
the sight of God. It is then that in weakness
he is made strong. Have we not had something
to transfer the illustration of the miracle to an
analogous case ? Have we not had something
like this in our recent experience ? Just at the
time that the late epidemic was darkening more
and more our horizon, the registrar-general
wrote, " Now we can see light ;" and the very
two weeks during which he saw light were the
darkest of all. At the very time that the Times
paper and others said, " Now we have turned
the corner," that very time the victims fell in
greater numbers. Nostrum followed nostrum ;
prescription was published after prescription,
till men were more likely to be poisoned by
men's prescriptions than to be smitten down
by God's pestilence. There was cleansing,
watering, flushing, de-odorizing, disinfecting,
shutting up pestilential foci (all most important
in their places, and it is only a pity they were
not done before); every effort was made, yet
they found that they were stopping up one leak,
whilst a dozen were starting out besides. There
THE CALMER OF THE STORM. 273
was great faith in physicians, great faith in pre-
ventive measures, but little faith in, and scarcely
a whisper of, an appeal to him who kills and
makes alive ; till at length the multiplying vic-
tims, mown down on every side, began to teach
inn his helplessness. The conquering epidemic
rode from the lane to the well-paved street, from
the cellar to the noble's hall, and from the filthy
place, where they said its habitat was, and out
of which it dared not come, it entered the most
splendid drawing-rooms ; it touched even the
judicial bench, and picked out its victims there ;
till, in short, the pestilence, like Death upon the
pale horse in the Apocalypse, rode forth, con-
quering on all sides, with terror in his van, and
death in his rear. Then men saw what their
nostrums and specifics were worth — their faith
in man, their trust in physic ; till at last a
nation, in its helplessness, flung all behind it,
and rushed, in a nation's agony, and gave utter-
ance to a nation's prayers, in ten thousand tem-
ples, " Lord, save us ; we perish." And the
Lord stretched out his hand, and stayed the
plague, and " there was a great calm." God has
been teaching us first to feel our helplessness,
and then to rejoice in our deliverance.
T
274
FORESHADOWS.
Do not draw from what I say any inference
that I disapprove of all the efforts that have been
made. On the contrary, I am one of those who
believe that God sent this judgment just to
teach the rich, the great, the noble, of all ranks,
that they have neglected their duties, that they
have left the poor to starve, or to live and to be
housed like brutes, instead of each person look-
ing round his hall, his park, his palace, his resi-
dence, remembering that if God has made him
more rich, it is that some very poor one may be
bettered ; and that if God has given him more
comforts, it is that those who have none may get
some. I believe that this is one of the srreat
o
lessons to be gathered from the judgment, and I
hope it will not be forgotten. At the same time
it does seem to me, while we have been taught
this, we have been taught also to recognise the
finger of God. He has crowded physicians, and
skill, and talent, and prevention, and all other
measures into one humble, lowly place ; and from
the graves of the victims, and the homes of the
spared, the weepers because of lost ones, and the
rejoicers because of spared ones, have learned
this truth, which I think is deeper engraved
upon our country's heart than ever it was en-
THE CALMER OF THE STORM. £75
graved before — that we are saved and kept
healthy, and blessed, and prospered, not by
might nor by power, but by the Spirit of the
Lord. Let not the wise man glory in his wis-
dom, nor the physician in his skill, nor the states-
man in his policy ; but let him that glorieth glory
only in the Lord : and let all learn — what we
have forgotten — that we are not under the do-
minion of those contemptible gods of the Pan-
theon of the 19th century, called " laws of na-
ture ; " but that we are under the dominion of
Him who reigns in heaven, and rules amidst the
inhabitants of the earth, and who turneth the
hearts of kings whithersoever he will. These are
noble lessons. If we have learned them, as I
trust many have, we shall bless God for the pes-
tilence that laid so many below the ground
in 1849, because of the beneficent and precious
lessons it taught to so many who yet live.
Jesus arose, it is said, and rebuked the wind
and the wave. The Physician rebuked the
disease ; the Creator rebuked the storms of cre-
ation. Whether the word " rebuke," which is
often applied to the miracles of Christ, when he
speaks to nature, means that there was any living
agency concerned, it is perhaps difficult to say.
t 2
276 FORESHADOWS.
It seems as if it taught us that storms and tem-
pests are the results of some usurping powers
that have come into the world. We know that
Satan is the god of this world ; we know that
he is trying to grasp the sceptre which he cannot
hold ; and that he intrudes and does mischief
wherever he is permitted, and has power to
do so. Whether it be that the Lord looked upon
these storms as the mere expression of a ma-
lignant agency beneath, and rebuked the evil
powers because of what had taken place, I can-
not say. Perhaps it was that he looked upon
nature as his own child. " The sea is his," says
the psalmist, " and he made it ; " and then, when
he spoke to the winds, they folded their wings
and slept beside him, recognising in the words of
Jesus the voice of him that gave them their cre-
ation and their commission at the first ; and
when the waves heard that voice, they lay
like babes beside a mother, gentle, and obedient
to him whose is the sea, and whose also is the
dry land : and they showed how truly David
wrote, when he sung by the Spirit of David's
Lord, " Thou rulest the raging of the sea ;
when the waves thereof arise thou stillest them."
And how beautifullv the same David wrote in
THE CALMER OF THE STORM. 277
another place : " They that go down to the sea
in ships, that do business in great waters ; these
see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in
the deep. For he commandeth, and raiseth the
stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof.
They mount up to the heaven, they go down
again to the depths : their soul is melted because
of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger
like a drunken man, and are at their wit's end.
Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble,
and he bringeth them out of their distresses.
He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves
thereof are still. Then are they glad because
they be quiet ; so he bringeth them unto their
desired haven. Oh that men would praise the
Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful
works to the children of men ! "
What Jesus did on this occasion was not, let
me remind you, as I have done before, was not
a mere miraculous feat, it was also a prophetic
fact. No act of Jesus was finished when it was
done ; each was a foreshadow of a grand result
yet to be. All things, I believe, are far more
typical than we think them ; all facts are preg-
nant with effects yet more glorious than we see.
There is no such thing as a dead fact ; it is
£78 FORESHADOWS.
always living and prolific ; and whatever Jesus
did, especially, was significant of something
yet brighter and better that Jesus will do. So
then, the fact that he quelled the storm is only
an earnest of that better day, when the great
Peacemaker will come forth like the high priest
from the holy of holies, and screw up creation's
strings to their primeval harmony, bring all
things back to their Eden bliss, give the wind
and waves and sea a new and a Divine commis-
sion, recover and resume the sceptre, expel the
disturber, reverse the curse, strip nature of her
ashen garments, in which she has wept and
groaned, a penitent and a sufferer, and put on
her coronation robes, her bridal apparel, when
the marriage of the Lamb shall have come ; and
all nature shall be made glad. We believe that
this will be so, not merely from this fact that is
an earnest of it, but because the Lord Jesus
himself has expressly said so. And at this mo-
ment, as in the past, his arm is not shortened
that it cannot save, nor his ear heavy that it
cannot hear. In the midst of storms and tem-
pests we may seek of him a calm in sorrow, and
sickness, and suffering, we may pray for help.
We ought to ask for temporal blessings abso-
THE CALMER OF THE STORM. 279
lutely, as we ask for spiritual blessings. It is
God's part to determine, in his wisdom, what he
will give and what he will withhold ; it is our
part simply to disclose the felt and the deep
wants of our soul, and ask him to supply them.
If therefore any one is ill, and wants help,
pray for it ; if any of us be poor and starving,
and need bread, pray for it ; if any of us have
a relative suffering and ill, pray for his recovery,
and pray in faith ; it is ours to pray ; it is God's
part to determine what he will give. Do not
say, " But is this expedient ? Is this according
to the will of God ? " That is not your busi-
ness. Ask what your conscience, enlightened
by God's word, shows you to be, or that seems
to you to be, good ; ask what you really need,
and leave it with God to give or withhold as to
him may seem most expedient. He authorized us
to seek all temporal blessings, when he taught us
to say, " Give us daily bread ; " he enjoined us to
seek all spiritual blessings, when he taught us to
say, " Forgive us our trespasses." Temporal
blessings are the blessings of the footstool ; spi-
ritual blessings are the blessings of the throne :
let us ask both. God has given us a body as
well as a soul, and he means that there should be
280 FORESHADOWS.
provision for the one as well as for the other.
Ask for both, and ask in faith ; do not doubt ;
and if his wisdom do not always give you the
precise thing that you ask, his goodness will give
you a better thing, exceeding abundantly above
all you can ask : thus his name will be glorified,
and you will be blessed.
It is on these accounts that I again refer to
another topic, on which I say so much because I
wish that it may be sanctified, and never for-
gotten. We have ourselves had evidence that
God answers the prayers of the people. We
see how rapidly the prevalent epidemic has de-
creased ever since the nation began earnestly to
pray. And I rejoice to say that the public news-
papers now begin to show a holier feeling on the
subject. I may perhaps be pardoned, if I read
a short extract from one of them, which has been
most refreshing to my mind. I have said that
most of the papers were asserting this cause,
and that cause, and that no doubt the cold
weather would abate the disease ; yet hot weather
actually came, and yet there was a decrease ;
but one paper has changed its tone — the leading
paper of the age, and remarkable, not for origin-
ating public feeling, but — and nothing but this
THE CALMER OF THE STORM. 281
would justify my reading the extract here — for
being the exponent of it. I refer to it (and I do
not speak disrespectfully of its great talent when m
I say so) just as I should quote the weathercock,
not as the cause of the wind blowing in a certain
direction, but simply as the evidence of it. This
great daily paper, after battling a long time to
account for the disease on every principle but
the right one, and hesitating about the pro-
priety of a day of national prayer, at last writes
an article which seems to compensate for all the
mischief it has done ; and for which I thank
God, because I regard it not as the expression of
the individual writer's feelings, but as the forced
utterance of what the writer knows to be the
nation's heart, the popular feeling, the universal
sympathy.
" It would be as impossible," says the Times of
Thursday, September 27th, " to exaggerate the
sentiment of gratitude which is felt throughout
the metropolis at the abatement of the pest from
which we are beginning to escape, as it would be
to exaggerate the misery which its further con-
tinuance would have inflicted. The plague is
stayed. Death strikes with a feeble and fitful
hand where he so lately smote with so fearful a
282 FORESHADOWS.
force. Terror and Despondence, the satellites and
companions of Death, are flying before the power
which has destroyed the gaunt destroyer. The
streets, which still bear the aspect of mourning
and sadness, no longer witness the daily insignia
of mortality. One meets, indeed, in every place,
the memorials of irreparable losses, and the tokens
of lasting grief, [all this indicates what a terrible
moment we have passed through] . In the throng
of the Exchange, in the great thoroughfares, in
the crowded streets, we jostle against those who
have, within a few days, lost their nearest and
dearest kin. One man, a week ago the happy
husband or proud father, has since followed wife
and children to the grave. The prattle of infancy
and the soft accents of affection have been sud-
denly hushed in a thousand homes. A havoc has
been wrought in innumerable families which a
long life will fail to repair. But the plague is
already stayed ; and, great as the calamity may
have been, it is slight compared with what old
traditions and modern experience taught us to
expect. London has escaped with half the loss
sustained in Paris, and a tithe of the destruc-
tion which ravaged Moscow, Petersburgh, or
Delhi.
THE CALMER OF THE STORM. 283
" A termination almost so unhoped for has filled
men's hearts with gratitude. They recognise in
the mercy that has arrested the hand of the de-
stroying angel the salvation of this country from
all those, the moral and material ills, which have
ever followed in the train of great pestilences.
Had the disease remained among us for any time
without abatement, experience tells us it could
hardly have remained without increase. The
mortality, which had risen from the usual weekly
average of nine hundred to three thousand,
would not have remained many weeks as low as
three thousand. Had it gone on in the same ratio
of increase, it is hardly too much to say that whole
districts in the metropolis and its suburbs would
have been laid bare and desolate. True, this
would have happened among the abodes of the
very poor. But would the consequences of the
affliction have been restricted to those spots ?
Could whole families have been plunged in de-
stitution, and whole parishes have been desolated
by panic, in the offskirts of a huge city, without
infecting the other and healthier elements of so-
ciety ? Impossible ! Of the plague which has al-
ready, we trust, spent its worst malignity, the
deaths which it caused were not the sole nor the
284 FORESHADOWS.
most terrible result. The great historian of
Greece has depicted in indelible colours the moral
which goes hand in hand with the physical pest.
We, as a nation, indeed, may not be in the same
state as that refined and volatile people which
erected altars to ( The Unknown God.' But, can
any one who knows anything of our great cities,
and especially of our greatest, say that, were a
pest let loose with unmitigated violence on them
or in it, the mere destruction of human life would
measure the havoc and the calamity endured?
Would the poorer masses of our population go
untainted by that same utter recklessness of all
save present gain and present enjoyment — the
same indifference to death or life — honour or dis-
honour— good or evil — which poisoned the minds
of the Athenians more than the plague destroyed
their bodies ? The historian of the Great Plague
of London bears testimony to the frightful im-
morality, hardness of heart, and savage reckless-
ness which disputed with piety, contrition, and
repentance, the dominion over men's minds. In
our age the vast increase of population, the more
than proportionate increase of luxury and wealth
— the great contrast of conditions and fortunes,
have all raised up elements of discord, conten-
THE CALMER OF THE STORM. 285
tion, and bitter strife, which were unknown in
De Foe's time, but which, in a wide-spread
pestilence, might now ferment into anarchy and
ruin. The metropolis could not have suffered
alone. It would have infected all England. We
have escaped these evils. We have escaped
panic. We have escaped anarchy. We have
escaped national convulsion [what grounds of
gratitude]! There have, doubtless, been great
suffering, privation, destitution, and despair in-
flicted on us. There have likewise been much
hardness, selfishness, and cruelty elicited by it.
But, still, how little have these been, compared
with the probable and almost inevitable conse-
quences of a heavier and wider mortality ! "
But I wish especially to refer to what follows :
" And, if this be, as we believe it to be, the
case, does not an occasion so solemn deserve an
expression of sentiments so profound ? Should
there not be some public and universal recogni-
tion of the Might which has stood between the
living and the dead — of the Mercy which has
spared us the consummation of a dreadful chas-
tisement? We know that there are men who
refuse to acknowledge the hand of God in any
great dispensation of His providence, — to whom
286 FORESHADOWS.
all the vicissitudes of the material world are but
the casual results of fortuitous combinations, or
the inevitable operations of undetected laws.
Fortunately, the majority of mankind have not
concurred in ousting the Deitv from all concern
in the world which he has made. Most men
still feel sensible that there is One, omniscient
and all-powerful, who directs and determines
the issues of life and death to men and nations.
It is useless to talk of secondary causes. Second-
ary causes are but the instruments which the
Deity chooses to employ. Sickness, famine, and
death, are warnings by which he reminds man-
kind of their weakness, their helplessness, and
their mortality. Every man feels this in his own
family, person, and circumstances. The sickness
that hurries a favourite child or an affectionate
wife to an early grave is a humbling, but effec-
tive, example of Divine power and human weak-
ness. The palsy that prostrates the strong man
in the full flush of health and vigour — the dis-
tress and poverty which stun the rich man in the
height of his prosperity — these are but second-
ary, often tertiary causes ; they may often be
traced step by step through devious but connect-
ed consequences ; but each man, in his own
THE CALMER OF THE STORM. 287
heart, feels them to be the indications of a supreme
will and the tokens of supreme power. And when
these befall individuals, the prayer is put up in
an earnest confidence that He who has inflicted
the wound — though he may not heal it — will yet
temper the infliction with a blessing.
" Doubtless the cholera, like any other pheno-
menon, either of the corporeal or the mundane
system, follows certain definite and ascertainable
laws. So does typhus fever, so do hurricanes, so
do waterspouts, so do thunderstorms, so do earth-
quakes. But the laws of which we speak are but
a convenient phrase to express the will of the
great Lawgiver. He who made can abase,
modify, suspend, or warp them. He who can
bid a plague rise in the East may direct its
sinuous course so as to baffle the observations of
the most sagacious, and the deductions of the
most intelligent. After all, when we have ascer-
tained the law, we are nearly as helpless as we
were before. We may foresee a certain number
of cases and mitigate a certain number ; • but the
highest degree of knowledge which we attain is,
that we know but little about them ; and our ut-
most skill is baffled by contingencies which defy
288 FORESHADOWS.
its explanation. One fact ever appears promi-
nent above the rest — that we are in the hands of
a higher Power.
" And this is a merciful dispensation. With-
out such, men would stagnate into a moral apathy,
and, forgetting the existence of a God, would
forget the duties which he has enjoined. It is
by these visitations that men are reminded that
they are weak. But they are also reminded that
they are accountable. There never yet was a
great national affliction without some previous
neglect of public or private duties. The very
plague which has visited us was made more vio-
lent by the omission of kindly acts, and the
neglect of beneficent laws. The loss of life and
the loss of money which we are suffering are
penalties by which Almighty Wisdom punishes
the delinquencies of governments and states.
Had we observed the duties of charity and jus-
tice more than we have, we should have suffered
less than we have. Had we been more devout,
we should have been more just and more cha-
ritable.
" Those who have suffered and those who have
escaped the pestilence of this year will need no
THE CALMER OF THE STORM. 289
exhortations to acts of individual devotion and
thanksgiving. But the suffering assumed the
form of a national suffering ; the deliverance has
been a national deliverance. The thanksgiving
should be national also."
If one had uttered all these things from the
pulpit, persons would have taken them as mere
common-place observations. Now, however, we
read these words from a newspaper, as an expon-
ent of a deep-rooted public sentiment ; and we
must hear it, not as the ordinary common -places of
theology, but as the solemn conviction of those
who are not generally supposed to pay such
deference to the Bible as one could wish.
" The form and mode of it we do not under-
take to prescribe. But we are confident that
the people of this land will feel it their duty to
utter a solemn and public expression of their
thanks to Him who has heard their prayer in due
season ; and that, moreover, they will not forget
that the mere expression of thanks, solemnized
by whatever ceremonial it may be, will, in a
season like this, be but a poor and unworthy
homage at the throne of Infinite Justice. There
is a sacrifice which should be performed. The
u
290 FORESHADOWS.
graves of our cities have been crowded with the
victims of greedy speculation, careless legislation,
and frigid selfishness. They who have perished
have for the most part perished in fetid alleys,
noisome and pestiferous houses, vile and infec-
tious cellars, the structures or properties which
were owned by selfish covetousness, and erected
by selfish indifference."
When I said this, it was thought by far too
strong. Now that a newspaper says it, that
knows much better of these things, it is admit-
ted to be true. The writer continues : —
" Let us take warning from our past stu-
pidity or neglect, and not mock a religious so-
lemnity by persisting in cruelty and apathy.
While we allow the houses of the poor to be
mm
without air, light, or water, while we taint the
breath of the living with the exhalations of the
dead, and while we squabble in the midst of a
destroying pest about the rights of vestries and
commissions, our fast will be but an impious
hypocrisy, and our prayers a hideous mum-
mery."
Then this splendid article, so truly Christian,
and so magnificent in its conception and elo-
THE CALMER OF THE STORM. 291
quence, concludes with words that I rejoice to
see in a newspaper, and for which we should be
unspeakably grateful : —
" ' Is it such a fast as I have chosen ? A day
for a man to afflict his soul ? To bow down his
head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and
ashes under him ? Wilt thou call this a fast, and
an acceptable day to the Lord ? Is not this the
fast that I have chosen ? — To loose the bands of
wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to
let the oppressed go free ; and that ye break
every yoke?' "
This is so much like what most ministers have
said, that it seems as if there were a universal
feeling originating in all minds the very same
ideas, and that the press, like the pulpit, has
grown prophetic. And of what does this give
evidence? That all men are under a deep and
solemn feeling that the judgment has been so
far sanctified. I trust it will be sanctified yet
more ; and that whilst there will be the expres-
sion of a nation's gratitude, there will be at the
same time the fast that God has chosen — the
undoing the heavy burdens. For whilst one
deplores that there should be any in distress,
while the judgment is upon us, one will deplore
u 2
292 FORESHADOWS.
yet more deeply that there should be any want
of gratitude, of adoring gratitude, when the
judgment passes away. I far more dread lest,
after deliverance, we should bring forth no fra-
grant fruits of gratitude, than that during the
judgment we should not pray to God for de-
liverance. I trust that the expression of public
feeling and public sentiment which I have read
will not be like the morning cloud and the early
dew, but that it will last for many days to come.
If these things do take place, I have great hopes
for our country still. Every thing that I have
seen about this judgment leads one to bless God,
and to be thankful ; whilst we lament the gaps
it has made, we thank him for the moral impres-
sion it has left behind.
The result of this storm was, that the disciples
asked, " What manner of man is this, that the
winds and the sea obey him?" The result of
this epidemic will be, that the people will think,
" What God is this, whose finger appeared in
the judgment, whose power and goodness have
also, as acknowledged in the vehicles of public
information, appeared in the repression of it?"
Let us bless God for his mercies ; let us bless
him for his judgments ; let us praise him for the
THE CALMER OF THE STORM. 293
storm ; let us praise him for the calm ; let us see
him in all things ; let us see him teaching the
minister in his pulpit, and whispering to the
newspaper editor in his room ; let us hear him in
all ; let us recognise him in all; and let us feel,
as we never felt before, that religion — true, vital
religion, is the only thing worth living for, as
it is the only thing in which we can happily
die*
* These remarks were made in the autumn of 1849, during
the epidemic, the subduing, and sanctifying, and suggestive
effects of which are now, alas, neither so deep nor so general as
one once ventured to hope.
LECTURE XI.
BETHESDA AND ITS BLESSINGS.
After this there was a feast of the Jews ; and Jesus went up to
Jerusalem. Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market
a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, hav-
ing five porches. In these lay a great multitude of impotent
folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the
water. For an angel went down at a certain season into the
pool, and troubled the water : whosoever then first after the
troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatso-
ever disease he had. And a certain man was there, which
had an infirmity thirty and eight years. When Jesus saw
him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that
case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole ? The
impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the
water is troubled, to put me into the pool : but while I am
coming, another steppeth down before me. Jesus saith unto
him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk. And immediately the
man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked : and
on the same day was the sabbath. The Jews therefore said
unto him that was cured, It is the sabbath day: it is not law-
ful for thee to carry thy bed. He answered them, He that
made me whole, the same said unto me, Take up thy bed,
and walk. Then asked they him, What man is that which
said unto thee, Take up thy bed, and walk ? And he that
was healed wist not who it was : for Jesus had conveyed him-
self away, a multitude being in that place. Afterward Jesus
findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou
WF
SB
,
.Betnesda and its Blessings.
P. 294.
BETHESDA AND ITS BLESSINGS. 295
art made whole : sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto
thee. The man departed, and told the Jews that it was
Jesus, which had made him whole. And therefore did the
Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay him, because he
had done these things on the sabbath day. But Jesus an-
swered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.
Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he
not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God
was his Father, making himself equal with God. — John v.
1—18.
At what feast of the Jews this special miracle
was wrought it is difficult to say ; and it is not
of very material moment that we should be able
to determine. The feast is called " a feast of
the Jews/' that is, it was peculiar to the Jews.
The moment, however, that Jesus touched it by
his presence, that moment it was gone ; for he
was the end of all types ; he was the substance
of all shadows : and just as the shades of night
depart when the sun rises above the horizon, so
the feasts and fasts and institutions of the Jews
passed away the moment that the Sun of right-
eousness shone upon them.
Bethesda, literally translated, means the house
of mercy. The place is still traditionally pointed
out ; and in most books upon Palestine, a certain
pool or deep well is alluded to as the pool of Beth-
esda ; but Robinson, an American writer, in his
Biblical Researches, has shown, and it seems to
296 FORESHADOWS.
me conclusively, that it is not the same ; and that
we do not know where it was. Nor does it much
matter. The local is the circumstantial and
the transient ; the moral and the spiritual lessons
of Bethesda endure now and for ever.
The pool, it seems, was either miraculously
impregnated with medicinal virtue after an angel
had stirred it, or it was permanently endued with
that virtue, so that every one that stepped into
it after it had been stirred by the angel, was
healed of whatever disease he had. It is perhaps
a distinction without a difference whether it was
permanently medicinal, or made temporarily and
specially so ; for the high and true view of na-
ture is his, who sees in nature One above it, and
beyond it, and superior to it. We speak of
causes and effects ; we say that such a medicinal
virtue is the cause of such a cure ; we say that
such a substance is the cause of such an effect ;
whereas when we have so spoken, we have not
discovered causes, but only, to use the language
of philosophers, sequences of phenomena, when
we parade what are called secondary causes ; and
in each sequence is developed the power, the
presence, and the energy of Deity. A cause
may be no more related to what is called its effect
BETHESDA AND ITS BLESSINGS. 297
than one link in a chain may be the cause of the
link that succeeds it : the one follows the other,
but the one is not necessarily the cause of the
other. And they are the true Christians and the
right philosophers, who are not satisfied with
tracing link after link, the one as depending on
the other, till they find the whole chain fastened
by its staple to the throne of God ; and see
God's energy and power transmitted along every
link, and explain all effects by the fact that
God is, and works, in them all.
It appears that at this pool, whether its virtues
were permanently healing or only temporally so,
there were multitudes of the halt, the lame, and
the impotent. It reminds one of our modern
watering-places, as they are called. What are
Cheltenham, Harrowgate, Leamington, but mo-
dern Bethesdas? What are the multitudes in the
inns that are there but crowds of impotent folk,
and blind, and maimed, and sick, waiting for
the health which they have lost ? And what is
the medicinal virtue in these wells ? The in-
spiration, the gift of the goodness of God — as
much so, as truly so, as if an angel had left the
skies, descended into each, and had given them
all their healing virtues.
£98 FORESHADOWS.
In this crowd that surrounded the pool of
Bethesda, and in the crowds that surround mo-
dern Bethesdas, if such I may venture to call
them, we have a suggestive fact, which will not
be forgotten at the judgment-day. Men who
have lost the health of the body that is day by
day approximating to the dust, will go to the
ends of the earth, if peradventure they may ob-
tain its recovery ; but persons who know they
have lost the health of then soul, and there-
by the hopes of glory, are found few and far
between, if we take the nation as a whole, crowd-
ing those true and lasting Bethesdas, the sanc-
tuaries of God and the houses of prayer, into
which not a created angel, but the Angel of the
everlasting covenant, statedly descends, to heal
the broken spirit, and bind up the bleeding
heart ; to give beauty for ashes, and the opening
of the eyes to them that are blind. The cause of
this contrast may lie in this very true, but very
painful, fact, that if we have bodily disease we
are conscious of it, and in proration to the
danger or the poignancy of our complaint is the
speed and the sacrifice which we make in order to
get a recovery ; but it happens in soul diseases that
that man's spiritual state is the most dangerous
BETHESDA AND ITS BLESSINGS. 299
of all whose insensibility is the greatest of all :
so that no man is so far gone in spiritual disease,
as he who has the least consciousness that he is
so, or who congratulates himself with the fre-
quent remark, " I am rich, and increased in
goods, and healthy, and have need of nothing."
Hence it happens that man needs not to be
awakened to a sense of the danger of a bodily
disease, but in every case man needs to be
awakened to a sense of his spiritual disease.
There went to Bethesda men who felt their dis-
ease, and wished to get it healed ; we come to
the house of God, not merely feeling our dis-
ease, but seeking to feel it, and after feeling it,
to pray that it may be healed.
One invalid appeared at this place who had
been labouring under his disease thirty-eight
years — not who had been there thirty-eight
years, as some have construed it. This invalid
was despised or jostled aside by the crowds. It
is a strange fact, that a certain amount of mis-
fortune does make men sympathize with each
other ; but when it becomes rapid, terrible,
and universal, it creates an intense selfishness
in all, so that each is ready to tread down his
brother in order to find a rescue and deliver-
300 FORESHADOWS.
ance for himself. This poor man had been so
treated ; the greatest sufferer had fared the worst
at man's hands. On him, however, Jesus cast
his eye. The deepest affliction upon earth has
ever the readiest response in heaven ; that man
who has few to sympathize with him here, has
the Lord of glory most assuredly to sympathize
with him there. Jesus cast the eye of his pity,
not upon the selfish crowd who had few ail-
ments, which their strength enabled them the
more readily to use the means of removing, but
first on the greatest sufferer, and to that sufferer
he showed the greatest mercy. May it not be
still that the greatest sinner shall find accept-
ance with Christ, that he who had pity on the
greatest sufferer, will not put from him the
greatest criminal that seeks from him that for-
giveness which man cannot give, and would not
if he could, but which God rejoices to bestow
upon all that ask him ?
Our Lord, then, casting his eye upon the
sufferer, asked him the question, " Wilt thou be
made whole?" This seems a superfluous ques-
tion. Why, there could be no doubt that the
poor man would be made whole, for he had
come on purpose, and had waited many a weary
BETHESDA AND ITS BLESSINGS. 301
day to be so. And yet Christ never spoke a
superfluous word, nor did a superfluous deed.
There was a reason in all he said, and a neces-
sity for all he did. And no doubt, the question
that he put here was meant to quicken hopes
that were dead in the poor sufferer's bosom ; to
revive withered feelings, affections, and desires ;
and to create in the desponding man's soul a pre-
sentiment of approaching cure, and cast over it
the first rays of that sunshine into which Christ
was soon to introduce him.
The sick man, roused by this question — and
nothing so delights and revives a sufferer as a
word of unexpected sympathy — instantly an-
swered, " I have no man near me to put me into
the pool, but when I am going another steppeth
down before me." As if he had said, " Most
gladly would I be cured ; I have been looking
for it, and waiting for it ; but I have the misfor-
tune to be so thoroughly impotent that I am not
able to reach the pool, and others, abler and
stronger, with greater patronage or with greater
aid, rush in first, and are healed." The man
felt that there was no healing outside Bethesda,
and that if he could not be lifted into it, he could
not be healed ; just as many persons think there
30£ FORESHADOWS.
is no virtue extrinsic to the ordinance. Christ
works ordinarily by means of ordinances, but
the Lord of the ordinance can work above it5
without it, and beyond it. His grace is sove-
reign, and it descends often where it is the least
expected, always where it is not deserved. Let
us honour him by drawing near to him in the
use of his ordinances ; but let us honour him still
more, when these ordinances are inaccessible, by
feeling perfectly satisfied that he can work with-
out them, above them, and beyond them.
Now if Christ had been mere man, he would
have lifted the impotent person from the spot he
had so long and hopelessly held, and would
have placed him in the pool of Bethesda ; but
he did not do so. He left Bethesda to those
who worshipped it as the whole spring of their
recovery, and cured the impotent man by that
word which was more healing than all Beth-
esda's waters : " Arise, take up thy bed, and
walk." It is well that Christ is thus sovereign ;
it is glorious to Him, and it is also good for us.
I believe that were there a specific curative power
in every medicine for specific diseases, the mo-
ment that that medicine was applied, and pro-
duced its effect, one result would invariably occur,
BETHESDA AND ITS BLESSINGS. 303
men would worship the drug as their god; the
pharmacopoeia would supersede the Bible ; the
chemist's shop would be more sacred than the
Christian temple ; and the physician would be
another iEsculapius, worshipped under another
name by modern idolaters. But God inter-
poses, and shows us, as he has shown us that
there are diseases beside which the physician's
skill is paralysed, medicinal virtues are utterly
worthless, and where even the atheist's lips must
give utterance to the Christian's homage, " This
is the finger of God." By thus teaching us that
the virtue that heals is not in the drug, but in
him that made it, he Leads us from resting
on and worshipping the things that are seen,
to look up, and repose our souls, and wor-
ship the invisible God, in whom we live, and
move, and have our being.
Christ, then, instantly addressed the man :
" Arise, take up thy bed, walk." I need scarcely
explain that the bed was a sort of couch on
which the man lay, and which could be folded
like a tent, and carried away by him. If this
man, when Christ said to him, " Arise, take up
thy bed and walk," had been a modern theolo-
gian, he would first have introduced the ques-
304 FORESHADOWS.
tion, that man had no strength of his own, and
that unless he would give him strength it was
absurd to attempt to obey the order that Christ had
issued. Such reasoning is alway perilous, very
often mistaken. The man however reasoned none,
but instantly obeyed the bidding of his Lord ;
and the moment he made the effort, that moment
divine strength enabled him to succeed. Christ
says to you and me, " Pray, repent, live." You
are not to pause, and say, " I cannot obey thy
command till thou givest me divine power ; "
but you are to do it, and the very disposition
that prompts you to do it is the vehicle that car-
ries to your heart new life, and to your limbs
new strength, and to the whole man a healthy, a
vigorous, and a Christian tone. The grand se-
cret of Christianity is, instant obedience to the
commands of God. When he commands a duty,
he always gives strength to do it ; when he sends
a soldier to warfare, he never does so at his own
charge; and as our day is, we shall always find
our strength to be.
The Jews, when they saw this cure, instantly
objected to the man on this ground — that he was
carrying his couch upon the sabbath day, urging
that it was not lawful to do so. It was not zeal
BETHESDA AND ITS BLESSINGS. 305
for the sabbath that animated them, but hatred to
him who had wrought the miracle. These Jews,
as we have noticed, (and when John speaks of the
Jews he always means the elders and principal
personages among them,) were watching to dis-
cover reasons for crucifying the Lord of glory.
Whatever he did, however beautiful, beneficent,
and good, was tortured and construed by their
wicked ingenuity into a reason for exciting popu-
lar feeling against the Redeemer. Like the
tarantula spider, which sucks poison from the
sweetest roses, these Jews, with malignant hearts,
drew venomous antipathy to Jesus from that
which was in truth the highest reason for ac-
cepting, adoring, and worshipping him.
The man's answer to the Jews who thus cavilled
at him was truly admirable. It was the very
essence of that rarest sense — common sense :
" The man, I know not who he was, that made
me whole, the same said unto me, Take up thy
bed and walk." He argued: " The love, the pity,
the power that healed me surely would not have
bade me do that which is in itself sinful, or to vio-
late the sanctity of the sabbath day." As if he had
said, " The power that has been put forth is to me
evidence that it was the Lord of the sabbath that
306 FORESHADOWS.
raised me from my weakness, and restored me to
life. Such a Physician (he argued) is worthy of
being regarded by me as a legislator ; he that
can give such prescriptions I am authorized in
regarding as competent to give precepts that I
am to obey ; I regard him, therefore, that healed
me of my disease, as my master, whose behests
and commandments are to be implicitly received
by me." Is not this the feeling in every rightly
constituted Christian mind ? He who has par-
doned our sins is he whose precepts we shall de-
light to obey ; he whose cross has been to us
our glory and our deliverance, is welcome to
give us that yoke which is easy, and that burden
which is light. That man who has the deepest
and most grateful sense of Christ as his sin-for-
giver, will ever feel the deepest obligation to
Christ as his legislator, his master, and his Lord ;
and he has no right sense of Christianity or of
its Author, who imagines that his deliverance
from the condemnation of sin is excuse from his
duty to obey all the prescriptions of his Lord, or
a warrant to cease to let his light so shine before
men that they, seeing his good works, might
glorify his Father which is in heaven.
We gather from the context that the poor man
BETHESDA AND ITS BLESSINGS. 307
went immediately to the temple. How beautiful
is this trait in his character ! He sees Divinity
in his cure ; he recognises the Lord of the
temple in the restoration he has experienced ; and
instinctively, after reaping so gracious a bless-
ing, he goes to that holy place, that there he
may openly, before the world, render praise and
thanksgiving to him who had compassion on him,
and delivered him. Do you do so, my dear
reader, when you are healed and raised from the
bed of sickness ? When you thank the physi-
cian who was the instrument, do you not often
forget to thank God who gave to the physician
all his skill, and communicated to the medicine
all its virtue ? Let us never forget, that our
being raised from a sick-bed is a reason for our
going to the temple, and presenting in the temple,
in the midst of the great congregation, praise
and thanksgiving to him who blessed the means,
and without whose blessing all the medicine that
could have been prescribed would only have been
as dust, worthless, and without virtue.
And when the poor man went to the temple,
was he disappointed in finding him who was
justly called the Lord of the temple? No, for
we read that Jesus finds him there. Never did
x 2
308 FORESHADOWS.
adoring gratitude draw near to Christ to thank
him, and was either repelled or unheard. Never
yet did a sinner seek Christ, and miss him. Let
it be known to every creature on earth, that
never did man, conscious of his sin, seek by
earnest prayer the forgiveness of the Saviour,
and experience rejection, or lose an answer to his
prayer. He himself has committed his word to
the truth of this : " Seek, and ye shall find ;
knock, and it shall be opened." " He never said
to the seed of Jacob, Seek ye my face, in vain."
Mark the address of our Lord to the man
whom he had cured, " Go, and sin no more, lest
a worse thing come unto thee." Jesus did here
what we cannot copy, and which we ought not
to attempt to copy ; he traced the connexion be-
tween the sufferings of thirty-eight years and
some specific sin which clung to that man's
character : he saw at one glance unrolled before
his eye all the biography of the man, and he
beheld at one point in that biography eight and
thirty years long the sin which had been the
prolific parent of all the sufferings he had en-
dured for so long and so painful a period. But
while Christ, who saw the past, the present, and
the future, could thus trace the connexion be-
BETHESDA AND ITS BLESSINGS. 309
tween the special sin and the special suffering,
we, to whom the past is often perplexed enough,
to whose eyes the present is partially seen, and
from whom the future is sequestered by a veil
that we cannot penetrate, are not warranted in
pronouncing that special suffering is the result
of a special sin ; we are commanded to con-
clude, as our Saviour taught the Jews to con-
clude, " Think ye that these eighteen men, upon
whom the tower of Siloam fell, were sinners
above all men ? I tell you nay," — showing that
if in one instance he traced the connexion, in
another instance he showed there was no con-
nexion— " I tell you nay, but except ye repent,
ye shall all likewise perish." In the great majority
of cases, we are called upon, where we cannot see
clearly, to judge with the greatest caution, always
with the greatest charity ; because this is not the
day when "justice is laid to the line, and equity
to the plumb-line," or when each individual is
dealt with according to his demerits. That day is
to come. This is the day of grace, when sin is for-
given: there will be its sequel, the day of judg-
ment, when sin will be punished. But while all
this is perfectly true, it is not improbable that
many a man suffers in his old age for the sins of
310 FORESHADOWS.
his young days. It is too true that many a one
— his own conscience the faithful and infallible
interpreter — endures in his later years the penal-
ties of the sins and crimes which he committed
in his earlier days ; and very often too, God
punishes the sinner in the same way in which the
sinner sinned. Thus Jacob, the deceiver, is pun-
ished by being deceived himself; thus David,
who violated the sanctities and the purities of
home, was punished by seeing similar sins, and
feeling analogous penalties, in his own home.
And many a one, if he will examine himself —
whilst neither minister nor brother is to pro-
nounce upon him — may see in his sufferings, as
in a bright mirror, the sins that he committed
either in the light that he had, or, without the
light that was competent to direct him in the
days of his youth. But each man is to ex-
amine himself; no man's minister or brother is
to do it for him. The apostle says, " examine
yourselves;" "examine your own souls." And
may the Spirit of God lead you to a right judg-
ment.
Another thought is suggested by the words of
our Lord, "lest a worse thing come unto thee."
A worse thing. Eight and thirty years of suffer-
BETHESDA AND ITS BLESSINGS. 311
ing on his bed, inability to move a limb, to enjoy
the scenes and festivities of social life — why,
what worse thing than this, one might ask, could
possibly happen to him ? That remark of our
Saviour is like the lifting of a nook of the curtain
that shrouds from us the awful future penalties
of sin. It shows that sin is an exceeding great
evil, and that thirty- eight years of suffering was
not the worst and sorest penalty that is paid for
a sin committed in this life.
The man, when thus acquitted and absolved,
instantly went forth to proclaim the glories of
his Physician ; he went and told the Jews
who it was that healed him. In this he pre-
sents a noble precedent for us. He who has
found a medicine that has healed his disease is
sure to go and tell his brother, suffering under
the same disease, of the medicine that will do
him good ; so the man who has found a Saviour
who has forgiven his sins will be sure to run and
tell every one he meets that there is forgiveness
with God, that he may be feared. In other
words, we are made the saints of God, that we
may become the servants of men. He that re-
ceives from on high the unction of the Christian,
feels instantly devolving on him the responsibili-
312 FORESHADOWS.
ties of the servant. No man is a Christian who
is not a missionary. When I use the word mis-
sionary, I use merely what expresses the duties
that a teacher can discharge in a school, that a
father ought to discharge in his family, and that
any one may discharge by proxy, by sending mis-
sionaries to distant lands and heathen climes in
order to instruct those that are in darkness.
Whatever be the formula in which missionary
zeal expends itself, this law remains ever in force3
— that he who has been the greatest receiver will
also feel bound to be the greatest giver ; and hav-
ing received so great a mercy as salvation from
his Lord, he will not rest until all within the
reach of his influence shall be made to taste of,
or at least to have the offer of that mercy too.
But we read that when the poor man went and
told the Jews of the great Physician, like many a
poor missionary, he met with very little success.
He could not help this. We have long ago learned
that we are not to judge of duties by the contin-
gent success that follows them. The success rests
with God ; the duty devolves upon us : ours are
duties ; his, and his only, are the issues. We must
be no more discouraged so as to despair when we
fail of success, than we must be encouraged so as
BETHESDA AND ITS BLESSINGS. 313
to presume when we meet with success. We
must still cleave to the duty, when all seems to
be against us, just as we do when all seems to be
with us ; knowing that it is he that gives the bless-
ing, or withholds it in his sovereignty, who has
called upon us to go and do what he enjoins us.
The Jews were not benefited by what the
man said ; on the contrary, they continued
their cavils ; they shut their eyes to the elo-
quent lesson of the miracle, and opened them
only to the supposed violation of their super-
stitious notions on the Jewish or Christian sab-
bath. Our Lord's reply was a conclusive one :
" You blame me for working a miracle on the
sabbath ; you blame the man for doing my bid-
ding, and carrying the couch on which he lay,
like a trophy of his cure, upon the sabbath. You
argue, the sabbath is the holy rest ; ( Remember
the sabbath day to keep it holy;' on that day
there shall be no work, ( neither thy man-serv-
ant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor the
stranger within thy gates.' You argue truly, it
is rest ; but you misapprehend what the nature of
that rest is. You say, that God rested on the
sabbath. So he did ; bat you forget, that whilst
he rested on the sabbath, he ( worketh hitherto,'
314 FORESHADOWS.
and just as he worketh hitherto, ' I work.' " As
if he had said, if I may expand his sentiment,
" Who is it that waters the fields of corn upon
the sabbath morning as upon the Saturday night ?
Who is it that makes the grass to grow in sab-
bath sunshine as well as amidst Saturday's rains ?
Who is it that hears the cry of the raven on
Sunday morning, and feeds it ? Who is it that
keeps up the pulsation of every heart, from which,
if God were to withdraw his finger for a moment,
each heart would be still, and life would instant-
ly depart?" The answer is, It is God. ee There-
fore (argues our Saviour) God works upon the
sabbath just as he works upon the week-day.
e My Father worketh hitherto, and I also work."
There is something exquisitely beautiful in this,
" My Father worketh hitherto, and I also work."
In our hospitals, wards, and sick-rooms ; in the
broken limb, where the bone is gradually united ;
in the severed muscle, where a mediatorial sub-
stance, typical and significant of a higher medi-
ation, is put forth that rejoins it ; in the health
that returns to the withered frame — we read in
all these sick-beds, and in all these wards, our
Father working hitherto, on Saturday and Sun-
day, and on all the days of the week. We have
BETHESDA AND ITS BLESSINGS. 315
i
the same process taking place in our hospitals
every day that took place at the pool of Bethesda ;
only in our hospitals, sick-rooms, and wards,
God uses nurses, medicines, physicians ; while
in the case of the pool of Bethesda he bade them
all stand aside, and healed without them. The
difference was in the time of the cure, not either
in the author, or in the virtue requisite to the
cure. In our hospitals and wards he works by
Bethesda — the means ; at the pool of Bethesda
he worked without it, and above it; but in both
cases, whether Christ heals by a word, or by
a medicine ; whether he heals by moist clay, or
by a physician, it is all the same — the Healer
working hitherto. It is he alone who healeth
our diseases, and satisfieth our mouth with good
things ; and to him, as did the impotent man, we
ought still to give the praise, the honour, and
the glory.
But while thus seeing that God works upon the
sabbath, let us recollect that his works are in keep-
ing with the spirit of the sabbath — works of be-
neficence, of goodness, and of love. So our rest
on the sabbath is not a rest from working, but
only a rest from working our own works. It is
like the rest in heaven : it is said, "they rest;"
31G FORESHADOWS.
and yet it is said, " They rest not day nor night,
giving praise, and glory, and honour, and bless-
ing unto the Lamb, and to him that sitteth upon
the throne for evermore."
This reminds me of what has been long threat-
ened in our land, but which I hope will not take
place — that the post office is to be opened, or
at least partially so, upon the sabbath, and much
of the stir and bustle and toil of a Saturday to be
exhibited upon that day which, with all its flaws
and faults, has on the whole, and in comparison
with the continent, been so sacredly observed in
the midst of us. I am thoroughly assured of the
accuracy of the statement made by the chief ma-
gistrate of London, at a meeting over which he
presided, that if the letters that come from the
country and the continent are to be carried
through the post office on the sabbath day, there
will be present three or four times the number
of clerks. But what is a clerk's life worth ? Who
cares whether it be twenty or thirty years, or
whether he die, and is damned for ever ? This
is the feeling of avaricious men, who are prepared
to screw out of men's muscles, and bones, and
souls, money, money, honestly if they can, but
money still. But London letters, it is said, are
BETHESDA AND ITS BLESSINGS. 317
not to be delivered on Sunday. Through let-
ters only are to be transmitted. And what will
be the effect of this ? London will say : " The
letters that arrive on Sunday morning are trans-
mitted instantly to Liverpool, while our let-
ters lie in the post office till next day ; Liver-
pool, therefore, will know the markets twelve
hours before we do. It is not fair that the Liver-
pool merchants should be better off than we ;
let us have our letters too." The nobleman then
will say, " If the merchant has his letters, why
should I not have mine ? " And the tradesman
will say, " If the merchants and gentry have
their letters, why should I not have mine?':
And in less than twelve months we shall have
hundreds of clerks and hundreds of postmen
employed, the post office working, counting-
houses open, the clerks at their places, and the
correspondence going on as usual. Surely, after
the recent national deliverance that this great na-
tion has reaped at the hand of God, it will bring
down the most awful and consuming judgments if,
in its national character — and I care not who hears
what I say — it shall thus nationally sin against
the Lord of the sabbath, that sabbath which is
the exponent of a nation's Christianity more
318 FORESHADOWS.
than any other fact that I can quote or refer to.
It is, incontestibly, matter of history, that where-
soever the sabbath has been hallowed, there
Christianity has nourished. I do not stop to
inquire whether the sabbath be the product of
Christianity, or Christianity be the product of
the sabbath, but this I feel — that the sabbath is
the index of the ebb and flow of Christianity in
the midst of us. Wherever it has been concluded
that there shall be no sabbaths, the result has
very soon followed — no Christianity; and also,
as France can testify in its sanguinary records —
no God. I believe that Paris has suffered more
from the exhaustion of its sabbaths than ever it
did from the writings of Diderot and Voltaire ;
so I believe that Germany, and Vienna espe-
cially, has suffered more from the loss of its sab-
baths than from all the sceptical productions of
the great Frederick. In the present day, I am
convinced that the last dying effort of the infidel
against Christianity is to be made in this direc-
tion. The persecutor of Christians and of Chris-
tianity does not see any prospect of being able to
use successfully his ancient weapons against the
gospel. Past experiments have all failed ; per-
secution has been felt by Satan himself to have
BETHESDA AND ITS BLESSINGS. 319
been one of his grossest blunders. Christianity
rose from the martyr's fire radiant with more
terrible beauty. And the more that Christians
suffered, the more Christianity spread. The in-
quisition is not likely to appear a production of the
19th century; auto-da-fes are not at all likely to be
found in the streets of London ; and the sceptic's
only experience tells him that weapons of reason-
ing, of fact, and of history, and evidence, are
weapons very perilous to his cause ; for he has
failed in the use of them, and if he wield the same
weapons he will signally fail again. He finds that
open siege will not do, that open assault will
fail ; and therefore he now attempts sapping and
mining ; he will endeavour to introduce into
popular preference the love of whatever is cal-
culated to make the sabbath a day of pleasure
and of pleasure-taking, of business and of money
making, a day of spectacles, and tea-gardens,
and military reviews, after the example of our
continental neighbours ; he sees that he can make
the railway and the steam-boat far more powerful
weapons of assault on Christianity than any
weapon taken from the inquisition or from the
arsenals of history, reason, or fact which he has
heretofore employed. Should this succeed, fare-
320 FORESHADOWS.
well to the progress of the gospel in the midst of
us. It will not be Christianity that will suffer
by the loss of our sabbath, but it will be our
country that will suffer ; our candlestick will
then indeed be removed, and other lands will
have the light which we in God's mercy have
received, but which, by our ingratitude, we have
almost extinguished.
This mode of aggression which I have alluded
to is, I feel, less justified, or rather sanctioned,
at the present day than at any other time. When
I heard of the railway, and of the wonderful
discoveries of steam and electricity, I thought,
" Surely this will furnish stronger reasons, kindly
produced in the providence of God, for hallowing
the sabbath than ever before." Some time ago,
it took, at the greatest possible speed, to send a
letter to the capital of Scotland, three days ; now
they can transmit a message in a few minutes,
and send a letter in twelve hours. Surely, in-
stead of making this grand discovery, given us
in the goodness of God, a new reason for dese-
crating the sabbath, bestowed by the grace of God,
it ought to be a reason rather for more heartfelt
remembering the sabbath day to keep it holy.
And let us remember, that they who will
BETHESDA AND ITS BLESSINGS. 321
most suffer temporally, I do not say spiritually,
will be the poor servants, the employed, the poor
man in every shape and form. Most persons
well know the law of what is called political eco-
nomy—that the more labour there is in the market,
the less pay will there be to the labourer ; when
there is a surplus of labour, there must be a defi-
ciency in the payment of the labourer ; when there-
are few labourers, with little labour in the market,
then labour will meet with a high price. Now,
throwing a seventh day into the labour market
will be equivalent to introducing a seventh por-
tion more of labourers into the field; and the
consequence will be, that the working man will
get for his seven days' labour probably less wages
than he now gets for six ; but there will also be
stamped upon him the brand of a slave through-
out the remainder of his life. Surely that beau-
tiful day is the poor man's glory, when the
servant is free from his master; when all men
may meet together, and feel the ennobling per-
suasion that they are the peers of God, if they
should be the despised plebeians of men ; that
beautiful day which is the pearl of days, the
queen, as it were, of the week; that place of
sun-shine which seems like an island broken off
FORESHADOWS.
from the continent of heaven, and let fall into
the midst of the roar, and rush, and eddies of
this world's traffic ; whereon man standing, may
catch a glimpse of the better land, and may
hear the music of the skies ; and may go forth
from his sabbath-day's refreshment to his week-
day's work, strong to serve his master, glorify
his God, and promote the cause of that Master
which is thus dearer to him than all besides.
Part with your cathedrals — architects can build
other and better ones ; but part not with your
sabbaths : part with any thing, however pre-
cious it may be, with life itself; but, as patriots,
as Christians, having received your sabbaths
from your fathers in all their beauty, deter-
mine that when your children shall stand beside
the graves where the green sods cover you, they
shall be able to say, as they recollect your me-
mory, " If our fathers did not increase our
heritage, they did not diminish it ; but, having
received a trust sacred from their fathers, they
have handed it down to their children ; they
have laboured, and we have entered into their
labours."
I am convinced that so good men, as many of
those are who arc now in power, will not con-
BETHESDA AND ITS BLESSINGS. 323
sent to the desecration of the sabbath, which
would be, perhaps, the greatest calamity they
could inflict upon the poor man. We have
sinned as a nation already ; God grant that we
may not add to our national sins.
But suppose the sabbath were thrown into the
crowd of the week-days, do you think all sense
of our need of such a day would perish ? No ;
the sabbath is not an arbitrary enactment, but
a physical necessity, an element in our very
nature and constitution. Every muscle in our
body is an argument for the sabbath ; it will
not bear to be all the year fatigued for seven
days in the week. Our very cattle furnish an
argument in favour of the sabbath. The man
who wishes to get the largest and the longest
work from a horse, knows quite well that he
must give him a seventh portion of his time for
rest, or he will fail to serve him as he would do
otherwise. I care not whether the day be Sa-
turday or Sunday, as far as the horse is con-
cerned ; I am speaking only of the physical law,
that the brute creation, " the cattle within thy
gates," must have rest in order most efficiently
to do thy work. So shall we find it with men.
The man that works seven days every week of
y 2
324: FORESHADOWS.
the year in the same weary round will not live
half his time. The man who can go upon the
sabbath day to the house of God, and change
the current of his thoughts, feelings, desires,
emotions, add to his knowledge, and vary his
attention, secures a change for his mind, and so
for his body, of the most precious description.
In the walk, too, that he has to the sanctuary, he
has at least a little exercise. And when we have
shorter hours and equal pay, as I hope will be,
and as every day leads me to believe will soon be,
you will not need to take any portion of the sab-
bath for fresh air ; you will have a portion of
Saturday given you, in justice as well as in ge-
nerosity, for the refreshment of the body, and to
prepare you for the exercises of the sanctuary on
the sabbath. The Greeks and Romans had their
festivals ; the Mohammedans have still the se-
venth portion of their time ; and in all countries
there are days on which there is a cessation of
business. And why ? Because man cannot stand
perpetual work. Let sacredness be separated
from the sabbath, and what will take place?
Men must be free at intervals ; they must be
loosed ; they cannot stand incessant drudgery.
The public-house, the play-house, the various
BETHESDA AND ITS BLESSINGS. 325
scenes of amusement, dissipation, and folly, will
all be opened ; the flood-gates of sin and immo-
rality will be removed ; stimulants to all sorts of
depravity will be presented ; and this country,
which is a perfect contrast, as I can testify from
personal knowledge, to all the countries around
us, will sink to a deeper degradation because of
the pinnacle of privilege from which she has fallen.
Let us, then, uphold the sacredness of the sabbath
in its integrity ; but while we rest from the
works that are our own, let us not rest from those
works which are for the glory of God and the
good of our fellow men ; remembering that we,
like Christ, must say, as we must feel, " My
Father worketh hitherto, and I also work." May
the Lord bless every effort to keep the sabbath,
and give us a delight in it, calling it a delightful
day, for Christ's sake. Amen.
LECTURE XII.
THE FISHERMEN.
And it came to pass, that, as the people pressed upon him to
hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of Gennesaret,
and saw two ships standing by the lake : but the 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. Now
when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, Launch out
into the deep, and 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 down the net. And when they had this done, they
enclosed a great multitude of fishes : 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, so that they began to sink.
When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, say-
ing, Depart from me ; for I am a sinful man, O Lord. For
he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the draught
of the fishes which they had taken. — Luke v. 1 — 9.
We find Jesus, in the opening part of the chap-
ter from which I have selected the words for our
lecture, surrounded by the people pressing on him
to hear the word of the Lord ; and himself going
k,
The .Fishermen.
P. 326.
THE FISHERMEN. 327
into a boat, a large fishing-boat (here rendered
ship); and, seated upon that, instructing the
people in the things of everlasting life.
It appears that while the crowd were listening
to him who spake as never man spake, Peter and
the rest that were with him were busy washing
their nets. This was their trade ; they were in
their proper employment, feeling— what we need
to feel and be taught— that we serve God as
truly when we do the duties of our station as
when we preach the gospel, or carry the ark of
the Lord. It is possible to glorify God wherever
his providence has placed us; and they that
have right hearts will never find themselves en-
gaged in the wrong work.
When he had left speaking to the people, it is
added, he addressed Simon Peter, and said,Launch
out into deep, and let down your nets for a
draught. But Peter objected, stating that they
had already been labouring in the night season,
which was the best season for catching fish ; and
it having failed, it was unreasonable to expect
they would succeed in the day-time. But still,
with that beautiful docility which grace nour-
ished and strengthened within him, he recog-
nised his Master's authority in his Master's pre-
328 FORESHADOWS.
sence, and said, "Nevertheless at thy word I
will let down the net."
In looking at the whole of this miracle, we
witness another of those beautiful and impressive
scenes which so frequently occur in the life and
biography of Jesus, in which we know not which
most to admire — the Divine power and lofty
beneficence that broke forth in his actions, or
the wonderful wisdom that developed itself in
the teaching that he founded upon them. We
see evidence, at all events, in this of a new fact
in the history of Jesus— that the sea and land
were equally obedient to him — that all the fishes
of the deep, the flowers of the earth, the hus-
bandmen in the field, and the fishermen at their
nets, were all uncomplainingly subject to his
control, and could all be made instructive
teachers to his believing and his obedient people.
We see in Christ the true Land-lord and the true
Sea-lord, the Lord of heaven and of earth, whom
all things in heaven, and all things on earth, and
all things under the sea perpetually obey.
From this one miracle Jesus educes the con-
secration of his earliest apostles, of his first fol-
lowers, to be ministers of the gospel, and teachers
of all nations. In fact, Jesus saw over all crc-
THE FISHERMEN. 829
ation, as if on one grand and beautiful cathedral,
many a holy and significant inscription ; he had
only to look upon them with his glorious coun-
tenance, and instantly their meaning became
apparent. And if we had the anointed eye and
the sanctified heart, we too, as the poet says,
should hear " sermons in stones," and read
lessons of piety every where.
Jesus bade Simon, as I have noticed, launch
out. He could have brought ten thousand fishes
on the shore, and left them high and dry upon
the beach, if he had pleased ; but he did not do
so. He commands the use of means : no means
are of weight, unless Christ bless them ; and the
least are sufficient, if his blessing be with them.
Try to do something for him, or connected with
his cause, by the greatest means, under the great-
est patronage, but in defiance of his blessing,
and disaster is sure to be the consequence ; but
attempt the greatest things in connexion with
his cause, and for the glory of his name, in
humble reliance on his blessing, and you will
learn the lesson that has been written upon all
the history of the past, and will be writ upon the
earth when restored from its ruin, and on the
sky when illuminated with a new and lasting
330 FORESHADOWS.
glory : " It is not by might, nor by power, but
by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. "
Let me notice Peter's objections. First, they
were weary and exhausted ; they had been fish-
ing and toiling, spreading their nets and draw-
ing them in, the whole night ; and as they had
failed in the season most fitted for fishing, it was
improbable and unlikely that they should suc-
ceed in the day-light, which was not so suited for
that employment. But very lovingly does Peter
add, " Nevertheless " — though my own reason is
against thine ; though my conclusions are the
opposite of thine ; though I am a fisherman, and
have the greater experience in my trade, and the
knowledge of the best seasons for prosecuting it,
and of all the likelihoods or unlikelihoods of suc-
cess that may attend it — fC nevertheless at thy
word I will let down the net." My reason shall
be laid prostrate at thy feet; my conclusions
shall be dismissed; and because thou biddest
me, I will do it. What a precedent for us !
Peter, if he had rugged features in his character,
had also under these rugged features depths of
tender and beautiful emotion, lowliness and
humility of heart, worthy of all imitation on our
part. It is a precedent, I say, for us. Our first
THE FISHERMEN. 331
thing should be to take care that we have a com-
mandment from God; the second thing is, to care
little about the obstructions in our way, or the
difficulties we shall meet with in obeying that
command. It will simplify extremely our course
throughout the whole of life, if our first inquiry
shall be, " Is this according to the mind, or,
still higher, is it according to the command of
God ? " And if it be, you are to regard moun-
tains as plains and valleys as level, and to know
that nothing shall deprive him of success who
goes forth to duty in obedience to the command
and in reliance on the blessing of his Lord.
The consequence of Peter's single eye, and
single-hearted obedience to the word of Christ,
was unprecedented success. They enclosed so
many fishes that the nets began to break, and
the large boats, or half ships and half boats,
began to sink with the load. Many have tried
to explain this. The Rationalists, who are always
labouring to get rid of a miracle, have tried to
explain it away ; and not the Rationalists of Ger-
many only; — do ice not detect in our own bosoms,
whenever we read of any thing supernatural, a
desire to see if it cannot be explained in some
other way ? whether it cannot be reduced to a
832 FORESHADOWS.
lower level ? whether there be not some law that
will explain the phenomenon without supposing
it to be the response to the instant touch of the
sovereign Ruler of all things ? The tendency of
great learning, without grace, is to explain every-
thing supernatural by what are called " laws/' or
" second causes." The tendency of great ignor-
ance, without grace, is to see all sorts of forms of
superstition in every thing that occurs, and to
explain nothing as natural, or ordinary, or to be
expected. But the tendency of the highest
learning and the least learning, inspired by the
grace of God, is to recognise God's finger where
God says it is, and to be satisfied in so doing.
The explanation given by some of the expound-
ers of Scripture in Germany is, Jesus happened
at the time to pass a shoal of fish, and he saw
them as they passed, and, just at the moment
when success was certain, he made them launch
out the net. This is man's commentary upon
God's word. But is it likely that Jesus — suppos-
ing him to be what they say he was, a mere human
teacher, in the presence of Peter, who was, as
they will admit, a thoroughly experienced and
practical fisherman — a peasant, unaccustomed to
fishing, should have been able to detect the fish
THE FISHERMEN. 333
at a distance much sooner and easier than the
fishermen, who had been brought up at that
trade all their life long ? I have myself stood
upon a bridge of the Dee, near the stream by
which the days of my boyhood were spent, and
have seen a fisherman watching for salmon as they
came up the stream ; and while his experienced
eye could see the fish many hundred yards dis-
tant, I could not see it even when it was passing
through the arches of the bridge on which I
stood. His eye had a tact, from trained habits,
that mine had not. So seamen can detect a sail
at sea, when landsmen can see nothing but fog.
This explanation of the Rationalists therefore,
is contradictory and suicidal. The presumption
is, that Peter would have seen the shoal, and,
anxious to make up for the disappointments of the
night, would have been the first to launch out and
catch the fish at the proper time ; rather than that
Jesus, unacquainted with the trade, and unac-
customed to its observations, should have first
seen the fish and suggested pursuit. Surely it is
far more simple, and accordant with right reason,
and with a proper and simple-minded acceptance
of God's word, to see in this the finger of God ;
to recognise upon the lake of Gennesareth him to
33± FORESHADOWS.
whom belongs the Psalm, " 0 Lord, our Lord,
how excellent is thy name in all the earth ! who
hast set thy glory above the heavens. * * * All
sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field,
the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and
whatsoever passeth through the paths of the
seas " — all these things are put under his feet.
At that lake of Gennesareth, then, was present
the Lord and Sovereign of the heavens, the
earth, and the sea ; and he had only to speak,
or signify his simple volition, and all things
would deeply feel the presence of their Lord,
and instantly obey.
Let us notice here another interesting feature
— namely, our Lord availing himself of the pre-
vious trade and habits of his followers, and con-
secrating these trades and habits to a new and
glorious mission. In fact, this feature pervades
the whole of God's word. It is stated in the Old
Testament Scripture, that David, feeding the
sheep of his father Jesse, was brought to be a king,
and the subjects of that kingdom were handed to
him as the sheep of his fold. The magi, who were
astronomers, were brought to Jesus by a star that
stood in the firmament over the place where he
was. The Samaritan woman, who came, as pro-
THE FISHERMEN. 335
bably was her business, and as she had done for
many a day and many a year, to draw water, was
led by Jesns from drawing water at Jacob's well,
to drink living water from the Fountain of Ja-
cob's God. We may recollect how the Caper-
naites, greedy, and looking only for the loaves
and fishes, were instructed by Jesus in the true
bread which cometh down from heaven, and of
which if a man eat, he shall live for ever. And
here you see Peter, and James, and John, who
were fishermen, are taught that their trade is only
the earthly pedestal on which its divine and
spiritual significance shall shine and glow afar ;
and that out of the meanest trades and the most
repulsive employments there can be extracted,
by the touch and will of Jesus, a holy and a
blessed mission. Perhaps there was more in this
than mere accidental circumstances — if any cir-
cumstance at all can be called accidental. The
trade, the profession, the business to which one
has been brought up, is that whose formulas,
whose modes, whose habits have become most
inveterate in our minds ; and when that is the
case, to illustrate Divine truth by appealing to
recognised habits, and felt prejudices even, and
prepossessions, is the most effective way of bring-
336 FORESHADOWS.
ing home great lessons to the mind of the most
of mankind.
But I must now turn to the miracle itself.
When the net was taken in full of fishes, and
the boats were full too, Peter was overwhelmed,
or, to use the language of the text, "he was
astonished, and all that were with him ;" and "he
fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from
me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." He felt the
presence of Deity ; the stupendous miracle in-
dicated to Peter's mind the nearness of him
who is the holy, holy, holy One ; and under the
overwhelming impression of a present God, he
gave utterance to that which was the first and
deepest emotion in his heart. There are crises
in the experience of men, when one is so over-
whelmed by some great spectacle, or some dread
fact, that all the ordinary currency of human ■
speech disappears, all the conventionalisms of
human intercourse are swept away, and that
which is deepest in our hearts seems to well up
from the heart's inner and most hidden springs,
and to find expression on our lips, so as to
let men see and hear what is really and truly
within us. It was so in the case of Peter : he
gave utterance to the deepest feeling of his heart,
THE FISHERMEN. 337
when he said, (i Depart from me, for I am a
sinful man, 0 Lord." And so it has been in the
Old Testament Scriptures, whenever God has
manifested himself. When God revealed him-
self to Moses, the people said, " Speak thou with
us, and we will hear ; but let not God speak
with us, lest we die." We also recollect what
Manoah said, "We shall surely die, for we
have seen the Lord." In the case of Isaiah,
when the Lord Jesus was revealed to him. — de-
clared to have been Christ, by Christ himself —
he said, " Woe is me, for I am undone, because
I am a man of unclean lips ; for mine eyes have
seen the Lord of hosts." Is there not in the
language which Peter used, when he felt the
presence of Jesus, the echo of the very lan-
guage used by Moses, Manoah, and Isaiah, when
they recognised the presence of the Lord of
hosts ? And is there not here an indirect — we
should say in human writing, undesigned; cer-
tainly in a Divine writing we can say indirect —
evidence that he that gathered, the fishes into
the net — that sat upon the bow of the boat, and
taught the people — that Peter recognised as
the carpenter's son, but wonderfully gifted, and
still more wonderfully graced (for Peter was not
z
SSS FORESHADOWS.
yet sure who he was) — was he who appear-
ed in the burning bush, who spake to Moses,
who was manifested to Manoah, who revealed
himself amid angels and archangels to Isaiah ; in
short, the Lord of hosts, the King of glory — so
far indirect evidence therefore of the Deity of
Christ ?
But in this language of Peter, so perfectly
natural, and having so many precedents in pre-
vious expressions used on similar occasions, there
was much that consisted of grievous misappre-
hension, although there was much that was true
and becoming in the circumstances in which he
was placed. Nearness to God is ever humbling
to man. A really wise man, a really learned man,
is always, and must always be, a truly humble
man. It is a law even in human learning, that
the more we learn, the more we discover to be
learned. When we see our horizon, and go to
its margin, we find we are only in the centre of
another horizon equally as large. When we
climb one crag of the mountain, and think we
have reached its summit, we find there is ano-
ther portion as high still to be climbed. So much
so is this, that the personation of the greatest
acquaintance with the sky and all its glorious
THE FISHERMEN. 339
contents, Sir Isaac Newton, after he had swept
the canopy of heaven, weighed the stars, esti-
mated their distances, determined their density,
declared at the close that so little did he see and
know, and so little had he yet discovered, that
lie felt he was like a little child gathering peb-
bles and shells upon the sea-beach, while the
great unsounded ocean stretched still before him.
But if such be the feeling in the study of human
knowledge, which has a bottom, how deep must
be the feeling in the sight of that infinite holiness
which we can neither fathom, conceive, or ex-
press ! It is in the presence of God that the splen-
dour of human wisdom dims and becomes pale ;
it is in such a presence that the radiance of infi-
nite holiness deepens all the shades of conscious
sin. Never does the stain of crime appear so
deep in its dye, so heinous in its demerits, as
when it is seen in the light of that God who has
told the wicked — the most awful statement in
the Bible — that he will set their secret sins in the
light of his countenance. At present, when we
look at sin, it appears to us insignificant, just
because the medium, through which we see it,
and the organ, the inner eye, with which we look
at it, are both so imperfect. But when sin shall
z 2
340 FORESHADOWS.
be seen in the intense light of God, its stain
will have a heinousness so real, so deep, that we
shall only wonder that Scripture did not use
yet stronger language to denote it, and that we
ever supposed that the language which Scripture
does use was stronger than was actually required.
In proportion, then, as man sees God, in the
same proportion will he become humbled : Chris-
tendom shall be prostrate on the pavement,
and say, probably, surely with no faint lips,
" We are sinful men ; " when there shall be re-
vealed through its length and breadth the glory
of him who is the holy, holy, holy One of Israel.
Look at sin in the light of the law, and it is ex-
ceeding sinful ; look at sin in the light of God the
Legislator, and it appears still more sinful ; but
look at sin in the light of the countenance of
Jesus, and it not only seems to be the deepest stain,
but to be charged with the intensest baseness and
ingratitude to our Benefactor. Nearness, then,
to Deity, I have said, creates and teaches great
humility in man ; but it will not only teach us
our sinfulness, and cause us to say, as Peter said,
" I am a sinful man," but it will prompt us, if we
have nothing better to guide us, to say, " De-
part from me." Why ? Because the holy God,
THE FISHERMEN. 341
revealed to the unholy creature, is a consuming
fire ; and when we see our sins in the light and
effulgence and blaze of that consuming fire, we
instantly feel that our only chance of safety
is in separation from God. Most natural was
the sentiment, " I am sinful," when God looked
upon the sinner ; equally natural was the prayer,
" Depart from me, for I am a sinful man." Yet
Peter knew not what he said : departure from
God is the very essence of hell ; nearness to God
is the very essence and central element of heaven.
The incessant litany of the lost is, " Depart from
us ; " and the further they depart from God,
and God from them, the more dire and intoler-
able that misery becomes. And yet the cry Avas
natural on the part of Peter, " Depart from me,"
because he had the sense of danger, the sense of
demerit, he had no clear apprehension of a Sa-
viour, and felt therefore that safety was only in
severance and distance from God.
But our blessed Lord does not take Peter
at his word : he does not depart from Peter,
but draws near to him. All flesh cried, before
Christ came, " Depart from us;" "No God!"
Its conscious sin made it deprecate the ap-
proach of the great Legislator. But God's ways
342 FORESHADOWS.
are not as our ways ; and therefore, instead of
departing from us, as all humanity beseeched
him, he came near to us. We read in an old
writer of the second or third century, that such
were the crimes, so flagrant the abominations of
all the inhabitants of the earth, at the birth of
Jesus, that a crisis had arrived so terrible that
either God must crush the world he had made,
or convert it, and bring it back to himself. Hu-
manity expected judgment, and lo ! God came
unexpectedly in mercy and in love. And just
while Peter was saying, "Depart from me,"
Jesus was giving expression to the consolatory
words, " Fear not." How interesting, and
yet how like God! he comes over the moun-
tains of our transgression, forgiving, cheering,
comforting, and presenting himself, not as a
consuming fire, but as the Asylum for the op-
pressed, as the Physician for the sick, as the
Resurrection of the dead, as the great Saviour in
whom was redemption through his blood ; teach-
ing Peter, and us all, not to deprecate his pre-
sence in the language of the lost, "Depart
from me," but to court his presence in the lan-
guage of the blessed, " Lord, to whom can we
go but unto thee ? Thou hast the words of eter-
THE FISHERMEN. 343
nal life." Never let us forget, that when we
have gone farthest from God, our safety is,
not in lengthening that departure, but in re-
turning to God. His invitation is, " Return,
backsliding Israel, and I will heal you ; " so
our nearest course is still to return — our only
safe one is to arise and go to your Father. Never
say, " Depart from us ; " never breathe, " No
God." Let our breathing, our prayer, our en-
treaty be, " Lord Jesus, to whom can we go but
unto thee ? Thou hast the words of eternal life."
Our Lord, we read, taught Peter, " Hence-
forth thou shalt catch men : " using the trade to
which Peter had been accustomed, in order to
illustrate the great mission on which he was now
sending him. It is remarkable, as I have been
saying, that in every instance almost in the Old
Testament Scripture, God lays hold of the gifts
and the knowledge that each individual has, and
consecrates these to the higher cause and to the
nobler work to which he has called and appointed
them. " Thou shalt catch men ; " and you shall
learn from the trade which you are now leaving
as profane, many a holy, instructive, and direc-
tive lesson in that sublimer employment to
which I have now called you. And when we
344 FORESHADOWS.
think of Peter's employment, catching fish, and
Peter's new — not holier, but more useful one,
catching men, we see something that is contrast,
and something that is similarity. Then he
caught fishes — his only reward ; now he shall
catch immortal men, heirs of glory. Then he
caught fishes only for death ; now he shall catch
men for life and happiness for ever. Then he
caught the fishes by deceit, by deception, by
overreaching, if I might apply such language to
the craft of a fisherman ; now he shall catch, not
by guile, nor by carnal weapons, nor by deceit,
but by the truth spoken freely in love.
It is very remarkable, that in looking at the
various trades or employments which God has
sanctified in the gospel, we find the hunter is
never used or referred to as an employment
casting the least light upon any employment in
connexion with the gospel. We read of almost
every other profession of ancient times sancti-
fied : we read of the shepherd, the astronomer,
the servant, the drawer of water, all conse-
crated ; but we read not of " Nimrod, the
mighty hunter." Hunting seems spoken of in
Scripture — I speak not now of its merits or
demerits — not as a beautiful, a lovely, or as a
THE FISHERMEN. 345
Christian employment ; but fishing, which cer-
tainly would not, in itself, seem intrinsically
nobler, is referred to frequently in Scripture, and
made a storehouse from which illustrations are
drawn of great and precious truths in teaching the
gospel of Christ. It is very remarkable, too, that
so much was the idea of the fish as the type of a
Christian, and the fisherman as the great type of
Jesus, incorporated with the feelings and habits
of early Christians, that the anagram which was
written upon ancient churches, which is found
in some of the catacombs, and which is expressly
alluded to by Augustine and Chrysostom, is
l\0v*f which means a fish. Christians, when
they wished to speak of Christ, frequently wrote
among themselves, and in the presence of the
heathen, Ix0v*, a fish. They thought there was
a sort of charm in it, some designed harmony or
coincidence. Each letter in the word is the first
letter of a name of Jesus. The first, I, for
'Irjaov-s ; x, for x/hotos ; 6, for Oeof) ; v} for vlbs -} and
<r for aunrjp : making 'Ij/coOs xPl(T709 Oeov v/o?,
atx}jrjpi " Jesus Christ, Son of God, the Saviour."
Hence you often find Ix^vs mentioned in the
writings of the Fathers, struck on ancient coins,
and on the walls of the catacombs ; the meaning of
346 FORESHADOWS.
the word, which to a heathen would simply be " a
fish," being " Jesus, who consecrated the fisher-
men to be fishers of men, and himself to be the
great Guide and Governor of them all." Thus
the pope of Rome, who keeps up many things
by contrast, and thus reminds one of the great
original, calls himself "the fisherman;" and
when he signs any document, adds, " sealed and
signed with the ring of the fisherman : " mean-
ing that he is a descendant of St. Peter, and that
that employment was consecrated thus to express
a great and divine relationship.
Thus Christ takes the trades to which men
have been accustomed, and makes them the
means of teaching them important lessons ;
thus he found the fishermen of Galilee on the
banks of the lake of Gennesareth, and taught
them, and consecrated them to be henceforth
fishers of men ; and he taught them, too, by
that lesson, that they might toil all night, spread-
ing the net with the greatest care, rowing the
boat with the greatest energy, and yet not catch
a single fish. So too the minister of the gospel
may preach with the greatest power, he may
reason with the most conclusive logic, and yet all
shall be as the tinkling cymbal and the sounding
THE FISHERMEN. 347
brass unless God shall bless it. In the case of
Peter, his net was cast all night, spread, and
drawn in, and all was vain ; but the instant that
Jesus poured his blessing on the net, and his
benediction on the deep, that instant he had
more even than he could manage. So the min-
ister of the gospel, the Sunday-school teacher,
the tract-distributor, may toil and labour with
persevering and commendable efforts, in all di-
rections, at all hours, by night and by day, and
yet catch nothing ; but when they begin, under
a sense of their own insufficiency, to appeal to
the sufficiency of God, then the morning will
dawn, and the blessing will descend, and they
will be made the joyful fishers of men, to the
glory of God and to the salvation of souls.
We read, as the sequel of this miracle, that
the disciples of Jesus, " when they had brought
their ships to land, forsook all, and followed
him." Rationalists have referred to this cir-
cumstance ; and Strauss, especially, with a sneer
upon this " forsook all," asks, " What right
had Peter to take credit, as he does, for for-
saking all ? What did he forsake ? He forsook
nothing worth retaining ; and therefore to say he
forsook all is to exaggerate a very insignificant
348 FORESHADOWS.
act ; and for Peter to take credit for it was to
take credit for a thing of very little value."
This proceeds just from ignorance. Little as it
was which they forsook, you must recollect that
they forsook their all. The hut which is all that
a widow has, is just as precious to her, and as
reluctantly resigned, as the palace which is the
royal all of a queen. Worldliness is not mea-
sured by the amount it possesses, but by the
tenacity with which it grasps the little or the
much that it has. It is not, therefore, the pro-
perty that is sinful, but it is the passion which
cleaves with excessive love to that property,
be it large or small. Hence the possessor of
a million may be a far less covetous man than
the possessor of £250 a year ; the occupant of a
throne may be a far less proud and ambitious
man than some poor dweller in a cottage. And
what we are to leave and forsake, in the provi-
dence of God, is not the property that God has
given us for use, and for consecration, and for
good, but those worldly desires that make the
property all, and the Giver of that property to
be dislodged and displaced by an inferior love
and passion. It is not the world that we are to
leave, but worldliness ; it is not money that we
THE FISHERMEN. 349
are to forsake — money is a good thing, a most
excellent thing — but it is avarice, or the ex-
cessive love of money, that we are to leave ; it is
not honour that we are to refuse, but it is am-
bition ; it is not power that is given us in the
providence of God that we are to renounce, but
it is the pride which the possession of power is
apt to generate. The world we are to use, as
not abusing it; worlclliness we are to forsake.
Money we are to consecrate to the noblest end ;
but covetousness we are to abjure. Hence in
Jeremiah we do not read, " Let the wise man
put away his wisdom, let the rich man cast away
his riches, let the strong man deprive himself of
his strength," — yet those who confound the world
with worlcliiness, and money with avarice, and
wisdom with pride, should so read it, — but the
prophet says, " Let not the wise man glory in his
wisdom," which shows that he may keep his
wisdom, "nor the strong man in his strength,
nor the rich man in his riches," which shows
that we may have riches, and yet not be covet-
ous. We learn, therefore, that we are to forsake
all by forsaking it in spirit, not forsaking it
mechanically and in fact : just as we renounce
the world, not by leaving the world mechanically
850 FORESHADOWS.
and going into convents, but by keeping the
world in its place, that God may occupy the
throne of our hearts alone.
When they forsook all, it is said, they fol-
lowed Christ. They followed his person, which
was then visible to them, and his principles,
which were ever sounding from his lips. We
follow his person, invisible to us, but not un-
known, (for we cannot follow or love the unknown,
though we may follow and love the unseen,) and
we follow his principles still embodied in the
Scriptures — those Scriptures which reason still
of righteousness, and temperance, and judgment.
And in what respects are we to follow Jesus ?
Time would fail me to enumerate all ; let me
mention one or two.
We are to follow him in self-sacrifice. True,
we cannot offer our lives as a sacrifice for sin, for
this he did once, and it is not to be done again ;
but we can surrender all that is dear, and near,
and precious, when it stands in the way of ac-
ceptance of his word, or obedience to his will.
Jesus went about not merely making a sacrifice
for sin, but as a beautiful example, leaving us
a model we are to imitate, and footprints in
which we are carefully and prayerfully to tread.
THE FISHERMEN. 851
And if there was one trait more characteristic
of Jesus than another, it was the intense, the
untiring beneficence which descended, not, as
ours often does, upon those who we think will
appreciate it, or thank us for it; or who are
of our own party, our own country, or our own
denomination; but like the rain-drops and sun-
beams, on the just and on the unjust, on the
evil and unthankful. One of the great blights
that nip and freeze up our benevolence in its
very bud, is our thinking we are not to oblige
a man who will not repay us, and that we are
not to relieve a poor person because that person
will not appreciate our goodness or give us any
thanks. Never shall we have, or feel, or show
the spirit of our Master, till we relieve want be-
cause it is want, and because he bids us, irre-
spective of what the subject of that want may
think, or say, or return to us. Self-sacrificing
benevolence, for benevolence' sake, was one. of
the great and holy characteristics of our blessed
Master.
We are also, to follow him in another interest-
ing trait — the subordination which we have
noticed in all these miracles, and in all the
lessons he raised upon them, of what is circum-
352 FORESHADOWS.
stantial to what is essential. We have no-
ticed frequently in his discourses, and infer-
ences, and lessons, how the one is subordinated
to the other. For instance, he prescribed a form
of prayer on one occasion, but he practised ex-
temporaneous prayer on most occasions ; and lest
there should be a dispute about the comparative
excellency of the one, or the comparative defects
of the other, he says, " Neither in this mountain
nor in that mountain shall we worship the
Father, for God is a Spirit, and they that wor-
ship him must worship him in spirit and in truth ;
for such the Father seeketh to worship him."
Again, in the sabbath day we find him appear-
ing in the synagogue worshipping with the rest;
and yet doing miracles, in order to rescue it from
the traditionary perversions of the scribes and
Pharisees. Again, with regard to fasting, he
shows how it is proper in one case, but improper
in another ; and that fasting, therefore, still more
than the sabbath, was made for man, not man
for fasting.
Another trait in the character of Jesus which
we onght to follow, is his faithful and sublime
indifference to the opposition of party, or of
power, or of sect, in his discharge of the solemn
THE FISHERMEN. 353
and august mission which was committed to his
hands. He tells the Pharisees they were super-
stitious hypocrites, not fearing the wrath of that
powerful ecclesiastical faction. On the other
hand, he drives the money-changers from their
temple, not fearing the revenge of the money
interest, the most powerful then, as it is not the
least powerful now. He defies the wrath of the
crafty Herod, telling him plainly of his craft ;
and he stands the most kingly one, when at the
tribunal of Pilate, accused as a criminal before
an earthly judge.
Let us in these respects imitate him; let us
care little for prospects of honour, for prefer-
ment in the church, for increase of power, for
any thing that man can give ; but let us fear-
lessly and faithfully do the duty that devolves
upon us. We may be honoured, we may be
popular, we may be great, we may be rich, but
we must be faithful as ambassadors for God, and
servants to his people.
Yet, while we mark in the conduct of Jesus
this sublime indifference to all contingent per-
secution, we must notice also the beautiful gen-
tleness that shines through it. Look at him
on one occasion, when he took their babes
2 A
354 FORESHADOWS.
from the bosoms of their ragged mothers, and
laid his hands upon them, and blessed them, and
told these down-trodden ones that of such was
the kingdom of heaven. Watch him again sym-
pathizing with the sisters of Bethany, weeping
with them, and bringing back their lost brother
to their circle ; or with the widow of Nain, re-
storing her only son to be her comfort and her
support. Look at him again in his last dread
agony, when he committed his mother — a beau-
tiful example to us — to the charge of John ; and
when he addressed the daughters of Jerusalem,
" Weep not for me, but weep for yourselves."
Because he is our sacrifice, our precious sacri-
fice, our only trust, our only atonement, our only
righteousness — we must not lose sight of him as
our perfect example, our model, our precedent
in every difficulty in which humanity can be
placed. Whether I look at the silence, or at the
speech of Jesus — at what he did, or at what he
taught, or at what he suffered, or at what he was
every where, I see a heart in which every sound
of human joy and sorrow found an echo — I see
one whose life throughout was a perfect model,
and whose example is now left with us that we
may follow in his steps. And following him as
THE FISHERMEN. 355
our sacrifice and our example upon earth, and
our works following us as the evidence of what
we have been to the world through which we
have passed, it shall be written over our dead
ashes, " Blessed are the dead that die in the
Lord ;" and to our glad souls it shall be said,
" Come, ye blessed, inherit the kingdom pre-
pared for you from the foundation of the world.51
2 a 2
LECTURE XIII.
NATURE SITTING AT THE FEET OF JESUS.
And they came over imto the other side of the sea, into the
country of the Gadarenes. And when he was come out of
the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man
with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling among the
tombs ; and 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
fetters broken in pieces : neither could any man tame him.
And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in
the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones. But
when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him, and
cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with
thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God ? I adjure thee
by God, that thou torment me not. For he said unto him,
Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit. And he asked
him, What is thy name ? And he answered, saying, My name
is Legion : for we are many. And he besought him much
that he would not send them away out of the country. Now
there was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine
feeding. And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us
into the swine, that we may enter into them. And forth-
with Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went
out, and entered into the swine : and the herd ran violently
down a steep place into the sea, (they were about two thou-
sand ; ) and were choked in the sea. And they that fed the
swine fled, and told it in the city, and in the country. And
NATURE SITTING AT JESUs' FEET. 357
they went out to see what it was that was done. And they
come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil,
and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right
mind : and they were afraid. And they that saw it told
them how it befell to him that was possessed with the devil,
and also concerning the swine. And they began to pray him
to depart out of their coasts. — Mark v. 1 — 17.
We learn, from the close of the previous
chapter, that Jesus had just shown himself the
Lord of the storms, the controller of the ele-
ments by which our world is assailed ; and in
the commencement of this chapter he shows him-
self in a light still more glorious — the Lord of
the inner storms by which the human mind is
deranged. In the first case, he stills the sea and
there is a calm ; in the second, he casts out the
demon, and he that was possessed is sitting at
his feet, clothed and in his right mind. Now in
opening this miracle, which I have taken as the
next in succession, a great difficulty has been
felt by some, and expressed by not a few, as to
there being or not being any real distinction be-
tween what are called demoniacal possessions in
the New Testament, and mania, or maladies of
various sorts and degrees of intensity. One fact
alone seems to me almost conclusive on the sub-
ject, and it is this, that the diseases to which the
358 FORESHADOWS.
body is incident, and demoniac possessions with
which men have been afflicted, are stated by our
Lord himself as distinct and separate things.
Thus he says, for instance, in the Gospel of
St. Matthew, iv. 24, ". And his fame went
throughout all Syria ; and they brought unto
him all sick people that were taken with divers
diseases and torments, [that is, one class of af-
flicted beings ; then here is another class,] and
those which were possessed with devils, [there is
a second class,] and those which were lunatic ; "
there is a third class. Now this is not mere re-
petition of the same idea in varied phraseology,
but it is the enumeration of three distinct classes
of maladies ; and, in these three distinct classes,
possession with demons is stated to be a separate
one. I might show the very same distinction in
Matt. viii. 16, and also in Mark i. 33. I will
refer only to the last, namely Mark i. 33. " And
all the city was gathered together at the door ;
and he healed many that were sick of divers
diseases, [that's one class,] and cast out many
devils, and suffered not the devils to speak, be-
cause they knew him." Here again the dis-
tinction is made broad, clear, and decided be-
tween one class of disease, lunacy, or mania, or
NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 359
any other, and this specific class of suffering,
called demoniacal possession.
In the next place, the language of our Lord
on the occasion of his casting out devils, is such
as to warrant us in concluding that it was an
actual, or literal, demoniacal possession. When
he approached the person that was possessed
with a demon he said, " Hold thy peace ; " and
again he said, transferring his address from the
man and addressing the demon, " Come out of
him, thou unclean spirit." Now such an address
to a mere physical disease would be a perfect
playing upon words; and if we believe that
Jesus ever spoke as never man spoke, we must
conclude that there was a reality in this, and that
he did not merely express himself in a figurative
manner. But Strauss, and some of those who
see myths because they see through a mist in
every page of the word of God, and other infi-
dels of the same Rationalistic school in Germany,
say that Jesus accommodated his language to the
popular and prevailing notions of the people
among whom he sojourned. Were my esti-
mate of Jesus the same as theirs, I could perhaps
conceive such accommodation at least possible ;
but I believe that Jesus was not only the truth-
•360 FORESHADOWS.
speaker, but the truth itself: he came not to
make a lie the basis of his mission, but to dis-
lodge the lie, and destroy it by the application of
truth. He came to put an end to all deceptions,
to all hypocrisies, to all falsehoods, and to estab-
lish supreme in each man's heart, and ultimately
in the world itself, the sovereignty of pure truth
and of perfect righteousness. I admit that we
sometimes apply a word that means something
very different in its first application, to things to
which it is in some degree now inapplicable;
for instance, in the present day we call persons
who are deranged, lunatics ; we speak of a luna-
tic asylum ; we use the term lunacy. The origin
of these words was this : people supposed in the
first instance that the moon exercised a specific
power over certain individuals, and they became
lunatic, moon-struck, or affected by the moon.
We now know better, because science has taught
us better, and we now apply the word lunacy
without encouraging deception in the least de-
gree, because it is the general and popular
word for mania, or derangement of the mind.
But if I were to go further — mark you now,
here is the point of distinction — and try to cure a
lunatic, or if a physician were to try to cure a lu-
NATURE SITTING AT JESUs' FEET. 361
natic, by saying to him, " Thou moon, come out
of him," or, "Moon, cease to influence him," then
there would be there, not the use of a mere word
that has become stereotyped, but there would be
the recognition of the superstitious notion that the
moon did influence him, and that he was under
the sovereignty and dominion of that planet.
But our Lord applies this very formula and
process of speech to demoniacal possessions ; and
this alone is evidence to me that he did not use
a popular name by which to delineate a well-
known, painful, but common disease, but that he
spoke to demons who lodged in the human soul,
and drove that soul whither they would.
Now, in looking at the demoniacs who are
spoken of in the New Testament, and the Gada-
rene demoniac seems to have been one of the
very worst cases of them all, I may notice that
these demoniacs were not necessarily or in every
instance the guiltiest of men, but they were in all
instances the unhappiest of men. Satan entered
into Judas, and he betrayed and sold his Lord.
That was a totally different possession. Seven
demons dwelt in Mary Magdalene; and a demon
dwelt in this Gadarene demoniac; but each was a
totally distinct state. Though the real demoniac
862 FORESHADOWS.
may have been guilty of what opened the door
and courted the inrush, as it were, of these evil
spirits, yet still his case in the main was misfor-
tune— more misfortune than it was crime. It is
also remarkable in the case of the demoniacs, that
there was a groaning under the tyranny they en-
dured. They lifted up a piercing cry continually
for deliverance ; and, in the case of this demo-
niac, there was not only this cry for deliverance,
but a flinging himself at the feet of Jesus, and
asking that Saviour to interpose and to deliver
him. In other words, these demoniacs were
evidences not merely of Satan acting on and in-
fluencing the human heart as he still does, and
as he always has done, but they were evidences
of what man is very anxious to deny — that Satan
had, as it were, burst the bands with which we
confine him ; that he had found, not a moral in-
fluence upon the heart, but an actual foot-hold
upon the earth ; that he had already, as it were,
got within his grasp one or two unhappy vic-
tims, evidences of what he would do if he only
could, and teaching us by that exhibition Sa-
tan's energy and malignant efforts and daring
every where.
Again, that it was an actual demoniac pos-
NATURE SITTING AT JESUS FEET. S6S
session would be evident from this fact too, that
there seemed to have been two wills in the per-
son— the will of the victim, and the will of the
spirit driving him wherever he would. The best
exposition of it is the counter-possession, when
persons were possessed by the Holy Spirit, in the
apostolical dispensation. We read that the Spirit
spake by them in divers tongues as the Spirit
gave them utterance; and the apostle himself
says, " I live ; yet not I, but Christ liveth in
me." There was, as it were, the will of the in-
dividual acted upon by the will of the Spirit, and
in special miraculous cases the Spirit acted inde-
pendent of, and even contrary to, that will.
Now, the question will be asked by many who
are sceptical, and to whom this reasoning does
not- appear so conclusive as it does to me, "If
demoniac possessions were in those days, how is
it that demoniac possessions are not now ?" The
best way to answer many foolish questions that
very foolish men often put, is by asking them
another. If you will not accept facts, because
you cannot solve all the accompanying diffi-
culties, you will have to live a life of perfect
Pyrrhonism, of absolute scepticism. Will you
answer me how it is that epidemics that existed
364 FORESHADOWS.
once do not exist now ? Will yon tell me why
it is that the last epidemic, the cholera, was not
known in Europe, (I believe,) or in India, till
1817 ? Will you tell me why it came in 1832,
was suspended, and then came in 1849? It will
be time enough to answer why demoniac pos-
session is not now, when you solve many other
mysteries in prophecy and providence just as in-
scrutable as this. But may it not be in God's
permissive providence that Satan shall have a
manifestation in one century that is not permit-
ted "to him in another? that he shall show his
malignity in one formula to-day, and exhibit that
malignity in a totally distinct formula to-mor-
row ? It may be that the Satan of the 19th cen-
tury, the angel of light, is a more dangerous
demon than the Satan of the first century, driving
the demoniac, and cutting him, and impelling
him whither he would.
There may, however, perhaps be another solu-
tion of the difficulty, and it is this, that just before
Christ came into the world, Satan's sovereignty
had reached its highest pitch, evil had attained,
if I may so speak, its culminating point; there
seems to have arrived (and I speak from the tes-
timony of heathen writers, as well as from the
NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 365
testimony of inspired writers) about the year 1,
a state of things so terrible, that, judging after
man's judgment, there appeared to be but two
alternatives left for God : either to crush the
world and expunge it from amid the shining
orbs of creation, or to come down to it, redeem
it, and restore it. God's ways are not our ways ;
and when he might have come in wrath he came
in mercy. Now, if it be true that the world was
in that terrible state, it may be that Satan had
then attained his most terrible and expressive
development, and that the demoniac possession,
which was, as it were, the highest ground he
had reached in this world, subsided, as Satan's
power subsided, after the cry was heard, " It is
finished," and the Spirit descended on the day
of Pentecost.
I know some will start in the midst of all
this another difficulty — Why does God suffer
it to be so ? The answer to that difficulty is,
that we know little why evil was introduced,
we know not why evil is continued, and we
know still less of the great and ultimate ob-
jects which are triumphantly to evolve from its
presence and its permission : this we know, how-
ever, that evil is not eternal, as the old Maui-
366 FORESHADOWS.
cheans maintained ; and we believe, too, that evil
is not unripe good, as the present Pantheists main-
tain— one of the latest and absurdest notions in
the world. Emerson, and some of his school, al-
lege that evil, or sin, murder, adultery, theft,
are unripe honesty, unripe goodness, unripe jus-
tice, and unripe truth; as if (strange !) a sour,
poisonous fruit could, by sunshine and sunbeams,
become a delicious and a nutritive one. The
thing is absurd ; we do not believe in either of
these things ; but this we do believe, that sin is
in the creature, and that God is determined to
expunge and utterly destroy it ; but then he is
determined to do so, not by an act of omnipo-
tence, which would not be victory ; but by truth,
by love, by the manifestation of his own mind
and will, and through the instrumentality of his
own chosen and redeemed people. We know
that sin will be vanquished, and Satan too ; but
neither will be vanquished by a stroke of omni-
potence, but by the penetrating, persistent,
gentle power of love in men's hearts, and the
truth in men's heads.
Another reason why we may deem demoniacal
possessions to have ceased, if they have ceased —
and I am supposing that they have ceased, though
NATURE SITTING AT JESUS FEET. 367
some doubt and question this — may be the
universally admitted and actual fact, that Satan,
however powerful at our Redeemer's birth,
yet by our Redeemer's atonement received
a blow from which he has never recovered.
Our Lord himself says, " I saw Satan like
lightning fall from heaven," which would seem
to indicate a dethronement, or a subordination
which he had not before. And there re-
mains this fact, too — whatever God does in the
world, Satan always gets up something very
like it, because his hope of progress is by de-
ception. We may quote the miracles of the
magicians of Egypt : Satan got up his miracles
too, perhaps real miracles, at least supernatural
ones. When there were true prophets, Satan
had his company of prophets too. When God
was manifest in the flesh, which was one thou-
sand eight hundred and fifty-one years ago,
Satan was manifest in the flesh too : he got up
a mimicry of it — demoniacal possessions. We
find the same fact now-a-days ; for as God mani-
fest in the flesh was the truth that seems to have
struck Satan down, so the preaching of this
truth strikes down Satan still. Rhennius had the
idea that among many of the Indians there is
368 FORESHADOWS.
something approaching to demoniac possessions.
And missionaries declare that they sometimes
find manifested among the heathen, the un-
converted savages of the desert, a power that
is all but super-human; so that whenever the
gospel is preached in heathen lands, there is
always a desperate effort to crush and to extin-
guish it. And who knows, but that in some of
our lunatic asylums (though I would not dare
to say that this or that lunatic is demoniacally
possessed) there may be still actual demoniac
possessions ? I have seen a lunatic asylum ;
and of all sights it is, I think, the most hu-
miliating and terrible. I could look upon the
battle-field covered with the mangled dead, but
the cells and inmates of a lunatic asylum pre-
sent the most painful, humbling, and all but
intolerable sight it was ever my lot to gaze upon.
The body in its worst ruin is nothing to the
awful wreck of that more glorious intellectual
life which God gave to man. And yet these
lunatics may be far nearer the kingdom of heaven
than many a wiser man. They may have been
Christians before they lost their responsibility ;
their madness may be their misfortune, not
crime ; chastisement, not penalty; many of these
NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 369
may shine like the brightness of the stars for
ever, when others, who have turned the wisdom
that God has spared them to unwise and guilty
purposes, shall be condemned to eternal woe.
Thus, then, we have stated a few reasons for
supposing that demoniac possession may have
ceased, and some reasons for believing it may
still continue. My opinion of the church of
Rome is, that it is one colossal demoniac pos-
session. I know that certain men look on it
merely as a corrupt church, a church a little
astray. I am not denying that there are good men
in that church in spite of it ; but this I do say,
and persist in, that the system seems to me one
huge demoniacal possession, where Satan has his
licence and his miracles. I believe that many of
the miracles wrought by priests in the middle
ages were supernatural, or infranatural rather.
Whenever I hear a priest say, " We have
wrought miracles," I admit it. I say, " Cer-
tainly you have. I do not doubt it. If you had
not done them, you would have lost one of the
brands by which your church is distinguished."
I believe that that system of apostacy is just the
counterpart to the true church ; and no man can
fail to notice, throughout the book of Revelation,
2 B
370 FORESHADOWS.
how the two great opposing bodies are, the
Lamb, and the wife of the Lamb, and they that
are his, and the " beast " of the apostacy, and
they that belong to him and are his.
But I pass on to notice the special and indi-
vidual portrait that is sketched in the chapter on
which I am now lecturing. He was one spe-
cimen of demoniacal possession — the most awful
perhaps that we can well imagine. It appears
that he dwelt in the tombs. This seems all mys-
tery to us, because, professing to have advanced
in civilization, and having our graves six feet in
the earth, and in the midst of our very houses, in
order to keep up incessant typhus and cholera
among us, we fancy immediately, when we read
of a man among the tombs, that it must be
among those green hillocks that we see in our
neighbourhood, some of which so many paro-
chial authorities are resolved to retain as en-
closures, because, I presume, they must enjoy
them. But in these countries it was not so.
The Jews had no such things as intramural
interments. There were no such thing suffered
in a single city, as the dead piled up among the
living : and bad as were the Athenians, Romans,
and Greeks, thev knew of no such habit. And
NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 371
yet we say, This is the nineteenth century, and
we have great light. We ought to learn that, as
long as such things are suffered, we shall have
plenty of pestilence and disease to testify against
us. But in the countries of the East, and in Ju-
dea, it was altogether different. They had their
graves far distant from the city ; so that when
the demoniac is represented as running among
the graves, he appears to be among the moun-
tains, and for the reason that they had for burial-
places immense cavities cut into the rock, deep
recesses in which the dead were buried, and into
some of which such a person as the demoniac
of Gadara might enter. Burckhardt, a recent tra-
veller, states, that near Gadara, at the present
day, there are vast tombs of gigantic capacity,
which have evidently been used for the burial of
the dead ; and this poor creature, like a spirit
cut off from his kind, crept about these tombs,
and felt his only congenial habitation to be, as it
were, among the dead, and there, in the language
of the passage I have read, cut and wounded
himself, and howled among the mountains. It
is very remarkable to notice the contrast in his
character. It seems that the evil spirit held,
and drove, and impelled him where he would
2 b 2
872 FORESHADOWS.
not. You can see in the man a human con-
sciousness, indicating unextinguished human
sensibilities, which led him to the feet of Jesus ;
and you can see, overpowering this human will,
this personal consciousness, some terrible demo-
niac power, crying out from his bosom to Jesus,
" I adjure thee by the living God that thou let
us alone." You can see, as it were, two natures
in the man, the human in its agony, groaning to
be delivered, and the fiendish in its depravity,
imploring to be let alone.
And there is something, too, remarkable in
this, that the evil spirit, as it is recorded in an-
other Gospel, says, iS Art thou come to torment
us before the time ? " " Before the time " — how
remarkable is that expression ! The very demons
believed the prophecy that had sounded in their
hearing for four thousand years ; they knew that
they were kept in chains till the judgment of the
great day ; they believed that the earth would
be disentangled and disinfected of their horrible
and malignant presence ; and the very prayer
that these demons uttered implied that their
greatest torment was being in their own place.
" Art thou come here to torment us ? " How
torment them ? By casting them out of this
NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 373
man ? That is not torment. It was sending
them to their own place. Satan's only joy is
his success in seducing and destroying others,
and the greatest torment that Satan feels is where
he meets with the greatest resistance. The only
fresh air he breathes, the only sweet scenes he
witnesses, are when he has a foot-hold on earth
and a prospect of getting a broader, wider, and
firmer one ; and never "does he feel his torment
reach its greatest acme until he is sent to his
own place, and driven from among men. What
a terrible idea of torment this gives ! That one
should deprecate his home as his punishment
is a very awful feature ; and that the demons
should deprecate their own place as being the
site, the scene, and the source of their intensest
agony, gives a picture of what they are, and
where their fall has plunged them, very dark
and terrible indeed.
It appears that when Jesus drew near to the
man, he was not delivered of the demons in-
stantly, but underwent a tremendous paroxysm
of suffering and distress. Why it was so, we
know not. Whether it was to make the thing
more apparent, we know not. Jesus asks the
poor demoniac his name. There is something
374 FORESHADOWS.
beautiful in this. When we approach an excited
man with some quiet, gentle word, or approach
a man walking in a dream and just breathe to
him his name,' the spell is broken, and he listens,
and is restored to his mind. Our Lord seems,
in the exercise of that sublime philosophy which
he alone knew, just to have breathed the man's
name — simply to have asked the man his name.
The poor man's answer* would have been, A,
or B, or C, John, or Peter, or whatever it
was ; but the evil spirits repress the answer
of the man, and they shout, as it were, in the
earnestness of triumph, " We are legion." A
legion in the Roman army consisted of six
thousand persons, three thousand horse and
three thousand foot. And why do they say so
to Jesus ? It was because they wished to inti-
midate him, as though they had said, " Don't
meddle with us : if you do we are more than a
match for you. You will find that we are not
one that you can easily crush, but a mighty mul-
titude, that will rush upon you and destroy you
also."
We read that the evil spirits prayed that, if
let loose, (this is related in the parallel passage
in Luke viii. 31,) they might not be driven out
NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 375
into the deep. It is, and ought to be translated,
(i into the abyss." And then they besought him
to let them go into a herd of swine. Now there
has been a great deal of difficulty expressed, and
a great deal of scoffing uttered about this very
thing. The speaking of the ass of Balaam in
the Old Testament, and the rushing into the sea
of the demoniacally possessed swine in the New
Testament, have been standing gibes for silly
infidels in all ages and in all countries. But
just Jet us study it, and we shall see, that if
sceptics would think more and read more, and
be less partial, they would see justice, truth,
harmony, beauty, where now they can see
nothing.
In the first place, it seems to us a mystery
that Christ should answer the prayer of the de-
mons at all. Sometimes he does not answer his
own people ; and to such it will appear a mys-
tery that he should answer the demons' prayer.
But the answering of that prayer was in this
case, as the granting of prayer has been in other
cases, the greatest possible calamity. I some-
times think, God shows greater love to us in re-
fusing to answer our prayers — many prayers that
0 i b FORESHADOWS.
we offer — than in giving us the answers that we
demand.
Jesus gave them permission. He did not
command the demons to go into the herd of
swine, but permitted them to do so. However,
1 do not lay stress upon that. If there is any
other way of disposing of them, why let the de-
mons take possession of the swine, and why let
the swine be thus destroyed ? First, if in any
way the destruction of the brute can contribute
to the good, or the support, or the instruction, or
the progress of man, it was only the exemplifi-
cation of a fact that occurs every day. If the
Lord, that made all things and made these swine,
could do man good, morally, physically, or other-
wise, by their destruction, he only did then and
in that act what is done every day when the in-
nocent lamb, the unoffending bird, the patient
ox, are slaughtered for man's nutriment. But, in
the second place, such a transition to the swine
may have been to give the poor demoniac a more
clear and conclusive evidence that he was de-
livered from the demon. We have a parallel
case to this in the history of the Israelites. When
they crossed the Red Sea they would not believe
NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 377
that they were delivered from their pursuers, un-
til they were permitted to see the dead bodies of
their enemies high and dry upon the beach.
And so here it may have been in condescending
love to him who had been a most unequalled
sufferer, that the Lord Jesus permitted him to
see the utter destruction of the swine, that he
might be satisfied that he was thus cured, and
might fear no more.
But some will say, " Was it not a very great
loss to the owners of these swine to destroy two
thousand of them, who, apparently, had done our
Lord or done the demoniac no harm at all ?" I
answer, is it a loss very unusual or very strange ?
Was it not an unjust thing in God to send the
potato disease and create famine in Ireland ?
And was it not a very unjust thing to send mur-
rain among the sheep and oxen the other year,
and destroy whole flocks and herds ? Yet if
you did not complain of God in his providence
doing this, why do you complain of God, as re-
corded in the page of the Gospel, doing on a less
scale, and with less disastrous effects, one and the
very same thing ? But there was more than this.
The cure of the demoniac was made only the
more remarkable because it was associated with
378 FORESHADOWS.
the chastisement and punishment of them that
deserved it. These swine were kept by Jews, —
Jewish proprietors, — and these Jewish proprie-
tors employed the Gadarenes to do what they
themselves held to be unlawful, as it is said of
Jews still, that they will feed their servants on
food that they would not eat themselves, and com-
mand them to do things on their sabbath, and,
because they do not put a finger of their own to
them, think that they escape the sin of profan-
ing what they call the true sabbath. Well, these
Jewish proprietors employed these Gadarenes to
keep their swine. The Gadarene swine-herds
were paid their wages, and the Jewish proprie-
tors pocketed the results. It was against the
law of Moses to keep such swine, and these men
that thus kept them knowingly sinned and of-
fended against the express injunctions of that
law which they had promised strictly and rigidly
to obey ; and thus they were punished for their
conduct in neglecting plain duties in order to
indulge in gross avarice. But, alas, there is
much of the avaricious Jew still in many a Lon-
don landlord. They grieve more that the mur-
rain should cut off their sheep, their swine, and
their cattle, than that cholera and typhus fever,
NATURE SITTING AT JESUs' FEET. 379
conducted by the filthy channels which their
avarice has left, should cut off whole families and
depopulate whole neighbourhoods. And the
reason is this : — when the pestilence has emptied
their lodgings, their lodgings will let again ; but
when the disease has cut off their swine, they
cannot recall the swine to life again. It is the
loss they sustain, and not the humanity they
feel, that thus actuates and guides them.
The rush of the swine into the sea, however,
teaches us another lesson, and it is perhaps a
lesson of some importance. We always suppose
that Satan and the evil spirits have a foot-hold
only in rational beings ; but it is not impossible,
nor improbable, that Satan and Satanic influ-
ences may be in the brute creation also. My
first reason is what the apostle advances when he
says, that " the whole creation [I believe that to
be the brute creation and the material universe]
groans and travails in pain even until now, wait-
ing to be delivered." Why groan? Because
Satan bestrides them. Why in pain, and crying
for deliverance ? Because it is demoniacally pos-
sessed. Whether God permits, commands, or
restrains the tempest, or the demon may ride
the winds or lash the waves, it may do very
380 FORESHADOWS.
well for a material philosophy to dispute ; but
they that know that Satan's outer world and
our inner world are at certain parts interlaced
and intermingled, will not be the first to dis-
pute. But do we not now, to take a parallel
case — and a German writer advances this very
fact — find animals receptive of human influ-
ence ? Let the rider sit firm upon his horse,
and the animal will feel the influence, and be
full of heroism, he will rear himself and sym-
pathize with him, he will brave every danger
and prance heroically. But let the rider, on the
other hand, be timid, fearful, and paralysed, and
the very horse himself seems to lose his courage
and his mettle, and to sympathize with his rider
in his fears. Have you not noticed that the dog-
will almost echo your lamentations, and that
when your face is bright with smiles, the poor
brute will almost reflect them ? What is this,
but proving that the brute creation is receptive
of human influence ? And why may we not
conclude that the brute creation may be recep-
tive of the demoniac influence too ? Thus, as
the apostle says in Romans viii., creation, when
it groans, may do so because it is conscious of an
intrusive element from beneath — a demoniacal
NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 381
possession that influences, guides, and con-
trols it.
Another fact we may notice here. It is, how
completely the wicked often outwit themselves !
Satan has blundered often in his dealings dur-
ing the last eighteen hundred years ; and this
shows that, malignant as he is, he is not in-
fallible. These demons thought they had got a
grand concession when they prayed that they
might be aUowed to enter into the swine ; but
that concession was only precipitating them more
speedily into that abyss which they deprecated
as the place of their torment.
We read that the Gadarenes also presented a
petition to Christ: and what is that petition?
Mysterious fact! strange, startling, painful fact!
That men that saw such a triumphant thing as
the demoniac healed, clothed, and in his right
mind, should call upon and beseech the Divine
messenger that made him so, to leave their coasts
just as quickly as he could— how inexcusably
criminal must they have been ! And yet, even in
this land, it is possible for us to imitate their
example. Do we not act in some such way, or
rather, may we not act in some such way, when
we say, « See what Christianity has done ; how
382 FORESHADOWS.
it has transfigured with a celestial glory every
land it has touched, indicating by the trail of
light and beauty and happiness in its path, that
it is the ambassadress of God, and the bene-
factress of the earth ;" and yet — what I trust we
never shall be permitted to do — look into the
face of Christianity, that fair face the sabbath,
which shines so brightly on the benighted, which
radiates mercy upon the down-trodden, and
gives joy to the sorrowful, and say to it, " De-
part from our coasts ! " Our merchants would
not be enriched by the loss of the sabbath;
our land would not be elevated by its surrender.
It is that beautiful respite which restores us, so
that the Christian touches heaven every sabbath,
as Artseus of old touched the earth, and gets new
strength and vigour for the duties and sacrifices
of the week.
And let me say, the demoniac wandering
amid the tombs, cutting himself, howling amid
the mountains, torn by demons, is only the meet
type of that Sabbathless land across the Channel,
which is ever restless, ever complaining, ever
howling some new shout ; but, unlike the de-
moniac, never fleeing to Jesus for deliverance
and for safety. Contrast with it this land of
NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 883
ours, with all its faults, with all its defects, its
sins, and its deficiencies ; a land overshadow-
ing with its wings almost the four quarters of
the globe ; a land that spreads its sail to every
breeze, and drops its anchor on every strand;
the home of exiles, the asylum of the persecuted,
where even the Hungarian Bern might come and
find a shelter, without the necessity of changing
his faith and taking ours ; where Turk, Moham-
medan, Mussulman, Hungarian, and Russian,
may come and find peace ; a land whose acres
are dotted with temples as with stars, and from
whose homes and hearths there ascends every
where increasingly the song of praise ; and where
all men, blessed be God, may have, and I hope
ever will have while it lasts, a sabbath rest and
a sabbath repose. I ask, my dear friends, if you
find not in the demoniac, clothed, restored, and
in his right mind, sitting at the feet of Jesus, the
very type of our land, enjoying its sabbaths,
thus blessed, thus mighty. And what has made
it so ? Who has made us to differ ? Only the
Son of God, through his Bible, which is his will,
through his sabbath, which is his witness, through
the gospel, which is his voice. Perish all
England's swine together, but let her sabbaths
o84 FORESHADOWS.
still shine. Let all depart from our coasts, but,
in the language of the disciples going to Em-
maus, " Blessed Master, abide with us even unto
the end." Amen.
LECTURE XIV.
NATURE SITTING AT THE FEET OF JESUS.
And they arrived at the country of the Gadarenes, which is
over against Galilee. And when he went forth to land, there
met him out of the city a certain man, which had devils long
time, and ware no clothes, neither abode in any house, but in
the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out, and fell down
before him, and with a loud voice said, What have I to do
with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God most high? I beseech thee,
torment me not. (For he had commanded the unclean spirit
to come out of the man. For oftentimes it had caught him :
and he was kept bound with chains and in fetters ; and he
brake the bands, and was driven of the devil into the wilder-
ness.) And Jesus asked him, saying, What is thy name ?
And he said, Legion : because many devils were entered into
him. And they besought him that he would not command
them to go out into the deep. And there was there an herd
of many swine feeding on the mountain : and they besought
him that he would suffer them to enter into them. And he
suffered them. Then went the devils out of the man, and
entered into the swine : and the herd ran violently down a
steep place into the lake, and were choked. When they that
fed them saw what was done, they fled, and went and told
it in the city and in the country. Then they went out to see
what was done ; and came to Jesus, and found the man, out
of whom the devils were departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus,
clothed, and in his right mind : and they were afraid. They
also which saw it told them by what means he that was pos-
2 c
386 FORESHADOWS.
sessed of the devils was healed. Then the whole multitude
of the country of the Gadarenes round about besought him to
depart from them ; for they were taken with great fear : and
he went up into the ship, and returned back again. Now
the man out of whom the devils were departed besought him
that he might be with him : but Jesus sent him away, say-
ing, Return to thine own house, and show how great things
God hath done for thee. And he went his way, and pub-
lished throughout the whole city how great things Jesus had
done unto him. — Luke viii. 26 — 39.
The passage which is parallel to this, and which
contains in substance the same sentiment, in
words little different, is in Mark v., where we
read, " And they come to Jesus, and see him
that was possessed with a devil, and had the
legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right
mind : and they were afraid. And when Jesus
was come into the ship, he that had been pos-
sessed with the devil prayed him that he might
be with him. Howbeit Jesus suffered him not,
but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and
tell them how great things the Lord hath done
for thee, and hath had compassion on thee. And
he departed, and began to publish in Decapolis
[that is, in the city] how great things Jesus had
done for him : and all men did marvel."
In my last lecture I described at length
the historical portion of the very remarkable,
NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 387
and, in some respects, difficult miracle, trie re-
cord of which. I have now read. I do not here
recapitulate, but proceed to notice two grand
features in the close of the parable : first, the
position in which the man was found ; and, se-
condly, the duty which our Lord devolved upon
him.
The position in which he was found, we are
told, was sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed,
and in his right mind. How interesting is this
spectacle ! how appropriate the seat selected by
the recovered demoniac ! It was the place of
nearness to Jesus, and intimate communion with
him. From that blessed source he had received a
great and unspeakable blessing, and to that Lord
his love and gratitude taught him to cling and
cleave closer and closer. Perhaps he selected
this place also as the site of safety. The man
feared that there might be a return of the evil
spirits that had departed from him, and there-
fore he sat near to him who alone was mighty to
exorcise them, and in whose presence alone he
thought he would be able to prevent their ulti-
mate return. Or perhaps his sitting at the feet of
Jesus may denote that, having been delivered
from the grievous curse under which he groaned,
2 c 2
388 FORESHADOWS.
he may have now been seeking that instruction
which was requisite to guide and to direct him.
I need not say that sitting at the feet of one is a
Scripture phrase for becoming a pupil or scholar
to one. Thus, we read that God called Abraham
to his feet — that is, placed Abraham in the posi-
tion and relation of a pupil to be instructed by
God, the great Teacher of his family. Thus, we
read that Saul was brought up at the feet of
Gamaliel — that is, was taught by him. Mary sat
at the feet of Jesus — that is, listened to him, and
learned from his lips new lessons of love, respon-
sibility, and duty. Thus the recovered Gadarene
sat at the feet of Jesus, seeking, no doubt, to be
instructed by him. And so far he is a precedent
for us. If we have felt the power of Christ as
our Deliverer from condemnation, our very first
duty is to draw near to him and ask him to be
our Teacher also. We need not only emancipation
from the curse of sin by his most precious blood,
but also direction, teaching, instruction, line
upon line, from his holy and sacred lips. And
if we go to him, he will teach us to count all but
loss for the excellency of him who has saved us
with a hi^h hand and an outstretched arm ; to
prefer a day in his courts to a thousand in the
NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 389
gates of sin ; to leave all we love, and brave all
we dread, and follow him ; he will teach us to
rest in him, and wait patiently for him, in all
time of our tribulation ; to do justly, and to love
mercy, and to walk humbly with our God.
What occurred in the case of the demoniac is
only a foreshadow of what will take place in the
state of all creation. The author of that power
which racks the earth is Satan, the great usurper ;
the cause of atrocious crimes, the source of
many an evil, unholy, and awful suggestion, is
the presence, not of a figment, a fiction, or a
figure, as infidels imagine, but of a personal
being, possessed of the archangel's wisdom, the
fiend's depravity, and the archangel's power to
use that wisdom and apply that depravity to
mankind. But the day comes, we are told,
when Satan shall fall like lightning from hea-
ven ; when this earth, that groans and travails,
waiting to be delivered, shall be healed, and its
fever laid, and the demons cast out, and holi-
ness, and happiness, and beauty, and loyalty,
and love shall overflow all like a mighty and
unfathomable sea. This demoniac recovered was
an earnest of it. I explained in previous pas-
sages, that the miracles of our Lord were not
390 FORESHADOWS.
simply acts of power, or expressions of benefi-
cence, but that they were earnests, foreshadows,
pledges of trie grand and universal emancipation
that will yet dawn upon the world. What is
miracle now will be nature in the age to come.
Our discoveries and our sciences are efforts to
hasten its arrival, and to actualize the prophecies
that predict it. What is medicine ? It is, if I
may so speak, a portion of the virtue the woman
received from the skirt of Jesus' garment,
left to tell us that disease is not supreme, that
there are portions left of his remedial powers,
that we are not to despair, but to hope. There
is enough in medicine to keep us from despair ;
there is not enough to prevent us from longing
for the great Physician to come and heal all :
there is just enough to be an earnest and a pledge
of that universal redemption when there shall be
no more sickness, nor sorrow, nor death.
Having noticed this position, Avhich is perhaps
the least important and instructive, I now pro-
ceed to examine one that, to my mind, is exceed-
ingly beautiful and interesting. The demoniac
went to Jesus, and begged of him that he might
be allowed to remain with him, or to accompany
him. Jesus said to him, " No, go home, and tell
NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 391
your family what great things God has done for
you." Why did the demoniac recovered wish to
be with Jesus, and so to accompany him in all
his travels and his journeys ? He might perhaps
have recollected, not the words, because he had
not been taught them, but the fact of which the
words are the description, recorded in the Gospel
of St. Matthew, chap. xii. 43. " When the un-
clean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh
through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth
none. Then he saith, I will return into my own
house from whence I came out ; and when he is
come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished.
Then goeth he, and taketh with him 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." The poor man
expected some such recurrence as this, at least
he feared it; he no doubt rejoiced in the de-
liverance he had felt, but he rejoiced with trem-
bling. He was alarmed lest the spirits that
had left him should return with more, and
should take possession of him again, and so his
last state should be worse than the first. There-
fore he says, " Let me be with him that de-
livered me, for he alone can defend me ; let
392 FORESHADOWS.
me be with, him that had power to expel the
demons that dwelt in me, for in him alone shall
I find a sure shelter from their next desperate
assault." But is there not embodied in the con-
duct of this poor recovered man a precedent for
us ? If we have obtained any thing from Christ
for which we feel thankful, we shall be jealous
lest we lose it. If we have received the forgive-
ness of our sins, the spirit of adoption for the
spirit of bondage, if we have obtained joy for
sorrow, and hope for despair, we shall be anx-
ious to guard the precious and deeply valued
deposit thus mercifully intrusted to our charge.
"What can be more natural than to flee to him
who gave the blessing in his goodness, in order
that he may guard it by his power in the bo-
som in which he has implanted it. He has
little who is not alive to the defence of that little.
A life that comes from Christ will ever creep
close to Christ for its maintenance ; and a bless-
ing that we feel to have been derived from his
hand, we shall beg of him in his goodness to
preserve unimpaired, and to perpetuate it to us
and ours. But perhaps the reason of the man's
clinging to him may have been to give expression
to the deep love that he felt to him. We
NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 393
need not wonder that this poor man felt new
emotions under so new and unexpected circum-
stances. He had been accustomed to run wild
among the tombs, to howl like a maniac amid
the desert-hills, to shrink from contact with man
and communion with society, as means of aggra-
vating, not removing, the dire curse under which
he groaned ; the first spot he had gazed upon
m calm complacency for many a year, was that
beautiful and Divine face which looked upon him
in his ruin, and restored him from the oppression
of the evil one into the light and life and liberty,
not only of rational men, but of the children of
God ; and when he came to his right mind and
felt no demons raging within, and saw no swine
feeding without, but himself and that Divine
countenance only, that looked as never man's
countenance looked, gazing upon him, his ad-
miration fixed him to the spot, his love made
him look long and intensely on him, and love
made him cling closer to him, and pray for per-
mission that where he lodged he might lodge,
and where Jesus went he might go, that his
God might be his God, and Christ's people his
people. Is there in this no precedent also for
us ? Once we were— not indeed demoniacs li-
894 FORESHADOWS.
terally, but we were so in a worse sense than
the demoniac ; for Judas, though not a demo
niac, was possessed by the devil in a more
awful sense than Mary Magdalene or the Gada-
rene whose history we are reading. We were
once, then, demoniacs, without the irresponsibi-
lity of the Gadarene, wandering amid the tombs
of time, and many in the charnel-houses of cor-
ruption, decay, and darkness, without God, with-
out Christ, aliens to what is holy, beautiful, and
true. Christ looked upon us in our ruin, and
said, " Live;" the strong man entered our bosoms
and expelled the strong usurper, who had long
possessed them. And if we know this fact — for
if we do not know it, awful and perilous is our
position — then are we instinctively constrained to
exclaim, " Lord, to whom can we go but unto
thee ? Thou hast the words of eternal life. It
is good for me to be here. Thou wilt never
leave me, and I will never leave thee, my Lord,
my all and in all ! "
But whatever were the motives that made the
Gadarene demoniac, when recovered from his
possession, cleave to Jesus, we have the actual
answer that Christ gave him, " Return to thine
own house, and show how great things God has
NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 395
clone for you." There seems to be a contradic-
tion in Christ's conduct ; of course, only seeming,
not real — like all the alleged contradictions in
the Bible— apparent, not actual. We find, for in-
stance, in this very same eighth chapter of Luke,
that he restores the daughter of Jairus. One
says, " Thy daughter is dead; trouble not the
Master. But when Jesus heard it, he answered
him, saying, Fear not : believe only, and she
shall be made whole. And when he came into
the house, he suffered no man to go in, save
Peter, and James, and John, and the father and
the mother of the maiden. They all wept and
bewailed her : but he said, Weep not : she is
not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him
to scorn, knowing that she was dead. And he
put them all out, and took her by the hand, and
called, saying, Maid, arise. And her spirit came
again, and she arose straightway : and he com-
manded to give her meat. And her parents were
astonished ; but he charged them that they should
tell no man what was done." It seems strange,
that in the one case he should tell the man that
was healed to go and tell every body, and that
in the other case, I quote one amid many, he
should tell the healed person, or the relatives of
396 FORESHADOWS.
the healed person, to tell no one. Why is this ?
Christ saw and read the heart, the habits, the
tastes, the temperaments of those he spoke to.
In the one case, when he said, " Tell no one ;"
he saw a loquacious person who would meditate
little and talk incessantly, and therefore he says,
" tell no one ;" and in the other case, he saw a
gloomy, melancholy person, who would brood
over the past, and fear for the future, and to
him he said, " Go in the exercise of active bene-
volence, and tell everybody." The prescription
for the after-recovery, or the after-lesson, was
accommodated to the temperament of the person
to whom it was addressed. Now when he said
to this person, " Go and tell what great things
the Lord has done for you," and when the man
said, and showed by his conduct, that he would
rather cleave to Jesus, and be with him, we have
in this indirect but striking evidence of the di-
vinity of the character of Jesus. A mere com-
mon wonder-worker would have been too glad
of having a living specimen of his great power
to accompany him into all lands, and to be the
dumb but expressive evidence of the virtue that
the wonder-worker possessed ; but Jesus had no
such feeling : he was a man, but he was also
NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 397
more than man; he showed the recovery to a
sufficient number of witnesses ; but more than
that he wanted not yet. His kingdom was not
yet coming with observation ; it was the silent,
penetrating leaven, that was to work its way
by the omnipotence of love. It was not to be ac-
companied by the noise, pomp, and grandeur
of a majestic procession. There was no osten-
tation in any thing that Jesus did ; there was
enough in all he did for evidence, there was
nothing for display. I have no doubt Jesus not
only spoke many words that are not written in
this book, but did many things that are not re-
corded here : many a broken heart did he heal,
that we shall only hear of at the last day. The
miracles that are recorded, are given here as
evidences of miracles that are unrecorded, and
were the expressions of that untiring beneficence
which embraced the highest, and condescended
to the lowest, and the weakest, and the most
worthless even of mankind. In the commis-
sion of Jesus to the recovered demoniac we
have this great lesson taught us — that he that
receives the largest blessing from Christ is bound
to go and be the largest and most untiring dis-
tributer of that blessing. We receive not for
398 FORESHADOWS.
ourselves, but for diffusion ; we taste the efficacy
of the prescription, that we may go forth and
praise, and exalt, and proclaim the great Phy-
sician. No heart will so overflow with love as
that which has been healed by the Saviour's
touch ; no lips will be so eloquent as those, once
dumb, that have been opened by the Saviour's
finger ; no tongue will speak with the thrilling
and persuasive accents of his which Jesus has
unloosed. Our Lord will not infringe this ordi-
nance : he will lose an ever-accompanying witness
to his power, rather than interrupt the grand law,
that we are made sons that we may become serv-
ants, that we receive that we may distribute. All
experience will show us that he that has, and
refuses to give, will not long have ; and that he
that knows, and refuses to make known, will not
long have any thing worth making known.
The command of Jesus reveals another great
lesson, precious and instructive. In answer to
the man's desire to be with Christ — " Let me be
with you, let me sit at thy feet for ever ; let me
follow thee whither thou goest" — Jesus says,
" Go, and tell what the Lord has done for you."
This teaches us — and I mean this for the
young, who have spare time — that the way, if
NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 399
we are Christians, to be with Christ, and to be
with him most closely, is to go out and labour
for Christ with the greatest diligence. In other
words, God teaches us here, that we are never
so near to Christ as when, in his spirit and in
his name, we are doing his work and fulfilling
his will. The Sunday-school teacher, therefore,
that denies himself many a sweet privilege and
many an easy hour ; the tract distributor, the
Bible colporteur the missionary, the visitor of
the sick, who are all denying themselves pri-
vileges to outward sense, are yet in truth drink-
ing deeper of them; they are all apparently
losing sweet communion with Christ — they are
all really leaning on his bosom, walking with
him closer, drinking deeper into his joys, because
they are labouring in his work and for his
name's sake. Active co-operation with Jesus is
the way of nearest communion with him.
We learn also this lesson — that labouring for
Christ according to Christ's command, is the
very way to enjoy the greatest happiness that
results from being with Christ, This man sought
to be with Christ, that he might thus be safe
from the reflux of the demons, and might realize
perpetually the joy which he then felt. Christ
400 FORESHADOWS.
says to him, " The way to bask perpetually in
the light of my countenance, is to go out on my
errands." Labour for Christ and happiness from
Christ are twins that are never separated; the
first-born is labour, the second-born is happi-
ness. In the future world labour is happiness,
and happiness is labour. Indolence and inac-
tivity are not known among the blessed. In
this world labour is the introduction to happi-
ness, and without labour for Christ we shall
never taste, in all its serene beauty, the hap-
piness that flows from communion with Christ.
Christ gives the soul, first, a sweet sense of
pardoning love, and then he says, " Go and
work in my vineyard." " If ye love me, keep
my commandments." So he gives the promise,
" Go and teach all nations — and lo ! I am with
you;" but, " go and refuse to teach all nations,
and instantly I depart from you." The teaching
toil on our part, and the presence of the Saviour
on his part, are inseparable. This is a right
precious truth ! Let us try to recollect that the
working hand and the happy heart are insepar-
able : it is God's great ordinance, that we shall
enjoy Christ's love and peace and happiness only
in doing his work in his name and in his spirit.
NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 401
A poor monk, who, in spite of his cowl, seems
from the fact to have been one of God's hidden
ones, was one day, according to a mediaeval
legend, meditating in his cell. A glorious vision
burst upon him, it is recorded, with the brilli-
ancy of noon-day, and revealed in its bosom the
" Man of sorrows," the " acquainted with grief."
The monk was gazing on the spectacle charmed,
delighted, adoring. The convent bell rang;
and that bell was the daily signal for the monk
to go to the poor that were crowding round the
convent gate, and distribute bread and frag-
ments of food among them. The monk hesitated
whether he should remain to enjoy the splendid
apocalypse, or should go out to do the daily
drudgery that belonged to him. At last he de-
cided on the latter ; he left the vision with re-
gret, and went out at the bidding of the bell to
distribute the alms, and bread, and crumbs
among the poor. He returned, of course expect-
ing that, because of his not seeming to appre-
ciate it, the vision would be darkened ; but to his
surprise, when he returned, the vision was there
still, and on his expressing his amazement that
his apparent want of appreciating it and being
thankful for it should be overlooked, and that
2 D
402 FORESHADOWS.
the vision should still continue in augmented
splendour, a voice came from the lips of the
Saviour it revealed, which said, "If you had
stayed, I had not."
This may be a legend, but it teaches a great
lesson — that active duty in Christ's name and
for Christ's sake is the way to retain the vision
of his peace in all its permanence and power.
The peace that passeth understanding keepeth
our hearts and minds continually, while our
hands and feet are actively engaged in Christ's
work.
While quoting from this incident of the monk,
I may state that the very passage I am now
commenting on condemns monasticism, monkery,
quietude, and the varied asceticism in which the
mystics of former ages prided themselves. I say
all. these are condemned by the simple fact, that
active love is nobler than meditative love ; that
gazing on Christ and communion with him are
not to be the end in this age, but only the
means toward an end, which is work for Christ.
Try to stay with Christ in order to enjoy ex-
clusively his presence, and he will leave you ;
go forth, as it were, in obedience to Christ's
command, to do his will, and he will continue
NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 403
with you. Go out, forgetting self in your sym-
pathy with the sorrows of a brother, and you
will find that Christ will most manifest himself
to you, and that you will enjoy the greatest hap-
piness.
The next lesson we learn from the sequel of
this miracle, is this — that as Christ, in healing
the demoniac, had an object beyond him, so, in
healing us, he has an object beyond us. Let us
ever recollect and act upon this great and im-
portant truth. " Let not every man," says the
apostle, "look upon his own things, but also
upon the things of others." " As every man,"
he says, " has received the good gift, let him
minister the same one to another, as good stewards
of the manifold grace of God." Whoever, there-
fore, toils and labours for the good of others,
always feels himself happiest in so doing ; and
whoever tries to monopolize the happiness he
has for his own enjoyment, to the neglect of
others, is generally the most miserable. The
words in our language denoting the highest
happiness are words that mean living beyond
self, getting out of self, standing outside of self:
"ecstasy," extasis, standing without one's self;
" rapture," from rapio, to be carried away from
2 d 2
404 FORESHADOWS.
one's self; " transport," transporto, to be carried
beyond one's self: every word that denotes the
highest enjoyment, also involves the least self-
ishness. Human nature, apart from sanctified
human nature, can testify that there is no music
so thrilling as the accents of the voice that thanks
us for the goodness you have done its pos-
sessor ; and that no countenance beams so beau-
tifully to our eye as the countenance of the
orphan and the widow made to rejoice by our
beneficence.
The poor man's desire was to remain with
Christ ; Christ's command to him was, Go and
engage in active duties for Christ. Did the man
obey ? Instantly, and seemingly without reluct-
ance, for it is added, He went and proclaimed in
Decapolis the great things that Christ had done
for him. Is not this an example for us ? Our
desires and our duties may very often clash : we
may desire one thing, while duty, with its stern
tapering finger, may point to us the very oppo-
site. We are to sacrifice our desires to our
duties, and never our duties to our desires ; we
are to leave the warm fire-side when duty bids
us, and brave the storm, and engage in the rough
conflicts of human life ; we are to launch forth
NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 405
from the quiet and sheltered haven when Christ
commands, and to cross the stormy and tempes-
tuous sea, saying, in reference to duties, what we
are taught to say in reference to trials, " Not as
I will, but as thou wilt, O Lord."
But there is something very instructive, too,
in the place that the Saviour bade this recovered
demoniac go to. He says, " Go home, and pro-
claim." He does not say, " Go into the midst of
the venerable sanhedrim, or into the synagogues
of the land, and there proclaim what I have done
for you ;" but, " Go home, and do it." An-
other lesson is this for us ! The first impulse
of many a young Christian, when his eyes have
been opened, and his heart has been touched, is
to go and be a preacher of the gospel, to ascend
the pulpit, to lift up his voice in the forum, to
call upon men to believe in the midst of the
market-place itself. There may be much in this
that is pure, but there is something of alloy in it
too. We would rather all of us prefer to be
the splendid lights that shine upon the world,
that men will see and be dazzled with, than the
quiet salt that gradually penetrates the world,
and, without noise and without observation,
makes all like itself. Our Lord, knowing this
406 FORESHADOWS.
temperament of ours, says to the demoniac, " Not
to the sanhedrim, nor to the synagogue ; but go
back (what we say to every Christian) to the
sphere in which providence has placed you, and
into that sphere bring the glorious riches with
which grace has enriched you. The gospel is not
a scene-shifter, but a heart-changer ; the gospel
bids the new man go back into the old place ; it
bids him go into the little pulpit that is at every
man's fire-side, and try his hand there, before he
go into the greater pulpit, and speak to the whole
congregation. Test your missionary powers at
home before you try them in the school, in the
congregation, the wide world of mankind.
But there is more in this commission of Jesus
than even this. I believe there is here a special
allusion to that most musical word in our language
— a word almost peculiar in significance to the
English language, and, it is said, though far be
it from me to dej)reciate other lands, almost pe-
culiar to the Saxon land — namely, home! I
know not a word more precious. Legislators in
the parliament have too much looked on men as
individuals and nations ; ministers in the pulpit
have too much looked at them as individuals and
congregations ; but there is a sphere, a place
NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 407
more precious than the nation, because it feeds
the nation; more precious than the congrega-
tion, because what it is the congregation will
be— that is, the home. The little home, the
family, is the fountain that feeds with a pure
and noble population the large home, which is
the country. Loyalty, and love, and happiness
in Britain's homes, will make loyalty, and hap-
piness, and love be reflected from Britain's altars
and from Britain's shores. There may be stmob,
or there may be slaves ; but let statesmen recol-
lect there cannot be a people unless there be a
home. I repeat, there may be in a country
slaves, or there may be mobs, but there cannot
be in a country a people, the people, unless it be
a country of holy and happy homes. And he that
helps to elevate, sustain, ennoble, and sanctify the
homes of a country, contributes more to its glory,
its beauty, its permanence, than all its legislators,
its laws, its literature, its science, its poetry to-
gether. Our Lord began at the first home that
was found at Bethabara beyond Jordan — the
home of Andrew and Peter ; and starting from it,
he carried the glorious gospel of which he was
the author into the home of Mary and Martha at
Bethany, of Cornelius the centurion, of Lydia, of
408 FORESHADOWS.
the gaoler of Philippi, of Crispus, and finally of
Timothy; and these consecrated and converted
homes became multiplying foci amid the world's
darkness, till the scattered and ever multiplying
lights shall be gathered one day into one broad
blaze, that shall illuminate and make glad the
wide world. Let us begin at home, but let us
not stop there. It is groups of homes that make
a congregation ; it is clusters of congregations
that make a country. So Jesus felt and acted.
All along the shores of the lake of Gennesareth
there might be detected successive and innu-
merable homes illumined by the light of truth,
and at morn and even-tide echoing with the glad
voices of praise and adoration. The poor leper,
who was long exiled from society, and dare not
approach it, is restored to his home ; and we can
well conceive, that when the restored father
mingled with his family again, its roof-tree rang
with most musical songs, and the hearts within
it beat with joy inexpressibly full. A fair
maiden is smitten down in her prime ; the Sa-
viour sees the dead body laid on the bier, and
feels for the weepers that stand around it. He
speaks to her, Talitha cami, and the maid
arose, and came again to life and light; and
NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 409
that bright flower bloomed in the vase of that
happy home more beautiful because the look of
Jesus had given it new tints, and the breath of
Jesus had given it new fragrance. A son is
carried on his bier to his last resting-place, the
only son of a widow to whom he was the whole
support ; Jesus speaks to him, and he is restored
to his widowed mother again. Can we doubt
that in that family, thus made glad, the name of
Jesus was mentioned with the joyful reverence
due to the name of God, and yet with the fre-
quency and fervour of the dearest household
word? God passed before Moses of old, and
proclaimed himself " the Lord, the Lord God,
merciful and gracious, long-suffering, forgiving
iniquity, transgression, and sin ;" but I see a
procession not less glorious follow the " Man
of sorrows;" he walks amid the homes of Je-
rusalem, amid the broken hearts that throb
around Gennesareth, and in his majestic, yet
peaceful and quiet, march, he shows himself re-
alizing what Moses had only heard proclaimed,
" the Lord God, merciful and gracious." He
touches one, and there is life ; he lays his finger
on the complaining lips of another, and they
complain no more ; he casts one bright look upon
410 FORESHADOWS.
a third, and the home is happy ; he speaks one
word to a fourth, and it goes into the very
heart's depths; and thus Christ rejoiced to make
desolate and dreary homes glad, that we, in
imitation of his example, may go and begin our
mission at home, and exert our Christian phi-
lanthropy.
Conceive, if you can, the return of the man
whose recovery is recorded in this passage. He
went home, and proclaimed not only there, but
in all Decapolis, what God had done for him.
Conceive, if you can, the picture realized in his
reception. He turns his face quietly to his
home the first time, perhaps, for years — the first
time, at least, that he recollects. One child of
his, looking from the casement, sees the father
return, and gives the alarm : every door is doubly
bolted ; the mother and children cling together
in one group, lest the supposed still fierce demo-
niac, who had so often torn and assailed them
before, should again tear and utterly destroy
them. But a second child, looking, calls out,
" My father is clothed; before he was not clothed
at all." A third child shouts to the mother, " My
father is not only clothed, but he comes home so
quietly, so beautifully, that he looks as when he
NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 411
dandled us upon his knee, kissed us, and told us
sweet and interesting stories: can this be he?"
A fourth exclaims, " It is my father, and he seems
so gentle, and so quiet, and so beautiful — come,
my mother, and see." The mother, not believ-
ing it to be true, but wishing it were so, runs
and looks with sceptical belief; and lo ! it is the
dead one alive, it is the lost one found, it is the
naked one clothed, it is the demon-possessed
one, holy, happy, peaceful ; and when he comes
and mingles with that glad and welcoming
household, the group upon the threshold grows
too beautiful before my imagination for me to
attempt to delineate, and its hearts are too happy
for human language to express. The recovered
crosses the threshold, and the inmates welcome
him home to their fire-side. The father gathers
his children around him, while his wife sits and
listens, and is not weary with listening the whole
day and the whole night, as he tells them how
one who proclaimed himself to be the Messiah,
who is the Prophet promised to the fathers, the
Wonderful, the Counsellor, the mighty God, the
everlasting Father, the Prince of peace, spake to
him, exorcised the demons, and restored him to
his right mind, and made him happy. In that
412 FORESHADOWS.
family their past morning and evening desires
and prayers had been, " Oh that the Messiah
would come ; oh that salvation were come out of
Israel;" but that day's delightful privileges, and
that day's most precious domestic communion,
they closed not with prayer for a deliverer to
come, but with praise for one who was come —
" Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is he
that is come in the name of the Lord ; unto
whom, even to Jesus, be glory and honour, and
thanksgiving and praise." Amen.
The Restored Son.
P. 413.
LECTURE XV.
THE RESTORED SON.
And it came to pass the day after, that he went into a city
called Nain ; and many 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 she was a widow .- and much people of the
city was with her. And when the Lord 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 unto thee, Arise. And
he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And he de-
livered him to his mother. And there came a fear on all :
and they glorified God, saying, That a great prophet is risen
up among us ; and, That God hath visited his people. And
this rumour of him went forth throughout all Judaea, and
throughout all the region round about. And the disciples of
John showed him of all these tilings. — Luke vii. 11 — 18.
It appears, from the period at which we are
arrived in the ministry of Jesus, that, in order to
perform the miracle related in the passage I have
read, our Lord had to pass through a small city,
called Nain, to reach the place of his destination,
Jerusalem. Accidentally, the thoughtless world
414 FORESHADOWS.
would say,, not by the pre -arrangement and in the
determined providence of God, the Saviour came
to the gate of the city of Nain just as the funeral
procession passed by. The circumstance of the
funeral procession being found in the gate of the
city is explained by the fact I have stated several
times before — that interments were not allowed
within the walls of cities in ancient times, the
bodies of the departed were always conveyed
through the gate and beyond the walls of the
city, to a suitable place appointed for the inter-
ment.
It appears, that on this occasion much people
followed the widow of Nain as she accompanied
the remains of her only son to their last resting-
place. They no doubt did so to express the
respect they felt for her ; to be, in some degree,
a ministry of comfort and sympathy. And you
know that there are losses, calamities, and sor-
rows which no man can remove, but which any
feeling man can mitigate by sympathizing in them
and with them. This was all they felt they could
do to the widow bereaved of her son ; and that
little they felt it their privilege and their duty to
do. You that cannot help the poor can express
your sympathy with them ; you that from po-
THE RESTORED SON. 415
verty cannot give a penny to the destitute, can
give the expression of your best wishes, the ut-
terance of your sincerest prayers. Sympathy
with hunger ever softens it ; sympathy with rags
ever mitigates the misery of them ; and if we
cannot give (for it is only in such circumstances
that sympathy can be a substitute) there is no
one that cannot sympathize, because there is no
man who has not a heart that was designed of
God to do so.
The depth and extent of this poor woman's
affliction is expressed in few words, but these elo-
quently significant. She had lost her husband
— she had now lost her son : the first prop of the
house was gone — the last remaining prop was
swept away ; she was a widow, and she mourned
the loss of an only son. There is no one loss re-
ferred to in Scripture, which is spoken of as so
deep, severe, and painful, as the loss of an only
son : thus, in Zech. xii. 10, " They shall mourn
for her as one mourneth for an only son ;" de-
noting the intensest bitterness. And in Amos
viii. 10, " And I will make it as the mourning of
an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day."
A Jewish wife felt it a calamity not to have a
son, but it was the most terrible calamity when
416 FORESHADOWS.
the only son, the stay and the hope of the home,
was removed by the hand of death. T\ e have,
in these words, an instance of those touches in
Scripture, where one chord is only gently stir-
red, and a thousand vibrate with it ; where one
word only is uttered, but a whole chapter of
thought is instantly kindled and called into
being by it.
It is said when Jesus saw her thus weeping,,
and following the remains of her son, he said to
her, " Weep not." The words uttered by any
other than by the Son of God would have
been absurd : to say to a widow following the
remains of her only son, "Weep not," is al-
most to insult her. If there had not been be-
hind the words " Weep not " a latent beneficence
that was to make real by deeds what was here
audible in words, it would have been an insult.
When we visit the mourner — the one that
mourns as this widow and mother mourned,
never let us say after the first blow of calamity,
" Weep not." Who does not know that there are
times when grief is so great that it needs an echo
in the sympathizer, not an attempt to arrest it ?
The worst consolation we can give is to say,
" Why do you weep ? It is not proper to weep
THE RESTORED SOX. 417
so ; it is not right." God never warrants us in
saying so. When the grief is so bitter, the best
way to comfort the weeper is to " weep with
them that weep/' and give an echo to that grief,
as a response from our heart, showing that
we have a fellow-feeling. We shall give more
consolation by this than by all the little hack-
neyed, common-place truisms that are called
comforts, which many, like Job's miserable com-
forters, try to deal out. But from the lips of
Jesus these words, which were inappropriate in
others, were sufficiently appropriate, because his
word was not a mere sound ; it was always ac-
companied with power ; it embodied in it be-
neficence ; it carried healing under its wings ;
it translated itself into deeds ; so that whatever
he said was no sooner said than it was done.
Therefore, when Jesus said " Weep not," he did
not say, (t Be the stoic, and cease to be the
woman ; " but, " Be the woman, and weep now,
but prepare instantly to be comforted." How*
beautiful are these words now, even in their
diluted echo ! They are a reverberation from the
future, when he shall call to the heart of all
humanity, "Weep not;" when what is now
prophesied, " He shall wipe all tears from all
2 E
418 FORESHADOWS.
eyes," — literally translated out of all eyes, — shall
be realized. I may perhaps explain that the
Hebrew word which means " the eye " also
means " a fountain ; " and when it says " He shall
wipe all tears from all eyes/' the idea of a foun-
tain is clearly present. The word wipe not only
means to remove, but to sponge out, to com-
pletely exterminate. He will not only take away
the tears, which may be succeeded, as it is in
this world, by other tears, but he will extinguish
the very springs and founts of tears, so that to
weep shall be impossible, as it shall be unneces-
sary. The day comes, then, when that which is
now prophecy shall then be performance ; and
" Weep not " addressed to all redeemed humanity
shall instantly be followed by the fulfilment of
that prophecy in which we have hoped and
trusted : " He shall wipe away all tears from all
eyes."
Yet when Jesus performed this miracle which
•we are now to consider, he did not do it sim-
ply and exclusively to comfort the mother. I
say the great design of this miracle (and this
warrants the other lessons which I draw from it)
was not simply to comfort and console the
mother. He could have comforted her by the
THE RESTORED SON. 419
recollection of her dead son just as truly as by
the presence of a restored and living son. Be-
sides, we cannot suppose that any one being upon
earth exists or gets life merely as means to serve
another — merely as an instrument for another's
comfort or for another's purposes, and nothing
more. Man is far greater than this : he has a dis-
tinct reference to God, to eternity, to truth; and
he is not merely born to give comfort to another
— that is only one end. The consolation of the
mother was the nearest thing, the most visible re-
sult, but it was not the ultimate and the only
thing. That young man was raised, I have no
doubt, his body from the tomb, and his soul
brought back from its home, not merely to comfort
the weeping widow, but to be also a minister of
beneficence and goodness to her, to be the priest
of the house in which he had long been the pillar :
so that that mother should not only have the joy
of her son brought back from the dead to beautify
and re-build her home, but she should also have
the joy of the Lord, which would be a greater
strength, in his talking to her not only of what
Christ had done but of what Christ was — " the
light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of his
people Israel."
2 e 2
420 FORESHADOWS.
We read that our Lord, when he saw the
funeral procession, touched the bier, and said to
the young man, " Young man, I say unto thee,
Arise." Strange, mysterious address ! The dead,
pale, lifeless, insensitive body, stiff with the
rigours of death, is addressed by Jesus in words
that would make the experience of humanity
smile : " I say unto thee, young man, Arise."
And instantly animal life warmed every vein and
artery and limb, and — more mysterious still ! —
the soul came from the place where it was, and
took possession of that body : these words, so
softly spoken by the lips of Jesus, were heard
by that soul, wherever it was, louder, than the
peal of the last trumpet, and instantly it came,
and entered again its forsaken shrine, and the
young man arose, and looked, and spake. When
he thus arose, and looked, and spake, we may
notice that nothing is said as to what the conver-
sation was. I look upon this, and the sequel of
the resurrection of Lazarus too, as indirect evi-
dence of not only the grand dignity but of the
inspiration of this blessed book. If this story
had been got up by a regular story-teller — if the
Avhole of these incidents were a mere figment of
the fancy — if it were not the actual record of an
THE RESTORED SOX. 421
actual occurrence ; the author, and every such
teller of a story, would have given whole pages
of the conversation of the young man on his re-
turn to this world : we should have heard from
him what he felt when he left the body, where
the wings that were then imparted to him carried
him, what porches he passed through, what
bright apocalypse he saw in the better land,
what company he had, what converse he heard,
what songs he joined in, what spectacles he
witnessed — all these would have been told with
great minuteness, and at great length ; and the
story-teller would have done it with the greater
boldness, because he knew that no wing could
follow him to see the district he described, and
confront him with refutation or the evidences of
its reality. But the silence of Scripture in this
respect is positively sublime. The perfect si-
lence on the part of Lazarus, the no less strict
silence on the part of the daughter of Jairus, and
on the part of the young man, the absence of
the slightest hint of what he saw, what death
was, what he felt, what he heard, is to me indi-
rect evidence that the penman here was inspired
by a higher than man, that the record here is
the record of an actual fact, and that the holy
4:22 FORESHADOWS.
evangelist wrote this dignified record inspired
by the Spirit of God.
When the young man was raised from the
dead, we read that Jesus delivered him to his
mother. There is something in this act very
beautiful. Jesus did not say to the young man,
" Now you have experienced my power, you are
a monument of my goodness, come with me,
leave your mother, and follow me." He might
have done so, and in other circumstances, in the
performance of different miracles, he did so ; but
here, with that exquisite sympathy with human
relationship, with that true human heart which
Jesus had, besides his divine nature, he felt for
that mother's sorrow, and he who breathed in his
last agonies from the cross, " Son, behold thy
mother," in this, his ministry of power and be-
neficence, took care to dry a mother's tears, and
bring back the full warm tide of a mother's joy
and delight — " he delivered him to his mother."
These words alone are sufficient ; all that I can
say upon them is only to mar their grand sug-
gestive simplicity. He delivered him to his
mother, that mother received him. She had
once joy that a man-child was born; but what
joy that such a man-child was restored from the
THE RESTORED SON. 423
dead and placed beside her again ! And ever,
no doubt, as she listened to his voice, she
heard mingling with it the words, " I say unto
thee, young man, Arise ; " and ever as she gazed
upon that only son's countenance, she could see
there not the likeness of his father only, but also
mingling with those features the bright beams of
that countenance which was more marred than
any man's ; and ever as she received from that
son comfort, joy, or daily bread, thankfully
she took the blessing that the son bestowed, but
she looked behind and beyond and above the
son, and gave the glory to him who had restored
the son to her. How beautiful, we may well
conceive, then, did that old home look to that
new couple, the mother and the son, who re-
turned to it ! It was in their eyes re-conse-
crated and re-built by the word and by the hand
of Jesus ; and the recollection of that mercy thus
vouchsafed at the gate of Nain made its lintel
and door-post and fire-side and roof glow with
new lustre ; it made their songs at morning and
at even-tide more heartfelt ; it became a little
sanctuary ; their renewed life had new signifi-
cance, and became, as it were, a perpetual
sacrament. Depend upon it, they never forgot
424 FORESHADOWS.
that gate of the city of Nain, nor those words
uttered by Jesus, nor the infinite obligation they
owed him as the Lord of life.
But I should notice also, in alluding to the
expression, " He delivered him to his mother,"
that there may be in this — and I am sure there
is in it — a foreshadow of that which shall be
at the grand resurrection of the pious dead ;
that the delivery of this son to the mother is
only a type and an earnest of what shall be when
every restored son shall be delivered to his re-
joicing mother, and the joy that was felt in the
home at Nam shall only be a dim, dim forelight
of that intenser joy that shall be felt in the hea-
venly home when all lost relationship shall be
restored, all suspended communion shall be re-
sumed, and each shall know the other, and reci-
procate each other's joys, and sing as they never
sang before that new song which is ever new
and never old, because it never wearies, and can
never be exhausted.
It is said that the effect of this restoration
was first felt, or early felt, by the multitude.
" When they saw it," it is said, " they glorified
God, and said, A great prophet is come, for he
hath visited his people." The multitude were
THE RESTORED SOX. 425
eye-witnesses ; they saw the funeral, they beheld
the dead young man, they heard the words of
Jesus, "Arise," and they saw the young man
rise. And this gospel record of it was written
and circulated whilst many of these persons were
alive, who might and would have stood up and
denied its truth if it had not been the actual nar-
rative of truth. The multitude exclaimed, u A
great prophet is come : " perhaps they meant
it was the prophet, the true prophet that Moses
promised, like unto him, raised up from among
their brethren, and to whom they should give
heed in all things.
We have thus, then, the procession, the dead,
the living, the restored, the home made happy.
The sun dawned that morning upon a weeping
family and a miserable home ; the sun set that
evening upon a happy mother and a rejoicing
son. That night looked brighter than the sun-
niest day. It seemed to them as if it were a
new day. Let us now learn some lessons from
all this.
The first I would desire to learn is, that
Jesus was truly, strictly, literally, man. " He
had compassion on him : " " he was," as we are
told elsewhere, " exceeding sorrowful ; " and at
426 FORESHADOWS.
the grave of Lazarus it is said he wept. Can I
doubt, then, that he who thus sympathized with
man was man — that he who thus felt a compas-
sion so earnest, so deep, so inexhaustible, (for it
only seemed to accumulate as it met with the
calamities of mankind,) was truly and literally
man ? " Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people,"
was his announcement ; " the Spirit of the Lord
is upon me, because he has anointed me to
bring glad tidings to the poor," was the sermon
which he himself preached ; e( I say unto thee,
young man, Arise," was the evidence that he had
compassion to sympathize with the weeping, and
that he had, in the second place, what I wish next
to notice, power to remove the cause of that
weeping. He was, in other words, God. I have
said that he was man — truly, strictly, literally
man; all that can be said of me, sin excepted,
could be said of him ; he had not merely a body
— that is, animal life — but he had a soul — that is,
my other part, my intellectual life. But he was, in
addition to all this, also God, and the evidence of
this is sufficiently displayed in the miracle that
was here done. Notice the contrast between the
resurrections that occur in other circumstances
with the resurrection that occurs here. When Eli-
THE RESTORED SON. 427
jali was about to raise the widow's son, lie cried
unto the Lord and said, " O Lord, my God, hast
thou also brought evil upon the widow with whom
I sojourned, by slaying her son ? And he stretched
himself upon the child three times, and cried unto
the Lord, and said, O Lord, my God, I pray thee,
let this child's soul come into him again." That
was a man armed with miraculous powers, doing
miracles. But how did Elijah do it? He did
it simply as the minister of God, simply as the
channel through which God's power flowed, and
he recognised that power, and gave the glory to
the author of the miracle before and after he did it.
But when Jesus comes to do the miracle, he does
not first say, " O God, do it," he does not ac-
knowledge, as Elijah did, that he had no power
to do it, but he says, " Young man, I say unto
thee, Arise." When the apostles did miracles
they did them amid prayer, or in the name of
Jesus — " in the name of Jesus of Nazareth ; "
they proved that their power and authority were
altogether borrowed ; but when Jesus did mira-
cles, he showed that his power was original, un-
borrowed and underived. Elijah did the miracle
as a man, Jesus did it as God ; Jesus was not
only man then, but he was also God.
428 FORESHADOWS.
We have also to learn from this passage the
hope, that great hope which the apostle elo-
quently declaims upon — the resurrection from
the dead. It is as easy to raise a million of the
dead as it is to raise one ; the same power that
could raise that dead young man, can raise the
millions upon millions that sleep, as far as their
ashes are concerned, beneath the very dust on
which we tread ; it is not one whit more diffi-
cult, because the difficulty in both cases implies
omnipotence, to give life again to all the sleep-
ing dead of the six or seven thousand years
that are past. " I am," says the Saviour, " the
resurrection and the life. All power is given
unto me in heaven and in earth." That power
is not exhausted by its use, it is not spent by
distance ; he is the same yesterday, to-day, and
for ever. Persons argue, and I have argued,
and in its place we may fairly argue, that we
have analogies that show us the possibility of a
resurrection ; in the dry root, so unprepossessing
and unbeautiful, under the influence of summer
showers and suns bursting into the rose ; in the
case of the insect, a repulsive worm in its chry-
salis state, by and by unfurling its wings and
floating like a living flower in the air, in the
THE RESTORED SON. 429
shape of a butterfly ; we see in all the buds that
burst out in spring analogies clear and beautiful
of the possibility of the resurrection : but let us
recollect, an analogy does not prove any thing, it
only says that the divine promise is in harmony
with providential and divine facts. And I may
also notice, to show how little these analogies
prove, that the most gifted of ancient philosophers
never dreamed of a resurrection ; Socrates, Plato,
Cicero, Seneca, Epictetus, saw flowers and felt
springs, and yet never thought of a resurrection ;
they cannot be supposed, therefore, to be proofs.
But one fact is worth a thousand arguments,
and ten thousand analogies. You have here,
not an analogy, not a dim hint, but a fact that
Christ did restore life to one that was dead ;
and that one fact is infinitely more conclusive
than all the arguments man can use, and all the
analogies genius can find out. The resurrection
is not merely a thing probable, not only a thing
possible, but a fact that has already been done.
Let all that mourn the loss of those that are not
lost, but gone before, seek consolation where this
poor widow found her consolation. Christ may
not recall your dead from the tomb, but he can do
better for them and for you — he can fill the chasm
430 FORESHADOWS.
they have made with yet richer and intenser con-
solation. The restoration of the widow's son to her
fire-side was one way of comforting, and only one ;
Christ might have given her richer comfort in
manifold ways, without restoring her son from
the dead ; he can do more than give consolation
— he can himself take the empty place, the va-
cated niche, and fill it with the fulness of him
that filleth all and in all. He has promised to
comfort you under all your trials and your losses,
but he reserves to himself the when, and the
manner in which he will do it. Ask of him
consolation, but leave to his own goodness and
wisdom the mode in which he will send that con-
solation. The restoration of the dead is only
one way, and it may not be the best way ; he has
many more.
In the next place, let us anticipate the re-union
of all our relatives, and children, and fathers,
and mothers, that have fallen asleep in Jesus
Christ. When a relative we love, a child, a son,
a parent, dies, and leaves us alone, that stern and
indomitable silence that sits upon the cold pale
lips, that once were so eloquent with words of af-
fection, is the most solemn thing of all ; often we
wish, when we see the dead, and gaze on that
THE RESTORED SON. 431
which was all life, all sympathy, that flashed
with joy, or that was channelled with tears —
all so indomitably still, answering nothing, hear-
ing nothing, responding to nothing — earnestly
we long in such circumstances for some sign
from the spirit-land, some beam from the unut-
terable glory, some sweet voice to tell us audibly
and clearly, " Your dead one yet lives." But no
sign comes, no voice is heard, no response is
given us. Then, in such a case, let us leave the
presence and trappings of the dead, let us leave
the chamber of mourning and of woe, and let us
go to the gates of Nain ; let us call back through
eighteen centuries that glorious spectacle, let us
listen to these words, " Young man, arise ; " and
then let us hear reverberating in multiplied
echoes from the mighty multitude that saw it,
" The Lord hath visited his people, the great
prophet is come," and we shall then know that
our dead do live, and that we shall meet them
again, as that mother met her restored son.
Above all, let us add to this, this blessed fact —
that the long procession of the dead has not only
been turned by Jesus in three separate instances
in the New Testament, but it has been com-
pletely diverted by himself. Jesus rose from the
432 FORESHADOWS.
dead, " the first-fruits of them that sleep." We
may, then, gather spring flowers with which to
beautify the graves of our beloved dead from the
garden in which they laid him ; we may thus
learn that death is to the believer but the angel
of love, and the grave to a saint but the narrow
gate that leads to glory. What blessed hope,
then, does this Christianity teach us ; what noble
consolations does this Bible give us ! Let us
cherish it, let us love it, let us praise God for it,
let us seek to feel it.
We learn here also, that the soul separated
from the body plainly lives independent of that
body. When this young man was raised, if
there had been restored to him the mere animal
life, he would have been nothing more than
one of the brutes of the field; but there was
restored to him not merely the beating heart,
the breathing lungs, the circulating life-blood,
the animal life which the horse, and the ox, and
the dog all have in common with us, but there
was restored to him the intellectual life and the
moral life, the soul which is the man, and which
man alone has. I have often tried to think —
but perhaps it is wrong to speculate — where the
soul' is when it is severed from the bodv. It is
THE RESTORED SON. 433
a very solemn thought. We know, if it be a
child of God, what it is— we know what it en-
joys, but the locality where it is, we know not.
My impression is this— that the souls of those that
are gone may be far nearer to us than our absent
friends and relatives are at this moment— that
the soul of your child, your father, your mother,
your brother, or your sister, may be nearer to you
at this moment than your actual living brother
or sister. In other words, it may be perfectly
true, that just as there are minute living creatures
which our naked eye cannot see without a mi-
croscope, so there may be present spiritual beings
in the midst of us too ethereal for our gross
senses to see in this economy. As the ocean is
a finer medium than the earth, the air a finer
medium than the ocean, there may be a finer
medium above all, and that may be where souls
now are. There is something pleasing in this ;
that those that are gone, as we call it, may be
actually present in the midst of us, seein°- Us
though we cannot see them, hearing us though
we cannot hear them, frequenting our homes,
visiting our abodes, appearing on our streets,
near to us, and close to us. And yet we must
neither pray to them, nor need we attempt to
2 F
434 FORESHADOWS
speak to them, for we can neither see them nor
hear them. It is said bv Roman Catholics that
departed Christians pray for those that are left.
It is not impossible ; I do not see any thing un-
scriptnral in the idea that saints that are in
heaven may pray in heaven for those they have
left upon earth. I do not assert that it is so, be-
cause the Scripture does not ; but I do not see
any thing impossible in it. It is quite a different
thing for us to pray to them — that is idolatry,
gross idolatry ; we have but one Mediator, and
that Mediator is Christ Jesus. If this be fact,
then, it may be that those with whom we held
sweet communion on earth may be merely gone
into an upper room in the same house, separated
from us only by a transparent veil, a thin par-
tition, in short, that they are only in the chancel
end of the same grand cathedral, and are there
with us worshipping the same blessed Father,
so that the communion of saints, the church
militant with the church in glory, may be near
and interlacing and intermingling, like the land
and the sea. But wherever the soul of a be-
liever is, it is infinitely happy, perfectly happy,
and unscathed by earth's troubles. Chalmers
said that heaven, the present abode of the
THE RESTORED SON. 435
soul, is not so much a locality, as a character.
Let there be perfect holiness in any soul, and
let that soul be where you like, there it must
have perfect happiness. Wherever there is per-
fect holiness, there there must be perfect hap-
piness. If this thought can be made good by
Scripture, or, indeed, if it is not contradicted
by Scripture, let us draw instruction from it.
We may be surrounded by a cloud of glorious
witnesses, millions upon millions may be gazing
upon this battle-field, wondering and waiting for
the issue of this grand struggle, longing for
that blessed day when to him that overcometh, as
it is stated in Revelation, will be given to sit
down with Christ upon his throne, as he has
overcome and sat with the Father upon his
throne.
The last lesson I would briefly notice, as I
have already alluded to it, is our perfect recog-
nition of each other in the future. I believe souls
now severed from the body may recognise each
other ; I believe that souls, when restored and
reunited to the body, shall fully recognise each
other. In each of the three miracles of resur-
rection performed by Jesus in the Gospels, he
restored the raised one to the family from whom
2 f 2
436 FORESHADOWS.
he had fled. So likewise in the case of the
daughter of J aims, the maiden was restored to
her parents, and they saw by her personal iden-
tity it was the same one that died. When
Lazarus was raised, he was restored to Mary
and Martha, and they knew him and conversed
with him. When the young man was raised, he
sat up ; his mother knew that it was he, and he
knew that that was his mother. I think there
must be in these facts, so fully and so minutely
stated, that the restored dead ones saw and were
seen, spoke and were spoken to, and fully re-
cognised each other, a dim foreshadow of that
blessed day when all shall recognise each other,
and groups shall be in heaven among whom
personal friendships, begun on earth, shall last for
ever. I do not think that friendship is so earthly
in its nature that it perishes with the body.
Jesus recognised his mother in the agonies of
death ; Jesus had a friend, and that friend was
Lazarus ; and a disciple that he especially loved,
and that was "the beloved disciple;" thus
proving that Jesus hallowed friendships and
relationships — and what he hallowed has the
element of perpetuity, nay, of eternity itself, and
shall last for ever. Let us rejoice in this blessed
THE RESTORED SON. 437
hope— that all circles will yet be restored, that
all suspended relationships will yet be renewed,
and that the joy the mother feels in the pre-
sence of the Lamb shall be reflected in the coun-
tenance of the child that feels it too, and that
both shall be one ceaseless, uninterrupted, happy
family in the presence of God and of the Lamb
for ever !
LECTURE XVI.
THE RESTORED DAUGHTER.
While he spake these things unto them, behold, there came a
certain ruler, and worshipped him, saying, My daughter is
even now dead : but come and lay thy hand upon her, and
she shall live. And Jesus arose, and followed him, and so
did his disciples. And, behold, a woman, which was diseased
with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind him, and
touched the hem of his garment : for she said within herself,
If I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole. But Jesus
turned him about, and when he saw her, he said, Daughter,
be of good comfort ; thy faith hath made thee whole. And
the woman was made whole from that hour. And when Jesus
came into the ruler's house, and saw the minstrels and the
people making a noise, he said unto them, Give place : for
the maid is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to
scorn. But when the people were put forth, he went in, and
tookher by the hand, and the maid arose. — Matt. ix. 18 — 25.
Three great instances of resurrection from the
dead are recorded in the Gospels, as achieved
by him who is the Resurrection and the Life.
Two of these I have already examined ; I now
direct your attention to the last, not the least
beautiful and instructive of the three.
THE RESTORED DAUGHTER. 439
It appears that Jairus was a ruler, or, as he is
called, "PXV> a chief person or prince of the
synagogue. It would also seem, as this miracle
was performed at Capernaum, that this ruler
Jairus, the father of the maiden who was raised
from the dead, was one of the elders spoken of
in Luke vii., and who came to Jesus pleading for
ar certain centurion's servant, who was sick and
ready to die. He was there pleading for the
restoration of another ; he is here pleading — if it
be possible to conceive that he realized the idea
of a resurrection of his daughter from the dead —
for the restoration of his own. And what does
this contrast teach us? That sympathy with
others in their trials is the earnest of succour to
us in ours.
The statement that was made by Jairus, when
he appealed to the Lord, was, " My daughter is
now dead." But in turning to the Gospel by
Mark, we find his account to be, " My daughter
is evennowatthe point of death." This seems to be
one of those apparent discrepancies in the Gos-
pels which prove that there was not, as has been
imputed to the evangelists, a conspiracy among
them to write the same thing, and thus to palm
a joint imposture on a credulous world. Those
410 FORESHADOWS.
apparent discrepancies are the evidence that each
evangelist wrote distinctly and separate from the
others, that there was no combination to write
the same thing, and that independent witnesses
of facts are the independent recorders of the
performance of these facts ; and what seems to
be a discrepancy or discord is found to bo only
a grander harmony when it is really and tho-
roughly understood. It appears that this maiden,
the daughter of Jairus, was so ill that the father
rushed to Jesus, fully expecting that she would
be dead before he reached him ; for be it ob-
served it is afterwards recorded, that the mes-
sengers came and told Jairus that his daughter
was already dead, as it is alleged in the other
Gospel, and that therefore they were not to trou-
ble the Master : showing us that when the father
left her she was in that critical state that he was
positively sure she would be numbered with the
dead before he could have finished his journey.
Matthew seizes one part of his statement, "she is
dead ; " Mark seizes what was no doubt another
and preceding part of his statement, "she is at
the point of death." Probably when the father
rushed with impetuous feeling and paternal sym-
pathy, he exclaimed, as we can conceive in such
THE RESTORED DAUGHTER. 441
circumstances, (i My daughter is at the point of
death ; nay, I am sure she is already dead.
Pray come ; if it be possible, recover her, if liv-
ing ; restore her, if dead." Thus we have not
a real discrepancy, but one evangelist recording
one portion of the father's remark, and the other
evangelist recording the other portion, and both
thus giving a full portrait of. what actually oc-
curred upon the occasion.
Now, while Jesus was performing another
miracle on a woman who was diseased, who met
him in the way, and whose meeting of him is
alluded to by all the evangelists as occurring in
the midst of this miracle, certain parties came to
him, as it is narrated by the other evangelist, and
told the father not to trouble the Master, and that
his daughter was already dead : conveying their
solemn and natural impression, that however
efficient Jesus might be as a physician, they could
not expect that he had any power to call back
life into the cold frame, or the pulsation of the
blood into the still and silent heart. They re-
garded death as the paralysis of all hope, as the
close of all interest, as the distinct evidence that
man's power had reached its limit, and that there
was no help or cure. But what seemed to man
44£ FORESHADOWS.
utterly impossible, was not so to Jesus, and the
sequel shows it.
But before I pass on to the fact of the resur-
rection of this maiden, let me notice here that we
have an instance of death entering into the family
of a distinguished, pious, devoted ruler of the
ancient Jewish synagogue. We see it legible
upon the whole history of the world — that
death enters into all circles. The happy family
of Lazarus, and Martha, and Mary, whose home
was so bright, whose sisterhood and brotherhood
were so beautiful, is intruded into by death, and
the stay, the roof-tree, of the home is snatched
away and borne to the grave. We see here death
entering into the family of a pious, distinguished,
and devoted ruler of the synagogue ; and I need
not remark that even royalty itself, with all the
appliances that art could give, with all that sci-
ence could prescribe, with all that wealth could
purchase, with all that sympathy could minister,
has not been able to attain the ripe old-age which
peasants and mechanics frequently reach ; thus
proving to us that the dead level of human
happiness has far fewer interruptions than men
are apt to suppose. But when we think of death
entering into all circles, the circles of the pious,
THE RESTORED DAUGHTER. 443
the good, the rich, the homes of the royal, is it not
strange that a fact that stares us daily and hourly
in the face, in all lands, and from all points, is so
little felt, and so infrequently considered ? How
is it that preparation for meeting and passing
through death occupies so little a space in the
thoughts and anxieties of mankind ? But I will
not say death ; for death is nothing that we have
to do with, except to defy it ; we have to lift up
our heads and look above it. We have nothing
to do with preparing to meet death, but preparing
to meet God. Death is the mere loosener of the
strings that moor us to the shores of time ; the
mere dissolver of the cement that glues us, as it
were, to things that perish in the using; and
what we are to do is to despise death — not to
think of it. It is only suggested to me by death
to speak of that subject at all. Prepare to re-
ceive God in our nature, when he comes to you,
if such should be your happy alternative ; and
we have nothing to do with preparing for, or
thinking to meet death. And if you are to meet
that crisis at all which separates from time and
unites to eternity, remember that our prepara-
tion for meeting God is not the hour we spend
with a priest before we die, or the few prayers
444 FORESHADOWS.
that escape amid the agonies of a dissolving
frame ; but the true arena of the victory over
death is the journey of life ; the true preparation
for dying is living now. The light thing is to
die — the solemn thing is to live. The awful
place is not, in my judgment, the death chamber ;
but the places that are fraught with stirring and
tremendous issues, are the counting-house, the
place of business, the social circle, the fire-side —
these are the solemn places ; in these the battle
of life is fought ; in these the victory is lost or
won. By what we are there is our preparation
or our unpreparation to meet God upon a judg-
ment-seat : it is in these that the soul fights the
battle of life ; it is on the death-bed that the
soul, if a Christian soul, begins to reap the laurels
and to seize the spoils of its victory. Never for-
get, then, that the only preparation for dying as
we could wish to die, is living as God bids us live.
But I believe the very common and very perni-
cious notion is, that we are to Live a life exclusive-
ly the world's ; and if we can snatch an hour,
when the shadows of approaching dissolution lie
dark and heavy upon us, to give utterance to
a parting cry, which even animal nature may
give vent to, apart altogether from the soul, then
THE RESTORED DAUGHTER. 445
all will be well. Far be it from me to cast the
least shadow of suspicion upon this — that whilst
there is a pulse at the wrist there is a hope for
the heart. Far be it from me to disbelieve — that
the dying eye may catch a look of the exalted
Saviour ; and, looking, even in the agonies of
death, may live for ever. But I am speaking,
not to the dying, whom I would try to point to
that Saviour, but to the living ; and I assure you
that all experience proves, what all Scripture
plainly intimates, that most irien die just as they
live. Is not this the law of nature — that the
previous state we are in is always the preparation
for, and gives its tone to, the state that succeeds ?
We reap precisely as we sow. And what is this
meant to teach us but the lesson, Prepare in
life to meet God in death ? What is manhood ?
Our manhood is very much what our youth was ;
and our old age, which feeds upon the past, and
can no longer feed upon the future here, though
it should and may feed upon a brighter and
better future hereafter, is very much what our
manhood was. Is it not the case in trade ? It
is not the splendid advantage that come across
his path that makes the successful tradesman,
but it is the clever and judicious seizure, on the
446 FORESHADOWS.
instant, of the advantage, while it passes. Many
tradesmen who have been unfortunate and
ruined in the world, have had far more splendid
advantages offered them than others who have
been successful, and have retired prosperous
and happy men. It is not the magnificence of
the opportunity that meets us, but it is the force
and intensity with which we seize it and turn
it to advantage. It is not, I am sure, the
grandeur or the multitude of our Christian
privileges that is * securing our final victory,
but the instancy with which we seize them,
and the grace we receive from God to sanctify
and rightly employ them. So we find it in
taking a larger view of life — that the nursery
in which we play a part as children gives its
tone very much to the nursery in which we take
a part as parents. It is wonderful how little the
main, substantial elements of human character
alter; we easily let slip from memory events
about ten years old, while we easily recollect
the things of youth. The last sounds that
will ring in the old man's heart will be the
song that his mother sang over him when he
prattled by her knee, or listened to her loving
and affectionate commands. Lessons instilled
THE RESTORED DAUGHTER. 447
in the nursery often experience a resurrection
in old age, and live when all between seems
hushed and utterly expunged. Let us then
never forget this great lesson, that as we live so
we die ; that the present is preparation for the
future — not for dying, for that is not worth con-
sidering, but for being with God in happiness,
or being exiles and strangers to that happiness
for ever.
When the news was brought to our Lord that
the daughter of Jairus was dead, we read in the
parallel passage that he gave but one prescrip-
tion— one noble prescription — that which is the
key to victory still, as it was the key to victory
then — " Be not afraid, but only believe." This
was Christ's prescription for hope, and not only
for hope, but for victory. What is the circum-
stance, I ask, that makes death seem so insignifi-
cant to a Christian ? He looks upon it in the light
of him who is the conqueror of death. And what
makes death so terrible to a man who is not a
Christian? Because he sees it just as death came
into the world, and has continued ever since.
If a Christian meets death, he meets him as a
friend, and then he thanks him to let him go ;
but if he meets him as an enemy, he says with
448 FORESHADOWS.
derisive scorn, " O death, where is thy sting?"
The great peril is, when man meets death as a
stranger, knows nothing about what he is to do,
or where he is to lead him ; then he may tremble,
whether he be a judge upon the bench, or a mon-
arch on his throne, or the occupant of the high-
est and the happiest sphere in which humanity
can be placed. But if the believer has his eye
resting on Christ, the conqueror of death, his
ear is open to his blessed accents, " Be not
afraid, but believe." If his every-day life be the
reflection of the life of Christ, and the life that he
lives the life of Christ in him ; then when he
comes to die, or when he anticipates the hour of
dying, he can say, " Though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil ;
for Christ has illuminated it by the transit of his
own glory." Christ has opened the kingdom of
heaven to all believers ; Christ has overcome
the sharpness of death, to use the language of an
ancient hymn, and therefore blunted it utterly
to all believers. And the man that thus hopes,
and trusts, and looks at death in this light, has
nothing to fear in dying, because it is the strug-
gle of a moment that ushers him into the glories
of eternity.
THE RESTORED DAUGHTER. 449
Jesus said of this maiden, " The maid is not
dead, but sleepeth." You are not to suppose
from this that she was not really dead, for he
uses the same words respecting Lazarus, " Our
friend Lazarus sleepeth ;" and only when they
evidently misconstrued the expression, he ex-
plained it to them ; " Jesus told them plainly,
Lazarus is dead." Sleep is the Christian name
for death ; it is the beautiful and prophetic colour
that Christ spreads over the features of the dead,
and is designed to intimate, that as sure as a
morning comes to the sleeper on his couch, so
sure an everlasting morning shall break upon
the tenants of the tomb. To this maiden the
sleep was very short, and therefore it was not fit
to be called death ; for already, in her case,, the
Sun of righteousness had entered through the
casement of her chamber, his first beams were
falling softly on her eyelids ; and one word more,
" Talitha cumi," as he spake in another Gospel,
" Maid, arise," and she rises from the torpor of
death, and mingles with the joys and sympathies
of the living.
It is impossible, in looking at Christ thus
raising this maid, to fail to notice one remarkable
feature in Jesus — the quiet power, the calm
2 G
450 FORESHADOWS.
self-possession, that he indicated. Mourners
here, weepers there, distress in another place ;
and the only one who appears calm, and unmoved,
and perfectly composed, is the Son of God. I do
not state this as peculiar to this miracle, but as
remarkable in all. We must see in every miracle
that Jesus did, a manifestation of quiet self-com-
posure and self-possession, the most striking and
remarkable. And what was this the evidence
of? All great men are quiet men. Evidence of
power is self-composure, self-possession. All the
greatest forces in nature make the least noise.
The lightning flashes, the thunder rolls, and men
call that great : but there is a power infinitely
greater. The light that comes from the sun de-
scends with a speed that is almost incalculable,
and when it falls upon the earth it makes the
secret life of every flower and tree instantly
burst into expression, and put forth their foliage ;
and yet that light, possessed of such power that
in one month it will clothe the whole earth with
verdure and beauty and blossom, comes so qui-
etly that we cannot hear it, and so softly that it
falls upon the infant's eye, and yet does not
injure it. All great things are quiet things ; and
the very quiet that Jesus showed amidst the
THE RESTORED DAUGHTER. 451
most stirring and startling events, is evidence
that if never man spake like this man, never man
acted like this man.
Before Jesus proceeds, however, to raise the
maiden from her sleep, or rather from her death,
he clears the house of the mourners. History
tells us that at ancient funerals mourners were
regularly hired ; it seems strange and absurd to
us, yet such was the fact ; they were hired in
order to express by their lamentations the sorrow
that the relatives felt on account of the loss of
their near and dear relations. These minstrels
and other persons who came to thehouse — some, it
maybe, to sympathize, others only to make mourn-
ing— scorned the very idea that the maid merely
slept. " They laughed him to scorn," it is said ;
they thought it most absurd and ridiculous to
talk of one sleeping who had given so clear and
unequivocal proof that she was already dead.
Jesus therefore removed them : it was not meet
that unbelief and scorn should be present in that
holy chamber, or be witnesses of that sublime
manifestation of Divine power. He ordered
them away ; and those that remain are Peter,
James, and John, the three favourite apostles, as
they have been called, the representatives of the
2 g 2
452 FORESHADOWS.
church, of Christ, to witness what was done.
And standing over the couch of the maiden, like
twin funeral tapers, are the father and the mother,
with conflicting feelings and emotions, whether
the hopes of restoration were delusive, whether
Jesus had the power not only to open the eyes
of the blind, but also to raise the dead and bring
them to life and happiness again.
Jesus spake to her, " Talitha cumi," Maid,
arise, and it is added, " the spirit came again ; "
or as it is in another evangelist, " the spirit came
upon her again." And this, again, is evidence
how near that spirit was to her ; it is evidence to
us that Jesus saw the world of spirits as distinct
from the world of matter. It is clear, too, that
the soul is a thing distinct from the body in
which that soul sojourns. The Jews have an
ancient legend, which they believe, that after
death the soul of the departed hovers near the
body for several days before it takes its final
farewell. There may be in this legend of the
Jew the basis of fact. In the room where the
weeping relatives are, and only the dead body is
visible to the eye, there may be present still, for
a little time, the soul of him whose body lies be-
fore them ; and if that soul could speak, it would
THE RESTORED DAUGHTER. 453
say to them, " Weep not for me ; I am eman-
cipated, unfettered ; prepare to take my voyage
to more glorious realms — weep only for your-
selves." What is remarkable enough, the highest
science has reached the conclusion that the last
echoes of life ring in the body that seems to us
dead much longer than persons actually suppose ;
and that it is not impossible that before decay
begins the soul may be lingering in the chambers
into which it is to enter once again at the resur-
rection from the dead, taking its last and solemn
farewell, and, it may be, calling up many of the
sweetest, noblest, dearest reminiscences of life.
Who has not sometimes observed after the death
of a pious man, that the features will assume a
placid, calm, and beautiful quiet ? I have
heard the relatives say, in such circumstances,
" He looks more like himself than ever he
looked in his life-time ; " the very hour or two
after death giving an ideal portrait of the man,
so perfect and so beautiful, that it never was pre-
sented in all its beauty by actual life. And may
there not be much truth in this ? The death-
struggle is over ; the agony of disease is laid *
the machinery of life stands still ; it is the sab-
bath that follows the life week. The sod is not
454 FORESHADOWS.
yet gone ; it is traversing the chambers it is
so soon to desert ; it is retracing the journey, and
recounting the battles of life ; it is spreading
over those features that once expressed anxiety
and toil to the world, the calm, the repose, and
happiness it now feels, and, it may be, singing in
an under tone that quiet vesper song, that solemn
requiem, the last notes of which shall mingle
with the first notes of the orisons of an eternal
and blessed jubilee. Death does not take place,
even science will tell you, till decay commences ;
and may it not be true, that when the body
seems dead, the soul and the body, at perfect
ease, are about to take the one its farewell of the
other, till the trumpet shall sound, and they that
were made twain and severed for a season shall
be made one, and so be for ever happy with the
Lord.
It is said, when Jesus raised this maid, that
he commanded that meat should be given to her.
Now, to a very careless reader of the Bible, this
would seem very puerile : it looks like a trans-
ition from the highest sublime to the meanest
common-place exhortation ; but it is not so. It
is because we cannot appreciate it that we think
thus, not because it is so. It seems to me that
THE RESTORED DAUGHTER. 455
the last sketch in the miracle is the loveliest of
all. The command that she should have meat,
is, to my mind, only second, if second, to the
command, " I say unto thee, Maid, arise." For
what does it prove ? It indicates the presence
of him, and therefore makes the analogy com-
plete, who takes care of the least thing as truly
as he does of the greatest thing ; it demonstrates
the presence of him to whom nothing is so minute
as to be beneath his notice, before whom nothing
is so magnificent as to be beyond his control ;
it is a proof of the presence of that Being
who feeds the ant and ministers to the archangel
beside the throne ; who will not let a sparrow
fall without his control, and who will not let a
seraph go beyond and defy that control. So too
the command to give her meat, which it is very
likely they would forget, is the evidence to me
that Jesus not only gives life, but provides for the
maintenance of that life ; not only gives spiritual
life, but will find living bread wherewith to
nourish that life.
We have thus seen the dead maiden ; we have
seen the anxious parents, and the hypocrisy of
the hired mourners ; we have seen the cham-
ber cleared ; we have seen the Sun of right-
456 FORESHADOWS.
eousness, the Resurrection, and the Life, draw
near; we have heard, if not the original, the
echo of his words, " I say unto thee, Arise ;"
and we have seen the soul that had just for-
saken, if it had forsaken, the frame in which it
sojourned, take up its abode again, resume its
throne, begin its sublime functions, and the maid
arise, and mingle with the living. Let us rejoice
that Christ is still the resurrection and the
life of all that are in their graves. That maid,
and Lazarus, and the young man, the son of
the widow of Nain, and all that fall asleep in
Christ, shall hear the last trump, and rise to the
enjoyment of everlasting life.
In speaking of the resurrection from the dead,
I cannot but notice, what I dare say will be re-
ferred to this day in almost every pulpit in the
land, the death of one occupying all but the
loftiest sphere in this kingdom, whose exemplary
and beautiful life adorned the dignities she held
— I mean the death of Adelaide, the queen
dowager. All of us must sympathize with the
loss sustained by those to whom she was dear,
and who were benefited by her ; because never
in the history of England, I believe, and I am
no flatterer of royalty, was there one whose ex-
THE RESTORED DAUGHTER. 457
ample was so beautiful, whose charity was so
unbounded, and whose munificence so many in-
stitutions of our country have beneficially felt.
There is, I fear, scarcely a charity in the whole
land that will not miss the queen dowager.
There is not in our land a section of the church
of Christ which, after having exhausted its own
beneficence, has not as its last resort said, " We
will make an appeal to the queen dowager;"
and never, I am sure, was a just appeal made
that was not answered. I recollect she was asked
to give something towards the maintenance of
our Scottish church at Holloway, and she sent
£50 ; she was asked to contribute to our mission
at Kennington, and she gave £20; she was
asked to give something to our schools, and she
sent, I believe, £10. I quote these simply as
specimens of her charity, comparatively minute
and trifling ; yet instances of charity and ge-
nerosity on a larger scale, and to nobler and
far greater institutions, of which there are many
witnesses. I see, indeed, in her life the
evidence of a royalty nobler than kings and
queens have, and in her character the earnest of
a crown more glorious than that of the greatest
monarch. It is literally true that she adorned
458 FORESHADOWS.
her diadem; her diadem did not adorn her
And whilst we respect the memory of an illus-
trious queen, we should rather dwell in our re-
collections on the memorials of a good, a pious
and a Christian woman. Much as I reverence
and much as I respect authority, which God in
his providence has either placed or permitted,
much and truly as I feel of loyalty to our
beloved queen, and reverence to all placed
over us, yet I revere the woman more than the
queen. The woman is the creation of God; the
queen is but the conventionalism of man. And
if this be so, the Christian is higher than the
woman, nobler than the queen ; for the Christian
is the re-creation, the regeneration of the woman
by the Holy Spirit of God. It is beautiful and
interesting, however, and a matter of gratitude, to
see the sacredness of the Christian sustain the
dignity of the queen ; the piety of the one and
the power of the other allied with beneficence,
and charity, and love. And we feel the more
pleasure in noting this, because the days were, in
Avhich royal pastimes, and royal pursuits, were
of a very different description ; war, and revelry,
and licentiousness were once the only games at
which kings played ; and pomp, and splendour,
THE RESTORED DAUGHTER. 459
and show, and fashion, and dress were the only
amusements that royalty indulged in. A great
change has taken place in church and state. No
such monarchs are likely to reign now; just as
no hunting parsons, as they were called, are now
any longer tolerated. A purer air has animated
palaces ; better feelings are now found in royal
bosoms. Our consolation, when we think of the
good queen dowager we have lost, is in the
equally consistent, and still more beloved queen
that we have — a queen in whose character as an
individual there is so much amiable, lovely, and
of good report, blended with so much that is wise,
patriotic, and consistent in her as a sovereign,
that we know not which to admire most, the un-
crowned womanhood of Victoria, the sister of us
all, or the diademed royalty of Queen Victoria,
the sovereign and the monarch of us all ; thank-
ful that her dignity in the one is only heightened
by her consistent and beautiful walk in the
other. If we have lost, therefore, a queen
dowager, whose beneficence all bear testimony
to, let us thank God that we have swaying the
sceptre, and seated on the throne of these realms,
one, that even the most intense republican must
love, that even the red republican could not re-
460 FORESHADOWS.
fuse to obey, and whom we Englishmen, and
Scotchmen, and Irishmen, Christians, I trust, all
of us, obey not only because we are loyal sub-
jects, but because we are Christian men, fearing
God, and honouring the queen. It was, to
my mind, beautiful indeed to see, when the
queen dowager no longer shared the throne of
a monarch, how softly she fell into the shadow,
and adorned the quiet and retired life that she
led, by gems brighter than a monarch's crown
can have, by deeds of goodness, of love, and
charity, and beneficence. She is gone, we can
say without hesitation, to the rest that remain-
eth to the people of God. I have heard from
those who knew well, that as her life was spent
in doing good, her last hours were spent in the
exercises of implicit trust and confidence in that
only Saviour whose blood — blessed be the pre-
cious Bible that reveals it ! — cleanses beggars
from their sins, and cleanses monarchs from their
sins also ; trusting in the merits of that blessed
Mediator, who is the only way to heaven for the
highest, and the welcome way to heaven for the
lowest. May we be quickened by his Spirit ;
and when our bodies shall be surrendered to
the dust, may we, with the daughter of J aims..
THE RESTORED DAUGHTER. 461
the son of the widow of Nain, and Lazarus, and
the queen dowager, and all that have fallen
asleep in Jesus, rise, and reign, and rejoice with
him, wearing a crown of glory and partaking of
an inheritance which is incorruptible and unde-
nted, and that fadeth not away.
LECTURE XVII.
CREATIVE GOODNESS.
When Jesus then lifted up his eyes, and saw a great company
eome unto him, he saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy
bread, that these may eat ? And this he said to prove him :
for he himself knew what he would do. Philip answered
him, Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for
them, that every one of them may take a little. One of 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 ? And Jesus
said, Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass
in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five
thousand. And Jesus took the loaves ; and when he had
given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples
to them that were set down ; and likewise of the fishes as
much as they would. 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, which remained over and above unto them that had
eaten. — John vi. 5 — 13.
It appears the crowd that had been charmed with
the miraculous cures which Jesus had so often
performed, having seen the lame leap, the dead
CREATIVE GOODNESS. 463
even arise, the blind see, and the deaf hear, in-
stinctively and naturally, it may be in some
degree selfishly, went after one who was able to
do so many wonderful works. They followed
him, too, when he sought, it appears from the
preceding passages, to be alone. He neither
forbad them, nor turned them back : it was
his meat and his drink to do the will of his
Father : he suspended the enjoyment of his rest
that he might minister to the necessities of the
people ; his life, like his death, was self-sacri-
ficing and vicarious. This large multitude
came into a desert place — not desert in the
sense that nothing grew upon it, for it might
rather be called a place of steppes or plains,
covered with grass, where there was no possibi-
lity of making a purchase, still less of gathering
any thing that would sustain fainting nature ; and
when he found that this immense multitude had
been long without meat, and were ready to perish
for want of bread, he showed them that if he
could heal the sick, and make the lame leap like
the roe, unstring the dumb tongue that it might
praise him, and open the deaf ear that it might
hear him, he could also so multiply the little
bread that it would be able to supply the wants
464 FORESHADOWS.
of five thousand instead of being able to meet,
as it seemed, the necessities of only five. He
therefore answers first the question he addressed
to Philip, when he lifted up his eyes and saw a
great company, " Whence shall we buy bread,
that these may eat?" a question it appears which
was put by Philip in the morning, to which the
miracle, judging from the whole strain of the
narrative, was his answer in the evening. The
difficulty was addressed to Philip in the morn-
ing, that he might think upon it all the day,
and work it out as a great problem in his
own mind. And only when Philip had come to
the conclusion that there was no possibility of
feeding them, would Christ begin to show that
with omnipotence all things are possible ; and
that confidence in God is a richer practical supply
than the available treasures of the world. This is
God's way of dealing still with his people. There
are no such things as superfluous miracles in the
New Testament ; or works of supererogation on
the part of God. He works a miracle where a
miracle only is required ; he supplies necessities
only that are truly felt. He makes man feel his
own insufficiency before he manifests the fulness
of God, — he causes the creature to see that his
CREATIVE GOODNESS. 465
cisterns are broken and empty before he unseals
to him the fountain of living waters, that he may
drink and be abundantly satisfied. This ques-
tion was perhaps especially addressed to Philip,
because he seemed, by a previous remark which
he had uttered in this Gospel, to have made
greater progress than the rest of the disciples. It
was Philip who, in the first chapter of John, is
stated to have found Nathanael, and to have said
unto him, " We have found him of whom Moses
in the law and the prophets did write, Jesus of
Nazareth, the son of Joseph." It will be also re-
collected that Moses had wrought a miracle ana-
logous to that which is recorded here, when he
brought, as it is said, food from heaven. We
read also that the prophet Elisha once wrought a
kindred miracle. It might therefore be supposed
that Philip, having pointed out Jesus as that
glorious Being of whom Moses wrote, as the
prophet like unto him in all things, and whom
Elisha foreshadowed as a greater and more il-
lustrious than he, would expect that this Jesus,
with greater power than Moses and Elisha had,
would be able to perform a miracle that would
feed the five thousand even with a few barley
loaves and a few fishes. But Philip had for-
2 H
466 FORESHADOWS.
gotten these facts. He had not come to this con
elusion. It shows us that we need to be taught
the emptiness that is within as well as the unsatis-
factoriness that is without. The case of Philip
shows that it is possible to know Scripture, and to
quote Scripture, and to prove prophecies per-
formed, and yet not be able to see savingly him to
whom all the prophets gave witness. Philip learn-
ed slowly to depend upon Jesus. He saw nothing
but the outward means and elements and powers
of nature, and had no idea, if we may judge
from this passage, of the presence of nature's
Lord. He unfolded in his character a striking
feature, still obvious enough in man, the strange,
but true fact, that he never appeals to a Divine
power as long as he can work his way by means
of human power. The creature never goes to God
for salvation till he has found out that there is no
salvation any where else. He never thinks of
applying to God for interposition in the hour
and power of famine, or of pestilence, or of trial,
till he has learned that human granaries are
empty in the one, and that human prescriptions
are unsatisfactory in the other, and then he goes
to God. And what a God ! After we have
tried the creature in all its phases, and found
CREATIVE GOODNESS. 467
that creature fail, God, instead of rejecting us,
as we deserved, for so doing, accepts us when we
flee to him as a last resort, and makes us wel-
come ; and heaven is glad that they who found
all cisterns broken, have applied to the fountain
and found it sufficient.
Andrew was next appealed to, and he seems
to have had no more faith or trust above the
creature than Philip, for he saith, " There is a
lad here which hath five barley-loaves and two
small fishes ; but what are they among so many ? "
We have in Philip the commercial power at its
wits' end : money, a little money, but not enough
money in the market. We have in the case of
Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, the agricultural
power at fault : a little bread, a few fishes, but
Avhat is the use of these? We have money and
bread both deficient ; the creature paralysed in
the terrible emergency, and seeing not one ray
of hope, or of light, for deliverance or for safety.
So true is it that God paralyses first our agricul-
ture, next our commerce, lastly our health ; and,
as recently shown, how precarious are our reli-
gious privileges ; and perhaps it is just upon the
back of the sorest judgments that God is about to
cause to shine upon us mercies exceeding abund-
2 h 2
468 FORESHADOWS.
antly above all we have either asked or thought.
We will hope. I must say, that I have of our
country greater and brighter hopes than ever.
I think it will yet be a Goshen in the midst of the
nations of the earth. Recent judgments, phy-
sical and moral, have brought to light an amount
of deep Protestantism, hidden and real piety,
which I trust is only the beginning of that dawn
of brighter and better things which will soon
overtake the world. May God grant that it
be so.
We read that our Lord prepares a table in
the midst of the wilderness, and in order to do
so, he says, " Make the men sit down. Now,
there was much grass in the place." I cannot
help noticing the remark, " there was much
grass in the place." A mere writer of a story
got up would never have thought of using that
expression. It is so natural, so unartistic-like,
that it is plainly the evidence of a story written
upon the spot, and describing facts that had been
actually seen. " So the men sat down, in num-
ber about five thousand." God is the God of
method and of order. Just take a survey of all
God's works in providence and nature. How
beautifully arranged they are! what harmony
CREATIVE GOODNESS. 469
and order among them! And so here he shows
the same great law pervading this temporary-
arrangement, when he bids the people sit down in
platoons, or in companies, as the language would
bear, like garden plots nicely and neatly ar-
ranged ; partly because order is one of heaven's
first laws ; partly because it was so convenient
that the poorest and weakest were not likely to
be omitted when the whole company was di-
vided into twelve sections, and the twelve apos-
tles were made to minister to those companies.
So should it be in our communion arrangements ;
so should it be in the construction of our churches.
They should be arranged so that in the first every
one may be administered to, and in the second
that every one may hear and see. The grand
end ought to be always in view. Architects,
ministers, and elders should always recollect
the object for which a house is built or an insti-
tution is arranged. It is for practical purposes :
every thing as beautiful as can be, but every
thing should be subordinated and made to con-
tribute to usefulness. When a church is so beau-
tiful that every body admires the architecture,
but barely hears, or scarcely attends to, the
sermon, it may be splendid architecture, but it
470 FORESHADOWS.
is a bad church. When the sermon is so elo-
quent that everybody is charmed with the lan-
guage, but does not think of what it is meant to
teach, it may be a very intellectual sermon, very
grand, very beautiful, very fine, but it is not
worth hearing. And when the arrangement in
any thing connected with the worship of God is
made to take the place of the real object, the
means of the end, the machinery of the result,
there is a radical defect at the very core. God
is the God of beauty and order, but the good
and benefit of his people are the grand results he
contemplates in all.
We read that, when he had thus arranged these
people, and made them so conveniently seated
that they could easily be ministered to, he " took
the loaves, and gave thanks, and then distributed
to his disciples." He gave thanks. What a
beautiful model and precedent for us ! The Lord
of glory gave thanks for the bread that he held in
his hand. Do we ever think sufficiently, that two
things are needed in order that we may derive
benefit from our daily bread ? There is first the
bread to be eaten — and that is the least import-
ant, although many people think it the most im-
portant ; and there is next the health to eat it.
CREATIVE GOODNESS. 471
The most pure bread may be poison without the
blessing of God ; the most imperfect bread may do
us good with the blessing of God. At all events,
we who have the best bread surely do not omit
to thank the Giver ; and those who have all the
comforts and luxuries of life, surely they do not
omit to give the glory to him who gave them
all ; or to show the reality of their thanks-
giving by distributing to the creatures made by
the same hand, to whom God has not been so
bountiful. And then this thanksgiving presents a
contrast to my mind the most striking. In his
making the five loaves feed five thousand, we
have the interposition of a God ; in his taking
up that piece of bread and giving thanks we
have the evidence of a creature. None but a
true historian would have combined and coupled
things which seem contradictory, but which when
analyzed and seen in the light of the rest of
Scripture are full of harmony, and present the
perfect one. He that could create the bread, and
show that he was God, equally acknowledged
himself a creature, and proved he was so by
giving thanks. If I am asked, was Christ man ?
I answer, yes ; look at the dependent creature
givingthanks for his daily bread. If I am asked,
47£ FORESHADOWS.
was Christ God ? I answer, yes ; look at the Al-
mighty Creator creating bread by the breath of
his nostrils. If you ask me, what was he ? I
answer, God who satisfied for our sins, man who
suffered for them, the one Mediator, the glorious
Days-man, who lays his right hand upon the
throne and his left upon us ; and so of God and
man the twain that were at issue makes one.
Christ having given thanks, " distributed to the
disciples, and the disciples to them that were set
down : " just as he commanded the prophet to
speak to the dry bones and he did so, so the dis-
ciples, without questioning, or any discussion,
or hesitation, did what the Lord commanded
them. And the bread grew as they gave it :
what they thought an impossibility became a
palpable fact. They asked the questions, the
one, how will these pence buy food for so many ?
the other, there are but five barley-loaves and two
small fishes ; and lo, the men that asked despair-
ingly, in their conscious paralysis of all hope,
themselves answered the question by feeding the
five thousand with these few barley-loaves and
few fishes. And what does this teach us ? That
to use what we have is the way to get more.
The man who will make a good use of the little
CREATIVE GOODNESS. 473
religious light that he has, is sure to get more. I
believe an inquiring sceptic who will live up to
the light that he has, will not be left to grope in
darkness ; I am sure the least enlightened Chris-
tian who will act up to the light that shines upon
him, will not be left without more. God gives to
him that hath, and takes away what he hath from
him that makes no use of it. We are also taught
by this and by the fact recorded here — the
barley-loaves feeding and nourishing so many
— that a little embosomed in the benediction of
Christ can supply many; that much, deprived
of that benediction, or blasted by his curse, will
feed none. Why is it that bread feeds us, and
not sand ? Ask the chemist, ask the physician,
ask Liebig himself. He will talk to you about
this affinity and that affinity, and this process of
assimilation and that power of nutrition ; but
when he has said his all we shall be just as wise
as he is : neither know any thing about it. The
reason why bread feeds me, and sand does not,
is the ordinance of God ; it is merely the fulfil-
ment, and this miracle is specially so, of that
beautiful saying, " Man doth not live by bread
alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of
the mouth of God."
474 FORESHADOWS.
We see in this miracle, what I may notice
as I pass, an illustration of the text, " Seek first
the kingdom of God, and all other things will be
added." This multitude was drawn to Jesus
not merely, I think, by seeing the miracles
that he wrought, for they were not sick, or lame,
or blind, or deaf; but as to the miracle-worker,
some in sincere and anxious admiration, others
in questioning perplexity, and both to the great
Prophet that should come into the world. So en-
thusiastic was their attachment that they followed
him into the desert. Listening to the words that
proceeded from his mouth, they forgot they had
bodies to be fed as well as souls to be enlight-
ened ; some were so intent upon the enlightening
of the one, that they forgot for the time being the
necessities of the other. Wonderful is the power
that the mind has over the body. Let the mind
be intensely interested or absorbed in any subject,
and man will forget that he is hungry, thirsty,
weary, cold. In the case of this multitude, they
were so rapt and fascinated by all that Jesus
said, that they forgot there was no food to be
purchased and none to be borrowed in the wil-
derness into which they had wandered. But
they followed Jesus, and so far sought first the
CREATIVE GOODNESS. 475
kingdom of God, and then they found it fulfilled,
" and all things will be added." So will it be
with us ; let us seek first to honour God, and
happiness will spring up beneath our footsteps as
we seek him. " Them that honour me I will
honour." And let our nation, let our country,
do so at the present crisis. Let it hallow God's
sabbath ; let it forget the possible advantages of
a Sunday post-office, and remember the obliga-
tion of the fourth commandment : let us try
rather to save souls than to save time ; let us be
more anxious about doing what is duty than
prosecuting what is expedient ; and we shall see
that if the railway and the electric telegraph have
been given as means of rapid communication and
blessings from God, he has other blessings in
store, that will render what is now thought to be
expedient less necessary and less expedient than
it is supposed to be. Depend upon it, that ex-
pediency follows principle, not principle a seem-
ing expediency ; and the highest expediency in
the universe is unreserved, unquestioning obe-
dience to God.
Our blessed Lord then wrought the miracle to
satisfy the wants of them who had left their
homes in order to hear the gospel. And they
476 FORESHADOWS.
were conscious of trie miracle ; they saw it, they
felt it, and there was no doubt that it was a mi-
racle. And this leads me to suggest what a mira-
cle is. It has often been disputed in the present
day whether miracles be in the church, one
party saying they are, the other party saying
they are not. The only evidence of a miracle is
not fancy nor imagination, but the senses. If
there be no visible miracle, there is no miracle at
all ; for the very definition of a miracle is, some-
thing above nature, and that the senses can see
and testify to, or that on good historical authority
and testimony we can accept as having been
done, and so far the evidence of the interposi-
tion of God.
How or by what mysterious process this mi-
racle was done it is not for us to determine.
There is a difference between it and the miracle
of the water being turned into wine. In the
case of the water being turned into wine I already
observed, that the difference between the vine
growing in the vineyard and yielding its grapes,
and then ultimately coming from the press and
being drunk in the shape of wine, and the instan-
taneous creation of the wine, was a difference
of time : that the ordinary miracle takes a whole
CREATIVE GOODNESS. 477
year to turn the vine sap into wine ; that in the
extraordinary one Christ accomplished in mi-
nutes what it takes twelve months in other cir-
cumstances to do. But here it was not merely
hastening a process, but it was turning a few
barley-loaves into a quantity of bread, prepared
and fit for the people to eat. The only explanation
of it we can give is, that the worlds were formed
by the word of God, so that things which are
seen were not made of things that do appear.
We need to learn this lesson in looking at the
miracles of God, that omnipotence can do what
we cannot do, but it also can do and does do
what we cannot comprehend ; so that not only
shall our physical powers be put into their pro-
per narrow space, but our intellectual power
shall also be taught that it is the power of a
creature finite, and not of the Creator infinite.
And yet we cannot but notice that the same
power that was here seen is displayed every day.
In the seed of the corn that shoots into the stalk,
the blade, and the ear, we have a miracle just
every whit as great. In the acorn cast into the
earth, that develops itself into the gigantic and
over-shadowing oak, we have a process just as
marvellous every whit as turning the few barley-
478 FORESHADOWS.
loaves into a bountiful and gracious supply. But
we are so accustomed to the former process, that
we call it the natural one, and give the honour
and glory to what we call the " laws of nature : "
we are so startled by the latter process, that we
are constrained to acknowledge and admit, This
is the finger of God. But if the processes were
reversed, if the usual law were that the word of
some being turned one loaf into a hundred, and
if the unusual thing were that a little seed cast
into the earth shot up and grew into ears of corn,
we should call the latter the miracle. We live
amid miracles : every pulse of our heart is a
miracle, every inspiration and expiration of our
lungs is a miracle, the movement of the arm by the
volition of the mind is a miracle ; but we are so
accustomed to these things that we call them
natural occurrences, and only when the same re-
sult is achieved by a more rapid or a more start-
ling process do we call it a miracle. God oc-
casionally suspends the ordinary process, and
interferes by an extraordinary one, to teach
man that creation is not God, and that in God
all creation lives and moves and has its being.
But there is one touch in the picture inimita-
bly beautiful, which one cannot pass by. It is
CREATIVE GOODNESS. 479
the prudent economy manifested by the Lord,
who had omnipotence adequate to the supply of
twenty times five thousand more. For he says
to his disciples after he had performed this mira-
cle and fed them, " Gather up the fragments
that remain, that nothing be lost." In perform-
ing the miracle he moved in the orbit of a God :
in saying, " Gather up the fragments that re-
main," he reassumed his place, re-accepted the
laws, and re-entered the domain of man. In the
first, you have the proof that there was present
the mighty God ; in the last, you have the proof
that there was the dependent man. What a
strange combination ! Bounty the most profuse,
economy the most rigid. We cannot but ad-
vert to this fact — and I like to notice such as
these, because they are better even than lec-
tures upon evidence — I say, the very utterance
of these words in the middle of so stupendous a
miracle, is to me evidence of the inspiration of
the writer. If I had been writing a story, or
getting up an account from my own mind, I
should have taken good care never to have put
in any thing that would seem contradictory, or
that would detract from the glory of the stu-
pendous miracle that had been wrought. Mere
480 FORESHADOWS.
human writers would have argued thus : If we
state that our hero, whoever he was, performed
such a miracle, and show him desiring those
about him to gather up the crumbs that remain,
it will be said, here is inconsistency in the story,
here is contradiction, the shading will detract
from the grandeur of the figure in the fore-
ground, and we must do every tiling to heighten,
not dim that. But John wrote by the guidance
of the Spirit of God, stated fact, described fact,
wrote truth ; and therefore you have here the
combination of creature economy with creative
power ; a trait that no uninspired narrator would
have given. And yet those who are best acquaint-
ed with the laws and processes of nature, know that
this is in perfect keeping with what they find in
the world. It is most remarkable that, fallen as
this world is, it has many vestiges of Deity still,
there is a most wonderful combination of exuber-
ance and saving, of profuse bounty and severe
economy. There are no unnecessary things in
nature ; there is no needless waste ; and thus we
see, in the Lord of the miracle, the very coun-
terpart of the Lord of nature ; we thus learn that
both results come from the same God, who is
over all and in all.
CREATIVE GOODNESS. 481
The fragments that remained amounted to
twelve baskets full. It is worthy of observation,
that in the miracle where four thousand are fed,
another word is used for baskets, ernvplhas, but in
this miracle, the word used is koQIvow, the Greek
word from which our word coffin comes — a
very strange derivation — and some commen-
tators have tried to show that the one indicated
the basket which the apostle carried with him
to supply his daily wants, and that the other
referred to baskets of larger dimensions. *This,
however, is a very immaterial point, and I only
notice it in passing. The twelve baskets full of
fragments were a greater quantity than the
original five barley-loaves and two fishes. And
what does this teach us ? That love augments,
not exhausts itself; that beneficence never be-
comes poorer by its exercise ; that the Christian
receives in the ratio in which he gives, so that
the greatest giver is always the greatest receiver ;
and the Christianity that unfolds itself in mis-
sionary sympathy, by a beautiful reflex opera-
tion, becomes deeper and richer in the heart of
him that has it.
The miracle produced a very great impression
2 i
482 FORESHADOWS.
upon the minds of the people. It was so like
the miracles performed by Moses, that the peo-
ple saw at once in it evidence of the presence of
the great prophet like unto him. Instead, how-
ever, of looking at the impression it produced upon
the people, let me draw some lessons instructive
to ourselves. The very first lesson we learn is,
here was the evidence of a God. Let us recollect
the following distinction : when the apostles per-
formed a miracle they always said, " In the name
of Jesus ; " when Christ performed a miracle, he
did so as the / am, in his own name, by his own
authority. Now herein is a distinction so palpa-
ble, that I cannot conceive how we can escape
the conclusion, that if Jesus was not God, he was
something infinitely higher than man; but he
was God, for who could do such miracles in such
wise except God?
And there was in this miracle, be it observed,
something greater than in any of the other mi-
racles which I have endeavoured to explain.
When Christ healed the lame, when he opened
the eyes of the blind, when he unstopped the
ears of the deaf, we saw restorative miracles ;
they were restoring nature to what nature wac,
CREATIVE GOODNESS. 483
or what nature should be. But in this miracle
there was not a restorative or redemptive act,
but clearly a feat of creative power.
Let us mark another fact in the miracles
of Christ ; he never performed a miracle, if I
may use the expression, in vacuo ; he always laid
hold of a substratum to work upon. This seems
by analogy to teach us that God is not going to
supplant this earth by another earth, and to su-
persede our present bodies by other bodies ; but
out of the present earth to construct a glorious
one ; and out of our present bodies, to raise incor-
ruptible from corruptible, and immortal from
mortal, till death is swallowed up in victory.
And so in regeneration: when God makes a
natural man a Christian he does not extinguish
him, and substitute another in his place, but he
retunes him, he restores him, he disentangles his
affections, he dips them in the fountain of living
waters ; he re-quickens his soul and makes a
new creature evolve out of the old creature ; he
does not create another creature perfectly dis-
tinct and different. In this we have a fore-
shadow and earnest of the age to come.
In the miracles of healing, we had the evi-
dence that Christ was the great Physician ; in the
2 i 2
484 FORESHADOWS.
miracle of raising from the dead, we had the evi-
dence that Christ was Lord of life; in this miracle,
the feeding the hungry, we have the evidence
that by him all things were made, and that he is
the Creator of all, as well as Lord of all.
In this miracle there is a grand apocalypse. He
draws aside that all but impenetrable and mys-
terious mantle, which conceals the Creator from
the creature in the midst of his creation ; and he
shows us — not indeed sunshine and shower, sow-
ing and reaping, but he shows us Christ, the
compendium of them all, and from whom all
of them issue ; the Lord of the sunshine and of
the shower, the Lord of the spring and of the har-
vest, the Lord of the fertility of the soil and the
produce of the earth. In this miracle we see
that the good of things is not in the things, but
in the Lord of the things, and that things are but
the vehicles and the exponents of a virtue not in
themselves, but proceeding from him who made
all things, and gives to every thing its mission.
You have, as it were, here revealed the holy of
holies of God's creation. In our ordinary view
Ave have results ; in this view we have the source
of results : in our ordinary sphere, we trace
dimly, and imperfectly, the creature up to the
CREATIVE GOODNESS. 485
creature's Creator, but here of a sudden the veil
is drawn aside, the light shines into the holy place,
and reveals the Creator at the head of all, and we
see that it is not the creature that has the virtue,
but that the creature is the empty thing which
Christ fills with virtue, and charges to his work
of ministering toward them that are his.
And who is this hungry multitude in the de-
sert ? All humanity. What is this desert ? The
world in which we live. Y^hat the five barley-
loaves and two fishes ? The money, the rank,
the title, the honour, the greatness of mankind.
And they that seek happiness, satisfaction, and
repose in their money, their estates, their robes,
their titles, their rank, are like poor Andrew,
Simon Peter's brother, seeking nutriment for
five thousand from five barley-loaves and two
fishes; seeking the living among the dead, and
their own experience will tell them, however
bitter the lesson may taste, that they shall never
be able to find it. There is no satisfaction in
any created thing without Christ's blessing upon
it, and in it. Any possession which we have,
disruptured and dissociated from Christ, will not
prove a blessing in our experience. "When the
heart is heavy with sorrow, nothing upon earth
486 FORESHADOWS.
will satisfy it. I have seen the heart so depress-
ed frequently that it has wished the sun would
not shine, that the birds would not sing, that
there should be nothing musical heard, and no-
thing beautiful seen. At such a moment, when
the heart is utterly desolate, life and riches, titles
and honour, all appear in their true light, all are
seen at the right angle, and are pronounced by
such a heart to be bitterness and vanity, and
vexation of spirit. And so it is really and truly,
if we could look at all these things just as they
are. It is the presence of Christ in the blessing
that makes it sweet ; it is absence of Christ from
the richest and best things that make them ut-
terly worthless.
To have all things, and to hold them, and to
feel that we hold them from Christ's hand, is the
true way to enjoy them. As long as I receive
what I have, whatever it be, from Christ, so long
uncertainty and anxiety are scattered. I then
begin to feel, that if the harvest fail, the Lord of
the harvest remains ; if my health fail, and medi-
cines and prescriptions and earthly physicians
can do no good, the great Physician still remains ;
if provision leave me, the great Provider does
not. But when we look at the thing, and not at
CREATIVE GOODNESS. 487
the Lord of the thing, then when the provision
fails, or when health goes, or when the harvest
comes short, all is gone, and we have nothing to
fall back upon. But as long as man can feel
that these things, while they last, are the expres-
sions of God's goodness ; and when these things
go, that the author and the giver of them still
remains, there is thereby communicated steadi-
ness and consistency to every pulse of man's heart,
and to every footstep in man's walk, and this be-
comes the victory that overcometh the world.
In the next place, when we receive blessings,
whatever they are, from Christ's hand, and re-
gard them as the expressions of his gift, all cre-
ated things taste of a sweetness they never had
before, and all blessings become, as it were,
double blessings. I have no doubt when these
poor people received the bread that Christ had
so blessed, and so multiplied, that they felt a
sweetness in that bread that they never experi-
enced in any bread before. Pious men have
learned to look to Christ as the giver of their
blessings, and to see the cross upon the poorest
crumb that they have ; in other words, they
have realized that good idea which the Roman
Catholics carnalize, as they do every thing, when
488 FORESHADOWS.
on Good Friday they draw a cross on the bread
they eat, and think it is all thns sanctified : it is
just the shell or husk of a great and true thought,
viz. that every crumb of bread has the cross of
Christ upon it to the eye of faith ; that the
least mercy is the purchase of his blood. As
soon as we can see and feel the great fact and
reality, that our largest and least blessings are
derived from Christ, we shall see Christ's image
reflected from every thing ; we shall hear the
sweet tones of his voice running through all
sounds ; we shall taste in bread something
sweeter than bread ; all life will become to us a
grand sacrament, earth itself a communion
table, the whole world, as it were, a eucharistic
festival ; and all men will be felt to be brethren
and fellow communicants ; and to our eye the
very desert will rejoice, and the wilderness
blossom as the rose.
And then, in the last place, the result of the
continuous view of Christ giving all, and doing
all, is that we become daily more assimilated
to him, and grow more and more like him : by
the constant practice of rising from the gift to the
giver, from the bread to the bread-giver, we come
to drink into his spirit, and with increasing speed
CREATIVE GOODNESS. 489
conformed to him. And thus our daily meals
become Scriptures, our commonest acts become
Divine ones ; we see him acting in all, and hear
him speaking in all; new lights sparkle to us upon
the mountain-tops ; a new beauty glows in every
landscape; the earth becomes girdled with a
richer and more glorious zone ; and we see bre-
thren in heights and in depths, in palaces, and in
huts, and in hovels ; every day becomes a Lord's
day, and its dawn the dawn of that millennial day
when the giver shall take the place of his gifts ;
and men shall live and rejoice, not in the stream-
let, but in the fountain ; not in the creature, but
in the Creator ; not in the dead bread, but in the
living bread that cometh down from heaven.
Let us, in the mean time, follow Jesus, into the
wilderness if needs be ; let us trust in Jesus for
the supply of the wants that we feel ; and while
we ask him for the bread that perisheth, let us
ask him that he would give us that better bread
that endures unto life eternal.
LECTURE XVIII.
THE BLIND MAN.
And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from
his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who
did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind ?
Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his
parents': but that the works of God should be made manifest
in him. I must work the works of him that sent me, while it
is day : the night cometh, when no man can work. As long
as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. When he
had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the
spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the
clay, and said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam,
(which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way there-
fore, and washed, and came seeing. The neighbours there-
fore, and they which before had seen him that he was blind,
said, Is not this he that sat and begged ? Some said, This is
he : others said, He is like him : but he said, I am he. There-
fore said they unto him, How were thine eyes opened? He
answered and said, A man that is called Jesus made clay, and
anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, Go to the pool of Si-
loam, and wash : and I went and washed, and I received
sight. Then said they unto him, Where is he ? He said, I
know not. They brought to the Pharisees him that afore-
time was blind. And it was the sabbath day when Jesus
made the clay, and opened his eyes. Then again the Phari-
sees also asked him how he had received his sight. He said
unto them, He put clay upon mine eyes, and I washed, and
THE BLIND MAN. 491
do see. Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is
not of God, because he keepeth not the sabbath day. Others
said, How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles ? And
there was a division among them. They say unto the blind
man again, What sayest thou of him, that he hath opened
thine eyes ? He said, He is a prophet. But the Jews did not
believe concerning him, that he had been blind, and received
his sight, until they called the parents of him that had re-
ceived his sight. And they asked them, saying, Is this your
son, who ye say was born blind ? how then doth he now see ?
His parents answered them and said, We know that this is
our son, and that he was born blind : but by what means he
now seeth, we know not ; or who hath opened his eyes, we
know not : he is of age ; ask him : he shall speak for himself.
These ivorcls spake his parents, because they feared the Jews :
for the Jews had agreed already, that if any man did confess
that he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue.
Therefore said his parents, He is of age \ ask him. Then
again called they the man that was blind, and said unto him,
Give God the praise: we know that this man is a sinner. He
answered and said, Whether he be a sinner or no, I know
not : one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.
Then said they to him again, What did he to thee ? how opened
he thine eyes ? He answered them, I have told you already,
and ye did not hear : wherefore would ye hear it again ? will
ye also be his disciples ? Then they reviled him, and said,
Thou art his disciple ; but we are Moses' disciples. We know
that God spake unto Moses : as for this fellow, we know not
from whence he is. The man answered and said unto them,
Why herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from
whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes. Now we know
that God heareth not sinners : but if any man be a worshipper
of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth. Since the world
began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one
that was born blind. If this man were not of God, he could
do nothing. They answered and said unto him, Thou wast
altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us ? And they
cast him out. Jesus heard that they had cast him out ; and
492 FORESHADOWS.
when lie had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe
on the Son of God ? He answered and said, Who is he, Lord,
that I might believe on him ? And Jesus said unto him, Thou
hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee. And
he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him. And
Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that
they which see not might see ; and that they which see might
be made blind. And some of the Pharisees which were with
him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also ?
Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no
sin : but now ye say, We see ; therefore your sin remaineth.
— John ix.
I believe that this chapter is one of the most
expressive sketches of contrasted human cha-
racter that is contained in the Bible, and is not
the least suggestive, to every one that reads and
thoroughly understands it, of important practical
reflections.
It appears from the close of the previous
chapter, that Jesus had been proscribed and
persecuted by the Pharisees; for it is said,
" They took up stones to cast at him, but Jesus
hid himself, and went out of the temple, going
through the midst of them, and so passed by."
And this ninth chapter, which is evidently the
sequel of the previous one, goes on to say, that
" As he passed by [running from the stones of
the Pharisees] he saw a man which was blind
from his birth." Teaching us the remarkable and
THE BLIND MAN. 493
important lesson, that the persecution which Jesus
experienced from some only led him to minister
more graciously and beneficently to others ; the
evil treatment he experienced from one class
only made him more busy in expressing his
mercy and infinite goodness to another. No
ill treatment experienced by Jesus arrested his
compassion. While he runs from the stones of
the Pharisee, he stops, notwithstanding the
shower that followed him, to open the eyes of
one that was born blind !
It is remarkable that the blind man says no-
thing : he seems to have been dumb, as well as
blind ; but the eye of Jesus saw him, and the heart
of Jesus had compassion on him, and the hand of
Jesus instantly cured him. How true is this fact
in a higher sense ! Christ looks upon us before
we look to him ; he pities us before we pray to
him ; his eye is fixed on us in infinite compassion
before our hearts respond to him in adoring gra-
titude and praise.
It appears that this man was blind from his
birth ; and from several expressions that occur
in the chapter, he seems to have been a well-
known and familiar beggar, that every body
knew, that all had seen, and perhaps were ac-
494 FORESHADOWS.
customed to relieve, as they passed to the feasts
and festivals of Jerusalem. Seeing this person,
then, the disciples of Jesus, not the Jews, so far
but not perfectly enlightened, asked the ques-
tion, " Who did sin, this man or his parents, that
he was born blind ? Three explanations have been
given of the origin of the question. The first is,
that certain of the Jews believed, from tradition,
not from Scripture, in the transmigration of souls,
a dogma, still held by the Buddhists in India,
which alleges that the soul goes from one person
to another, or even from an animal to a man, or
from a man to an animal, according to its faithful-
ness to its trust in the place in which God first
planted it ; and the Jews thought this man, or his
soul, had inhabited a previous organization, and in
that organization had sinned, and that he was born
blind as a penalty for that previous sin. The
second explanation is given by Lightfoot, and
others, who say that many of the Jews believed
that previous to birth an unborn infant could sin,
quoting the case of Esau and Jacob striving for
mastery or pre-eminence before they were born.
Another explanation suggested by some is, that
God foresaw that this man would commit some
great sin, and therefore thus early afflicted him ;
THE BLIND MAN, 495
but retribution follows punishment, and the idea
that he was previously punished for sin that he
subsequently committed, is so repugnant to all
the analogy of God's providential and retributive
dealings that we cannot for a moment admit it.
But instead of speculating upon this question,
let us see how Jesus treated it. Before doing so,
however, I may notice how much of truth there
was in the question, and how much falsehood also
was in it. When the disciples asked, " Who hath
sinned?" they evidently assumed the fact, univer-
sally true, that sin is the source of suffering. If
there had been no sin there never had been felt
any suffering. But they assumed in addition to
this another idea, that man's punishment in this
life was proportioned to his sin in this life. This
is not correct ; because hell is pure, unmingled
evil, and pure and righteous retribution, while
heaven is pure, unmingled good, and pure, unmin-
gled reward ; but in this world the two powers
are in collision — holiness and sin, the powers of
evil and the powers of good; and God uses
suffering as a medicine to his own, and the
greatest sufferer is not always the greatest sin-
ner, and the most prosperous man is not always
the loftiest saint. " For," says the Saviour,
496 FORESHADOWS.
u think ye that those eighteen upon whom the
tower of Siloam fell were sinners above ail
men ? I tell you, nay " — that is not the infer-
ence you are to draw ; but the inference you are
to draw is a far more precious one, a practical and
personal one — " except ye repent ye shall all
likewise perish." Still, the main idea of the
disciples was just, that sin is the root, and that
sufferings are but the branches. That sin causes
suffering who can doubt who has ever witnessed
an infant die ? That infant never committed
actual sin, yet it comes under the doom de-
nounced upon humanity, " In the day that thou
eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." But while
that infant's death is the evidence of sin some
where, of sin touching at some point, let us re-
joice to know that that infant's certain salvation
is the evidence, that if sin has so abounded that it
smites the babe that has not sinned after Adam's
transgression, grace has much more abounded,
and saves the babe that cannot personally, be-
cause physically incapable, believe on the second
Adam for its salvation. There was also a mea-
sure of truth in the other idea contained in the
question of the disciples — " Who hath sinned,
this man or his parents ? " Every body must
THE BLIND MAX. 497
admit a fact not peculiar to Revelation, but
which is legible on every chapter of God's pro-
vidence, that the fathers do eat sour grapes, and
the children's teeth do stand on edge, to use the
language of the prophet — that there is a connex-
ion between the sins of the parents and the suf-
ferings of their offspring. Is it not also a fact
in Providence ? — a parent leads a dissipated life,
destroys his health, his vigour, and his mind —
his children that he leaves behind him are the
sufferers. We see it in civil law : a nobleman
commits high- treason — he loses his coronet, and
his son is born a commoner. We read it next in
God's word, (and thus the three kingdoms are
in harmony,) where it is said, "Visiting the
sins of the fathers upon the children ; " but in
all three it is not visiting the children with
eternal ruin because the parents have sinned,
but with temporal chastisement or suffering,
that their parents may see in their suffering the
effects and fruits of their own transgression.
And I can conceive no more dire punishment to
a profligate, debauched, and abandoned parent,
than to see his sins staring him in the face from
the suffering of his children; and every time he
hears the cry of one's agony, or sees the suffer-
2 K
498 FORESHADOWS.
ings of another's physical delibity, or stands by
the grave that contains the ashes of a third, what
a stern and eloquent rebuke of his past trans-
gressions must rise and pierce to the very depths
of his heart, preaching to him repentance and
the need of forgiveness of sins. The very reason
why God has thus arranged it is, that parents
may be more prayerful, diligent, and exemplary.
In looking sometimes into judicial proceedings, I
have noticed that when a parent who has been
guilty of some great crime, and has thus made
himself liable to banishment or a heavy fine, ad-
duces as a plea for mitigation of penalty, " I have
a wife and six children, and I hope, therefore,
the punishment will be mitigated." The answer
of the judge, I have noticed, in every case has
been, " You ought to have thought of this before
you committed the sin ; " thus reminding us
that the sin of the parent is visited on the chil-
dren. So little injustice, then, is there in the
proposition that is declared in the Bible, that it
is recognised upon our tribunals, and is witnessed
in all the providential dealings of God among
mankind.
Let us look, in the next place, at our Lord's
reply : it is after all the more practical one ; it
THE BLIND MAN. 499
will show that the disciples had no business to
ask the question ; and that when we see children
suffer we are not warranted, as spectators of their
suffering, to conclude that their fathers sinned,
and therefore the children suffer the penalty. Our
Lord rebukes this idea altogether ; and I think it
is one of the most beautiful and striking evidences
of the infinite wisdom of our blessed Lord, that
he always turns man's mind away from the sphere
in which it loves to revel, the sphere of uncha-
ritableness, misjudgment, and wild speculation,
and brings it back again into the plain high-road
of common duty, obligation, and responsibility.
He therefore says to them very strikingly,
" Neither hath this man sinned nor his parents,
but that the works of God should be made mani-
fest in him." He does not mean by these words
that he was afflicted on purpose that God's works
might be made manifest ; but that the infer-
ence we are to draw from the poor man's blind-
ness is, that it shall issue to the glory of God ;
as if he had said to his disciple : " Do not seek
in the life of the parents the cause of the blind-
ness of the man ; do not pry into the secrets of
families, and fish up imaginary causes of the suf-
ferings of the parents or the diseases of their chil-
2 k 2
500 FORESHADOWS.
dren ; do not try to ascertain by guessing what
can have brought this judgment upon that fami-
ly, what has entailed that misery upon another
family ; but see whether you cannot seize the
suffering that exists as a fact, and on that fact
build a superstructure of good to mankind and
glory to God whose Providence has permitted it.
You are not, therefore, (as if our Saviour had
said,) to speculate upon the blindness of this
man, or upon the deafness of that man, or upon
the sufferings of a third ; but to see what good
can be extracted out of each visitation you meet
with, in other words, to ascertain how sweet a
flower may grow from so bitter a bud. That the
works of God may be made manifest, is to be the
end and aim of your study of the suffering of this
man. This is the inference you are to draw, this
is the light in which you are to look at it ; you
are not to try to search out hidden springs of mis-
fortunes, which you never can accurately detect,
but to see what lesson of duty, or of obligation,
you can gather from facts which you can easily
distinguish. And so I say, with reference to the
recent epidemic* that overflowed our land. I re-
fer to it, perhaps some will think, too often ; but
* In 1849.
THE BLIND MAN. 501
we are forgetting it too quickly to make it un-
necessary to refer to it often. Instead of doing
as some did — trying to discover what sin in the
government, or what wickedness in the people,
what fault upon the bench, or what flaw in the
subject — whether it was sin here, or short-com-
ings there, that caused it — instead of thus specu-
lating upon the causes that brought down upon
us the judgment of God, let us learn the lesson
our Saviour here dictates, and see what duties
of new devotedness, what obligations to fresh be-
neficence, what good we can do to make that
great minister of judgment to be after all a min-
ister of mercy, so that the poor of after-ages shall
bless their fathers, when they are gone, and say,
" They laboured, and we enjoy the fruits of their
labours."
To the man himself, however, we can see, his
blindness was scarcely a calamity ; the result shows
it. At this moment, when Jesus looked upon
him, he must have felt that the unsetting Sun
that rose upon his soul in the midnight of his
physical blindness, was more than a compensation
for all the privations he had endured. God thus
often gives compensatory elements. In the inner
light which that man began now to see, he had a
502 FORESHADOWS.
compensation for the absence of the outer light,
which man's heart can feel, but man's tongue
cannot express. It is so still. Upon the bosom
of the blind there often shine the splendours of
an unsetting sun, so much so that I have heard
of blind men, made Christians by the grace of
God, who have said they deprecated the removal
of their blindness lest the inner light, which they
so much enjoyed, should ever be extinguished.
Hence, too, we find that upon the souls of the
deaf, there often sound the chimes of celestial me-
lodies ; the lame man has been made to mount as
with eagle's wings ; and the old man in the de-
crepitude of decay has felt all the elasticity and
vigour of youth ; for a new heart given to an old
man makes him, by the grace of God, to feel young
and take heart for the pilgrimage of life again.
Our Lord adds this remark upon the convers-
ation which he held with his disciples : " I
must work the works of him that sent me while
it is day ; the night cometh when no man can
work." This has been cavilled at; as if our
Lord meant to say that he could only work
during his biography on earth; and that his
saying " the night cometh when no man can
work" is contradicted by the fact that his apos-
THE BLIND MAN. 503
ties worked, and worked successfully after him.
All this arises from a misconception of the true
meaning and origin of the words he used. He
quoted a popular proverb ; he says, " The pro-
verb is, Work while it is called to-day ; the night
cometh, when no man can work." This is true,
it is true literally, it is true morally, it is true
eternally; and now while the day lasts, while
the opportunity endures, I must work, knowing
that the night of my death cometh, when I
shall have finished my course ; and knowing, too,
that to each man there is a day, which his allow-
ing to pass away, prevents him from doing what
belongs to that day. Is it not found in our own
experience, that each day has its own duties ? If
you neglect the duties of to-day, you never can
make up for them to-morrow, because each day
has duties that completely fill it ; and if the du-
ties of to-day are neglected, you cannot crowd
them into to-morrow. You require all your
strength and all your power to do to-morrow's
duties ; and if you miss one day's duties, you
have left undone that which never can be done.
So our Lord says : " Work while it is called to-
day ; the night cometh, when no man can work."
Our Lord then took the moistened clay, it is
504 FORESHADOWS.
said, and applied it to the man's eyes, and he
immediately saw. Now what was the design of
our Lord in thus using clay ? I answer, that,
judging from the whole face of the narrative, it
was to make the blind man sensible of the fact
that it was Jesus that healed him. The man
could not see Jesus, but he could feel his hand
touch his eyes with the clay ; he could be made
conscious of going and washing, and then seeing.
Or it may have been, perhaps, to convince those
that stood by that the virtue that healed was in
Jesus. Whenever he performed a miracle, he
invariably used a medium : sometimes the medium
was a touch, sometimes it was a word, sometimes
it was clay. There was no more virtue in the
clay than in the touch, and no more in the touch
than in the word ; the virtue was in Christ. But
the reason why he used the medium, whether it
was clay, or a touch, or a word, was to show
sensibly to the eyes of the spectators that Christ
was the Fountain, and that from him direct to
the subject of infirmity the healing virtue flowed.
Christ can work without means, or against means,
or above means. A straw in an infant's hand,
directed by him, is mighty ; a sword in a giant's
hand, blasted by him, is impotent and useless.
THE BLIND MAN. 505
Our Lord then says, " Go, wash in the pool
of Siloam ;" and the man did it. " Siloam,"
says John, " which is by interpretation, Sent."
This, perhaps, was to try his obedience ; just as
in the almost analogous case of the miracle per-
formed on Naaman the Syrian, concerning which
we read that " Elisha sent a messenger unto him,
saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and
thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt
be clean. But Naaman was wroth, and went
away, and said, Behold, I thought he will surely
come out to me, and stand, and call on the name
of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over
the place, and recover the leper." This man,
however, in favourable contrast, obeyed the
command, and went, and washed, and saw.
It has been very much disputed what can have
been John's reason for saying, " which is by
interpretation, Sent." There is no evidence that
it is in any way a type of Christ, or that it was
associated with evangelical truth. The pre-
sumption is, that John heard in the very word the
pool the sound of a Saviour's mission, and that he
saw, as it were, reflected in it the brightness of
his Saviour's face, even of that Saviour who was
sent by the Father. The word repeatedly used to
506 FORESHADOWS.
describe him whose whole life was a mission, or
a constant sending, was instantly suggested to the
evangelist by the name of the pool of Siloam.
The man, we read, saw ; and the moment he
saw he returned to his home. The dialogue that
takes place there at the fireside is remarkable.
No doubt his parents, his friends, all his neigh-
bours crowded into the house to see this wonder-
ful transformation in the case of a well-known
blind beggar, now perfectly seeing and perfectly
happy. But so incredulous were they that they
could not believe it. " Some said, It is he."
How very natural ! Let a blind man's eyes be
opened, and the change that takes place is much
greater than the space occupied by the eye. A
blind man walks with his head back, and puts his
foot or his hand foremost, to feel that the way is
clear, but the moment his eye-sight is restored the
head resumes its natural position. Not only is the
face altered, but the whole shape, tone, mannerism
of the man undergoes a complete transformation.
We can therefore easily conceive how naturally
some of his neighbours said, " This is he ; and
others said, It is like him; but he said, [which
settles all disputes,] I am he " — whatever I may
be like, I am he. They doubted his identity,
THE BLIND MAN. 507
and asked him how the change took place. He
gave them the simple story : " A man [for he was
not yet convinced that Christ was the Messiah]
made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said unto
me, Go to the pool of Siloam and wash ; and I
went and washed, and I received sight." The
next thing his friends and neighbours did was to
bring him to the Pharisees. There was a smaller
sanhedrim that always sat in Jerusalem to try all
minor cases, to receive reports of all religious
matters ; they brought him to this sanhedrim,
not out of a malevolent or hostile feeling, but
rather in order to get the case perfectly expis-
cated, in order to ascertain whether a miracle had
been wrought, and what was the amount of credit
due to this man who had wrought so wonderful
a miracle. They, therefore, it is said, brought
him to the Pharisees, who asked him how he had
received his sight. We see the carping Pharisee
at once there. They knew as well as the man
did that Jesus wrought miracles, for they had
seen several ; they had not the least doubt it was
an actual miracle, and they did not ask, " Is it a
fact that your eyes have been opened?" — this
would have been the question of a plain unbiased
judge— but, " How did he open them ? " Notice
508 FORESHADOWS.
the man's reply ; and in the reply you will see
how transparently genuine, and authentic, and
real the narrative is. When examined by his
neighbours, his statement is long, minute, and
frank. He says, " A man made clay, and
anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, Go to the
pool of Siloam and wash, and I went and washed,
and I received sight." But when he is cross-
questioned by the Pharisees, whose hostility he
well knew, his answers assume a more cautious
shape ; he replies much more briefly, and says,
(ver. 15,) " He put clay upon mine eyes, and I
washed and do see." We clearly see how
cautious his reply was to this synod or ecclesi-
astical court that inquisitorially examined him,
and how strongly it contrasts with the frank,
open manner in which he replied to his neigh-
bours and parents. The moment he replied,
they said, "What sayest thou of him, that
he hath opened thine eyes ?" This reads badly :
it means, ' i What do you say ? Do you mean
to say that he has opened your eyes ? and what
think you of him, if he has done so?" The
man answered with great frankness, " He is a
prophet." ie But the Jews did not believe con-
cerning him that he had been blind, and received
THE BLIND MAN. 509
his sight, until they called the parents of him
that received his sight." And when the man had
made his statement, we read, (ver. 16,) " There-
fore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not
of God, because he keepeth not the sabbath day.
Others said, How can a man that is a sinner do
such miracles ? And there was a division among
them." This lets out an interesting fact, that
in this sanhedrim there were two parties. The
one party does not try to meet the fact that a
miracle was done, and disprove it, but they ask
how it was done, urge that the man that did it
cannot be a prophet, or the Messiah, for he has
broken the sabbath. The other party in the
sanhedrim, who, from the mode in which they
started their difficulty, evidently felt that they
were a minority, and could not carry the day,
put in the quiet question, very suggestive how-
ever, " How can a man that is a sinner do such
miracles?" Is there any evidence at this time in
the condition of the Jews indicating that there
was such a minority ? Nicodemus and Joseph of
Arimathea were constituent members of this very
sanhedrim ; and while the great majority argued
that the man must be a bad man because he had
done this miracle on the sabbath day, these men
.
510 FORESHADOWS.
of nobler mettle, rising superior to the mere par-
tisanship of the age, impressed with the magnifi-
cence of power and beneficence concentrated and
combined in all that Jesus did, afraid to take too
decided a part, yet determined not to be silent
when truth was threatened with martyrdom, lifted*
up their still, small, but singularly suggestive
voice, and said, " How can a man that is a sinner
[that is, an impostor, a thoroughly bad man] do
such miracles?" — so stamped with evidence of
power, and so replete with proofs of beneficence.
We cannot believe that he is an impostor, or a sin-
ner. The Pharisees again put the question,
"What sayest thou? we have heard one explana-
tion, and we have found two members of the
sanhedrim who dispute it — What sayest thou?
What is your idea of the man?" It was a
question, but it was, at the same time, a hint
to the man, (seeing that there was a vast ma-
jority against Christ, and only two individuals
for him,) insinuating that the less he said for
Christ the better, and that if he could get his
conscience and his tongue to co-operate in stat-
ing his impression that Christ wrought miracles
by the power of Beelzebub the prince of devils,
he would be promoted, get some preferment,
THE BLIND MAN. 511
or some valuable situation. But the witness
was an honest man ; he was frank, generous,
and grateful for the miracle of which he had
been the subject; and he replied at once with
great manliness and real honesty, fearing nei-
ther their frown, nor desiring their approbation,
" I believe he is a prophet." They were foiled;
they expected something to help them, but they
found that which more and more entangled and
perplexed them. Seeing they could make no-
thing of the man, they resolved to ascertain
if they could detect in his statement any
thing that would clash with the statement of his
parents. They therefore sent for the man's
parents and spoke to them. " The parents (we
are told) answered and said, We know that this
is our son, «nd that he was born blind [we cannot
deny that : every body knows it] ; but by what
means he now seeth we know not, or who hath
opened his eyes we know not." And they added,
with great cunning and great respect for their
personal safety, " He is of age, ask him ; " re-
collecting that if any one confessed Jesus, he
was instantly to be cast out of the synagogue.
The Pharisees expected that the parents would
have contradicted something the son had said,
512 FORESHADOWS.
but they found it otherwise ; the parents were too
honest, or rather too convinced of the imp ssi-
bility of disproof, to deny that their son was born
blind ; and they were too honest to deny that he
now saw, or rather, they felt they dared not do
so ; but, at the same time, they were too prudent,
as this world would call it, to say that Christ or
a prophet had opened their son's eyes, because
they knew quite well they would be cast out
from the synagogue if they confessed Christ ;
they therefore cautiously and quietly shifted the
responsibility from their own shoulders and
threw it back upon the shoulders of the son.
Were not these parents a type of a party still ex-
isting? Is there not a class in every congrega-
tion who are too convinced that the Bible is
true, and Christianity from God, openly to deny
it ; but who are too respectful to the fashion of
the age, or the praise, the censure, or the pro-
fits of the world, manfully to say, " We are
Christians, and we believe that living, vital
religion is from above;" and therefore when
they speak to persons before whom they are
anxious to take care how much they let out, as
well as how much they keep in, they say, " We
think so and so ; no doubt the Bible is true, but
THE BLIND MAN. 513
really, instead of discussing the matter, let us
turn to the business before us ; if you will come
next Sunday, and hear our minister, you will find
one able to explain his own sentiments." They
wish to say nothing upon a subject which comes
too close to their own consciences. Even infi-
delity has remarked, that if Christianity be true,
there must be few upon earth that really believe
it, because the life and sacrifices of Christians do
not indicate that they feel the weight and re-
sponsibility of a religion that demands and
suggests so many.
The sanhedrim again dealt with the man ; and
in verse 24 it is said, " Then again called they
the man that was blind, and said unto him, Give
God the praise ; we know that this man is a sin-
ner." Here were gross fraud, falsehood, and
deception. They insinuated to the man, when
they called him a second time, " We have now
seen your parents, we have thoroughly examined
the whole matter, and we are now at the bottom
of it, we are in the secret; do not venture to
assert again that Christ opened your eyes ; we
have found it a delusio visits, or a complete
trumped-up story, a thorough fiction; you are
the victim of a heated imagination, or a deceiver ;
2 l
514 FORESHADOWS.
no real miracle has been wrought : give God the
praise ; we know Christ is an impostor, and that
your idea of him is altogether absurd. Just take
the hint ; deny that Christ wrought the miracle ;
do not persist in asserting what we are prepared
to disprove if you attempt to do so."
How did the man receive all this ? His answer
was, " Whether he be a sinner or no, I know
not." He does not mean to imply that he had
any doubt in his own mind, but he means to
say, " I do not enter upon that discussion ;
whether this prophet who has opened my eyes
be a sinner or an impostor or not, I am not now
here to discuss with you — that is for you, the
superior officers of the church, to discuss and
settle among yourselves ; but the matter of fact
(as a plain, honest man, he says) I can thoroughly
understand, and it is this — one thing I know,
that, whereas I was blind, now I see." What
common sense was there here, what candour,
what honesty ! and how great a rebuke to those
ecclesiastical officers who tried to lead him into
deception, and into the utterance of a lie ! There
are many in every Christian audience who can
testify in a higher sphere to the same blessed
experience. Many a one, I have no doubt, in
THE BLIND MAN. 515
my own congregation may be able, and is able,
to say, What the external or internal evidence
of Christianity may be I know not ; what Butler
says, what Chalmers argues, I know very little ;
what the evidence from miracles is, or what the
testimony from history is, I am not competent to
discuss, to narrate, or even able to remember, if
I ever read it ; but one thing I do know, that
once I was blind, and now I see ; once I was
dead in sins, and now I am alive to God; once
I was poor indeed, and now I am unsearchably
rich ; once I looked into eternity and saw nothing
but a dark and repulsive blank, now I have been
taught by that book, called the Bible, the origin
of which, the history of which, the outer evi-
dence of which I know comparatively very
little, to call God my Father, and heaven my
home ; and no logic that man can use will ever
convince me that this religion is not from God,
for a religion that comes from God is the only
religion that can lead a man to God ; and I am
therefore satisfied.
Thus the Pharisees, finding that the more
they expiscated the matter the less they really
gained, again asked the poor man, " What
did he do to thee ? how opened he thine eyes ? "
2 l 2
516 FORESHADOWS.
The man then became irritated, and said, " I
have told you already, and ye did not hear :
wherefore would ye hear it again ? " And then,
with consummate irony, which must have told
with tremendous effect upon their feelings and
passions, he says, " Will ye also become his dis-
ciples ? " " Then they reviled him, and said,
Thou art his disciple ; but we are Moses' disci-
ples : we know that God spake unto Moses ; but
as for this fellow, we know not from whence he
is." Then the man answered, resuming all his
past coolness, " Herein is a marvellous thing,
that ye know not from whence he is, and yet he
hath opened mine eyes." This one single lay-
man puzzles a whole synod, call them bishops,
archbishops, presbyters, or what you will, — he
puzzles them all. And why ? Because truth in
one man is mightier than a lie in a whole synod,
general council, or assembly. The meaning of
the phrase " from whence," is this : they argued
that Christ was from beneath, that he did mira-
cles by the power of Satan. He says, " This
cannot be ; it is strange ye do not know whence
he is ; Satan does not open blind men's eyes, or
unstop deaf men's ears." They argued in a
previous part of the discussion, " This man is a
THE BLIND MAN. 517
sinner, and God does not hear sinners." The
man takes the premises they laid down — namely,
that God does not hear sinners, and says, " Here
is a man that has been heard of God, and armed
by God with miraculous power ; and therefore,
on your own terms, on your own premises, there
is evidence that the man is not from below, but
that he comes from above." Nothing can be
more delightful than to see this great and pre-
tending synod, this assuming camarilla of scribes,
and Pharisees, and lawyers, these proud asserters
of the independence of the church, and its ex-
clusive jurisdiction over all things, temporal, ec-
clesiastical, civil, and spiritual, thus puzzled and
perplexed, and put down by the plain state-
ment of truth by an honest man, gifted with
common sense, and with nothing more. The
tables are beautifully turned ; the scholar in-
structs the teacher ; the layman is wiser than the
master ; the pew puts the pulpit right ; the blind
man sees, and the seeing men are blind; and the
humbling lesson that the synod learned from that
day might have done them good for many days
to come.
But what did they do after this ? Such irony
and such logic were alike irresistible ; they had
518 FORESHADOWS.
recourse to other weapons, to which conscious
weakness and want of truth always has recourse.
They persecuted him ; they cast him out of the
synagogue, and said to him, " Thou wast alto-
gether born in sin, and dost thou teach us?"
These words are extremely expressive, " Alto-
gether born in sins — you were born blind on
account of sins ; you are blind in soul, and blind
in body ; and oh, blind man, your mind is even
darker than your body, fit for no good, utterly
unable to teach us : the best treatment we can
give you is to cast you out as a withered branch,
not fit to belong to that synagogue over which
we preside." Thus, then, they thrust him out ;
they silenced, though they could not confute;
they threw out the man, since they were unable
to neutralize and reply to his reasons.
Now, the lesson we learn from the whole of
this scene is, that the lineal priests of the
Lord lost the spirit and the mind of the Lord.
Mark the fact : these men had a true lineal suc-
cession from the davs of Aaron ; there was no
flaw in the personal succession of these men ;
there was not a priest in that sanhedrim who
could not trace his lineage right upward to Aaron
himself; and yet these men denied the faith, dis-
THE BLIND MAN. 519
claimed the gospel, crucified the Lord of glory.
And should not this teach a lesson to others who
make similar pretensions in this day ? It is pos-
sible to succeed the apostles by the most accu-
rate lineal succession, and yet to have lost all the
doctrines of the apostles in all we preach and in
all we define. It is not true, because a man has
apostolic succession, that therefore he preaches
apostolic doctrine ; but it is true, that he that
preaches apostolic doctrine has unquestionably
apostolic succession. It is not true, that he who
can trace his genealogy to Paul or Peter there-
fore must preach truth ; but it is true, that the
minister who preaches truth, whether he can
trace it or not, is a successor of the apostles and
an ambassador of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The next lesson we learn from this is, that our
Lord and the apostles received the Old Testa-
ment Scriptures from the hands of these very
men. Now you know it is an argument of the
present day, which Dr. Wiseman, especially,
wields on all occasions, and sometimes with
effect — that the Protestants received the Bible
from the church of Rome, and that we ought
therefore to take the church of Rome's interpret-
ation of the Bible. The proper reply to this is
520 FORESHADOWS.
very obvious. Suppose we received the Bible
from the church of Rome, (which I deny, and
can disprove,) it does not follow that we are to
take her opinion of its contents. Our Lord and
his apostles received the Old Testament from these
men in this very synod or sanhedrim of Phari-
sees, but they repudiated their interpretation of
it ; they took the book in all its perfection, but
they repudiated the interpretation the ecclesias-
tics of the day put upon it. So with us. If we
received the New Testament from the church of
Rome, we accept the document, thankful that
God made so unfaithful a guardian convey to us
so precious a deposit, regretting that she was so
blind while she carried in her hand so bright a
lantern ; but when she says, " You must take
our interpretation," we answer, " We must treat
you as the apostles treated the Pharisees and
scribes ; we will take the document, but we will
not see or hear what the pope says about the
Bible, but what the Bible says about him." It
is our prerogative to read the Bible at first hand ;
let us never forget that. If there be one truth that
our Protestant forefathers sealed with their blood
it is this : that I am God's child, and I must hear
my Father's grand voice in the original, and not
THE BLIND MAN. 521
in words reflected in priestly, and conciliar, and
patristic echoes, from generation to generation.
When I want to know the truth, I must tell
Duns Scotus, Thomas Aquinas, Pio Nono, and
Gregory the Sixteenth, all the fathers, councils,
and schoolmen, to stand at the bottom of the hill,
whilst, like the patriarch of old, I ascend alone
to the sun-lit top, and hold sweet communion
with my God and my Saviour's God, with my
Father and his Father.
Next, I would notice how calculated are
prepossession, and prejudice, and passion to
tell on and influence the mind. These men's
judgments were warped by their passions ; they
knew what was true, but their hearts would not
let them receive it. Does not this suggest the
true spirit of much of the infidelity of the present
day ? It is not that men need new heads, but
new hearts ; it is not deficiency of light, but de-
ficiency of love and grace, and Divine power in
their hearts and consciences. Nobody can deter-
mine by any calculus he can use how much the
judgment is the scholar of the heart. How fre-
quently do we believe to be true that which our
passions or prejudices bid us wish to be true ! and
how few men are there who, in the cold light of
522 FORESHADOWS.
reason, can come to cold conclusions, irrespective
and independent of their hearts and passions and
feelings. Therefore what we need the Holy
Spirit to do is, not to give us new Bibles, but new
hearts wherewith to read them ; it is not to give
us more light, for I say we have far more light
and far more evidence that the Bible is true,
than any jury in the Old Bailey ever had for the
conclusion that a prisoner was guilty ; and if the
evidence we have for the truth of this book is
not sufficient to prove it, innocent men have been
sacrificed for the past four or five centuries by
the sentences of our judges, and the whole
world has proceeded upon a supposition, an
imagination, a fancy. Let us pray, then, that
the Spirit of God may give us not new judg-
ments only, or new light only, though both may
be useful, but new hearts, new sympathies, and
thus make all things new.
Lastly, let us learn, that if there be no infalli-
bility in popes, there is no infallibility in general
councils, in presbyteries, in general assemblies.
If we are not to call the pope our master, we
must be taught to call no council our master.
We must set aside the council as a decisive author-
ity; we may take its reasoning, or its suggestions,
THE BLIND MAN. 523
or its prescriptions, but we are to bring all
that the ablest and the most gifted assert, all that
the most venerable council propounds, to the law
and to the testimony ; if they speak not accord-
ing to it, it is because there is no truth in
them. Let us ever remember that the visible
church is not always Christ's true church. The
visible church in the days of our Lord had been
utterly apostate ; it has become apostate since.
The true church was composed of Joseph of
Arimathea and Nicodemus, and the rest in that
sanhedrim constituted the apostacy. The true
church still consists of all the true members of
the body of Christ, and all beyond and beside
are only portions of the apostacy. At present
the tares are mingled with the wheat ; the day
comes when the tares shall be gathered into
bundles, and cast into everlasting fire, and they
that are the wheat shall shine forth in the king-
dom of their Father, like the stars, for ever and
ever. Amen.
LECTURE XIX.
THE WITHERED HAND.
And it came to pass, that he went through the corn-fields on
the sabbath day ; and his disciples began, as they went, to
pluck the ears of corn. And the Pharisees said unto him,
Behold, why do they on the sabbath day that which is not
lawful ? And he said unto them, Have ye never read what
David did, when he had need, and was an hungred, 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 eat the
shewbread, which is not lawful to eat but for the priests, and
gave also to them which were with him ? 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 sab-
bath. And he entered again into the synagogue ; and there
was a man there which had a withered hand. And they
watched him, whether he would heal him on the sabbath day ;
that they might accuse him. And he saith unto the man
which had the withered hand, Stand forth. And he saith
unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to
do evil ? to save life, or to kill ? But they held their peace.
And when he had looked round about on them with anger,
being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto
the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out :
and his hand was restored whole as the other. And the Pha-
risees went forth, and straightway took counsel with the He-
rodians against him, how they might destroy him. — Mark ii.
23—28 ; m. 1—6.
THE WITHERED HAND. 525
Before proceeding to explain the interesting
and instructive facts recorded in the passage I
have chosen, I may just state that there is,
what is very important, another version of
this same transaction, differing only in words,
though fuller in some portions of the narrative, in
Matt. xii. " At that time Jesus went on the
sabbath day through the corn ; and his disciples
were an hungred, and began to pluck the ears of
corn, and to eat. But when the Pharisees saw
it, they said unto him, Behold, thy disciples do
that which is not lawful to do upon the sabbath
day. But he said unto them, Have ye not read
what David did, when he was an hungred, and
they that were with him ; how he entered into
the house of God, and did eat the shewbread,
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 [here
is the additional illustration] 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 [this also is additional]
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
7 " MBgBTAH "VS.
guiltless. For the Son of man :s Lrrd even of
the sabbath day. And when he was departed
thence, he went into their synagogue : and, be-
hold, there was a man which had his hand
uered. And they asked him. saying. Is it law-
ful to heal on the sabbath days ? that they might
accuse him. 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 c
How much then is a man better than a sheep ?
uerefore it is lawful to do well on the sabbath
days. Then saith he to the man. Stretch forth
thine hand. And he stretched it forth ; and it
i t stored whole, like as the other. Then the
Pharisees went out, and held a council aga:
him, how they might destroy him."
We thm perceive that the two narrators of
the transaction that occurred on the very same
day, were not in any way in communication one
":n the other, or copyists :ne one of the oth:
narrative. "^ e have here (putting altogether
out of question, for the moment, that each was
inspired) the independent versions of one trans-
action, as it presented itself to two distinct persons,
told each in his own wav. and according to the im-
THE WITHERED HANI). 527
pression made at the time. We invariably find,
when two witnesses are examined before a judge
and jury about one transaction which both wit-
nesses saw, that the one will state facts which the
other omits, and his testimony will be supple-
mented by other facts which the other narrates.
The reason of this is, that no two men, looking at
one occurrence, are equally touched by every in-
cident in that occurrence. One fact strikes one,
and makes the deepest impression upon him ;
another fact strikes the other, and makes the
deepest impression upon him; and when each
gives his statement of what he saw, he states first
and at greatest length the facts that made the
deepest impression, and are therefore retained
the most in his memory ; and thus the judge and
jury have the clear evidence that these are two
impartial narrators of an actual transaction. Now
this is one of the indirect, but quiet proofs, that
the evangelists who record the life and trans-
actions of Jesus, were actual witnesses of all thev
wrote, and that they have given in their narrative
the facts as they saw them, guided and governed
at the same time by that overshadowing inspira-
tion which guarded them from all error, and
528 FORESHADOWS.
guided them to the statement of all that was
absolutely necessary, and eternally true.
In looking at this narrative, and the portion
with which I have connected it, we see another
of those miracles to which I have alluded per-
formed on the sabbath day. In the Gospels we
shall find in all seven miracles performed by our
Lord upon successive sabbath days. The ques-
tion occurs sometimes to a fair and honest reader
of the Bible, Why, when our Lord saw that
doing the miracles on the sabbath day was so
detestable to the Pharisee, whether that detesta-
tion was real or assumed, did he persist in doing
them ? The answer is, in the first place, the
objects on whom they were wrought came in his
path on the sabbath day ; and the true question
is, therefore, not why should he do them, but
why should he not do them 1 In the next place,
superstition had perverted to its own miserable
ends that sublime and blessed institution, the
sabbath day. The traditionists had displaced it
from its true, holy, and original position, and had
placed the sabbath in the room of the sabbath's
Lord, the ceremonial in the room of the moral,
the ritual in the stead of the spiritual ; and it
THE WITHERED HAND. 529
needed our Lord, the great purifier of the temple,
and the Lord of the sabbath, to purify and re-
store his own Divine institution to its true, ori-
ginal, and useful position. These are sufficient
reasons why Christ wrought these miracles upon
the sabbath day. Few readers of the New Tes-
tament can fail to notice that the Pharisees had
completely substituted the sanctimonious use of
the sabbath, in the room of moral, humane, and
merciful duties ; they pleaded its sacredness as a
reason why they should not do good ; they urged
its obligations as sufficient apologies for utterly
trampling down the most precious offices ; they
had inverted the order of things, by placing the
means, which was the sabbath, in the room of the
end, which was the improvement of the crea-
ture and the glory of God. Hence the sabbath
had come to be an obstruction to religion in
the hands of the Pharisees, not an impulse and
incentive to it. To perform certain mere cere-
monial rites upon their sabbath was sacredly to
observe it ; to let a neighbour die by the road-
side on that day, to let the poor, the hungry, the
starving, the naked, go without food and raiment
because it was the sabbath, was a common and
applauded practice with the Pharisees of old.
2 M
530 FORESHADOWS.
The previous chapter, which introduces the
miracle in the passage I am about to comment
on, tells us that the disciples, wearied and hun-
gry, plucked the ears of corn as they passed
through the corn-field and by the way-side.
There was no dishonesty in this, because by an
express law — and one of those laws that show
that the Levitical economy unfolds an estimate of
what is due to the poor, and of the best way of
treating them, at least not inferior to the best
of modern legislation — this act of the disciples
was permitted. In Deut. xxiii. it is written,
"When thou comest into the standing corn of
thy neighbour, then thou mayest pluck the ears
with thine hand; but thou shalt not move a
sickle unto thy neighbour's standing corn." That
is, if a hungry man, passing through the corn-
fields of Judea, should gather with his hand as
much as he could eat, he was welcome to do so,
and the proprietor dared not prohibit or disturb
him; but he must not bring the sickle, because
that would be to cut down the corn, and carry it
home, which would have been trespass and actual
dishonesty: the Mosaic ritual thus teaching the
rich proprietor of the corn-field, that he was not
the absolute owner, but the steward, partly for
THE WITHERED HAND. 581
himself, and partly, too, for the wants of the
poor. Hence the practice still survives in many
countries, of allowing gleaners to go into the
field, and gather up all the corn that remains
when the proprietor has carried home what he
feels to be his own. But modern machinery, I
am told, has very much put an end to this ancient
usage. It is painful to note a melancholy and
yawning chasm too long forming between one
and another class of mankind; this is real mis-
fortune— it is ever pregnant with evil ; for when
such a chasm has reached its maximum depth and
breadth, then will come the terrible collision,
which ends in revolution, in common ruin, in
wide-spread destruction. Let us try to recog-
nise in the poorest a brother, and in all want a
claim. Let nations and individuals regard the
poor in the land, whom they have always, as sub-
stantially and morally entitled to their bounty
and beneficence under all circumstances.
Our Lord met the Pharisees, when they made
this objection, upon their own ground, and
specified two distinct cases where the objection
would find its solution without their going be-
yond their own books for it. The first is the
case of David. He and his friends were hun-
2 m 2
532 FORESHADOWS.
gry ; they went to the high priest, and in their
hunger partook of the sacramental bread, as I
might call it — the shew-bread ; and yet they did
not desecrate the sabbath or defile the temple, or
do an unholy thing, of which they would have
been guilty under ordinary circumstances. Ne-
cessity has no law. It would have been sin in
David to have eaten the shew-bread under ordi-
nary circumstances, but when starving for want
of food, he and his friends were warranted, in
order to escape death by hunger, in eating the
sacred bread laid up in the sanctuary of God. So,
with reference to the sabbath, in the words of the
admirable Scotch Shorter Catechism, " works of
necessity are excepted." What must be done
upon the sabbath, as the prescription of absolute
necessity, it is not desecrating the sabbath to do.
The Jew still clings in his exile to the ceremonial
of his fathers, and though perplexed by the cir-
cumstances of his position, he gets over his difficul-
ties thus : he finds there are certain things, in this
country, for instance, which it is absolutely ne-
cessary to do upon the sabbath, these he will not
touch himself, and therefore he gets a Gentile to
do them for him ; he thus thinks he is escaping
the consequence of violating his law by inducing
THE WITHERED HAND. 533
the Gentile to step in and do the sin in his stead,
brgetting that it is done in his name, and that
upon his shoulders, if there be sin, must rest
the responsibility.
In the parallel passage in Matthew, our Lord
quotes the case of the priests in the temple, as
doing things there which were not strictly sa-
cred, but necessary to enable them to perform
their sacred functions. They were obliged to
circumcise, to put on and off their robes, and
perform divers washings. And again he urges,
that if a man has a sheep that has fallen into the
ditch, surely he is not to let it perish because it
is the sabbath day. Some persons would argue
that he ought not, if he had a sheep or a horse
thus in danger, to go and rescue it. I think he
ought ; it is his duty ; it is a " work of mercy."
Or were your corn on fire in your field, and it were
absolutely plain that it would be consumed in a
few hours by a flame that was making its way to-
wards it, it would be your duty to cut it down,
even upon the sabbath day — and that as fast as
possible. These last two instances come under
the category of works of mercy. We see a work
of necessity in David's case, to do which is not to
desecrate the sabbath ; and we have a work of
534 FORESHADOWS.
mercy in. the case of the priests in the temple,
and the man's rescuing his sheep, which is also
to be done on the sabbath, and yet the sabbath
is not desecrated thereby. With the exception
of these two, works of necessity and of mercy
— and every man's conscience, enlightened by
God's word, must determine what is a work
of necessity, and what is a work of mercy — the
sabbath is to be hallowed, and kept holy to the
Lord.
Our Lord thus interposed, and at the same time
emitted one of those magnificent thoughts which
form great central principles, in the light of which,
and in relation to which, all subordinate ques-
tions of casuistry may be fairly settled. He says,
" You do certain things which are necessary in
the temple on the sabbath day ; " and then, anti-
cipating their objection, or rather seeing their ob-
jection in their hearts — "Your disciples were not
in the temple ; they were in the fields, and there-
fore your illustration is inapplicable" — the Lord
instantly says, " One greater than the temple
is here." What a sublime sentiment is this!
and how much is it in accordance with other
passages in Scripture ! such as, " Destroy this
temple, and in three days I will build it up. He
THE WITHERED HAND. 535
spake of the temple of liis body ; " and that beau-
tiful passage in the Apocalypse, " I saw no
temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty, even
the Lamb, [*a<, even, — that is the translation,] is
the temple thereof." We see how the moral
eclipses the material. The spiritual temple,
Christ and his people, are more glorious than
the temple on which the Jews prided themselves,
and which they quoted as the grand ornament
of their country. Christ in the midst of his own
constitutes the true, grand, eternal cathedral, for
which stone and lime can be no substitute, in the
absence of whom we may have a crypt of the
dead, but not a sanctuary of the living. A crowd
we may have without Christ ; a church we can-
not have except Christ be in the midst of it.
Living stones, built upon the living Christ, rise
up the eternal and the true temple not made
with hands — which the Lord builds, not man.
Then Christ adds this other remark, equally
instructive, explaining their objection: " If you
had known that, 1 1 will have mercy and not
sacrifice ' — if you had only known this, you
would not have objected to my disciples pluck-
ing the ears of corn when they were absolutely
hungry. They were priests in the true temple,
536 FORESHADOWS.
doing a priestly act, when, in my presence, and
in subserviency to me, they satisfied their hunger
with ears of corn. Or, to put it on a lower
ground, (he says,) If you had only known, I
would have mercy, and not sacrifice, you would
not have thus objected." He thus charges them
with ignorance of their own law, and with being
unacquainted with that express declaration of
the prophet, that God prefers the exercise of
mercy to the performance of the most splendid
sacrifice. If the ceremonial stand in the way of
the moral, let the ceremonial give way, not the
moral. The most gorgeous ceremony that ob-
structs the vision of the countenance of God
should be rent, and torn, and cast away. Let
the ceremonial by all means be the vehicle of the
moral ; but if it interfere with the manifestation
of the moral, it is not the moral that is to yield,
but the ceremonial. Give, for instance, by all
means, the sacrifice of praise to God ; but let the
praise rise from a heart loaded with adoring gra-
titude to God. If the question is to be, Shall I
have beautiful music and cold hearts, or bad
music and warm, and grateful, and glowing ones?
there is to be no hesitation — the loving and the
praising heart makes sweeter music in the ear
THE WITHERED HAND. 537
of God than timbrels, and cymbals, and trum-
pets, and organs, and all instruments of pleasing
sound. By all means, give the sacrifice of rai-
ment to the naked, of bread to the hungry, of
water to the thirsty ; but let the hand that gives
it be the almoner of the heart within, that over-
flows with mercy, goodness, and beneficence.
Better the heart that would give if it had the
power, than the hand that does give without the
least connexion with the heart, but on some
other ground, and for some other end. By all
means, let love and liberality, like twins, live
together; but part with liberality rather than
with love. Be willing to give, rather than give
from necessity, and from no sympathy with them
that need. i( So," says our blessed Lord, " it
has been with my disciples. If God loves mercy
rather than sacrifice, moral duties rather than
ceremonial rites, then my disciples, by their
seeming profanation of the sabbath, have caught
its true spirit, and honoured it ; and you Pha-
risees, by your seeming honouring of the sab-
bath, have lost its true spirit, and you daily dese-
crate and destroy it." I ask, did ever man speak
like this man ? Did such sentiments as these
ever fall from the lips of humanity ? And have
538 FORESHADOWS.
we not in the very perusal of them the evidence
that not the temple, nor the priest, but the Lord
of the temple, and the Creator of the priest, spake
here ?
Another sentiment he utters one cannot but
study, as no less beautiful and true. It casts
still more light upon the idea which I am
endeavouring to express and to teach. " The
sabbath," he says, "was made for man, not man
for the sabbath." Here again is another grand
maxim. If this sentiment were only kept in the
minds of all men clearly, it would be, not a mere
aphorism to be quoted to point a speech, or to
justify some deviation from what is good; but it
would be received as a grand, central, regulating
element of thought in all we are, in all we say, and
in all we do, with reference to religion. We may
adopt this sentiment, for instance, with regard to
fasting. Fasting is not an absolute order of God,
so that man is to fast as a duty; but it is a pre-
scription of God, which man is to take if his own
sensations teach him, and that will help him
more truly to think of, and meditate on, God ;
but which his common sense will tell him he
ought not to take, if he find that fasting, instead
of enabling him to read and think and meditate,
THE WITHERED HAND. 539
will just have the opposite effect ; for fasting was
made for the convenience of man, not man for
the observance of fasting. So, again, with prayer
itself. Prayer is not a duty to be performed, a
penance to be done, an expiation to be made ;
but it is to be the expression of our wants, and
the seeking of satisfaction of those wants from
God. If any man, therefore, who does not feel
wants, prays as a mechanical duty, because God
has commanded it, he misses altogether the true
end and meaning of prayer. I do not pray be-
cause God has commanded me, just as I would
give to the poor because God has commanded
it ; but I pray, as the use of a commanded means
in order to obtain a promised end — a blessing.
Prayer is not an ultimate duty, to be done be-
cause a duty, and so to be done with ; but it is a
means toward an ultimate end, and we are not to
be satisfied till we reach the end, and cease to use
the means. Thus, coming to the house of God
is a duty. Nothing is more noble than an audi-
ence of intelligent men met to praise the God in
whom they live ; and to seek blessings from him
without whose blessing they cannot live ; but if
there be a sick one at home that needs your sym-
pathy, a dying one at home that requires your
540 FORESHADOWS.
presence, then the duty of going to the sanctuary,
which is the ceremonial, yields to the work of
necessity and mercy, which is the moral; and
you ought to stop at home, and minister to the
sick, and attend to the dying. Again, in refer-
ence to the communion or the church that you
love, whatever it may be, you are to love it, and
attach yourselves to it, as means toward an end ;
but the church that you love the most, without
the gospel, must be let go in order to enter an-
other church which you do not prefer, but which
has the gospel ; because the church is not an end
to be attached to as an ultimate thing, but a
means, an instrument toward an end, which you
are to use till that end be obtained. The sabbath
in the soul, the bowing of the knee of the heart,
the worship in spirit and in truth — these are
greater, because more lasting, than all ceremony.
All outward institutions — sabbaths, prayer, read-
ing, and communion, are but the scaffolding,
precious in their place, for without the scaffold-
ing the building cannot be raised ; but they are
not to be made to supersede the hope of the
grand building which is to come, but to be used
and honoured till that building be complete, and
then the scaffolding shall be taken down. Let
THE WITHERED HAXD. 541
the eye be only single, let the inward purpose of
the soul be pure, and meek, and true, and all
things will fall into their proper place, and as-
sume their true and holy relationship. Then
sabbaths, and sanctuaries, and ceremonies will
be wings to the soul, not weights to it; then
the sabbath, and prayer, and reading will be the
foot-prints that show you the way to Jesus, not
blinds to the knowledge of him, and superseding
him — voices crying in the wilderness, " Behold
the Lamb ! " not drowning his still small voice
— steps and helps to find Jesus, not substitutes
for him — in one word, means to an end, and not
that end itself.
Our Lord adds another maxim which I can-
not but notice also ; " For the Son of man is
Lord of the sabbath." There was present on
that sabbath, not the law, but the Legislator him-
self; not merely the hallowed sabbath, but the
Fountain out of which its hallowing came. He
originally constituted it, he originally hallowed
it, and he had power to suspend it, change it, or
use it as he pleased, for it existed for him and
to him, and it must not be placed in the room
of him.
Such then is the scene preliminary to the per-
542 FORESHADOWS,
formance of the miracle recorded in the third
chapter of Mark. In order to show these truths in
action, our Lord proceeds to heal this man, as the
conclusion of this discourse which he had now
pronounced. By the most irresistible reason, by
exhibiting the purest and noblest sentiments in
their own sacred books, by argument as plain as
it was conclusive, he showed them it was right
and lawful to heal the sick, raise the dead, give
sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, even
though it was upon the sabbath day. When the
Pharisees cavilled, and asked, was it lawful to
heal on the sabbath day, he puts their question
in its true shape ; he does not give a direct an-
swer : they put their question in a sophistical
shape, but he puts it in its true light, and says,
" Is it lawful to do good, or to do evil, on the
sabbath day ?" He says, rt The real question is
not, Is it lawful to do, or not to do, on the sab-
bath ? but, Is it lawful to do good, or evil, on the
sabbath ? " And that question, by inference, im-
plies that not doing the good that was presented
on the sabbath day was tantamount to doing evil.
We read that when he put the question to them
in that light they were silent. He therefore holds
no more discussion preliminary to the miracle he
THE WITHERED HAND. 543
performs ; he brings his theory into practice, his
utterance into action: " Stretch forth thine hand."
The man did it, and instantly the withered hand,
whatever was the nature of its disease, was made
whole, even as the other.
We read that when Jesus was about to do this
miracle (and I refer to it especially because it
embodies a very important and precious senti-
ment) " he looked (ver. 5) round about on them
with anger, being grieved for the hardness of
their hearts, and saith unto the man, Stretch
forth thine hand. And he stretched it out : and
his hand was restored whole as the other." As
we read the first clause, " When he looked round
about on them with anger," our best emotions
are momentarily checked ; we instantly conceive
that that beautiful, that calm, that holy bosom,
so still, so placid, so self-composed, was ruffled
by the emotion of anger. But then when Ave
read what follows, our surprise is instantly re-
moved ; for we find that while he looked round
with anger it was "being grieved at the hardness
of their hearts." The anger that he felt at the
sin resolved itself into pity and compassion to-
wards the men that were guilty of it. We have
a parallel case in that beautiful exclamation,
544 FORESHADOWS.
" Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the
prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto
thee, [the language of indignant accusation ; but
instantly followed up by,] how often would I
have gathered thee as a hen gathereth her chick-
ens under her wings, and ye would not" — the
language of tender and infinite compassion. Now
here is the perfect model, and there is no such
model to be found any where but in Jesus ; here
is the model, not for outward conformity, but for
inward feeling and emotion, for anger, pity, all
that is pure that can actuate the human heart.
We learn from this feeling of our blessed
Lord, that the emotion we should feel, when we
behold wickedness, crime, and transgression, is
not indignation only — for if there be indignation
only at the criminal, it prompts to persecution :
not compassion only — for if there be compassion
only when we see a criminal, it instantly makes
us connive at, explain away, or modify the sin :
not apathy — for that is stoicism : not the pan-
theistic acquiescence in evil, as if evil were only
" unripe good," as they call it ; nor must there
be the philosophic sneering quietism which says,
iC It is just what you might have expected;"
but there must be a holy, a righteous, strong
THE WITHERED HAND. 545
indignation at sin, because it is sin — and that
indignation set in the bosom of compassion,
revealing by the flash of its purity, how you
ought to pity and compassionate the man who
is the victim of that transgression. Thus, then,
when we see some one guilty of grievous sin
— it may be the sin that we are most ready to
take notice of, sin against oneself — some one
who has wronged, cheated, deceived, maligned,
and misrepresented us ; when we look at that
man, we cannot but feel indignation — and
it is very easy to feel so ; there is no merit in
the world in feeling indignant, for human na-
ture is quick enough to resent the wrongs it
feels; but while we thus look at him, we
think of him whose spirit we have imbued,
and if we be Christians, we must be indignant
indeed, but we shall also learn to check the in-
dignation by a deep sense of pity and compas-
sion. No man is so to be pitied as he that sins ;
he wrongs himself; the great injury he inflicts
is not upon me whom he cheats, deceives, and
maltreats, but upon himself, and the recollec-
tion of his crime it is possible may cleave to his
conscience, a corrosive and consuming punish-
ment, for ever and for ever. In that beautiful ser-
2 N
546 FORESHADOWS.
mon preached upon the Mount there is no bene-
diction pronounced upon indignant men ; but a
thousand benedictions upon the merciful, the
peaceful, the sinforgiver, those that pray for them
that despitefully use them. With respect to some
great criminal from whom is exacted his life, as
an offering to the violated laws of his country, if
we knew all of that criminal which he knows of
himself, we should feel that there was much
for holy indignation, but much, very much, for
pity, for deep and thrilling compassion. That
guilty criminal who surrenders his life upon the
scaffold for his crimes, may have been left early
an orphan ; there may have been no school to
snatch him from the streets provided by us, as
there ought to have been ; he may have been flung
into contact with the rest of the offscourings and
the degraded of human society; he may have
been placed in circumstances of the most try-
ing, most perilous, and most seductive nature ;
he may have known what it was to want a morsel
of bread, and have been driven under strong
pangs of hunger to steal ; he may have never
known what it was to hear a holy advice, or to
learn a pure and true lesson; — if we knew all
these dread preparatives to the last crime he
THE WITHERED HAND. 547
committed, whilst we should be indignant at the
crime so heinous, we should feel deep compas-
sion for the criminal so guilty. And what
should soften our indignation too, when we
think of the worst of criminals, is this : that cri-
minal is a man ; he was nursed upon a mother's
knee ; he was once tended by a father ; he was
once loved by his sisters; he remains a man,
just as we are, with all the hopes, the emotions,
the feelings, the sympathies that we have ; but
he was left in circumstances and to circum-
stances from which, in the providence of God,
we were delivered. Oh ! feel indignant at the
crime ; but let not tender pity and compassion
fail to modify that indignation ; pray for the cri-
minal. And recollect that if you had been
equally God-forsaken — if you had been early
left an orphan — if you had never been schooled
in early years — if no Christian teacher had taught
you, and no kind parents had set a beautiful and
true example before you; if no softening and
subduing influences had ever reached your
heart, you might have been where the criminal
now stands, and the criminal might have been
where you now are. There is great room for
compassion, there is room also for gratitude to
2 n 2
548 FORESHADOWS.
God ; and this must subdue and modify mightily
the indignation you feel at the great crime of
which he has been guilty. If we look around
us now, do we not see in the circumstances of
the very worst of society much room for pity ?
When I think of all the modifying elements
that I meet with — when I think of what we
might have been, if we had been otherwise
placed in the providence of God, and when I
think that we deserve nothing of the distin-
guishing goodness we have enjoyed any more
than those who never had it — I must say, I
am more and more disposed to pity the guiltiest,
and I feel less competent or disposed to sit upon
the judgment-throne and pronounce indignant
sentences upon any. It is God's high prero-
gative to pronounce the sentence of condemn-
ation; it is man's noble function to pity, com-
passionate, and pray for the criminal. When we
look at homes that are miserable — at poverty,
nakedness, hunger, starvation, all the accom-
paniments of many a poor man — we see in them
much to excite our compassion ; but are there
not more terrible things than these ? If you
could look, not at the poverty, the hunger, the
nakedness, but into the man's bosom, and see
THE WITHERED HAND. 549
bruised affections, a bleeding heart, disappointed
hopes, bitter disappointments, you would see in
that poor man, when driven to some dread crime,
much that would make you pity and pray for
him, while there is and may be only what would
make others justly condemn him. And when I
think, above all, of that blessed Lord, whose
example I am now quoting, that he had com-
passion for others, but none for himself —
" Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me,
but weep for yourselves and your children"
— when I remember that mercy was the great
feeling that consumed him, and that in com-
passion to our souls, and to us as transgressors,
he bowed the heavens, and bare the cross, and
despised the shame, I am sure that I show most
of his spirit, when I feel far less indignation and
far more compassion towards the guiltiest and the
worst of mankind. Depend upon it, if we were
more ready to compassionate, and less ready to be
indignant, we should succeed far more speedily
in elevating and improving mankind. I need
not bid you be indignant at criminals — that
you will be, quickly enough — but the high
Christian feeling which we need more and more
550 FORESHADOWS.
to entertain and exercise, is that of pity and com-
passion.
We read that our Lord was surrounded by-
men — these men whom he thus pitied and was
grieved at for the hardness of their hearts — who
no sooner saw the miracle than they conspired
(the Herodians, or the parties in alliance with
Rome, with the Pharisees, or the parties who
detested Rome, and longed to be emancipated
from its yoke) to destroy Jesus, as they did in
condemning him in the last moment of his life :
teaching us that all forms of error will co-oper-
ate when the truth is to be put down ; that
internal antagonisms between conflicting sys-
tems of error will all be merged and buried in
one current, when God's great truth is to be re-
sisted and banished from the earth.
Let us pray that our views of the sabbath may
be those enlightened ones which Jesus taught —
that our feeling towards the criminal may be
less indignation and more compassion, such as
Jesus showed ; and bless God that Christ, who
left us a propitiation for the sins of all that
believe, has left us also an example, that we may
follow in his steps.
Eloquent Nature
P. 551.
LECTURE XX.
ELOQUENT NATURE.
And he left them, and went out of the city into Bethany ; and
he lodged there. Now in the morning as he returned into the
city, he hungered. And when he saw a fig tree in the way,
he came to it, and found nothing thereon, hut leaves only,
and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for
ever. And presently the fig tree withered away. And when
the disciples saw it, they marvelled, saying, How soon is the
fig tree withered away ! Jesus answered and said unto them,
Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye
shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also
if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be
thou cast into the sea ; it shall be done. And all things, what-
soever ye shall ask in prayer believing, ye shall receive.
Matt. xxi. 17—22.
In the Gospel which contains an account exactly
parallel to this, there is one clause added which
makes in some degree a distinction, without a
real difference, between the two narratives. It
is stated in the Gospel by St. Mark, that when
Jesus saw the tree, " and came if haply he might
find any thing thereon," " he found nothing but
552 FORESHADOWS.
leaves ; " and it is added, li for the time of figs
was not yet." This is the only addition given by
Mark.
This is the last of the miracles performed by
our blessed Lord which I have endeavoured to
explain in successive lectures. It differs from
the rest in its tone and in its character ; it is also
beset with some difficulties which lie upon the
surface, not however insurmountable, for when
we look beneath, we shall find the elements of
easy reconciliation, and that the apparent dis-
cords are only portions of latent and of real
harmony.
The question has been asked — which contains
one difficulty in the narrative — " How could
Jesus, being omniscient as God, expect to find
figs upon a fig tree which he must have known
contained none?" The answer is, that we are
not to expect in what is partly a parable, (for
such this is, as well as a miracle,) that the mere
outward facts are historically true, but that they
are probably true. In all probability no such
history actually occurred as that of the sower
who went forth to sow : it was merely an out-
ward probable narrative, that might be true, that
occurs every year in every land, and which every
ELOQUENT NATURE. 563
one can accept as true, and justly consecrated
to be the outward covering of an inner, glori-
ous, and spiritual truth. The historical state-
ment is the scaffolding or the pedestal for sus-
taining, and making more clear and vivid by the
contrast, the great moral and spiritual truth which
it was intended to convey. Now, Jesus coming
and expecting fruit, and finding none, is so na-
tural, and what we might so truly expect of any
man approaching the tree in similar circum-
stances, that speaking as a man, and acting
throughout as the perfect man, he might have
expected fruit — it ought to have been ; he was
hungry — he found nothing to satisfy his hunger ;
and so it is stated in the narrative before us. We
find in parallel passages difficulties as great. It
is said that God came down from heaven to see
if there were any that did good. Now, it cannot
be true that God was ignorant of what was the
state of the earth ; it cannot mean that God ac-
tually changed his locality — omnipresence is
every where ; but it is what can be predicated of
a man whose nature is thus ascribed to that
God who took upon him our nature, — sin, false-
hood, imperfection of character alone excepted.
Throughout the Bible we hear God speaking,
554 FORESHADOWS.
repenting, promising, beseeching ; and thus ad-
dressing Jerusalem as if it were impregnable to
grace — " How often would I have gathered you,
as a hen gather eth her chickens under her wings,
but ye would not !" All this is Divine thought au-
dible in the language of man, great eternal truths
clothed with the imperfect drapery of human
speech — the accommodation, as it were, of what
would be infinite and inconceivable to the finite
and imperfect apprehension and comprehension
of man. The great idea here meant to be con-
veyed is, that just as Christ looked for fruit on
that fig tree, and found none, he comes down to
earth still, and looks for practical fruits, such as
those enumerated in Gal. v. 22, in the conduct
of every believer, and there finds them, or finds
them not.
The other difficulty that has been adduced as
peculiar to this miracle is, that there seems to be
expressed an unnatural and almost unnecessary
revenge in blasting by a curse the fig tree, be-
cause it had no fruit to satisfy the hunger of
Jesus. But this objection originates in a feel-
ing, that there is something inconsistent with
what we should expect in the character of Jesus
when he displayed any thing like anger, or what
ELOQUENT NATURE. 555
might bear the likeness of resentment. But in
truth it arises from a feeling that nothing like
judgment should occur in the dispensations of
God — from a secret persuasion that we entertain
in the depths of our hearts, that there is nothing
in the creature to necessitate punishment, but
every thing to draw down approbation, affection,
and love. But we do read of Jesus being angry ;
we read of the love of Christ, we read also of the
wrath of the Lamb. In one word, Jesus was
man. But we shall see that historically and
morally there was a reason for the peculiar mani-
festation of Divine displeasure which is embodied
in this miracle. Every miracle that we have
before examined has been expressive of unmin-
gled beneficence ; now it does seem that there
was needed some Divine manifestation of justice
and of judgment also. Amid so many and so
glorious rays of infinite goodness, it does seem
natural that there should be at least seen, if not
in all its intensity, one ray of that God who is the
consuming fire. Amid so much as we have been
considering to draw out love from man's heart,
something was wanted to prevent presumption
appearing in any man's bosom. And yet, even
here, where there is a miracle to teach us that
556 FORESHADOWS.
while God overflows with love, he is yet a just
God, and angry with the wicked every day — yet
even here, and amid such evidence of judgment,
there are seen the reflections of goodness and
mercy. Mercy is mingled with judgment;
for whilst the subject of healing, in every
miracle we have considered, was a man — whilst
the object of the goodness that Jesus displayed
was the living and sensitive and rational creature,
the monument of his curse is not a rational,
sensitive man, but an irrational, insensible, and
unconscious tree. Thus we see that when he
was teaching how good he was, he made man to
be the recipient of that goodness, and the page
on which he wrote the lesson ; but when he was
teaching how holy he was, and how truly he
would avenge sin, he made an unconscious tree
to be the lesson-book, and the recipient of that
judgment : so that in the very midst of his judg-
ment we see mercy ; and we are taught by these
spectacles more and more that goodness is his
every-day delight, and that judgment is his
" strange work."
But it has been asked, in the next place,
" Why so treat a tree ? Why so treat an uncon-
scious and unoffending tree ? " I answer : Christ
ELOQUENT NATURE. 557
did not ascribe to the tree responsible or moral
qualities ; he merely made it the symbol of such
responsibility and of such moral qualities. We
read, for instance, in the prophet Hosea a similar
image, " I saw your fathers as the first ripe
fruit in the fig tree at her first time." So in
Joel, " He hath laid my vine waste, and barked
my fig tree : he hath made it clean bare, and cast
it away." And in Luke, " He spake also this
parable ; a certain man had a fig tree planted in
his vineyard." That is not historically true; it
is merely a probable history used to represent
and embody eternal and spiritual truths. All
external imagery is perishing, but the inner and
spiritual thought for which it was constructed
lives for ever. Jesus came, it is said, and sought
fruit, but found none. The tree is used as a
symbol, and it was blasted to teach man a great
moral and spiritual truth. The very fact that it
was a thing, and not a man — in other words, the
very objection that some make to the blasting of
the fig tree in order to teach a lesson to man-
kind, is the best and strongest reason why it
should be selected for this purpose ; for all nature
was made to be subservient to man, nature's lord
and king. All things now exist for man's good
558 FORESHADOWS.
as well as for man's glory ; and the selection of
this tree, even by its sacrifice and destruction,
to convey a new lesson to mankind, is an instal-
ment and foreshadow of that glorious epoch
when nature shall hear the last trump, and rise
from her degradation and her ruin, and become
the mighty lesson-book from which a vast and
redeemed population shall learn new and glori-
ous lessons of the goodness, and mercy, and
beneficence of God.
I may also notice, (raid I mention these things
because they are historical facts worth recollect-
ing,) that whilst the vine is used to represent
what is beautiful and good, the fig tree is never
or rarely used in the Bible except as the symbol
of what seems bad. It is the barren fig tree we
read of; it is the fig tree cast down and destroyed.
And it is remarkable that the ancient Rabbis of
the Jews assert in their traditions that the tree of
knowledge of good and evil was a fig tree ; and
it is no less remarkable that, among the Greeks,
with whom the primaeval traditions of Paradise
seem to have survived, or who gathered them,
rather, from the Phoenicians, who brought them
from the East, a fig tree is generally used in a
bad sense. A Greek would call a bad man, <tvkivo<$
ELOQUENT NATURE. 559
avrjp, a fig tree man. So the word " sycophant"
— a flatterer, a man who acts dishonestly— when
literally translated, means a man that shows figs :
showing how widely this association may spread,
and what changes it has outlived, as it still runs
through the language of mankind ; as if the tra-
ditions of the Jewish Rabbis were true, that the
fig tree was the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil. There can be no absurdity in supposing its
being so. It might have been an apple tree, a pear
tree, or an orange tree, or a bramble ; the gist of
the appointment was not in what the tree was, but
in what it was the symbol of; its representative
character was the reality. God appointed the
tree simply as a test— a visible test, to show man
that he was a creature owing allegiance to his
Creator, and that the instant he did what his
Creator forbad, that moment he assumed to be
his God, and gave up the lowly position of a
dependent creature, and wickedly attempted the
sovereignty of the independent God.
But the greatest difficulty that has been felt
in the interpretation of the miracle, and of the
statements that immediately precede it, arises
from the clause inserted in the account of St.
Mark, that " the time of figs was not yet." An
560 FORESHADOWS.
objection has been raised on this by those who
search the Bible for reasons for rejecting it, as has
been done by Strauss, for he is the only infidel
who seems to have really read the Bible. Paine,
Voltaire, Hume, and those men who made jokes
at the expense of the Bible, but really at their
own expense, acknowledged that they had never
read it : the one party had only gathered frag-
ments of it from the missals and breviaries of
Rome, and the other party only fragments of it
at second-hand, and from not the most faithful
recorders. But Strauss, who has appeared in
Germany, and who, I may state, has been tho-
roughly exposed — alike his sophisms and absur-
dities— by very able German and American theo-
logians, is one of those who have read the New
Testament in search of reasons for rejecting it,
just as Zoilus of old read Homer, looking only
for errors and inconsistencies. And no doubt, if
a man set about such a work, his diseased imagin-
ation, sustained by an unregenerate heart, will
be very likely to discover difficulties and objec-
tions where none really exist. His objection is —
that it is a most unreasonable and absurd thing to
suppose that our Lord should expect figs, when
his own evangelist expressly declares that the time
ELOQUENT NATURE. 561
for figs was not yet come. What should we think
of that man who should go into the fields looking
for ripe wheat in the season of spring, or for ripe
apples in the month of March ? We should say,
he must either be ignorant or bent on mischief.
Then how can we justify, or how can we solve
the apparent difficulty of our Lord expecting in
the month of March, which was the month when
this miracle was wrought, to find figs, when we
are expressly told " the time of figs was not yet ?"
I think the explanation is perfectly satisfactory.
In the month of March, at that early season of
the year, it is true there were neither leaves nor
figs to be expected on a fig tree ; but it is matter
of historical record in the page of the evangel-
ist, that this fig tree did put forth leaves. I have
seen buds in the month of January ; and in the
premature warmth of the earliest moment of
spring, you may see a stray leaf that starts out
only to be nipped and destroyed. Now this
tree in the month of March seems to have had
leaves. But you say, " This does not justify
expecting fruit." It does : a fig tree bears its
fruit before it shows its leaves ; and the fact that
this tree had put forth leaves was a silent pro-
clamation that it had fruit, and that if anybody
2 o
562 FORESHADOWS.
would search for the fruit he would be sure to
find it. In other words, the fig tree gave sign
of fruit, whilst it had not the reality. Seeing
leaves, the traveller would naturally look for
fruit ; but when, hungry and way-worn, he beat
the branches of the tree, in order to find the
fruit, the narrative is that he found none. It
invited the passer-by, by its leaves, to come and
find fruit; it disappointed him the moment he
made the search. It was like a sign-board hung
out over an empty house, proclaiming that there
were good things within, whereat the traveller
enters, and finds only desolation, cold, and
misery. It was not the sin of the tree, if you
will allow the expression, that it had no fruit,
but it was its sin that it put forth leaves, pre-
tending to have fruit, when it really had none
at all. Therefore the miracle, instead of being
historically and physically unnatural, is per-
fectly natural. There is no charge, I repeat,
against the tree that it had no fruit, but the real
gravamen of the charge lies in this — that whilst
it pretended to have fruit, it not only had none,
but it gave the hungry and weary traveller the
trouble of searching.
We, brethren, are represented in Scripture as
ELOQUENT NATURE. 563
trees of some kind. We read of two classes of
trees — trees of righteousness that bear fruit, and
the trees that bear none. Like trees, we need to
be planted in a congenial soil ; like trees, we
need a Divine breath to pass over us, in order to
make us blossom and bear fruit. The spring,
and the summer, and the autumn, have succes-
sively passed over us ; have they left upon us
the traces that they have not passed in vain ? Is
our spring come ? Do we bear fruit ? Are we
barren trees, cumberers of the ground, or fruitful
trees, giving glory to God, and distributing
blessings among mankind ? The spring, in the
natural world, is the great miracle of nature —
it is the annual blossoming of Aaron's rod. If
the spring came but once in a life -time, how
should we wonder at it ! or if it came amid all
the pomp and procession of thunder, and light-
ning, and noise, how should we be struck by it !
But it does not so : it comes silently and softly,
but with irresistible power ; and alas, we take
little note and feel few thanks. The cessation of
spring would be the miracle to us now, not its
continuation. The soul needs a spring — the day-
spring from on high — just as much as the trees
of the wood ; and when the soul is acted on by
2 o 2
1)64: FORESHADOWS.
the Spirit of all life, it moves away from its cheer-
less and wintry aspect, it turns near to the sun,
clothes its wintry branches with life, and fruit,
and blossom, and constitutes itself by the grace
of God a fruitful tree, the planting of the Lord.
But the real relation, I believe, of the miracle,
and the narrative which precedes it, is not so
much individual, as national. I believe the
Jewish nation is the race of which the fig tree
was the symbol, and whose fate was foreshadowed
by its destruction. The Gentiles made no pro-
fession of religion — they made no pretension to
it at all. The Gentiles were the naked stems
that spread their skeleton branches in the frosty
and biting winds, with neither life, nor bud, nor
promise of fruit or blossom ; they did not pre-
tend to have any thing. But the Jews professed
to bear the choicest fruit ; they were clothed with
the leaves of profession ; they bare even the blos-
soms that indicated the approach and the advent
of fruit ; they were righteous, as they thought
themselves ; they treated with supercilious con-
tempt all the nations of the world besides ; they
professed to have a righteousness so great that it
was adequate to justify them ; and they declared
that the Gentiles had sunk into a degradation so
ELOQUENT NATURE. 565
complete that they were not fit to communicate
with them, or even, in any degree, to be admit-
ted to the participation of their peculiar advan-
tages. Our Lord wished to teach them this
lesson — that the Jew, with his blossoms without
fruit, was nearer cursing than the Gentile, Avho
had neither leaf, nor blossom, nor fruit ; because
the first had great advantages, and only great
hypocrisy as the result of them ; while the last
had great disadvantages, no pretension, and little
else might reasonably be expected from them.
It is therefore in such words as these that this
miracle is described by the apostle Paul, when
he said, "Behold, thou art called a Jew, and
restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God,
and knowest his will, and approvest the things
that are more excellent, being instructed out of
the law ; and art confident that thou thyself art a
guide of the blind, a light of them which are
in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher
of babes, which hast the form of knowledge and
of the truth in the law." These are the blos-
soms— these are the leaves upon the fig tree ;
but then, mark the evidence that there was no
fruit : " Thou therefore which teachest another,
teachest thou not thyself? thou that preachest a
566 FORESHADOWS.
man should not steal, dost thou steal ? Thou
that sayest a man should not commit adultery,
dost thou commit adultery ? thou that abhorrest
idols, dost thou commit sacrilege ? Thou that
makest thy boast of the law, through breaking
the law dishonour est thou God ? For the name
of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through
you, as it is written. For circumcision verily
profiteth, if thou keep the law : but if thou be a
breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made un-
circumcision. Therefore if the uncircumcision
[that is, the Gentiles] keep the righteousness of
the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted
for circumcision ? And shall not uncircumcision
which is by nature, if it fulfil the law, judge thee
[the Jew, that is] who by the letter and circum-
cision dost transgress the law ? " We have the
very same idea carried out in explanatory lan-
guage in the tenth chapter, where the apostle
says, " For they [the Jews] being ignorant of
God's righteousness, and going about to establish
their own righteousness, have not submitted
themselves unto the righteousness of God." " To
Israel he saith, All day long have I stretched forth
my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying
people." " Israel hath not obtained that which
ELOQUENT NATURE. 567
he seeketh for, but the election hath obtained it,
and the rest were blinded (according as it is
written, God hath given them the spirit of slum-
ber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that
they should not hear,) unto this day. And Da-
vid said, Let their table be made a snare, and a
trap, and a stumblingblock, and a recompence
unto them : let their eyes be darkened, that they
may not see, and bow down their back alway."
Now, in all these words used by the apostle, in
his address to the Roman Christians, we have
the exposition, in clear and common words, of
the great idea which is embodied in the semi-
parable, semi-miracle on which I am now com-
menting. He shows that the Jews had all the
temporal advantages a nation could possibly
enjoy, that they had great moral and spiritual
privileges, such as no nation on earth had ever
reached before, that they shot forth in all direc-
tions the green and promising leaves of a large
and rich profession. They professed to be some-
thing— to be exalted above and distinguished
from the rest of the nations of the earth, and
therefore something was to be expected from
them ; but when the great Lord of the vineyard
came, and saw the leaves, and began to search for
568 FORESHADOWS.
fruit, you might expect that if the Gentiles were
left, the Jew should be cursed, and that the
blasting of the fig tree was no less merited than
it was natural to that guilty and ungrateful na-
tion. And have we not in the existence of the
Jew in our land irresistible and awful evidence
of the blasted fig tree ? What is all Palestine but
God's fig tree, in the language of Hosea, " bark-
ed and laid low ? " What is the Jewish nation
in every part of the world, but the withered and
blasted branches of the once fruitful, the now
scarcely professing fig-tree ? Palestine itself at
this moment seems almost overspread by the
curse. Its cities are the cities of the dead; its
every acre is covered with the tombs of departed
ages: it has a soil fit to grow corn that would
positively crowd and overflow all the granaries
of the world, but it cannot provide corn enough
to feed its miserable, its starved, and wretched
peasantry. At this very moment there is no
Mount Nebo, or Mount Pisgah, from which a
successor of Moses can see a goodly land over-
flowing with milk and honey. On every part
of that land the iron hoof of the Arab steed, and
the naked foot of the papal monk, have trod in
succession, and warred for supremacy. In rapid
ELOQUENT NATURE. 569
succession, the Roman, the Persian, the Arab,
the Turk, the robber, have taken possession of
Palestine, and the poor Jew — the fig tree, blasted,
deservedly blasted — has a home any where and
every where, but least a home in his own home ;
has possessions every where, but none in that
land which is his by title-deeds more lasting
than those of the aristocracy of England. His
title-deeds are in Ezekiel, in Jeremiah, in Isaiah,
in the Psalms, and must last and live for ever
and ever. You have then in the Jew, wherever
you find him, a blasted fig tree, a miracle-stricken
nation, a people scathed by a curse that cleaves
to them and consumes them, the people of the
weary foot, the exiles of the earth, in it and
not of it ; as if their very existence was a symbol
of what God's people should be — in the world,
and not of the world.
But there is yet more in this curse. I have
noticed the interesting fact, that when Christ is
teaching how beneficent he is, he makes man the
lesson-book ; but when he is teaching how holy
and just he is, and how offended he is with sin,
he makes a dead tree the lesson-book. But even
in this there is a limitation. He says, " Let no
man eat fruit of thee for ever." Even in this
570 FORESHADOWS.
malison that alighted upon the Jewish nation
there is a limit. The words commonly used to
express " for ever " are, eh tov? alvbva^; but here
it is, ei Let no man eat fruit of thee " eh tov
alwva — " until the age/' " until the dispensation."
That is, This Jewish fig tree which has been
blasted by my curse, shall not be blasted eter-
nally, but until the altcv 6 peWwv — the dis-
pensation that is to be — come. And what dis-
pensation is this ? The apostle Paul tells you
that the Jews shall have a restoration; and if
their depression was the enriching of the Gen-
tiles, what shall their resurrection be but life to
the Gentiles from the dead ? Therefore, it is here
indicated that an age will come, an age long pre-
dicted, when the curse shall be reversed, when
the withered roots of Judah shall receive new
life, when the sap that is now stagnant in the
national stem shall rise from the roots, and per-
meate every branch of that tree, burst forth into
a foliage richer than nature's choicest and love-
liest ; and Aaron's rod, long dead, shall blossom
with a new and perpetual beauty. Already the
fig tree begins to put forth its leaves ; and thus
reminds me of what I might have noticed before
— that the blossoming of this long-cursed fig tree
ELOQUENT NATURE. 571
is to be one of the symbols of the approach of
the end of this dispensation, and of the near
dawn of the rbi> al&va here spoken of — the dis-
pensation that is to come. When our Lord has
described the fall of Jerusalem, he proceeds to
describe the end of the world : " Immediately
after the tribulation of those days the sun shall
be darkened, [the symbol of imperial power,]
and the moon shall not give her light, [ecclesias-
tical power,] and the stars shall fall from heaven
[the high ones of the earth shall fall from their
places]." Who can look at the history of the
past few years without seeing this ? How. many
thrones or suns have been overthrown, how many
darkened ; and if there seems to be a moment-
ary re-kindling and restoration of the light, you
have only to read the statements of the impartial
investigators of the actual state of the continent,
and you will find that their united testimony
is, that every throne in Europe rocks on a vol-
cano. The truth is, that there is no moral ele-
ment by which thrones and people can cohere
upon the continent. In Paris, at this moment,
it is well known that every eleventh man who
is sick, dies or recovers in a hospital ; and half
the births in Paris are illegitimate — literally and
57£ FORESHADOWS.
truly, one half! What can you expect of a popu
lation amongst whom there is no home, where
holy ties are maintained so imperfectly, where that
which is the very substance of the life and coher-
ence of a nation, is so extensively rotting in the
midst of them ? What can you expect but dis-
solution, disorganization, decay ? Would to God
that all rulers and statesmen would recollect that
the great element of a nation's cohesion is reli-
gion ; that a religious, Bible education is the
strength, as it is the substance, of a nation's gran-
deur and a nation's stability. Suns then have
been darkened. " The moon shall not give her
light." I have said that when great Babylon fell,
the cities of the nations — the ecclesiastical and
political institutions — should begin to fall. The
church of England is at this moment vibrating in
the balance of life or death ; sections of its clergy
are " darkened," and, like wandering stars,
plunging into the very darkness of Babylon,
having left their orbits and lost their glory. All
our institutions are to be broken up to make way
for better ones, all our relationships will dissolve
to make way for nobler ones. This is the age of
disorganization. In chemistry there is, first of all,
total disorganization, then new affinities are put
ELOQUENT NATURE. 573
forth, and new combinations take place. We are
now in the process of dissolution and disorganiza-
tion; every thing smashing, breaking up, and
coming down, in order to make way for a better
age ; but in the midst of the crash, I can hear the
foot-fall of Him who comes to ascend the throne,
and sway the sceptre, and say, " I make all things
new;" when the new Jerusalem shall come down
from heaven, like a bride adorned for the bride-
groom ; and there shall be no more sorrow, nor
tears, nor crying, nor sighing, for all former
things shall have passed away. But what takes
place next? " 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 man coming in the clouds of heaven, with
power and great glory. And he shall send his
angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they
shall gather together his elect [the first resurrec-
tion] from the four winds, from one end of hea-
ven to the other." And then what is added?
' Now learn a parable of the fig tree ; when his
branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye
know that summer is nigh : so likewise ye, when
ye shall see all these things, know that it is near,
even at the doors." The fig tree is the great
574 FORESHADOWS.
symbol of the Jewish nation ; the fig tree, be-
ginning to put forth a bud here and a blossom
there, to show the signs of its having felt the
spring, and recovered its lost vitality, is symp-
tomatic of the events recorded in this chapter.
Who does not know that never was so great an
interest taken in the fate of the Jews ; never
were so many books written about them, so many
sermons preached in reference to them; never
were kings so puzzled, and cabinets so perplexed,
and parliaments so plagued, as they are by that
unmanageable people — a people who do not
trouble, and yet who indirectly perplex, their
measures, cross their purposes, and place them
at their wits' end. What is the great question
in our country ? " What shall we do with the
Jew ? " And what is it that helped to make the
pope's return to Rome almost impracticable ?
The poor Jews struggling, and appealing even
to the New Testament, for reasons against his
return, because they know that the oppressor of
their brethren returns when the pope comes
back to Rome. We have then in these things,
and many more which I could mention if time
permitted, the buds of the fig tree, the signs of
the approaching age, when this curse shall be re-
ELOQUENT NATURE. 575
versed, and the fig tree shall again blossom ; when
the Jew shall abandon his tradition, (and there
are synagogues already formed in which the tra-
ditions of the Rabbis are repudiated,) and shall
accept the pure Christianity of Abraham, of
Isaac, and of Jacob, which is only the dawn of
the Christianity of Mount Tabor, of Calvary, and
of Mount Zion. Thus we see mercy in limit-
ing the curse, as well as in the elements that
mingle with it.
In drawing one or two practical remarks
from the narrative which I have rather tried
to vindicate than to expound at length, let
me ask you, reader, if you are bringing forth
fruit, or if you are a cumberer of the ground ?
Is the world any better for you ? Will it miss
you when you are gone ? Will it acknowledge,
when you are removed, that the widow has lost
a husband, the orphan a father, the needy a
munificent friend ? Or will it be glad when you
are gone, as one that stinted, starved, oppressed,
or despised it? In other words, are you a
cumberer of the ground, occupying the place of
one that would be a blessing to the ground ? Or
are you a fruitful tree, the planting of the Lord ?
576 FORESHADOWS.
Let us ask ourselves this question, at the close
of each year. Each year seems to fly away
like successive dissolving views, the last faint
gleams of which are all that survive ; the sands
of time rush sparkling through the hour-glass
more rapidly as they approach the end. Each
day leaves sunshine or shadows upon our hearts ;
it makes upon each of us impressions that
form together a character which stretches into
eternity, and lives for ever in unspeakable joy,
or pines for ever in unutterable agony and
woe. If we have lost past years, oh let us seek
to redeem the time by making a holier, intenser,
nobler use of what remains. " Redeem the
time : " the future years are open, waiting for
you to pour into them what will make them or mar
them, as far as you are concerned. And if years
shall pass over us, and leave us with grey hairs,
and if we shall drop into our graves without some
real, living, personal hold of a Saviour, salvation,
glory, happiness, we shall discover that no such
terrible avengers are in the regions of the lost as
lost opportunities. There is no Calvary in the
realms of misery ; there is no shadow or sound
of a Saviour where God hath forgotten to be gra-
ELOQUENT NATURE. 577
cious. Are we, then, thinking of the safety of
our souls, as, not the one thing, but the supreme
thing, beside which all other things are subordi-
nate and comparatively worthless. The names
of heroes, of literati, of philosophers, of geolo-
gists, and astronomers, are fast passing away;
but those who are stars in the galaxy of the
blessed shall shine like the brightness of the fir-
mament for ever ; and such stars, of immortal
renown and of imperishable lustre, may shoot up
from every peasant's hut, and from every lowly
home, and be fixed in that firmament where by
grace they shall shine and sparkle when suns
shall rise and set no more. Do not grasp a world
that is slipping like quicksilver through your
fingers ever as you try to hold it ; do not follow
after a world that leaves you, the instant you
try to make any use of it. Look at times at
the remains of those who have left us ; go and
gaze upon the face of the dead; think for one
moment, as you stand beside that dumb, but elo-
quent sermon—the remains of the near and dear
dead: What was it to that dying man that he
was rich ? If he was a Christian, whence did he
draw his joy in the last hours of life ? Was it
2 p
578 FORESHADOWS.
from what he was leaving behind him ? from the
money he had gained ? from the friends he had
made ? from the patronage he enjoyed ? from the
power he had wielded ? Did these things give
him any joy? were these the springs of his satis-
faction as he was about to close his eyes upon
the world ? The only ray of joy that he coidd
see, or would look for, was from above, not from
below ; the only drop of water that was sweet to
him, was from the fountain in the skies, not from
the broken cisterns in the earth. We shall find,
when we come to die, that all we have now, about
which we are fighting, struggling, quarrelling,
is utterly incapable of giving us one atom of real
happiness as we close our eyes upon it to open
them upon another world. And if we know of
any who died strangers to the gospel, as they had
lived strangers to it, what was the world to them
when they were leaving it ? They felt they were
losing their gods, and they had no God to help ;
they saw the springs from which they drank seal-
ed and shut one by one, and they had no fountain
of living waters to go to ; they saw all that was
dearest to them — that which was their religion
and their life — sweeping away like a ship at sea,
ELOQUENT NATURE. 579
and themselves about to open their eyes upon a
world, in which these things that they accumu-
lated as their only joys upon earth, were likely
to be a millstone about their necks that would
sink them deeper and deeper into the abyss of
eternity.
Thus we have traced the outlines of some
foreshadows of the better age. May we find
our portion there in that day. Amen.
THE END.
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