THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 From the collection of 
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 Purchased, 1918. 
 
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LECTURES 
 
 
 UPON THE 
 
 t 
 
 HISTORY OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR 
 
 JESUS CHRIST; 
 
 DELIVERED 
 
 DURING LENT, 1834, AT THE CHURCH OF THE 
 HOLY TRINITY, UPPER CHELSEA. 
 
 PART 11. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. HENRY BLUNT, A. M. 
 
 RECTOR OF STREATHAM, SURREY; 
 
 LATE FELLOW OF PEMBROKE COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE; AND CHAPLAIN TO 
 HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF RICHMOND. 
 
 FOURTH EDITION. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 J. HATCHARD AND SON, 187, PICCADILLY, 
 AND HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO. 
 
 PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 1836. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 he has also found, in his own inad- 
 equacy for the undertaking, cause for 
 increased humility, and for an .enlarged 
 spirit of simple dependance and fervent 
 prayer. 
 
 That the Saviour, a faint outline 
 of whose earthly sojourn is here at- 
 tempted, may accompany it by His 
 blessing, both to the readers and the 
 writer, is the only desire with which 
 the Author commits this second portion 
 of his work to the press. 
 
 40 , Cadogan Place, 
 
 April 13 , 1835 . 
 
 In the order of the events, the '' Chronological Ar- 
 rangement'* of the Rev. George Townsend, a most 
 valuable and useful work, has been usually followed, 
 although in some instances where the Harmonizers differ, 
 the Rev. T. Gresswell's Harmony has been preferred; 
 the reader is referred to the '' Dissertations" of the latter 
 author, for the reasons for such differences where they 
 
 occur. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART 11. 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 Luke iv. 33, 34. 
 
 ** And in the synagogue there was a man, which had 
 a spirit of an unclean devil, and cried out with a loud 
 voice, saying. Let us alone ; what have we to do with thee, 
 thou Jesus of Nazareth ? art thou • come to destroy us f 
 I Jcnow thee who thou art ; the Holy One of God.'* 
 
 Our Lord resides in Capernaum — Demoniacal possession 
 — The unclean Spirit bears testimony to Jesus — Our 
 Lord heals Simon’s wife’s mother of a great fever — 
 Address to convalescents Page 1 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 Mark ii. v. 
 
 When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of 
 the palsy. Son, thy sins he forgiven thee.** 
 
 Jesus heals a leper — Heals the Paralytic — Has power on 
 earth to forgive sin 38 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 viii 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 Luke v. 27, 28. 
 
 ** And after these things He went forth, and saw a 
 publican, named Levi, sitting at the receipt of custom ; and 
 He said unto him. Follow me. And he left all, rose up, 
 and followed Him” 
 
 The calling of St. Matthew — On conversion — Still a 
 supernatural work — And a decisive work 64 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 John v. 8. 
 
 ** Jesus saith unto him. Rise, take up thy bed, and walk ” 
 
 Jesus goes up to Jerusalem to attend the second Passover 
 during his Ministry — Pool of Bethesda — Jesus heals 
 the impotent man 91 
 
 LECTURE 11. 
 
 John v. 25. 
 
 '' Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming, 
 and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son 
 of God : and they that hear shall live,” 
 
 Our Lord taken before the Sanhedrim — Accused of Sab> 
 bath breaking — Answers the charge — Accused of 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 IX 
 
 making himself equal with God — Acknowledges this 
 great truth, and establishes it — Proclaims the general 
 judgment 115 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 Luke vi. 12, 13. 
 
 ** And it came to pass in those days that He went out 
 into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer 
 to God, ^And when it was day, He called unto Him his 
 disciples: and of them He chose twelve, whom also He 
 named apostles,** 
 
 Our Lord continues '' all "night in prayer to God’’ — 
 Chooses and ordains the twelve apostles — The 
 Christian’s duty of praying for Ministers — The Ser- 
 mon on the Mount — Jesus entertained by Simon the 
 Pharisee — A woman who was a sinner, anoints our 
 Lord’s feet — Forgiveness of sin produces love to the 
 Saviour 143 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 Matthew xii. 31. 
 
 Wherefore I say unto you, all manner of sin and 
 blasphemy shall he forgiven unto men ; hut the blasphemy 
 against the Holy Ghost shall not he forgiven unto men,** 
 
 Our Lord cures the blind and dumb demoniac — Answers 
 the charge of casting out devils through Beelzebub — 
 
X 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The sin against the Holy Ghost'' — Its nature and 
 prevention — Jesus begins to speak in Parables — ^The 
 storm on the lake of Gennesaret I 69 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 Mark v. 25—27. 
 
 A certain woman, when she heard of Jesus, came 
 in the press behind, and touched his garment* For she said, 
 if I may hut touch his clothes, I shall he whole,** 
 
 Christ visits the Gadarenes, and is urged to depart — 
 Jairus beseeches our Lord to go and heal his 
 daughter — ^The woman healed of an issue of blood — 
 The Lord's ** hidden ones" — '' Only believe" — Jesus 
 raises Jairus's daughter 194 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 John vi. 37. 
 
 ** All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and 
 him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.** 
 
 The third Passover during our Lord’s Ministry — The 
 people follow Christ, '' because they did eat of the 
 loaves, and were filled" — Jesus the true bread which 
 came down from heaven — On feeding by faith upon 
 the Son of God — All that the Father giveth me 
 shall come unto me " — ** No man can come to me 
 except the Father which hath sent me draw him." 223 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 XI 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 LECTURE 1. 
 
 Matthew xv. 28. 0 
 
 Then Jesus answered and said unto her, 0 woman, 
 great is thy faith ; be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And 
 her daughter was made whole from that very hour.'* 
 
 The third year of our Lord^s Ministry — Jesus answers 
 the Pharisees who asked why the disciples ate with 
 unwashen hands — Visits the confines of Tyre and 
 Sidon — Heals the daughter of the Syrophoenician 
 woman — '' Great is thy faith’' — Jesus feeds four 
 thousand with seven loaves 257 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 John vii. 37. 
 
 In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus 
 stood and cried, saying. If any man thirst, let him come 
 unto me, and drinh." 
 
 Jesus goes towards Dalmanutha — ^Thence to Bethsaida, 
 and through the villages of Caesarea Philippi — Peter’s 
 confession — ^The transfiguration — ^Jesus sends forth 
 the seventy disciples — Goes up to Jerusalem to 
 attend the Feast of Tabernacles — Preaches in the 
 Temple ''about the middle of the Feast” — Preaches 
 again on " the great day of the Feast ” 281 
 

 ,;vv 
 
 ^y.i 
 
 - ' h. 
 
THE 
 
 HISTORY OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR 
 JESUS CHRIST; 
 
 FROM THE FIRST TO THE SECOND PASSOVERo 
 
 PART 11. 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 B. PART II. C. 
 
LECTURES 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 Luke iv. 33, 34. 
 
 AND IN THE SYNAGOGUE THERE WAS A MAN, WHICH 
 HAD A SPIRIT OF AN UNCLEAN DEVIL, AND CRIED 
 OUT WITH A LOUD VOICE, SAYING, LET US ALONE; 
 WHAT HAVE WE TO DO WITH THEE, THOU JESUS 
 OF NAZARETH? ART THOU COME TO DESTROY US? 
 I KNOW THEE WHO THOU ART; THE HOLY ONE OF 
 GOD. 
 
 In resuming our Lectures upon the 
 deeply instructive history of our Divine 
 Master, we commence with His resi- 
 dence at Capernaum. This was a city 
 peculiarly adapted to the purposes of 
 His ministry, hoth geographically and 
 morally ; for it stood on the western 
 shore of the sea of Tiberias, and was 
 
16 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 the dwelling place of that nobleman, 
 whose son our Lord had miraculously 
 healed, and whose present health, there- 
 fore, would bear continual evidence to 
 the Almighty power of the Messiah. 
 While in Capernaum, Christ recalled 
 Simon Peter and his brother Andrew, 
 who had, probably at our Lord’s desire, 
 betaken themselves to their wonted 
 occupation during the period of their 
 Master’s temporary residence at Naza- 
 reth ; and He added to them the two 
 sons of Zebedee, James and John, who 
 like the former, were engaged as fish- 
 ermen on the lake of Tiberias. His 
 gracious and encouraging declaration 
 was the same to them all, “ Fear 
 not ; from henceforth thou shalt catch 
 men.” “ How wonderfully fulfilled, let 
 the day of Pentecost declare, when by 
 a single sermon preached by one of 
 these very men, more than three thou- 
 sand souls were enclosed in the gospel 
 
 » Luke V. 10. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 17 
 
 net ; how far more wonderfully, let 
 the present age demonstrate, when the 
 same net, woven by these same evan- 
 gelists, continues to enclose so large a 
 proportion of the inhabitants of the 
 world. 
 
 Our Lord, during his residence at 
 Capernaum, appears to have regularly 
 frequented the synagogue, and there 
 instructed the people in the blessed 
 truths of everlasting life. Upon one 
 of the Sabbath days when thus em- 
 ployed, the evangelist informs us, that 
 “ In the synagogue there was a man 
 which had a spirit of an unclean devil.” 
 
 The subject of demoniacal possessions 
 has always been to many readers of 
 holy writ, a difficult and perplexing 
 one. To those especially who are not 
 satisfied, unless revelation will consent 
 to he weighed and measured by their 
 own puny reason, it has ever been, it 
 must ever be, most embarrasing. The 
 
 ^ Luke iv. 33. 
 
18 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 manner in which such men have in all 
 ages been content to solve the difficulty, 
 is, by supposing that whenever demon- 
 iacal possession is mentioned in the 
 Gospel, it is only another expression for 
 insanity. This opinion has always had 
 many supporters among the learned, 
 but very few among the humble and 
 lowly followers of our Lord. They are 
 wisely content to receive the word of 
 God, as God has spoken it ; and when 
 that word declares that a man is pos- 
 sessed by the Devil, they do not ven- 
 ture, for the sake of overcoming a 
 difficulty, to affirm that it intended 
 merely to assert, that he was insane. 
 In fact, the circumstances of these 
 possessions are so peculiar, that nothing 
 but the literal meaning of Scripture 
 can * be received as in any, the least 
 degree satisfactory with regard to them. 
 For instance, we hear of one woman out 
 of whom Jesus “had cast seven devils.”'" 
 
 e Mark xvi. 9. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 19 
 
 What possible meaning could there be 
 in this declaration of the word of truth, 
 if “ demoniacal possession” and insanity 
 were convertible terms ? Would there 
 be any thing intelligible to be gathered 
 from the assertion that this was the 
 woman out of whom Jesus had cast seven 
 madnesses ? And yet if the one really 
 were only intended to express the other, 
 there ought to be no impropriety in 
 the exchange. The truth is, and it is a 
 truth which cannot be too often stated, 
 or too implicitly received, as a most 
 important canon, in the interpretation 
 of the word of God, that the more 
 strictly we adhere to the plain and 
 literal meaning of Scripture, when the 
 sense of the passage will bear it, the 
 more correct will be our knowledge of 
 “ the mind of the spirit ; ” while the 
 most remote interpretation is almost 
 invariably the most incorrect. The 
 course of wisdom, therefore, not only 
 upon this, but upon every subject, is 
 
20 
 
 LECTURE V, 
 
 simply to take the word of God as 
 we find it, without any reference to 
 our own opinions, or to human systems ; 
 and where we cannot understand, there 
 simply to bow before infinite wisdom, and 
 to receive its declarations in humility 
 and love ; waiting for the day when 
 we shall see as we are seen, and know 
 even as also we ourselves ai’e known. 
 
 It was, then, in the synagogue of 
 Capernaum that our Lord was first 
 confronted with one of those wretched 
 beings who were possessed by the evil 
 spirit. Most improbable does it appear 
 that Satan should have been so short- 
 sighted as to have wilfully led his 
 victim to the house of prayer, and to 
 the presence of the Saviour ; and we 
 must therefore conclude, that notwith- 
 standing the amazing power which the 
 Devil was permitted, at that particular 
 period, to exercise over the minds and 
 bodies of men, he could not even then 
 detain them, contrary to their will. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 21 
 
 from the healing presence of the Lord 
 Jesus Christ. An important and com- 
 forting consideration in every age to 
 the tempted soul ; for if Satan was thus 
 limited in his evil designs, at a period 
 when his power appears to have pecu- 
 liarly predominated, how much more 
 confidently may we depend upon the 
 assurance that if resisted, he will flee 
 from us. It is the believer’s comfort 
 to know of a certainty, that although 
 Satan may persuade, he cannot compel ; 
 he may allure you through your own 
 lust,'* to follow, as a retainer in his 
 train, but he can never drag you, con- 
 trary to your will, as a prisoner, at 
 his chariot wheels. 
 
 No sooner in the narrative before 
 us, did “ the unclean spirit” behold the 
 Saviour, and witness the power and 
 authority by which He spake, than 
 impelled irresistibly, as it would appear, 
 by the overwhelming dread of Deity, 
 
 ^ See James i. 14. 
 
 B. 2. PART II. 
 
22 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 in whose immediate presence he thus, 
 perhaps unexpectedly, found himself, 
 “he cried out with a loud voice, say- 
 ing, Let us alone, what have we to do 
 with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth, art 
 thou come to destroy us ? I know thee 
 who thou art, the Holy One of God.”® 
 How strange and horrible a scene for 
 those pious worshippers in the syna- 
 gogue at Capernaum, when their de- 
 votion was thus awfully interrupted hy 
 the avowed presence of man’s eternal 
 enemy ! That he is indeed never 
 absent even from the holiest places, 
 never idle even in our most sacred 
 hours, we know by melancholy experi- 
 ence, far too well; but to hear him 
 thus crying aloud for mercy, to hear him 
 at the same moment proclaiming the 
 Divinity of Christ, and his own eternal 
 hostility to Him, and separation from 
 Him, must have appalled the strongest 
 mind in that assembly. 
 
 Would it were true, brethren, that 
 
 ® Luke iv. 33, 34.. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 23 
 
 when these supernatural instances of 
 Satan’s power had ceased, all participa- 
 tion in Satan’s feelings had ceased with 
 them; would it were true that never, 
 but in the Devil and his angels, 
 existed in dreadful association, the 
 knowledge of the truth of the Saviour’s 
 office, and the hatred of His person! 
 But alas ! does not every open sinner 
 who scornfully rejects the Gospel for 
 his rule of life, and the Lord Jesus 
 Christ for his Redeemer, even while 
 he knows that he cannot disprove the 
 one, or disbelieve the other, stand at 
 this moment before God, in almost 
 as awful a state of danger, as the 
 unclean spirit in the synagogue of 
 Capernaum ? Blessed be God, though 
 there is a strong and fearful similarity 
 in their cases, there is yet a difference, 
 and it is a great and mighty difference. 
 For the sinner, however obstinate and 
 hardened and impenitent that sinner may 
 be, “ Judah’s healing fountain ” still is 
 
24 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 open ; the blood of the everlasting cove- 
 nant has freely flowed ; a door of access 
 to a throne of grace stands wide ; and 
 no sooner is his heart softened by the 
 Spirit of God, no sooner does he fall, a 
 willing suppliant, before that throne, 
 than he may enter within the door of 
 grace and mercy. While for that “ un- 
 clean spirit,” not all the blood even of 
 Calvary availed to rescue him from a 
 horrible eternity, or to purchase a re- 
 lease from everlasting woe ; against him 
 that fountain is for ever sealed ; that 
 door for ever closed; hope itself shut 
 out; despair triumphant; and nothing 
 left him but “ a certain fearful looking- 
 for of judgment, and fiery indignation 
 which shall devour the adversaries.”' 
 
 Suppose for a moment, brethren, 
 that within the walls of the syna- 
 gogue, our Lord had addressed that 
 fallen spirit, as He addressed the 
 worshippers at Nazareth, I am sent 
 
 f Hebrews x. 27. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 25 
 
 “ to preach deliverance to the cap- 
 tives,” ® I offer it now freely to you ; 
 the value of my blood shall go be- 
 yond the bounds of space, and travel 
 even into the world of infinity, and 
 unlock the doors of hell; redemption, 
 therefore, is this day freely preached 
 even to you, one of its most unclean 
 and ruined inmates. Do you think 
 that fallen spirit would have heard 
 as sinners hear, hesitated as sinners 
 hesitate, and listened to the words of 
 the everlasting Gospel as some, per- 
 haps, even among yourselves, are at 
 this moment listening to it ? No, 
 words cannot express the feelings with 
 which such a being would have started 
 forth from his despondency and de- 
 spair, to have grasped at the hope 
 of even a momentary respite from 
 his unutterable pangs. He who, when 
 he knew that the Saviour’s power 
 would only be exerted to control his 
 
 B Luke iv. 18 . 
 
26 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 malignity, exclaimed, “Let us alone,” 
 would, with even the faintest prospect 
 of an escape, have from mere selfish- 
 ness, fled to that Saviour’s feet, and 
 even while he hated the name of Jesus, 
 would have given worlds for one sen- 
 tence of His pardoning love. But to 
 him this could not be, he had “kept 
 not his first estate,” '' and even infinite 
 love and infinite wisdom had found no 
 remedy. 
 
 “ Behold therefore the goodness and 
 severity of God; on them which fell, 
 severity, but toward thee, goodness;”* 
 that a remedy, a Saviour, a Heaven, all 
 denied to the angels who fell, should 
 all this day, be freely offered to you. 
 Let the hardest hearted sinner among 
 us bless God, that hope and time 
 are not yet for ever taken from him ; 
 that grace is still within the reach 
 of fervent, faithful prayer; a Saviour 
 still at hand, Heaven still open, 
 
 ^ Jude, 6. i Romans xi. 22. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 27 
 
 and God still waiting to be gracious. 
 “ What have we to do with thee ? ” 
 must be the devils’ cry, for their 
 sentence is pronounced, since hell 
 itself is their prepared inheritance,'‘ 
 from which there is no escape. While 
 if the sinner, by a hardened perse- 
 verance in iniquity, comes to the same 
 dreadful fate, it is because he prefers 
 disobedience to holiness, the world to 
 Christ, hell to heaven ; it is, as our Lord 
 himself declared, because “ye will not 
 come unto me, that ye might have life.” 
 
 No sooner had the “unclean spirit” 
 borne this remarkable testimony, “ I 
 know thee who thou art ; the Holy One 
 of God,” than “Jesus rebuked him, 
 saying. Hold thy peace, and come out 
 of him. And when the devil had thrown 
 him in the midst, he came out of him 
 and hurt him not. And they were all 
 amazed, and spake among themselves, 
 saying. What a word is this ! for with 
 
 ^ See Matthew xxv. 4U 
 
28 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 authority and power he commandeth 
 the unclean spirits, and they come out.” 
 
 Behold a second source of encourage- 
 ment for the tempted disciple of the 
 Lord Jesus Christ. You know some- 
 thing, by experience, of the power of 
 your great and eternal enemy ; you are 
 “ not ignorant of his devices you feel 
 them, if you know your own hearts, in 
 the trials of every day, in the temp- 
 tations of every hour. His knowledge 
 is so vast, his cunning so deep, his in- 
 fluence so astonishing, that man is as 
 nothing in his hands, he rules and 
 governs' him at his will. There is but 
 one refuge from his power, and this is 
 by throwing yourself into the arms of 
 his eternal Conqueror. As long as you 
 continue out of Christ, the Devil is om- 
 nipotent against you ; but once united 
 to Him, and you may regard Satan as a 
 conquered enemy ; you are placed be- 
 neath the cover of that shield from which 
 
 “ 2 Corinthians ii. 11, 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 29 
 
 the fiery darts of the wicked one fall 
 harmless and innocuousi “ Be strong 
 in the Lord, and in the power of His 
 might.”" Even when temptations are 
 at the worst, when every faculty of your 
 soul seems to be in league with the 
 tempter, still cling to the Redeemer 
 with mighty prayer ; and weak and help- 
 less though you be. He will fulfil His 
 promise, and make you more than con- 
 queror, for His own sake who loved you. 
 So shall you be enabled at the last, to 
 take up the triumphant song of the re- 
 deemed, “We overcame by the blood of 
 the Lamb.” " 
 
 No sooner had our Lord left the 
 synagogue, after this signal instance of 
 His Divine power over the spirits of 
 darkness, than He “ entered into the 
 house of Simon and Andrew, with James 
 and J ohn.”'’ “ And Simon’s wife’s mother 
 was taken with a great fever, and they 
 
 » Ephesians vi. 10. ^ See Revelations xii. 11. 
 
 P Mark i. 29. 
 
30 
 
 LECTURE V, 
 
 besought Him for her.”’ How inde- 
 fatigable was the Good Physician; one 
 hour removing the spiritual ailments, 
 and the next the bodily diseases, of 
 His people ; evidencing far more clearly 
 than words could speak, that there is 
 nothing above His power, nothing be- 
 yond His willingness to heal. See also 
 in this, the blessed effect of intercessory 
 prayer, ‘‘ They besought Him for her.^’ 
 Doubtless Jesus loved Peter, and therefore 
 could not be indifferent to the sufferings 
 of his mother, and yet He waited until 
 He was besought ; so truly does our Lord 
 delight to hear the voice of His praying 
 people, that He delays many a blessing, 
 and holds back many a mercy, until He 
 has heard the voice of faithful, fervent 
 supplication, entreating for that which 
 He is far more ready to bestow, than we 
 to ask. As soon as He had been be- 
 sought in the present instance, He 
 entered the house, and stood over the 
 
 q Luke iv. 38. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 31 
 
 poor sufferer, and as St. Mark adds, 
 “took her by the hand, and lifted her 
 up,” r and “ rebuked the fever, and it 
 left her ; and immediately she arose, and 
 ministered unto them.” ® The greatest 
 pleasure of her renewed life was to be 
 employed like Martha in ministering to 
 the wants of Jesus, or like Mary, in 
 sitting at His feet. 
 
 How many are there here present 
 this day, who have, like the mother- 
 in-law of Peter, been raised from beds 
 of sickness, not by the power of me- 
 dicine, but by the tender mercy of the 
 Lord Jesus Christ ! The past season has 
 been one of fearful malady, and of no 
 common visitation ; t many have been 
 cut off in the midst of health and 
 strength, the promise of whose future 
 years was quite as bright, and quite as 
 confident, as your own. Many now 
 present have been warned and threat- 
 
 ^ Mark i. 31. * Luke iv. 39. 
 
 t Preached shortly after the Visitation of the Cholera. 
 
32 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 ened, and laid on beds of sickness, and 
 carried even within sight of the open- 
 ing grave, and by the tender mercy 
 of our God healed and brought back 
 again, the malady rebuked, and death, 
 for the present, driven from his prey. 
 It would be well to ask, How many of us, 
 so warned and so favored then, are to be 
 found now, like her of whom we speak, 
 ministering to the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 and to the wants of His people ? Every 
 mercy is attended by some kindred duty, 
 who follows closely in her train ; and 
 when the former has paid you her passing 
 visit of tenderness and love, the latter 
 oifers herself to you as an abiding guest. 
 If the mercy of returning health have 
 visited you upon your couch of suffering, 
 or your bed of sickness, then the duty 
 of a closer walk with God, a more 
 grateful attendance upon His blessed 
 Son, was her companion. It is a painful 
 and a bitter thing, to see how often 
 with recovered health, come forgetful- 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 33 
 
 ness of the mercy, and neglect of the 
 kindred duty, until the world having 
 re-estahlished its supremacy, and every 
 hour and every thought having again 
 passed into its service, the neglected and 
 forgotten duty is driven forth, like the 
 dove from the ark of Noah, to return 
 no more for ever. 
 
 My brethren, if you value warnings, 
 if you value mercies, or rather if you 
 value the God of warnings and the God 
 of mercies, you will be careful that it be 
 not so with you. We have seen, every 
 minister of God has seen, those on a bed 
 of sickness whose hearts have appeared 
 to be subdued and softened under the 
 pressure of present anguish and the fear 
 of approaching death. The world has, 
 for the first time, been revealed to them 
 in its true colouring, its wealth, its 
 honors, its attractions, all baubles light 
 as air ; while those things for which 
 alone, during health, their souls have 
 panted, would not, even if bestowed upon 
 
34 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 them in a richer abundance than ever 
 filled their worldliest day-dream, have 
 contributed a moment’s gratification, or 
 alleviated a moment’s pain. What anx- 
 iety was there then, to hear of the 
 sinner’s hope and the sinner’s Saviour ! 
 What delight to know, that it was even 
 then not too late ; that the way was 
 open, the door still unbarred, and that 
 the truly penitent believer, even at the 
 eleventh hour, might enter in. Then 
 have we, like Peter’s kindred, besought 
 the Saviour for the sick and suffering 
 sinner, and then has He, that unchange- 
 ably gracious Redeemer, heard our 
 prayers, and been entreated for the sick, 
 and rebuked the malady, and raised the 
 patient. And then has come the most 
 grievous disappointment which ever 
 befals the minister of Christ, the return 
 to sin and folly, of those whom he vainly 
 hoped had been made partakers of the 
 pardoning and renewing Spirit of our 
 God. While a gracious Saviour was 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 35 
 
 engaged in answering our cry for mercy, 
 — and how fearfully does the consider- 
 ation increase the heartless ingratitude 
 of the backslider — at the very time that 
 the Heavenly Physician was bringing to 
 him returning ease and health, the re- 
 covering patient was day by day drawing 
 off to a greater distance from the Author 
 of all his mercies. We trusted that the 
 Saviour had rescued one more sheep of 
 His fold from the fangs of the destroyer, 
 had secured one more jewel for his 
 crown ; instead of which, He has been 
 obliged to confess, “I have labored in 
 vain, I have spent my strength for nought, 
 and in vain.” “ Every day we discover 
 by some little sympton, the backward 
 course of the recovering sinner. All 
 anxiety respecting his spiritual state is 
 at an end ; the Bible, which used to be 
 seen beside the sufferer, is no longer 
 there, its place supplied by some book of 
 
 ^ See Isaiah xlix. 4. 
 
36 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 imaginative folly or worthless trifling; 
 the desire for spiritual converse is over, 
 and any subject of temporary interest 
 occupies the mind ; until at length, health 
 and worldliness, bodily strength and 
 spiritual indifference, are together re- 
 established. 
 
 Brethren, you who have been on 
 beds of sickness, you who still feel 
 the liability of your frail frame to all 
 the thousand maladies which lead down 
 to death, and yet in spiritual things 
 have profited nothing by your visita- 
 tion, remember that the patience of 
 the good Physician may be too often 
 tried ; that the strivings of His good 
 Spirit may be too often resisted; His 
 influences for ever quenched. There 
 is a day coming, when the entreaties 
 of beseeching friends, the prayers of 
 ministers, the cry of anguish, will be 
 alike unheard and disregarded by our 
 God; when the only companions of 
 a sick, and it may be a dying bed. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 37 
 
 will be the recollection of mercies un- 
 acknowledged, of resolutions unkept, of 
 compassion and love wasted upon one 
 who has made no return. 
 
 May the good Spirit of our God 
 carry the present warning to hearts 
 which none other yet has reached ; may 
 He of His infinite mercy perform that 
 in an hour of health, which days of sick- 
 ness have not effected ; and may you be 
 led now to minister of your substance, 
 your time, your influence, to God, feel- 
 ing no gift too good for Him, no sacrifice 
 but a whole heart sufficient to lay upon 
 His altar. 
 
 C. PART II. C. 
 
LECTURE VL 
 
 Mark ii. 5. 
 
 WHEN JESUS SAW THEIR FAITH, HE SAID UNTO THE 
 SICK OF THE PALSY, SON, THY SINS BE FORGIVEN 
 THEE. 
 
 The course of the history in which 
 we are engaged, will this morning bring 
 before us two remarkable instances of 
 our Lord’s supernatural power ; the 
 first exhibited in the neighbourhood of 
 Capernaum, during one of those circuits 
 which He frequently made while resi- 
 dent there, and the second within the 
 city itself. All such instances are well 
 worthy our serious consideration; but 
 these appear peculiarly so, from the 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 39 
 
 fact, that in the first, our Lord very 
 clearly typified, and in the second, plainly 
 and unequivocally proclaimed His Di- 
 vine power of FORGIVING SIN. 
 
 The first of these miracles is our 
 Lord’s cure of the leper, which is in- 
 troduced here upon the authority of 
 St. Mark, at the fortieth verse of his first 
 chapter, where we read that, “there 
 came a leper to Jesus.” Observe then, 
 first, the state of the person in favor 
 of whom our Lord’s miraculous power 
 was about to be exerted. 
 
 He was “ a leper ; ” St. Luke adds. 
 He was “a man full of leprosy.”" 
 
 Perhaps of all the diseases to which 
 the human frame was liable, the leprosy 
 was the most astonishing and the most 
 appalling. It affected not merely the 
 body of the sufferer, which it covered 
 with deep bright spots, eating through 
 the skin even into the very flesh, and 
 spreading like one great cancer over 
 
 ^ Luke V. 12. 
 
40 
 
 LERTURE VI. 
 
 the whole frame ; but in some super- 
 natural manner, it broke forth upon 
 the garments, in green and reddish 
 spots, fretting them away ; it even 
 contaminated the walls of the dwell- 
 ing houses, marking them with “ hollow 
 strakes,” “greenish or reddish, which 
 in sight were lower than the wall;’”^ 
 i. e. corroding not merely the plaster, 
 but eating even into the stones of 
 which the houses were built. 
 
 For this terrible disorder no cure 
 had ever been discovered ; when a 
 house was the subject of it, it was 
 ordered to be pulled down, and ut- 
 terly destroyed. When it was found 
 upon the garments, they were directed 
 to be burnt. When any individual 
 was attacked with it, he was com- 
 manded to apply not to the physicians, 
 but to the priests ; and to them not 
 for healing, to which no human power 
 pretended, but simply to ascertain 
 
 Leviticus xiv. 37. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 41 
 
 whether he were really the subjeet of 
 this dreadful malady ; and if he were, 
 the priest was to pronounce him un- 
 clean, to send him forth to dwell 
 alone, separated from the habitations 
 and haunts of men, his clothes rent, 
 his head bare, a covering upon his 
 face, and condemned perpetually to 
 cry whithersoever he went, “ unclean, 
 unclean,”” lest any passer-by should 
 unwittingly come in contact with a 
 malady as contagious, as it was loath- 
 some and disgusting. 
 
 It was always regarded by the Jews, 
 as a direct visitation from the hand of 
 God himself, for the punishment of 
 sin ; and to this they were probably led, 
 not only by the supernatural features 
 of the malady, but by the fact that 
 at least in three very striking intances 
 of their history, the case of Miriam, of 
 Gehazi, and of Uzziah, the leprosy had 
 been pronounced by the Almighty who 
 
 ^ Leviticus xiii. 45. 
 
42 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 inflicted it, to be the immediate punish- 
 ment of some committed transgression. 
 Indeed, our Lord Himself rather cor- 
 roborated than discountenanced this 
 opinion, when He said after one of His 
 many cures of this disorder, “ Sin no 
 more, lest a worse thing come unto 
 thee.” * 
 
 Such, then, was the nature of the 
 malady with which the applicant now 
 before our Lord was most grievously 
 afflicted; and a more accurate type of 
 sin, the malady of the soul, no bodily 
 disease ever yet presented. Like the 
 leprosy, sin also is deeply contagious 
 and incurable by human remedies, or 
 human physicians ; while the sinner, 
 if he remain uncleansed, will be as 
 completely banished throughout eter- 
 nity from the society of the holy and 
 the happy, as the leper was, from the 
 company of the uninfected among the 
 children of Israel. Even the super- 
 
 ^ John V. 14. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 43 
 
 natural elfects of this wonderful disorder, 
 are not without their counterpart in the 
 leprosy of sin ; for the very house of 
 the sinner is an infected house ; his 
 family and household are too often 
 partakers with him in the guilt and 
 punishment of the disease ; while an 
 expression made use of by St. Jude 
 would make it appear, that even the 
 contaminated garments of the leper are 
 not without some typical resemblance, 
 in that far more fearful disease of whieh 
 we are speaking, when he says, “ But 
 ye, beloved, building up yourselves in 
 your most holy faith, praying in the 
 Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love 
 of God, looking for the mercy of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life,’’ 
 
 * * * “ hating even the garment spotted 
 by the flesh.” f Evidently intending 
 to recommend to Christians as com- 
 plete a separation from sinners and 
 their pursuits, as the Israelites were 
 
 y Jude, 20, 21. 
 
 2 Jude, 23. 
 
44 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 commanded to maintain towards their 
 leprous neighbours. 
 
 Upon seeing Jesus, we are told, that 
 the leper, “ kneeling down to him,” “ 
 “worshipped Him,”’’ and “fell on his 
 face, and besought Him, saying unto 
 Him, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst 
 make me clean.” ® A very remarkable 
 evidence of faith on the part of the 
 patient; he knew full well that no 
 human power could heal him ; that for 
 his dreadful malady, the aid of the 
 physician was hopelfiss ; and, therefore, 
 in thus confidently addressing Jesus, 
 he certainly demonstrated that if he 
 was not actually aware of His divinity, 
 he believed Him to possess a power, to 
 which no other living being laid the 
 remotest claim. 
 
 “And Jesus,” continues St. Mark, 
 “ moved with compassion, put forth His 
 hand, and touched him, and saith unto 
 
 ® Mark 1. 40. ^ Matthew viii. 2. 
 
 c Luke V, 12. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 45 
 
 him, I will, be thou clean.” The leper 
 had said that it depended on the will 
 ot Christ, and on that alone, “ If thou 
 wilt Christ at once acknowledges the 
 truth of that assertion, by the inde- 
 pendent language of His reply. Not as 
 the disciples, in the case of their mi- 
 raculous cures, in the name of another ; 
 not even as the prophets of old, by the 
 will of God, but simply in His own 
 name, and by His own will, “ I will.” 
 Who can close their eyes against the 
 powerful evidence which such facts as 
 these adduce to the divinity of the 
 Lord Jesus Christ? Is an incurable 
 disease to be removed from the body? 
 the Lord of life has only to speak 
 the word, “ I will,” and it is done. Is 
 the equally incurable soul of the sinner 
 to be healed and saved ? the King of 
 Glory has only to say, “ I will,” and it 
 is effected. “Father, I will that they 
 also, whom thou hast given me, be with 
 
 d Mark i. 41. 
 
 ■ C. 2. PART II. 
 
46 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 me where I am ; that they may behold 
 my glory.” * 
 
 As the Divine authority of Christ 
 was thus wonderfully manifested on 
 this occasion, so also were His ten- 
 derness and love. We are expressly 
 told, that “Jesus was moved with 
 compassion” to this work of mercy. 
 And had we not been thus informed, 
 we might have gathered it from the 
 very manner in which He applied 
 Himself to the undertaking : no sooner 
 did the cry of that loathsome creature, 
 whom probably no other being in ex- 
 istence would willingly have approached, 
 come within the hearing of our Lord, 
 than the tender and compassionate 
 Saviour, instead of standing at a dis- 
 tance from him, and calling aloud 
 those words of power which were to 
 drive away that cruel malady, not only 
 suffered him to draw near, but even 
 laid His hand upon him, while He 
 
 ® John xvii. 24, 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 47 
 
 spoke his cure : “ Jesus, moved with 
 compassion, put forth His hand, and 
 touched him.” Trivial as this act may 
 appear, how deeply must the leper 
 have felt, how highly estimated so 
 unheard-of an instance of condescend- 
 ing love. The dearest friend, the 
 nearest relative whom that poor suf- 
 ferer possessed, would not have done 
 what Jesus did ; that disease had 
 broken all the bonds of affinity, and 
 dissolved the closest ties of friendship ; 
 from the day that the priest had pro- 
 nounced the deep “bright spot”^ to be 
 the burning leprosy, no human voice 
 had ever spoken kindness to him ; no 
 human hand had ever touched him ; but 
 now the Saviour, as if to add to His 
 unspeakable mercy, began by treating 
 him with an affectionate sympathy to 
 which he had long been utterly a stran- 
 ger. And what the Lord thus com- 
 menced in tenderness, he consummated 
 in power; “As soon as He had spoken, 
 
 ^ Leviticus xiii. 2. 
 
48 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 immediately the leprosy departed from 
 him, and he was cleansed.” 
 
 Was the leprosy so remarkable a 
 type of sin, in its incurableness, 
 in its contagion, in its uncleanness, 
 in its pollution, then surely we may 
 behold, in the incident before us, 
 something typical of the manner in 
 which our gracious Lord will deal with 
 the sinner ! This man was not only 
 a leper, “ he was full of leprosy ; ” ® 
 are you not only a sinner, not merely 
 confessing yourself a sinner, as all the 
 world are sinners, but do you feel 
 that the deeply spreading malady has 
 made its way through all the thoughts 
 and affections and feelings of your 
 soul ? that while all have sinned, you 
 are full of sin ? that you have wasted 
 opportunities of improvement, which 
 to others have never been vouchsafed ? 
 that you have disregarded mercies, 
 which were never shewn to them ? that 
 if you cannot say with St. Paul that 
 
 s Luke V. 12. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 49 
 
 you are the chief of sinners, you can 
 yet say, that you know not one whose 
 ingratitude has been of a deeper dye, 
 and whose forgetfulness of God has 
 been of wider extent than your own ? 
 that your malady is incurable by 
 human remedies ? and that unless the 
 great and Heavenly Physician take 
 compassion oh you, “ unclean, unclean,”** 
 must be your cry throughout eternity ? 
 — Then imitate the example of your 
 brother leper. He humbled himself at 
 the feet of Jesus, he spoke to no one 
 else, he sought no other aid, he cared 
 for no other remedy, he knew the utter 
 hopelessness of all human medicines, 
 and came at once to the Heavenly 
 Physician. So come to the Shepherd 
 and Bishop of your souls. Come with 
 the same humility, and yet with the 
 same unshrinking confidence, as the 
 leper came ; say, like him, Lord, I also 
 know and feel, that “ If thou wilt, thou 
 canst make me clean.” You will meet 
 
 ^ Leviticus xiii. 45. 
 
50 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 with the same kindness, the same 
 aifectionate condescension, the same 
 cure. That Saviour who did not hesi- 
 tate to touch the leper, will feel no 
 reluctance to lay His healing hand on 
 you. If your cure be delayed, it is 
 you only who are the cause of the 
 delay. Christ is more anxious to heal, 
 than you are to be healed ; more ready 
 to hear, than you to pray ; more 
 willing to pardon, than you to sue for 
 it. Every hour that the dark, deep, 
 leprous spot, remains upon fhe sinner’s 
 soul, is f robbing God of His glory, 
 the Saviour of His reward. The 
 first faint, but heartfelt ,cry, for spi- 
 ritual cleansing, forces its upward 
 way through all the opposing atmos- 
 phere of earth, and stays not, until it 
 is heard by the rejoicing myriads around 
 the throne. 
 
 But the returning sinner needs 
 every encouragement which God can 
 give, to induce him to apply for 
 pardon and acceptance where alone 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 5 1 
 
 they are to be found, at the feet of 
 Jesus. Every feeling of the natural 
 heart is so opposed to this simple 
 method, every device of Satan is so 
 successfully employed in keeping us 
 away from this only plan of salvation 
 which God has olfered, that the life of 
 Jesus teemed with invitations and en- 
 couragements and persuasions to this 
 one great and most desirable end. No 
 sooner, therefore, had our Lord made 
 an end of thus prefiguring by the 
 healing of the leper, His power and 
 His • willingness to cure that fatal 
 malady of the soul, of which this 
 bodily ailment was the acknowledged 
 type, than He hastens to proclaim what 
 He had now prefigured ; and the oppor- 
 tunity of which He availed Himself 
 was the following. 
 
 “ It came to pass on a certan day, 
 as He was teaching’’* “in the house,”'* 
 and many were gathered together, inso- 
 
 i Luke V. 17. ^ Mark ii. 1, 
 
52 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 much that there was no room to receive 
 them, no, not so much as about the 
 door. He preached the word unto them.”^ 
 Active and indefatigable as our Lord 
 was in preaching in their synagogue 
 publicly upon the Sabbath day. He con- 
 sidered this as no sufficient reason for 
 not instructing the people in the same 
 blessed truths on every day, in private, 
 and in His own house. Where the heart 
 is full of the love of God, no time will 
 appear inappropriate, no plaee unseemly, 
 to speak of all His wondrous works of 
 providence and grace ; “ out of the 
 abundanee of the heart, the mouth 
 speaketh.”™ And while Christ was thus 
 preaching, and Pharisees and Doctors 
 of the law were sitting by, to cavil as 
 they heard, suddenly the roof of the 
 house was opened up, and a paralytic 
 man lying on a bed was lowered into 
 the room by four of his friends, and was 
 dropt as it were at the very feet of the 
 
 1 Mark ii. ^ Matthew xii. 34. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 53 
 
 Saviour. Not a word appears to have 
 been spoken by any of the party; the 
 sick man’s friends, who remained on the 
 roof, and were no doubt looking down 
 with the deepest anxiety to watch the 
 result of their affectionate labour, con- 
 ceived, and truly conceived, that the 
 silent misery of the sufferer, would 
 plead his cause far more effectively than 
 their best eloquence ; while the sick 
 man himself, apparently unable to 
 speak, from the grievous and affecting 
 malady under which he laboured, was 
 content to lie at the feet of Jesus, 
 and there to trust to His Divine 
 compassion. It is not easy to conceive 
 a more powerful appeal to the heart 
 of Christ, than the sight of that mute 
 sufferer; while the whole incident was 
 one well calculated to affect every indi- 
 vidual there present, with the most 
 intense interest, both in the fate of 
 the patient, and in the conduct of 
 our Lord. 
 
54 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 The evangelist continues, “ When 
 Jesus saw their faith, i. e. the faith of 
 all the parties engaged in this most 
 silent, and yet most eloquent appeal. 
 He paused in the midst of His discourse, 
 and looking upon the poor paralytic, 
 as he lay stretched upon his bed at the 
 Saviour’s feet, He said unto him, “ Son, 
 be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven 
 thee.”“ How much of tenderness, min- 
 gled with compassion, was there in this 
 first address. Although a sufferer, not 
 the less a son ! and, brethren, not the 
 less a sinner! no bodily suffering can 
 atone for sin. Grievous, therefore, to 
 the eye of man, as was the outward 
 ailment under which the paralytic lin- 
 gered, it was neglected by the eye of 
 Deity, for the far more fatal malady 
 which lay within. And like a skilful 
 physician, our Lord left the merely 
 symptomatic disorder, to strike at the 
 root of the disease, and carry health and 
 
 ^ Mark ii. 5. 
 
 o Mark ix. 2. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 55 
 
 healing there. But there was yet ano- 
 ther reason for this conduct of Jesus, 
 and one which affected all around Him, 
 as nearly as him to whom He spake. 
 His remarkable assertion, “ Son, thy 
 sins be forgiven thee,” brought the 
 question of the claims of the Saviour at 
 once to the most decisive issue. The 
 Scribes and Pharisees who surrounded 
 Him, “ now began,” from secret and si- 
 lent cavilling, “ to reason,”** saying “ This 
 man blasphemeth.”'* “Who can forgive 
 sins, hut God alone Observe, then, 
 the important and conclusive testimony 
 borne by our Lord. He immediately 
 replied, “Wherefore think ye evil in 
 your hearts ? For whether is easier, to 
 say to the sick of the palsy. Thy sins be 
 forgiven thee, or to say. Arise, and 
 walk?”® “But that ye may know that 
 the Son of man hath power on earth to 
 forgive sins, (then saith He to the sick 
 
 P Luke V. 2 1 . q Matthew ix. 3. 
 
 ^ Luke V. 21. s Matthew ix. 4- 
 
56 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 of the palsy) Arise, take up thy bed, 
 and go into thine house.”* “ And im- 
 mediately the sick man rose up before 
 them, and took up that whereon he lay, 
 and went forth before them all, and 
 departed to his own house, glorifying 
 God.” 
 
 The great end and object of the 
 whole miracle, then, appears to have 
 been this, — that all “might know that 
 the Son of man hath power to forgive 
 sins.” And the process by which this 
 most important fact was established was 
 as simple, as it was unanswerable and 
 conclusive. It was, as if our Lord had 
 said to His opponents. You declare truly 
 that none but God can forgive sins ; I 
 assert that I have forgiven those of this 
 poor paralytic ; of the truth or the false- 
 hood of this you can be no judges, but 
 I will appeal from that which does not 
 fall within the range of your observation, 
 to that of which all, even the most un 
 
 ^ Luke V. 25. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 57 
 
 informed, can judge. Here is a man 
 whose whole frame is paralyzed : none but 
 God can restore and renovate the body, 
 which none but God could originally 
 create ; now, if by a single word I am 
 able to restore this man to his pristine 
 health, and strength, and vigour, where 
 is the caviller who will venture to assert 
 that I am unable to forgive his sin ? 
 
 By a single word, then, our Lord 
 restored the paralytic ; and by this won- 
 derful proof of His Divine authority. He 
 convinced every unprejudiced observer, 
 that “ the Son of man had power on 
 earth to forgive sin.” 
 
 In conclusion, let us endeavour, each 
 for himself, to view our Lord in that 
 peculiar character in which these two 
 remarkable miracles so plainly present 
 Him to us, as the sin-forgiving Jesus. 
 If while on earth He assumed this title, 
 and so strikingly proved, while He 
 asserted, His undeniable right to it, 
 how much more unquestionable must be 
 
5S LECTURE VI. 
 
 that attribute now, when He sits upon 
 the throne of His glory, to which God’s 
 word declares that He was exalted, ex- 
 pressly to “ give repentance and the 
 remission of sins?”“ Who that has seen 
 His willingness to pardon, while on 
 earth, can have a moment’s doubt, as to 
 His perfect readiness, now in heaven? 
 We would, then, earnestly inquire. Are 
 any among you desirous to know the 
 Lord Jesus Christ as a sin-forgiving 
 Saviour? What prevents you from ac- 
 quiring this knowledge? The way of 
 access is freely open to you : yes, to all, 
 to each. It is so plain, so simple, that 
 “the way-faring man cannot err therein.’”' 
 It is this, and only this, which God re- 
 quires of you, to make you partaker of 
 His perfect forgiveness. Retire into your 
 chamber, and before that Saviour who 
 seeth in secret, open your heart freely, 
 fully, and unreservedly. Endeavour 
 to tell Him of every sin which you have 
 
 ^ Acts V. 31. ^ Isaiah xxxv. 8. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 59 
 
 committed by thought, word, or deed, 
 against His Divine Majesty. Suppress 
 nothing, extenuate nothing, but confess, 
 as far as you can remember, all that has 
 ever grieved His Holy Spirit, or broken 
 His Divine law : declare before Him 
 your deep contrition of soul, your hatred 
 and abhorrence of every act which has 
 been displeasing to Him, your earnest 
 desire to commit it again no more for 
 ever; and plead His blessed promises. 
 His perfect righteousness. His preeious 
 blood. You will not long remain in 
 ignorance of the practical meaning of 
 this declaration of our God, “ I have 
 blotted out as a thick cloud, thy trans- 
 gressions, and, as a eloud, thy sins.”w 
 It is because men cannot bring them- 
 selves to this heartfelt eonfession, and 
 because they will not seek God’s Spirit 
 to work it in them, that they so seldom 
 attain to real peace of mind and con- 
 science, so rarely enjoy the sense of 
 God’s forgiveness. Every day some 
 
 ^ Isaiah xliv. 22. 
 
60 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 little deviation from God’s will and God’s 
 ways marks your course ; a thousand 
 worldly thoughts and unworthy feelings 
 cross your path ; and all these are left 
 to rankle in the breast, and to alienate 
 you more and more every day from God. 
 You want resolution, you want sincerity, 
 you want faith, to treat God like an 
 indulgent father, to come to Christ as 
 a forgiving friend. You will not believe 
 either His own word, or His own 
 messengers, when they assure you that 
 He is thus merciful, thus indulgent. 
 What a difference would it make, not 
 merely in your future, but even in 
 your present happiness, if you could 
 but be prevailed on to view Him thus,- 
 to go to Him with the candour and the 
 confidence with which an affectionate 
 child, even when he knows that he has 
 greatly erred, ventures to approach a 
 kind and forgiving father. 
 
 But as in the parable of the great 
 supper, “all with one consent began, to 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 61 
 
 make excuse,”* so it is now : one is too 
 much occupied with the things of this 
 world, another too little interested in 
 those of the world to come, while 
 many even of you who are really peni- 
 tent, and really desirous of the blessing 
 of sin forgiven, are by some mistaken 
 feeling, kept back from its full reception, 
 and complete enjoyment. Perhaps the 
 most prevalent of these misapprehensions 
 in the truly contrite heart, is that you 
 imagine you have not experienced suffi- 
 cient sorrow for sin ; that you do not and 
 cannot grieve for it, as you hear, or as 
 you read, that others have grieved for 
 it, with all the agony of a broken heart. 
 Christian brethren, there is no rule 
 laid down in God’s word upon this 
 subject; there is no measure of mental 
 anxiety which God has especially com- 
 manded, and short of which He will 
 refuse to pardon or to hear. The 
 only measure of grief which God 
 
 * Luke xiv. 18 . 
 
 D. PART II. C. 
 
62 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 requires, is that which accompanies the 
 determination, by God’s help, to forsake 
 sin. If you come in sincerity, really 
 desiring to confess and bewail all sin, 
 really anxious to give up all sin, really 
 praying to be forgiven all sin, there 
 is not that individual among you, who 
 may not rise from his knees that 
 hour, a pardoned sinner ! freely forgiven 
 by that merciful and compassionate 
 Redeemer who has even now, as He 
 has ever had, “ power on earth to 
 forgive sin.” What a blessed truth is 
 this ; how can we sufficiently testify 
 our gratitude to God for the revelation 
 of such an unspeakable mercy. Do 
 not, then, wait till you have suffered 
 deeper conviction of sin ; do not keep 
 away from a sin-forgiving Saviour, 
 until you have filled up any imaginary 
 measure of repentance and grief : the 
 very fact that you truly deplore your 
 past transgressions, that you heartily 
 desire to forsake sin, and to receive a 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 63 
 
 Saviour, is evidence sufficient, and re- 
 commendation sufficient, for His pardon 
 and love. It is, most frequently, by hold- 
 ,ing out against the offers of His forgive- 
 ness and the strivings of His Spirit, 
 that men work for themselves those 
 pangs, and that extreme of wretch- 
 edness, which although many true 
 children of God unquestionably have 
 experienced, many, whose adoption is 
 equally unquestionable, have entirely 
 escaped. 
 
 May God of His mercy soften every 
 heart, turn every mind, bring every 
 soul among us to this most blessed state 
 of acceptance with Him ; may He lead 
 each individual here present to come 
 and seek forgiveness through the blood 
 of Christ as a present gift, that each 
 may enjoy the consciousness that he 
 is reconciled to God through Jesus 
 Christ our Lord, and that each may 
 hear, even while on earth, that blessed 
 sentence, “ Son, thy sins are forgiven.” 
 
64 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 Luke v. 27 , 28 . 
 
 AND AFTER THESE THINGS HE WENT FORTH, AND SAW 
 A PUBLICAN, NAMED LEVI, SITTING AT THE RECEIPT 
 OF CUSTOM; AND HE SAID UNTO HIM, FOLLOW ME. 
 AND HE LEFT ALL, ROSE UP, AND FOLLOWED HIM. 
 
 According to the majority of biblical 
 critics, the calling of St. Matthew is the 
 only incident now remaining in the life 
 of the Lord Jesus Christ, which occur- 
 red during the first year of His ministry. 
 Some writers, indeed, are of opinion 
 that the great feast given by St. 
 Matthew was upon the day of his 
 conversion, and therefore should imme- 
 diately follow this event ; but it appears 
 to be satisfactorily demonstrated by 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 65 
 
 Lightfoot, Archbishop Newcome, and 
 Doddridge, that these events, although 
 placed in juxta-position by the evan- 
 gelists, must have been separated by a 
 considerable period of time. It has also 
 been urged, in addition to the reasons 
 given by those commentators for this 
 separation, that at the feast in Mat- 
 thew’s house, Jesus spake in parables, 
 which He is not known to have done 
 during the first year of His ministry. 
 There is good reason, therefore, to 
 believe that this instance did not form 
 an exception to His general rule, and 
 therefore did not occur until after the 
 second Passover, at which time He 
 adopted the parabolical method of in- 
 struction, probably in consequence of 
 the Scribes and Pharisees imputing His 
 casting out Devils to Beelzebub. If, 
 then, the harmonizers to whom I have 
 referred, be correct, the calling of St. 
 Matthew is the only incident which 
 remains to bring up our history to the 
 second Passover in our Lord’s ministry, 
 
66 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 and therefore, to conclude the present 
 section of the lectures in which we 
 are engaged. 
 
 “After these things, says St. Luke, 
 “Jesus went forth,” ^ i. e. after He had 
 healed the leper, and restored the para- 
 lytic, which formed the subjects of the 
 last discourse. When our Lord per- 
 formed the latter of these wonderful 
 cures, you will recollect that it was 
 expressly stated, that, “ there were Pha- 
 risees and Doctors of the law sitting hy, 
 which were come out of every town of 
 Galilee, and Judsea, and Jerusalem * 
 you will bear in mind how triumphantly 
 our Lord had replied to their infidel 
 cavils, and how conclusively He had 
 demonstrated to them that “the Son 
 of man had power on earth to forgive 
 sin.” 
 
 But He had yet another and still 
 more humiliating lesson to teach to 
 these same Pharisees and Doctors ; He 
 had to teach them that “ God hath 
 
 y Luke V. 27. 
 
 2^ Luke V. 17. 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 67 
 
 chosen the foolish things of the world 
 to confound the wise, and God hath 
 chosen the weak things of the world to 
 confound the things which are mighty ; 
 and base things of the world, and things 
 which are despised, hath God chosen, 
 yea, and things which are not, to bring 
 to nought things that are ; that no flesh 
 should glory in His presence.” “ 
 
 Let us, then, accompany the Lord 
 Jesus Christ from the house in which 
 the cure of the paralytic had been 
 wrought, and follow in His train, and 
 become as it were eye-witnesses of the 
 method by which He imparted this great, 
 and instructive, and difficult lesson. 
 “After these things,” says St. Luke, 
 “ He went forth,” and as He passed 
 along, many of the Pharisees who had 
 come from afar, no doubt, accompanying 
 Him, “ He saw a publican, named Levi, 
 sitting at the receipt of custom.” 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to remind 
 you, of the degree of abhorrence in 
 ^ 1 Corinthian.'? i. 27 — 29. ^ Luke v. 27. 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 6S 
 
 which the Jews held those of their 
 nation who thus accepted office under 
 their conquerors, and performed for a 
 foreign and infidel power the duties of 
 tax-gatherers, or custom-house officers. 
 So undisguised was this hatred, that it 
 had become a common saying among 
 the Jews, that “ vows made to thieves, 
 murderers, and publicans, might be 
 broken.” 
 
 No sooner, however, did our Lord 
 discover Matthew, seated at his dis- 
 honourable employment, receiving, pro- 
 bably, the toll which the Roman govern- 
 ment exacted from those who passed 
 and repassed the sea of Tiberias, than, 
 to the utter consternation of the self- 
 righteous Pharisees, He immediately 
 approached him, addressing to him these 
 few and simple words, “ Follow me.” 
 
 Without the hesitation of a moment, 
 without the reply of a word, the pub- 
 lican arose, and leaving all, in which 
 he had been a moment before immersed, 
 instantly obeyed the summons, and from 
 
LECTURE VII, 
 
 69 
 
 that hour, through good and ill, through 
 toil and labour, through persecution and 
 privation, through contempt, reproach, 
 and infamy, he followed the Saviour 
 of the world. Wonderful illustration of 
 the truth of this declaration of our Lord, 
 “ My sheep hear my voice, and I know 
 them, and they follow me.”® Here was a 
 proof that “God hath chosen the weak 
 things of the world to confound the things 
 which are mighty,” and here was an evi- 
 dence to our Lord’s supernatural power, 
 to neither of which could the most pre- 
 judiced Pharisee be blind. For" men 
 are not w’ont to quit at once and for 
 ever, long-cherished habits of life, and 
 long-established callings, without some 
 powerful counteracting principle. Do 
 you doubt the assertion ? Then let the 
 most eloquent and persuasive among 
 yourselves commence to-morrow’, like 
 Jonah of old, to go “a day’s journey’”* 
 through our vast metropolis, and take 
 
 c John X. 27. ^ Jonah ill. 4. 
 
 D. 2. PARTII. 
 
70 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 with you the strongest arguments and 
 the most conclusive reasonings, and en- 
 deavour to prevail upon one tradesman 
 to leave his counter, one man of business 
 his office, without any corresponding 
 temporal allurement to offer him, and it 
 requires no prophet’s tongue to tell, 
 that of the thousands you accost, the 
 tens of thousands you pass by, you 
 shall not prevail upon an individual to 
 listen, or to obey you. What, then, is 
 the first lesson we learn from the inci- 
 dent before us ? that when Christ speaks 
 effectually to the ear, the Spirit speaks 
 convincingly to the heart : that there 
 is a power in God’s effectual calling, 
 with which nothing human can compete, 
 which will break down all opposition, 
 and firmly establish itself in the con- 
 vinced and converted heart of him to 
 whom it speaks. 
 
 ' For the individual application of the 
 lesson before us, we advance a step 
 farther, and assert, that a supernatural 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 71 
 
 influence of a nature precisely similar, 
 and capable of producing precisely si- 
 milar results, must in every case be 
 brought to bear upon us before we can 
 be enrolled among the true people and 
 followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 Now this is one of those great points 
 upon which the Church and the world 
 always have been, and always will be, 
 at variance. The popular opinion is, 
 that all men in a Christian country are 
 precisely in the state in which St. 
 Matthew was after his conversion ; that 
 such a change is, unless to the open 
 infidel, or the flagrant sinner, perfectly 
 unnecessary ; that although the gene- 
 rality of men are certainly not living 
 a life of entire devotedness to God, for 
 this they cannot deny, yet that a little 
 more time and reflection, and perhaps 
 a little good advice and a few external 
 means of grace, are all that are wanted 
 to bring them to this happy state ; and 
 that, at any rate, when these men shall 
 
72 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 choose to listen to God’s word, they 
 will certainly have full power to 
 receive and to obey it. The effect of 
 this error is, that men are content to 
 go on from day to day, and from year 
 to year, resolving at some future time 
 to change, and to repent, and to believe 
 all, and to do all, which God requires 
 of them ; the fear never, for one mo- 
 ment, crossing their mind, that when 
 they may resolve to listen, God may 
 not please to speak; that when they 
 may have determined to obey, God may 
 not choose to call; and that thus neg- 
 lecting present means and present op- 
 portunities, all future may be most 
 peremptorily denied them. 
 
 While on the other hand, what is 
 the view of the word of God, and of the 
 Church of God, upon this great matter ? 
 It is, that whenever any individual of 
 whatever country, or rank, or time, is 
 effectually called to follow Christ, it is 
 the work of sovereign grace. 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 You acknowledge it, you cannot but 
 acknowledge it, in the case of St. Mat- 
 thew, because it is utterly impossible to 
 account for so remarkable an effect in 
 any other manner. You behold a cove- 
 tous man — for had he not been a co- 
 vetous man, he never would have held 
 an office so despised and degraded as 
 that of the publican — giving up in a 
 moment all his present gains, all his 
 future prospects, at the word of an un- 
 known and unhonoured stranger. It is 
 impossible, therefore, not at once to 
 confess, in his case, that this was God’s 
 work; here was the finger of the Most 
 High, the power of His Spirit. 
 
 But then you get rid of the great 
 lesson it was intended to teach you by 
 saying, ‘ This was a peculiar case ; this 
 was the calling of an apostle; there is 
 nothing in this at all similar to God’s 
 usual dealings with His creatures, no- 
 thing similar is, therefore, likely to occur 
 in His treatment of me.’ 
 
74 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 We will at once acknowledge that 
 in the case of St. Matthew, there was 
 something peculiar, and differing from 
 most others in our own day, and in the 
 ages that have intervened between us ; 
 but you will be surprised to see how 
 little there was that could be deemed 
 peculiar, how very little that was ex- 
 clusively confined to the case before us. 
 
 St. Matthew was converted in an in- 
 stant, the whole work, as it appears, 
 begun, continued, and completed in a 
 single moment. St. Matthew, immedi- 
 ately upon his conversion, deserted his 
 worldly gains, left all his worldly busi- 
 ness, and devoted himself at once to 
 the apostleship. 
 
 We admit, then, that Matthew’s re- 
 signing his worldly calling and his 
 worldly gains was peculiar ; but this 
 only as regards the act, and not as 
 regards the state of mind which pro- 
 duced the act, and which is required 
 of all. We still further grant that the 
 instantaneousness of his conversion 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 75 
 
 does not often occur at present. But 
 with those two exceptions, we say that 
 there was nothing, literally nothing, in 
 the call of Matthew, which has not its 
 counterpart in the effectual calling of 
 every true believer among ourselves. 
 
 We believe that in all eases true 
 conversion is equally supernatural in its 
 origin, and equally decisive in its effects, 
 1. It is equally a supernatural work. 
 The eighteen hundred years that have 
 passed since this event, have made no 
 differenee whatever in the human heart. 
 It is just as hard, just as deceitful, just 
 as ignorant of God to day, as on the 
 day when Matthew sat at the reeeipt of 
 custom ; and never does the heart re- 
 spond to the call to spiritual duty and 
 spiritual life, until it receives that call 
 from the mouth of its Maker. As David 
 has long sinee declared, “ when Thou 
 saidest. Seek ye my face ; my heart said 
 unto Thee, Thy face. Lord, will I seek.”" 
 
 ® Psalm xxvii. 8. 
 
76 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 It is when God speaks savingly to us, 
 when divine grace influences the heart, 
 that the heart, so influenced, obeys.*^ 
 The great objection to this which always 
 arises in the mind of “ the natural man,” 
 is, if this be the case, then where is the 
 freedom of my own will? If my con- 
 version to God be thus so completely 
 and entirely a supernatural work, the 
 agency of His Spirit, then may that 
 Spirit act even against my will, and 
 carry me, whether willing or unwilling, 
 in the train of my conquering Lord. 
 Very few who argue thus are, w^e fear, 
 really acquainted either with the word 
 of God, or with what even their own 
 Church says upon the subject of 
 this free-will, of which they so largely 
 boast. We find the word of God 
 distinctly declaring, “The preparations 
 of the heart in man, are from the Lord 
 and 'again, “O Lord, I know that the 
 way of man is not in himself; it is not 
 
 ^ See loth Article. , ^ Proverbs xvi. 1. 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 77 
 
 in man that walketh to direct his steps,’”' 
 While our Saviour says, “ Without me, 
 ye can do nothing,”’ therefore, neither 
 take the first good step, nor think the 
 first good thought. And in agreement 
 with this, the apostle to the Philippians 
 asserts, “It is God who worketh in you 
 both to will and to do, of His good 
 pleasure.” Again, we find our own 
 Church, in her tenth article, speaking 
 so distinctly and uncompromisingly upon 
 this great subject, that her children at 
 least cannot hold two opinions upon it, 
 for she says, “ The condition of man 
 after the fall of Adam is such, that he 
 cannot turn and prepare himself, by his 
 own natural strength and good works, 
 to faith and calling upon God.” Here, 
 then, we have a most distinct avowal 
 that in the case of every individual, 
 even in a Christian country, there is by 
 nature no power to turn to God, hut 
 that the conversion of the heart, under 
 
 ^ Jeremiah x. 23. 
 
 i John XV. 5. 
 
78 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 all circumstances, must be a surperna- 
 tural work. 
 
 Is there, then, any violence committed 
 upon the human will ? Is there any 
 encroachment upon that free agency, 
 without which man would not be a 
 responsible being ? Certainly not. At 
 the very moment that Divine grace is 
 influencing every thought of the mind, 
 and every feeling of the heart, and every 
 affection of the soul, our will continues 
 perfectly unfettered, our freedom en- 
 tirely uncontrolled. 
 
 How, then, is this ? We reply, that 
 while we continue in our natural state, 
 our will is opposed to God’s will, but 
 the very moment that the effectual calling 
 of Christ reaches the soul. His grace 
 captivates the affections ; the heart dis- 
 tinguishes that in His word, in His 
 commands, in Himself, which it begins 
 to love. There is no longer any oppo- 
 sition of our will to be overcome, for it 
 has already coincided with God’s will. 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 79 
 
 and is not now at variance with it. So 
 far, therefore, from the serviee of Christ 
 being any encroachment upon our free- 
 dom, the first desire of our renewed 
 heart is to enter His service, to obey His 
 will, and like the Israelitish servant of 
 old, voluntarily to be pierced “through 
 the ear unto the door,’”' that we may 
 be His for ever. 
 
 You may tell “ the natural man” that 
 the very faet that his conversion is a 
 supernatural work, implies that his will 
 must be forced, his free-agency en- 
 croaehed upon, his liberty destroyed, 
 and he will doubtless credit you; and 
 slave, as he really is, to Satan’s cruel 
 bondage, he will embraee his chains and 
 thank God he is yet free, and pity the 
 superstition which is enslaving thou- 
 sands. But, talk to “ the spiritual man” 
 of the service of God being a hard 
 service ; tell him that his will is sub- 
 jugated ; that his inclination is fettered ; 
 
 ^ See Exodus xxi. 6, and Deuteronomy xv. 17- 
 
80 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 his liberty gone ; and how will he an- 
 swer you ? he will say, ‘ Go tell the child 
 who is devotedly attached to the most 
 affectionate of parents, and who knows 
 no will but theirs, that he is a slave ; 
 or tell those kindred hearts which are 
 bound together by the strongest ties on 
 this side heaven, that theirs is a bitter 
 bondage ; even they may credit you, but 
 I never can; for every thought of my 
 mind, and every feeling of my renewed 
 heart, and every affection of my bosom, 
 indignantly repels so palpable a false- 
 hood. “ His commandments are not 
 grievous.”' His name is love, every act 
 and word of His to me has been full of 
 love, forbearing love, pardoning love, di- 
 recting, guiding, sanctifying love, from the 
 day, when God of His sovereign grace, 
 called me into spiritual existence, even 
 until this hour. Instead of feeling my 
 present state a state of bondage, I never 
 knew "‘'what liberty was, I never had a 
 
 - 1 1 John V. 3. 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 81 
 
 moment’s respite from the thraldom of 
 my unholy tempers and lusts and pas- 
 sions, from Satan and from sin, until 
 the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, by His 
 supernatural power, made me partaker 
 of the glorious liberty wherewith He 
 makes His people free.’" 
 
 It is thus, in sentiment at least, that 
 every truly converted follower of the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, while he acknow- 
 ledges that the change which has been 
 wrought in him, is wholly supernatural, 
 will reply to the charge that his will 
 has been forced, his mind fettered, 
 his freedom destroyed, by a service 
 in which love alone commands, and 
 love obeys. 
 
 11. As the work of conversion has 
 been shewn to be as completely a su- 
 pernatural work now, as it ever was, 
 so may it be shewn, that the effect of 
 conversion now, is as decisive as it has 
 ever been. 
 
 “ Galatians v. l. 
 
82 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 The effect upon Matthew the pub- 
 lican was, as we have seen, that he 
 instantly left all for Christ ; and the 
 effect upon the sincere Christian in 
 every age is as marked and as deci- 
 sive. He does not indeed cast aside his 
 worldly business, or forsake his worldly 
 calling, but he desires to do, and when 
 truly turned to God, he is enabled to 
 do, what is in every respect the same. 
 He follows every earthly occupation 
 with a single eye to God’s glory; he 
 holds all his worldly possessions in 
 charge for God ; he becomes in heart 
 and mind, in motive and action, a 
 “new creature;” and even Matthew the 
 apostle differed not more decidedly from 
 Matthew the publican, than such a man 
 differs from his former self. That this is 
 so, the lives of many holy, self-denying 
 followers of the Lord Jesus Christ in 
 every age will determine ; that it must 
 be so, all Scripture loudly tells. For 
 does not the word of truth most un- 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 83 
 
 equivocally declare, that “ In Christ 
 Jesus neither circumcision availeth any 
 thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new 
 creature;”" and again, “If any man be 
 in Christ he is a new creature ; old 
 things are passed away, behold, all 
 things are become new.” ° 
 
 It is easy to say, that such decla- 
 rations as these refer to other people 
 and to other times ; that which is per- 
 fectly suitable to the unbaptized hea- 
 then, is preposterous when applied to 
 the baptized Christian. It would be so, 
 were the baptized Christian always a 
 Christian in heart, as well as name ; it 
 is so, where the “washing of regene- 
 ration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost,” 
 have been effectual in turning the whole 
 man to God. But dare we say that 
 this is the case of the majority? Does 
 not the experience of every day and of 
 every heart proclaim at once that it is 
 not ? You know that it does. You 
 
 ^ Galatians vi 15. 
 
 o 2 Corinthians v. I 7 . 
 
84 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 know that the decisive change referred 
 to in the passages of Holy Writ, which 
 I have read to you, is not to be recog- 
 nized in the life of one baptized Chris- 
 tian in a thousand. 
 
 Can you, then, with these uncompro- 
 mising declarations of God’s word before 
 your eyes, be content with the sort 
 of half religion which is satisfying the 
 world? Can you think that a Sabbath 
 hour one day in the week, and it may 
 be, a hasty chapter of God’s word upon 
 every other day, are sufficient evidences 
 of true conversion, while the thoughts, 
 the heart, the life, all remain unin- 
 fluenced, unimproved ? That the ever 
 blessed Son of God came down on earth 
 to lead the life of suffering and pri- 
 vation which we are now contemplating, 
 and to die His death of inexpressible 
 agony, and all to purchase to Himself 
 a people who should devote six-sevenths 
 of their time to the service of His 
 eternal enemies — sin, the world, and the 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 85 
 
 devil, and be content to give the seventh 
 portion grudgingly to Him. 
 
 No, if conversion be a work super- 
 natural in its origin, and decisive in its 
 effects, then most assuredly, this is not 
 conversion. All is natural, perfectly 
 natural, nothing supernatural here. It 
 is natural that every individual should 
 desire just so much religion as he 
 imagines will satisfy God, and keep 
 himself from “ the worm that never 
 dies, and the fire that never shall he 
 quenched.”*’ The supernatural effect 
 begins, when the love of God, and the 
 delight in Christ, and the desire for 
 heaven, are all springing up as power- 
 fully influential in the heart, as the love 
 of sin, and the delight in this world’s 
 pleasures, and the desire for this world’s 
 advantages, once were. The super- 
 natural effect begins when the realities 
 of an unseen world more powerfully 
 influence every thought, and motive, 
 
 P Mark ix. 44, 48. 
 
 E. PART II. C 
 
86 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 and desire, than the far closer and more 
 pressing realities of time and sense j 
 when sin becomes absolutely hateful to 
 us, and Christ proportionahly precious, 
 and holiness in all our ways and all 
 our works unceasingly desired ; when 
 the love of God and the obedience to 
 His commands, is the one great object 
 of the renewed heart, the convinced 
 conscience, the spiritually enfranchised 
 will. 
 
 But if such a course of half-religion 
 as I have just referred to, cannot be 
 called a supernatural work, as little can 
 it be called a decisive work. Where 
 is the decision of that man’s mind, who 
 lives for both worlds, perhaps through- 
 out a long life, vibrating like a pendulum 
 between heaven and hell, unknowing 
 himself, unknown to all around him, 
 to which of these two widely different 
 eternities, the last vibration of the 
 pendulum shall incline. 
 
 Brethren, “ examine yourselves whe- 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 87 
 
 ther ye be in the faith;”" and if, by 
 God’s grace, you have good reason to 
 hope and to believe that you are ; if 
 you have reason to trust that with you, 
 conversion has been indeed a super- 
 natural work, and in its eifect is daily 
 and hourly becoming a more decisive 
 work, remember, that you have nothing 
 which you have not received ; and let 
 the consciousness of this draw you still 
 nearer with a more grateful heart, and 
 a more convinced will, and a more de- 
 termined and decided walk, to the God 
 of your salvation. If you have been 
 hitherto contented with offering a divided 
 obedience, let your resolution now be, 
 in God’s strength to “follow the Lord 
 fully,” to offer to Him a whole heart, 
 to devote from this day all your powers, 
 all your affections, all your energies, to 
 Him who loved you and gave Himself 
 for you, to purchase you as “ a peculiar 
 people zealous of good works.” Thus 
 
 ^ 2 Corinthians xiii. 5. 
 
88 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 having, like that devoted apostle of 
 whom we have this day spoken, “ left 
 all, and followed ” the Saviour here, you 
 shall be rendered meet, with the blessed 
 company of the apostles, saints, and 
 prophets who have preceded you, to 
 “ follow the Lamb whithersoever He 
 goeth,”' in His eternal kingdom. 
 
 ^ Revelations xiv. 4. 
 
THE 
 
 HISTORY OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR 
 JESUS CHRIST; 
 
 FROM THE SECOND TO THE THIRD PASSOVER IN OUR 
 
 lord's ministry. 
 
 PART 11. 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
91 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 ^T. John v. 8. 
 
 JESUS SAITH UNTO HIM, RISE, TAKE UP THY BED, 
 AND WALK 
 
 We resume the lectures at that period 
 in the history of our Divine Master, 
 which is marked by His visit to Jeru- 
 salem, for the purpose of keeping the 
 second Passover after the commence- 
 ment of His public ministry ; and with 
 which, therefore, the second year of 
 His ministry begins. The first incident 
 which occurred during His visit, and 
 which is recorded only by St. John, is 
 the cure of the infirm man at the pool 
 of Bethesda ; an incident full of in- 
 
92 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 struction and of intei’est, and to which, 
 seeking the Divine aid of the Holy 
 Spirit of God, we would now call your 
 attention. 
 
 The inspired Historian having men- 
 tioned the presence of our Lord in 
 Jerusalem, at this particular season, and 
 the motive which brought Him thither, 
 saying, “ There was a feast of the J ews, 
 and Jesus went up to Jerusalem,”' thus 
 proceeds to describe the place, and the 
 circumstances, of the miracle of the 
 text. 
 
 “Now there is at Jerusalem, by the 
 sheep-market, a pool, which is called 
 in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having 
 five porches.”® It is the' opinion of Dr. 
 Lightfoot, that this pool had been used 
 as a bath for persons under ceremonial 
 defilement, and that the five porches 
 were covered walks, or porticoes, built 
 for their convenience. “ In these ” 
 porches “lay a multitude of impotent 
 
 s John V. 2. 
 
 ^ John V. 1. 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 93 
 
 folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting 
 for the moving of the waters. For an 
 angel went down at a eertain season 
 into the pool, and troubled the water; 
 whosoever then, first, after the troubling 
 of the water, stepped in, was made whole, 
 of whatsoever disease he had.” 
 
 It is needless to detain you .upon 
 the many conjectures which learned 
 writers have ventured upon this passage 
 of Scripture, rather than believe the 
 plain and simple statement of the word 
 of God itself ; the manner in which 
 one accounts for the medicinal virtues 
 of the pool, by supposing it to have 
 been a mineral spring ; another by 
 imagining that the entrails of the sheep, 
 slain for sacrifice, were cast into it, and 
 that the angel was only a messenger 
 from the Sanhedrim, sent at certain 
 hours to stir up the water, which had 
 acquired, in a manner they do not 
 attempt to explain, some most powerful 
 healing properties. It is enough for 
 
 E. 2. PART II. 
 
94 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 the simple reader of Holy Writ, thaty 
 however contrary it may appear to 
 human experience, the unerring word 
 assures him, it was the will of God, 
 that at particular seasons, the waters 
 of this pool should be possessed of 
 certain miraculous properties, commu- 
 nicated, as it appears, by a messenger 
 from on high : and that the first, and 
 only the first person who then stepped 
 into them, was invariably healed. Since 
 these wonderful properties are men- 
 tioned by no uninspired writers, it seems 
 probable that they were communicated 
 to this pool, but a short time before 
 the ministry of our Lord commenced, 
 and were removed when that ministry 
 concluded. However this may be, it 
 is certain that at the period of the 
 incident before us, they existed, and 
 that the sight of the many suffering 
 children of affliction, lying in these 
 porticoes, in the daily and hourly ex- 
 pectation of a blessing which only one 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 95 
 
 could enjoy, must have strongly affected 
 the heart of our Redeemer. Whether 
 the pool lay near the temple, as some 
 imagine, the history does not recount, 
 but one thing it manifests, which, in a 
 suffering world should never be for- 
 gotten, that let the sick and miserable 
 be where they may, they cannot be out 
 of the thoughts, or out of the sight, or 
 out of the path of our Divine Master. 
 His first object at Jerusalem seems to 
 have been, to visit the “ blind, halt, with- 
 ered,” who lay at the pool of Bethesda, 
 uncared for and unthought of, perhaps, 
 by any other human being in those 
 vast multitudes, who had assembled at 
 the Passover, except the Lord Jesus 
 Christ Himself. Surely there is com- 
 fort in the thought, even to the most 
 wretched and most desolate upon earth. 
 The Saviour, who passed by the palaces 
 of princes, sought out the porches of 
 Bethesda. That lodging cannot be too 
 poor and miserable for the Saviour’s 
 
96 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 presence, which contains one suffering 
 sinner. He who Himself had not where 
 to lay His head, will seek and visit 
 you in the lowest abode of penury, if 
 you will but acknowledge your need of 
 Him, and welcome His approach, 
 
 “ And a certain man was there which 
 had an infirmity thirty and eight years.”' 
 How long and how grievous a visitation ! 
 is the first comment which we are all 
 disposed to make upon this portion of 
 the history : far different was the re- 
 mark of one of the holy men of old, the 
 pious and devoted, but as to his bodily 
 frame, infirm and suffering, Richard 
 Baxter ; he says in his note upon this 
 verse, “ How great a mercy was it, to 
 live thirty-eight years under God’s whole- 
 some discipline. 0 my God, I thank 
 thee for the like discipline of fifty-eight 
 years ; how safe is this, in comparison of 
 full prosperity and pleasure.” 
 
 Who but a real child of God could 
 
 * John V. 5. 
 
LECTURE 1. 
 
 97 
 
 ever have suggested such a comment 
 upon such an incident ! Whose heart 
 among ourselves, can honestly, and as 
 in the sight of God, re-echo the senti- 
 ment ! 
 
 The sick man, of whom the parable 
 speaks, had probably lain the longest 
 there, of all those who filled those 
 porches with misery and bewailing ; 
 and the Saviour who knew all things, 
 knew the length, as well jis the depth 
 of his distress, and apparently on that 
 account, selected him as the object of 
 His healing mercy. There may be, for 
 we have met with cases such as these 
 in our ministerial course, some truly 
 penitent believer, among yourselves, to 
 whom the preaching, and the counsel, 
 and the prayers of ministers and friends, 
 are as unavailing to bring peace, as 
 medicine had been to bring a cure to 
 the case before us ; but take courage, 
 you are perhaps only kept the longer 
 and tried the deeper, that the hand 
 
98 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 of the good Physician Himself may be 
 extended to you, and that your spiritual 
 healing may be the work of Christ alone : 
 He will, in His good time, bestow, what 
 all ordinances and all means, without 
 Him, never can, the “ peace of God which 
 passeth all understanding.”” 
 
 Observe we next, the manner in 
 which our Lord calls forth the desire 
 to be healed, before He performs the 
 cure, “ He saith unto him. Wilt thou 
 be made whole Could He doubt it ? 
 Could He who knew the hearts of all 
 men, be ignorant of the wretchedness 
 that dwelt within; and had for eight 
 and thirty years, imbittered to this poor 
 sufferer, every enjoyment and every hour 
 of life? No, Jesus knew full well, all 
 that the sick man wished, and all he 
 hoped for ; hut where Christ imparts 
 the cure, the heart must be aroused, 
 and the desires quickened, and the 
 tongue excited to seek it. Therefore 
 
 Philippians iv. 7- ^ John v. 6. 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 99 
 
 did He ask the question ; and therefore 
 does He now, even at the present hour, 
 and to every subject of His healing 
 mercy, first bestow the grace to seek 
 the boon, which, when sought for. He 
 delights to give. 
 
 Brethren, I know not how it may he 
 with others, but with myself I feel, 
 that had not He who bestowed the 
 gift, first bestowed the sense of my 
 deep need, and the will and power to 
 ask the remedy, I had still lain a poor, 
 helpless outcast upon the brink of the 
 waters of life, ignorant alike of my own 
 fatal malady, and of the returning 
 health which they alone impart. 
 
 But let us for a few moments imagine 
 the scene of the parable to be changed : 
 this Church to be ^ the portico beside 
 Bethesda’s pool ; yourselves the sick 
 and suffering patients ; and the disease, 
 not infirmity, but sin — sin which has 
 corrupted every heart, and perverted 
 every way, and endangered every soul. 
 
100 
 
 LECTURE 1. 
 
 Suppose the Saviour to enter this por- 
 tico, and to apply Himself to you indi- 
 vidually, and with the same question 
 which He addressed to the man before 
 us, “ Wilt thou be made whole ?” Are 
 you quite certain what would be your 
 reply? Are you sure, that there is no 
 one here, who when he found, that to 
 be “made whole” of sin, implied the 
 destruction of its reigning, as well as 
 its condemning power ; the breaking off 
 of many a dear connexion ; the denial of 
 many a sinful pleasure ; the discontinu- 
 ance of many a vicious habit, which for 
 a long, long season, perhaps for eight and 
 thirty years, has been as deeply rooted in 
 your heart as this man’s malady in 
 his constitution; is there no one here, 
 who like the rich young man, would 
 turn away in sorrow, prefer his sin to 
 his Saviour, and refuse even spiritual 
 health itself, at so high a cost ? Alas ! 
 we fear that few assemblies, even of 
 Christian worshippers, but contain some 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 101 
 
 persons such as these. Remember, 
 then, that we are painting no imaginary 
 scene, when we compare the ordinances 
 of God, with the healing waters of Beth- 
 esda. For never are the doors of God’s 
 house opened, that the waters of sal- 
 vation do not flow; never is the word 
 of life truly preached, that the Spirit 
 of God does not “ move upon the face 
 of those waters;”" to impart to them 
 the healing qualities, of which not one 
 alone, but all, yes all, without exception 
 and without reserve, may be partakers. 
 Whenever, therefore, you set your foot 
 within the walls of the temple of God, 
 the great Lord of the fountain asks 
 of all, of each, “ Wilt thou be made 
 whole ?” And what is your reply ? 
 How many, who in heart exclaim, Lord, 
 I am whole, I need not a physician. 
 How many, who shrink from the healing 
 process, and prefer the malady to the 
 cure. How few, who reply at once, 
 
 ^ Genesis i. 2. 
 
102 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 ‘ Lord, I am distressed, undertake for 
 me, and do what seemeth thee best.’ 
 
 My brethren, were we half as con- 
 scious of our spiritual ailments, as of 
 our bodily diseases; were we a thou- 
 sandth part as anxious to be healed 
 of the former, as to be cured of the 
 latter, long ere this there would not 
 have been one “ blind, halt, with- 
 ered,” within our temple, or a single 
 feeble one within our walls. May God 
 of His tender mercy teach us deeply 
 to feel our maladies, as the first step 
 towards their removal, and our health- 
 fulness. 
 
 “ 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.”* 
 
 How good an evidence is it that 
 sickness, and trial, and trouble, have 
 had their perfect work, when the pride 
 
 * John V. 7. 
 
LECTURE 1. 
 
 103 
 
 of the heart is humbled, and the fret- 
 fulness and complaining of the lips are 
 silenced, and we can dwell upon our 
 sorrows without one repining word, or 
 one distrustful thought. The sick man 
 before us, does not breathe a syllable 
 against the hardheartedness of his fellow 
 men ; that of all the thousands in that 
 crowded city, not one had leisure 
 enough, or love enough, to sanctify his 
 visit to the Passover, by such an obvious 
 act of mercy as the lifting this poor 
 sufferer into the healing pool. He 
 simply tells the story of his own 
 wretchedness, and the selfishness of 
 those around him, in these affecting 
 words, “ I have no man,” and “ another 
 steppeth down before me.” The utmost 
 that he dared to hope was, that now, 
 at length, he had encountered one, who 
 could feel for other’s woes, and who 
 might, perhaps, be intending to seat 
 himself beside him, and there remain 
 and watch the coming of the super- 
 
104 
 
 LECTURE 1. 
 
 natural visitant, and place him first 
 within the troubled waters. But Jesus 
 had far higher things than this in store 
 for him ; He had a cure unexpected, 
 sudden, and complete, for the infirmity 
 of his body, followed, as we have every 
 reason to believe, by the renewal of his 
 soul. “ 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.”^ 
 
 So true it is, that He with whom 
 we have to do, is not only able, but 
 willing “to do exceeding abundantly, 
 above all that we ask or think.”* 
 
 There is however, yet, another por- 
 tion of the history to be considered, 
 which will pourtray the duty of man, 
 as distinctly as the former part has 
 shewn the loving kindness of the Lord. 
 
 No sooner had the healed man obeyed 
 the command of Christ, by carrying his 
 bed upon the sabbath day at the im- 
 
 y John V. 8, 9. ^ Ephesians hi. 20. 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 105 
 
 minent peril of his life, for such a 
 breach of the ceremonial observance of 
 that Divine Institution, than the Jews 
 fiercely interrogated him, by whose 
 authority he was thus transgressing. 
 The man, whose knowledge of our Lord 
 was, as might be expected, most im- 
 perfect, still felt that He who could 
 work so wonderful a miracle by His 
 own power, must certainly possess a 
 right to the obedience of those He 
 healed; and this, indeed, was agreeable 
 even to the dogmas of many among the 
 Jews themselves, who justified a prophet 
 in infringing the rest of the Sabbath, 
 by the example of Joshua surrounding 
 Jericho, for seven successive days, with 
 the ark. The man who was healed, 
 therefore, acknowledging, what the Jews 
 denied, that J esus was a prophet, replied 
 at once, as sufficient authority for the 
 act, and sufficient justification of it, “ He 
 that made me whole, the same said unto 
 me. Take up thy bed, and walk.” How 
 
106 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 powerful is the influence of the Lord 
 Jesus Christ, upon the heart which has 
 once been really visited by His com- 
 passion and love. This healed man 
 ventured even his life, rather than dis- 
 obey the word of Him who healed him. 
 When on the great and coming day 
 all the generations of men shall stand 
 together, how will the “ maimed, and 
 the halt, and the blind,” who, for one 
 act of mercy and compassion, obeyed 
 their Divine Redeemer, without a feeling 
 of hesitation or distrust, put us to shame, 
 who after countless instances of mercy, 
 far greater, and far higher, than they 
 were ever blessed with, follow Him so 
 distantly, and obey Him so reluctantly 
 and coldly. The only substantial proof 
 that you can ever give, that the love 
 of Christ has touched your heart, is 
 this, — Has it left the stamp of true 
 subjection to Him there ? Are you not 
 satisfied with saying, “ Lord, Lord,” but 
 are you doing the things which He 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 107 
 
 commands you ? How much profession 
 of religion is there at the present day, 
 where this first and surest fruit is 
 wanting. Say not, deceive not yourself 
 by thinking that Christ has ever visited 
 you, if a holy, consistent obedience has 
 not been the result. If you truly know 
 the Lord Jesus, if you have indeed re- 
 ceived healing and mercy at His hands, 
 you would hazard life itself rather than 
 habitually break even the least of His 
 commandments. For be assured, what- 
 ever be your profession of religion, the 
 heart possesses still its native hardness, 
 if the bright beaming of a Saviour’s 
 love upon it has failed so to soften it, 
 that it may be moulded into some 
 degree of conformity to His commands, 
 or resemblance to Himself ; the soul 
 still lies in all its natural dullness, if 
 • when those rays have fallen upon it, 
 it has reflected back no portion of the 
 love which it received. 
 
 The man whom we have just seen 
 
108 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 condemned as a Sabbath breaker, fer 
 carrying his bed, in obedience to Him 
 who healed him, at once evinced the 
 falsehood of the allegation, by going 
 straightway to the temple, to praise 
 the Lord for all that had been so 
 wonderfully done for him. It was in 
 that house of God, that Jesus met with 
 him, and spoke those words which we 
 may reasonably hope were blessed to the 
 conversion of his soul, “ Behold, thou 
 art made whole. Sin no more, lest a 
 worse thing come unto thee.”* 
 
 When our Lord granted the first mani- 
 festation of His love in the healing of 
 this poor man. He found him ignorant, 
 and He left him ignorant of the very 
 name and quality of his benefactor. 
 But though he knew not Christ, he 
 knew the way to the temple, and he 
 not only knew, but performed the duty 
 of carrying thither, his thank-offering 
 to God. Behold here the manner in 
 
 a John V. 14. 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 109 
 
 which, while acting according to the 
 light we possess, our God fulfils His 
 promise, “ Whosoever hath, to him shall 
 be given, and he shall have more abun- 
 dance.”'* The Saviour completed the 
 mercy in the Temple, which he had 
 begun at the Pool ; while the man who 
 wist not who it was, when he was healed, 
 discovered while he prayed and praised, 
 that it was “Jesus, who had made him 
 whole.” This well agrees with the gra- 
 cious method in which God ordinarily 
 deals with His creatures. “ If any man 
 will do His will, he shall know of the 
 doctrine,”' is one of the most consolatory 
 of the unerring promises of God. Never 
 are there such scriptural grounds for be- 
 lieving that you will be brought, in God’s 
 good time, to the fulness of the know- 
 ledge, and faith, and hope, that are in 
 Christ Jesus, as when engaged in per- 
 forming, as far as it is known to you, the 
 revealed will of your God. It is a blessed 
 
 ^ Matthew xiii. 12. John vii. 17. 
 
 F. PART IL C. 
 
110 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 thing to reflect how many in every ge- 
 neration, as it passes through this state 
 of suffering and probation, are first 
 brought to feel their need of something 
 better than this world can offer, by the 
 pressures of affliction, or the trials of 
 sickness. How many who receiving at 
 those distressing seasons, healing and 
 grace, are led on in all holy obedience, 
 step by step, from the bed of sickness, 
 to the Temple ; from the word of God, 
 to the Son of God ; from bodily health, 
 to spiritual cure ; until all that the 
 Saviour has done and suffered for them 
 is gradually unfolded to their hearts, 
 and they have “followed on to know 
 the Lord,”** their light shining more 
 and more, until it reaches the perfect 
 day. 
 
 But, brethren, if it be a blessed thing 
 to know, that these are the steps by 
 which thousands and tens of thousands 
 in every generation ascend from earth 
 
 ^ Hosea vi. 3. 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 Ill 
 
 to heaven, surely it is a deeply painftil 
 thing to know also, that these are steps 
 which thousands never tread ; that of 
 all the multitudes who are daily going 
 down to death, vast indeed is the propor- 
 tion, by whom we fear the upward path 
 is untrodden and unknown. 
 
 One word then only, in conclusion, 
 to you, to whom the mercies of a bed 
 of sickness have been vouchsafed in vain. 
 You have suffered from the chastening 
 hand of your God, and by His healing 
 power have been raised up, where many 
 have fallen to arise no more. And are 
 you still careless, thoughtless, disobe- 
 dient? Do the giddy throng, who 
 smile at that which makes all nature 
 serious, who postpone all deep and 
 earnest care of the immortal trea- 
 sure with which God has trusted them, 
 see no one more giddy, more thought- 
 less, than yourself? Are all the vows 
 and all the prayers of that sick room 
 forgotten, or remembered only when the 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 I 12 
 
 breach of them reminds you, for a passing 
 moment, that they are registered on 
 high ? It is a fearful thing to trifle with 
 (rod’s judgments, hut ten-fold more 
 fearful is it, to trifle with His mer- 
 cies. When sickness and sorrow once 
 more revisit you, when you attempt to 
 betake yourself again to Him, from whom 
 you have before found healing and con- 
 solation, shall you be surprised that 
 though you seek Him, He is no 
 where to be found ? Shall you wonder 
 that your prayer has no wings, your 
 bed of sickness no consolations ! Alas ! 
 this also is in the ordinary course 
 of God’s dealing with His creatures ; 
 for has He not Himself said, “W'^ho- 
 soever hath not, from him shall be 
 taken, even that which he seemeth to 
 have.”* Every mercy received is but 
 the seed corn which the Heavenly hus- 
 bandman scatters ; if there be no fruit, 
 no harvest, the barren field cannot repine 
 
 ® Luke viii. 18. 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 1 ly 
 
 that no future seed-time shall ever visit 
 it. It is unreasonable to complain, if 
 broken vows, and forgotten prayers, and 
 unrequited mercies, are followed by a 
 Spirit who has ceased to strive, a 
 Saviour who does not intercede, a God 
 who has withdrawn Himself. Tedious 
 as may have been your former trials, 
 long and painful your illnesses, severe 
 your sulferings, the heaviest of them 
 is but “a light affliction,” in com- 
 parison of those which God has in store 
 for them that trifle with His mercies. 
 We perhaps are able to imagine few 
 things more distressing than eight and 
 thirty years of bed-ridden infirmity ; yet 
 what are they, when compared with a 
 century of agony? and what is that 
 when put in competition with an eternity 
 of woe ? 
 
 May a gracious God grant that we 
 may each, and all, be so led by His 
 mercies, as never to need His threat- 
 enings, and never to be visited by His 
 
114 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 judgments ; may He vouchsafe us this 
 chief of blessings, for the merits, and 
 through the intercession, of Christ Jesus 
 our Lord, to whom be all the glory, 
 now and for ever. 
 
115 
 
 LECTURE IL 
 
 John v. 25 . 
 
 VERILY, VERILY, 1 SAY UNTO YOU, THE HOUR IS COMING, 
 AND NOW IS, WHEN THE DEAD SHALL HEAR THE 
 VOICE OF THE SON OF GOD: AND THEY THAT HEAR 
 SHALL LIVE. 
 
 It does not come within the intention, 
 and could not possibly fall within the 
 scope of these lectures, to expound 
 verse by verse, and word by word, the 
 discourses of our Lord : yet are there 
 some striking and remarkable passages 
 in His mortal sojourn, which can in no 
 other manner be brought before you. 
 The incident which follows the miracle 
 at the pool of Bethesda is unquestion- 
 ably one of these. . 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 ne 
 
 Our divine Saviour had, as Lord of 
 the Sabbath, commanded the man whom 
 He had healed, to carry his bed upon 
 the Sabbath day ; this, as we have seen, 
 excited the indignation of the Jews, 
 who, having been told by the healed 
 man, that “it was Jesus who had made 
 him whole,” “persecuted Jesus, and 
 sought to slay Him, because He had 
 done these things on the Sabbath day.” 
 
 It is the opinion of some of the 
 best commentators, and is rendered ex- 
 tremely probable by the context, that 
 the persecution here alluded to, was 
 not the lawless persecution of ruffians 
 desirous of putting the Lord Jesus 
 Christ to a violent death ; but the 
 judicial persecution of men who were 
 determined to slay Him, as a Sabbath- 
 breaker, by the acknowledged law of 
 the land, and for this purpose carried 
 Him before the Sanhedrim. The de- 
 clarations of our Lord, therefore, which 
 
 ^ John V. 1 5-, 16. 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 11/ 
 
 commence at the seventeenth verse and 
 continue to the end of the chapter, are 
 supposed to form His defence before 
 the Sanhedrim, or great council of the 
 Jews ; and contain, as might be ex- 
 pected from such a defence, some of 
 the most striking and convincing testi- 
 monies to His Divinity, which the incar- 
 nate Son of God ever pronounced. 
 
 On this account, the present lecture 
 cannot be more profitably employed, 
 than in dwelling upon some of the 
 most astonishing and satisfactory of 
 those testimonies ; forming, as they 
 unquestionably do, a body of evidence 
 upon the Godhead of our blessed 
 Saviour, and I might almost add, a 
 body of Divinity upon His doctrines, 
 which is not to be rivalled in the whole 
 gospel history. 
 
 St. Chrysostom long since observed, 
 that while there are shallows in Holy 
 Writ in which the lamb may wade^ 
 there are also deptks in which the 
 
 F. 2 PART U. 
 
118 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 elephant must swim. If we find that 
 this discourse of our Divine Saviour 
 will carry us into these deep waters, 
 let us not be discouraged ; human 
 reason soon gets beyond its depth and 
 loses its footing, when it attempts to 
 wade the ocean of eternal truth, but 
 faith will be supported in depths, w'here 
 unassisted reason would assuredly sink ; 
 and though the worldly wise man and 
 the intellectually proud man may stum- 
 ble and fall in those dark waters, which 
 we are approaching, the truly humble 
 child of God, even though his lot be 
 cast among the most ignorant, will find, 
 by the helping hand of God’s good 
 Spirit, firm footing and secure walking 
 upon the surface, notwithstanding the 
 mighty and undiscovered depths which 
 lie beneath. 
 
 The remarkable defence of our 
 Lord, to which I have referred, is 
 divided into two parts. The first, 
 occupying from the seventeenth to the 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 119 
 
 thirtieth verse of the chapter inclusive ; 
 containing a collection of proofs of the 
 co-equality in power, and wisdom, and 
 honour, of the eternal Son with the 
 eternal Father. The second part, ex- 
 tending from the thirty-first verse to 
 the end of the chapter, containing a 
 series of testimonies from witnesses 
 whom none could doubt, or contravene ; 
 viz. John the Baptist; the miracles of 
 Christ ; the voice from heaven ; the 
 Scriptures of unerring truth ; all of 
 which are adduced by our Lord, and 
 furnish the body of His evidence. 
 
 Such are the contents of this asto- 
 nishing chapter : the latter portion, which 
 1 have just mentioned, is so plain that 
 it wdll be needless for us to dwell 
 upon it, but the former is unques- 
 tionably obscure, and yet so rich an 
 inheritance to the believer, and so valu- 
 able an armoury for the young Christian^ 
 that we shall confine our observations 
 exclusively to its life-giving truths. 
 
120 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 Proceed we, then, under the teaching 
 of the Divine Spirit, to examine 
 this instructive portion of our Lord’s 
 defence before the Sanhedrim. The 
 • Jews had no sooner preferred their 
 charge of Sabbath-breaking, because 
 our Divine Saviour had performed His 
 miracles on that sacred day, than as we 
 read, our Lord immediately commenced 
 His defence by this remarkable asser- 
 tion, “ My Father worketh hitherto, and 
 1 work.”^ How great a mystery is 
 involved in this brief sentence ! On 
 other occasions, our Lord contented 
 Himself with asserting that acts of 
 necessity and love were never to be 
 reckoned as breaches of the Sabbath 
 day, but here, before the great council 
 of the nation. He takes a far different, 
 and far higher stand. He acknow- 
 ledges, according to their view of it, 
 a breach of the Sabbath, and then 
 proceeds at once to justify the ap- 
 
 c John y, 17. 
 
LECTURE 11. 
 
 121 
 
 parent transgression. His defence is, 
 as though He had said, “If works 
 of every kind will break this hallowed 
 day, then am I guilty, and then have 
 I been guilty throughout all time, for 
 united to God the Father, from all 
 eternity, in essence, divinity, and power, 
 I am united with Him also in work. 
 Hitherto, throughout four thousand 
 years, my Father and I have worked 
 incessantly upon this hallowed day ; 
 the sun has, at our word, continued 
 his mighty journey uninterruptedly ; the 
 sea has never ceased to flow ; all nature 
 at our bidding, has gone forward ; all 
 the works of Providence and grace have 
 held on their unwearied course ; this is 
 our doing, our work, to which no single 
 Sabbath has seen an intermission ; and 
 shall I, who have “worked hitherto,” 
 now be accused for performing a single 
 miracle of love upon this hallowed 
 day ? ” 
 
 Such a reply, as our Lord had 
 
122 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 doubtless foreseen, at once not only 
 redoubled the rage and animosity of 
 His persecutors, but changed the nature 
 of their charge. They had brought 
 Him before the Sanhedrim for Sabbath- 
 breaking, but they now proceed to try 
 Him for blasphemy. “Therefore the 
 Jews sought the more to kill Him,” 
 says the evangelist, “because He not 
 only had broken the Sabbath, but said 
 also that God was His Father, making 
 Himself equal with God.”’’ The Jews, 
 therefore, evidently understood the words 
 as I have just endeavoured to explain 
 them: and so far was Jesus from any 
 attempt to remove this impression, which 
 He unquestionably would, had it been 
 false, that He returns an answer to the 
 new charge of blasphemy, insisting far 
 more plainly upon His Divinity, and 
 speaking far more strongly upon it, than 
 He had ever done before. In fact, from 
 this point the defence is one continued 
 
 ^ John V. 18. 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 123 
 
 series of proofs of this first of all 
 revealed doctrines to the soul of man, 
 the co-equality and co-eternity of the 
 Father and the Son. “ Then answered 
 Jesus and said unto them, Verily, 
 verily, I say unto you, the Son can do 
 nothing of Himself, but what He seeth 
 the Father do ; for what things soever 
 He doeth, these also doeth the Son 
 likewise.”' 
 
 The first impression of these words 
 upon the reader, often is, that they 
 imply an inferiority in the Son, and 
 that our Lord’s intention probably was, 
 as it undoubtedly is, in some portions 
 of His history, to mark the inferiority 
 of the man Christ Jesus, to God, the 
 everlasting Father. 
 
 But nothing of this kind is His 
 intention here. The assertion is simply 
 made, to strengthen and to fill up the 
 outline of a truth so mysterious, that 
 the human mind can never, in its 
 
 i John V. 19. 
 
124 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 present state, fully appreciate it, and 
 never without the direct operation of 
 the Spirit of God, rightly receive it. 
 When our Lord says, “ the Son can 
 do nothing of Himself,’”' He implies 
 that such is the entireness of the union 
 between the Father and the Son, so 
 completely is the Son “ very God of 
 very God,” that all that the one Person 
 of the Deity, doeth, is done by the 
 other, and therefore that nothing can 
 be said to he done by the Son, as 
 separate from the Father. And yet, 
 while one in essence, so completely are 
 they two in Person, that “ the Son doeth 
 what He seeth the Father do,” a word 
 adopted merely to meet our finite 
 comprehension, and not in the least 
 intending to imply that the works of 
 the Son are copies of the works of the 
 Father, or follow them in order of time, 
 (for this the subsequent verses and all 
 Scripture would disprove,) but to ex- 
 ^ John V. 19. 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 125 
 
 press, as clearly as our imperfect diction 
 can express, the intimate communica- 
 tion of nature, will, wisdom, and power, 
 between the eternal Father, and “the 
 only begotten Son, which is in the 
 bosom of the Father.”' There, with a 
 oneness of nature, will, and knowledge, 
 which far surpasses all understanding. 
 He hath known all things which God 
 knoweth, and seen all things which 
 God seeth, and done all things which 
 God doeth, throughout the ages of a 
 fathomless eternity. 
 
 Our Lord enforced this awful and 
 incomprehensible truth in the following 
 verses, by the declarations that “ the 
 Son quickeneth whom He will,”” and 
 that He judges whom He will ; not that 
 the Father has in any sense divested 
 Himself of the power of quickening or 
 judging, but that it is communicated, 
 by an indissoluble union, to the Son, 
 and thus made known by Him to man, 
 
 1 John i. 18. ^ John v. 21, 
 
126 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 that as our Lord declares, “ all men 
 should honour the Son even as they 
 honour the Father.”” Having, then, es- 
 tablished this fact, upon these incon- 
 trovertible declarations of that God 
 who cannot lie, our Lord proceeds to 
 build upon them these additional proofs 
 of His Divinity, which involve some of 
 the highest and most mysterious doc- 
 trines of salvation. 
 
 “Verily, verily, I say unto you. He 
 that heareth my word, and believeth on 
 Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, 
 and shall not come into condemnation, 
 but is passed from death unto life.”" 
 
 Learn from this, that the one great 
 object of all true Christianity is, to 
 bring you to hear Christ’s word, i. e. 
 to receive the everlasting gospel, to be 
 made partakers of that salvation which 
 He lived to promulgate, and died to 
 seal. “ Faith,” says the Holy Ghost, 
 “ cometh by hearing, and hearing by 
 
 ^ John V. 23. 
 
 o John V. 24. 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 127 
 
 the word of God.”*’ Faith, we know, is, 
 as every other Christian grace, the gift 
 of God; but this is the manner in 
 which it is usually wrought in us by 
 the Spirit of God, through the hearing 
 of the revealed word of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ. The work of salvation, however, 
 as regards our individual reception of 
 it, is not completed in hearing and 
 receiving Christ’s word ; there is a step, 
 and a very important one, yet beyond, 
 which is most plainly developed in the 
 words before us. “ He that heareth my 
 word, and believeth on Him that sent 
 me, hath everlasting life.” Observe, 
 then, the great end and object of faith 
 in Jesus Christ. It must, by the power 
 of the Holy Ghost, lead you directly 
 through the Son, to God the Father, 
 a God in covenant with you through 
 Jesus Christ ; a God who has, even 
 from the foundation of the world. 
 
 P RoQians x. 17. 
 
128 
 
 LECTURE II, 
 
 been reconciled to all His creatures, 
 but who now receives you, who come 
 -to Him through Christ, as reconciled to 
 Him. 
 
 Mark, then, and from your inmost 
 soul bless God for His mercy while you 
 do so, mark the present and immediate 
 benefit which you obtain by thus coming 
 to God. He who so comes “ hath,” 
 saith our Lord, “everlasting life, and 
 shall not come into condemnation, but 
 is passed from death unto life.”'* “Is 
 passed ; ” how unspeakable a mercy, how 
 glorious a privilege; the believer waits 
 not for the day of doom to determine 
 whether he shall stand at the right 
 hand or at the left of his returning 
 Saviour. He has obtained present 
 pardon, present peace, and present joy. 
 The world is crucified to him, and he 
 is crucified unto the world ; God is 
 reconciled to him, and he is now re- 
 
 John V. 24. 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 129 
 
 conciled to God. His hope is not an 
 uncertain hope, but that which the 
 apostle so well described, when he said, 
 “Which hope we have, as an anchor 
 of the soul, both sure and stedfast, 
 and which entereth into that within 
 the veil.”’’ 
 
 It is a delightful and a blessed thing 
 to speak and to hear of privileges such 
 as these. But, alas ! many, how many 
 are there who both hear and speak of 
 them, who never realize them in their 
 own consciences, or partake of them 
 in their own souls. Let me, then, this 
 day inquire, how is it with yourselves ? 
 Have you heard, have you believed, 
 have you received, these life-giving 
 truths ? All depends, as you have seen, 
 upon the first step in this most im- 
 portant series. Have you rightly, ef- 
 fectually, savingly heard ? I do not 
 simply allude to the hearing of the 
 outward ear, but of the inmost heart. 
 
 ' Hebrews vi. 19. 
 
130 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 Are you doubtful in what manner to 
 reply to so infinitely important an 
 inquiry? are you conscious, as I trust 
 you are, that unassisted you cannot 
 hear; that the hearing ear, as well as 
 the believing heart, is entirely the work 
 of God’s free grace ? Is any one among 
 you inwardly saying ‘Would that I 
 might thus hear to the saving of my 
 soul, hut alas ! with me, the threatening 
 of the prophet seems almost to he ful- 
 filled, “This people’s heart is waxed 
 gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, 
 and their eyes they have closed ; lest 
 at any time they should see with their 
 eyes, and hear with their ears, and 
 should understand with their heart, and 
 should be converted, and I should heal 
 them.”' Then with what feelings of 
 gratitude will you receive the next 
 great declaration of your Redeemer, in 
 the words of the text, “Verily, verily, 
 I say unto you, the hour is coming, 
 
 s Isaiah v. 10. Matthew xiii. 15. 
 
LECTURE II, 
 
 131 
 
 and now is, when the dead shall hear 
 the voice of the Son of God, and they 
 that hear shall live.” 
 
 Let us for a moment inquire. Who 
 are these dead, of whom our Lord 
 with so much certainty and such autho- 
 rity predicates, that they “shall hear?” 
 Think you that it means, they who 
 have been committed to their kindred 
 dust ? No, these are afterwards spoken 
 of expressly in the twenty-eighth verse. 
 They also shall, no doubt, one day 
 hear, but these dead men were to 
 hear the very hour in which the Lord 
 Jesus spake these words before the 
 Sanhedrim? For is not this His own 
 declaration, “ the hour is coming, and 
 now is?” He could not, therefore, 
 allude to the inhabitants of the grave, 
 who shall hear hereafter. They to 
 whom He alluded then, are, they can 
 be none other, the spiritually dead, the 
 “dead in trespasses and sins.”* You, 
 
 ^ Ephesians ii. 1. 
 
132 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 brethren, you, and I, and all men, 
 either are, or have been, among their 
 numbers. How unspeakably encou- 
 raging, then, is the declaration. How- 
 ever dull may be our ears to hear, 
 however hard our hearts to understand, 
 we cannot go beyond the metaphor here 
 adopted by our Lord; we cannot be 
 more insensible than the dead ; and yet 
 even they shall hear. Imagine, then, 
 the very worst state in which your 
 fears can place you, as regards the 
 spiritual welfare of your soul, viz : 
 that you are at the present moment 
 among the spiritually dead. Then the 
 promise before us, applies expressly to 
 yourself. Only, would we inquire, are 
 you willing to hear? By which we 
 mean, such hearing as includes recep- 
 tion, belief, and obedience. Be assured 
 that you “ shall hear.” Neither evil 
 men, nor evil spirits, shall frustrate 
 the work of your Divine Redeemer, or 
 make it of none effect to your spul. 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 133 
 
 “The dead shall hear the voice of the 
 Son of God, and they that hear shall 
 live.” He shall bestow upon you the 
 hearing ear, and with it the renewed 
 and living heart. “ For, as the Father 
 hath life in Himself, so hath He given 
 to the Son to have life in Himself.”” 
 Life spiritual, life temporal, life eternal, 
 all laid up in Christ Jesus, the grand 
 depository of the life of God’s people 
 throughout all ages. 
 
 “Your life then is hid with Christ 
 in God:’”' but not so hidden, that the 
 eye of faith cannot see it, and the 
 hand of faith cannot reach it, and the 
 prayer of faith cannot draw it down. 
 No, it is “ your life,” though it is 
 hidden in Christ Jesus; it is hidden 
 for you, thanks be to God, not from 
 you. It is concealed only, as regards 
 your enemies ; it is treasured up, as 
 regards yourself. Be then no longer 
 
 ^ John V. 26. ^ Colossians iii. 3. 
 
 G. PART 1 1, C. 
 
134 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 without this richest gift, which God 
 Himself has ever oiFered to bestow. 
 Put forth your hand this day, and 
 pluck these fruits of the tree of life, 
 and eat, and live for ever. 
 
 You have, perhaps, entered this 
 house, a son of Adam, a lost and 
 perishing sinner, an heir of death, 
 corruption, and condemnation. The 
 blame is yours and the folly yours, 
 and the sin and its punishment will 
 be yours, if you leave it not a child 
 of God, a reconciled saint, an inheritor 
 of His kingdom of glory. Effectual 
 calling, spiritual knowledge, pardon, 
 justification, sanctification, and finally, 
 glorification, are all proffered you, if 
 you will come at once, hearing, receiv- 
 ing, loving, and obeying the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, for has He not Himself said, 
 without a single exception or reserve, 
 “ They that hear shall live.’’ Yes, 
 brethren, so hearing, you can never 
 die. Death is disarmed, Satan is van- 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 135 
 
 quished, Heaven is won. How delight- 
 ful, how encouraging is the whole 
 scope of this wonderful address ! I 
 feel myself so overpowered by its ful- 
 ness, so overwhelmed by its richness, 
 its abundance, the exceeding length, 
 and depth, and breadth, and height, 
 of the love of Christ which passeth 
 knowledge, and yet of which some of 
 the brightest glimpses that ever shone 
 upon the soul of man, break forth 
 from the declarations we have been 
 considering, that I am constrained to 
 cry out with the prophet and the 
 apostle of old, “O Lord God, behold, 
 I cannot speak, for I am a child.”" 
 “Who is sufficient for these things?”* 
 Probably some such feelings of deep 
 and mute astonishment, as must visit 
 the soul of every reflecting man, when 
 listening to these wonderful declarations, 
 were manifested by the members of 
 
 the Sanhedrim while they heard them 
 ^ . 
 
 ^ Jeremiah i. 6. » * 2 Corinthians ii. 16. 
 
136 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 flowing from the lips of our Divine 
 Redeemer Himself ; for we find Him 
 immediately afterwards, and as if re- 
 plying to some signs or words of 
 wonder, from His audience, thus ex- 
 pressing Himself : “ Marvel not at this ; 
 for the hour is coming in the which 
 all that are in the graves shall hear 
 His voice, and shall come forth, they 
 that have done good, unto the resur- 
 rection of life ; and they that have 
 done evil, unto the resurrection of 
 damnation,”^ As though he had said, 
 ‘ Marvel not that I now manifest a 
 power which none of woman born has 
 ever yet possessed ; that I have life 
 at my bestowal, and that the spiritually 
 dead receive it when they hear my 
 voice ; ’ what is this, compared with the 
 appalling fact, that not a child of Adam 
 who has ever yet descended to the 
 grave, but shall one day hear this self- 
 
 , y John V. 28, 29 . 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 137 
 
 same voice now sounding in your ears, 
 and when he hears shall live. 
 
 My brethren, if you have been — hut 
 what Christian can have been — unmoved 
 by declarations such as we this day 
 have reviewed, what think you of 
 the great and awful truth before us 
 now ? “ The hour is coming,” saith our 
 
 God, when the voice of Jesus shall burst 
 the sepulchre, when every grave shall 
 be riven asunder, and every spot upon 
 this wide world’s surface shall be re- 
 visited for a moment by him who lies 
 beneath it. Called by that voice, you 
 shall yourself come forth, your body 
 and your soul for ever re-united, and 
 accompanied by the multitudes who lie 
 around you, shall pass upward to the 
 judgment seat. That “great white 
 throne” ’ of the descending Saviour, 
 before which all the generations of men, 
 from the first man Adam to the last 
 of his descendants, who shall enter the 
 
 2 Revelation xx. 11. 
 
138 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 world, at the very hour of that world’s 
 dissolution, shall one, and all, be re- 
 assembled. But when there, you shall 
 stand alone ; a gathering' world around 
 you, and yet not one to help, not one 
 to shield you from your Judge ; as mueh 
 alone, as if no other ear were open to 
 His voice, no other heart laid bare 
 before His eye. Then shall be brought 
 to view all unrepented, unforgiven sins, 
 all words, all thoughts, all actions, 
 which from your cradle to your grave 
 shall have dishonoured God, done despite 
 to the efforts of His striving Spirit, and 
 poured contempt upon the atoning sa- 
 crifice of His blessed Son. And for 
 what purpose shall such additional 
 agony be inflicted upon those, who 
 throughout eternity shall never again 
 behold the face of God after that day 
 has closed? To stamp that burning 
 shame upon the sinner’s cheek, that 
 brand of deep remorse upon the sinner’s 
 brow, which after ages never shall 
 
LECTURE II, 
 
 139 
 
 eradicate ; to justify before men and 
 angels, the sentence which a righteous 
 Saviour shall at that coming hour 
 pronounce ; and to leave every con- 
 demned and hopeless sinner utterly 
 speechless ; to deprive him even of the 
 miserable gratification, that it was an 
 unjust decree of a partial God which 
 consigned him to the dreadful fate, from 
 which he shall for ever and for ever 
 suffer. Can you anticipate such a 
 scene without one honest, self-inquiring 
 thought, ‘What is the part which I 
 shall bear upon that coming day ?’ 
 Let the statements of divine truth 
 which you have now heard, assist you 
 in your reply. God hath committed all 
 judgment unto the Son, for the express 
 purpose, “ that all men should honour 
 the Son, even as they honour the 
 Father.’’ Are you so honouring the 
 Lord Jesus Christ? Acknowledging 
 yourselves as not your own, but His 
 who has bought you with his precious 
 
140 
 
 LECTURE 11. 
 
 blood? If you are, then are you now 
 among those dead who have heard the 
 voice of the Son of God, bringing to 
 them that spiritual life here, which is 
 the sure and only foretaste of eternal 
 life hereafter ; then shall you be among 
 those tenants of the grave, who having 
 done good, having brought forth the 
 fruits of the spiritual life of which 
 they were partakers, shall, when they 
 hear that well-known voice, come forth 
 to the resurrection of life. 
 
 But is there no other feeling with 
 which we may anticipate the mysteries 
 and glories of that day ? no other 
 thought awakened in our heart by this 
 most awful declaration, “ All that are 
 in the graves shall hear His voice, 
 and shall come forth ? Blessed he 
 God, there is that which as nothing 
 earthly ever could awaken, so nothing 
 short of heaven itself shall bring 
 the full accomplishment, the perfect 
 and unspeakable fruition. It is the 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 141 
 
 anticipation of all that that voice 
 shall be, and all that it shall bring 
 to us, if we are among the blessed 
 number of God’s dear, and pardoned, 
 and holy children. It will be no new, 
 no stranger’s voice to us, upon that 
 coming day. When the newly awakened 
 ear catches, for the first time, the 
 sound of the Bridegroom’s cry,* every 
 accent, every word, will be in the well- 
 known, well-remembered tones of our 
 best, our dearest friend. The first 
 feeling of our souls will be, as our 
 bodies rise from out of the dust, ‘This 
 is the self-same voice which I once 
 heard when “ dead in trespasses and 
 sins and when I heard, I lived. This 
 is the self-same voice which often, O 
 how often, during my earthly pilgrimage, 
 cheered me on the bed of sickness, 
 comforted me in the day of trouble, 
 strengthened me in the hour of temp- 
 tation, was my guide, my counsellor, 
 
 ^ See Matthew xxv. 6. 
 
 G. 2. PART II. 
 
142 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 my friend. And shall I fear it now r 
 No! Let me yet hear it onee again^ 
 at thy right hand, 0 God, perfeeting 
 all that concerneth me, finishing thine 
 own work, eompleting thine own glory, 
 and sealing my everlasting happiness.’ 
 
 If the word of God be true, that 
 desire shall be granted, for every be- 
 lieving and obeying child of God, shall 
 one day hear that self-same voice pro- 
 nounce, “ Come, ye blessed of my Father, 
 inherit the kingdom prepared for you 
 from the foundation of the world.”’’ 
 
 ^ Matthew xxv. 34. 
 
143 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 Luke vi. 12, 13. 
 
 AND IT CAME TO PASS IN THOSE DAYS THAT HE WENT 
 OUT INTO A MOUNTAIN TO PRAY. AND CONTINUED 
 ALL NIGHT IN PRAYER TO GOD. AND WHEN IT WAS 
 DAY, HE CALLED nUNTO HIM HIS DISCIPLES; AND OF 
 THEM HE CHOSE TWELVE, WHOM ALSO HE NAMED 
 APOSTLES. 
 
 The glorious defence before the San- 
 hedrim, which we considered in the 
 last lecture, being concluded, we find 
 our Lord withdrawing Himself from 
 Jerusalem, and shortly afterwards en- 
 gaged in the important work of the 
 election of the twelve apostles. 
 
 How deeply instructive is the lesson 
 which every record of the preparation 
 of Jesus, for the most important labours 
 
144 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 of His ministry presents to us. “ It came 
 to pass in those days, that He went out 
 into a mountain to pray, and continued 
 all night in prayer to God.” Subject, 
 as our Divine Master unquestionably 
 was, to all the innocent infirmities of 
 our nature, how unsparing was He of 
 Himself, how regardless of His own 
 comfort and gratification, thus to oc- 
 cupy in prayer the whole night which 
 was to precede a day of unexampled 
 labour. 
 
 What a sublime and striking picture 
 is here presented to us, of the Incarnate 
 Son ; withdrawn from the noise and 
 tumult of the cities and the haunts 
 of men, amid the silence of the night, 
 and the desolation of that mountain 
 scene, holding converse with the in- 
 effable Jehovah ; all nature hushed in 
 still repose, as if unwilling to interrupt 
 the wonderful communion ; while hour 
 after hour of darkness passed away, 
 and still the unwearied prayer winged 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 145 
 
 upward its happy flight, from the perfect 
 purity of God the Son below, to the 
 not more perfect purity of God the 
 Father upon His throne. What a 
 mighty, what an almighty prayer must 
 have then gone up before the eternal 
 One, embracing not merely the chosen 
 few, who, on to-morrow’s dawn, were 
 to become the near companions of their 
 Lord, but their successors and followers 
 throughout all time. It is no vain 
 presumption, to believe that not the 
 humblest messenger who has ever since 
 been sent to preach “ on earth peace 
 and good-will to men,^’® but found a 
 place in that most solemn intercession ; 
 and that for him were sought during 
 that hallowed night, the grace, and 
 strength, and wisdom, which of himself 
 he could not have. Most surely may 
 we believe, that while the great Head 
 of the Church was thus laying all the 
 difficulties, and all the ignorance, and 
 
 c Luke ii. 14. 
 
146 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 all the need, of those whom on the 
 morrow He was about to constitute the 
 authorized ministers of His gospel, His 
 omniscient mind embraced within the 
 petitions of that prayer, every individual 
 in every age, who is “ inwardly moved 
 by the Holy Ghost to serve God,” for 
 the promoting of His glory, and the 
 edifying of His people, and is “truly 
 called according to the will of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, to the ministry of 
 the Church.” 
 
 “All night,” did our Lord continue 
 in that mysterious intercourse with 
 the eternal Father ; an example of 
 persevering prayer, which, although as 
 regards the peculiar nature of the 
 communication, it must ever remain far 
 above the attainment of the Christian, 
 still furnishes in its perseverance, a high 
 and holy lesson for the imitation of 
 the Church, as long as she continues 
 militant here below. It is not by the 
 
 ^ Ordination Service of the Church of England. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 147 
 
 short and transient applications to a 
 throne of grace, which we are too apt 
 to dignify with the name of prayer, 
 that we can hope to be qualified for 
 seasons of peculiar trial, temptation, or 
 labour. ' This can alone be done by 
 dwelling near the mercy-seat ; by sitting, 
 as it were, upon the footstool® of the 
 throne ; by daily, hourly, constantly, 
 sending forth those winged messengers 
 of the heart, the secret, silent, swiftly- 
 flying thoughts, which, while they form, 
 like the Patriarch’s ladder, an uninter- 
 rupted line of ascending intreaties to 
 the Most High, form also a channel for 
 His descending mercies to our souls. 
 
 “ And, when it was day. He called unto 
 Him His disciples ; and of them He chose 
 twelve, whom also He named apostles. 
 Simon, (whom He also named Peter) 
 and Andrew his brother, James and 
 John, Philip and Bartholomew, Matthew 
 and Thomas, James the son of Alpheus, 
 
 e See 1 Chronicles xxviii. 2. 
 
148 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 and Simon called Zelotes, and Judas the 
 brother of James, and Judas Iscariot, 
 which also was the traitor.” 
 
 The purpose for which the twelve 
 were selected, is thus explained in the 
 parallel passage in St. Mark’s gospel, 
 “He ordained twelve, that they should^ 
 be with Him, and that He might send 
 them forth to preach, and to have 
 power to heal sicknesses, and to cast out 
 devils.”® How great their privilege, 
 how glorious their distinction, to per- 
 form such works as man before had 
 never done ; and to preach to the 
 lowest, the humblest, the poorest, the 
 good tidings “ sent down from heaven ; 
 which things the angels desire to look 
 into.’”’ Yet was it not merely these 
 blessings, great and distinguishing as 
 they were, of the chosen followers of^ 
 our Lord, which formed the highest 
 subject of their hearts’ rejoicing: it 
 was the far nobler privilege conveyed 
 
 ^ Luke vi. 12, 13. & Mark iii. 14. ^ 1 Peter i. 12. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 149 
 
 in the simple expressions, “ that they 
 should be with Him.” ‘ It was for this 
 that they were especially ordained, “ He 
 ordained twelve, that they should be 
 with him ; ” and it was to this that in 
 after days we find them looking back 
 “with joy unspeakable, and full of 
 glory. Hear only the beloved apostle 
 referring to these highly privileged 
 seasons, and this most blessed inter- 
 course, after an interval of more than 
 fifty years, “That which was from the 
 beginning which we have heard, which 
 we have seen with our eyes, which we 
 have looked upon, and our hands have 
 handled of the word of life,” ' is the 
 manner in which he delights to desig- 
 nate the Saviour of the world. While 
 we find Peter, with a very similar feeling, 
 speaking of the season when he was 
 “ with Him in the holy mount,” ” and 
 of “the time, that the Lord Jesus 
 
 i Mark iii. 14. ^1 Peter i. 8. 
 
 1 1 John i. 1. “2 Peter i. 18. 
 
150 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 went in and out among us.” “ It was 
 by being thus continually with Jesus, 
 that they were to learn from His own 
 lips His blessed and life-giving doc- 
 trines ; that they were to see with their 
 own eyes, the meekness, and patience, 
 and forbearance, and humility, and love, 
 which the intercourse of every day 
 would manifest, but which no tongue 
 could truly tell ; and by walking daily 
 at His side, and treading hourly in His 
 footsteps, i^that they might be qualified, 
 as far as men could ever be, to transmit 
 some faint expressions of “the mind 
 which was in Christ Jesus,”" as the 
 heritage of the Church for ever. 
 
 Brethren, pray that your Ministers, 
 pray that all the Ministers of the Gospel 
 of Christ, may bear upon their hearts 
 the purpose for which their predecessors 
 were especially ordained, “that they 
 should be with Jesus ;” for be assured 
 that it is in proportion, and most accu- 
 
 » Acts i. 21. o Philippians ii. 5. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 151 
 
 rately in proportion, as we fulfil this 
 first, great object of our calling, that all 
 others will be attained and sanctified. 
 Had the apostles wandered far away 
 from Him who called them, had they 
 visited Him at distant intervals, thought 
 of Him but seldom, conversed with Him 
 but rarely, walked with Him hut occa- 
 sionally, what w'ould they have known 
 of “ the mind that was in Christ 
 Jesus?”’’ What can we know of Him, 
 if our cold and lifeless communion he 
 confined to stated periods, or public 
 services ; in fact, if we are not ever 
 with Him ? Pray, therefore, that we 
 may hold converse with Him unceas- 
 ingly ; that neither the duties, nor the 
 pleasures of life, may lead us from 
 Him ; that we may come from im- 
 mediate intercourse with Christ, into 
 the pulpit ; and that we may return 
 again into His blessed, and purify^ 
 ing, and enlightening presence. Be 
 
 P Philippians ii. 5. 
 
152 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 assured that it is your interest, as 
 much as your duty, thus to pray; for 
 so alone, the Holy Spirit of our God 
 assisting us, shall we be enabled to speak 
 of Christ, as the apostles themselves 
 spake of Him, when from the gracious 
 words which proceeded out of their 
 lips, their hearers at once “ took know- 
 ledge of them, that they had been with 
 Jesus.” ^ 
 
 No sooner had our Divine Master 
 selected the twelve favoured followers 
 who were to go with him whithersoever 
 He went, during the remainder of His 
 ministry, than He addressed to them, 
 and to the assembled multitudes, the 
 discourse usually known by the appel- 
 lation of the “ Sermon on the Mount.” 
 A composition, of which it is very insuf- 
 ficient commendation to declare, that 
 so pure, so spiritual, so perfect a code 
 of ethics, never from the world’s creation 
 to that hour, had been delivered to the 
 
 Q Acts iv. 13. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 153 
 
 children of men. Then, for the first 
 time, were men instructed in the real 
 nature of the law of God : that it re- 
 quired truth in the inmost parts ; that 
 it was intended to control every glance 
 of the eye, and every feeling of the 
 heart, as positively and as distinctly, as 
 every word of the lips, and every action 
 of the life ; that an angry word,' and 
 a resentful or contemptuous expression, 
 would entail the judgments of God, as 
 surely as the more open violence of the 
 ruffian and the murderer ; that a lustful 
 look’ was as certainly recorded in the 
 book of God’s remembrance, as an adul- 
 terous act; that the charity bestowed 
 to be seen of men,* was disregarded by 
 our Father which is in heaven ; that 
 the return for the hypocrite’s prayers,® 
 and the hypocrite’s fasting, was all 
 bestowed on earth ; that they had here 
 their reward, and here their consolation. 
 
 ' Matthew v. 22. 
 
 ^ Matthew vi. 2, 3, 4. 
 
 s Matthew v. 28. 
 Matthew vi. 5 — 16. 
 
154 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 It was in this wonderful discourse that 
 men for the first time learnt from God 
 Himself not only the manner/ but the 
 language in which they should approach 
 Him : for here the Saviour for the first 
 time delivered that inimitable compo- 
 sition, “The Lord’s Prayer.” It was 
 here also, that in opposition to every 
 established opinion of the world, yea, 
 no doubt to the natural feelings 
 even of the apostles themselves, our 
 Lord declared that not the great and 
 glorious, but the poor and meek, not 
 those whom the world calls happy, but 
 the pure in heart, the mourner and the 
 peace maker, are the only truly blessed. 
 
 Wonderful indeed is this divine 
 discourse; so wonderful, that there are 
 not wanting well-authenticated instances 
 in the Christian Church, of the sceptic 
 and the unbeliever, whom no other 
 evidence of the veracity of our holy 
 religion could affect, having been con- 
 
 ▼ Matthew vi. 5 — 15. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 155 
 
 verted to the belief in its eternal truths, 
 and the divinity of its blessed Author, 
 by a careful investigation of the “Sermon 
 on the Mount.” One such instance has 
 come to my knowledge during the course 
 of my ministry in this place; and I 
 doubt not but the last day will disclose 
 many, in which the lessons of charity, 
 forbearance, and love, conveyed in this 
 discourse, have fixed upon the heart 
 an abiding impression that “never man 
 spake like this man,”* and have com- 
 pelled the reader to exclaim, while 
 dwelling upon the heavenly spirit of 
 purity and peace which here pervades 
 every sentence that fell from the lips 
 of its Divine Author, “Truly this man 
 was the Son of God.”^ 
 
 Some short time after the delivery 
 of the discourse, to which we have 
 thus briefly alluded, the interval being 
 marked by the healing of the centurion’s 
 servant, and the raising of the widow’s 
 
 ^ John vii. 46 * Matthew xxvii. 54. Mark xv. 39. 
 
156 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 son, we find our Lord invited by one 
 of the Pharisees, named Simon, “ to 
 eat with him.” The evangelist con- 
 tinues, “And He went into the Pha- 
 risee’s house, and sat down to meat.”^ 
 To enter fully into the feeling of the 
 beautiful incident to which these words 
 form the prelude, you must bear in 
 mind the universal custom of those 
 days, and in those countries. The 
 dinner table was surrounded by a couch, 
 upon which the guests, having put olf 
 their sandals, reclined at full length, 
 each leaning upon a pillow placed 
 under the left arm. The servants stood 
 behind this couch, and therefore at the 
 back of their masters, and on a level 
 with their feet, so that the phrase, “to 
 stand at the feet,” was not unfrequently 
 used as descriptive of servants in waiting. 
 While, then, our Lord was thus reclining 
 at table, “ Behold,” continues the evan- 
 gelist, to draw our attention more 
 
 y Luke vii. 36. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 15 / 
 
 expressly to the incident which follows, 
 “ Behold, a woman in the city, which 
 was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus 
 sat at meat in the Pharisee’s house, 
 brought an alabaster box of ointment 
 and stood at his feet, behind him, 
 weeping, and began to wash his feet 
 with tears, and did wipe them with 
 the hairs of her head, and kissed his 
 feet, and anointed them with the oint- 
 ment.”'’ There is no reason whatever 
 to suppose that the person here spoken 
 of, was either Mary Magdalene or Mary 
 the sister of Lazarus ; the latter cer- 
 tainly anointed our Lord’s feet a few 
 days before His crucifixion, but it is 
 perfectly gratuitous to conclude that 
 she anointed them twice, or that Mary 
 Magdalene ever anointed them at all. 
 All that is told of the woman of whom 
 we are here speaking, is, that she dwelt 
 in that city, most likely Nain, and that 
 she had been an open sinner. She is 
 
 * Luke vii. 37, 38. 
 
 H. PART II. C. 
 
158 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 never again mentioned, that we are 
 aware of, in the gospel history. Un- 
 known, therefore, she will for ever 
 remain to the Church of God on 
 earth, but doubtless well known to 
 “ the Church of the first-born, whose 
 names are written in heaven,” “ as one 
 who loved and honoured their Redeemer 
 at a time when “ His own received 
 Him not ; ” when even a cup of cold 
 water was thankfully accepted ; and 
 when the tears of this poor penitent 
 formed the brightest jewels which 
 adorned His crown. 
 
 No sooner had the woman thus 
 offered her little tribute to that gracious 
 Being, from whose divine teaching she 
 had already learnt to hate and to forsake 
 her sins, and to love dearly and tenderly 
 the Saviour for whom she had forsaken 
 them, than the Pharisee reasoned within 
 himself ; “ This man, if he were a 
 
 prophet, would have known who and 
 
 a John i. 11. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 159 
 
 what manner of woman this is which 
 toucheth him; for she is a sinner.” 
 Hitherto the whole scene appears to 
 have passed in perfect silence ; in 
 silence fell the tears of gratitude upon 
 the Saviour’s feet, in silence the poor, 
 but happy penitent, enjoyed the con- 
 sciousness of her sins forgiven, and 
 her person and her offering accepted 
 by the Redeemer of the world ; and 
 while demonstrating her gratitude in a 
 manner which she knew He could not 
 misunderstand, and which she cared 
 not how others might misinterpret, 
 she desired no sign, she sought no 
 language of approval. Perhaps her 
 enjoyment was as complete, during those 
 silent moments, when all the affections 
 of her full heart were poured forth at 
 her Redeemer’s feet, as the highest 
 encomiums even of that Redeemer Him- 
 self could make it. But the time was 
 come, when both for her sake, and for 
 ^ Luke vii. 39. 
 
160 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 His own, that silence must be broken. 
 The Lord of life saw all those dis- 
 paraging and unworthy thoughts which 
 were kindling at the heart of the self- 
 righteous Pharisee, and at once opens 
 the conversation thus ; “ Simon, I have 
 somewhat to say unto thee.”* The 
 Pharisee answered, “ Master, say on,”** 
 Though the heart had just pronounced 
 his guest to be an imposter, the worth- 
 less courtesy of the lips proclaimed 
 him “ Master ” still. “ There was a certain 
 creditor which had two debtors, the 
 one owed him five hundred pence, and 
 the other fifty ; and when they had 
 nothing to pay, he frankly forgave 
 them both. Tell me, therefore, which 
 of them will love him most.”* The 
 Pharisee, who appears to have had little 
 conception of the application of the 
 parable, carelessly replies, “ I suppose 
 that he to whom he forgave most.”*^ 
 
 c Luke vii. 40. 
 ® Luke vii. 42. 
 
 d Luke vii. 4l. 
 ^ Luke vii. 43. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 161 
 
 Then did our Lord, in a manner so 
 pointed, so unanswerable, so over- 
 whelming, to Simon, and yet so tenderly 
 considerate to that poor penitent, defend 
 the cause of her who stood trembling 
 and weeping among the servants at 
 His feet, that there is no child of God, 
 who would not rather have been the 
 subject of that defence, than of all the 
 accumulated honours of the world. 
 “ Jesus said unto him, thou hast rightly 
 judged.”® “And He turned to the 
 woman,^’ — whom, probably, from her 
 situation. He had never, till that mo- 
 ment, seen — “ and said unto Simon, 
 Seest thou this woman ? I entered into 
 thine house, thou gavest me no water 
 for my feet ; but she hath washed my 
 feet with tears, and wiped them with 
 the hairs of her head. Thou gavest 
 me no kiss ; but this woman, since the 
 time I came in, hath not ceased to 
 kiss my feet. Mine head with oil thou 
 
 s Luke vii. 4l. 
 
162 
 
 LECTURE III 
 
 didst not anoint ; but this woman hath 
 anointed my feet with ointment. Where- 
 fore I say unto thee, her sins, which 
 are many,” (marking, therefore, to 
 Simon’s fullest satisfaction, how per- 
 fectly our Lord knew she was a sinner) 
 “ are forgiven ; for she loved much : 
 but to whom little is forgiven, the same 
 loveth little.”*' Not, as is too often 
 misunderstood, she is forgiven, because 
 she loved much ; but she has loved 
 much, because she has been forgiven. 
 The object of our Lord most unques- 
 tionably being, to shew that the amount 
 of the believer’s love will bear an 
 exact proportion to the amount of evil, 
 and of danger, and of sin, from which 
 he knows he has been rescued. Then, 
 to proclaim before the whole company 
 of Pharisaic cavillers, the fact already 
 known and delighted in, by her who 
 was the immediate and blessed subject 
 of it, “ He said unto her, thy sins are 
 
 ^ Luke vii. 47- 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 163 
 
 forgiven,”' “ thy faith hath saved thee ; 
 go in peace.” ^ 
 
 And can men read, or can men 
 hear this story, and then tell us, 
 that love to the Saviour forms no 
 necessary part of our religion ? that it 
 is enthusiasm, folly, the mere effect of 
 high-wrought imaginations, with no 
 ground-work in the sober foundations 
 of the word of God ? All we ask, to 
 determine the question, is this, — let an 
 uneducated, unprejudiced person read 
 the incident before us, without one 
 word of comment, and then inquire of 
 him, what is the state of heart which 
 a Saviour who spake and acted thus, 
 while here below, and who is “the 
 same yesterday, to-day, and for ever,”" 
 most values now ? Do you believe 
 that such a man would hesitate in his 
 reply? Do you believe that he would 
 question the necessity of every thought, 
 and feeling, and affection of the soul 
 
 ^Lake vii. 48. i Luke vii. 50. ^ Heb. xiii. 8. 
 
164 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 being devoted to the love of that 
 blessed Being who has redeemed it ? 
 No ! the answer of every simple-minded 
 reader of such an ineident must be, “ If 
 any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 let him be anathema, maranatha.”' 
 
 My brethren, in what manner, then, 
 do your hearts respond to this improving 
 history ? Is the love of the Saviour a 
 duty of whieh you have never thought, 
 a privilege of which, experimentally, you 
 are ignorant, you may, perhaps, find the 
 reason of it here. You have been for- 
 given little — little, did I say ? nay, then, 
 there would be still some love, some 
 feelings of gratitude, to Him from whom 
 the mercy is received ; for he to whom 
 little is forgiven, the same loveth still, 
 though he loves but little. Where there 
 is, then, no love, there can have been no 
 forgiveness ; therefore, where there is no 
 love to Jesus, you are still unforgiven — 
 “ye are yet in your sins.”” You may, 
 
 1 1 Cor. xvi. 22. “ 1 Cor. xv. 17. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 165 
 
 with Simon the Pharisee, have held out- 
 ward converse with the Saviour, even sat 
 at His table, and like the Pharisee, have 
 called Him “ Master,” but assuredly 
 you never dropped one tear of penitence 
 for sin, or of gratitude that sin was 
 pardoned. No ! this little incident, 
 with our Lord’s own comment upon it, 
 accounts for all the coldness, and the 
 hardness of the religion of the world. 
 You do not love, because you have 
 neither found, nor sought, forgiveness. 
 You cannot love, because you are told 
 to love, or even because you ought to 
 love ; there must be something in the 
 object itself, or something received from 
 the object itself, before it can call forth 
 the affections of the human heart. 
 The merely professing Christian sees 
 nothing lovely in the Saviour, and is 
 conscious of receiving no personal be- 
 nefits at His hands ; how, then, can he 
 love Him ? You can only love Christ, 
 and God in Christ, “ because He first 
 
 H 2. PART II. 
 
166 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 loved you you can only feel assured 
 of this love, and fully enjoy the indi- 
 vidual appropriation of it, by obtaining 
 a sense of the forgiveness of your sins : 
 and this sense of pardon, while it is the 
 free gift of God by the operation of His 
 good Spirit upon your heart, is seldom 
 long withheld, where there is a true, 
 a lively, a justifying faith. For you will 
 observe that it was to this, especially, 
 that our Lord referred, as the cause, 
 instrumentally, of the penitent’s pardon 
 and salvation — “ Thy faith hath saved 
 thee, go in peace.” 
 
 If, then, there be one child of God 
 here present, whose love to the Redeemer 
 is cold and feeble, I would say to that 
 indi^ddual, strive and pray for an as- 
 sured and undoubted consciousness, that 
 you are indeed forgiven. Behold not 
 only forgiveness itself, but the sense of 
 forgiveness revealed in the word of God 
 as the believer’s privilege ; pray for it 
 
 » 1 John iv. 19. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 167 
 
 as necessary to the advancement of your 
 own happiness, and of your Saviour’s 
 glory. Rest not until, by persevering 
 prayer, you have obtained it. For never 
 is Christ more honoured than by the 
 love and happiness of His people ; and 
 how closely these are connected with 
 the pardon of sin, we need not tell. 
 
 Be not afraid that the knowledge of 
 your forgiveness, the consciousness of 
 your acceptance with God, will breed 
 presumption ; in a real child of God it 
 invariably begets humility, for “ Who 
 maketh thee to differ from another ? or 
 What hast thou, that thou didst not 
 receive?”® The deepest humility ever 
 seen on earth, is not only perfectly 
 consistent with the fullest sense, that 
 you are an accepted penitent, a par- 
 doned sinner, but is the very offspring 
 of that blessed conviction ; for surely 
 never was humility herself more humble, 
 than when she stood among the Pha- 
 
 o 1 Corinthians iv. 7. 
 
168 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 risee’s servants, vv^eeping tears of joy 
 upon the Redeemer’s feet, and loving 
 much, because she had had much 
 forgiven. 
 
 May the invaluable boon of a free 
 and full forgiveness, and the abiding 
 knowledge of it in our hearts, however 
 long withheld, be bestowed by the in- 
 finite mercy of our God, upon every one 
 who truly seeks it ; that “ though for 
 a season, if need be, ye are in heavi- 
 ness, through manifold temptations, the 
 trial of your faith, being much more 
 precious than of gold that perisheth, 
 though it be tried with fire, might be 
 found unto praise, and honour, and glory, 
 at the appearance of Jesus Christ ; whom 
 having not seen, ye love ; in whom, 
 though now ye see Him not, yet believ- 
 ing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable, 
 and full of glory, receiving the end of 
 your faith, even the salvation of your 
 souls.” ’’ 
 
 P 1 Peter i. 6 — 9. 
 
169 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 St. Matthew xii. 31. 
 
 WHEREFORE I SAY UNTO YOU, ALL MANNER OF SIN 
 AND BLASPHEMY SHALL BE FORGIVEN UNTO MEN; 
 BUT THE BLASPHEMY AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST 
 SHALL NOT BE FORGIVEN UNTO MEN. 
 
 Our Lord, attended by the twelve 
 apostles, having made the circuit of 
 Galilee, “ preaching and shewing the 
 glad tidings of the kingdom of God,”"* 
 in every city and village, returned to 
 Capernaum. 
 
 While there, they “ brought, unto 
 Him one possessed with a devil, blind 
 and dumb, and He healed him, inso- 
 much that the blind and dumb both 
 
 Q Luke viii. 1. 
 
170 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 spake and saw.”' It was upon this 
 occasion that the malignity of the 
 enemies of our Lord evinced itself in 
 a manner which drew forth from the 
 Saviour of the world, the awful decla- 
 ration of the text; that there was a 
 sin which God Himself would never 
 pardon, either in this world or in the 
 world to come ; a warning far too 
 important to be passed over in silence, 
 while attempting to convey any rea- 
 sonable impression of the doctrines 
 and preaching of our divine Saviour. 
 
 Immediately after the cure of the 
 blind and dumb demoniac, we are told 
 by St. Matthew, that “when the Pha- 
 risees heard it, they said, this fellow 
 doth not cast out devils, hut by 
 Beelzebub, the prince of the devils.’” 
 Our Lord having exposed the extreme 
 absurdity of such a sentiment, by the 
 observation that a kingdom, or a city, 
 or a family, divided against itself, 
 
 ^ Matthew xii. 22. ^ Matthew xii. 24. 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 171 
 
 would be brought to desolation, and 
 that the kingdom of Satan could form 
 no exception to so infallible a rule, 
 proceeds, having thus demonstrated 
 its falsehood, to animadvert in the 
 following manner upon its sin : “ Where- 
 fore I say unto you, All manner of sin 
 and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto 
 men ; but the blasphemy against the 
 Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto 
 men ; And whosoever speaketh a word 
 against the Son of man it shall be 
 forgiven him ; but whosoever speaketh 
 against the Holy Ghost it shall not 
 be forgiven him, neither in this world, 
 neither in the world to come.”* 
 
 There is something, at first sight, 
 so completely opposed to the general 
 tendency of the merciful and pardoning 
 spirit of the gospel of our Lord, in 
 the passage which has just been read 
 to you, that few, we believe, have ever 
 reflected upon it, without experiencing 
 a deep anxiety, fully to understand the 
 
 t Matthew xii. 32. 
 
172 
 
 LECTURE IV, 
 
 nature of its fearful denunciations, and 
 to reconcile it to the general decla- 
 rations of forgiveness and love, which 
 pervade the word of God : while many 
 have, from an inaccurate conception of 
 it, lived for years in a state of trouble 
 and despondency, for which they be- 
 lieved that neither earth nor heaven, 
 neither time nor eternity, contained a 
 remedy. This fact, a fact which the 
 experience of most Christians fully 
 corroborates, will, I trust, justify me in 
 entering more at length upon this sub- 
 ject, than the nature of these lectures 
 will usually allow me to do upon any 
 abstract point of doctrine. 
 
 It will probably assist us in our 
 considerations, if we begin by examining 
 the case of some great and grievous 
 transgressors, who are often supposed 
 by others, and still more often by 
 themselves, to fall within the charge 
 of sinning against the Holy Ghost. 
 
 I. First, then, the man is not neces- 
 sarily guilty of this unpardonable sin. 
 
LECTURE IV, 
 
 173 
 
 who after he has received the know- 
 ledge of God, falls into great and 
 heinous enormities, and disgraces his 
 calling, and grieves the blessed Spirit 
 of whom we speak. I mention this, 
 first, because the opinion that he is thus 
 guilty appears to derive great encourage- 
 ment from this text in the 6th chapter 
 of the Hebrews : “ It is impossible for 
 those who were once enlightened, and 
 have tasted of the heavenly gift, and 
 were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, 
 and have tasted the good word of God, 
 and the powers of the world to come, 
 if they shall fall away, to renew them 
 again unto repentance.” 
 
 We believe that in this text, the 
 word “impossible,^’ is simply used to 
 express the extreme of difficulty, but 
 not literally of impossibility. Just as 
 our Lord says, “ If any man hate not 
 his father and mother, he cannot be my 
 disciple,” " where He evidently uses the 
 
 ^ Luke xiv. 26 . 
 
174 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 word “ hate,” comparatively, and as in- 
 tended to imply only a less degree of 
 love, than that with which the Saviour is 
 to be loved. We should say, therefore, 
 that though difficult, it is not absolutely 
 impossible for those who have thus 
 offended the Holy Ghost, to return to 
 the ways of peace, and receive the 
 pardon of God. For if it were, then 
 assuredly must David have been con- 
 demned, since few will doubt, that he had 
 tasted of the heavenly gift, and been 
 made partaker of the Holy Ghost, before 
 he sinned in the matter of Uriah ; and 
 yet we are expressly told, for the com- 
 fort of the Church, that upon a sincere 
 and deep repentance, he received the 
 blessed assurance, “ the Lord hath put 
 away thy sin, thou shalt not die.” '' 
 
 II. Neither is he guilty of the unpar- 
 donable sin, who is led for a time by 
 the temptations of Satan, or his own 
 corrupt heart, openly to rebel against 
 
 V 2 Samuel xli. 13. 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 1/5 
 
 this Divine Spirit ; for the prophet Isaiah 
 tells us expressly, respecting the children 
 of Israel, “ that they rebelled and vexed 
 His Holy Spirit,” * but that God still 
 “ remembered the days of old, Moses 
 and his people,” * and yet again had 
 mercy on them. 
 
 III. Nor does he commit it who “ hath 
 not believed in the name of the only 
 begotten Son of God,” ^ and “ who 
 loves darkness rather than light because 
 his deeds are evil.” * For this is truly 
 our Lord’s description of the unrege- 
 nerate in His day, and is undoubtedly 
 the characteristic of every unregenerate 
 man, in every age and every clime. 
 
 IV. Nor, again, is he guilty of it, who 
 through fear denies the Lord who 
 bought him, for then would St. Peter 
 himself have been among the miserable 
 number of the unpardoned. Nor he 
 who persecutes the people of Christ, 
 
 ^ Isaiah Ixiii. 10. 
 y John iii. 18. 
 
 ^ Isaiah Ixiii. 11. 
 zJohn iii. 19. 
 
176 
 
 LECTUKE IV. 
 
 for then would St. Paul have been a 
 cast-away. Nor he who “ crucifies the 
 Son of God afresh,”’ for then would 
 all who crucified Him in Calvary have 
 been condemned. And yet we distinctly 
 know that some, at least, of these, 
 obtained mercy. For examine Acts ii. 
 36 — 38. “Therefore let all the house 
 of Israel know assuredly, that God 
 hath made that Jesus, whom ye have 
 crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now 
 when they heard this, they were pricked 
 in their heart, and said unto Peter 
 and to the rest of the apostles. Men 
 and brethren, what shall we do ?” And 
 what was Peter’s answer, ‘Ye have 
 sinned the unpardonable sin, and cannot 
 be forgiven }’ No, far from it ; “ Repent 
 and be baptized every one of you, in 
 the name of Jesus Christ, for the re- 
 mission of sins.” 
 
 Of these delinquencies, then, great, 
 and terrible, and damnable as they 
 
 a Hebrews vi. 6 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 177 
 
 all, if persevered in and unrepented 
 of, unquestionably are, we may safely 
 assert, that neither any of them singly, 
 nor all of them together, can he pro- 
 nounced to be the sin, upon which the 
 Saviour here passed the most dreadful 
 of all condemnations. 
 
 Were we asked distinctly in what 
 does it consist ? we should reply, from 
 an examination of the context, ‘ simply 
 in ascribing the miracles of our Lord 
 to the power of the prince of darkness.’ 
 But then we should gather from all 
 the circumstances of the case, this 
 assurance, that although the sin itself, 
 probably, may never be committed at 
 the present day, the state of mind 
 which led to its committal, may not 
 be so utterly unknown even among 
 ourselves, as men, in the fullness of a 
 spurious charity, are too apt to ima- 
 gine. For consider the characters of 
 those who brought this impeachment 
 against our Lord. They were not the 
 
178 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 poor, and the ignorant, and the illite- 
 rate, but the most learned class of 
 persons at that time in Judsea. They 
 had seen the miracles of Christ, they 
 had heard His preaching, they had 
 witnessed the spotless purity of His 
 life, they were perfectly well versed 
 in every prophecy respecting Him, and 
 they knew that He had applied those 
 prophecies to Himself. They had, 
 probably, even heard His wonderful 
 defence before the Sanhedrim, and were 
 in heart, thoroughly convinced that 
 Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah of 
 God. In the face of this conviction, 
 they determined to reject and destroy 
 Him, and by the accusation of de- 
 moniacal possession, to overthrow His 
 influence, and thus to prepare the way 
 for the persecution, and death, which 
 they were preparing for Him. In fact, 
 to disavow and blaspheme the opera- 
 tion of the Holy Ghost, at the very 
 moment when they were most fully 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 179 
 
 convinced, that so doing, they were 
 fighting against God. 
 
 The very essence of this sin, then, 
 appears to be, that it was not a sin of 
 ignorance, hut of presumption ; not like 
 other sins, from some motive of self- 
 gratification, but from the most har- 
 dened enmity and hatred towards God ; 
 and this, not merely against God the 
 Father, as a Sovereign ; or against God 
 the Son, as a Saviour ; or against God 
 the Holy Ghost, as a Sanctifier; but 
 against the 'three eternal, co-equal Per- 
 sons of the evei’lasting and ever-blessed 
 Trinity, in the Person of the Holy Ghost; 
 and to add to the guilt and iniquity 
 of the act, this is the very time when 
 that Holy Spirit, as a Messenger of 
 peace, was willing to come with His 
 saving, and life-giving influences, into 
 their souls. All the power, the wisdom, 
 the love of the Triune Jehovah, con- 
 centred in the Holy Ghost, for the express 
 purpose of winning the sinner to his 
 
180 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 God, were thus openly opposed, blas- 
 phemed, and trampled upon, by those 
 who believed in their heart the truth of 
 the doctrines which they denied, the 
 value of the promises which they re- 
 jected, the authority of the Saviour 
 whom they affected to despise. 
 
 That this sin is unpardonable, we 
 have the authority of Christ Himself. 
 Why it is so, is sufficiently answered 
 by the reply, because God has willed 
 it so. No sin can be forgiven without 
 repentance ; but repentance is the gift 
 of God, and for this it will assuredly 
 never be bestowed. The blasphemers 
 of the Holy Ghost, therefore, by driving 
 from them the only Person who could 
 “ give repentance,” ’’ the only Person 
 who conveys all the covenanted mercies 
 of the. Godhead, which are from the 
 Father, through the Son, and by the 
 Holy Ghost, into the souls of His peo- 
 ple, seal themselves up,^ under final and 
 total apostacy, until the day of doom. 
 
 b Acts V. 31. xi. 18. 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 181 
 
 From the explanation which we have 
 here attempted to give, of the state of 
 mind which must invariably accompany 
 this unpardonable sin, it will be obvious 
 that there is one peculiar feature in it, 
 which should be remembered, lest at 
 any time, Satan, “ the accuser of the 
 brethren,’’ endeavour to persuade you, 
 that you have committed this fearful 
 offence against the Majesty on High. 
 The characteristic to which I allude, is 
 this — the sin will not only be inten- 
 tionally committed, but it will neces- 
 sarily be final ; by which I mean, 
 it will be persevered in, even unto 
 death. There will be no pause, no 
 misgiving, no fear of having offended 
 God, no earnest desire of a return into 
 the path of holiness, to the man engaged 
 in this sin. Where these exist, their 
 very existence disproves the fact, that 
 the unpardonable sin has been com- 
 mitted. The blasphemer of the Holy 
 Ghost, can never know regret, or relent- 
 
 I. PART II. C. 
 
182 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 ings here, as he will never know for- 
 giveness hereafter. His course is one 
 of constant, open warfare, against the 
 Majesty of heaven, hating God the 
 Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, with what 
 may be called a rancorous and personal 
 hatred ; such a feeling, for instance, as 
 was evidenced by the most brilliant 
 and most worthless of foreign infidels, 
 when he eoneluded his letters, with the 
 well-known and horrible blasphemy, of 
 “ Crush the wretch,” as applied to that 
 blessed and Divine Being, whose history 
 we are considering. 
 
 If, then, I address any, who are 
 grieving deeply, from the apprehension 
 that they have committed the sin against 
 the Holy Ghost, I would ask them. Has 
 your rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 of His person. His sacrifice. His offers, 
 been a wilful and an obstinate rejection, 
 against conviction, against the surest 
 belief that He whom you rejected was 
 all that you denied Him to be ? And 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 183 
 
 do you still wittingly and willingly thus 
 despise Him ? If you do not, — and 
 where is the soul who ever yet could 
 at the same moment be acting thus, 
 and yet grieving to act thus, — you have 
 not, you cannot have committed the 
 unpardonable sin. It would, in fact, 
 involve a positive contradiction in terms, 
 that any individual guilty of this sin 
 should either fear or feel that he was 
 guilty of it. Be assured, then, what- 
 ever approaches you may imagine you 
 have made to this fearful state of mind 
 and feelings, so long as you have even 
 a will to return, or a single sincere 
 regret within your heart, that you have 
 thus offended God, the door of mercy 
 and of pardon is not closed upon you ; 
 for as it is God who alone “worketh 
 in you thus to will,” ^ it is evident that 
 He has not forsaken you, but that the 
 cleansing blood of Christ, the sancti- 
 fying influences of the Spirit, the par- 
 
 d Philippians ii. 13. 
 
184 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 doning love of the Triune Jehovah, are 
 still freely offered to you, and God 
 Himself still waiting to be gracious. 
 
 From the very day that the sin of 
 which we have now been speaking was 
 committed by the Pharisees, a very re- 
 markable change took place in the 
 method in which our Divine Master 
 delivered His instructions to the people ; 
 from that day He spake unto them by 
 parables. Previously, His instructions 
 had been plain and simple; such, for 
 instance, as His sermon at Nazareth, 
 and on the Mount ; indeed, perhaps 
 with a single exception, no parable had 
 ever yet been delivered by our Lord, 
 but from henceforth, “without a pa- 
 rable,” says the evangelist, “ spake H e 
 not unto them.” When the first in- 
 stance of this occurred, viz. the parable 
 of the sower, the disciples, naturally 
 surprised at the change which had taken 
 place in their Lord’s method of teaching, 
 immediately inquire, “ Why speakest 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 185 
 
 thou unto them in parables? He an- 
 swered and said unto them, Because it 
 is given unto you to know the mysteries 
 of the kingdom of heaven, hut to them 
 it is not given. For whosoever hath, 
 to him shall be given, and he shall 
 have more abundance; but whosoever 
 hath not, from him shall be taken away 
 even that he hath. Therefore speak I 
 to them in parables ; because they see- 
 ing, see not; and hearing, they hear 
 not, neither do they understand.” * 
 
 My brethren, these are awful truths. 
 Our Lord distinctly declares, that the 
 reason for which He adopted the me- 
 taphorical mode of speaking, of which so 
 many beautiful instances are recorded, 
 was not, as many imagine, because the 
 parable was a common eastern method 
 of illustration, and therefore peculiarly 
 fitted to the comprehension of His 
 hearers ; had this been the case, it 
 would scarcely have been so unintel- 
 
 ® Matthew xiii. 10 — 13. 
 
186 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 ligible to the disciples ; it was rather 
 from a feeling of deep compassion for 
 those who were wilfully rejecting the 
 bread of life ; that He might not in- 
 crease their condemnation, who, when 
 plain truths were presented to them, 
 saw them, as if they had seen them not; 
 and heard them, as if they had heard 
 them not. He, in fact, removed the 
 light which they neglected, in mercy, 
 lest they should procure to themselves 
 the greater condemnation. 
 
 Be warned then, brethren, that you 
 trifle not with the opportunities of re- 
 ligious instruction. Dwell much, dwell 
 frequently, upon the word of God, which 
 you are privileged to hear from time to 
 time ; pray over it, receive it as your 
 covenant of mercy, your daily rule of 
 life ; until every worldly, sensual, un- 
 godly habit, action, word and thought, 
 be reduced to the “ obedience of Christ,”^ 
 and we are enabled, by God’s grace, to 
 
 f 2 Corinthians x. 5 , 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 187 
 
 say of every individual committed to our 
 spiritual charge, “ Blessed are your eyes 
 for they see; and your ears for they 
 hear.” ® 
 
 When our Lord had finished His 
 parables, and explained them to His 
 own immediate followers, “ He went into 
 a ship with his disciples, and gave 
 commandment to depart, and said unto 
 them. Let us go over unto the other 
 side of the lake. And behold, there 
 arose a great tempest in the sea, inso- 
 much that the ship was covered with 
 the waves, but He was asleep. And 
 they were filled with water, and were 
 in jeopardy. And His disciples came 
 to Him, and awoke Him, saying. Lord 
 save us, we perish. And He saith unto 
 them. Why are ye fearful, O ye of little 
 faith ? Then He arose, and rebuked 
 the winds and the sea, and there was 
 a great calm.” '' 
 
 & Matthew xiii. 16. 
 
 ^Luke viii. 22, 23. Matthew viii. 18, 24. 
 
188 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 “Judge not according to the appear- 
 ance,” ‘ said our Lord ; and where is that 
 follower of His who needs not so 
 wise and merciful a caution ? No vessel 
 ever put to sea, which we should have 
 thought would have been blessed with 
 a fairer wind, and a more prosperous 
 voyage, than that which carried the 
 Saviour of the world. Yet upon that 
 vessel did the Prince of the power of 
 the air exert all his influence, and all 
 his malice, until the waters covered it, 
 and the vessel itself was in jeopardy. 
 Are you sometimes led to fear that the 
 true and living Church of the Redeemer, 
 has not the presence of the Saviour 
 with her, because she is oppressed, or 
 opposed, or endangered? Or are you 
 in your own individual case, led to 
 doubt of the same blessed fact, because 
 in temporal or in spiritual things, trouble 
 and disappointment, the tempest of the 
 world’s opposition, or the winds of de- 
 
 i John vii. 24. 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 189 
 
 spondency and doubt, are permitted to 
 assault your soul ; because you some- 
 times feel it to be almost a question, 
 whether you are really a child of God, or 
 have any part or lot among the heirs of 
 His inheritance ? To you, then, there is 
 much encouragement in the incident 
 before us. The presence of the Saviour 
 did not prevent a storm ; but when at 
 the worst, it instantly and entirely quelled 
 it. It allowed enough of danger to try 
 the faith of His people, but not suffi- 
 cient to peril their existence. The fact 
 that the Saviour is with you, is there- 
 fore fully sufficient to enable you to 
 brave all dangers, to face all trials, and 
 to be assured of safety, and preservation, 
 and final deliverance. But even His 
 most immediate presence, that felt pre- 
 sence, which the true Christian, and 
 the true Christian alone, is sometimes 
 permitted so sensibly to enjoy, will not 
 preserve you from many an hour of 
 spiritual suffering, yea, even of deep and 
 
 I 2. PART II. 
 
190 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 fearful anguish to your soul. For these 
 are the moments when “ the trial of 
 your faith worketh patience,” ^ “ and pa- 
 tience, experience ^ yes, the blessed 
 experience of the infinite power and 
 infinite love of your Redeemer, which 
 then shine forth the most resplendently ; 
 for the bow of the covenant never ap- 
 pears so glorious, as when it stretches 
 across the blackest cloud. Had there 
 been no storm, the power of the Divine 
 Saviour over the discordant elements 
 might never have been known, even to 
 His disciples. Had He not been asleep 
 during that storm, their faith, small as 
 it was, would never have been exhibited 
 at all. Bless God, then, in your own 
 case, for every hour of trial, however 
 dark, if you have seen in it more and 
 more of the covenant love of God which 
 passeth knowledge. Bless God for every 
 prayer which has appeared to be un- 
 heard, if it have led you to more prayer, 
 
 j James i. 3. ^Romans v. 4. 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 191 
 
 more faithful, earnest intreaty, until the 
 awakening Saviour has shewn Himself 
 for your complete and full deliverance. 
 Again, take courage from the fact, that 
 even the disciples themselves possessed 
 but “ little faith.”' And do not despair, 
 even if yours be less than the least of 
 all seeds. A true and saving faith, 
 although it cannot be too large for God’s 
 glory, and for your own comfort, cannot 
 be too small for the purpose of salvation, 
 if it be but the true and living faith of 
 the gospel. The shipwrecked sailor, if 
 he have but been cast upon a rock, 
 a single foot above the reach of the 
 waves, is as perfectly secure as if he 
 were looking down from a thousand 
 fathom high, upon the troubled waters, 
 If, by God’s grace, your soul have really 
 found a resting-place upon the Rock 
 of Ages, God will not despise the day 
 of small things, the disciples of “ little 
 faith.” It is enough, that you have been 
 
 1 Matthew vi. 30. 
 
192 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 cast, by God’s sovereign grace, upon the 
 Rock. Let all the powers of darkness 
 conspire to raise the tempest, both its 
 winds and waves are impotent, in de- 
 taching the feeblest sinner who clings 
 for safety to the sheltering side of that 
 eternal barrier. “ Hitherto shalt thou 
 come, but no further, and here shall 
 thy proud waves be stayed,”® has been 
 from all eternity engraven upon that 
 Rock, and never has that boundary line 
 of safety been overpassed. Only rest 
 not contentedly in your present station ; 
 be daily climbing higher and higher, by 
 more fervent prayer, by more frequent, 
 and close, and intimate communion ; 
 and, above all, by conscientiously and con- 
 sistently acting according to that portion 
 of light which God has given you. Be 
 thus continually endeavouring to ad- 
 vance to higher degrees of spirituality 
 of heart, and holiness of life, and re- 
 semblance to the Lord Jesus Christ, the 
 
 Job xxxviii, 11. 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 193 
 
 God of your salvation. Be not content 
 until you have reached the summit of 
 that Rock, whose Head is above the 
 heavens. And may He who rebuked 
 the wind and the sea, so that the raging 
 of the waters ceased, and there was a 
 great calm, fulfil to you His own most 
 blessed promise, by “ bruising Satan 
 under your feet shortly,”" and receiving 
 you in safety, within the wails of that 
 celestial city, “ whose builder and maker 
 is God.” 
 
 ^ Romans xvi. 20. 
 
194 - 
 
 lecture V. 
 
 Mark v. 25 — 27 . 
 
 A CERTAIN WOMAN, WHEN SHE HEARD OF JESUS, CAME 
 IN THE PRESS BEHIND, AND TOUCHED HIS GARMENT; 
 FOR SHE SAID, IF I MAY BUT TOUCH HIS CLOTHES 
 I SHALL BE WHOLE. 
 
 After the incident with which the last 
 lecture concluded, we find our Lord 
 passing over, for a short time, into the 
 country of the Gadarenes. So little 
 were these unhappy people prepared, 
 to benefit either by the presence, or the 
 preaching of Christ, that the only elfect 
 produced upon them, by one of the most 
 astonishing of His miracles, was, that 
 “ they began to pray Him to depart out 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 195 
 
 of their coasts.”" It is not always that 
 our Lord will resist the opposition of 
 the carnal heart, and overcome every 
 impediment, and break down every ob- 
 stacle, and enthrone Himself upon our 
 vanquished appetites and lusts ; it was 
 not so in the case before us ; for we are 
 told, immediately afterwards, that “ Jesus 
 passed over again by ship unto the other 
 side.”*’ Had our Lord treated us, in- 
 dividually, as He here saw fit, in His 
 wisdom and justice, to treat the Gada- 
 renes, how few among us would have 
 been present in this house of God to- 
 day ! How seldom are the first offers 
 of a Saviour cordially heard, and imme- 
 diately accepted, by those who have lived 
 in ignorance of God. Many a repulsive 
 feeling, many a rebellious thought, rises 
 up within them ; and though few will 
 emulate the open opposition of the 
 Gadarenes, and say, ‘Depart from us,’ 
 how many are there who put the word 
 
 o Mark v. 17. 
 
 P Mark v. 21 . 
 
196 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 of salvation wilfully from them, rush 
 into the world, give way to folly, yield 
 to sin, and in their days of darkness 
 seek any and every master, rather than 
 commit themselves at once to the Shep- 
 herd of their souls, and give themselves 
 up to be guided, and governed, and 
 sanctified, and saved, by the God of 
 their salvation. 
 
 The lesson before us, then, is an 
 awakening one. You also, like the 
 Gadarenes, may be permitted once, and 
 but once, to have the offers of a 
 Saviour’s presence, and a Saviour’s love, 
 freely set before you ; the present may 
 be that important season, once neg- 
 lected, to return no more ; the door of 
 your salvation closed ; the word of your 
 salvation silenced ; the Saviour of your 
 salvation for ever gone. God grant that 
 we may speak, and that you may hear, 
 this day, as those who fully believe in 
 the possibility of so awful a verity. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 197 
 
 As soon as our Lord had landed upon 
 the opposite side, “there cometh one 
 of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus 
 by name, and when he saw Him, he 
 fell down at Jesus’ feet,” and “ besought 
 Him greatly, that He would come into 
 his house.”’ How remarkable a con- 
 trast to the treatment which our Lord 
 had just received on the opposite shore ! 
 But may we not ask, with David, “ Is 
 there not a cause ?”' Had no domestic 
 calamity wrung the heart of the ruler — 
 had no deep and trying affliction sent 
 him to the Saviour, would he have been 
 thus zealous, thus earnest, in his appli- 
 cation to the Lord of life ? We cannot 
 answer the inquiry, as it applies to the 
 ruler, but there are few who will hesi- 
 tate to do so, as regards themselves; 
 few who will not, with shame and hu- 
 miliation, confess — but for that bed of 
 sickness — but for that worldly disap- 
 pointment — but for the loss of that dear 
 
 ^ Mark v. 22. ^ 1 Samuel xvii. 29. 
 
198 
 
 LECTURE V, 
 
 friend — but for the death of that loved 
 child — I had never sought or found 
 the Saviour of the world. 
 
 The ruler, however, not only sought 
 the Lord, hut, as we are expressly told, 
 he came, “beseeching greatly.” His 
 feelings, therefore, of the need of the 
 mercy for which he sought, were strong 
 and powerful ; grief and anxiety found 
 a ready utterance ; his prayer was marked 
 by its fulness, its earnestness, its impor- 
 tunity. Does this describe the nature 
 of our petitions, when we draw near to 
 God in daily prayer ? and, if not, whence 
 the difference ? Alas ! the difference is 
 here. The ruler went with a heart full 
 of trouble, and anxiety, and faith ; and 
 “ out of the abundance of the heart the 
 mouth speaketh.”’ We too often go, 
 we fear, with a heart so little occupied 
 by our high errand, with a soul so little 
 impressed by our deep and urgent ne- 
 cessity, a spirit so little influenced by 
 
 s Matthew xii. 34. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 199 
 
 a strong confiding faith in Him to whom 
 we apply, that so far from “ beseeching 
 greatly,” we have neither desires to ex- 
 press, nor words in which to convey them. 
 Learn, then, from the example before us, 
 what is essential for acceptable prayer. 
 Endeavour, by serious thought and holy 
 meditation, to seek that Spirit, who 
 alone can fill your heart with a real 
 sense of your own danger, poverty, 
 wretchedness, and sin, and this, accom- 
 panied, as in the ruler, by a true and 
 lining faith in the power of Him to 
 whom you apply, and you will find no 
 difficulty in “beseeching greatly” for 
 the aid of the good Physician. But re- 
 member, that every petition uttered in 
 the absence of feelings such as these, 
 falls short of that throne of grace to 
 which you send it ; and like an arrow 
 from a slackened bow, powerless and 
 errandless, drops down to earth again. 
 Examine the prayer of Jairus, and you 
 will almost be convinced, that he must 
 
200 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 have spoken both the language of faith, 
 and the language of the heart; “My 
 little daughter lieth at the point of 
 death ; I pray Thee come and lay Thy 
 hands on her, that she may be healed, 
 and she shall live.”* “For,” adds St. 
 Luke, “ he had one only daughter, 
 about twelve years of age, and she lay 
 a dying.”” 
 
 Even where there are many children, 
 and times are hard, and the difficulty 
 of bringing them up in comfort is great, 
 the loss, or even the sickness, of any 
 one among them, is to the parent’s 
 heart a trial of no ordinary weight ; but 
 where the child is an only child, and 
 the parent blessed with affluence, and 
 his hopes and expectations are all cen- 
 tred upon the one single object of 
 parental love, it must indeed be a heavy 
 and a grievous visitation, when God is 
 pleased to call back the precious boon 
 which He has mercifully bestowed. 
 
 ^ Luke viii. 42. 
 
 t Mark v. 23. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 201 
 
 That our gracious Redeemer not only 
 well knows it to be so, but peculiarly 
 sympathises in trials such as these, 
 may, we think, be gathered from the fact, 
 that of the three memorable instances 
 in which He exerted His divine power 
 over death and the grave, and broke 
 their chains, and released their captives, 
 and brought them back to life again, 
 one was the case of an only brother, 
 another an only son, and this an only 
 daughter. Who can hear of such dis- 
 criminating instances of the love and 
 tenderness of our Redeemer, and not 
 experience the unspeakable comfort, 
 which the apostle appears to have 
 derived from the consideration, that we 
 have indeed a merciful High Priest, 
 who can be touched, and who assuredly 
 is “ touched with the feeling of all our 
 infirmities.” Can you, then, apply to 
 that Saviour, under any circumstances 
 of difficulties or trials, without feeling 
 the full “assurance of faith,” that He 
 
‘202 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 has not only power enough, but love 
 enough, to grant all, and more than all, 
 of which you stand in need. 
 
 “ And Jesus arose and went with 
 him,” says the evangelist, “and so did 
 His disciples.” But as they went on 
 the way to the house of mourning, 
 surrounded by a crowd of wondering 
 spectators, and closely attended by the 
 anxious father, to whose request our 
 Lord had yielded so instantaneous an 
 obedience, “ Behold, a certain woman, 
 which had an issue of blood twelve 
 years, and had suffered many things 
 of many physicians, and had 'spent all 
 that she had, and was nothing bettered, 
 but rather grew worse, when she heard 
 of Jesus, came in the press behind, 
 and touched the hem of His garment, 
 for she said. If I may but touch His 
 clothes I shall be whole ; and straight- 
 way the fountain of her blood was 
 dried up, and she felt in her body, 
 that she was healed of that plague.”" 
 
 w Mark v. 29. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 203 
 
 It furnishes us with some little idea 
 of the abundance of the miracles of 
 our Lord, of which, comparatively, so 
 few have been recorded, when we find 
 one of the most remarkable, conveyed 
 thus, as it were, merely in a parenthesis ; 
 so little dwelt upon, that had it not 
 occurred during His passage to the 
 house of Jairus, it seems probable, that 
 it would never have been narrated ; and 
 yet few are the instances, from which 
 more of comfort and encouragement 
 to the feeble or the secret follower of 
 our Lord, may be deduced, than from 
 this simple story. 
 
 We first remark the secrecy of the 
 application of this poor sufferer. Some 
 had not scrupled to call aloud upon 
 the passing Saviour, “ Jesus, Master, 
 have mercy on us * others to be 
 placed upon their sick beds in the 
 Saviour’s path, that it might be impos- 
 sible to overlook them ; but here was 
 
 ^ Mark v. 26. 
 
204 
 
 lecture V, 
 
 one, who with the natural timidity and 
 modesty of her sex, shrunk from ob- 
 servation, and would not publicly ask 
 the mercy, of which she so greatly 
 stood in need. 
 
 We next observe the peculiar 
 strength and energy of her faith. Many 
 had believed that a word, a command 
 of Christ, was sufficient to heal the 
 worst of maladies ; but none, that we 
 are aware of, ever had faith to believe, 
 as this poor woman did, that a single 
 touch of His garment, yea, even of 
 the hem of His garment, would be 
 superior to all the physicians upon 
 earth. 
 
 How remarkably analogous to this, 
 is the case of some few, some happy 
 few, in every congregation. They make 
 no loud professions, no public display 
 of their deep conviction, of the plague 
 which lies at their hearts’ core ; and 
 yet, perhaps, none have felt it more 
 acutely, or laboured under it during a 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 205 
 
 longer period of wretchedness and woe. 
 They also have “ suffered many things 
 of many physicians,” and have been 
 nothing bettered, but have rather grown 
 worse.” The world, society, business, 
 self-righteousness, have all prescribed 
 for them. The world has prescribed 
 its pleasures, society its cheerfulness, 
 business its occupation, self-righteous- 
 ness its duties, but all equally in vain ; 
 the stream of their corruption flows on, 
 as powerfully as ever, for the source 
 of its pollution remains untouched ; 
 the heart is corrupt, unhealed, unaltered 
 still. They behold, perhaps, the crowds 
 which throng around the Saviour ; for 
 has He not said of the preaching of 
 the Cross, as truly as of the sacrifice 
 of the Cross, “ I, if I be lifted up, will 
 draw all men unto me r”^ They “ hear 
 of Jesus,” then, as we are told this 
 poor woman did ; they come in the 
 crowd, and are hidden in the crowd; 
 
 y John xii. 32. 
 
 K. PART II. C. 
 
•206 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 their malady unknown even to those 
 who follow in the same throng, or 
 worship in the same temple with them. 
 Thus all unknown, and all unseen to 
 others, they receive the living word 
 into their hearts, they draw near by 
 faith to the Saviour, and put forth their 
 hand, and not only touch His garment, 
 but hide themselves, and their corrup- 
 tions, and their woe, beneath it, even 
 the garment of a Saviour’s righteousness, 
 and find there, where alone it can be 
 found, their healing and their cure. 
 These are they whom David calls “ the 
 Lord’s hidden ones,”"' of whom, in the 
 worst days of Israel’s idolatry, there 
 were seven thousand, unknown to man, 
 but known indeed of God, and precious : 
 hidden now, because of their humility, 
 which courts not human observation ; 
 because of their feebleness which needs 
 a shield, and their weakness which 
 cannot stand upright; but one day to 
 
 2 Psalm Ixxxiii. 3. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 907 
 
 be revealed, perhaps even upon earth, 
 when their faith has been strengthened, 
 and their love increased, as among the 
 most devoted and consistent followers 
 of their divine Master ; but certainly, 
 on the day when “ the Lord of hosts 
 shall make up His jewels,”® as among 
 the brightest ornaments of their Re- 
 deemer’s crown. 
 
 Doubtless it is a glorious sight to 
 see “ the trees of righteousness,” as the 
 prophet denominates the established 
 people of God, “planted by the rivers 
 of water, bringing forth their fruit in 
 due season,’’’’ lifting up their heads to 
 heaven, in all the strength, and vigour, 
 and beauty, which the dews of the 
 Spirit have imparted, and the rays of 
 the Sun of Righteousness have cherished, 
 and standing unbroken and uninjured 
 beneath the heaviest gale that blows, 
 defying alike the tempest and the flood. 
 It may be a less glorious, but is it not 
 
 ^ Malachi iii. 17. ^ Psalm i. 3. 
 
208 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 even a more encouraging, sight to the 
 Christian, to mark these same trees, 
 “ the planting of the Lord,”* just as 
 they are struggling into existence, their 
 heads for the first time emerging from 
 the underwood, and their weak and 
 feeble stem drawing up from amidst 
 the shelter that has shielded them, 
 bending beneath every wind that blows, 
 and appearing unable to stand the 
 shock, with which the first strong gale 
 shall visit them ? It is a blessed and a 
 soul-encouraging sight to the Christian, 
 because in that small and yielding sap- 
 ling, he sees the stern unbending oak 
 of centuries yet to come, the father of 
 the forest, upon which all storms, all 
 tempests, shall exert their violence, but 
 in vain. While others think only of 
 the weakness of the tree, he is thinking 
 of the strength and permanency of the 
 root ; he knows that, far beneath the 
 surface, and far beyond the sight of 
 
 c Isaiah Ixi. 3. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 209 
 
 man, the root of that frail tree has 
 driven its fibres firm and fast into the 
 living Rock, and let the stem be shaken 
 as it may be above, all is secure below ; 
 and let the hurricane sweep with resist- 
 less force across the forest, and every 
 other tree fall prostrate beneath its 
 arm, he knows that this may bend, but 
 cannot break, and though it stoop to 
 earth, shall rise again the stronger and 
 the more secure, imperishable and in- 
 destructible, for it shall adorn the 
 paradise of God. 
 
 But there is a time when the Lord 
 will not permit even His “ secret ones” 
 to remain hidden from the eye of men, 
 but will compel them to manifest their 
 faith, that His own glory may be re- 
 vealed. So it was now with this poor 
 sufferer ; she had obtained her cure, 
 and was rejoicing in all that the Saviour 
 had performed for her. When “ Jesus 
 immediately, knowing in Himself that 
 virtue had gone out of Him, turned 
 
210 
 
 LECTURE T. 
 
 Him about in the press, and said. Who 
 touched my clothes ? And when all 
 denied, Peter and they that were with 
 Him said, Master, the multitude throng 
 thee and press thee, and sayest thou. 
 Who touched me? And Jesus said, 
 Somebody hath touched me, for I 
 perceive that virtue is gone out of me. 
 And He looked round about to see her 
 that had done this thing. And when 
 the woman saw that she was not hid, 
 she came,” therefore she had evidently 
 retired to some distance, immediately 
 upon obtaining the cure, and was not 
 among the number of those who had 
 denied that they had touched the Lord, 
 “ she came trembling, and falling down 
 before Him, she told Him all the truth,” 
 “ she declared unto Him before all the 
 people, for what cause she had touched 
 Him, and how she was healed im- 
 mediately.’”* 
 
 Silence, which in the first instance 
 
 ^ Mark v. 30. 
 
LECTURE V, 
 
 211 
 
 was a proof of her modesty, would, if 
 persevered in, now have been culpable. 
 There is a time, brethren, when the 
 most feeble believer among you all 
 must not be ashamed to stand forth, 
 and avow the mercies and the healing 
 you have received ; must be ready to 
 confess the Lord Jesus Christ before 
 men, and, if called upon, to tell “ what 
 the Lord hath done for your soul.” 
 He may not, and often does not, require 
 this at the very beginning of your 
 Christian course, at the very instant 
 that you receive your spiritual cure ; 
 but neither will He permit you to be 
 long concealed. The cure must he 
 attributed to the right source, must be 
 acknowledged as the work of the good 
 Physician, and, as this poor woman did, 
 you must tell “ all the truth,” that your 
 Saviour may receive all the glory, 
 
 “ Then Jesus said unto her. Daugh- 
 ter, be of good comfort ; thy faith hath 
 
212 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 made thee whole ; go in peace.”* Are 
 there any among you who need the 
 peace which Christ alone can give, that 
 “ peace of God which passeth all under- 
 standing,’”’ then receive it here. Your 
 cure is not perfected, your healing 
 not complete, until you have obtained 
 peace ; peace of conscience, peace of 
 mind, peace of soul. Whom the Lord 
 Jesus Christ treats as a child, and heals 
 as a child, he also acknowledges as a 
 child. “Ye shall be my sons and my 
 daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.”* 
 Have you, then, found access to the 
 gracious Being of whom we speak ; has 
 the feeble hand of your young faith 
 touched but the garment of the Saviour ; 
 and has the plague within been healed ; 
 then be assured that this mercy, great, 
 and wonderful, and undeserved as it 
 is, does not stand alone. He who has 
 pardoned your sin, has accepted your 
 person, and now not only permits, 
 
 s Markv. 34. ^ Philippians iv. 7. ^ 2 Corinthians vi. 18. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 213 
 
 but encourages you to rejoice in your 
 adoption, and says, “Daughter, be of 
 good comfort, go in peace. This is, 
 in fact, the one great privilege of the 
 gospel. Take this from the believer, 
 this spirit of adoption, this assurance 
 of his sonship, and you leave him poor 
 indeed. For there is no middle state 
 here on earth, as there shall be no 
 middle state throughout eternity. We 
 are all and each either the children of 
 God through Christ Jesus our Lord, 
 having been reconciled and brought 
 near by the blood of the cross, having 
 been united to Himself and carried into 
 His family by the Spirit of adoption, 
 or we are, at this moment, outcasts and 
 rebels, neither partakers of His grace, 
 nor preparing for His inheritance. If 
 not children, then enemies : hut “ if 
 children, then heirs, heirs of God, 
 and joint-heirs with Christ.”' How 
 unutterably solemn the alternative ! 
 
 k Luke viii. 48 . ^ Romans viii. 17. 
 
 K 2 . PART II. 
 
214 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 May no individual leave this house of 
 God to-day, without endeavouring to 
 ascertain the truth as regards himself, 
 his own soul, his own adoption. May 
 none be permitted to build himself up 
 in a false and groundless hope, or in 
 a delusive peace ; may none he satisfied 
 until he has assuredly received that 
 Spirit, for which none ever sought in 
 vain, even “ the - Spirit of adoption, 
 whereby we cry, Abba, Father.”*" 
 
 While our Lord yet spake, there 
 came from the ruler of the synagogue’s 
 house, certain which said. Thy daughter 
 is dead, why troublest thou the Master 
 any further. “As soon as Jesus heard 
 the word that was spoken. He saith 
 unto the ruler of the synagogue. Be 
 not afraid, only believe.”" Perhaps our 
 Lord knew that the ruler’s faith was 
 weak, as He most certainly knew the 
 fiery trial it was about to be exposed 
 to, and in mercy to Him, permitted this 
 
 ^ Romans viii. 15. ® Mark v. 36. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 215 
 
 miracle to be wrought, and that avowal 
 of the poor woman to be made, upon 
 which we have just been commenting, 
 that his faith might be strengthened 
 for the conflict that awaited it. It 
 seems, at least, that some such thoughts 
 were passing through the Saviour’s 
 mind, by those kindly-spoken words of 
 strong encouragement with which He 
 cheered him when he received the fatal 
 message, “ Only believe.” It is, indeed, 
 a little sentence, but we shall never 
 see that man on earth who can, with 
 profit, lengthen it. It has a richness 
 and a fulness which experience may, 
 and, I trust in God, will teach you, but 
 which words cannot describe. Would 
 you learn its virtues, the wonder- 
 working power of those short syllables ? 
 Go to the broken-hearted sinner, see 
 him watering his couch with his tears, 
 overwhelmed with a burden from which 
 the united strength of men and angels 
 cannot set him free ; point that wretched 
 
216 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 and guilty creature to the cross of 
 Christ, and to the Lord who hangs 
 upon it, and say, “ Only believe.” If 
 the Spirit of God speaks them to the 
 heart, while you address them to the 
 outer ear, you will soon behold their 
 wonderful effect ; the heavy burden, 
 untouched by mortal hands, falls at his 
 feet; He who has taken it from him, 
 will bear it for him, and he shall feel 
 it again no more for ever. Or go to 
 the bed-side of the dying saint; do 
 fears and doubts oppress him ? is this 
 the hour of Satan and of darkness ? has 
 he for a moment, amidst the clouds 
 that overhang him, lost sight of the 
 Star of Bethlehem? Whisper in the 
 ear of that desponding follower of Jesus, 
 these little words, “ only believe.” The 
 shades of darkness will disperse, the 
 scales will fall from his eyes, the anguish 
 he removed from his soul, faith will 
 again resume her throne, and all will 
 he peace. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 217 
 
 Yes, Jesus Himself had no higher 
 and no better remedy for sin, for sorrow, 
 and for suffering, than those two words 
 convey ; at the utmost extremity of 
 His own distress, and of His disciples’ 
 wretchedness. He could only say, “ Let 
 not your heart be troubled, ye believe 
 in God, believe also in me.”" Believe, 
 “ only believe.” 
 
 “And He cometh to the house of 
 the ruler of the synagogue, and seeth 
 the tumult, and them that wept and 
 wailed greatly. And when He was 
 come in. He saith unto them. Why 
 make ye this ado, and weep ? the damsel 
 is not dead, but sleepeth. And they 
 laughed Him to scorn.”^ 
 
 Who shall complain that they 
 are subjected to the ridicule of the 
 world, to the trial, as the apostle 
 calls it, “ of cruel mocking,” " when 
 they behold their Lord, thus, at the 
 very moment of exerting the highest 
 
 o John xiv. 1. P Mark v. 38 — 40. Q Hebrews xi. 36. 
 
218 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 attribute of Deity, “ quiekening whom 
 He will,” ealling the breathless corpse to 
 life again, “ laughed even to scorn,” by 
 these poor fallen sons of earth ! How 
 does our indignation rise, and our heart 
 burn within us, that the great God of 
 heaven and earth should thus be 
 ridiculed by the works of His own 
 hands. 
 
 Brethren, let us learn from it at 
 least, patiently, if not cheerfully, to bear 
 that, which even our Lord and Master 
 has borne before us, and will bear with 
 us ; remembering that “ if we suffer 
 with Him, we shall also reign wdth 
 Him,”' and that a conformity with Him 
 even in these, the least of trials, shall 
 not be forgotten on that day when we 
 shall be also glorified together.’” 
 
 “ But when He had put them all 
 out, he taketh the father and the mother 
 of the damsel, and them that were 
 with Him, and entereth in where the 
 
 ' 2 Timothy ii. 12. * Romans viii. 17. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 219 
 
 damsel was lying. And he took the 
 damsel by the hand, and said unto her, 
 Talitha cumi, which is, being inter- 
 preted, Damsel, I say unto thee, arise. 
 And straightway the damsel arose, and 
 walked ; for she was of the age of 
 twelve years.”* 
 
 How perfectly simple is every portion 
 of this wonderful narration, how void 
 of all display. If, as has been well 
 observed, the very language in which 
 our Lord speaks of heaven, marks Him 
 at once as an inmate and a sovereign 
 there, so does the very manner in 
 which He performed the most stu- 
 pendous of His miracles, almost as 
 certainly as the miracles themselves, 
 established His divinity. No impostor 
 could have been contented with such 
 a total absence of all effort, all excite- 
 ment, all display ; our Lord appeared, 
 if we may so say, scarcely conscious 
 that any wonderful work was to be 
 
 t Mark v. 40 — 42. 
 
220 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 achieved. “ Maid, arise,” was the simple 
 language in which He performed a deed 
 which, in dignity and power, might 
 rival the creation of an universe. And 
 is it not often thus calmly, and quietly, 
 and unobtrusively, that He still acts 
 by His divine Spirit, when the yet 
 greater work of the spiritual resurrection 
 of a soul, dead in trespasses and sins, 
 is to be perfected ? Oftentimes, how 
 often none can tell, a single discourse, 
 a sentence, yea, even a word, has been 
 blessed to this great and wonderful 
 end; no effort visible, no display of 
 majesty and power, except to the 
 happy soul thus raised to spiritual 
 life. But, as in the miracle be- 
 fore us, “ When Jesus said, Arise, 
 He took the damsel by the hand,” so 
 now, the word of Christ’s power must 
 be accompanied by the hand of His 
 grace, ere the miracle of mercy can be 
 wrought, for in vain do we exclaim, 
 “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 221 
 
 from the dead, and Christ shall give 
 thee light,”" unless His arm be indeed 
 outstretched to draw you thence, and 
 to give the spiritual life to which we 
 call you. May that hand of mighty 
 power be exerted among us this day ; 
 that you, if there be but one who is 
 still sleeping the sleep of sin, may 
 hear that word, “ Arise !” and be so 
 shaken from your deathful slumbers, 
 that nothing again shall tempt you to 
 sleep upon your post; but being thus 
 aroused, that you may forget those 
 things which are behind, and reaching 
 forth unto those which are before, be 
 daily, hourly, constantly pressing for- 
 ward for “ the prize of the mark of 
 your high calling of God in Christ 
 Jesus.” May we all feel how little, 
 how less than little, there has yet been 
 of spiritual life in our prayers, of active 
 holiness in our conduct, of an earnest, 
 faithful, zealous devotedness to God 
 
 ^ Ephesians v. 14. 
 
222 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 in our daily conversation, that we may 
 indeed arise, as those who are risen 
 with Christ, and seek in earnest those 
 things which are above, where Christ 
 sitteth at the right hand of the Majesty 
 on high. 
 
223 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 John vi. 37. 
 
 ALL THAT THE FATHER GIVETH ME SHALL COME TO 
 ME; AND HIM THAT COMETH TO ME I WILL IN NO 
 WISE CAST OUT. 
 
 The closing lecture for the present 
 season brings us, as we find by the 
 fourth verse of the chapter, to another 
 Passover, being the third which occurred 
 during the ministry of our Lord; one 
 of those resting places which we pro- 
 posed to ourselves when we commenced 
 this important history. It is impossible 
 to look back upon the road we have 
 lately travelled, without being struck 
 by the remarkable instances we have 
 
224 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 witnessed of the divine power, and 
 wisdom, and love, of our adorable Re- 
 deemer. Whether we view His wisdom 
 as manifested in that astonishing de- 
 fence before the Sanhedrim, in which 
 He proclaimed His divinity ; or His 
 love, in pardoning the poor and sinful 
 woman who washed His feet with her 
 tears and wiped them with the hairs 
 of her head; or His power in calling 
 back the daughter of Jairus to life 
 again ; we are equally constrained to 
 say, “Surely this man was the Son of 
 God.’” But, brethren, this has been 
 said and believed, and doubtless, is at 
 this moment, by thousands, who possess 
 no share in the salvation, which “ this 
 man” preached, and in the redemption 
 which He purchased. We do not, then, 
 regret that the last portion of Scrip- 
 ture, upon which we shall at present 
 dwell, consists of a sermon rather than 
 a miracle ; that the last passage of 
 
 V Luke xix. 14. John vii. 46, &c. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 225 
 
 the mortal life of our Lord, which 
 remains to be considered during the 
 present season, will bring Him before 
 you not demonstrating His Messiahship, 
 or His divinity, but offering the blessed 
 fruits of them to your souls ; that the 
 last words you will hear from His 
 lips, will contain the very marrow and 
 essence of the gospel ; and that if you 
 were brought from the depths of hea- 
 then darkness, and placed for the first 
 time this day, beneath the rays of the 
 Sun of Righteousness, sufficient of them 
 would, by God’s grace, struggle through 
 the clouds of human teaching, to kindle 
 within your hearts that holy flame, 
 which all the powers of evil should 
 be unable to extinguish. 
 
 The occasion of the divine discourse 
 to which I refer, appears to have been 
 the following. Many of the Jews, who 
 had been partakers of the miraculous 
 meal, with which our Lord had so 
 lately presented five thousand of His 
 
226 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 followers,* determined upon accompany- 
 ing Him whithersoever He went ; not, 
 indeed, for the purpose of learning His 
 doctrine, or from the feeling of love to 
 His person, but simply from the unworthy 
 motive of eating the bread of idleness, 
 and feeding from time to time upon 
 the miraculous food, which they now- 
 discovered that our Lord was well able 
 to supply. For this most selfish object, 
 they had traversed sea and land, until 
 they had again overtaken •Christ, while 
 tarrying at Capernaum.* 
 
 Jesus, whose omniscience told Him 
 at once the extent of their labours, 
 and the intention of them, no sooner 
 beheld these worldly-minded followers 
 again gathering round Him, than He 
 thus addressed them ; “ Verily, verily, 
 I say unto you, ye seek me not be- 
 cause ye saw the miracles;’' yet even 
 this, we should have thought, would 
 have been a motive sufficiently low 
 
 w John vi. 10. ^ John vi. 23, 24, Y John vi. 26. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 227 
 
 and earthly, had it led to nothing 
 further ; “ but because ye did eat of 
 the loaves, and were filled.” “ Labour 
 not for the meat which perisheth, but 
 for that meat which endureth unto 
 everlasting life, which the Son of man 
 shall give unto you.”* They were, as 
 we have seen, labouring and toiling, 
 travelling by water, travelling by land, 
 and all for what purpose ? Because 
 they had eaten of the bread, and were 
 filled, and hoped in a similar manner 
 to be again rewarded. Therefore our 
 Lord addresses them, Ye are labouring 
 for meat, but it is meat which perisheth ; 
 if you would have that which endureth, 
 and endureth for ever, come, find it 
 treasured up in me. How similar to 
 the language with which He had long 
 before addressed the woman of Samaria. 
 You are seeking for water ; ask of me, 
 and I will give you the living water. 
 What, then, is the great lesson which 
 2 John vi. 26, 27. 
 
228 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 all, in every age, and in every clime, 
 are instructed to derive from these 
 replies of our divine Master ; brethren, 
 it is this — Whether it be meat or 
 drink, whether it be pleasure or profit, 
 whether it be contentment or joy, 
 whatever be the gratification you are 
 seeking from the creature, it is really to 
 be had only from the Creator. O, that 
 men could be induced to believe this 
 mighty truth, to take the Lord Jesus 
 Christ at His word, and to go to Him, 
 and to Him alone, for that peace, and 
 rest, and sustenance, and enjoyment, 
 which the whole world of created beings 
 cannot give. When shall we be con- 
 tent to learn this consoling and en- 
 couraging lesson ? How many are there 
 of you, whom I address at this moment, 
 whose hearts are wounded with dis- 
 appointment, or bleeding with anguish, 
 or wearied with toil, because you have 
 learnt it not. You have “laboured for 
 the’ meat which perisheth,” and are 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 229 
 
 you surprised that it should perish ? 
 You have toiled for the waters of an 
 earthly well, and do you mourn that 
 they no longer stand at the well’s brink? 
 that, ever as you draw, they are re- 
 ceding, that a longer and a longer line 
 is needed, that your labour is increased, 
 and its fruits diminished? Or more, 
 do you grieve that your cisterns are 
 broken, and your wells are dry ? Be not 
 surprised at this ; it is the very con- 
 dition of their existenee. They are 
 cisterns, not fountains ; wells, not rivers. 
 All that they onee contained, and in 
 which your hearts delighted, was poured 
 into them by an unseen. Almighty hand, 
 and when that hand has ceased to pour, 
 those waters must subside ; and when 
 that hand shall break those cisterns, 
 the waters must run out. Earthly 
 blessings, possessions, relationships, must 
 fail you, they would not be earthly, if 
 it were otherwise. Do you seek for 
 those which endure, they are to be 
 
 L. PART II. C. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 2‘M 
 
 found in God, as revealed to us in 
 Christ Jesus, and in Him alone. Rest, 
 then, from labours, which are destroy- 
 ing your energies, and must end in 
 disappointments ; cease from expecta- 
 tions which this world can never gra- 
 tify ; no longer indulge a grief which 
 distracts the heart, and carries away 
 the alfections, from Him who alone is 
 worthy of them, but concentrate every 
 feeling, every expectation, every desire 
 in Him, in whom alone all fulness 
 dwelleth. The heart which is fixed on 
 God, knows no distrustful thought, no 
 abiding disappointment, no hopeless 
 sorrow ; it may labour for the meat 
 which perisheth, but it will not toil 
 for it, as those who have never tasted 
 of the “hidden manna,” ^ wherewith the 
 Lord sustains His people ; it may mourn 
 for earthly blessings too soon removed, 
 but it cannot sorrow even for them, 
 as others which have no hope. 
 
 a Revelation ii. 17* 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 231 
 
 We call upon you, then, this day, 
 to feed by faith on the Son of God, 
 “ for Him hath God the Father sealed 
 God, in offering Him to you, hath set 
 to His seal, that there is a power, a 
 richness, a fulness, a sufficiency, an all- 
 sufficiency in Christ, which shall never 
 disappoint you ; and you, in receiving 
 His testimony, have “ set to your seal 
 that God is true.”' Blessed Saviour, 
 sealed by God the Father as the Priest, 
 the Prophet, the King, the God of all 
 thy believing people ! and blessed be- 
 liever, sealed by God the Holy Ghost, 
 as His redeemed. His disciple. His sub- 
 ject, His child, “ unto the day of re- 
 demption.” 
 
 In vain did the Jews attempt to turn 
 aside, by the weapons of an earthly 
 warfare, this one great lesson of the 
 Bible, that the receiving of Christ, the 
 coming to Christ, the feeding upon 
 Christ, is alone the life of the Christian. 
 
 ^ John vi. 27. c John iii. 33. ^ Ephesians iv. 30. 
 
232 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 Our Lord again and again returns to 
 it until He makes the truth so plain, 
 the doctrine it contains so undeniable, 
 that though many might, as many did, 
 reject it, thanks be to God, no child 
 in a Christian land is so ignorant, as 
 necessarily to misapprehend it. 
 
 “ And Jesus said unto them, I am 
 the bread of life ; he that cometh to 
 me shall never hunger ; and he that 
 believeth on me shall never thirst.” * 
 
 In the former testimony our Lord had 
 declared, that to all who came unto 
 Him, the Son of man would give the 
 bread of life. Here He distinctly states 
 the glorious truth upon which we have 
 been commenting, “ I am the bread 
 of life.” 
 
 We need not largely insist upon 
 the importance of the metaphor. That 
 the body may be nourished, it is not 
 enough that the bread be of the finest 
 wheat flour, that it be seen, that it be 
 
 ® John iv. 35. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 233 
 
 approved, that it be handled, — it must 
 be eaten, or the famished wretch will 
 die, though surrounded by an incal- 
 culable abundance. So it is with “ the 
 bread of life you may admire the 
 Saviour, and love to hear of Him ; you 
 might, for many in the days of our 
 Lord’s earthly sojourn assuredly did so, 
 you might see, and even “handle the 
 word of life,”*^ and yet have neither part 
 nor lot in His salvation. That He may 
 come as life to your soul, the Lord 
 Jesus Christ must spiritually be fed 
 upon ; He must be clearly and fully 
 received in all His offices, and closed 
 with, and embraced by, a true and 
 living faith. It is then only that His 
 gracious promise is fulfilled, that you 
 shall never hunger, and never thirst, 
 after those pleasures, profits, follies of 
 the world, which are the worthless chaff, 
 and yet which satisfy the worldly heart 
 that feeds upon them. To tell you to 
 
 f 1 John i. 1. 
 
234 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 look with no longing eye upon the 
 world, is utterly vain, until not merely 
 the eye, but the heart, has been fixed 
 upon, and satisfied with, Christ Jesus ; 
 to direct you neither to hunger nor 
 thirst for those miserable husks, and 
 those stagnant pools, which satisfy 
 the worldling, is equally vain, until 
 you have not merely tasted, but habi- 
 tually fed upon the bread of life, and 
 the waters of salvation, which are trea- 
 sured up for you in Christ Jesus. It is 
 then only that the promise is fulfilled, 
 “ He that cometh unto me shall never 
 hunger, and he that believeth on me 
 shall never thirst.”® Perfectly fulfilled 
 in this world of sin, it will never be ; 
 there are in the heart, and in the mind, 
 even of the most advanced believer, 
 occasional breakings forth of his van- 
 quished appetites, and his subdued and 
 chastened lusts ; he does from time to 
 time, hunger and thirst for those things 
 
 S John -vi. 35. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 235 
 
 which are forbidden, but he does not 
 gratify the appetite ; Satan may spread 
 his dainties for him, but he knows by 
 painful experienee, that like the apples 
 of Sodom, though beautiful to the eye, 
 they will turn to ashes in the mouth ; 
 the world may, like Jael of old, bring 
 him “ butter in a lordly dish ; ” but he 
 sees the nail and the hammer which are 
 behind, and he will neither sleep in her 
 tent, nor eat at her table. 
 
 In proportion as his soul is renewed 
 by the Spirit of God, these earth-born 
 appetites become more and more rare ; 
 but be assured, there is no real remedy 
 for them, but by daily, hourly feeding 
 on Him who is the bread of life, by 
 going to Jesus for the satisfying of 
 every appetite, and finding that re- 
 freshing food, that strengthening nou- 
 rishment in Him, which nothing but a 
 continual living upon Him can supply. 
 
 My brethren, how often, how solemnly, 
 how urgently, with how many in 
 
236 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 treaties, and with how many prayers, 
 we have pressed this great gospel truth 
 upon your attention, God only knows. 
 With what effect, that God who seeth 
 the heart can alone pronounce, as He 
 can alone produce it ; but of this we 
 are convinced, that if we have failed 
 in the endeavour, “ then is our preaching 
 vain, and your faith is vain also;”*’ 
 “ye are yet in your sins.”* For no 
 religion which does not bring you to 
 the Lord Jesus Christ, and teach you 
 to find all your hope, and all your life, 
 temporal, spiritual, and eternal, as “ hid 
 with Christ in God,”* can stand in that 
 day, w'hen the wrath of God shall be 
 abroad on the earth, or can save a soul 
 alive. 
 
 When our divine Master had spoken 
 the words upon which we have been 
 commenting. He looked around Him 
 with the mournful feeling, that, as 
 regarded some at least of his hearers, 
 
 ^ 1 Cor. XV. 14. i 1 Cor. xv. 17- ^ Col. iii. 3. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 237 
 
 they had been spoken but in vain, and 
 said at once plainly and unreservedly, 
 “Ye also have seen me, and believed 
 not.”'' Then He adds, as if to derive 
 consolation to His own soul, amidst so 
 discouraging an aspect, “All that the 
 Father giveth me shall come to me.” 
 Praised be God for this immutable and 
 blessed promise! There were seasons, 
 apparently, even to our Lord, when the 
 hardness, and coldness, and unbelief of 
 His hearers, drove hack his heart, if we 
 may so say, from the stream of God’s love 
 which was then flowing on, like some 
 richly laden river, through the con- 
 tinent of time, and upward to the 
 fountain head of that love, seated in 
 eternity, before time began. Thither did 
 His heart retire for that consolation, 
 which the present circumstances of His 
 ministerial work did not afford Him. 
 There He dwelt in comfort on the 
 eternal promise, “ All that the Father 
 
 ^ John vi. 36. 
 
 L 2. PART II. 
 
238 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 giveth me, shall come to me all, and 
 every one of them, shall feed hy faith 
 upon the bread of life; not one sheep 
 of the flock shall be shut out, not one 
 lamb of the fold shall perish. 
 
 Surely, if our divine Master could 
 draw consolation from this high source, 
 the weakest of His servants may well 
 be permitted to do the same. Yes, 
 brethren, it is a blessed spring of conso- 
 lation to know, that however weak and 
 infirm the instrument who scatters it, 
 the bread of life can never be cast forth 
 in vain ; that from its smallest crumbs, 
 some well-beloved child in God’s re- 
 deemed family, shall obtain spiritual 
 nourishment and life ; that, sooner or 
 later, all who are given to the eternal 
 Son shall be fed, all shall be nourished, 
 all shall be matured unto the “ stature of 
 the fulness of Christ Jesus our Lord.”'" 
 But there is comfort in the reflection, 
 not only to the ministers of God, but 
 
 i Romans v. 11. 
 
 ^ Ephesians iv. 13. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 239 
 
 to His people. Do you never, when 
 looking around you upon the multitudes 
 engaged in folly and in sin, feel this 
 desponding reflection gaining ground 
 upon your better judgment, — How small 
 is the company of true believers ! how 
 few are there in every generation, who 
 are here following, how few who shall 
 hereafter dwell with, the eternal Lamb ! 
 This is your consolation, whether they 
 be many or few, man cannot determine, 
 for no eye but the eye of God can see, 
 no hand but His can register them, and 
 doubtless many whom we number not, 
 are entered there, in the volume in 
 which their names are written, even in 
 . the Lamb’s book of life : but this we 
 know, that all, without a single excep- 
 tion, without one backslider, all whom 
 the Father hath given to Christ, “ shall 
 come to Him.” There may be years of 
 rebellion, forgetfulness, and sin, “ never- 
 theless the foundation of God standeth 
 
240 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth 
 them that are His.” " 
 
 While you derive great comfort and 
 encouragement from this reflection, let 
 it suggest to you great forbearance, 
 great patience, and long-suffering to- 
 wards even the worst of men. Do you 
 behold a fellow-sinner who has run the 
 lengths of riot, profligacy, and profane- 
 ness, from which, by God’s restraining 
 grace, you have been withheld ; deal 
 tenderly with that man’s feelings, cha- 
 racter, soul. How know you not, that 
 he may be among the number of those 
 whom the eternal Father hath given 
 to the eternal Son, and who shall, 
 therefore, one day, come to Him. Yes, 
 even upon earth, that outcast sinner 
 may so far outstrip yourself upon the 
 heavenward road, and in eternity may 
 fill a place so near the throne, that 
 you shall he immeasurably far below 
 him. 
 
 2 Timothy ii. 19. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 241 
 
 But if there be a lesson of Christian 
 encouragement, and love, and tender 
 compassion here, for every believing 
 heart, is there no instruction in the 
 words which follow, for the sinner 
 himself? There is, indeed, a lesson 
 never taught but in the school of 
 Christ, and one which we pray God to 
 carry home to the heart of every indi- 
 vidual, who has not yet made his peace 
 with God, and drawn near to, and ac- 
 tually closed with, the Redeemer of the 
 world. It is conveyed in this blessed, 
 this life-giving sentence ; “ Him that 
 cometh to me, I will in no wise cast 
 out.” While the believer may dwell 
 with a holy delight and satisfaction 
 upon the former portion of the text, 
 let the unbeliever fix his thoughts and 
 his attention here. Grace, free, un- 
 merited grace, is offered to all, and to 
 every child of Adam, by whom these 
 words are heard. We say to every 
 individual among you ; here is an offer 
 
242 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 of salvation to which no exception is 
 made, no reserve attached. Are you 
 willing to come to the Lord Jesus 
 Christ to accept His offers, to obey His 
 laws ? Wait not, then, for a greater 
 degree of moral fitness, or even for a 
 stronger feeling of desire to come ; 
 delay not for another, God only knows 
 if you shall ever have another invitation, 
 but come unhesitatingly, and come at 
 once. Do you reply, I am too sinful, too 
 unworthy, too polluted ; be assured, that 
 your individual case with all its unwor- 
 thiness, its pollutions, its sins, was more 
 perfectly known to, and present to, the 
 eternal mind, at the very moment when 
 the Saviour said, “ Him that cometh 
 unto me, I will in no wise cast out,” 
 than it is at this moment known to 
 yourself. Observe only the particu- 
 larity of the promise ; although our 
 Lord began the sentence by saying, 
 “ All that the Father giveth,” He 
 changes the person in that portion of 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 243 
 
 it which he intended especially to apply 
 to the sinner’s heart, and says, not 
 “Them that come,’’ hut, “him that 
 cometh that no man, no woman, no 
 child, might feel excluded. However 
 disposed, therefore, you may he to 
 dread, lest your own case should form 
 an exception, be assured that there is 
 not the slightest real or scriptural 
 ground for it, for from such an invi- 
 tation, so expressed, by Him who was 
 perfect wisdom and truth, as well as 
 perfect love, there is not, there cannot 
 be, throughout all the generations of 
 Adam, one living soul necessarily ex- 
 cluded. All who come, and each who 
 comes, shall he alike received and alike 
 welcomed. But it is not only to the 
 unbeliever, seeking a refuge and a home, 
 that these words speak such powerful 
 consolation ; there is no single point in 
 the Christian’s journey, from his first 
 approach to a Saviour, to his final con- 
 summation in that Saviour’s glory, to 
 
244 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 which they have not ministered con- 
 tentment and peace. One of the most 
 faithful followers of the Saviour with 
 whom I have ever been privileged to 
 hold communion here below,® assured 
 me, after years of close and devoted 
 fellowship with his Lord, that there 
 were hours upon a bed of sickness in 
 which, every other text throughout the 
 sacred volume, appeared to fail him, and 
 he was sustained by this alone. Won- 
 derful peculiarity of the bread of life, 
 that the same portion which can nourish 
 the child just struggling into spiritual 
 existence, can maintain the full-grown 
 man, and strengthen the soldier of the 
 cross, in the fiercest hours of his closing 
 conflict ! Are there any among you who 
 are ever tempted in the days of sickness 
 or affliction, to fear, that though you 
 once had hope in Christ, you possess an 
 interest in Him no longer ? In the 
 
 o The late truly pious, and highly intellectual Rev. 
 John Sargeant, the biographer of Henry Martyn. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 245 
 
 words before you, you also may find 
 peace ; they tell you, though you may 
 be cast down, though you may even 
 for a season appear to be cast off, that 
 you never shall be cast out. “ I will in 
 no wise cast out.” Again, Do you at 
 such seasons fear that you have never 
 had a saving interest in the Lord Jesus, 
 that you have never yet really come to 
 Him? It is often vain to contradict 
 such an assertion, though it he false. 
 Acknowledge, therefore, that it is the 
 fact, that you have never yet closed with 
 the offers of salvation, and we still re- 
 peat the invitation, ‘Come to Him, now.’ 
 Apply this text to your heart, as if for 
 the first time, and even so coming. His 
 word is still the same, and never can be 
 falsified ; “ Him that cometh to me, I 
 will in no wise cast out.” Time would 
 fail me, were I to attempt to dilate upon 
 all the powers of this wonder-working 
 passage. True it is, that our Lord 
 afterwards subjoins, “ No man can come 
 
246 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 to me, except the Father which hath 
 sent me draw him,”’’ because it is not, 
 it has never been, it can never be, “ of 
 him that willeth, or of him that runneth, 
 but of God that sheweth mercy,”'* that 
 all the praise and all the glory may 
 flow back to that eternal fountain of 
 love, where all is due. But this closes 
 not the door, this narrows not the 
 entrance. We dare not suppress 
 these words of our Lord, because we 
 are bound to “ declare unto you the 
 whole counsel of God”^ and it might 
 be said, that in speaking of the un- 
 fettered freeness of the invitations of 
 the Saviour, in declaring that all are 
 invited, that all might come, we feared 
 to acknowledge the absolute necessity of 
 the divine drawing. We would not 
 knowingly suppress one line of gospel 
 truth ; for however difficult or contra- 
 dictory it may appear to our limited 
 comprehension now, we are sure that 
 
 P John vi. 44. ^ Romans ix. 16. ^ Acts xx 27. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 247 
 
 every word of God will one day be fully 
 verified. Receive, therefore, the pro- 
 mise of the text, even coupled with this, 
 which some men denominate a restric- 
 tion ; but before you term it so, fairly 
 examine the passage, and see if it deserve 
 the name. Do not look at it by the 
 dim and feeble lamp of theological con- 
 troversy, but in the warm sunshine of 
 gospel truth, and of personal experience. 
 
 We ask, then, of every individual 
 beneath this roof, the simple question, 
 Have you never, by your own expe- 
 rience, felt the meaning of our Lord’s 
 declaration, “No man can come to me, 
 except the Father which hath sent me 
 draw him? Has the Father never 
 drawn you ? We might almost be 
 content to rest the answer upon the 
 events even of the present hour. Have 
 you felt no desire, no passing inclination, 
 since you have been within these walls 
 to-day, while hearing of a Saviour’s 
 love, and of a Saviour’s promises, to 
 
248 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 be yourself a participator in these 
 blessings ? Has not even this transi- 
 tory feeling passed across your soul ? 
 ‘ Could they be mine without an effort, 
 how gladly should I be a partaker.’ 
 If, then, nothing more than this, the 
 least, the faintest trace of all that I 
 am describing, has been yours, even 
 you can never say, I could not come 
 to Christ, for the Father would not 
 draw me thither. No, be assured that 
 even you, on the last great day, if 
 you reject these offers, resist this 
 drawing, will, with every other impe- 
 nitent unbeliever, be left speechless 
 and without excuse ; for I shall not 
 hesitate here to record, that the more 
 I search God’s holy word, the more 
 I dwell upon His perfect character, 
 the more I hold communion with Him 
 whose name is love, the more entirely 
 am I convinced, that there is no soul 
 born into the world to whom the 
 strivings of God’s Spirit come not; 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 249 
 
 that there is no individual upon earth, 
 whom the Father draws not, with such 
 a degree of sweetness and of power, 
 that he might come to Him, who, if he 
 came, “ would in no wise cast him out.” 
 
 My brethren, these are high, and 
 holy, and heavenly mysteries ; myste- 
 ries which I cannot explain, because I 
 cannot understand or fathom them ; 
 apparent contradictions which I am 
 unable to reconcile ; difficulties which I 
 cannot comprehend, and which, while 
 on earth, I am content to believe to 
 be inexplicable. It is easy to form 
 a system that should cut the knot 
 which it is impossible to unravel; to 
 say at once, as many hold men, and 
 many good men have not scrupled to 
 say, Christ died for none but the elect, 
 God draws none but the elect, and 
 therefore, none but the elect can come 
 to Jesus ; it is easy, by taking a 
 partial view of divine truth, and then 
 drawing our own deductions, to arrive 
 
•250 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 at such tremendous simplicity as this, 
 and thus to hold one complete and 
 perfect system. But this I cannot do, 
 for I declare, as in the presence of 
 God this day, that it is my full convic- 
 tion, that there is no human system, 
 whether it be Calvinism, or Arminianism, 
 which I have ever seen, could bear 
 to be placed side by side with the 
 heavenly truth of God’s almighty word, 
 and would long run parallel with 
 it. Perplex not yourselves, therefore, 
 with man’s inventions, but draw your 
 wisdom, your hope, your guidance, at 
 once from Christ, your living Head. 
 There is enough, without the incum- 
 bering aid of human systems, in His 
 divine word, for time and for eternity. 
 All has one object and one end; all 
 points to Christ the Saviour of the 
 world, and through Him, by the eternal 
 Spirit, to the Father. All clearly, and 
 unanswerably demonstrates this, that 
 while the salvation of the sinner must 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 251 
 
 originate in, be carried on, and per- 
 fected through the sovereign and un- 
 deserved love of God in Christ Jesus 
 our Lord, the condemnation of the 
 sinner shall be all his own, wrought 
 out by his own corruptions, and per- 
 fected and sealed by his own obstinacy 
 and perverseness. 
 
 The effect of the discourse of our 
 Lord, which we have this day . been 
 considering, is thus recorded by the 
 evangelist, “ Many of His disciples, 
 when they heard this, said, this is an 
 hard saying, who can hear it And 
 “from that time many of His disciples 
 went back, and walked no more with 
 Him.” Strange, indeed, if we knew 
 not, alas ! too well, the insufferable 
 pride of the human heart, that such 
 should be the effect of truth, even 
 when spoken by the God of truth 
 Himself. Watch carefully over your 
 own hearts, my brethren, that it pro- 
 
 s John vi. 60. 
 
252 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 duce no such baneful fruits in you. 
 You may avoid the hearing of painful 
 or of humbling truths, you may reject 
 the reception of them, but their truth 
 you cannot shake, their strength you 
 are unable to invalidate ; and, though 
 you may close your ears or your hearts 
 to them, throughout a long life here 
 on earth, remember there is an eternity 
 awaiting you, to be employed in re- 
 joicing in the happiness which these 
 truths shall bring, or in ' for ever 
 cursing the hour when you heard, but 
 heeded them not. 
 
 “ Then said Jesus unto the twelve. 
 Will ye also go away? Then Simon 
 Peter answered Him, Lord, to whom 
 shall we go ? Thou hast the words of 
 eternal life.” ‘ 
 
 May this be the feeling and the 
 decision to which, by the Spirit of God, 
 all hearts here present may this day 
 be brought. May no individual, who 
 
 t John vi. 67. 
 
LECTURE VI, 
 
 253 
 
 bas attended upon these means of 
 grace, during the present season, refuse 
 to echo back from his heart those 
 affecting words, “Lord, to whom” else 
 shall I go ?”“ The world cannot save 
 me ; even God Himself will not receive 
 me; unless I first go unto Thee, O 
 Lord, the great propitiation, the hea- 
 venly Intercessor, the alone Saviour of 
 my soul, “ Thou hast the words of 
 eternal life O speak, then, with such 
 divine power and energy to my dying 
 soul, that I may by faith, “eat the 
 flesh of the Son of man, and drink 
 His blood,”'' and have eternal life ; and 
 be raised up at the last day. And 
 may God of His infinite mercy hear, 
 and answer, and fulfil the petition for 
 you, for me, and for all, for His dear 
 Son’s sake, Jesus Christ. 
 
 « John vi. 68. ▼ John vi. 53. 
 
 M. PART IL C. 
 
THE 
 
 HISTORY OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR 
 JESUS CHRIST; 
 
 FROM THE THIRD TO THE FOURTH PASSOVER IN OUR 
 LORD’S MINISTRY. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
257 
 
 LECTURE L 
 
 Matthew xv. 28 . 
 
 THEN JESUS ANSWERED AND SAID UNTO HER, O WOMAN, 
 GREAT IS THY FAITH; BE IT UNTO THEE EVEN 
 THOU WILT, AND HER DAUGHTER WAS MADE WHOLE 
 FROM THAT VERY HOUR. 
 
 The present section of the life in which 
 we are engaged, commences with the 
 beginning of the third year of the 
 ministry of our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
 Christ. Two of these important periods 
 have been already considered from this 
 place ; the last and most interesting 
 is yet before us. Never did we apply 
 ourselves to the task with deeper feelings 
 of our inability to do it justice, than 
 
258 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 at the present moment; never with a 
 stronger conviction of entire reliance 
 upon the strength, and teaching, and 
 guidance of that blessed Being of whom 
 we are to speak ; and we may add, 
 never with a more humiliating sense 
 of our great need of your forbearance 
 and your prayers. 
 
 Brethren, pray for us, that what is 
 spoken in our infirmity, may be made 
 perfect in His strength, who delights 
 to glorify Himself by the weakness of 
 means, the feebleness of instruments, 
 the inadequacy of all secondary causes, 
 that the Lord alone may be exalted, 
 and that “ the excellency of the power 
 may be of God, and not of man.” 
 
 The first incident in the third year 
 of our Lord’s ministry, is recorded both 
 by St. Matthew and St. Mark, in the 
 fifteenth chapter of the former, and 
 the seventh of the latter, in the details 
 of the conversation between our divine 
 Master and the Pharisees, upon the 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 259 
 
 subject of eating “bread with defiled 
 (i. e. to say, with unwashen) hands,” and 
 “ the washing of cups and pots, brazen 
 vessels, and of tables in short, upon 
 all those ceremonial observances which 
 the Pharisees, rejecting the command- 
 ment of God, had invented for the 
 purpose of establishing a religion of 
 externals, in the place of that which 
 purifies and regulates the heart. This 
 creed of the Pharisees has been, in 
 every age, the religion of nature, and 
 is not unknown even in countries where 
 the pure light of Christianity shines 
 the most resplendently. As long as it 
 is easier to occupy ourselves in ex- 
 ternal observances, than to improve in 
 holiness ; to perform a ceremony, than 
 to fulfil a duty, or to correct an evil 
 habit or temper; so long will men in 
 all ages, and under all dispensations, 
 be liable to fall victims to the temp- 
 tation of preferring the outward signs 
 of religion to its inward and spiritual 
 
260 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 grace ; so long, even among Christians, 
 will ordinances be attended, and cere- 
 monies valued, for their own sakes, 
 rather than, as they ought to be, for 
 their effects in the promotion of true 
 and vital godliness in the life and 
 conversation. 
 
 We might almost imagine that the 
 incident which occurred next in order 
 of time to the conversation we have 
 referred to, had been selected by the 
 evangelists, and placed in juxta-position 
 with it, for the purpose of marking by 
 its contrast, the high estimation in 
 which a single spark of divine grace 
 is held by that God, who forms His 
 estimate of every action, by the state 
 of the heart from which it springs, 
 and who, while He despises the most 
 elaborate ceremonies of man’s invention, 
 delights in the smallest seed of spiritual 
 life, which is sown by Himself. 
 
 “Jesus went thence, and departed 
 into the coasts,” or rather into the 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 261 
 
 confines, “ of Tyre and Sidon,” and 
 “ entered into a house, and would have 
 no man know it, but He could not be 
 hid ; for behold, a woman of Canaan, 
 whose young daughter had an unclean 
 spirit, heard of Him, and came out of 
 the same coasts, and cried unto Him, 
 saying. Have mercy on me, 0 Lord, 
 thou Son of David, my daughter is 
 grievously vexed with a devil.” “ She 
 is called by St. Mark a Syrophoenician, 
 the more usual name of part of ancient 
 Canaan; and a Greek, the general ex- 
 pression for a Gentile. 
 
 The reason for which our blessed 
 Lord desired especially at this season 
 to retire from the observation of men, 
 and would have none made acquainted 
 with the place of His retreat, is not 
 revealed to us. Perhaps the only cause 
 for which any reference at all is made 
 to the fact of His concealment, may 
 be simply to show the strength of 
 
 ^ Mark vii. 24. 
 
 M. 2. PART II. 
 
262 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 maternal tenderness, as manifested in 
 the remarkable person to whom the 
 incident refers. She had at home a 
 daughter, who was the subject of 
 demoniacal possession ; and secret as our 
 Lord’s retirement might have been, 
 and hidden as it was from the eyes of 
 others, it could not escape the anxious 
 searchings of a mother’s love, perhaps 
 the most powerful feeling by which the 
 human heart is ever influenced. 
 
 This, at once, engages us on behalf 
 of the applicant; we know that she 
 is a parent and in sorrow ; we are 
 not ignorant of the merciful Being 
 with whom she had to do ; and we feel 
 an immediate interest in the result of 
 her petition. But then, there is a 
 feature in her history, of which we 
 have not yet thought, and which has 
 pertained to none other that we have 
 yet considered. She was a Gentile, all 
 other applicants had been Jews ; she 
 was of the accursed race of Canaan, 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 263 
 
 whose lives had been given to the 
 sword of the Israelites, by the express 
 command of God himself. She had, there- 
 fore, no title to the covenanted mercies 
 of God, which had been signed and 
 sealed only for them, “ to whom pertained 
 the adoption, and the glory, and the 
 covenants,”'’ even to the believing chil- 
 dren of the faithful Abraham. This 
 consideration throws some doubt upon 
 the success of her mission, and increases 
 our anxiety to see the end. She ad- 
 dresses the Saviour so confidently and 
 so appropriately, that we feel, at once, 
 this can be no common case. “She 
 cried unto Him, saying, Have mercy 
 on me, 0 Lord, thou Son of David.”' 
 Whence, as a Gentile, had she learnt, 
 thus rightly, to know the genealogy 
 of the Messiah? and who had taught 
 her to apply it to this obscure Stranger, 
 who was now concealing Himself in 
 the most remote corner of Canaan, 
 
 ^ Romans ix. 4 . c Matthew xv. 22. 
 
264 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 and to whom, so many far better read 
 in scripture than herself, had denied 
 the title ? How easy to make the in- 
 quiry, how impossible to answer it ! 
 Perhaps, like Cornelius and Lydia, her 
 heart had been opened, by God, to 
 receive the knowledge of Himself ; 
 perhaps, surrounded by the debasing 
 errors of a most foul and polluting idol- 
 atry, she alone had faithful been, among 
 the faithless, and in many a silent 
 hour, had dwelt upon the sacred page 
 of Revelation, and meditated upon 
 David’s root and David’s branch, until, 
 like Simeon, she had been taught of 
 God, to wait in prayer and hope, for 
 “the consolation of Israel.” There is 
 nothing improbable in the conjecture ; 
 so far from it, that if it be not true, 
 we know not whence she could have 
 derived a knowledge so correctly scrip- 
 tural, or how she could, thus rightlyy 
 have addressed the Saviour of the 
 world. 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 26& 
 
 We turn from the suppliant to the 
 merciful Being, to whom she spake, 
 and how great is our surprise, when 
 we are told, “but He answered her 
 not a word.” How unlike the accus- 
 tomed kindness of our Lord! We 
 have seen Him eating and drinking 
 with publicans and sinners, and reply- 
 ing ■ to their inquiries. We have seen 
 Him seated by the side of the well, 
 in deeply instructive converse with a 
 Samaritan harlot. None so low, none 
 so ignorant, none so guilty ; but He 
 had words, and words of kindness and 
 instruction, for them all. But here He 
 was silent : nay, even His own dis- 
 ciples, who were not wont to feel more 
 tenderly, or more readily than their 
 Master, on this occasion appear, almost, 
 as if they had exchanged natures with 
 Him. They cannot hear that mother’s 
 voice, unmoved ; and while Jesus is deaf 
 to her entreaties, they take up her cause 
 and intercede with Him, “ Send her away. 
 
266 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 for she crieth after us yield to her 
 requests, heal her daughter, for it is 
 wretched, thus to listen to her reiterated 
 supplications. This, indeed, induces the 
 Saviour, for the first time, to break 
 silence, but it is in words more painful 
 to the mourner, than the most obdurate 
 silence could have been. “ He answered 
 and said, I am not sent, but unto the 
 lost sheep of the house of Israel a 
 refusal apparently the sternest, and the 
 harshest, that ever passed the Saviour’s 
 lips. Now mark its effects upon the 
 applicant. Does it drive her from Him ? 
 Does it send her away in despair? No, 
 it brings her immediately to His feet. 
 “ Then came she and worshipped Him, 
 saying. Lord, help me.” Blessed proof 
 that the heart is right with God, when 
 every mark of His chastening, every 
 infliction of His love, only draws us 
 the more closely to Himself. “ As for 
 the ungodly, it is not so with them ; 
 but they are like the chaff which the 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 267 
 
 wind scattereth away from the face of 
 the earth.” ^ Every breath of God’s 
 chastening being to them as the blast 
 of His displeasure, and driving them 
 but the farther from the presence of 
 His glory. 
 
 O that the language of our hearts 
 may be, in the words of one of God’s 
 people of old, “ When the flail of 
 affliction is upon me, let me not be 
 as the chaff which flies in thy face, but 
 as the grain which lies at thy feet.” 
 That it was so with the Canaanitish 
 woman, is evident from the story ; she 
 who had followed, at a distance, during 
 our Lord’s forbidding silence, only drew 
 the nearer in consequence of His more 
 forbidding reply. “ Lord help me,” con- 
 tains the whole of her desires ; she was 
 willing to leave both the measure and 
 the manner of the help, to Him of 
 whom she asked it. She has told Him 
 of her case, and she believes that He 
 
 “ Psalm i. 5. 
 
268 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 is too good, too skilful a Physician to 
 need a syllable beyond the one short 
 sentence, by which she places it unhesi- 
 tatingly in His hands, to deal with it 
 as seemeth Him best. 
 
 It is a blessed thing, brethren, when 
 in an hour of anxiety, we are content 
 thus to place a blank in the hands of 
 God, with sufficient confidence in His 
 wisdom, and in His love, to feel assured 
 that He will fill it wisely and tenderly ; 
 to cry from the dictate of a simple faith, 
 “ Lord, help me,’^ and to be content, 
 although that help come in far different 
 guise, from what we looked for. But 
 the trial of this poor suppliant was not 
 yet over. Jesus knew that he had to 
 deal with a disciple, whose faith was 
 of the highest order, and, therefore. He 
 hesitates not to put it to the severest 
 test. Throughout all Scripture, we 
 read but of one who was dignified with 
 the title of the Father of the faithful; 
 and throughout all Scripture, we never 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 269 
 
 read of a second, who was commanded 
 to sacrifice an only Son. “Jesus an- 
 swered 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 master’s table.” ^ 
 
 How invincible a faith, what won- 
 derful perseverance, what deep humility. 
 The Saviour could not cast her lower 
 than she was well content to cast her- 
 self. No term of reproach that He 
 could apply to her, which she was not 
 most willing to accept, and from which 
 she could not gather argument for His 
 mercy. Even the very depth of her 
 degradation, only forms a stronger plea 
 for the extension of His love. If a dog, 
 then still one of the household; with 
 no title indeed to the children’s bread, 
 but with a stronger claim upon the 
 crumbs, than one more distant, though 
 less degraded. 
 
 f Matthew xv. 26, 27. 
 
270 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 Does any one among you feel himself 
 to be, at this moment, so far from God, 
 that the rays of Divine mercy have 
 not yet travelled down through so great 
 a distance ; an alien, an outcast, a sinner, 
 yea, the very chief of sinners ; and 
 shall this conviction stop your cry for 
 mercy, and render you incompetent to 
 pray ? No, take encouragement from 
 this Gentile woman ; make the very 
 depth of your degradation a plea with 
 God, for the out-pouring of His mercy. 
 He has bread for children, but are 
 there no crumbs for dogs? Yes, be 
 assured, that if under the old dispen- 
 sation, confessedly one of severity, there 
 was still, after the family and the house- 
 hold had been fed, bread enough and 
 to spare, even for the dogs of the flock ; 
 under the gracious dispensation beneath 
 which we live, far more than this may 
 reasonably be expected ; not only that 
 the dogs shall be fed, but that none 
 are so unclean, none so separate from 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 271 
 
 God, but that, if they seek it, they 
 shall receive cleansing, and food, and 
 raiment, and reconciliation, and adop- 
 tion. Only ask in faith, nothing wa- 
 vering, and you shall have more than 
 crumbs, you shall feed fully upon Him 
 who declared, “ I am the bread of life,” 
 and of whom if a man eat, he shall 
 live for ever, 
 
 “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.”^ Here we behold the 
 Saviour once more in His own true 
 and blessed character: painful as His 
 reserve and unkindness must have been 
 to this poor woman, we can readily 
 believe, that they were more painful 
 to Himself. Perfectly as He knew that 
 her faith, though it were “ tried with 
 fire,” would be found unto praise, and 
 honour, and glory, we cannot do ubt 
 
 & Matthew xv. 28. 
 
272 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 although no such symptom is to be 
 seen in the narrative, that He who thus 
 for a short time placed her in the 
 furnace, deeply sympathised with the 
 sufferer. As the heart of the surgeon 
 cannot but feel, although his hand will 
 not tremble while he is probing the 
 deepest and severest wound. 
 
 Had we been present at the close 
 of this instructive scene, our language 
 of commendation would perhaps have 
 differed widely from our Lord’s ; we 
 should have said, O woman, great is 
 thy humility, great is thy patience under 
 rebukes and disappointments, great is 
 thy perseverance in prayer: He con- 
 tented Himself with the commendation 
 of a single grace, and that, hot the most 
 obvious, when He said, “Great is thy 
 faith.” While men only see the fruit 
 and the branches, Christ sees and ap- 
 plauds the root from which they spring. 
 It is faith alone which can put the 
 crown upon the head of the Redeemer, 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 273 
 
 and therefore, of all the graces which 
 can occupy the heart, faith is pre- 
 eminently that which “ the King de- 
 lighteth to honour.” 
 
 It is profitable to dwell upon these 
 instances of the Saviour’s dealings with 
 His people, while on earth, because they 
 form, as it were, epitomes of His trans- 
 actions with them, even now while in 
 the kingdom of His glory. Let us, then, 
 for the purpose of strengthening our 
 faith, and increasing our love to Jesus, 
 take as close a parallel as possible to 
 the incident before us. I address, it 
 may be, at this moment, some Christian 
 parent, whose heart for years has bled 
 over the wayward, the ungodly, conduct 
 of a beloved child. You have made 
 that child the subject of many an ear- 
 nest and secret prayer, and yet no 
 answer of peace has descended upon 
 your soul. God has been silent ; the 
 Lord J esus Christ has been silent ; the 
 Comforter has been silent. Like the 
 
274 ' 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 disciples of old, Christian friends and 
 ministers have interceded for you, 
 “Lord, send her away,” answered and 
 contented. Still the answer comes not ; 
 or, if it come, it seems in anger, rather 
 than in mercy, and the increasingly 
 devious course of the child, for whom 
 you pray, is to you a more severe and 
 agonizing reply, than the harshest an- 
 swer to the Canaanite. And now you 
 are tempted to despond; you cannot 
 believe that there is mercy yet in store 
 for you. How often does the Christian 
 parent need a lesson from this Gentile 
 mother ! All this is but the trial of 
 your faith : because your Lord sees that 
 it is strong, and loves to exercise it ; 
 or because He knows that it is weak, 
 and desires to strengthen it: but be 
 assured, whatever be the motive, from 
 which He has thus troubled you, it 
 cannot be to make you cease from 
 desiring that which is so evidently for 
 God’s glory, but to make you pursue 
 
LECTURE 1 . 
 
 275 
 
 it with greater faith, with more una- 
 bated energy, with more unwearied 
 prayer. In \he end, you shall reap, if 
 you faint not ; for we can scarcely 
 imagine that God ever refuses a crying 
 child who makes the honour of his 
 heavenly Father the limit of his prayer, 
 and desires to ask according to the will 
 of God. But then, brethren, in this, 
 and in all other Christian trials, you 
 need, what Christ declared that the Syro- 
 phoenician possessed, a “great faith.” 
 Little faith, we grant, will save you, if 
 it be but genuine ; but little faith will 
 never enable you to bear up under great 
 trials, under severe and accumulated 
 disappointments, and against even the 
 Lord Himself, when He contendeth with 
 you. It was this which so peculiarly 
 set the stamp of value upon the faith 
 of the Canaanitish woman ; it was this 
 which distinguished the prophet of old 
 above his brethren, and enabled him to 
 say, “Although the fig tree shall not 
 
§76 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 blossom, neither shall fruit be in the 
 vines ; the labour of the olive shall fail, 
 and the fields shall yield no meat ; the 
 flock shall be cut off from the fold, and 
 there shall be no herd in the stalls, yet 
 I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy 
 in the God of my salvation.” No faith, 
 but a great faith, could have prompted 
 this ; as none other could have taught 
 the patriarch Job to exclaim, “ Though 
 He slay me, yet will I trust Him,” Be 
 content, then, with nothing less than 
 " great faith,” the only stock upon 
 which great humility and great endu- 
 rance, great holiness and great love, 
 will ever grow. 
 
 The miracle which we have been 
 considering was followed by others, 
 so numerous and so astonishing, that 
 we are told “the multitude wondered 
 when they saw the dumb to speak, the 
 maimed to be whole, the lame to walk, 
 and the blind to see, and they glorified 
 the God of Israel.”*" Then Jesus called 
 
 ^ Matthew XV. 31. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 277 
 
 His disciples unto Him, and said, “ I 
 have compassion on the multitude, be- 
 cause they continue with me now three 
 days, and have nothing to eat,” — not 
 intending to imply that they had fasted 
 during three days ; but that now, on 
 the third day, their provisions were 
 exhausted. “ I will not send them away 
 fasting,” continues our Lord, “ lest they 
 faint in the way. And his disciples 
 say unto Him, Whence should we have 
 so much bread in the wilderness as to 
 fill so great a multitude?”* But what 
 was impossible to the servant, presented 
 no difficulty to the Master. “Jesus 
 saith unto them. How many loaves have 
 ye ? And they said. Seven, and a few 
 little fishes. And He commanded the 
 multitude to sit down on the ground. 
 And He took the seven loaves and the 
 fishes, and gave thanks, and brake them, 
 and gave to His disciples, and the dis- 
 ciples to the multitude. And they did 
 
 i Matthew xv. 32, 33. 
 
 N. PART II. C. 
 
278 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 all eat, and were filled ; and they took 
 up of the broken meat that was left, 
 seven baskets full. And they that did 
 eat were four thousand men, beside 
 women and children.” 
 
 Brethren, we rejoice that, needing 
 as we do, at the present moment, every 
 encouragement, so stupendous an in- 
 stance of our Redeemer’s power and 
 love, should occur thus at the com- 
 mencement of our present labours. We 
 desire to see in it an omen for good, 
 upon the course of spiritual instruction 
 on which we have this day entered. 
 We would pray for you and for our- 
 selves, for the same faith here mani- 
 fested by the multitude and by the 
 disciples — for you, that you may, like 
 those of whom we have just read, 
 come as the followers of Jesus ; that 
 you may come in the spirit of depend- 
 ance and prayer ; expecting a spiritual 
 feast, hut not from man ; that you may 
 sit down, like the multitude, without 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 279 
 
 questioning the power of Him who is 
 to provide the food, and in the fullest, 
 firmest belief, that it shall be provided, 
 and that an unseen hand shall convey 
 it into your souls ; and for ourselves, 
 that we may “take courage,” though 
 the numbers to be fed be large and 
 the provision scanty, though we shall 
 be often tempted despondingly to ask, 
 whence shall we find “ so much bread 
 as to fill so great a multitude ?” Though 
 we have no stores of our own from 
 which to furnish forth a table in the 
 wilderness, yet that our Lord will suffer 
 none who hunger and thirst after 
 righteousness, to “faint by the way,’’ 
 through our inability to feed them. 
 No, we are constrained to believe that 
 He who in breaking the seven loaves, 
 so multiplied them in the hands of 
 the disciples, that they became suste- 
 nance for four thousand people, will still 
 be present to stand between our poverty 
 and your necessity ; and as that merciful 
 
280 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 Being alone can bless the meal, so will 
 He Himself provide the bread ; and 
 while he gives it into our hands to 
 distribute to you, will, of His abundant 
 mercy, take care that every one who 
 hungers shall be fed, and that all who 
 are fed shall be filled. 
 
281 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 John vii. 37. 
 
 IN THE LAST DAY, THAT GREAT DAY OF THE FEAST, 
 JESUS STOOD AND CRIED, SAYING, IF ANY MAN 
 THIRST, LET HIM COiME UNTO ME, AND DRINK. 
 
 After the miraclous feeding of the four 
 thousand persons with the seven loaves, 
 our Lord entered into a ship and went 
 into the parts of Dalmanutha ; thence, 
 having made a circuit through the 
 villages of Caesarea Philippi, and so- 
 journed some time in Galilee, He 
 returned to Capernaum. During this 
 journey the remarkable conversation 
 with St. Peter occurred, when that 
 apostle, instructed by no human teacher, 
 
282 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 pronounced cur Lord to be, not merely 
 “ the Christ,” but “ the Son of the 
 living God and for this confession 
 of the divinity of the Saviour, reeeived 
 the peculiar blessing of his Master. 
 Six days after, our Lord vouchsafed 
 that astonishing manifestation of Him- 
 self upon Mount Tabor, which has 
 usually been termed His transfiguration ; 
 when with Moses and Elijah, He ap- 
 peared before the astonished eyes of 
 Peter, James, and John, in that glorified 
 body, in which he shall, probably, one 
 day, manifest Himself to assembled 
 worlds. 
 
 Having, upon a former occasion, ' 
 spoken fully upon these instructive 
 incidents, we shall pass on to the 
 next event, in the life of our divine 
 Saviour. We find, then, that after 
 having commissioned the seventy dis- 
 ciples, and “ sent them two and two' 
 
 ^ Matthew xvi. 16. 
 
 1 In the 4th Lecture on '' The History of St. Peter/* 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 283 
 
 before His face into every city and 
 place whither He Himself would 
 come/’ He is again about to go up 
 to Jerusalem, to attend the feast of 
 Tabernacles.” 
 
 The origin of this feast is to be 
 found in the 24th chapter of Leviticus, 
 where we read, “In the fifteenth day 
 of the seventh month,” “ye shall keep 
 a feast unto the Lord, seven days. 
 And ye shall take you, on the first day, 
 the boughs of goodly trees, branches 
 of palm trees, and the boughs of thick 
 trees, and willows of the brook, and 
 ye shall rejoice before the Lord your 
 God, seven days.” “ It shall be a 
 statute for ever in your generations.” 
 “Ye shall dwell in booths seven days ; 
 all that are Israelites born shall dwell 
 in booths.” And, then is added, the 
 remarkable reason for this most appro- 
 priate festival, “ That your generations 
 may know that I made the children of 
 
 ^ John vii. 2. 
 
284 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 Israel to dwell in booths, when I 
 brought them out of the land of 
 Egypt.”- 
 
 This festival was most scrupulously 
 observed by all the pious Jews ; and 
 although, when they had built them- 
 selves cities, and dwelt therein, the 
 observance must have been attended 
 with considerable trouble and incon- 
 venience, we are told by the Jewish 
 writers," that it was by no means 
 discontinued, but that arbours were 
 made on the flat roofs of their houses, 
 and in their court yards, and in the 
 streets ; and that during the seven 
 days of the continuance of this festival, 
 the Jews left their houses empty, and 
 removed their furniture into these 
 tabernacles, and dwelt in them en- 
 tirely. 
 
 To this feast, the brethren of our 
 Lord, according to the flesh, but who 
 w’ere evidently not converted by the 
 
 ^ Leviticus xKiii. 43. ^ See also Neheraiah viii 14—18. 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 285 
 
 Spirit, — for “neither did His brethren 
 believe in Him,” — now urged Him to 
 repair. For the present. He declined 
 following their advice ; but after they 
 had departed, “then went He also up 
 unto the feast, not openly, but, as it 
 were, in secret.” 
 
 During the three first days of the 
 feast, our Lord, in all probability, 
 mingled silently with His fellow- 
 worshippers unnoticed ; but “ about the 
 middle of the feast,” says St. John, 
 “Jesus went up into the temple, and 
 taught.” Every day, during that feast, 
 a certain number of oxen were sacri- 
 ficed to God, the temple was crowded 
 with worshippers, and at night richly 
 illuminated ; as were the thousand ar- 
 bours, which glittered like stars over 
 the face of the city; while, doubtless, 
 these outward demonstrations of pious 
 and holy gratitude, in many cases, 
 sprang from hearts filled with a real, 
 
 P John vii. 10. 
 
 N 2. PART II.. 
 
286 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 fervent love to Him, whose mercies to 
 their forefathers they thus recorded ; 
 and, perhaps, not a few, who were 
 ardently longing to see again the 
 stranger whom they had met with, 
 when, a few months before, they had 
 come up to the Passover, the sound of 
 whose voice still lingered on their ear, 
 while “the gracious words which pro- 
 ceeded out of His mouth,” had never 
 since departed from their hearts. 
 
 These expectations were fulfilled ; 
 for, as we have just read, Jesus again 
 “ taught in the temple,” openly, publicly, 
 and amidst the thousands that resorted 
 thither. Struck with the solemn and 
 heart-awakening words which He ut- 
 tered, — for “ never man spake like this 
 man,” — His audience, many of them, 
 probably, simple-minded people from the 
 distant parts of Judea, since all assem- 
 bled at the feast, began to experience 
 great astonishment, and exclaim, “ How 
 knoweth this man letters, having never 
 learned ?” 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 287 
 
 I know not why it should be con- 
 sidered, as it usually is, that there was 
 anything invidious in the observation ; 
 it seems to be the natural expression 
 of surprise from those, who, judging 
 of the station in life of the speaker, 
 by His appearance, and concluding that 
 He had enjoyed few outward advantages, 
 felt astonishment, that He should teach 
 so wisely, and so well. The answer 
 of our Lord rather appears to corro- 
 borate this opinion; He replied', “My 
 doctrine is not mine, but His that sent 
 me.” ‘Are you astonished at its sub- 
 limity, at its wisdom, at its excellency 
 and power? 1 refer you from myself 
 to God, it is not mine alone, but His ; 
 and I receive it, as man, from the 
 Eternal Father.’ Invaluable model, at 
 all times, for the Christian Minister ; 
 by it he may learn to refer his hearers, 
 from himself, to Him that sent him ; 
 to carry them back, at once to the 
 source, even to the Lord Jesus, to God 
 
LECTUKE II. 
 
 Himself. Brethren, do you value the 
 truths you hear from this place? they 
 are not our’s, but God’s. Does any 
 word here spoken, ever come home 
 with power to your heart, as a word 
 of warning, or of encouragement, or of 
 comfort? here again, it is not our’s, 
 but God’s ; all the “ excellency and the 
 power” are of Him, and “ to Him be 
 all the praise, and all the glory.” 
 
 Our Lord continues, “ If any man 
 will do His will, he shall know of the 
 doctrine, whether it be of God, or whe- 
 ther I speak of myself.” How truly 
 encouraging must this declaration have 
 been, to persons such as we have reason 
 to believe, at this time surrounded the 
 Saviour of the world ; men who, per- 
 haps with the exception of the three 
 yearly festivals, which brought them up 
 to the great city, were continually em- 
 ployed in agriculture, or in the humble 
 but engrossing occupations of life, to 
 some one or other of which every Jew' 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 289 
 
 was educated ; and who had, there- 
 fore, but very transient opportunities 
 of ascertaining the all-important fact, 
 whether this were indeed the Christ, the 
 Saviour of the world. However well 
 read they might be in “ all that the 
 prophets had spoken,” to them it was 
 no easy task to ascertain, whether 
 they were certainly fulfilled in Jesus of 
 Nazareth, and whether He who spake 
 thus marvellously, were indeed the pro- 
 mised Messiah, the Word of God. 
 
 The comforts and encouragements 
 of the promise before us, however, were 
 never intended to be confined to the 
 Jews, assembled at that feast of taber- 
 naeles. Are there none, even in a 
 Christian country, — are there not many 
 in every congregation ? — who, if they 
 rightly understood these words, w'ould 
 bless the Saviour who delivered them, 
 for so simple, so undeviating a rule, 
 by which the poor and ignorant shall 
 understand those mysteries, which are 
 
290 
 
 LECTURE II, 
 
 hidden from the worldly wise, only that 
 they may be revealed unto babes. 
 
 Dwell, then, for a moment, upon this 
 remarkable deelaration, and carry it 
 with you as a golden rule for scriptural 
 interpretation, a never-failing key for 
 the casket of the revealed word. “ If 
 any man will do His will, he shall know 
 of the doctrine.” “ Any man not, 
 therefore, merely the wise man, or the 
 learned man, or the clever man, but 
 all, all and each, shall arrive at right 
 results upon the great and vital truths 
 of Christianity, if they but accompany 
 their search by a holy obedience to 
 God, a heartfelt endeavour to act up 
 to the degree of light which they have 
 already received. 
 
 * Do you ever, when you have engaged 
 in the reading, or when you come to 
 the preaching, of God’s word, depart 
 unedified and unconvinced, finding, it 
 may be, truths which you cannot ap- 
 preciate, doctrines which you cannot 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 291 
 
 receive or understand ? and do you 
 depart in a spirit of captious criticism, 
 to discuss, and to reason, and to “ darken 
 counsel with words ?” Brethren, this is 
 not the way to become “ mighty in the 
 Scriptures;” this is not God’s method 
 of teaching His wonderful, and difficult, 
 and life-giving doctrines. No, when 
 doubts and difficulties assail you upon any 
 of the essential lessons of Christianity, 
 first make of your own heart this deeply 
 important inquiry. Is my life regulated 
 by those truths which I already know ? 
 Is there any thing, which I have reason 
 to believe is according to the will of 
 God, which is not according to my 
 practice ? If you are compelled to 
 answer in the affirmative, then there is 
 obviously at least one stumbling-block 
 to be removed, before you can hope 
 to be made wise unto salvation. The 
 veil is not upon your eyes, but upon 
 your heart. Instead of cavilling, go 
 
292 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 home and pray. Instead of cultivating 
 a spirit of argument, strive for a spirit 
 of holiness ; you will yourself be asto- 
 nished, how exactly, in proportion as 
 you are giving up sinful practices, ques- 
 tionable pleasures, ungodly habits, and 
 advancing, as far as in you lies, in all 
 holy obedience to the commandments 
 of God, will be your' increase in the 
 knowledge of God’s revealed will, and 
 your discovery of every vital doctrine 
 of His word. Have you never ob- 
 served, on some clear night, while look- 
 ing upward at the heavens, that although 
 at first, all is obscurity, yet a little 
 while, and star after star shines out, 
 till that, which even now was utter 
 darkness, is studded over with innu- 
 merable lights ? Just so is it with the 
 firmament of God’s revealed and written 
 word ; you cannot find a portion now 
 so obscurely dark, but that to you, if 
 thus in God’s appointed way you are 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 293 
 
 content to search it, and to dwell upon 
 it, truth after truth shall be elicited, 
 until the whole of the great and glo- 
 rious scheme of man’s redemption shall 
 be laid open to your eye, and every 
 separate truth, essential to salvation, 
 shall shine out most clear and luminous 
 to your apprehension, and, by God’s 
 grace, be applied savingly to your soul. 
 Thus was it, even while the conversation 
 upon which we are commenting was 
 going forward : truth after truth was 
 manifested by Jesus unto His hearers, 
 until some were astonished, and con- 
 vinced, and converted ; and, as the 
 evangelist tells us in the thirty-first 
 verse, “Many of the people believed 
 on Him.” 
 
 No sooner did the Pharisees hear 
 this, than they resolved to expedite 
 their schemes of cruelty, and sent 
 officers at once to take Him. Then, in 
 the presence of the multitude, and even 
 of the officers themselves, our Lord 
 
294 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 thus expressed Himself ; “ Yet a little 
 while I am with you, and then I go unto 
 Him that sent me : ye shall seek me, 
 and shall not find me, and where I am, 
 thither ye cannot come. Then said the 
 Jews among themselves. Whither will 
 He go, that we shall not find Him ? 
 Will He go unto the dispersed among 
 the Gentiles, and teach the Gentiles ? 
 What manner of saying is this, that 
 He said. Ye shall seek me, and shall 
 not find me ; and where I am, thither 
 ye cannot come 
 
 Well might they ask, “ What manner 
 of saying is this ?” It was impossible 
 for spirits such as theirs to enter into 
 the meaning of such a declaration, “ Yet 
 a little while I am with you.” In the 
 very presence of the men who were 
 sent to arrest Him, our Lord speaks 
 as confidently of the time which still 
 remained for Him to continue His mi- 
 nistrations, and therefore as decidedly 
 
 » John vii. 33—36. 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 295 
 
 of the inability of His enemies to effect 
 their purpose, until His time was come, 
 as if He had been at the head of “ more 
 than the twelve legions of angels,” which 
 He declared were ready to obey His 
 summons. 
 
 “ Then I go unto Him that sent 
 me.” “ Will He go unto the dispersed 
 among the Gentiles, and teach the Gen- 
 tiles ?” asked the blind and ignorant 
 Jew ; or did He mean to speak of 
 something more than a mere journey, 
 a flight from His pursuers ? Yes, im- 
 possible as it appeared to spirits such 
 as theirs, Jesus in these few and tran- 
 quil expressions, was speaking of His 
 last removal from the presence of them 
 that hated Him ; and when He said, 
 “Yet a little while, and then I go unto 
 Him that sent me,” He had in His 
 omniscient mind, all the agony of Geth- 
 semane, and all the horrors of the cross. 
 We cannot doubt it ; and well does it 
 mark the voluntary nature of that high 
 
296 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 sacrifice, that He who was shortly to 
 be its victim, could speak thus calmly 
 of going in His own good time, and 
 not of being driven at the will of His 
 enemies, to the Father from whom He 
 came. Happy that child of God among 
 ourselves, who in the near approach of 
 the hour which is to separate him from 
 all below, can look thus peacefully for- 
 ward, and say with his ever blessed 
 Master, “ Yet a little while, and then 
 I go unto Him that sent me I am 
 but a stranger and a pilgrim here ; yet 
 a little while, and I go home. 
 
 There is, however, another lesson, 
 and a very solemn one, to be taught by 
 thesebrief sentences. Whatour Lord then 
 said to those around Him, is as literally 
 true to all. It speaks, therefore, to 
 every soul here present before God this 
 day. To each one among us, it is “ but 
 a little while” that the gospel of Christ 
 shall be preached, and the Saviour 
 Himself presented. It can but be a 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 297 
 
 little while ; life itself deserves no 
 better phrase. And how much of that 
 short space is now already over ? how 
 much had passed away, before, perhaps, 
 the Saviour was ever really olfered to 
 us in all His fulness and His love ? 
 How much is now remaining? How 
 long will He continue to “stand at 
 the door, and knock ?” “ Of the times 
 
 and the seasons knoweth no man but 
 this we know, that most certainly the 
 “little while” has become less, even 
 since we entered these doors to-day ; 
 perhaps it is aflmost wholly over, and 
 if the glass of time were now held 
 forth before our eyes, some of us might 
 almost count the grains of sand which 
 still remain, and which have yet to fall, 
 before we hear the Bridegoom’s cry ! 
 
 We have still to consider the last 
 sentence which our Lord delivered on 
 that middle day of the feast, and one 
 well calculated to find a passage to the 
 soul, “ Ye shall seek me, and shall not 
 
‘298 LECTyRE II. 
 
 find me ; and where I am, thither ye 
 cannot come.” 
 
 Brethren, if the warning note which 
 has been already struck, by the short- 
 ness of time, the nearness of eternity, 
 •‘the little while,” that Christ is with 
 you, has not reached your hearts, listen 
 but a moment to this, His still more 
 awful denunciation; “Where I am, 
 thither ye cannot come.” You do not 
 earnestly seek Him now; you never have, 
 in sincerity, and faithfulness, and prayer, 
 so sought Him ; be warned, then, of this 
 solemn truth, that it is possible to knock, 
 when there shall be none to open ; to 
 ask, when there shall be none to give ; 
 to seek, when you shall not find ; while 
 for those who desire no communion 
 with their Redeemer here; who “will 
 not have this Man to reign over” them 
 now ; it is unalterably determined, that 
 they shall never see Him in the king- 
 dom of His glory ; “ Where I am, 
 
 thither ye cannot come.” 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 299 
 
 The transactions upon which we 
 have been commenting, occurred about 
 the midst of the feast, which would be 
 the fourth day ; and as we are not 
 informed of any particulars respecting 
 our Lord on the following days, it is 
 probable that He remained in silence, 
 to avoid the persecution of the rulers. 
 But the eighth day was now approach- 
 ing, after which the multitudes would 
 again leave the metropolis, and depart 
 to their distant homes. 
 
 Jesus, whose heart still yearned over 
 those, who were putting from them the 
 word of God, and judging themselves 
 unworthy of everlasting life, resolved, 
 therefore, upon making one last effort 
 for their salvation, and offering one of 
 the freest and most blessed of His 
 promises. 
 
 Accordingly, “ on the last day, that 
 great day of the feast, Jesus stood and 
 cried, saying. If any man thirst, let 
 
300 
 
 LECTURE 11. 
 
 him come unto me, and drink,”* It is 
 impossible to imagine a season better 
 fitted for his purpose, since the law 
 declares, “On the eighth day shall be 
 
 an holy convocation unto you it 
 
 is a solemn assembly, and ye shall do 
 no servile work therein.’” Jesus would,' 
 therefore, find the assembled worshippers 
 again together ; and every servile work 
 being suspended, their number would, 
 no doubt, be greatly increased by the 
 lower orders of the city. He would 
 thus insure an opportunity of speaking 
 once more to the multitude, which 
 would, probably, never again re-assemble, 
 until it meets before His judgment-seat. 
 
 To the other ceremonies of that high 
 day, the traditions of the elders had 
 added one, which, however useless and 
 unnecessary, cannot but be pronounced 
 to have been very significant, and very 
 beautiful. A golden vessel was carried 
 down to the pool of Siloam, and having 
 
 s Verse 37. ^ Leviticus xxiii. 36. 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 301 
 
 been filled with its water, it was brought 
 back again to the temple, amidst the 
 blowing of trumpets, and the shoutings 
 of the people, and poured forth upon 
 the ascent to the altar, with great 
 ceremony and many demonstrations of 
 joy, so that it was a saying among the 
 Jews, “He that never saw the rejoicing 
 of the place of drawing of water, never 
 saw any rejoicing in his life.” 
 
 It was, then, on this day, and 
 probably at the very hour of this 
 singular ceremony, when all eyes had 
 been intent upon the mystical rite of 
 bringing up the waters of Siloam, that 
 our Lord ascended to the temple. Let 
 us for a moment place ourselves at 
 His side ; let us imagine that we see 
 Him standing on the highest point of 
 the ascent, and there looking down on 
 the assembled multitude, crying aloud 
 those words of merciful invitation, 
 which the evangelist has recorded, “ If 
 
 O. PART II. C. 
 
302 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 any man thirst, let him come unto me, 
 and drink.” 
 
 Now let us mark their effect on 
 the thousands who attended that great 
 festival. On one side, we behold a 
 crowd so intent upon the pouring forth 
 of the water, and all the outward forms 
 and ceremonies attached to it, that 
 they have not heard the Saviour’s cry. 
 On another, we see a group of persons, 
 so occupied with their own conversation, 
 or so much engaged in the thoughts 
 of the business and pleasures of life, 
 which have been for a short time sus- 
 pended, hut to which they are now 
 immediately returning, that they are 
 not sufficiently interested in the invi- 
 tation of the Saviour, even to ask an 
 explanation, still less to desire to he 
 themselves partakers of the blessings 
 which He proffered. Of all the thou- 
 sands clustering round that hill, and 
 within hearing of the Saviour’s voice, 
 perhaps we should scarcely have seen 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 303 
 
 a single person at once arrested by the 
 sound of the offer, and coming up 
 humbly, yet boldly and unhesitatingly, 
 to our Lord, and saying, in the language 
 of the woman of Samaria, “ Sir, give 
 me this water, that I thirst not.”“ No, 
 some were too intent upon the forms 
 to think of the spirit of holiness ; some 
 too deeply occupied, others too reck- 
 lessly idle and indifferent, to close at 
 once with the merciful invitation. We 
 hear, indeed, that many said, “ This is 
 the Prophet and some, that “ This is 
 the Christ;” but these are widely dif- 
 ferent things from coming at once to 
 the feet of the Redeemer, and saying, 
 ‘Lord, be my Prophet to teach, my 
 Saviour to redeem me from all iniquity, 
 and to accept, and sanctify my soul.’ 
 And so it will probably be to-day. 
 How many, who will hear that in Christ 
 Jesus, and in Him alone, are treasured 
 up the waters of life, how few who will 
 
 ^ John iv. 15. 
 
304 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 close with those offers, and resolve 
 from this hour, to give up all that has 
 hitherto stood between their Saviour 
 and their souls, and come, at once, to 
 Him for pardon and for peace. Still 
 would we desire to leave you with the 
 words of the text upon your ear, 
 praying God they may descend into 
 your heart, “ If any man thirst, let 
 him come unto me, and drink.” There 
 is nothing to control, nothing to 
 abridge this invitation ; it is free as 
 the air you breathe, and yet firm as the 
 earth you tread upon. But are there 
 any among you who have so long 
 preferred the broken cisterns to the 
 living fountain, that you feel, ' this 
 cannot be addressed to me ?’ be assured 
 that you are mistaken ; though you 
 have drunk at every polluted pool of 
 this world’s vanities and pleasures, if 
 only now you thirst for the living 
 water, it shall be yours, and yours as 
 certainly, and as freely, as if you had 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 305 
 
 never had one wish, or one desire 
 beyond it. 
 
 Or, have you tried all other sources 
 of relief, and found all fail you; and 
 do you shrink from the thought of 
 coming now to Christ, lest He should 
 remind you of your worthlessness, 
 and take advantage of your neces- 
 sity ? It is plain you do not know the 
 Saviour, with whom you have to do ; 
 all He requires at your hands, is the 
 deep sense of this poverty, of which 
 you are ashamed. There is no need 
 of shame for this : be ashamed of your 
 sins, of your indifference, of your neg- 
 lect of Christ, but be not ashamed that 
 you begin to feel it; the more you 
 are conscious of your poverty, your 
 emptiness, your thirst, the more will 
 He delight to bestow upon you His 
 riches. His fulness. His living water. 
 
 Or lastly, and how many are, 
 at all times, kept away from Christ, 
 by this conviction; do you fear that 
 
306 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 the promise speaks no word of comfort 
 or encouragement to you, because it 
 only proffers its blessings to them that 
 thirst, and you are afraid to use so 
 strong a term for so weak a feeling as 
 your own ; you are even eonstrained to 
 confess that you never yet have thirsted 
 either for the water of life, or for Him 
 from whom it flows. Even here, there 
 is no cause for despondency ; your 
 case is not hopeless ; the Saviour, of 
 whom we speak, delights to give the 
 thirst, that He may be able to bestow 
 the water of life. 
 
 Be assured, that if there be one 
 soul among you, who is saying, at 
 this moment, ‘ God, who knows the 
 heart, knows that I would gladly come, 
 if I could but thirst for all these spi- 
 ritual blessings, which are treasured up 
 for the believer in Christ Jesus,’ we 
 say, unhesitatingly, to that soul. Come, 
 the way is open to you; pardon for sin, 
 and reconciliation to God, are offered 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 307 
 
 you ; Christ and His Spirit are your 
 own ; come with the little thirst you 
 now possess, and you shall find that 
 every step, by which you approach the 
 Saviour, shall increase that thirst, until 
 your desires for God and His grace, 
 for the Holy Ghost and His influence, 
 for Christ and His salvation, shall be 
 so large, that nothing but Himself can 
 satisfy them. 
 
 “ The Spirit and the bride say. Come ; 
 and let him that heareth say. Come ; 
 and let him that is athirst come; and 
 whosoever will,, let him take of the 
 water of life freely.”' 
 
 ^ Revelation ii. 17. 
 
 THE END OF PART II. 
 
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