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Jf0ru|aJr0to^

LECTURES

OUR LORD'S MIRACLES,

BY

THE REY. JOHN GUMMING, D.D.
MINISTER OF THE SCOTCH NATIONAL CHURCH, AUTHOR OF APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES,
LECTDRE8 ON THE PARABLES, DANIEL, ETC. ETC.

PHILADELPHIA:
LINDSAY AND BLAKISTON.
1856.

FX35*

PREFACE.

These Lectures were addressed by the writer to his flock in
the ordinary course of his ministry, and were regarded by some
of his hearers as sufficiently important to be preserved in a per
manent shape. They were preached from notes, and accurately
reported. They are therefore destitute of the exact polish re
sulting from elaborate writing ; but perhaps they retain, in con
sequence, a freedom and simplicity that will render them more
useful to the popular mind.
The Author is deeply indebted for many leading thoughts to
Olshausen, the German commentator, and also, in some degree,
to Trench, whose obligations to the same writer are very many
and very great. A work very inferior to these may secure a read
ing, where a far weightier one is not welcome. Ships of small
draught may sail up the tributary streams of the popular mind,
where vessels of heavy tonnage cannot be admitted.
Originality is the attribute of few. To render all he reads
and learns conducive to the good and edification of his flock, is
the clear duty of every faithful minister. What was useful to a
congregation may be useful to the church at large. It has been
the design of the Author, in these Lectures, to set forth as fully
1* 5

6 PREFACE.
as possible the redemptive character of the miracles of our Lord;
in other words, to show that they were not mere feats of power,
or proofs of Divine beneficence, but installations of the future age
— specimens on a smaller scale of what will be realized when the
predictions of the two last chapters of the Apocalypse shall have
become actualized in full and lasting fact. This great idea the
Author hopes to bring out yet more fully in a companion volume
ori the Parables, as soon as he can find time to get it ready.
Those who derive any good from these Lectures should give God
the glory ; and those who get none are requested to forgive the
writer.

CONTENTS.

LECTTJKE PAGE
I. WATER MADE WINE  9
II. THE NOBLEMAN'S SICK SON  30
III. THE SOLDIER'S SICE SERVANT  52
IV. THE DISCIPLES IN THE STORM  70
V. THE SORROWING SISTERS  91
VI. THE LORD AND GIVER OF LIFE  109
VII. THE GREAT TYPICAL DISEASE  12S
VIII. LONELY THANKFULNESS  145
IX. MATERNAL LOVE  162
X. THE CALMER OF THE STORM  178
XI. BETHESDA AND ITS BLESSINGS  196
XII. THE FISHERMEN  !  217
XIII. NATURE SITTING AT THE FEET OF JESUS  236
XIV. NATURE SITTING AT THE FEET OF JESUS  254

° CONTENTS.
LECTURE PAGE
XV. THE RESTORED SON  272
XVI. THE RESTORED DAUGHTER  288
XVII. CREATIVE GOODNESS  303
XVIII. THE BLIND MAN  321
XIX. THE WITHERED HAND  343
XX. ELOQUENT NATURE  361

LECTURES.

LECTURE I.
WATER MADE WINE.
And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of
Jesus was there : and both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the mar
riage. And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him,
They have no wine. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with
thee ? mine hour is not yet come. His mother saith unto the servants,
Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. And there were set there six waterpots
of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or
three firkins apiece. Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water.
And they filled them up to the brim. And he saith unto them, Draw out
now, and bear unto the governor of the feast And they bare it. When
the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew
not whence it was: (but the servants which drew the water knew;) the
governor of the feast called the bridegroom, and saith unto him, Every man
at the beginning doth set forth good wine ; and when men have well drunk,
then that which is worse ; but thou hast kept the good wine until now. This
beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his
glory ; and his disciples believed on him. — John ii. 1-11.
I have undertaken this series of lectures, on the mira
cles wrought by our Lord. Each of these is full of in
struction. I have selected the present, because it is the
first, and not on any other ground, or because of any pe
culiar appropriateness in it.
I will preface each of my lectures by some introductory
remarks on some branch of the evidence that may be ad
duced from the miracles. In my first I will give a brief

10 FORESHADOWS.
exposition of what is meant by a miracle, and notice how.
a miracle is defined and designated throughout the word
of God.
There are three great expressions by which miracles are
designated — the first, a "miracle," or "wonder;" the se
cond, a "sign;" and the third, a "power." Very often
our translation renders the same original word, dwaiizts, in
the plural — works, powers, miracles ; but this is a rather
loose way of translating it : each word is perfectly clear
and well defined, wherever it is employed. The first
epithet is that of "wonder." This presents the miracle
in one of its aspects, but in its weakest and poorest aspect,
and implies simply the impression which the performance
of a miracle may make upon the senses of him that sees it.
It merely implies that, by the act just witnessed, wonder,
awe, amazement is -created ; all that it is designed in this
character to do is to break the slumber of the senses, to
disturb the continuity of apathy, and to rouse man to a
perception of a presence greater and mightier than him
self. Hence, the very first result of the performance of
a miracle is, the arrest of the attention, the awakening of
the thought of those that are present, and in the midst of
whom the miracle is done.
The second name given to a miracje is a higher and more
expressive one — a "sign." All signs are not miracles,
but all miracles are signs. A sign means a substance.
Wherever we say there is a sign, we imply that there is
something that is signified. When, therefore, a miracle is
performed, it is, in this light, a sign of the presence of God
As a wonder, it startles ; as a sign, it teaches ; the one
strikes, the other speaks ; and hence, a miracle is not only
startling to the senses, but it is significant and instructive
to the mind : in other words, it not only creates awe, amaze
ment, arrest, but it conveys meaning and instruction, the

WATER MADE WINE. 11
chiefest point of which is, that men may here trace the fin
ger, the foot-prints, and the marks of Deity.
The third name by which a miracle is known in Scripture
is, a " power." The word is sometimes rendered " works,"
sometimes "mighty works," and sometimes it is rendered
" powers ;" and it is so called because^, miracle is the ma
nifestation of power ; not necessarily of a greater power
than is already manifested in creation, as I shall explain,
but the manifestation of that power in a new formula, in
an unexpected shape, in a way in which we have not seen
it so manifested before, and which, therefore, is more com
pletely fitted to arrest the mind.
Let me show you how these three names can be applied
to the miracle which I have now read. First, I said a
miracle is called a .wonder. At the tenth verse of this
chapter, we read of the sense of wonder in the mind of
the chief person at the feast. " And he saith, Every man
at the beginning doth set forth good wine ; and when nlen
have well drunk, then that which is worse : but thou hast
kept the good wine until now." " There is some mysterious
change," he says; "this is a new phenomenon; I am as
tonished, surprised ; something more than usual is here."
The " power" of the miracle was felt when that which was
water blushed into wine, as the Lord looked upon it. The
miracle was also a "sign," for it was so full a manifesta
tion of the glory of Jesus, that it is said, " His disciples
believed on him." You have thus the three character
istics of a miracle embodied in that, the account of which
I have now read.
Now a miracle itself is not a mere action, or a mere
operation of nature, and yet it need not imply any more
power than is already put forth in creation. For instance,
in casting a handful of wheat into the soil, and making it
grow up till it produces two or three bushels, there is as

12 FORESHADOWS.
much power of God manifested as there is in making a
few loaves grow into a few thousand. There is the same
power exerted in making a seed cast into the soil grow up
into many seeds, as there is in making one loaf grow into
m'any loaves. The difference between what we call a
natural thing and jvhat God pronounces a miraculous
thing, is not so much the extent of power that is manifested,
as the manner of the manifestation of that power. Thus
we read in the Epistle to the Romans, that the invisible
things of God « are clearly seen, being understood by the
things that are made, even his eternal power and God
head." So that all creation, we are told, in its action,
as clearly intimates and proves the power of God, as any
miracle, strictly and properly so called, could prove it.
But where is the difference, you ask, between a miracle
and the natural laws, as they are called, or operations of
nature? I answer, one difference arises from the new
and strange formula, shape, mode, or manner in which that
power is put forth. Another difference arises from the
fact, that the miracle of the seed cast into the earth grow
ing into many bushels, is a miracle occurring every year,
and witnessed by every individual upon- earth ; but the
miracle of one loaf being multiplied into ten, twelve, or
twenty, is a thing that occurred only once, and was wit
nessed by a few ; and to that few only, and by their testi
mony to others, is that miracle addressed. The water
coming from the clouds, and descending from springs and
rocks, proves abundantly the power of God. That the
ocean should be a mighty cistern, that the sand and the
rocks of the earth should constitute so many perfect filters,
that the water should be constantly supplied through these
for us to drink, that the steam which evaporates from the
sea should shape itself into clouds, and meeting with cold
currents of air, should become condensed, and fall in the

WATER MADE WINE. 13
shape of prolific and fertilizing showers ; all this is an evi
dence of the power of God — as great evidence of that
power as one could possibly have. But the water turned
into wine is not, as I have said, the manifestation of a
greater power, but it is the manifestation of the same power,
relieving the monotony which has dulled the impressive-
ness of the former ; lifting, as it were, the vail behind
which God works, enabling us to see, not dead laws which
the philosopher owns, but a living hand put forth on the
springs of nature, controlling, originating, and creating
all. Thus, then, the water from the clouds, falling upon
the soil, ascending the trunk of the vine, and ultimately
issuing in grapes, and those grapes passing into wine, is
one process, and in every stage of this process God's power
is manifested ; but when God turns water into wine, all
that he does differently is to shorten the process. The
ordinary process is, that the water in the sea should rise
into the cloud, then fall from the cloud in copious showers,
give refreshment to the vine and fertility to the earth, de
velop itself in sap, in blossom, in grapes, in fermentation,
in wine — this is the long process ; the short process is, the
water turning into wine at Christ's word ; but it is equally
Christ in both ; it is equally divine power in both ; only
we have got so accustomed to the long process, that we
say it is the natural thing, and are so little accustomed to
the short process, that the senses are startled and the
mind is awakened. The difference is here too — that in the
one case we see a succession of continuous causes, and in
the other we see the actor come forth himself, lay aside
the machinery by which he has acted heretofore, and in
one word say, "Let this water be wine;" and, recognising
its Creator and its God, it becomes so.
In the next place, a miracle is not, as some have tried to
show, contrary to nature. Never accept this definition of
2

14 FORESHADOWS.
it, because, as I shall show you in subsequent lectures,
Strauss, one of the most subtle and most able infidels of
modern times, (but who, I rejoice to say, has been replied
to by his own countrymen, Neander, Tholock, and many
others whose genius and piety are unquestionable,) has laid
hold of this, and tried to do great mischief by it. A mi
racle is not a thing against nature, but something above
and beyond what we call nature. For instance, when we
read of our Lord's healing the sick, and in other instances
raising the dead, we hear it said this is contrary to nature.
It is no such thing. We call it contrary to nature, because
we think that sickness is natural. Sickness is not natural;
it is an unnatural thing ; it is a discord in a glorious har
mony ; it is a blot upon the fair creation ; it is most un
natural ; and was never meant originally to be. When we
see our Lord raising the dead, we say it is unnatural ; yet
it is not so, because death is the unnatural thing, and the
natural thing is putting an end to death, and bringing
back everlasting and glorious life. Thus, then, the healing
of the sick and the quickening of the dead are not contrary
to nature, but the perfection of nature ; it is the bringing
back of nature to her pristine state ; it is restoring the
primeval harmony ; it is the evidence of ancient happiness,
and the augury of future ; it is the demonstration to us
that all the prophecies that describe the glorious paradise
that is to be are possibilities : and hence, every miracle of
our Lord was a flower snatched from the paradise that is
to be, a tone of the everlasting jubilee sounding in the
depths of the human heart ; a specimen of that new Gene
sis, under which there shall be no more sickness, nor sor
row, nor trial, but wherein former things shall have passed
away, and all things shall be made new. Therefore a mi
racle is not contrary to nature, but it is the expansion, the
perfection, the ennobling of nature : it brings nature back

WATER MADE WINE. 15
to what it was. And teaches us what I think I ought to
impress, that we ought never to be satisfied with this world,
as if it were what it was meant to be : it is all out of course ;
and it always seems to me, therefore, that the physician is
carrying forward, as it were, the work that Christ does
perfectly ; that he is here as a testimony to us, that the
great Physician will one day do perfectly what his earthly
agent does imperfectly. And so with every other curative
process that goes on ; it is an augury and foretaste of the
perfection that will be ; it is a testimony that nature has
gone wrong, and an earnest that nature will yet be put
right by nature's Lord.
But besides all this, a miracle is something more ; it is
an addition of a new and a nobler law to the law that pre
viously was ; it is not the destruction of any existing law,
but it is superadding to that law a more perfect and glo
rious one. Thus, when I raise my arm, the power of gra
vitation ought to make that arm instantly fall ; but when
I keep that arm up, it is not by the destruction of the law
of gravitation, but it is the superadding of a higher law,
the great law of life. So, we can conceive that when Christ
does a miracle, it is not the extinction of that which is
really a right law, but it is the bringing from heaven a
nobler law, to be superadded to, and render more glorious,
the law that is. I will not dwell longer upon this subject
at present, but reserve a portion of my remarks upon it
for next lecture. I proceed, therefore, at present to un
fold the illustration and the instance of what I have said
in that beautiful miracle, the first that Jesus performed,
in Cana of Galilee.
Before I enter upon this miracle clause by clause, let
me notice how graciously Christ begins his career of mi
racles and mercies. The day begins, not with a burst of
meridian splendour, but its dawn peeps from behind the

16 FORESHADOWS.
hills, tinges the sea with its beautiful and rosy colours,.
and then shines more and more "unto the perfect day."
So rose softly, beautifully, and progressively the Sun of
righteousness. Hisjirst miracle was.not a miracle of tre
mendous power, but one of quiet and gentle beneficence.
The Saviour's first miracle dawned in the form of a nuptial
benediction upon a young couple, beginning the journey,
and about to attempt the battle of life. He heightened
domestic joys before he went forth to mitigate domestic
sorrows. He began rejoicing with them that do rejoice
before he went on his pilgrimage to "weep with them that
weep." Jesus sympathized first with the happy before he
went forth to succour the miserable and the unhappy. And
who was it that so sympathized ? Who was it that had a
heart thus opened to the softest and most responsive sym
pathies ? He on whose soul there pressed the load of a
world's transgressions. He who saw a Jong and rugged
road before him, and at the end of that road the cross to
which he should be nailed. He whose spirit was thus heavy
with the prospect of coming agony, could yet pause in that
rough road, and step aside to that little cottage in that
sequestered hamlet, to show that while he could expiate a
world's sins, he would recognise the remains of Eden hap
piness and Eden bliss even in the humblest and poorest
of mankind. And it is at such a time, let me add, such a
time of happiness and joy, as that which is described at
the marriage-feast of Cana, that we need the presence of
our Lord. Hence I must correct a very common misap
prehension. When we are placed in affliction, or trial,
when we have lost the near and the dear, or when our pro
perty has been swept away, at such a time we are very
willing to say, "This is God's doing;" but is it not strange,
when joyful things come, and bounding hearts testify that
they have come, when prosperity sheds its splendours

WATER MADE WINE. 17
upon us, and hope draws us forward to scenes of increasing
happiness, that we then think "this is our own doing?"
If we are in affliction, we begin to pray — I speak of Chris
tians ; but strange that in prosperity we should never think
of beginning to praise. Does it not indicate the original
sin of our hearts, that we associate God and wrath together,
instead of associating God with every thing that is beau
tiful and holy, beneficent and bright ? We come to think
Christianity is a capital thing for burials, but that it will
do bridals no good at all ; we come to suppose that the
gospel is most appropriate when we weep, but that it is not
fit to be put in the same category with rejoicing. My dear
friends, you mistake it; it sweetens and sanctifies, not
saddens, the happiest; and it sustains, and cheers, and
strengthens the sorrowful and the suffering. It was more
needed at the marriage-feast of Cana in Galilee than it
was at the death-bed of Lazarus. It is as much needed
to sweeten and to sanctify our joys as it is to mitigate and
diminish our sufferings and our sorrows. Let us then ask
the presence of a Saviour at sick-beds and funerals, but
let us also ask the presence of a Saviour at marriages and
at festivals : let us pray that he may be present when the
cup is empty, or filled with gall ; or when the cup is full
and overflows, and the trembling hand can scarcely hold
it steadily. I notice in this parable, that our Lord came not to de
stroy society, but to descend into its depths, and sweeten,
and cement, and sanctify it. He came not like the Goth
to raze, or like the Socialist and the Communist to dis
organize, but, like the Christianity of which he is the
Alpha and the Omega, to illuminate, to inspire, and to
sanctify. He did not come to build in the wilderness a
huge convent for all Christians to withdraw from the world
and dwell in, but he did better; he came to uphold, tc

18 FORESHADOWS.
sanctify and sweeten human life, human joy, and human
sorrow ; he came, not to put an end to common life, but
he came to bring the gospel into its hidden recesses and
its deepest depths, to make all its paths beautiful and its
voices harmony. Christianity does not call upon you who
are tradesmen to shut up your shops, but to be Christian
shopmen ; it does not call upon you not to marry, but to
marry in the Lord; nor to lay aside your titles, as a re
cent denomination does, but to be Christian peers and
peeresses ; it does not call upon you to detach yourselves
from society, in order to avoid its evil, but to go into -the
midst of society, and meet its hostility, master its evils,
and make it reflect the glory, the beneficence, and the
goodness of God. Hence, the first act of the ministry of
Jesus was not isolation from society, but going right into
the heart of society, beginning at its root and centre, in
order to bless, to beautify, and make it good.
We gather, too, from this parable, that our Lord (and
this is perhaps one of the most remarkable proofs of his
prescience, or, in other words, of his divinity) had, in
many things that he said and* did, an ulterior reference.
Thus what he said about the Virgin Mary, as I will explain
to you, had a clear ulterior, practical reference. So had
also the fact that his first miracle was performed at a
wedding. He knew that a section of his professing church
would rise which would say that marriage is prohibited in
some, and that celibacy is a holier, purer, and nobler
state. All this is destroyed, neutralized, swept away, by
the fact that the marriage instituted in Paradise has been
reconsecrated in Cana of Galilee. I allege, therefore, that
there is not a holier thing on earth than the domestic roof,
and there is not a more divine nook of humanity than a
Christian family.
Mary introduces the miracle which Jesus was about to

WATER MADE WINE. 19
perform by the simple remark, " They have no wine." We
read that « there was a marriage, in Cana of Galilee, and
the mother of Jesus was there : and both Jesus was called,
and his disciples, to the marriage. And when they wanted
wine," [or, literally translated, "when the wine began to
fail,"] "the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no
wine." Perhaps I should explain that Cana of Galilee was a few
miles north-east of Nazareth, a place that was most fami
liar to our Lord, and situated between Nazareth and the
Lake or Sea of Gennesareth. It is described by a modern
traveller (the site of it being perfectly well ascertained,
and even its name retained) as a pretty Turkish village,
gracefully situated on two sides of a hollow of fertile land,
with surrounding hills, and covered with oaks and olive-
trees. It is still a small village, but the mosque is there
instead of the Christian temple.
Mary states then the fact which led to the performance
of this miracle : " They have no wine." Some have been
anxious to ascertain why she said so. It has been sug
gested that the couple that were married were Mary's own
immediate relatives, and that she felt for their poverty.
The Virgin Mary was a poor sinner by nature, and became
a saint, not by the fact that she was the mother of the
Lord's humanity, but by the fact that she was a subject of
the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit of God. Mary
had the pride of humanity, the vanity of a weak woman,
and she thought and felt that poverty was a shame, and
that wherever there was poverty, there, if possible, it
should be hidden. And yet the holy gospel teaches us
that poverty is beautiful, that the gospel came first to the
poor ; and certainly the Sun of righteousness, like the sun
in the firmament, sends his beams into the casement of
the poor man's cottage as fully as into the oriel-window

20 FORESHADOWS.
of the great man's hall. Mary fancied poverty was a
shame, and she says to the Saviour, " They have no wine."
Perhaps, too, she meant by that, " We had better not stop ;
the wine they have is so little, it will not serve the com
pany that are already come, and perhaps we had better
retire, and not draw upon that which is already altogether
insufficient." At all events, it is plain that it was a sense
of poverty that caused Mary to make the remark.
Notice our Lord's reply : " Woman, what have I to do
with thee?" The Roman Catholic Church has exhausted
all its ingenuity and talent, and has written much, in order
to show that this does not mean what it means. And many
other divines have imitated the' Roman CatholieChurch in
this respect with other parts of the Bible. It is plain that
in the answer of our Lord there was no disrespect. The
word "woman," in fact, in ancient Greek, ybvai, is equiva
lent to " lady." To prove this, you have only to read the
words used on the cross, "Woman, behold thy son;"
an expression of respect mingled with affection. The
words "what have I to do with thee?" seem to us Pro
testants, when we read our Protestant Bibles, to denote
that Jesus had required no partnership in his sufferings,
and could have no partnership in the expressions of his
mighty power. But the Roman Catholic Church has trans
lated it, " Woman, what is to thee, and to me ?" which is
utterly unintelligible ; it conveys no meaning at all. The
Greek words are, r£ kixo\ xai <so\, (what to me, and to thee) ?
and every one who knows the elements of the Greek gram
mar, knows that this is an idiom, that, like all other idioms,
it has its peculiar signification, and that literally trans
lated into our tongue, it means, " What have I to do with
thee?" or, "What hast thou to do with me?" Amang
other passages in which the same words occur, I may name
Judges xi. 12; 1 Kings xvii. 18; 2 Kings ix. 18; Mark

WATER MADE WINE. 21
v. 7. I might enumerate ten different parts of the Bible,
speaking of the Septuagint version of the Old Testament
and the Greek New Testament, in which the words rt i/w\
y.o\ oo\ occur — five times in the singular, and in the plural
five times more. I have looked at every one of these
instances in the Roman Catholic Bible, and I find that
nine times the words are translated exactly as we translate
them, but in the tenth instance (John ii. 4) they are
rendered, "What is to thee, and to me?" Certainly this
looks suspicious — that the Roman Catholic Church should
pursue the same interpretation which we adopt in nine
cases, and only in the tenth should deviate, and assume
a new and strange translation. Can we be called un
charitable, if we suspect that she felt that, as she would
not bring her worship up to the height of God's word, she
would dare, in her awful blindness, to bring down God's
word to the level of her worship.
It is plain to us, then, that our Lord here taught a very
great lesson — that Mary had no partnership in his glory,
nor might have any share in his extraordinary sorrow ;
that even the tears of a weeping mother might not mingle
with the shed blood of a dying and atoning Son ; that he
must tread the wine-press alone, and that not even a
mother must be with him to participate in his agony, or
to lay claim to a single gleam of that glory which exclu
sively belongs to him. Does not this seem prophetic?
Does it not seem to imply that some portion of his church
would rise in which Ave Marias should supersede the more
glorious ascription, "Abba, Father," and the intercession
of a glorified saint should be made to take the place of
the intercession of the glorious and the almighty Son?
I will give you a remarkable instance of this. The present
Pope of Rome has issued, on the subject of the immaculate
conception, an encyclical letter from Gaeta, where he was

22 FORESHADOWS.
lately a prisoner and an exile. To show how true is the
Apocalyptic description, " They repented not of their sins
and their blasphemies," I will read, what the present pope
has written, and what was read in the course of 1849 in
every Roman Catholic church throughout the world. " We
also," says Pope Pius IX., "repose all confidence in this —
that the blessed Virgin, who has been raised by the great
ness of her merits above the choirs of angels up to the
throne of God, and has crushed, under the foot of her
Son, (the head of the old serpent,) and who, placed be
tween Christ and the church, full of grace and sweetness,
has ever rescued the Christian people from the greatest
calamity, from the snares and attacks of all her enemies,
taking pity on us with that immense tenderness which is
the habitual outpouring of her maternal heart, to drive
away from us, by her instant and all-powerful protection
before God, the sad and lamentable misfortunes, the cruel
anguish, the pains and anxieties which we suffer, and turn
aside the scourges of Divine, wrath which afflict us by rea
son of our sins, to oppose and divert the frightful streams
of evil with which the church is assailed on all sides."
The pope continues to say, " You know perfectly well,
venerable brethren," addressing the archbishops, bishops,
and prelates of the Romish Church throughout the world,
"that the foundation of our confidence is in the most holy
Virgin, since it is in her that God has placed the plenitude
of all good, in such sort, that if there be in us any hope,
if there be any spiritual health, we know that it is from
her we receive it, because such is the will of Him who
willed that we should have all by the instrumentality of
the Virgin Mary." Such are the deliberate sentiments of
Pope Pius IX., literally translated from the Latin, which
I have now before me.
I have said then that this clause, " What have I to do

WATER MADE WINE. 23
with thee ?" is prophetic; and certainly it is so. But our
Lord gives a reason for what he said, and adds, " mine
hour is not yet come." I do not think that the expression
"hour" here is used in that solemn sense in which it is
used in another portion of the gospel, where our Lord ex
claims, "Father, the hour is come." The word may be
rendered fairly and justly " opportunity ;" and all that our
Lord seems to me to teach by the expression is simply this :
" The moment for me to perform the miracle is not yet
arrived ; the wine only begins to fail, I will wait till it is
exhausted ; if some of the wine remain in the vessels, the
impression I desire to produce by the miracle may be
dissipated ; they might say it was the wine that was left,
and not wine instantly created by my mighty power ;
therefore, Mary, wait; you do not know, you must not
interfere ; I know the moment when it will be most for
the good of the creature, and most for the glory of me."
It is said, "And there were set six water-pots of stone,"
or, as it might be translated, "water-jars of stone." I
cannot but notice here a hidden feature that shows the
perfect reality of the story. When a story is concocted,
you may detect points in it which will show that it is a
fiction, that it does not cohere. Now these water-pots of^
stone were large jars which were brought in to every
festival, and the guests drew water out of them for the
washing of their hands before they sat down to their meal.
The order was given, "Fill the water-pots with water;"
and this shows that the guests must have washed their
hands, and that the water was nearly drawn out of the
vessels ; they were quite full at the beginning, and it must
have been toward the close of the festival that our Lord
wrought the miracle, and replenished the jars with wine.
It was said at the beginning that the wine began to fail at
the close of the feast, and it is shown by the water being

24 FORESHADOWS.
exhausted fron the water-pots that it was so. We have
evidence in all this of consistency, an under current of
coherency, that demonstrates it was not a fiction, but an
actual transaction — a fact. To indicate still more the
force of the miracle, I may mention, that if our Lord had
created the wine in the wine-bottles that had been exhaust
ed, they would have said, " It is not new wine, but it is the
old wine, which escaped our observation." Or if he had
told them to pour water into the vessels that had been
emptied of wine, and had then changed it, the guests would
have said, « It is only water flavoured by the remains of
the wine that was in the vessels previously." But here
were the servants who took the water-jars, and poured wa
ter into them, and knew that it was water ; in fact, that
the vessels were not used for holding wine at all, and there
fore there could be no deception. It is added, too, in a
subsequent part of the miracle, that the servants who drew
the water knew whence it came ; they poured it into the
jars, they saw that it was water, and that nothing but wa
ter was there. Thus, there was such a preparation as must
have incontestably demonstrated the reality of the miracle
performed. If our Lord had told them to bring jars from
a distance, and place them there, it might have been said
that it was by some sleight of hand, or by some precon
certed arrangement ; but the jars were there as was usual
at every Jewish festival, and he bade the servants fill them
with water, that there might be no possibility of mistake ;
he then spake the word, and the water was turned into
wine. Let me notice the remark of the governor of the feast.
"When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that
was made wine, and knew not whence it was, (but the ser
vants which drew the water knew,) the governor of the
feast called the bridegroom, and saith unto him, Every

WATER MADE WINE. 25
man at the beginning doth set forth good wine ; and when
men have well drunk, then that which is worse : but thou
hast kept the good wine until now." Many Christians
have been perplexed by the expression " when men have
well drunk," as if it meant drinking to excess at a festival
consecrated by the Saviour's presence. It really means
no such thing. It does not describe what took place at the
festival ; the governor of the feast does not speak of the
company over which he presided, but he describes what is
the common practice at the common festivals of worldly
men, where they present the best wine first, and after the
taste has been blunted by drinking a sufficient quantity of
it, the inferior wine is introduced, and from their blunted
taste they are unable to appreciate the difference. The
governor of the feast makes the remark, not the Saviour ;
and he does not describe what took place under his eyes,
but what usually and notoriously took place among others ;
therefore there need be no misapprehension of the moral
ity of the miracle, as if it impiied that our Lord sanctioned
by his presence (which he did not, and which no remark
made by any one concerned in the miracle can in the least
indicate) drinking to excess.
But it has been objected by one of the German infidels,
that our Lord did not show a deep sense of the danger of
wine when he created at this feast so excessive a quantity
— some hundred gallons — by an act of omnipotent power.
Would not this objection apply to every vintage ? If God
gives a plenteous vintage, you would not say, This is a
temptation to men to drink to excess. There was no more
temptation to drink to excess from his filling many large
water-jars, than in his being pleased to give the sunbeams
and rain-drops that make an abundant vintage. The se
cret of temperance is not in the cellar, but in the heart of
the landlord of the wine-cellar. A Christian man will not
3

26 FORESHADOWS.
become intoxicated if he drinks from a cask ; a drunkard
will become intoxicated if he drinks from a bottle. It is
not in the quantity before you that the element of tem
perance is, but in the grace of God that has been planted
in your hearts. Now it does seem to me, without the least
expression of disrespect toward those who differ from me,
that if God had designed that men should be universally
what is called teetotal — that is, should not taste wine, or
any thing that has the least alcoholic element in it — he
would have prohibited the growth of the vine, and rendered
fermentation absolutely impossible; because if there were
no fermentation there could be no alcoholic element gene
rated. But he has not done so ;- he does give the vintage,
and he does give the fruit of the vine ; he has created fer
mentation just as truly as he has created vegetation ;
therefore it seems to me that temperance is to arise, not
from the absence of wine, but from the presence of Chris
tian principles ; and that we are to be sober because it is a
Christian duty, and not by insulation from all the elements
for being the reverse. It does appear to me that character
is perfected, not by being placed beyond the reach of
temptation, but by being placed within the reach of it, and
there gloriously triumphing by the grace of God over all
its suggestions and its temptations.
It is remarkable (and I submit it to those who differ
from me) that our Lord ministered not to supply, as you
perceive, a necessity, but to add an enjoyment. I admit
teetotalism has done much good, and I recognise the per
fect liberty of every man to adopt it who is satisfied that
it will do good. I would not say one word against the
Teetotal Society, because they have done good, and I pray
that they may. do more : but while they claim the liberty
of holding their sentiments, I must not shrink from the
duty of expounding what is plainly God's word. Most of

WATER MADE WINE. 27
the letters of complaint I receive are upon three great
topics, — first, capital punishment ; secondly, teetotalism ;
and thirdly, war. I candidly say, that if I could, by a
wish, substitute the arbitration of peace for the unsheath
ing of the sword, I would do it; but it is not what we
would like, but what we are driven to tolerate and to have.
So in reference to drunkenness. If I could, I would make
every man sober ; but my prescription, if you will allow
it, is not a mechanical change, but a moral revolution in
the unregenerate and unsanctified heart. " But there is
danger," you say, "in wine." So there is, and there is
danger in other things ; there is danger in tampering with
the word of God ; there is danger in reading the Bible in
the light of teetotalism, instead of reading teetotalism in
the light of the Bible ; for we may depend upon it, when
ever a man begins to adopt another mode of life than that
which the Saviour gave, he soon begins to adopt another
rule of faith than that which the Bible affords. Let us,
therefore, be jealous of the glory of God ; and let us not
shrink from faithfully expounding what seems to be the
mind and spirit of God. And so I may speak with refer
ence to capital punishments, on which subject I receive
many remonstrances. I say I abhor them, Lshrink from
them, I wish society could do without them ; but I cannot
conceal from myself plain facts, and I may reply to some
of the notes I receive by alluding to them: — It is said that
the stronghold of all that advocate capital punishments
(remember, I do not advocate them, . I deplore the deep
and terrible necessity for them) is in the text, "Whoso
sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed."
I made the remark that arose from the chapter in which
the text occurs, that here is distinct permission, at least,
to the civil magistrate to put to death the murderer. I
said this was not the Levitical law, because it was given

28 FORESHADOWS.
before the law of Levi was in existence. The objection of
one correspondent is this — that God did not take away
Cain's life when Cain committed murder. I answer:
Perfectly true; but what God does in his sovereignty is
one thing, and what God enjoins in his word upon us is
quite a different thing. God ever tries the mildest means
before he has recourse to more terrible ones. Well, he
tried the mild means ; he desired it to be seen if sparing
the murderer would put an end to murder. And what took
place ? At the end of two thousand years, the earth was
filled with "violence," a word that means murder, cruelty,
rage; and then God enacted a severer law, that is, "Whoso
sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed."
I cannot get over this. It is not my prejudices that in
fluence me. I feel I am here the interpreter of that word,
the glory, the perfection, the beauty of which shine forth
more and more. I must bring all my likes and dislikes,
all my preferences and prejudices, to God's law and to
God's testimony: I dare not say what is not here, I will
not shrink from saying what is here. A few have left my
congregation because I will not be a teetotaler. I have
no liking to wine; I can do without it as freely as any of
you; but what my Lord consecrated by tasting, I will not
pronounce unholy; what he has set a precedent of using,
I too feel that I may use in moderation ; and thus I teach,
whether you like it or dislike it. I am placed in this pul
pit, not to preach to your prejudices, or to echo your
opinions, but to proclaim, as responsible at the judgment-
bar of God, what is true, and that, by God's grace, I am
determined to persevere in doing.
I therefore gather from this passage — to return to the
subject before us — that wine is lawful, that it is not unholy ;
that the temperate use of it is legitimate ; that its employ
ment as a medicine is right. I have tried the teetotal

WATER MADE WINE. 29
system, and literally and truly it did not suit me ; I have
tried the other system — I use but do not abuse it  and I
find I am stronger and can do more work, enjoy better
health, and put forth greater energy. I must, therefore,
put my experience against an opposite experience. I never
drank to excess in my life, and I hope none of you do.
Nothing can be more degrading to a human being than
drunkenness ; nothing can be more disgraceful to a
Christian man than excess. The great law, the beautiful
law, is — the time is short : it remains for them that marry
to be as though they married not, for them that sell as
though they sold not, and them that buy as though they
bought not ; thus using the world and not abusing it, for
the fashion of this world speedily passeth away.
Thus I have tried to expound this miracle. The issue
of it was, that Christ's glory shone forth in it, shone forth
as the Lord of creation, and as the Lawgiver to his crea
tures ; and what I pray may be the issue of the exposition
of it is, that you shall admire his power, be charmed with
his mercy, believe in his sacrifice, rest upon his inter
cession, and anticipate that blessed day when the marriage
festival shall not be that of a poor couple in Cana of Ga
lilee, but when the bridegroom shall be the Lord of glory,
and all redeemed saints shall constitute his chosen and his
beautiful bride, and the marriage-supper of the Lamb shall
come, and we too shall be among those who have made
themselves ready. Then it will be seen that this bridal
miracle in Galilee was a foreshadow of that great act at
the restoration of all things, in which Jesus says, " Be
held. I make all things new."

3*

80

LECTURE II.
THE NOBLEMAN'S SICK SON.
So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine. And
there was a certain nobleman, whose son was sick at Capernaum. When he
heard that Jesus was come out of Judea into Galilee, he went unto him, and
besought him that he would come down, and heal his son : for he was at tho
point of death. Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders,
ye will not believe; The nobleman saith unto him, Sir, come down ere my
child die. Jesus said unto him, Go thy way ; thy son liveth. And the man
believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way.
And as he was now going down, his servants met him, and told him, saying,
Thy son liveth. Then inquired he of them the hour when he began to amend.
And they said unto him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.
So the father knew that it was at the same hour in the which Jesus said unto
him, Thy son liveth : and himself believed, and his whole house. This is
again tho Second miracle that Jesus did, when he was come out of Judea
into Galilee.— John iv. 46-54.
My last lecture was on the first miracle performed by
Jesus, at the marriage in Cana of Galilee. I then
showed how gently the power of the gospel dawned upon
a world that needed it; how Christ came to perform a
miracle to sanctify a wedding festival, before he came to
do a miracle that was to sweeten all but a funeral bereave
ment. It is very clear that the gospel teaches humanity,
in all its varied phases, to go to Christ. Is any man
afflicted ? What is he to do ? To despair ? No, but to
pray. Is any man merry? What is he to do ? Be extra
vagant? No, but to praise. Thus our prayers, our sor
rows, and our joys equally lead us to Jesus; our smiles
and our tears, our sweets and our sufferings, all the heights

THE NOBLEMAN'S SICK SON. 31
and depths, the lights and shadows of human experience
lead the child of God to him who can add new beauty to
the one, and communicate sustaining strength and comfort
to the other.
I also noticed in my last lecture, that Jesus wrought a
miracle to provide, not for an absolute necessity, but a
luxury. The wine failed, and Jesus wrought a miracle, by
producing more than a sufficient quantity ; he turned the
water into wine. I inferred from this the fact that,
whether it be expedient to drink wine or not,- it is not sin
ful to do so ; that certainly wine is not condemned and
reprobated in Scripture as an unchristian thing. Whether
it be a poisonous thing, I suppose people's experience,
with that of medical men, will show ; but whether it be an
unscriptural thing, common Sense, with the Bible open,
can surely judge. If it be an unscriptural thing, Christ
had not wrought a miracle in order to supply it. It has
been urged, that the quantity of wine created by Christ
must have been certainly a very tempting thing. Might
he not, it is asked, have supplied just as much as the ne
cessities of the company required? According to the
statement given, he supplied some ninety or a hundred
gallons. I answered, there is no more temptation to a
sober man to be intoxicated when he drinks from a cask
than when he drinks from a wineglass. The secret of
temperance is not in the wine cellar, but in the landlord ;
it is not in what the man has, but what the man is ; it is
not circumstances that make a man sober, but the grace
of God. Here is the grand mistake. People are constantly
supposing that holiness and happiness depend upon, and
result from, something outward; while, in truth, they
depend on, and spring from, something inward. The
world's prescription is to change the bed; God's is to heal
the patient; — the world's prescription is to give man some-

32 FORESHADOWS.
thing which man has not, or to take away from man some
thing which man has ; God's prescription is to make man
what man is not. Put a sober man amid all the wine that
Spain can produce, and he will be a sober man still ; but a
drunkard any where, and he will be a drunkard still. It
is the grace of God, and that alone, that can make men
sober, righteous, and godly in this present world, looking
for that blessed hope, the glorious appearing of Jesus
Christ our God and Saviour.
I also prefaced my last exposition by a few remarks
upon the nature of miracles. I endeavoured to show that
a miracle is not something which contradicts all the laws
and ordinances of creation, but something rather which
supplements them; but supplements them so gloriously
and sublimely, that we can feel and see that creation's
Lord is present. The miracle, for instance, that Jesus did
when he turned water into wine, was not in contradiction
to the laws, as they are called, of nature, but the most
beautiful and triumphant completion of them. The ordi
nary law is, that the rain-drops and the dew-drops shall
fall upon the vine-leaves and blossoms, and upon the vine-
roots and fibres, and that these rain-drops and dew-drops
absorbed, shall, by a process that requires. a year to mature
it, be converted into generous wine. The difference be
tween the dew-drops and rain-drops falling upon the vine,
and being turned into grape-juice, and that fermented into
wine, and the miracle wrought by our Lord, when he
turned water in a minute into wine, was not a difference
of kind, but simply a difference in time. What it usually
takes a year to produce, it took Christ a minute to pro
duce ; the evidence of creation's Lord being present amid
creation's product, was in the speed and instancy of a pro
cess which it usually takes months, or a year, to achieve.
You have, therefore, in the miracle, not a discord intro-

THE NOBLEMAN'S SICK SON. 33
duced into creation's harmony, but heaven's harmony come
down to creation's discord ; you have a prelibation, as it
were, a foretaste of that glorious epoch, when all things
that are wrong by sin shall be righted, and the world, as
it began with paradise in its morning beauty, shall close
and merge in paradise in its meridian glory.
I will preface the miracle to which I now call your at
tention by a few additional remarks on the nature of
miracles. First. Is there such a thing as a miracle not of God ?
Is it possible, or have we reason to believe from Scripture,
that any power hostile in its principles to Deity, can pro
duce a supernatural thing ? Do we read in Scripture of
mere jugglery, or do we read of supernatural feats, done
by supernatural power, as allies to Satan's kingdom, and
antagonisms to Christ's ? I believe the latter : whether it
be so or not, you can judge by what I state. And here I
must state what it is always humbling to any one to state,
that on this I have seen reason to alter my opinion : I find
I have not altered a conviction upon any one vital, essen
tial principle, but upon subordinate things I have changed,
and probably I may do so again. I trust we all grow
wiser as we grow older. No man should be ashamed to
say, " I have altered my mind since I obtained more light."
That man must be perfectly wretched who is constantly
looking behind him to see that he does the deed to-day in
perfect harmony with the deed done years ago, and that
he holds the opinion to-day which dovetails exactly with
the opinion he held five years ago. We have nothing to
do with consistency, but to accept the truth as God reveals
it, and act accordingly. I have stated that I thought the
miracles performed by the magicians in Egypt to be jug
glery. I was perplexed, and felt difficulties in reconciling
all the details of their performance with this opinion. 1

84 FORESHADOWS.
found this interpretation was held by many eminent men
who were very competent and judicious critics. I have
discovered that another opinion has been held by equally
learned men, and by those who seem to be equally com
petent judges, namely, that these miracles performed by
the magicians of Egypt were not mere legerdemain, not
mere shams, but that they were feats of power performed
by supernatural influence, and meant to rival and eclipse
the deeds that omnipotent beneficence performed by the
hand of Moses. This seems to me the truth. God says,
" Against the gods of Egypt will I execute judgment." Now
the word translated "gods," might throughout Scripture,
in the New Testament certainly, be rendered "demons."
These demons are supposed to be fallen spirits, but the
heathens imagined that they were the spirits of glorified
heroes. Here the term seems so applied as to convey that
supernatural agency was concerned in enabling these ma
gicians to attempt to rival, and to endeavour to eclipse,
the feats that Moses and Aaron did. And we shall see
that this is the more probable, if we remember the fact
that the whole religion of Egypt was an emanation from
the evil one. It had its priests, its prophets, and its emis
saries, charged and commissioned by the evil one, while
the religion of Israel was an inspiration from God, the
Holy One, having for its priests, its ministers, and its
messengers, Moses and Aaron, and all the people of God.
The collision that was commenced at Paradise has been
carried on ever since. Supernatural powers are at this
moment engaged in battle. The woman's seed shall bruise
the serpent's head, but it is after conflict. At every dawn
of a new dispensation on the part of God, there was a new
collision between the powers of darkness and the powers
of light. The issue was in every instance the bruising of

THE NOBLEMAN'S SICK SON. 35
the serpent's head, while this involved the injury of the
heel of the "woman's seed."
Some one may say, « But does it not look something
approaching to puerile, that God should come into collision
with Satan, or that God's agents, commissioned by omni
potence, should come into contact and controversy with
agents that might now and must ultimately be crushed?"
You might just say, " Why does God suffer sin and holiness
to war in this world ? Why does he suffer loyalty and re
bellion? Why does he suffer his own people to be depress
ed and discouraged at times, and his enemies to triumph?"
There is many a "why" we can put, when we cannot give
an answer that will satisfy ; but it is a matter of fact that
it is so. God might pronounce a word at this moment that
would go down into the depths of creation, and rise to its
greatest heights, and make the whole universe blossom like
the rose, and all mankind holy and happy. But he does
not do so. He'has told us that there will be a conflict be
fore there will be a crown, that there will be hot battle
before there shall be the prize : he has committed his cause
to earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may
be of God and not of man.
At the incarnation, which was a second epoch in the
history of God's dealings with mankind, we discover, what
we do not find before to the same extent, demoniac posses
sion, as if to prove, that whenever God has a great work
of good in the world, Satan will always have a counter
work of evil. Whenever you see good coin circulated,
you will find bad coin is put into circulation. Satan does
not directly oppose the good, but he gets up something so
like it that the unsuspecting may be deceived, insnared,
and destroyed. When Christ came into the world, what
was the great fact? God manifested in the flesh. And
what was the great work that Satan set up as a counter

36 FORESHADOWS.
fact? Demons took possession of human beings, and made
them their sport and their prey. I do not believe that
these demoniac possessions were diseases. The language
of our Lord is utterly incompatible with such a view. They
were evil spirits that took up their habitations in the hearts
of men, just as God entered into humanity and was mani
fested in the flesh. It is also worthy of notice, as corro
borative proof, that when our Lord came, he was taken into
the wilderness, and there he openly encountered Satan.
I cannot believe, with the German Rationalists, that this
was a mere dream, or eloquent myth. If that was a dream,
the whole Bible is a dream ; if that was not a literal histo
rical fact, there is no literal historical fact in the Bible.
The tendency introduced by Origen is perpetuated by the
Rationalists still — that of trying to make every thing a
myth ; and the issue of it will be, that they will land
where Berkeley's skepticism landed him, when he believed
that he himself was a myth, that he was not a bodily sub
stance, and that there was no such thing as matter in the
world. We thus find Satan, the moment that our Lord
appeared to commence his ministry, interposing with all
his force, combining, in one desperate assault, the power,
and genius, and resources of the archangel, with the ma
lignity, the subtlety, the cunning of the fiend ; hoping to
destroy Jesus, and thus to arrest the final blow which he
believed was brought nearer in that fact, namely — that the
woman's seed should bruise the serpent's head.
In coming down to the dispensation in which we now
are, we shall find indications given by the Spirit of God,
that there will be superhuman feats to be perhaps witness
ed by us, and that right speedily ; for our Lord himself
says, "For there shall arise false Christs and false pro
phets, and shall show [not the mimickry of, but shall show"!
great signs and wonders, insomuch that, if it were pos-

THE NOBLEMAN'S SICK SON. 37
sible, they should deceive the very elect;" showing us,
that none but God's own people shall escape ; that such
shall be the splendour, such the power, such the attractions
of the deeds they shall do, that all who have but a name
to live by, and whose names are not written in the Lamb's
book of life, shall be deceived and ensnared thereby. We
read in the Epistle to the Thessalonians, that one of the
characteristics of the great antichrist is, " coming after
the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying
wonders, [not pretended wonders, but wonders that would
teach and inculcate lies,] and with all deceivableness of
unrighteousness, in them that perish." In the Apocalypse
(chap. xiii. 13) we have another statement of the same
kind, where one of the beasts is said to do "great wonders,
so that he maketh fire to come down from heaven on the
earth, in the sight of men ; and deceiveth them that dwell
on the earth by means of those miracles, which he had
power to do in the sight of the beast." We have, there
fore, plain indications that superhuman deeds will be done
in defence of error by Satanic agency. Why should we
suppose this impossible ? We admit that Satan is a fallen
archangel ; once the highest, the brightest, -the most glo
rious intelligence, next to the Deity, that we know of. If
Satan retains the archangel's wisdom, (and the Bible con
stantly asserts this,) and is able by that wisdom to ori
ginate, concoct, and carry on things in this world that are
full of the most subtle deception and mischief, why should
we refuse to admit that Satan may retain, with the arch
angel's wisdom, the archangel's power, and do feats as well
as invent schemes which are, in themselves, superhuman
— signs, and wonders, and lying miracles ?
But you say, "How are we to be guided?" I do not
now enter upon the intricate question how a miracle is to
teach, irrespective of revelation : I merely enter upon the
4

38 FORESHADOWS.
question, how we, who have a revelation, are to receive
such miracles, should they come. In the first place, a
miracle, or superhuman deed, does not prove that the man
who does it is from God; it simply says, "You must listen
to this man; he is a spirit from hell, or a spirit from
heaven ; he comes armed with great power ; he tells you he
has a message to deliver, and you are bound to listen to
the man, judging not of the message by the miracle, but
of the miracle by the message, and of both by the word
of God." We are expressly told in Deuteronomy, xiii. 1,
2, at a time when these directions were still more important
than they can be to us now : " If there arise among you
a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign
or a wonder, [to confirm his mission,] and the sign or
wonder come to pass whereof he spake unto thee, saying,
Let us go after other gods, which thou hast. not known,
and let us serve them; thou shalt not hearken unto the
words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams ; for the
Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the
Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul."
So we are told in reference to the whole Bible, "If any
man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him
the plagues that are written in this book." Then we are
told again, that " God, who at sundry times and in divers
manners" — at sundry times, before the flood, during the
days of the patriarchs, under the dispensation of the law ;
in divers manners, sometimes by dreams, sometimes by
prophets, sometimes by types, sometimes by direct mes
sages from heaven — " spake in time past unto the fathers
by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by
his Son." That is the final communication; revelation is
now dosed, the Bible is complete. If then a spirit were
to come on earth, and turn water into wine, or raise the
dead to life, in my presence, and if he were to say, " I do

THE NOBLEMAN'S SICK SON. 39
60 because you ought to learn that it is lawful to worship the
Virgin Mary," or, « that the doctrine of transubstantiation
is true," or, "I have another book to add to the Bible,"
I would reject the miracle and the miracle-worker together.
The apostle says, "If we or an angel from heaven preach
unto you any other gospel than that ye have received, let
him be anathema." Keep close to the Bible then, as God's
complete testimony. All the miracles that angels from
beneath can work, or pretended apostles can show, will not
make me believe that they have any thing additional to
this book, or accept any thing contrary to this book, as if
God had changed his mind, and were about to give us a new
or contradictory revelation. Our safety is within the boards
of the Bible ; we have a complete and sufficient Bible. The
Bible has not grown old, as they say in Germany — humanity
has not outgrown the Bible. Certainly in this old country
of ours we believe that England's Bible is England's pole-
star ; and that therefore we have peace, loyalty, and love:
in other countries they believe that they have outgrown the
Bible ; but they show that they have outgrown common
sense at the same time, for every man's hand seems to be
against his neighbour, and his neighbour's hand against him.
There is a distinction of great importance that I ought
not to overlook here: the distinction between a discovery
and a revelation. A discovery is what man can make, and
man can enlarge and improve ; a revelation is what God
alone can give, and man cannot add to nor may take from.
When Columbus arrived at America, he made a discovery,
and subsequent visits have enlarged, perfected, and ex
tended that discovery ; but when God completed the Bible,
he made a revelation ; and no flight of ours can reach the
height from which it came, and therefore no genius of ours
can add to the perfection by which it is now stamped and
transparently characterized.

40 FORESHADOWS.
All true, heavenly miracles have this one grand feature :
they have a redemptive character ; they go to counteract
and reverse the effects of the fall. If we try every miracle
performed by our Lord by this test, we shall find it stand.
When, for instance, Jesus healed the sick, raised the dead,
and cured the leprous, he reinstated the subjects of these
diseases in the place in which they were meant to be when
God created them and pronounced them "very good."
Again, when he fed the thousands with a few loaves and
fishes, he gave an instalment of the reversal of the curse
of barrenness, which fell upon the whole earth when man
was sent forth from Eden to water it with his tears, and
fertilize it with the sweat of his brow. And when he
walked upon the yielding waves, and beckoned to the
obedient winds, and the former slumbered at his feet like
gentle babes, and the latter came to him like his own hired
servants, he then showed that he was creation's Lord, about
to retune creation's tangled strings, and bring it back
again, like an iEolian harp, to its ancient order and per
fection, when God's Spirit shall sweep over it, and bring
out glorious and inexhaustible melody. You find in all
Christ's works and miracles, the stamp of the Redeemer
— the evidence of redemptive power — a proof that a new,
a Divine, a beneficent Being is touching Nature, and
bringing her hack to what she was. So with many things
that we see existing now. When you see a physician, you
recognise in that physician's presence a testimony that sin
has diseased humanity, and in him the standing exponent
of man's convulsive effort to bring things back to what
they were. And the day will come, I believe, when all this
restoration will be realized, when Christ shall speak that
glorious word which shall make the desert rejoice and the
wilderness blossom as the rose; when there shall be no
more sickness, nor sorrow, nor trial, but the former things

THE NOBLEMAN'S SICK SON. 41
shall have passed away, and all old things shall have be
come new.
With these prefatory remarks, I enter upon the miracle
which I have read — namely, the healing of the nobleman's
son. This nobleman, it seems, was the prime minister, or
head steward, or satrap, under Herod ; a person therefore
of great rank and dignity; but though high in rank he
shared in the common humanity of us all. It is a great
mistake to suppose that a nobleman differs from a com
moner in any thing save in extrinsic and relative position.
This nobleman felt the love to this child that the poorest
person in Herod's realm felt; and at this moment our be
loved queen does not love her prince or her princess better
than that poor ragged mother in Drury Lane loves the
little babe that she clasps to her bosom, and can scarcely
shield from the summer's heat or protect from the winter's
winds. Underneath all the pomp and splendour and noise
of state there is heard the great under-tone of our common
humanity; amid all the distinctions and the differences,
which are beautiful, and graceful, and strengthening to the
social fabric, there yet run, cohering together, the roots
of our common nature, the traces of our common ruin,
and, blessed be God, sparkling amid these the hopes of
our final restoration.
Greatness of rank does not exempt people from sickness
and death. Great men and noblemen are sometimes
tempted to believe so. One thinks a battalion of bayonets
around him can give him safety; another thinks that the
splendour of equipage, a readiness of ministry and wealth
and innumerable resources, can keep out sickness. It is
a great mistake; experience shows it to be so; there are
sick-beds in palaces, and there are aching temples upon
beds of down ; many a time when a poor man goes to his
work with a merry heart, and with few thorns and cares to
4*

42 FORESHADOWS.
pierce it, the head that has a coronet or a crown on it
aches all the day long, and has little rest by night. The
rich, instead of being the least exempt, are the most ex
posed. The loftiest trees are first rent by the lightning,
and the highest pinnacles are first smitten by the thunder
bolt. This nobleman, one of the greatest in the land, had a
sick son, and so far was placed on a level with the poorest
and meanest in the land. That sick son was his greatest
mercy. God makes sickness and illness in our families con
tribute to our common good. If this nobleman's son had not
been sick, that nobleman's soul had never found a Saviour.
It is thus that God makes what we think the most painful ex
perience the pioneer of the greatest happiness, even eternal
happiness and joy. It is thus that the leech is applied ; it
feeds itself at our expense, but the physician stands by,
and overrules it for our safety and future health. For such
ends God sends sickness into the cradle, affliction into
the family. At times, when the sky is overshadowed,
when the heart droops, and the hopes fade, we begin, to
look up to the everlasting hills; and, blessed be God, many
a one, noble and ignoble, has learned this lesson — that
what prosperity could not do sickness has done, and that
the full cup which we worship has been mercifully dis
placed by the empty cup, which Christ afterward filled
with special and unspeakable blessings.
Let us learn also from this parable, that it is possible to
have very high conceptions of Jesus and yet not to have
conceptions of him high enough. This nobleman " went
to him and besought him that he would come down and
heal his son, for he was at the point of death." He be
lieved Jesus had power to heal, but he believed it was
limited power, that it was restricted to personal contact ;
and he had to learn that Jesus had more power than he

THE NOBLEMAN'S SICK SON. 43
believed him to possess, by the happy deliverance of his
son Jesus replied to him in what seemed to be a rebuke,
"Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe."
This was to teach us that the nobleman was driven to
Christ by the sense, the foreboding sense, of the loss of
his son ; not drawn to Christ by a clear and beautiful per
ception of the blessings that Christ had to give. Yet,
mark the fact : Christ nevertheless received him. What
a blessed truth is this, that Christ will accept you, if drawn
to him by a sight of his excellences and mightiness to
save ; while he will not reject you if you are rejected by
all the world besides, and come to him, as a last resource,
for mercy and forgiveness ! His bosom has room to wel
come the refugee from the trials and sorrows of the world,
as well as the refugee from the condemnation of sin,
seeking deliverance and acceptance before him.
The nobleman scarcely listened to his rebuke, but per
sisted in his cry, " Come down ere my child die." He was
so overwhelmed with a sense of the suffering of his child,
and with the fear of that child's death, that he scarcely
heard the rebuke. How true to human nature is this !
how like what we are ! He could scarcely listen to the
divine lesson, so mighty within him was the human and the
paternal sympathy. Herein we are taught the secret of
persevering prayer. This nobleman persevered in begging
so hard because he felt so deep an attachment to his child.
The secret of our persevering in seeking blessings from
God, is in the depth of our sense of the want of them.
To say to people, "Pray fervently, pray constantly," is
almost to waste one's words ; the first thing is to convince
them that they have great sins, that they are in deep peril,
that relief is possible ; then bid them pray fervently, and
with importunity. The nobleman had great suffering ; the
fear of great loss overcame all obstructions, and brought

44 FORESHADOWS.
the highest man in the realm, who had all eyes fastened
on him, and many tongues ready to deride and laugh at
him, to Jesus, the carpenter's son, Jesus of Nazareth, be
cause he, and he alone, could cure and restore his child.
Our Lord at first seemed to repulse and drive him away ;
but at the very time that he seemed to reject him, he was
preparing to do what he requested. This teaches us
another lesson — that we are not to suppose that Christ
withholds an answer to our prayer because he does not
answer that prayer always in the way that we wish. Christ
answered the nobleman's prayer, but not in the way that
the nobleman expected. So will he do with us. We hear
the noise of what we think an approaching doom, and lo !
it is the first tones of that sweet and beautiful voice which
rang so musically amid the storm of old, "Be of good
cheer; it is I, be not afraid." We see the cloud, dark
and black and ominous, and we fancy it is the chariot of
the judgments of the Lord ; but lo ! it is only sweeping
past to disclose to us a brighter sun, and to allow us to
bathe in the beams of a balmier and a better day. For
Christ immediately added, » Go thy way, thy son liveth."
What was true then is so now. Christ's word spoken at
Cana provoked its echo at Capernaum ; sickness recognised
in it the healer of diseases, fled from his victim, and left
this memorial in its flight, "Truly this was the Son of
God." Christ is now in his holy place,, and we are upon
the earth ; but if his word could travel five miles, and heal
that nobleman's son on that distant sick-bed, the same
word can travel from his throne in the loftiest heaven,
cleave its way, unspent in its transit, unweakened by the
distance, and go into the sick man's heart, into the dead
man's grave, into the guilty man's conscience, and into the
sad home's loneliness, and into the matron's agony, and
leave on the place that it strikes the first flower of Paradise

THE NOBLEMAN'S SICK SON. 45
regained, and kindle in the heart that it visits the first
rays of the everlasting day. His arm is not shortened, that
it cannot save ; his word is not less mighty, that it cannot
still comfort. He is what he was. There is a connecting
and transmissive wire between heaven aitd earth ; there is a
communication with the skies and with us. Let us rejoice
that it is thus ; and let us feel that along that electric wire
that knits the heart of our Redeemer to us his children,
there travel instantly all his sympathies down to sanctify
us, and all our prayers up to receive an answer exceedingly
abundantly above all that we can ask, or think, or desire.
What adds to the glory of this miracle performed by our
Lord is this — the nobleman was brought to Christ by the
sickness of his child. We find that the miracle had a
double effect. The same word that cured the sickness of
the son, cured the skepticism of the father, for it is added,
" And the nobleman believed." This teaches us the great
lesson, that no man ever interests himself in the welfare
of another without receiving a reflex blessing in doing so.
I have read of a mother who waited upon a parish minister
in Scotland, and who, on seeking admission to the Lord's
table, complained that she could not pray. The minister
said to her, " You have an only child, who is in delicate
health, (which was the fact,) go home and pray for that
child, and come to me next week." She went home and
prayed as directed, and when she went to the minister the
next week, she said, "I have been praying for my child,
and in doing so, I have learned to pray for myself." It
will be so with you ; if you try to do good to others, you
will find the good done chiefly to yourself ; if you will go
and teach in a Sunday-school, you will find you will be
taught richly and distinctively yourself ; if you will feed
the hungry, clothe the naked, minister to the wants and
necessities of the poor, you will find a reflex influence that

±6 FORESHADOWS.
will make you feel more happy, and find yourself vastly
more rich. It is God's great law, that in watering others
we shall be watered ourselves. Who are the happiest men ?
Always the busiest men. We shall find that the reason
of all that miserable feeling which people do not know
how to get over, and which leads tbem to play-houses,
operas, balls, and all the " broken cisterns" which the world
can supply, is just because they are doing nothing good.
Begin to do good, and you will begin to be happy. It is
God's great ordinance, and man cannot reverse it. I have
read of one who in despair and under derangement had
resolved to commit suicide by drowning himself — and no
man ever does so who is not deranged, and whose responsi
bility, therefore, has ceased — and as he went to do so,
he met a poor miserable woman in rags, who begged a half
penny from him. Instead of that, he gave her sixpence.
Her face glowed with delight, and she thanked him in such
terms that it went to the very depths of the man's heart.
"Surely," said he, "if I can be the means of creating
such happiness in one human being, God has something
more for me to do." And this was the means of saving his
life. Learn then to be beneficent men, not merely benevo
lent men. We have plenty of benevolent people, who wish
well ; but what we want is beneficent people, who do well,
who carry their wishes out into practical operation. I say,
God's great law is, that we shall find happiness in doing
good. The happiest people are the people who abound
most in good works. I think I have told you that all the
words in our language that convey happiness, mean coming
out of self, doing something for others: "transport," to
be carried beyond one's self; "ecstasy," standing out of
one's self, and the like : every word denoting the intensest
happiness, denotes that which is the most self-sacrificing,
doing good for the love of others.

THE NOBLEMAN'S SICK SON. " 47
I may notice also one thing remarkable in this miracle ;
namely, a point of contrast between it and an analogous
miracle, related in Matt, viii.: "And when Jesus was
entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion
beseeching him, and saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home
sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. And Jesus saith
unto him, I will come and heal him. The centurion answer
ed and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come
under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant
shall be healed." Notice here the contrast. The noble
man came and asked Christ to come to his house and heal
his son, believing that unless he personally came, his son
could not be healed. This centuricm, a very much humbler
person, came to our Lord, saying, Speak the word only,
you need not come, and my servant shall be healed. Jesus
in the one case spoke the word where he was asked to come,
but did not come ; in the other case he came, where he was
asked only to speak the word. Is there any lesson taught
in this distinction ? It may be this perhaps — that little
faith, as in the case of the nobleman, was invigorated into
great faith by Jesus not going as he wanted him ; and in
the case of the centurion, his. humility was deepened by
Jesus condescending to come when he only asked him to
speak the word. Perhaps also this lesson was to be taught
us, that Christ is no accepter of persons ; and this is not
the least beautiful feature in it. A nobleman asks the Son
of God to come and heal his son, his heir ; a duke asks
him to come and heal a marquis. Our Lord does not go,
but speaks the word. A poor sergeant in the army, a
non-commissioned officer, asks him to speak only, and heal
his domestic servant, and Jesus visits that servant on the
sick-bed. This precious lesson is thereby taught, that the
house of God ought to be, as I trust it will be, a seques
tered nook — sequestered from ambition and conflict, from

48 FORESHADOWS.
frivolity and folly, in which the rich and the poor shall
meet together, and feel that the Lord is the Maker of
them all. I do not like to see a congregation of aristocrats
merely, and I do not like to see a congregation of ragged
people merely; I love to see the greatest aristocrat ofthe
land and the humblest beggar from the streets listening to
the same gospel, hearing the same truths, and made to feel
that they have points of identity lasting like the stars, but
points of distinction evanescent as the morning dew. So
our Lord taught that in the house of God, as in the grave,
there should be no distinction of persons.
We notice next the interesting fact, that the servants
rushed forth to tell their master the joyful news that his
son was healed. I like this trait ; the servants did not
feel, as they are too much taught to feel in this commer
cial capital, that they are hired to do so much work, and
when they have done this work to think there is not a
point of contact with the family besides. These servants
sympathized with the nobleman ; they felt that his joy
was their joy, his happiness their happiness, and his in
terest their interest.
The nobleman, not expecting an instant cure, asked the
question — and this brings out the exquisite truth of the
narrative — at what hour his son began to amend. He ex
pected the cure would be, like all other cures, a gradual
and progressive one. When the servants informed him,
however, he learned that Christ had answered his prayer
far above what he thought. His query was, " When did
he begin to amend?" The joyful answer was, " The fever
left him." And he found, on comparing notes, that it
was at the very same hour at which Jesus said, " Go thy
way, thy son liveth." Before, he believed in the possibi
lity of a special act ; now, he believes in Christ his glorious
Saviour ; and not only himself but his whole house believed.

THE NOBLEMAN'S SICK SON. 49
This son was under his roof ; he was ill at home ; and when
he was miraculously cured, the whole house, from the
highest to the lowest, recognised the claims of Jesus, ac
cepted the good news, and became followers of the Lamb
of God ! While noble and ignoble are on a level in the
sight of God, yet it is a great point gained when a person
of high rank, great power, extensive influence, is brought
to know, and love, and feel the gospel. You ask why ?
Because he occupies a loftier pinnacle, he is the observed
of all observers; and according to a law in this world, the
example of those who tread the high places of the land
descends with, rapid power, so much so that a country re
flects very much its court ; as the high are, the humble
generally become. I believe, therefore, that on the aristo
cracy of the land there rests a weighty responsibility.
Therefore I rejoice to see, in the present day, our nobles
taking the chair, and appearing on the platforms, at meet
ings of our Sunday-schools, day schools, and ragged
schools, and advocating, what is really the substance and
the sinews of our strength and stability, the Christian en
lightenment of the humbler classes of society. We may
rest assured, if the lower stratum of the pyramid becomes
disorganized, the apex, however it may reflect the sun
beams, will soon be overturned. The safety of the country
is in the Christianization of the great masses that lie
below ; and those noblemen and persons in the highest
slasses, who wish to learn how tottering their position may
be, should occasionally take a plunge into the alleys and
lanes of London, and they will see how much is to be done,
before they can lay their heads upon their pillows, and feel
that they are secure ; before, above all, they can stand at
the judgment-seat, and remember they have done what
they ought to have done.
In the next place we learn, from the study of this mi-

50 FORESHADOWS.
racle, that we may pray — and here is a very precious lesson
— that temporal affliction may be averted from us. Is
there any one present who feels the touch of death is upon
him, that the cold shadow of the grave, as the issue of some
lingering disease, begins to overcloud and darken him ?
It is not forbidden to you, my brother, my sister, to pray
that you may be healed. Is there any one in this assem
bly who has a friend labouring under some lingering disease,
a son or daughter drawing near to the gates of the tomb ?
It is not forbidden to you, it is not unscriptural, to pray,
to pray fervently, that God would be pleased to spare that
son, and preserve that daughter, and keep to you that
friend. The nobleman so prayed for his son, and his heart's
desire was answered. Is there a mother here whose babe
is dying ? Do you gaze sadly upon its fading life — pro
nounced to be so by the skill that has attended it ? May
you pray, " 0 Lord, spare this beautiful flower, this me
morial of departed Eden ; let it not be blasted ; we would
gather it into our bosom ; we would tend it, water it, and
nurse it a little longer; spare it, 0 Lord?" May you
pray so ? Who will forbid you ? Not Jesus, for he prayed,
in his agony, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass
from me ;" but he added, what I trust you will have grace
to add, "Not as I will, but as thou wilt."
My dear brethren, if we thus bring the sicknesses of our
friends, our sons and daughters, to the Saviour, may we
bring especially their souls to him ! We can bring their
spiritual condition, in the sight of God, to the Saviour any
where. Bring your children to Christ, to be blessed by
him ; by sympathy, by Christian education, by love, by
prayer, and, lastly, by your example. They are precious.
These children in the streets are not weeds, and are not to
be crushed under the feet of the thoughtless traveller ; they
are flowers — faded flowers, I admit, soiled and injured

THE NOBLEMAN'S SICK SON. 51
flowers ; but your hand may replace them, raise them, and
nurse them, and bring them below the beams of a better
sun, the rains of a better influence, and they will bloom
again like flowers of Paradise. So we shall hasten to that
day in which the inhabitant shall not say, "I am sick,"
and the healing of the nobleman's son shall prove a faint
foreshadow of the healing of all that is diseased.

52

LECTURE III.
THE SOLDIER'S SICK SERVANT.
And when Jesus Was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion,
beseeching him, and saying, Lord, my sorvant lieth at home sick of the palsy,
grievously tormented. And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him.
The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest
come under my roof : but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.
For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me : and I say to
this man, Go, and he goeth ; and to another, Come, and he comethj and to
my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. When Jesus heard it, he marvelled,
and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so
great faith, no, not in Israel. And I say unto you, That many shall come
from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and
Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall
be cast out into outor darkness : there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
And Jesus said unto tho centurion, Go thy way ; and as thou hast believed,
so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame horn-.
— Matt. viii. 5-13.
I will preface the exposition I give of this interesting
miracle by some remarks in continuation of those I have
already made on the nature of the miracles of our Lord.
It is not uninteresting to contrast the miracles performed
by our Lord with those performed by his most distinguished
servants in the Old Testament dispensation. In looking
at the miracles performed of old, and prior to the advent
of Christ, it seems as if they were done with greater diffi
culty, not because God was less mighty, but because his
omnipotence was not so largely bestowed. For instance,
Moses, in removing the leprosy of his sister, wrestles and
persists in prayer, " Heal her now, 0 God, I beseech thee;"
but when we read the record of the Saviour's miracle in

THE SUBALTERN'S SICK SERVANT. 53
an analogous circumstance, we find simply his touch ; his
accents are, "Be thou clean," and the party is so. Elijah
prays long, and sends his servant seven times before the
rain begins to appear ; Christ speaks, and the winds are
hushed, and the waves are still. Elisha, with great effort,
and after partial failure, restores the life of the Shunam-
mite's child; our Lord speaks to the dead, " Come forth,"
and the dead come forth accordingly. This was owing
partly to the less glorious dispensation ; partly to the
greater remoteness from that day when the earth shall be
restored, and all its discord shall be reduced to harmony ;
and partly to illustrate a principle which pervades the Acts
of the Apostles, as well as Genesis and the Pentateuch,
namely, that Christ's miracles (and this is a very important
and striking evidence of the deity of Christ) were done
directly by himself, while the miracles performed by the
apostles and patriarchs and prophets were done, as ac
knowledged by themselves in fact, in virtue of a delegated
power. Thus, for instance, when Moses divided the Red
Sea, " Stand still, and behold the salvation of God, which
he will show unto you," he referred the miracle, whatever
it might be, to the instant power, and therefore to the ex
clusive glory, of God. When the apostles performed mi
racles, as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, they were
done with such a preface as the following : " In the name
of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk," and again,
"Eneas, Jesus Christ maketh thee whole." But when
Christ performed a miracle, he said, "I will, be thou
clean ;" and again, " I say unto thee, arise." Now you
have, in the very- peculiar language used by the apostles
when they put forth miraculous power, proof that theirs
was a borrowed power, a reflected influence; but when
Jesus performed the miracles, you can see that it was not
the act of man, but the touch of that finger that created

54 FORESHADOWS.
' the stars, and wields them in their orbits, and that mado
all things, visible and invisible.
There is another contrast between the miracles of the
Old and of the New Testament perhaps worth noticing ; it
is this, that all the miracles recorded in the Old Testament
Scriptures were more in contact with external nature;
they were more visible, more colossal, and if I might use
the expression without being misconstrued — more gross in
their character. It was the rending earthquake, the fire
losing its power to consume, the wild beasts their ability
to devour — great, startling, portentous acts, fitted to awe
and subdue the senses of all that beheld them. But when
we look at the miracles of the New Testament, we find
they are neither the whirlwind that rushes in its fury, nor the
earthquake that spreads its terrible vibrations, nor the fire
that consumes all that approaches it, but the " still small
voice," — miracles that relate more to man's soul than to
man's body, and occupy, as it were, a loftier sphere, hold
communion with sublimer things, and give evidence of a
new, and nobler, and more glorious dispensation.
Having made this contrast between the miracles recorded
in the Old Testament and those in the New, I may also
contrast the miracles of the New Testament with the pseudo
or pretended miracles ascribed to our Lord in those silly
legends composed in the second and third century, and, by
courtesy, called the New Gospel, such as what was called
"The Gospel of the Infancy," and "The Gospel of Nico-
demus." They were legends concocted in cells, and palm
ed, some by superstitious, and others by wicked, persons
upon the world, all bearing internal and external evidence
of their utter absurdity and forgery. One of the most
striking proofs of their absurdity — an indirect, but very
powerful proof — is to be seen in the miracles they record
as performed by Jesus. There are other proofs of their

THE SUBALTERN'S SICK SERVANT. 55
forgery, such as their making allusion to facts which did
not occur till centuries after they were written, and their
containing things that are positively contradictory, absurd,
and ridiculous ; but the most complete proof of their false
hood is in an investigation of the miracles which they as
cribe to Jesus. In the gospel every miracle performed by
Jesus was subordinated to some great truth he was teach
ing, or associated with the moral and spiritual well-being
of the person who was its subject ; and you are less stuck
with the miracle than with the worker of the miracle.
Every miracle that Jesus did withdraws you from the deed
of beneficence and power, and surrounds the doer of it
with a halo of imperishable and refulgent glory. But the
miracles ascribed to Jesus as recorded in these false legends
which I have alluded to, are mere portents : they are fitted
to make people stare, and wonder, and be amazed ; they
are more like the deeds of a magician than the doings of
the Son of God. You cannot conceive a more complete
contrast than that between the simple and grand feats of
power, reflecting glory on the doer, recorded in the Gos
pels, and the silly, puerile portents, influencing merely the
senses of the reader, recorded in what have been called
the "pseudo-gospels," written afterward. We may notice,
too, this peculiarity ; every miracle recorded in the New
Testament is related to have been done by Christ during
the three years of his ministry ; and all the miracles re
corded in the false gospels are all described to have been
done by Jesus when he was an infant. The grandeur of
the gospel is, that it speaks of nothing but what contri
butes in some shape to the glory of God and to the edifi
cation of the church ; the peculiarity of these legends is,
that they speak of nothing but what is calculated to startle,
to amaze, or to make the beholder stare and wonder. You
have in them, too, a direct contradiction to what is ex-

56 FORESHADOWS.
pressly stated in the gospel. In the second chapter of
the Gospel of St. John we are told that the miracle per
formed at the marriage-feast was the beginning of Christ's
miracles ; but these Gospels record miracles said to have
been performed when he was a child or a babe ; the one,
therefore, directly contradicts the other. There is also this
peculiarity about the miracles ascribed to Christ in these
false legends, that none of them have the redemptive and
restorative character of the miracles of Christ. Every
miracle that Christ did seems to bring nature back to her
primeval harmonies, casting out the disease, the discord,
the intrusive and disorganizing elements that sin intro
duced, and giving, as it were, an earnest and a foreshadow
of that blessed day when all sounds shall be harmony, all
lessons shall be light, and all affections shall be love.
Thus, then, we see the position that the miracles in the
New Testament occupy with reference to past genuine mi
racles recorded in the Old Testament Scripture, and with
reference to the pseudo-miracles subsequently ascribed to
Christ in legends that impiously assumed his name. Having
made these remarks, I will turn your attention now to the
miracle immediately before us.
Jesus, we are told, had entered into Capernaum, and a
centurion, that is, a subaltern in the Roman army, ap
proached him, anxious for the health and recovery of his
servant or slave. This centurion was what was called " a
proselyte at the gate ;" he was one of those Gentiles who
felt the worthlessness of heathenism, the absurdity of its
polytheistic rites, and saw in the doctrines of the Jews,
interpolated as they were, mutilated as they had become,
a response to what was deepest and most earnest in his
heart ; he abjured the heathenism which could not satisfy
him, and cleave to that living religion which the Pharisee
had overlaid, but from which truth still broke forth in

THE SUBALTERN'S SICK SERVANT. 57
much of its primeval purity and brightness. He was of
the same class, plainly, as the centurion spoken of in the Acts
of the Apostles : " Cornelius, a centurion of the band called
the Italian band ; a devout man, and one that feared God
with all his house, which gave much alms to the people, and
prayed to God alway." Just previous to the advent of
Christ there were many of these proselytes making their
appearance, and one can see in their development the com
mencement of a great process. They were the links that
connected the Jew with the Gentile world ; they were, so
to speak, those intermediate persons who were in com
munion with the Jew upon the one hand, and in contact
with the Gentile upon the other hand; and were the
premonitory signs and symptoms of that great fusion of
the human family, in which there should be neither Jew
nor Gentile, nor Greek nor barbarian, nor bond nor free,
but Christ should be all and in all. They were, in fact,
instalments of that sublime fellowship which knows neither
Jew nor Gentile, which calls no man clean, or unclean, or
common, but recognises all as brothers who bear the stamp
and the superscription of a divine and heavenly likeness.
It is a remarkable fact, that whenever God is about to
take a great step in the development of his kingdom upon
earth, he always gives preliminary signs of its approach.
The great fact that was to occur when Christ came was
the fusion of the Jews and Gentiles into one redeemed
family. The preliminary foreshadows, flung back upon
the world from that Sun before he rose above the horizon,
were these proselytes at the gate — men who were not
Jews, because they did not conform to all the rites of the
Jews, and who were not Gentiles, because they rejected
the polytheistic religion of the Gentiles, but who therefore
constituted the connecting links and bands between the
two, and the pioneers of that brighter and blessed fellow-

58 * FORESHADOWS.
ship, in which Jew and Gentile should be lost in the family
name, " Christian," and Christ should be all and in all. So
it seems to me that, in the day in which we live, we have
the preliminary signs of some great fusion about to take
place. We saw that before the fusion of Jew and Gentile
occurred, we had all these premonitory signs and fore
shadows ; and in the present day we may notice going on
processes and efforts that are oft disappointed, attempts
that are frequently frustrated and broken, to make all
mankind feel the sympathies and respond to the touch of
a common and a glorious brotherhood. It seems to me
that all the discoveries of the age are but the pioneers and
preparations for this. I look upon the triumphs of steam,
the railroad, and' the electric wire, the Great Exhibition
of 1851, as portions of that great net which is being cast
over the length and the breadth of the human family, to
teach all mankind, by extinguishing space, shortening time,
and removing obstructions to the interchange of the sym
pathies of life, that a day comes with all the speed, as it
will dawn with all the splendour, of the lightning, when
Scottish, English, Irish, European, Asiatic, African, shall
lose their distinctive denominational names in that name
which was pronounced in scorn, if proclaimed from heaven,
at Antioch, but which will be sounded in the everlasting
jubilee, and Christ and Christian shall be all and in all.
This centurion, then, who was thus "a proselyte at the
gate," came to Christ, as it is recorded in one Gospel, or
sent to Christ by his friends, as it is recorded in another
— and what one does by his representative he does himself;
for you will often see this interchange of terms used in
the New Testament. But his sense of unworthiness was
so great, that he said, " I am not worthy that thou shouldest
come under my roof." He felt that Christ was a high
and a holy being, and that he was, though a proselyte and

THE SUBALTERN'S SICK SERVANT. 59
a worshipper of the true God, a sinful and a fallen man,
and therefore he says, with profound, not feigned, humility,
" I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof."
He that accounts his house unworthy of the presence of
so great a Master, has that humility which will lead Christ
to account his heart worthy of his entrance and abiding.
Christ sat in the house of the Pharisee ; he took possesion
of, and dwelt in, the heart of the Roman soldier.
The profession of this centurion, as the word plainly
implies, was that of a soldier. Many persons think that
soldiers are emphatically sinful and criminal persons, and
that the very existence of a soldier ought not to be. Some
seem to think that to suppose that a soldier can be a
Christian, is to suppose what is impossible ; and that to
think that there can be any heirs of the kingdom of heaven
in the army, is a stretch of charity which they are not
prepared for. Now I always feel that that is not charity
which is more charitable than God, but the very reverse ;
it is delusion and deception. You will find in the New
Testament Scriptures some of the most illustrious saints,
who wore the uniform and wielded the weapons of Caesar.
I shrink from war ; I deplore it as a stern, a terrible, an
awful necessity; and, if I could by a touch, or by the
offering of a prayer, I would turn every sword into a plough
share, and every spear into a pruning-hook. I would re
verse the process of the modern Romans, in 1848, and would
turn the cannons into church-bells, and make them the min
strels of a sweeter and a far more holy music; I would
turn shot into rails, and men-of-war into merchantmen in
every harbour. If I could, I would ; and I pray that right
speedily what is the burden of a thousand prophecies may
be the realization of delightful and glorious facts. But
the question is not, my dear friends, Is war desirable?
We are all agreed that war is a most undesirable thing, and

60 FORESHADOWS.
earnestly would we all pray that the soldier and his stern pro
fession may become both obsolete together. But there is
the common-sense view of the question, which we are not
at liberty to despise ; and Christianity is the highest com
mon sense. Suppose now that we were to disband our army
and our navy, what would be the result ? If other nations
would enter into a compact to do the same, and if we were
sure that they would keep to it, then we might do so ; but
if they will not, and do not, but girdle us around, not to
defend but to destroy us, would it be Christianity, or would
it be lunacy, in our country, to disband its army and break
up all its fleet ? If all Europe were Christian, that is, if
the Millennium were come, then, of course, what is now
required would be perfectly expedient ; we should have to
extinguish all our police, turn jails into churches, our sol
diers into missionaries, and we should need neither shot,
nor sword, nor sabre, nor cannon ; and the nations then
"would learn war no more." But the Millennium is not
come, there is the plain, unequivocal fact. By all means
try to prevent war. Get pirates, thieves, tyrants, autocrats,
mobs, fierce, seditious men, to arbitrate ; but the sad fact
is, that these men insist upon striking first, and arbitrating
afterward. If they would arbitrate before they strike — ¦
if they would consider and discuss before they draw, it
would be well ; but it is a fact that they do not so, and the
more defenceless you are, the more ready they are to strike.
It does seem to me, with all deference to the wisdom, and
the knowledge, and the expierence of those that know better,
that this is the old process, that has failed so often, of try
ing to do by conventionalism that which can only be done
by Christianity, attempting by mechanical arrangements
that which can only be effected by spiritual and moral
means. If men would only expend in the spread of the
Bible, in extending the gospel, in contributing to mission-

THE SUBALTERN'S SICK SERVANT. 61
ary societies, in praying, " Thy kingdom come," more time
and more means, they would do more to render war un
necessary than by any other process that has been tried.
In the beautiful words of an American poet, written when
he looked at an arsenal, with arms piled to the roof —
" This is the arsenal. From floor to ceiling,
Like a huge organ, rise the burnish'd arms ;
But from their silent pipes, no anthem pealing,
Startles the villages with strange alarms.
Ah ! what a sound will rise, how wild and dreary,
When the death-angel touches those soft keys !
What . 
Will mingle with their awful symphonies !
Were half the power that fills the world with terror,
Were half the wealth bestow'd in camps and courts,
Given to redeem the human mind from error,
There were no need of arsenals and forts ;
The warrior's name would be a name abhorr'd,
And every nation that should lift again
Its hand against a brother, on its forehead
Would wear for evermore the curse of Cain.
Down the dark future, through long generations,
War's echoing sounds grow fainter, and they cease
Like to a bell, with solemn sweet vibrations :
I hear once more the voice of Christ say, "Peace."
Peace! No longer from its brazen portals
The blast of war's great organ shakes the skies,
But beautiful as songs of the immortals,
The holy melodies of love arise."
Such we know will be the end, and such alone are the
means by which it can be accomplished.
Here then was a soldier, and yet a Christian; and if
God has pronounced him clean, shall we pronounce him
unclean? In the Gospel by St. Luke it is stated that the
soldiers came to John. I am stating this to show you, not

62 FORESHADOWS.
that war is beautiful, but that being a soldier is not sinful ;
it may seem supererogation, and yet it is not so, to prove
this in the present day. The soldiers came to John, and
"likewise demanded of him, saying, What shall we do?"
Did he say, "Your very profession is a crime, abjure it?"
No. "He said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither
accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages."
Can I suppose that to be a soldier is thereby and therefore
to be a sinner, or, in other words, that war is lawful in no
circumstances, when John thus spake to the soldiers, and
gave them his command and guidance ?
This Christian soldier came to Jesus, and asked him to
interfere in behalf of his sick slave. He was a brave man,
for such a Roman soldier must be ; he was an humble man,
for such a Christian always is ; and he was a kind, an af
fectionate, and a loving man — such the choicest of human
ity is ; and he felt an interest in the health and happiness
of his poor sick slave. There were no servants in ancient
times in the sense in which servants are regarded now ;
they were bought and sold in the market ; they were treated
by the heathens with a consummate disregard of every
instinct and feeling of humanity. This soldier, feeling
such a deep interest in the well-being of his slave, is on the
one hand a beautiful trait, and creditable to him, and on
the other hand it is significant of that great lesson that
Christianity teaches, that the servant and the master, in
the sight of God, stand upon the same platform, and must
be tried at the same tribunal.
When he drew near to our Lord, he expressed his un-
worthiness to approach him. His profession as a soldier
served him with arguments as a Christian. He said, " I
am a man under authority." At first sight this seems a
strange expression : one would have thought that he would
have said, "I am a man having authority." But no, he

THE SUBALTERN'S SICK SERVANT. 63
argues from the lesser to the greater: "I am a subaltern,
and there is over me a commanding officer," (as if he had
said, "I am a lieutenant" ;) "and if I who am but a subal
tern, an under-officer, have such power, that I can say to this
soldier, < Take up that position,' and to that soldier, 'Be
sentinel there,' and to my servant, 'Do this,' and he doeth
it, much more, surely, thou, who art the commander of all
the armies of the skies, and the ruler of all the inhabitants
of the earth, hast but to speak the word, and my servant
then will be instantly healed." His idea of the sovereignty
of Christ was beautiful and grand. The leading idea in
the soldier's mind was his profession, and that profession
supplied him with a conception of the grandeur of him who
is the Autocrat of heaven and earth, the true Imperator,
of whose authority Caesar was but an imperfect and poor
shadow. The soldier argues, "If I then, as a subaltern,
have so much power that every man is subject to my au
thority, — that, in virtue of the discipline that prevails in
the Roman army, instant obedience is rendered to every
command,— then, Lord Jesus, great Saviour, great King,
speak to this disease, and it will instantly obey thee ; breathe
a word to my sick slave, and he will rise and come unto
thee ; thou who art the Lord of all power and might, thou
hast but to say the word, and angels will come and execute
thy will ; or wind, and wave, and water, and earth, and sky,
will meet together and conspire to do thy behests." We
are thus taught how one's profession may often be made
serviceable to one's Christianity; and how lessons may be
gathered from all the sequestered nooks and by-paths of
domestic, private, and professional life, which will cast new
lustre on the truths, and inspire with new force the pre
cepts of the everlasting gospel.
Jesus, we are told, admired the confidence and faith of
the centurion, and said he had not seen "so great faith,

64 FORESHADOWS.
no, not in Israel." What does this teach us? That Christ
is pleased the most when we put the most confidence in
him. We are not guilty of presumption on the one hand,
or of rash and daring intrusion on the other, when we lay
much upon the shoulder of Christ for him to bear and en
dure for us. The more we trust him, the more he feels he
is honoured by that trust. Christ is not angry with you
because you have asked too much of him, but he is grieved
and vexed that you should have such diffidence in his love,
such distrust of his omnipotence, that you ask too little of
him. Ask great things, and he will give you great things.
He does exceeding abundantly above all that you can ask
or think. We have evidence here that such asking is not
presumption, in the simple fact, that the deepest humility
and the greatest faith were combined in this Roman soldier
of whom I am now speaking.
We read that our blessed Lord heard his request, put
forth his power, healed his slave, and restored him to his
master ; and he was so charmed and smitten with this spe
cimen of piety, like a wild flower gathered from the desert,
not a garden-flower nursed in the vineyard of Israel, that
he said, " Verily I say unto you, many shall come from the
east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and
Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of God." In other
words, he teaches us that there are Christians where we
suspect not, in circumstances, in cities, in countries, and in
shapes where the natural eye cannot see them. There are
more Christians in the world than bigotry will allow on the
one hand, and there are fewer Christians in the world than
latitudinarianism is pleased to think on the other hand.
The eye of true charity can see Christians where the eye
of the world can see none. The wings of love can cross
breadths, and the feet of love can wade through depths,
and find trophies of the power, and monuments of the

THE SUBALTERN'S SICK SERVANT. 65
mercy of God, unsuspected and unseen by the multitude
of mankind. Our Lord says, "Many shall come from the
east and the west." I rejoice in the prospect that the num
bers of the saved will not be a few. The whole language
of Christianity is, "Many shall be saved." The language
of the Apocalypse, (chap, vii.,) so beautiful and so rich
with thoughts descriptive of the future, is, " I beheld, and
lo, a great multitude which no man could number, of all
nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before
the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes,
and palms in their hands." And in the nineteenth chapter
we read, "And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great
multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the
voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia : for the Lord
God omnipotent reigneth." I observed in my Apocalyptic
Sketches, that this alleluia, the first Hebrew word in Re
velation, is the Jewish voice. It is at the destruction of
Babylon, that the Jews shall return, and sing "Alleluia."
And I may mention a very interesting fact — that the Jews
were seen circulating the New Testament, and selling it in
the streets of Rome, in 1848; and these Jews, although
they did not believe in the gospel, were actually quoting
2 Thess. ii., and demonstrating that the pope is the Anti
christ, and that the Romans had better not let him come
back, nor have any thing to do with him ; as if a strong
foreshadow of that day, when the voice of the Jew shall
join with that of the Christian at the destruction of Rome,
and shall say, "Alleluia ! at length, not Antichrist, but the
Lord God omnipotent reigneth."
We have an intimation, then, that a great multitude shall
come from the east, and from the west, and shall sit down
with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of
God. Notice here the identity of faith and the identity
of love. Not sect, nor rite, nor nationality are the bonds

66 FORESHADOWS.
of union and communion with each other. It is not said
that only the circumcised, and baptized, or only the Jew
shall come, or those that pronounce the same shibboleth,
and worship in the same form; but it is said that many
from the north, and the south, and the east, and the west,
shall come, and,- having the same Lord, the same faith, the
same hope, the same joy, shall sit down with Abraham, and
Isaac, and Jacob. This teaches us what is the true bond
of the unity of the church of Christ. It is not all using
the same liturgy, or using the same forms, or worshipping
in the same manner, or worshipping in the same place, or
being under the same ecclesiastical government ; but it is
in all having the same centre — Christ ; the same Father,
whose children we are ; the same Spirit, whose sanctified
subjects we are. Christ is called the Husband of his
church. "Husband" comes from two Saxon words, mean
ing "house-bond." The husband is the house-bond, and
Christ is the great house-bond of his house — all bound and
knit together, finding their unity in subjection to and in
communion with him.
Thus, then, men of all classes, of all castes, of all forms
of worship, shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and
Jacob ; men of every clime — the African from his burning
sand, the Laplander from his everlasting snows. The chil
dren of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, who met once in the
ark, shall meet in Christ the true Ark, and sit down with
Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob. Men of every political
dynasty — the accomplished royalist and the stern repub
lican, the subjects of good governments and the victims of
bad ones, shall all meet together in heaven, for they have
met in Christ; men of all ranks, from all circles, degrees,
and positions in social life; men of all kinds and degrees
of intellect — the philosopher and the peasant,

THE SUBALTERN'S SICK SERVANT. 67
" He renown'd for ages yet to come,
And she not heard of half a mile from home."
shall meet, if believers, and mingle in that glorious fel
lowship. We are told that they shall sit down with Abraham, and
Isaac, and Jacob: that indicates perfect repose, perfect
rest, the sabbath of the soul. The "rest that remaineth
for the people of God" will have then begun; the soldier
from the field of battle, the sailor from the restless deck,
the mourner from his weeping, the martyr from his flame
shroud — all, gathered together by the attraction of their
common Lord, and pervaded by the sympathies of a com
mon faith, shall sit down together with Abraham, and Isaac,
and Jacob.
Notice, too, the dignity of it — they "shall sit down."
Servants stand ; kings and princes sit. God's people are
to sit on thrones. "They shall be," says the apostle,
"kings and priests unto Christ."
Another idea is that of enjoyment. It will be a festival
— a feast for the imagination, a theme for the intellect, a
f£te for the heart ; all the faculties of man's soul will be
feasted with things congenial to their nature. It will be
the repose which all humanity, after its exile and its weary
wanderings below, shall feel to be its home ; and in which
home-born joys, like swallows under a roof, shall nestle
for ever.
And there will be not only dignity, and rich enjoyment,
and true rest, but there will be recognition of each other.
"Sit down" with whom? With Abraham, and Isaac, and
Jacob. Can we sit with them, and not recognise them ?
Shall we know that the promise is performed, if we do not
actually see those patriarchs, and feel that they are so?
I hope when all the shadows of time shall have ceased,
and the pulse of the first resurrection shall have been felt

68 FORESHADOWS.
by the sleeping dust, and realized by the glorified spirits
of the redeemed of God, that there will be a meeting so
grand, so noble, so glorious, that the imagination of the
brightest poet, even in his happiest imaginings, has never
conceived it. I believe I shall see Adam, who first sinned,
and was also first saved, and hear from his lips the story
of Paradise lost, and Paradise regained. I shall see Enoch,
and learn of one who never tasted death, but passed from
the life that now is to the eternal world without having
waded the narrow sea that flows between. I shall see Noah,
and hear him relate the story of the ark, — what he felt,
what he hoped, and how he trembled, how gloriously he was
saved, and how happy ho now feels. I shall meet with
Moses the great prophet, and Aaron the great priest, with
John the evangelist, and with Peter the apostle, and hear
each tell the story of his trials, the secret of his triumphs,
and the happiness he now feels when the battle is won —
when the palm is in the hand, and the wreath of victory
twined about the brow. We shall see things that are now
unseen, and taste joys that we have now no conception of;
and if we felt all the grandeur and magnificence that
awaits us in reversion, I do believe that, in the case of the
children of God, the reluctance would not be to die, but
to live ; and that oftener would this cry rise from the very
depths of the sanctified heart, " Oh that I had wings like
a dove, that I might fly away, and that I might enter into
that rest, and be with God for ever!" It is because we
are so long accustomed to the old house, and so acquainted
with all its nooks, its recesses, and its windings, that we
do not like to leave it ; but if we could gaze upon that glo
rious palace, if we could only measure its splendid halls —
those halls where the altar is Christ, where the floor is
emerald, and the dome is sapphire, and the very dust is
diamond — I am sure we should thirst and long for an en-

THE SUBALTERN'S SICK SERVANT. 69
trance into that blessed city, which hath no need of sun
nor of moon, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb
are the light thereof.
It is nearer than many of us think, and either it will
soon come to us, or we must go to it : one or the other
must be. If we are now the people of God, the partition-
wall that separates it from us becomes thinner every day.
One can feel the pulses of that great heart of love to which
we shall soon draw near ; one can almost hear, in rapt mo
ments, the first notes of that glorious jubilee in which we
shall take a part. We stand every moment on the verge
of that great and unsounded sea. Are we ready to set
sail ? Are we clothed in the Redeemer's righteousness ?
Are we actuated by the Redeemer's spirit ? Have we the
humility of a Christian ? Have we the humility of the
soldier, the faith of the soldier, the trust of the soldier,
recorded in the miracle ? How is it that any one,
with one foot in eternity and the other in time, not
knowing into which section of eternity he is about to
plunge, there to be for ever, can remain in such a state for
one single day ? Let me repeat the blessed truth : Sal
vation now, this very day, for the guiltiest of us all ; in
stant pardon, glorious, sufficient pardon, through the blood
of Jesus, for the chiefest of sinners. My dear friends,
God's great grief is, if I may use such language, that wo
are always suspecting him to be a hard Egyptian task
master, instead of feeling of him, and flying to him, as to
our Father. Father, go home, and watch the babe in the
mother's bosom, and see where it finds its repose, where its
rest and its confidence are ; and learn that, great and gifted
and celebrated as you may be, it is only when you can be
come like that little babe, and feel toward God as that in
fant feels to its mother, that you will be a true, a happy,
and exalted Christian.

70

LECTURE IV.
THE DISCIPLES IN THE STORM.
And straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship, and to go
before him unto the other side, while he sent the multitudes away. And
when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to
pray : and when the evening was come, he was there alone. But the ship
was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves : for the wind was con
trary. And in tho fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking
on tho sea. And when the disciples saw him walking on tho sea, they were
troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear. . But straightway
Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid.
Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on
the water. And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the
ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. But when he saw the wind
boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord,
save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him,
and said unto him, 0 thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? And
when they were come into the ship, the wind ceased. Then they that were
in the ship came and worshipped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of
God.— Matt. xiv. 22-33.
I beg to introduce the beautiful miracle recorded in the
passage I have read by some additional prefatory remarks
upon the nature of the miracles of our Lord. I have
prefaced every exposition of the successive miracles of
Christ by remarks on their nature ; and I come now to that
point of discussion which is of some importance in the
present day, namely, Are miracles still continued in the
church ? Ought there to be in the visible church, or in any
section of it whatever, power to do miracles ? And if we
see not that power exercised, is it a sign that it has been
withdrawn in sovereignty, or is it a proof of the unfaith-

THE DISCIPLES IN THE STORM. 71
fulness of the church that has shorn her of her prero
gative ? or is it the mind of God that there should be no
miracles in the visible church whatever, and that there is
neither a necessity for them, in the circumstances in which
we are placed, nor power to do them in those who are
either the teachers or the pupils in the church of Christ ?
It is my conviction, founded upon fact and Scripture, that
it is not God's mind that there should be now miracles in
the church ; that from the nature of the thing it could
scarcely have been expected that there should ; and that
while there is every reason to believe that miracles were
required at each successive epoch or stage in the pro
gression of God's purposes, there is no proof that they
were meant to be every-day exhibitions by every Christian.
In noticing the miracles of the Old Testament Scripture,
you will perceive (and this is presumptive evidence that
they were not meant to be always continued) that they
cluster around each great crisis, or epoch, or era ; they are
not spread over the whole dispensation as every-day things,
but they seem to cluster into masses, to occur at special
intervals, or on specific occasions, when there was a great
crisis at which the interposition of omnipotence was neces
sary ; then and there only omnipotence developed itself.
For instance, we find that at the establishment of the king
dom by Moses and Joshua miracles were done, because it
was the commencement of a new and great era. So at the
reformation of the kingdom by Elijah and Elisha, miracles
were again exhibited; there was another great change in
the progression of God's purposes, a new and more start
ling development of his mind to mankind at each of these
periods. You will notice now, (and I think this will be a sufficient
reply to those persons who allege that it is want of faith
or want of Christianity that makes it come to pass that

72 FORESHADOWS.
there are now no miracles,) that the most distinguished
saints of the Old Testament Scriptures did no miracles.
This alone will be evidence that there may be Christianity
without miraculous power. Abraham, "the father of the
faithful," did not perform one miracle; yet who can doubt
that he was a distinguished Christian ? David did not per
form a single miracle ; miracles were done in his time, but
not by him. Daniel performed no miracle ; it is true mi
racles were done around him, and about him, but not by
his instrumentality in any sense or shape. And I think
it is one of those simple, yet striking and expressive evi
dences of the Divine origin of the Bible, that it is asserted
of John the Baptist, specifically asserted, that he did no
miracles. Contrast that one statement with the legends
of the canonized saints, as they are called, of the Church
of Rome. A Roman Catholic saint without a miracle
would be a sun without rays, a star without light, a non
entity, a phenomenon. There is something inimitably
grand and beautiful in this, that while of all the pseudo-
saints it is constantly said that they did miracles of all
sorts, grotesque, extravagant, ridiculous; it is said in
simple terms, without assigning any reason, of John the
Baptist, that he did no miracles. In looking at past dis
pensations, then, we have presumptive evidence that mi
racles were not to be of every-day occurrence, or to be
perpetuated always.
There is evidence of this also from analogy. At the
commencement of an epoch, or at the first development of
a kingdom, or at the creation of a world, you may expect
more power to be put forth than at the continuance of it.
For instance, the first creation of the world required more
power than the continuation of the world does, and more
was accordingly developed. The continuance of a race,
too, requires perhaps less power than the creation of that

THE DISCIPLES IN THE STORM. 73
race. So the introduction of God manifested in the flesh
was a new epoch, so remarkable, so strange, so unexpected
by the mass of mankind, that you might expect on such
an occasion and such a crisis there would occur miracles
to attest it. What is a miracle ? It is just God's omni
potence becoming a pedestal or candlestick on which to
plant God's truth; it is omnipotent beneficence coming
down from heaven, pointing to a doctrine, or specifying a
person, and saying the one is of God, and the other is God
manifest in the flesh. Now that at such a crisis a miracle
should be done was natural ; but when that crisis had pass
ed away, that the miracle should cease is no less natural.
When the fruit is ripe, the calyx or the petals that sur
round it drop away ; when the building is well founded and
complete, the scaffolding is taken down. It is so with mi
racles. We have now come to that era when it is not more
power that man needs to see, but more grace that man
needs to feel.
All miracles, I would notice too, that have been per
formed, or pretended to be performed, since the apostolic
age closed, have been either lying legends, interruptions
of God's harmony by Satan himself, or they have been
gross, palpable deceptions. Let any one read, for instance,
the life of Ignatius Loyola, or St. Francis Xavier, . and
judge for himself. One of the ways of forming a higher
estimate of God's book, is to read any other book pretend
ing to be equal, or to be next to it. The contrast is so
vivid and striking that your impression would be more and
more confirmed that this is the book of God. Let any one
read the life of the Lord of Glory, that simple, sublime
biography, which has four pennren, but one grand original
to draw from, and then let him read the life of St. Francis
Xavier, or Ignatius Loyola, or St. Alphonsus Liguori, or
any of the canonized saints of the Church of Rome, draw-
7

74 FORESHADOWS.
ing each after him a long string of grotesque miracles and
wonders — most of them so grotesque that they must make
a rational man smile, and a Christian man weep ; and he
will see at once what wears the impress of God, and what
bears the stamp of the lying legends of man. All pre
tended or false miracles lead you to wonder, to stare, to
be amazed ; every miracle that Jesus did leads you to see
beneficence, to learn truth, to discover that he who preached
the one and performed the other, was indeed God mani
fested in the flesh. The miracles of recent times lead from
God ; the miracles of Christ lead directly to God. There
is, besides, this difference, that the miracles of the New
Testament are guardedly alluded to ; they are never spoken
of as evidence of grace ; whereas, if we read the accounts
of the miracles performed by Romish saints, we shall see
that they are always quoted as evidence of their sanctity.
What is the great evidence that a person ought to be ca
nonized in the Church of Rome ? That he has done mira
cles — this is an evidence of his sanctity. Is this the
evidence of the Bible that a man is a Christian ? The very
contrary is its declaration. A man may do many wonder
ful works, yet Christ may say, "I know him not." He
may speak in tongues, and have not charity. Hence the
apostle Paul, indicating the sublime, moral, and spiritual
character of Christianity, bids men not to covet great gifts
by which they may dazzle, but to "covet the best gifts,"
that is, love ; for knowledge, in as far as it is inspired, is
gone, and power, in as far as it is miraculous, has ceased,
but love abideth — "now abideth faith, hope, and love; but
the greatest of these is love." Covet therefore, not the
gift which dazzles, and may dazzle you to ruin, but the
grace that sanctifies you, and fits you for eternal happiness.
It is these latent points in the character of the gospel that
bring out its Divine original, and show in the Bible, not a

THE DISCIPLES IN THE STORM. 75
human composition, bearing all the traces of man's dark
character, but a Divine gift, bearing on it the image and
superscription of God.
One remark more, before I enter upon the miracle I
have read. The continuancy of a miracle is an absurdity.
This is shown by what I said about our Lord's turning
water into wine. The present law is, that the vine shall
be planted, that the rain shall fall, and the sunbeams
shine; that it shall grow first into a blossom, and then bear
grapes, that these shall be pressed or squeezed, and then
fermented and turned into wine. All that Christ did, when
he performed the miracle at Cana of Galilee, was to shorten
the process. The present process is a long one, requiring
twelve months for its completion ; Christ merely compressed
the twelve months' process into one minute's doing. But
suppose that every Christian in this congregation could
turn water into wine by simply invoking the name of Jesus ;
suppose that every man could do it, what would be the re
sult? Philosophers would immediately enter it in their
books that this was one of the laws of nature. There is
nothing more miraculous in turning water into wine by a
word than by means of sunbeams and rain-drops. I ques
tion, indeed, if what we call the natural law be not the
greater and more striking miracle. But why does the one
seem so miraculous? Because it is the unusual thing. If
the two were interchanged, and the twelve months' process
were to come once in a hundred years, people would say
that it was the miracle ; and that what we call the miraculous
process was the natural one. What was a miracle when
done first, would cease to be a miracle by being done every
day. The miracle at present would be to raise a dead man
to life ; but if men were always raised as soon as they had
died, it would cease to be so ; it would be the natural pro
cess, and by becoming a great law, would cease to be the

76 FORESHADOWS.
vivid, startling, emphatic witness, calling man's attention
to great truths and solemn facts. You can see, therefore,
that the demand for miracles in the church is not scriptu
ral. To those persons who pretend that they can do mi
racles there is but one answer: "Show the miracle, and
then we will believe." It is not what the church should
have, or what you say the church has, or what you say
you can do, but this is our requirement, do it; a miracle
is an appeal to the senses ; and if my senses testify that
it is no miracle, no pretensions of yours can satisfy mo
that you have miraculous power. But what is the use of
more power at present? "If they believe not Moses and
the prophets, neither would they believe if one rose from
the dead." There is evidence for the gospel so conclusive
that no miracle can strengthen it. Now suppose the case
of some thoughtless, heartless person, without fear, with
out love, fearing neither God nor man ; suppose some spirit,
a departed relative, were to rise from the dead, and appear
to him, and reason, in the sepulchral tones of the grave,
of righteousness, and temperance, and judgment; of the
torments of the lost, of the joys of the saved; that person's
hair would stand on end, his heart would multiply its beat
ings, his whole system would be depressed ; he would be
startled in the morning, and begin to pray if he never
prayed before ; he would begin to feel, to think, to fear, to
be alarmed, to inquire about what he was to do to be saved ;
but day after day the impression would grow weaker, and
at last, when he had got fairly into the world again, and
the first sharp impression had been blunted, he would begin
to say, "Well, I believed it was so and so that appeared
to me ; I wonder if it was ; was it a delusio vistis after all ?
It may have been something I had eaten that disagreed
with me, the nightmare — some strange fancy that went
across my mind; perhaps it was no miracle after all." So

THE DISCIPLES IN THE STORM. 77
it would be in every instance, men would feel awed while
the miracle lasted ; they would return again to their follies
when the miracle had ceased to make its impression. We
do not want power. I would not be a convert to Chris
tianity by any power that could be made to exert its pres
sure upon me. Ruined as my soul is, it must be won, not
driven; and weak as my understanding is, it must be con
vinced, not taken by storm; and poor as my heart is, it
must be made to love, or it will not beat in unison with
God's mind at all. Therefore, I want no miraculous power
to awe me, to terrify me, to force me; I want to see love
manifested in Christ, that I may love him who loved me;
I want to read this blessed book, and study it, and meditate
on it, and to come to the conviction upon clear grounds, upon
conclusive evidence, that it is God's book; and then I shall
be willing, in the day of God's power, to be saved, not
against my will, but in the full exercise of all my faculties
and powers.
So far, then, I have proceeded in examining recent mi
racles, and contrasting them with those of the New Testa
ment. Let us now turn our attention to the beautiful mi
racle recorded in the 14th chapter of Matthew.
Its facts are so plain that nobody can mistake them ; few
need them to be explained. There are often passages in
the Bible so exquisitely beautiful and simple, that I have
no doubt men of taste sometimes say to themselves, as
they hear or read my attempts to explain them, "I wish
you would let that alone ; it is your touching it that weak
ens it ; trying to explain it deteriorates it ; it is so simple,
so expressive in its lonely grandeur, that it speaks with
the greatest power when it is left to speak alone." Still
there are lessons we may draw from it ; without explaining
the outward miracle, we may draw lessons from it instruc
tive to us in our inner experience. 7»

78 FORESHADOWS.
It is said that Jesus constrained his disciples to go into
the ship. I look upon the ship as a type, a symbol of the
whole church — the true church of Christ ; I look upon the
disciples in it as a great symbol of Christ's people in this
world ; and I look upon Christ's walking on the waves, and
coming to still the storm, as a lesson instructive and com
forting to us. We notice, that Jesus constrained his dis
ciples to go into the ship, which was overtaken by the
storm. We are never to run into affliction unsent ; it is
as sinful to run into affliction that we have no business with,
as it is to run from affliction into which God has sent us.
While the disciples went into the ship, how was Christ
engaged ? He was praying on a mountain-side apart. While
Christ's people suffer, whatever that suffering be, Christ
himself has not forgotten them, but is pleading and in
terceding for them on that loftier mount where he makes
intercession for all who come to God through him.
It was after the disciples had seen the miracle of the
loaves and fishes, that Jesus sent them forth to this stormy
and tempestuous voyage. Have we not in this an illustra
tion of Christ's dealings with his people still ? He never
sends his people into the furnace till, like Shadrach, Me-
shach, and Abednego, he has strengthened them to bear it.
He does not send them to suffer trials till he has first shown
what his power and sympathy are. He fed them miracu
lously with loaves and fishes before he sent them to encounter
the storms and waves of an angry and tempestuous sea.
We thus learn this blessed lesson — that no Christian goes a
warfare at his own charges, that God will give him strength,
if he seek it, for his journey, that he will give him the
element of victory for the battle, that he will first manifest
to him the riches of his grace. He will then send him into
trouble in order to test his confidence and trust in him.
I may notice another interesting fact. It is, that Christ

THE DISCIPLES IN THE STORM. 79
always proportions his trials to the strength and progress
of his people. I might illustrate this by referring to the
8th chapter of Matthew, where another storm is spoken
of, which I shall notice on a subsequent occasion. In the
8th chapter of Matthew it was a tempest merely ; here it
was a tempest contrary to them. In the first storm, Christ
was in the ship, though asleep ; here he was not in the ship.
In the .first storm it was daylight; here it was darkness.
In the first they were near the shore ; here they were afar
off. In the one, Christ was with them ; here, in the other,
it was their complaint that Jesus was not yet come. So
we learn that Christ does not send his people into a heavier
storm till he has accustomed them to a lighter one, that as
they grow in strength he increases the burdens which Chris
tians have to bear. And is it not well that it is so ? The
question is sometimes asked — What would you do if per
secution were to come, and you were called upon to die at
the stake rather than surrender your religion ? The aiis
swer is, It is not what you feel now that is to be the test
of what you are, but what you will do then. When God
suffers martyr times to be, he gives martyr strength to his
people to go through them; God fits his people for the
crisis — "As their day is, so shall their strength be." We
are not to speculate how we shall get through this and how
we shall get through that, judging from our present strength
how to meet our future trials ; but our right course is to
trust in the Lord, knowing that " My grace is sufficient
for you. As thy day is, thy strength shall be." What a
childlike position is this, and what a delightful one — that
we are not to speculate about the future at all, but to see
that we now trust implicitly in our Father !
I may notice, too, from this storm, that trials and afflic
tions are always the lot of the people of God. He is not
the worst Christian who has most trials, but, if one may

80 FORESHADOWS.
judge at all, he who has fewest. " Through much tribula
tion," says the apostle, "ye must enter into the kingdom
of heaven." " In the world," says our Lord, " ye shall
have tribulation." This is the great law. When persons
are in affliction, therefore, they should not think it strange,
" as though some strange thing had happened unto them,"
but feel that it is the path, the journey, the road, the career,
chalked out for them. It is as necessary that you should
lose that money, that health, encounter that trial, and
buffet that storm, as it is that Christ should die for you,
and that you should believe on him. Then this blessed
truth will always comfort — the wave that reaches the high
est only lifts the ship nearest to the sky ; the wind that
blows the fiercest only wafts that ship more speedily to the
shore ; and the lightning that cleaves the skies and rends
the atmosphere serves only to light God's ark to that glo
rious haven where it shall rest under his shadow, and in the
enjoyment of perpetual peace.
While the disciples were buffeting the storm, Jesus was
praying for them on a hill-side unknown to them. What, we
may ask under this head, is it that Christ prays for his
people when they are in affliction ? No doubt it is first,
as he himself has indicated, that their faith fail not.
" Simon, Satan hath desired to have thee, that he may
sift thee as wheat, but I have prayed for thee that thy
faith fail not." I think there is something exquisitely
beautiful in this, that Christ does not wait till we are in
trouble, and then pray for us ; but that he prays for us
first, and afterward we are placed in trouble : " I have
prayed for thee that thy faith fail not, before Satan hath
got liberty to sift thee as wheat." As long as faith re
mains, let the storm be never so severe, this faith is still
" the substance of things hoped for, the .evidence of things
not seen," the victory, therefore, that overcometh the

THE DISCIPLES IN THE STORM. 81
world. I can also well conceive that when Christ inter
cedes for his people in trouble, it is that their sins may be
forgiven. There is no storm where there is not sin ;
there is no storm in which there is not a Jonah ; there is
a reason for it ; there is a why and a wherefore ; and if we
are Christ's people, it will be his intercessory prayer that
our sins, which have brought the affliction, may be blotted
out, and then the affliction will be either removed, or will
be made the chariot that wafts us more speedily to glory,
and honour, and immortality. I can conceive that another
subject of Christ's intercessory prayer is that the affliction,
whatever it is, may be sanctified. Of all dreadful judg
ments, unsanctified afflictions are the worst. Those per
sons who are made to think and feel seriously under great
losses, and then by-and-by think as they did before, have
come under only more dreadful judgments ; their hearts
have become more hardened, and their prospects of feeling
the power of the gospel are fainter and fewer. Another
part, I conceive, of Christ's intercessory prayer must be
that we may not, in affliction, use unlawful means to get
out of it. When persons are in sore perplexity, in cir
cumstances of great pecuniary embarrassment, how many
are the temptations in the commercial world to do some
thing sinful, something unjust, dishonest, rash, something
altogether unchristian, in order to escape from the present
overwhelming pressure. If we are Christ's people, he
will pray for us that we may patiently wait, that we may
constantly trust, that we may never have recourse to any
thing he has forbidden, in order to escape from the trial
in which he has placed us. Such then we may suppose
to be the substance of Christ's intercessory prayer for his
people in the midst of affliction.
You may notice another peculiarity here. It is said that
the disciples, in the midst of the storm, rowed onward till

82 FORESHADOWS.
the fourth watch of the night. What does this teach us ?
That duties are ours in all circumstances, however difficult,
however trying, or perplexing. You cannot be placed in
any illness where it is not your duty to get the best advice
in your power ; you cannot be plunged into any perplexity
in which it is not your duty to use every available element
to escape from it. It is a law in God's providential deal
ings, that those who do not help themselves in such mat
ters he will not help. Means and duties are ours, the
issue and the glory of our deliverance will be exclusively
God's. It is worthy of notice that the disciples here did not
pray — we do not hear that they did so. Perhaps they
were too overwhelmed for prayer; yet Christ came to
them. He does not forget us when we forget him ; he
does not fail to intercede for us when we cease to look to
him. If his interest in us were always contingent on
our felt interest in him, few indeed and far between would
be the saved. But, blessed be his name, often as we forget
him he forgets not us ; he restores our souls, brings us
back by his chastisement, and preserves us through his
might and to his glory. How consolatory is this !
We read that when Christ came to them, he came walk
ing on the waves. Moses went through the channels of a
divided sea ; Christ marched upon the bosom of the undi
vided sea, turning its waves into a pavement, and its waters
into a promenade, indicating that the Land-lord and the
Sea-lord of the universe was present there, and that nature
felt that he was so. Does not this teach us that just as
the waves of the sea were under Christ's feet, so all diffi
culties, all trials, all that his people fear, are under his
feet still. Sin, death, and Satan are under Christ's feet ;
they are conquered foes ; death has been denuded of its
sting, the grave of its victory. Satan's head is bruised ;

THE DISCIPLES IN THE STORM. 83
all are under Christ's power, trodden down as the path
way on which he marches to deliver, not standing up as
obstructions to prevent his approach to us.
While his disciples were placed in great trial, indeed
almost despairing, yet the glory of their deliverance made
them forget all their past sorrow and trial. So will it be
with Christ's people still. Their deliverance will be so
glorious that they will think nothing of the storm through
which they have passed ; the better land will be so beauti
ful that they will wonder that they did not wish to reach
it long ago. " I reckon," says the apostle — one who had
been in perils by sea, and in perils by land, and had been
also in the third heaven — "I reckon," he says, from expe
rience, not from theory, " that the afflictions of this present
life are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall
be revealed."
Another instructive feature of the miracle is, the time
when Christ came to deliver his disciples. The ancient
division of the night was into three watches, but here the
Roman division is adopted, which was into four. Christ
allows them to struggle in the storm, to get only half
across the sea ; and then he came to them at the fourth
watch, about three o'clock in the morning. They had
struggled from six o'clock the previous evening, and had
made but little way. Was that late hour the best time for
him to come ? It was : he came at the moment when it
was most for his glory, and best for their good. If he
had come earlier, they would not have felt that their means
were exhausted, and that human strength was weakness ;
if he had waited, and come later, they would have been
plunged into despair, or overwhelmed. He came at the
moment when man's extremity was God's opportunity, and
man's deliverance was God's glory. And so it will be in
all the afflictions of his own people. I have noticed in

84 FORESHADOWS.
another ^art of my exposition that they used means.
" Toiling and rowing" is the language of one of the evan
gelists. I have said that it is our duty in affliction, what
ever the affliction be, to use such means as God has put in
our power. If Christ were God only, he would not sanction
the use of means ; if Christ were man only, he would use
nothing but means ; but because he is God and man, he
uses the means, and gives the blessing in the use of them ;
and oftener is his glory more developed in blessing means
which are feeble than in working against means that are
strong, or without means altogether. The blowing of
horns led to the downfall of Jericho — means very inadequate,
yet means. Gideon's lamps led to the victory of the three
hundred men — means, yet seemingly very worthless. The
apostles triumphed by means that looked very insignificant
in comparison with the grandeur of the world around them.
Sense pronounces means to be inadequate ; faith will not
idolize them, but will use the means, and look to God for
the blessing. What will you do, when there are no means
left, when you are in such trouble, in such affliction, in
such overwhelming depression, that there is no way of
escape upon the right hand nor upon the left, when there
is nothing that you can do ?. You are just to do as God
told his people to do before. The Israelites said, when
Pharaoh was behind them and the Red Sea before them,
"Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken
us away to die in the wilderness ? Wherefore hast thou
dealt thus with us, to carry us forth out of Egypt ? Is not
this the word that we did tell thee in Egypt, saying, Let
us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians ? For it had
been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we
should die in the wilderness. And Moses said unto the
people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of
the Lord which he will show to you to-day;" and the sea

THE DISCIPLES IN THE STORM. 85
divided, and left a path across its mighty waters. And so
should it be with "us. When you are in such tribulation
that you can see no possibility of escape, in such per
plexity that you do not know how to get out of it, then is
the time to stand still ; not to stand still, and look at your
own shadow, or trust in your own wisdom, but stand still,
and learn, and pray, and see the salvation of the Lord,
which he will show you.
In the next place, when Christ comes to his people, how
often do his people mistake him ! It is said here, that
when Jesus went to his disciples in the fourth watch of the
night, they " saw him walking on the sea, and were troubled,
saying, It is a spirit." The Jews had a popular belief,
that the spirits of the dead visited their relatives long after
death ; and in this instance they thought a spirit of some
departed one was coming to them. Why did they misap
prehend it ? They had known, and seen, and heard Jesus
before. When people are in very great trouble, they gene
rally look at what way they think it possible for them to
escape, and if they do not see deliverance coming in that
one way, they leap to the conclusion that there is no escape
at all. These poor disciples thought there was but one
way of escape from the storm — that was to reach the other
side ; and when Christ came to deliver them by a new and
unexpected way, they misapprehended him, and forgot
what he had said of himself — that his way is in the whirl
wind, and his path in the great waters, that his ways are
not as our ways, nor his thoughts as our thoughts. But
there is another reason : when there is sin in the conscience
there is always disturbance in the heart, and misapprehen
sion in the eye. What is it that makes cowards of us all ?
Sin within us ; and whenever affliction comes to a man who
lives in sin, as sure as that man lives he will see his sin in
the affliction ; and even when deliverance is come, he is so

86 FORESHADOWS.
convinced of his demerit that that deliverance he miscon
strues, and believes it to be only a more desolating form
of the deserved judgments of God. So with these poor
disciples. They were conscious of great sins, and when
the deliverer came they looked at him through the medium
of those sins, and expected only a destroyer. Thus it is
said, "they were afraid."
But how beautifully does our Lord reply to them ! " It is
I, be not afraid." That voice which sounded so musical
upon the streets of Jerusalem — which had spoken such
words of power, in turning a few loaves into many — which
had been sweeter than a mother's to her first-born one — that
voice rose, and rang out its own peculiar melody amid the
roar of the winds and the noise of the sea-waves, and car
ried consolation to their drooping hearts — " It is I, be not
afraid." Their sorrow was instantly turned into joy, their
faith into absolute assurance; and they were perfectly
happy. But there is more than this. Strange it is that
we need not only to know doctrines, but we need grace to
enable us to make suitable deductions from them. Many
people pride themselves on their reason, others on their
memory, others on their imagination ; but, in dealing with
God's word, all three will go wrong if not guided by God's
Spirit. The inference, for instance, of one man, from the
fact of the shortness of life, the certainty of death, and
the uncertainty of the epoch of it, is, " Let us eat, drink,
and be merry, for to-morrow we die." Here is a false con
clusion from true premises. The believer draws a right
conclusion from the same premises when he says, " There
fore, let us weep as though we wept not, marry as though
we married not, rejoice as though we rejoiced not, using
the world as not abusing it, for the fashion of it passeth
away." So when Christ here spoke so beautifully amid the
sea-waves, and to the tossed and tempest-struck ship, « It

THE DISCIPLES IN THE STORM. 87
is I;" if he had said nothing more, they would have said,
"He is come to sink us to the bottom of the sea." Ho
therefore helps their reason to draw a right conclusion, as
well as informs their understanding of the right doctrine :
" It is I," therefore, he says, "be not afraid." There is
something very beautiful and very delightful in this to a
Christian: "It is I, be not afraid." Wherever Christ is,
there fear is an unnatural thing ; wherever Christianity is,
there "not afraid" is the legitimate conclusion; wherever
God's grace is in the heart, that heart ought to bound with
present or expected joy. Hence, as I have repeatedly said,
the more we see and know the Saviour the more happy we
shall be. Christianity is good news. The voice, " It is
I," is the key-note of a thousand hymns of joy, and grati
tude, and thanksgiving, and praise. Wherever Christ is,
there is peace and happiness.
Now, my dear friends, are you placed in circum
stances of trial, circumstances of dire and overwhelming
affliction, or distress of any kind ! Hear, in the depth of
it, a still, small, but beautiful voice, "It is I, be not afraid."
Are you in sickness, under the wasting ravages of disease,
anticipating a grave rather than a cure ? Are you pained
and overwhelmed by a sense of what is before you — by the
sufferings that are within you ? Dear brethren, it is not
chance, it is not accident, it is not a random occurrence,
to be explained by secondary causes. Hear, in the midst
of that sickness, around that sick-bed, the blessed truth,
" It is I, be not afraid." Are you mourning and deploring
the loss of those that are near and dear to you ? Hark !
there is sounding from the grave in which you deposit their
dead dust, "It is I;" and read upon that tombstone, in the
coming fore-light of the resurrection morning, "Be not
afraid." When that day comes, then a new voice shall
pierce the heights and depths of the universe, and shall

88 FORESHADOWS.
ring, as with trumpet-sound, through the homes of the
living and the sepulchres of the dead ; and when the dead
dust, gathering together from every nook, and cranny, and
corner of the wide world, and becoming animate and vocal,
shall shout, " We come, we come," responsive to the terrible
summons — then, brethren, it is "I" that summons you to
the first resurrection; it is "Be not afraid" that is the
utterance of him who is to be your Judge. And this shall
be your memorial, or rather your new song, " Blessed and
holy is he that hath part in this first resurrection." Here,
then, is the secret of all peace, the spring of all happiness,
to know that Christ is in the trouble, that Christ has sent
the trial, and that he is overruling it for his glory.
We read that the disciples received Jesus into the ship,
(I do not touch upon Peter walking on the waters,) and im
mediately the wind ceased. What is the secret of happi
ness then ? Christ in the heart. It is when Christ is in
the heart its life, when Christ is in the conscience its legisla
tor, when Christ is in the understanding its light, that har
mony takes the place of discord, sunshine of cloud, and
happiness of misery and wo. You may rest assured of
this, all experience is proving it, all facts attest it, that
there is no such thing as happiness by any mechanical ar
rangements we can make ; it can only be secured by a liv
ing possession of the living Christ in the hearts of believers.
Christ in the heart will give peace ; Christ in the home
will light it up with new radiance ; Christ in a nation will
give its throne new stability, and its people new peace ; and
Christ in the wide world will diffuse around a millennium,
just as the sun shoots around him rays of heat and glory.
I must add, that this stilling of the storm was, on Christ's
part, an earnest of that universal calm which will be when
he whose right it is will come. I have noticed, I think,
before, this interesting feature in all the miracles of Christ

THE DISCIPLES IN THE STORM. 89
— that they are essentially redemptive in their character.
I explained that every miracle that Christ did was, not like
Loyola's, or Xavier's, or Liguori's, a wild, arbitrary display
of power, but one of the fore-lights of the restoration of
all things, an earnest of what shall be. When he healed
the sick, for instance, that was an earnest and a fore-taste
of a sickless state ; when he stilled the waves and the storm,
it was an earnest of the perfect calm that shall be ; and
when he raised the dead, it was the first-fruits of the first
resurrection. And I may notice this most interesting fact,
that, just in proportion as men grow Christ-like in character,
they become Christ-like in power. I believe that greater
skill in medicine, greater attainments in science, greater
loyalty among our people, are all associated by an indis
soluble law with greater grace in men's hearts. It is in
the most Christian lands that famine is the least felt, and
that the few loaves are multiplied most into the many. It
is in Christian lands, too, that man gains the greatest supre
macy over nature around him. What monarch rules the
waves ? The monarch that rules by the grace of God —
" Dei gratid," as the humblest of our coins tell. What
monarch is admiral of the seas ? The monarch that is
most Christian. In proportion as Christianity spreads,
you see medical skill, military power, (as far as it is defen
sive,) naval power, scientific knowledge, spreading too. The
fact is, Christianity is a glorious tree ; and science and
literature and power are the parasite plants, that twine
around it, draw their nutriment from it, depend for support
and endurance on it. This is a most delightful fact, that
just as a country becomes Christian, that country excels
in lordship over disease, over sea, and land, and science,
and literature, and philosophy. If you were now to insti
tute a comparison between the nations of the earth, you
would find that the land that has most Christian light in it,

90 FORESHADOWS.
has the most science, literature, philosophy, poetry, -and
genius in it too. I believe medicine is a science constantly
progressing ; and I have no doubt that, as we become more
Christian, there will be more control over disease. I look
upon the discovery of vaccination as only a shadow of the
great fact of Christ's healing diseases; and upon every
brilliant discovery in medicine, (and many brilliant ones
have been made lately,) as a fore-light of that day when
there shall be no sickness, nor death, nor any more sin.
I believe there is a deeper and more intimate connection,
underlying what we see, between grace in the heart and
light in the intellect, and power over all that is around us,
than many generally suppose. If this lesson could be im
pressed upon us — that they that are richest in grace shall
be mightiest also in power — we might gain, perhaps, an
other step toward that glorious consummation when Christ
shall reign in every heart, and be all and in all.
The result of this miracle was that the disciples wor
shipped Christ. That should be the result of its 'study to
us. Have you been delivered from affliction ? Worship
Christ. Have you been prospered in the world ? Worship
Christ. Have you escaped a watery grave ? Have you
been saved in a railway accident ? Have you been spared
in circumstances of imminent danger ? Have you been
recovered from disease ? Be thankful for the physician's
skill, for the medicine's power ; but look beyond the phy
sician, and above the medicine, and, like the disciples who
were delivered from the storm, worship Jesus.

91

LECTURE V.
THE SORROWING SISTERS.
Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary
and her sister Martha. (It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with
ointment, and wiped his foet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.)
Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou
lovest is sick. When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto
death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.
Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. When he had heard
therefore that he was sick, he abode two days still in the samo place where
he was. Then after that saith he to his disciples, Let us go into Judea again.
His disciples say unto him, Master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee ; and
goest thou thither again ? Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the
day 1 If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth tho
light of this world. But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because
there is no light in him. These things said he : and after that he saith unto
them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth ; but I go, that I may awake him out of
sleep. Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. Howbeit,
Jesus spake of his death : but they thought that he had spoken of taking
of rest in sleep. Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead. And
I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe;
nevertheless let us go unto him. Then said Thomas, which is called Didy-
mus, unto his fellow disciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him.
Then when Jesus came, he found that he had lain in tho grave four days al
ready. Now Bethany was nigh unto Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs off;
and many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning
their brother. Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming,
went and met him : but Mary sat still in the house. Then said Martha unto
Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been hero, my brother had not died. But I know,
that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee. Jesus
saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. Martha saith unto him, I know
that he shall rise again in the resurrection at tho last day. Jesus said unto
h'er,' I am the resurrection and the life : he that believeth in me, though he
were dead, yet shall he live : and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall
never die. Beliovcst thou this? Sho saith unto him, Yes, Lord: I bcliovo
that thou art the Christ, tho Son of God, which should come into tho world.

92 FORESHADOWS.
And when she had so said, she went her way, and called Mary her sister
secretly, saying, The Master is come, and calleth for thee. As soon as she
heard that, she arose quickly, and came unto him. Now Jesus was not yet
come into the town, but was in that place where Martha met him. The Jews
th'en which were with her in the house, and comforted her, when they saw
Mary, that she rose up hastily and went out, followed her, saying, She goeth
unto the grave to weep there. Then when Mary was come where Jesus was,
and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou
hadst been here, my brother had not died. When Jesus therefore saw
her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned
in the spirit, and was troubled, and said, Where have ye laid him ? They
said unto him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, Be
hold how he loved him ! And some of them said, Could not this man,
which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man
should not have died? Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh
to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, Take ye
away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him,
Lord, by this time he stinketh : for he hath been dead four days. Jesus
saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou
shouldest see the glory of God ? Then they took away the stone from the
place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said,
Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest
me always : but because of the poople which stand by I said it, that they
may believe that thou hast sent me. And when he thus had spoken, he
cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came
forth, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes : and his face was bound about
with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go. Then
many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus
did, believed on him. But some of them went their ways to the Pharisees,
and told them what things Jesus had done. — John xi. 1-46.
I have read what may seem a long, but what must ap
pear to you all a beautiful, account of one of the greatest
and most impressive miracles wrought by our Lord, namely,
the resurrection of Lazarus from the dead. It will be im
possible to enter upon the part which is strictly the ac
complishment of the miracle in this lecture. It will be
sufficient to dwell upon some of those exquisite touches of
true poetry, of deep sentiment, of instructive religion
which immediately precede the actual miracle. Often what
accompanies the miracle is as beautiful and impressive as
the miracle itself; for, in the whole history of Jesus, each
act of power is set and embosomed in many acts of good-

THE SORROWING SISTERS. 93
ness, like the full ripe fruit amid the leaves and 'petals
that surround it. We may enjoy the fragrance of the
last before we gather and feed upon the preciousness of
the first.
In looking at what is recorded as introductory to the
immediate miracle, we fine one great fact: first, that suf
fering is the lot of all: there is no exception. Sorrow
enters the heart that is bounding, and death smites the
heart that is breaking : there is none exempt. God's peo
ple and they that are not are subject to suffering. We may
not trace out who are the Lord's people by their outward
sufferings; we can only trace this by their inward and
moral character. Often the greatest sufferer is the great
est saint. Frequently God's hand lies the heaviest where
God's heart overflows the most with beneficence, sympathy,
and love.
Let us notice where this miracle was done. It was in a
town called Bethany, but it is distinguished by one cha
racteristic feature ; it was the town of Mary and her sister
Martha. There is something beautiful in this allusion. I
have no doubt that Bethany had given birth to some heroes,
poets, statesmen, philosophers ; and that if you had asked
some rabbi what was the greatest glory of Bethany, he
would have pointed to some tall tapering spire, some ex
quisite specimen of architectural grandeur, or he would have
unfolded the page that contains the name of some great
poet who was born in it, or illustrious hero who bled and
suffered for his country. But these characteristics are all
restricted to this world. The sounds of the fame of heroes,
poets, and philosophers, are spent before they reach the
skies, but the sigh of the broken heart is heard in heaven
louder than the seven thunders ; the simple petition of a
contrite spirit rises to God swifter than an angel's wings
can clip, and rises higher than an archangel's pinions can

94 FORESHADOWS.
soar. * In the light of heaven what we call great things
are pressed into little space, and what man calls little
things are seen to be mighty because moral, and associated
with the glory of God, and the salvation of immortal souls.
So here the only trace in the history of Bethany that had
its reflection beside God's throne was this : that two Chris
tian females were natives of it. It was not the town of
the hero, the statesman, the poet, but the town of Mary
and her sister Martha. These two fair, fragrant, and
fragile flowers were in the sight of God the fairest things
in Bethany. But the eye of man does not see it so, and
the ear of man does not hear it so. It needed Christianity
to teach us what is one of the most eloquent lessons on its
glorious page : that physical grandeur, even when it is sub
limest, is mean and poor, and that moral glory is alone
great and enduring. These two living temples were more
glorious than the temple of Jerusalem. These two obscure
saints gave a character to the town where heroes' exploits
and poets' hymns are unnoticed and unknown, and where
alone it is important to be either noticed or known. Be
thany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha ! May it
not be so still ? We speak of London as distinguished for
the birth of many great ones ; we refer to Edinburgh, or
Dublin, or Paris, as illustrious for some other great fact
or feature; but perhaps these great cities, when spoken
of in the language of the ransomed that are about the
throne, are quoted as distinguished by facts that have no
credit in the newspaper column, and no eclat in the par
liaments of this world, but which alone, amid all that seems
magnificent in the history of those capitals, are recollected
and mooted in heaven in glory.
It is said that it was "that Mary which anointed the
Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose
brother Lazarus was sick." This record seems the fulfil-

THE SORROWING SISTERS. 95
ment of what is expressly stated in one of the previous
Gospels. It is said of this very Mary, in the 26th of Mat
thew, "Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel
shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this,
that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her."
How very striking is this ! Who would have ventured to
give this prophecy? Were some person in this congrega
tion to do some deed of Christian beneficence, and were I
to say, Wherever the gospel is preached throughout the
whole world this fact shall be mentioned, men would smile
incredulously at my enthusiasm, and all would feel that it
was extremely improbable that my prediction would be ful
filled. Well, Jesus had here no outward glory, nothing
that could impress the senses of mankind, and yet he enun
ciates it as an absolute prediction, not a probable conjec
ture, that wheresoever the gospel should be preached
throughout the whole world, there this act of Christian
sympathy should be recorded. It is now recorded in John,
it sounds from every pulpit, it is contained in every Bible ;
the prophecy has swelled into absolute and universal per
formance. We see that Jesus knew the end and the begin
ning, and the impression becomes not more deep, but more
transparent, that Jesus is what he professed to be, the
Christ, the Son of the living God.
But by whom was this act of beneficence recorded ? Not
by Mary herself. It is one thing to sound one's own fame ;
it is another to let others do it : it may be right in others
to do it ; it would be wrong in ourselves. And yet there
is a distinction. Some are so sensitive that they are lite
rally afraid that the left hand should know what the right
hand doeth. It is possible to err in that direction. Others
are so vain-glorious that they cannot give a guinea without
having an advertisement to announce it. It is possible to
hit what is neither the one nor the other; to let our good

96 FORESHADOWS.
deeds " so shine before men, that they seeing our good works
may glorify" — not us — there is the difference, not us, but
"our Father which is in heaven." He that does the act
from the right motive, and makes known the act from the
same motive, does what is Christian in both. And it is
important that men should know, and be made to feel, that
wherever God's grace subdues the heart, there the hand
that was clenched is relaxed; the soul that was narrow is
enlaiged, and man feels, for the first time in his experience,
that God's grace has made him a saint, and that that saint-
ship should lead him to be instantly a servant.
Let me notice another feature here. When Lazarus was
sick, sharing in the common calamity of his kind, and Mary
and Martha saw and deplored his sufferings, they did what
is a precedent for us to do in kindred or analogous circum
stances. "Therefore," in the third verse it is said, "his
sisters sent unto Jesus, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou
lovest is sick." What they did physically we may do as
really, but spiritually, and it is not true that they could
draw closer to Jesus when he walked the streets of Bethany,
than we can do living in the midst of a great city. He is
near to the humble heart as he was to Mary in Bethany.
The arm that raised the dead from his slumbers is not pa
ralyzed. The voice that rang through the chambers of the
grave is not hushed. Jesus is still equally near, is armed
with the same power ; and, blessed be his name, his heart
overflows with the same tender and touching sympathy.
Sisters, when your brother is sick, parents, when your dear
babes are ill, you go, and it is right you should go, and ask
the physician of the greatest skill and the greatest expe
rience to help you. The means are yours, and the man
who undervalues or despises the means, undervalues and
despises the ordinances of God. But when you thus have
recourse to the physician that may err, and to the medicines

THE SORROWING SISTERS. 97
that may fail, let me ask if you have recourse to that Phy
sician who sends the sickness, fixes the hour of its conti
nuance, and has resolved what shall be the glorious end to
which that sickness shall contribute? Strange that we
should try all the cisterns of man, and never think of hav
ing recourse to the fountain of Deity. And yet, my dear
friends, I believe that we may ask of God, when we need
them, temporal blessings just as freely as we may ask spi
ritual blessings. Does not Jesus himself set the example,
when he said, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass
from me?" Is there some mother whose babe is in the
agonies of death? May not that mother say, "Blessed
Saviour, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. This
frail but beautiful blossom thou hast given me I would tend
a little longer ; this beloved and dear one I would cherish
in my bosom a few years more. Lord, spare it, if it be
thy will ? ' ' Who will forbid her thus to pray ? Not Jesus ;
for he taught us so to pray: "If it be possible, let this cup
pass from me. Yet not my will, but thy will be done."
These sisters so felt, for they addressed the Saviour in the
language that indicated the want that was nearest, deepest,
dearest. "Therefore his sisters sent unto Jesus, saying,
Lord, he whom thou lovest is sick."
Notice another touching trait in this. I fancy if I had
been one of the train that went to Jesus for relief, and if
the relative had been mine, in my ignorance I would have
said, "Lord, he who has done much to make known thy
name — he who has suffered much for thy sake — he who
loves thee most truly, dearly, deeply, is sick;" and I should
have thought, in my ignorance, that to plead what he had
suffered and done for Jesus would have been the straight
way to get Jesus to relieve the suffering. That would have
been human ; but Mary was taught by him who was the
true teacher, to press another motive, to present another
9

98 FORESHADOWS.
plea, far more eloquent and effective than that which I have
mentioned. The sisters did not say, "He who loves thee"
—but, "He whom thou lovest is sick." What is the great
basis of all our appeals to Christ? Not our love to him,
but his love to us. Our love to him is too frail, and eva
nescent, and flickering, to be the basis for petition ; but his
love toward us — that, like some of those springs amid the
blue hills of the north, is much too deep ever to be frozen
by winter's cold, and too overlapped and overshadowed by
surrounding crags to be evaporated by the summer's heat
— that love which loved us from the first, and loves us to
the last, and flows with undiminished stream — is the basis
on which we can stand — the strong plea that we can pre
sent. Mary knew what we know, that to touch that spring
was to touch a chord that vibrated in the Saviour's heart,
and awoke the sympathy that was deepest, in behalf of her
sick and suffering brother — " He whom thou lovest is sick."
This was her most successful plea.
She did not say, "Lord, come and help him." This
omission is very fine. The thoughts that underlie every
simple remark in this chapter are rich and full, and give
evidence that no ordinary teaching was here. She does
not say, "Lord, he whom thou lovest is sick, do come and
cure him;" but she felt that the simple intimation "he is
sick," and a plea and a statement based upon the great
fact that Christ loved him, was all that was required: "He
whom thou lovest is sick ; I leave that fact with thee, bless
ed Jesus; thou knowest what is best; it rests with thee to
carry that sickness to its issue, an issue that shall glorify
thy name, and do good and occasion happiness to me and
my brother."
There is yet another trait. Mary, and Martha, and La
zarus, were bosom friends of Jesus — for Jesus, let us never
forget, was a man. I believe our great fault in modern

THE SORROWING SISTERS. 99
times is, that we so think of Jesus as God, that we do not
sufficiently think of him as a man ; but it is just as import
ant that we should feel the truth of his real, but infinitely
sinless humanity, as that we should feel the truth of his
real, glorious, and eternal divinity. Now Jesus was a man.
What I love that is pure he could love. He had his friends
— his bosom friends. There is not a sympathy that nestles
in the heart of a saint, that Jesus had not in all its purity ;
there is not a sorrow that hangs like a cloud over the broken
and wounded spirit of a believer, that Jesus had not hang
ing over his ; there is not one pang we are conscious of,
sin excepted, which had not its echo, and has not its echo
still, in the bosom of our great High-Priest; "for we have
not a High-Priest who cannot be touched with the feeling
of our infirmities, but one who was in all points tempted
like as we are, yet without sin."
Mary, knowing that Jesus was a friend, might have said,
"My brother Lazarus is sick." If you recollect, Mary sat
at his feet, and Martha ministered unto him; and theirs
was the home he frequently went to. She might, then,
have argued, "My brother is sick; I know thou lovest him,
and that therefore, for my sake, thou wilt come and heal
my brother." But she did not say so. She had renounced
what we need to renounce — our own self, our good self,
our righteous self, our honest self, our family self; and to
feel that in us there is no fulcrum on which we can lay the
stress of that lever which will lift our wants to God, and,
retracing its arc, bring down blessings from his throne.
Never shall we rise to the loftiest dignity till we feel that
we have been sunk to the deepest humiliation and abase
ment.^ It is the humble that God exalts ; it is the hungry
that God sends not empty away.
, This home of Mary and Martha was the home where
Jesus was in the habit of resting his wearied frame, and

100 FORESHADOWS.
seeking that refreshment and finding that hospitality which
was as needful to strengthen him for the toils of the week,
as it is needful to strengthen us. Weariness, and hunger,
and thirst were his, and he never supplied the demand of
any of them by a miracle while ordinary means were ade
quate to do so. One would have thought that if there was
but one home, and that home in Bethany, where that aching
head could rest, and that grieved and wearied heart could
beat in stillness — one would have thought that if there was
one home upon earth that would be overshadowed with the
all-encompassing pinions of God — if there was one hearth
in Palestine whose flame would never be shaded, and around
which home-born joys, like swallows, would nestle amid the
rafters, and flutter perpetually — that if there was one
abode upon earth where no sickness should pierce, no wants
be felt, and death himself should be an exile, it would
have been that home in Bethany where Jesus went so often,
and whose inmates and tenantry were the friends of his
bosom, and the ministers continually to his wants. But
into that home sickness did enter. But here even is felt
a difference — sickness enters the unconverted man's home
armed with wrath ; it enters the Christian's home winged
with mercy and love. The issue of the sickness showed
that what was felt to be pain was sent in love, for it ended
in greater glory to Jesus, and in greater happiness to
them all.
But it teaches us also this lesson — not to judge of men's
characters by what betides them. You hear of some fright
ful catastrophe that falls upon a home, or a nation, or a
capital, and you pronounce that home, that nation, that
capital, to have great crimes. You do wrong. You are
not to say that it was more guilty than we. " Think ye
that those eighteen on whom the tower of Siloam fell were

THE SORROWING SISTERS. 101
sinners above all men. I tell you, nay ; but except yc
repent, ye shall all likewise perish."
Notice, in the next place, from the fourth verse of this
chapter, the end which underlies all the dispensations of
God, the great end he has in view in sending them. " When
Jesus heard that, he said, This is not a sickness unto death,
(that is, final death,) but for the glory of God, that the
Son of God might be glorified thereby." Sometimes you
see in families afflictions which you cannot explain. You
see in one the firstborn cut down by a stroke ; in another,
trouble follow upon the footsteps of trouble, till all God's
waves and billows seem to go over it — the father a Chris
tian, the mother a Christian, the home holy, their exercises
Christian, their deeds beneficent, and yet all of them the
subjects of unprecedented and consuming suffering. You
do not know what to make of it ; you cannot understand
it ; but there is an end we cannot see — the suffering is
" for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glori
fied thereby." A Scottish Christian ought to recollect the
first part of his catechism, " Man's chief end is to glorify
God," the most magnificent definition that I know, "and
then to enjoy him for ever." We must be thankful; we
must acquiesce, and feel that if our health fails to give
God glory, it is well that our sickness does ; if our pros
perity does not give him glory, it is well that our losses
and our adversity do. We are here to be ministers of his
glory. May he afflict us or prosper us ; but may he glorify
his own name, that his Son may be glorified thereby!
Very beautifully does Mr. Evans say, in a book which I
would recommend to you, the fragments of his preaching or
of his ministry, I forget the precise title, " 0 Lord, fashion
me, polish me, cut me, any way that thou pleasest; but by
me glorify thyself!"
The remark of Jesus must have satisfied Mary of his
9*

102 FORESHADOWS.
omniscience, his sympathy, and knowledge ; for if a phy
sician is called in to you, if he understands the disease,
and shows that he understands it, your confidence in him
is increased. When Mary applied to Jesus, and when
Jesus told her the nature of the disease, the issue and the
results of it also, her confidence in him must have been
complete. Christ sees the disease of every soul ; he under
stands the " sin that doth most easily beset us ;" he pe
netrates all vails, goes through every prejudice, disen
tangles every passion, and detects where the sin is that is
the cause of our defalcation, where the disease is that
blights and withers our Christianity at the very root. Is
it no consolation to feel that Christ knows what we are,
what is best for us, and the prescription that will cure us ?
You may rest assured, that when you are visited with
losses, trials, afflictions, bereavements, that it is as neces
sary (some may doubt this ; it is easily stated, but very
difficult to feel) that you, parent, should have lost that son,
that you, son, should have lost that parent, as that Christ
should come from heaven and die upon the cross for you.
There is a "needs-be" in the calamity that is sorest;
there is an absolute necessity in the blow that strikes the
heaviest. This is consolatory. But remember who it i?
that strikes the blow. The hand that was nailed to the
cross will never strike in wrath, but only in love, in sym
pathy, and in mercy. Thus, then, both sisters were as
sured that the sickness was " for the glory of God, that
the Son of God might be glorified thereby."
We read in the fifth and sixth verses, "Now Jesus loved
Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. When he had heard
therefore that he was sick, he abode two days still in the
same place where he was." This seems to startle us. It
seems like a disappointment, and at the first blush it ap
pears like cruelty, that knowing that the friend whom he

THE SORROWING SISTERS. 108
loved was sick, and feeling that the hand that he had but
to stretch out could cure him, and hearing these sisters,
whom he also loved, pleading for him, that he abode " two
days in the same place where he was," as if his heart had
lost its sensibility, as if his ear had become heavy, and
his arm shortened that it could not save. How do we ex
plain this ? By our own experience. You are placed in
affliction, and you pray that it may be removed. Day
dawns on day, and the sickness still gnaws the heart,
wastes the strength, consumes our beauty like a moth, and
we fancy that Christ does not hear, that God has forsaken
us, and that our God has forgotten us. You mistake ;
Christ does not say that he will answer the first petition.
" Seek," he says, "and ye shall find ;" but continue, "ask,
and ye shall obtain;" and continue still, "knock, and it
shall be opened to you." He has promised an answer,
but the when, and the where, and the how, his own wisdom
and love will determine. So here he had promised that
the sickness should not be " unto death," but that it should
be "for the glory of God;" yet he tarries two days, and
does not come to deliver. Our affliction deepens, our suf
ferings grow heavier, the cloud becomes blacker, we pray
for mitigation, we ask for healing, for mercy, for sympathy,
for interposition. All is still, but the cure is being pre
pared; the voice is about to utter, "Come forth;" and
what seems delay is only a momentary suspension of the
relief that is needed, in order to nourish and strengthen
our faith, and increase our confidence and hopes in wait
ing for the Lord.
Beautifully it is said in another part, " Our friend La
zarus sleepeth ; but I go that I may awake him out of
sleep." Lazarus was dead, but he says still, "Our friend
Lazarus." Death snatches the prote'ge' from his protector,
the child from the parent, the parent from the child, friend

104 FORESHADOWS.
from friend, brother from brother, but even death cannot
sunder the tie that knits the meanest saint to the Lord of
glory. It is true of the slumbering dust of a saint, that
it belongs to the friend of Jesus. The mother upon earth,
whose child is in heaven, can still say, "My babe sleepeth ;"
and the child on earth, whose parent is beyond the skies,
can say, "My parent" still. Those ties outlast the grave ;
they receive new strength, and are covered with a new
glory before the throne. The church in heaven is not
another and different body from the church on earth; they
constitute one glorious community — the one militant, the
other triumphant; the one drinking from the fountain, the
other from the river that flows from that fountain, which
is in the throne of God and the Lamb. "Our friend La
zarus sleepeth."
This symbol is used to denote that which of all things
we dread and deprecate — death. He calls death a sleep.
Now I do think (and I have often said so) that of all un
natural things, of all things that are repulsive, of all things
that are most abhorrent to our feelings, death is the most
so. Man was never made to die ; he was never meant to
die. No! death is not God's creation, but sin's doing.
Sin is not God's making; whoever made it, or from what
ever quarter it came, God made not sin; it is a blot upon
his workmanship; it is the jar in the harmony of the uni
verse ; it is a stain upon what was made good, and bright,
and beautiful. Death is not God's child, but sin's ; and it
is right that we should hate and dislike it, and shrink from
it. But when touched by the cross, and the sin that is the
parent of it is forgiven, death, which is the child, is trans
formed from being the executioner that drags the culprit
to his punishment, into the minister that leads and guides
the believer to his happy and his lasting home. Hence the
Christian's death is called by the beautiful epithet "sleep."

THE SORROWING SISTERS. 105
This is not a new one. We read, that "them that sleep
in Jesus will God bring with him ;" "I would not have you
ignorant concerning them that are asleep." It is a favour
ite expression, and an expression that is peculiar, in all the
riches of its meaning, to Christianity itself. I have no
doubt, that to the aged man who is the child of God," and
who falls asleep in Jesus, death is no suffering. It is a
glorious spirit, that has laid aside the shackles of mortality
that it might unfurl its bright wing, (and it was the splen
dour of the departing wing that told us an angel had been
with us ;) it is only the removal of the restraints that kept
it to the earth, that it might soar until it should sing among
the seraphim beside the throne of God. The part that is
the man, is not that which you see ; we are so much the
creatures of sense, that we see certain features and hear
certain tones, and we say, " These make up the man ;" and
when he is gathered to his grave, we' say our friend is gone.
It is not so. What is the body ? It is no more to the
soul than the instrument is to the musician. God has
placed me in this material world — and I need something
to enable me to come into contact with it ; I need the ap
paratus of the senses, which is that which you see. You
only see the machinery, you do not see the living power
that works the machinery : when the machinery is worn
out, as it must be, it is laid aside in the grave to rest awhile,
until God shall rebuild, restore, and rebeautify it. The
man that thinks, that feels, that knows, that loves, has
only left the old ruined house to awake amid the glories
of the sky, and to wait for "a house not made with hands,
eternal in the heavens."
Thus death is sleep ; but it is not unconsciousness — do
not take up that notion. Absent from the body is present
with the Lord. "To me," says the apostle, "to live is
Christ, to die is great gain." The thief upon the cross

106 FORESHADOWS.
was addressed, "To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise."
Therefore while death is sleep, it is not the suspension of
consciousness, of life, of thought.
But this simile teaches that there is enjoyed by death,
as I will explain more fully, perfect repose. We sleep at
night in order to recruit our exhausted energies, and to
prepare us for new toils and tasks that are before us on
the morrow. Death is just sleep in as far as sleep involves
the idea of refreshment, rest, and repose. The soldier of
the cross has "finished the good fight," and now wears the
laurel beside the throne; the labourer has done his clay's
work, and he now rests; the traveller has finished his jour
ney, the Christian his conflict, and wearied, they have en
tered into "the rest that remaineth for the people of God."
"They rest in their beds, each one walking in his upright
ness." They rest; "yet they rest not day nor night,"
saying, "Glory, and honour, and blessing unto the Lamb."
In sleep also there is security. When we lie down to
sleep, we are satisfied, after fastening all means of access,
that we are secure; we could not sleep unless we were sa
tisfied that we were safe from the thief, the robber, and the
assassin. So when the believer sleeps, he enters into a
state of perfect security. The doors that shut the saint
in shut all intruders out. They that are there never go
out, they are perfectly secure.
The next idea that sleep implies is, restoration. We go
to sleep, expecting to rise in the morning refreshed. Even
so Jesus died, and rose again; and "them that sleep in
Jesus will God bring with him," that is, at the morning of
the resurrection. "As for me," says David, "I shall be
hold thy face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied when
I awake with thy likeness." "They," says Daniel, "that
sleep in the dust shall awake, some to everlasting life."
What a different picture does this give us of the grave !

THE SORROWING SISTERS. 107
The whole of 1 Cor. xv. may be inscribed, and by the eye
of faith will be seen to be inscribed, upon the tombstone
of every son of God. The grave is but the resting-place ;
it is the land where God's seed is sown; it is the vestibule
to glory. In a few years — certainly a few years to the
oldest, and it may be a few to the youngest, those ties that
keep us below shall, if we are the people of God, be re
moved, and there shall be a gathering together which shall
consummate alike our glory, our happiness, and our peace.
Beautifully therefore (without entering upon the subject
further) does Jesus say, "Thy brother shall rise again."
Sister, thy brother shall rise again ; father, thy child shall
rise again ; child, thy father shall rise again ; friend, thy
friend shall rise again. They whose dust is in graves that
man has never dug — they whose sleeping ashes are in the
deeps of the desert sea, with the cold sea-weeds about them,
and the chimes of the ocean's waves for their requiem —
they whose grave is in the desert, whose winding-sheet is
the barren and scorching sand — they that sleep in the stony
chambers of the pyramids, or under their shadows — they
who have been scattered by wind and wave to the four ends
of the earth, or whose bones are bleaching upon the bar
ren Alps — shall all hear the sound of the last trumpet ;
and the king shall obey as quickly as the beggar. The
dust that is in ancient urns shall be warmed, and every
man shall come to receive his righteous sentence " accord
ing to the deeds done in the body, whether they have been
good, or whether they have been evil." The monument
of bronze shall not keep back the prince ; the green turf
shall not keep back the beggar. The very dust beneath
our feet shall be quickened, and all shall rise again.
"Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resur
rection." Brethren, are you Christians ! Are you the people of

L08 FORESHADOWS.
God? That is the question of questions — a question that
becomes more instant, urgent, eloquent every day. Scenes
strange and solemn, as I have told you, are opening on us ;
circumstances throughout the whole world indicate, like
petrels, the coming storm. If ever there was present a
crisis, or an epoch in the world's history, when men should
at least have one sure and fast foothold, that revolution
shall not shake nor dire judgment destroy, it is the day
in which our lot is cast. My dear friends, seek the Sa
viour; open your hearts to the entrance of his blessed
gospel: for every soul that is without God is without ex
cuse. Every man who is not a Christian has no reason
for not being so except that he will not. But I am in
stantly checked, when I think of urging you to be Chris
tians, by the thought — "Is Christianity a nauseous and
unpalatable thing, that I must ask men to take that which
all the instincts of their nature recoil against?" My dear
friends, it is "good news," it is the pardon of the greatest
sin; it is the acceptance of the greatest sinner; it is joy
to the broken heart; it is hope to the mourning heart; it
is the panacea for all ills, the prescription for all diseases ;
it is the entrance into joys below, and into yet fuller joys
at the right hand of God, and pleasures for evermore. I
wonder that any man can have one happy pulse in his
heart or one sweet moment in his rest who is not a Chris
tian. I wonder, too, that any man should be depressed,
discouraged, or fear, or be alarmed, who knows that when
all things are moved, he has " a house not made with hands ,"
and that when the mountains are cast into the sea, and the
earth shakes with the swelling thereof, he can say to his
throbbing, his palpitating, his anxious heart, "Be still, and
know that it is God. He will be exalted among the na
tions, he will be exalted in the earth."

109

LECTURE VI.
THE LORD AND GIVER OF LIFE.
And when she had so said, she went her way, and called Mary her sister se
cretly, saying, The Master is come, and calleth for thee. As soon as she
heard that, she arose quickly, and came unto hinu Now Jesus was not yet
come into the town, but was in that place where Martha met him. The Jews
then which were with her in the house, and comforted her, when they saw
Mary, that she rose up hastily and went out, followed her, saying, She goeth
unto the grave to weep there. Then when Mary was come where Jesus was,
and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst
been here, my brother had not died. When Jesus therefore saw her weeping,
and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and
was troubled, and said, Where have ye laid him ? They said unto him, Lord,
come and see. Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him !
And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the
blind, have caused that even this man should not have died? Jesus therefore
again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone
lay upon it. Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him
that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath
been dead four days. Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if
. thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God ? Then they took
away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted
up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I
knew that thou hearest me always : but because of the people which stand by
I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. And when he thus
had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that
was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes : and his face
was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let
him go. Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the
things which Jesus did, believed on him. But some of them went their ways
to the Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus had done. Then gathered
the chief priests and the Pharisees- in council, and said, What do we? for this
man doeth many miracles. If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on
him : and the Romans shall come and take away both our place a nd nation.
And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said
unto them, Ve know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us,
10

110 FORESHADOWS.
that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not
And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he pro
phesied that Jesus should die for that nation ; and not for that nation only,
but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were
scattered abroad. Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to
put him to death. Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews ;
but went thence unto a country near to the wilderness, into a city called
Ephraim, and there continued with his disciplos. And the Jews' passover
was nigh at hand : and many went out of the country up to Jerusalem before
the passover, to purify themselves. Then sought they for Jesus, and spake
among themselves, as they stood in the temple, What think ye, that he will
not come to the feast ? Now both the chief priests and the Pharisees had
given a commandment, that, if any man knew where he were, he should
show it, that they might take him. — Johk xi. 28-57.
We have studied the previous part of this impressive and
interesting miracle. I come now to its end — to that crown
ing act by which it was so gloriously closed : the resurrec
tion of Lazarus. I need not say that every verse might
be the basis of a sermon ; but it is sometimes expedient and
highly useful that we should look at passages as wholes,
and not break them into fragments, in order to build on
every fragment the superstructure of an appeal, an argu
ment, or an address.
On the present occasion, therefore, I will incidentally
examine the whole of the narrative I have read. In the
28th verse, we read that Martha hears the sound of joy in
the very words that Jesus had uttered: "I am the resur
rection and the life." What he intends to do with her
brother she evidently knows not; but joy she evidently felt,
and because of the prospect of some good he was about to
achieve for her ; and with that beautiful and unselfish cha
racteristic by which the people of God ought always to be
distinguished, she is resolved not to have a monopoly of
the joy. She desires to share it with her sister Mary.
She therefore runs to her secretly, and whispers in her ear
the missionary sentiment which this female evangelist so
joyfully conveyed: "The Master is come, and calleth for

THE LORD AND GIVER OF LIFE. HI
thee." To be missionaries is the duty, yea, rather the pri
vilege, of us all : the sister to her sister, the female to her
friends, as well as the minister upon the distant isles of the
ocean, and amid the untrodden deserts of Africa. It is a
most erroneous, nay a Popish idea that we are merely to
contribute a sovereign a year to send out a missionary to
India or Africa, and that we are excused by that gift from
doing any thing, or saying any thing, or attempting any
thing, to spread the gospel in our own immediate neigh
bourhood. The true idea of missions is, that man, the
moment he is made a Christian, becomes a missionary ; the
unction of the saint is thus expended in the duties and the
sacrifices of the servant. And it is the feature, the grand
ennobling feature, of the gospel, that he that drinks deep
est of its living water thirsts most to diffuse it. You may
estimate the depth of a man's Christianity by the extent
of what he does, or gives, or sacrifices, or suffers, to spread
it. There may be selfishness among statesmen, there may
be selfishness among literary men, but there can be no self
ishness among those who are truly Christians; for the very
law of the economy they belong to is, that God gives us
the largest blessings, that we may diffuse them the most
largely around us.
Mary, we read, runs immediately to Jesus as her sister
invited her, and repeats the words which had been spoken
before by Martha, (ver. 32,) « Lord, if thou hadst been
here our brother had not died." You recollect, when
Martha first met Jesus, and told him of her brother's suf
ferings, and then of her brother's death, that she, too, gave
utterance to the same sentiments: "Lord, if thou hadst
been here my brother had not died." What does this show?
That it had been a frequent fire-side remark. These two
sisters had often said, as they wept together over the hearth,
and gazed upon the flame that reflected no longer its light

112 FORESHADOWS.
upon the face that they loved, and as their tears fell fast
on the stone no longer trodden by a brother, " If Jesus had
been here, Lazarus, our brother, had not died." And so
deeply had this sentiment taken possession of their hearts,
that Martha utters it in one place as the feeling that was
uppermost in her mind, and Mary is no sooner introduced
to Jesus than she too gives utterance to the same senti
ment. But it was not a just remark. It indicated faith,
and yet want of faith. It was as fixed a point that Jesus
should not be at the bedside of the dying Lazarus, as it
was that he should stand at the grave of the dead Lazarus.
The "if 8" of men are the decrees of God. We say "if,"
but that "if" is as fixed as the final close of the fact to
which it refers. And hence, in the remarks we make about
our relatives, we often say, "Ah! if I had only taken that
course ; if I had only done this ; if I had only sent for
that physician ; if I had only had recourse to this medicine,
how different would it have been!" But all these ifs are
part of the steps by which the relative rose from earth to
glory, and were just as needful, and as decreed, every one
of them, as that he should fall asleep in Jesus, and live for
ever. I am not a fatalist, yet I believe in the sovereignty
of God. What is the meaning, what is the end, above all,
the comfort of the doctrine of election? It is not intended
to modify what we do now. God's election is not our rule
of life. It is God's written word. But when facts have
taken place over which we had no control, when we have
lost the near and the dear that we loved, then election
comes in with all its real and blessed consolations, and tells
us : This was not an accident ; this was not a chance, a
hap-hazard occurrence, but it was just as fixed as God's
own throne, and no power on earth could have made it
otherwise. The Jews, we read, followed Mary to the tomb. " When

THE LORD AND GIVER OF LIFE. 113
Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weep
ing which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and
was troubled." These Jews went to the tomb in the exer
cise of a humane sympathy : they went to sympathize
with Mary ; but God sent them to be witnesses to a mira
cle that was to teach souls. Man pursues his own ends,
chalks out his own path, and acts under the impulse of
his own motives ; but over every man, from the highest
that sits upon the throne to the meanest that barely lives
in the wretched attic, there is a controlling hand guiding,
overruling, directing all to his glory, and to the most be
neficent designs. So those Jews took their own way, and
went on their own errand ; but they were afterward used
by God, as the narrative shows, to make known to the
Pharisees the fact that one was raised from the dead, and
that Jesus was therefore the Son of God.
An expression occurs in this verse which I may notice :
Jesus " groaned in the spirit." This is an unfortunate trans
lation ; it is not positively correct, and our translators in
other passages have not so rendered it. It denotes not
groaning in spirit, but properly, being indignant. The
idea of indignation (I do not know by what other word I
could well express it) is implied in the word which is here
translated "groaned in spirit." We have the very same
phrase, for instance, in Mark xiv. 5, where the disciples
say, "For it might have been sold for more than three
hundred pence, and have been given to the poor. And
they murmured against her." That is the very same
word in the original. It also occurs in other passages,
with shades of variation, all of them conveying, and in
volving, and implying, the idea of indignation. But most
persons who have examined it, and probably noticed this
idea, have been perplexed by the thought, What could
Jesus be indignant at ? Why should there be indignation
10*

114 FORESHADOWS.
felt in the bosom of the Son of God ? I may state in
answer, in the first place, that anger is not sin. It is
right to be angry when the occasion demands it ; only
"let not the sun go down upon your wrath;" because
anger long continued issues in malice, malice in revenge,
and revenge in murder. Therefore the passion should be
nipped in its sinless state, before it assumes its sinful and
wicked development. Here the indignation was perfectly
sinless. We read in other passages, " Jesus was angry,
being grieved at the hardness of their hearts ;" and in
this place that he was filled with indignation. But still
the question arises, At what was this indignation ? What
was its cause ? I have no doubt there was a cause, and I
think the circumstances in which Jesus stood afford the ex
planation. He called before his mind the havoc that sin
had made from the beginning till that moment. Jesus
heard the groanings of nature for two thousand years with
awful depth and intensity. He saw sweep before him the
solemn procession of disease, and death, and famine, and
pestilence. He beheld the graves of the aged, and the
tombs of the young; and he recollected that this earth
now so blasted, was once made so beautiful ; and he was
indignant, righteously indignant at the havoc sin had
made, and at the momentary triumph that Satan had
obtained. The source of his indignation therefore was in
the circumstances in which he stood; and it reveals and
unvails to us that blessed truth, that Jesus,
" Though now ascended up on high,
Yet bends on earth a brother's eye.
When he looks down upon this earth, he has no pleasure
in the pains, the sins, the sufferings, and the penalties of
his people — in heaven he still groans or grieves over them ;
and he, too, anticipates with joy (for " he shall see of the

THE LORD AND GIVER OF LIFE. H5
travail of his soul and shall be satisfied") that blessed day
when all sickness shall depart like a morning mist ; when
death shall be destroyed ; when the grave shall be swal
lowed up in victory ; and this once fair, and then yet
fairer earth, shall bask in a sunshine that shall never be
shaded by clouds, and all its inhabitants shall swell that
glorious anthem in which there shall be no discord, and of
which there shall be no suspension, "Worthy is the Lamb
to receive honour, and glory, and blessing, and thanks
giving for ever and ever."
But this suggests to us a lesson as we pass. If Jesus
was so indignant at the havoc that sin had made, have we
any sympathy with the spirit of Jesus ? Do we lament it ?
Do we grieve at it ? And if we grieve at it, do we have
recourse to the means and prescriptions of his word, to
meet, to neutralize, and to remove it ? The evidence that
we sympathize with him, is the fact that we co-operate
with him in the modes for its removal that he himself has
pointed out.
It is also added in another text, what has been called the
shortest text in the Bible — that while Jesus was indignant
at what he saw, indignant at these spoils of the enemy,
"Jesus wept." It was an anger that was mingled with in
tense agony of spirit, and sorrow. It may be that he wept
as a friend over a friend; for we can never forget that
Jesus as man touched our humanity at every point. He
was a Friend, and had his friends, and reciprocated the
emotions of one of not the least beautiful affections — friend
ship. When Jesus' friend was dead, it may be that, as a
friend, Jesus wept. But no doubt there was more than
that feeling in it ; for if he was angry at the havoc which
he saw, and which was the result and the creation of sin
which he did not make, which is a blot and stain upon that
fair world that was originally made so beautiful, there was

116 FORESHADOWS.
also sorrow, painful sorrow, at all that he witnessed. He
was, we are told, "a man of sorrows." I know no expression
in the Bible charged with intenser meaning than that
phrase, "a man of sorrows," steeped in sorrow, saturated
as it were with sorrow. These tears that fell from his eyes
were but the faint outward manifestations of an ocean of
sorrow within, that we can neither gauge, nor conceive,
nor fathom. "Jesus wept." What a mixture in this mi
racle of the sympathy of man and of the majesty of God !
Do you ask me, "Is Jesus man ?" I point to his tears !
Do you ask me, "Is Jesus God ?" I point to his words,
"Lazarus, come forth." Do you ask me what he is ? I
answer, man, as I am, sin excepted ; knowing all my weak
nesses, my sorrows, my sufferings ; deeply, richly, closely
sympathizing with them all ; and yet, in addition to this,
God, able to deliver me from the sorrows with which he
sympathizes, and which he alone can mitigate and remove.
Blessed be God for such a Saviour ! How blessed are they
that know such a joyful sound ! What a prize is the Bible ;
what a blessing is Christianity ; what a bright hope may
be ours ! And what a contrast must there be in the death
of a Christian to the death of one who either knows not,
or, if he knows, despises the gospel. I heard lately of the
awfully sudden, indeed almost instant, death of one who
was notorious for publishing, printing, and circulating the
most wicked, atheistic, blasphemous works that ever dis
graced the British press. He died with the hardened feel
ings with which he lived. How very awful ! Yet we are
not called upon to judge. We must see and be silent ; but
this we know, and are bound to proclaim, that the death
bed that is not illuminated by that rainbow that
" Spans the earth, and forms a pathway to the skies,"
must be a dark and a dreary one indeed. And if, my dear

THE LORD AND GIVER OF LIFE. 117
friends, you wish to have in this world the richest joy,
drink deep into Christianity : if you want to make sure in
the world to come of the brightest prize, grasp most firmly
that cross which alone is worth glorying in ; and which,
every day that one lives, appears in greater beauty, and
comes home to our hearts with greater preciousness. I
only wonder (not at you so much as at myself) that we so
lightly, so inadequately, feel those truths. I often marvel
that we can hear these things without being thrilled, and
rapt in ecstasy by them ; for sure I am such words never
sounded on the ears of the heathen ; and if they had, they
would have risen in ecstasy, and the very slave would have
leaped with delight notwithstanding his chains.
The Jews exclaimed, as they saw Jesus weeping, " Behold
how he loved him !" This was their construction : they
meant that he loved Lazarus as a friend, and no doubt it
was true ; but there was a higher sense also in which it
was true. " Behold how he loved him !" What do all the
sufferings, the sorrows, the agony, the bloody sweat, the
cross and passion of our Lord, speak to us but this truth,
"Behold how he loved us?" In the manger, and on the
cross, we read these words, "Behold how he loved us;"
and loved us, not because we loved him, but he loved us,
and therefore we love him ; not because we had done any
thing good, but he loved us in spite of our sins ; and, blessed
be his name, if we are his, he will also save us in spite of
our sins. My dear friends, if God did not often save us
in spite of ourselves, we never should be saved at all ; and
when we go to him, and pray, we are to draw near to him,
not because we deserve — God forbid, and we are not to be
driven back because we dis-serve ; but we are to go to him
in spite of the protests of a thousand sins, and say, in the
face of all, and in the midst of all, in that still small voice

118 FORESHADOWS.
which shall be heard above the seven thunders in heaven,
"Our Father, which art in heaven."
" Behold how he loved him !" Others, again, argued
this way: " Could not this man that did these miracles —
that opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that this
man should not die ?" Of course he could. They admitted
that he had opened the blind man's eyes, and they argued
most logically that he might surely have quickened the
dead man's heart. The one was just as possible as the
other ; and if he had power to do the one, why not have
the power to do the other ? They argued correctly enough,
but too hastily ; just as we do sometimes. We often rush
to conclude when we see the beginning of a thing ; but we
must see the beginning and the end in order to form a
right conclusion. If they had waited with a little more
patience, they would have seen Lazarus coming forth from
the tomb ; and would have learned that this man that
could open the blind man's eyes could quicken the dead
man's dust ;. and that he was, what they doubted, alike a
light to lighten the blind, and the life to quicken the
dead. We read again that Jesus approached the grave, and
again groaned in himself. His indignation came again.
I do not wonder at it. When we see the dead, some of us,
who are nervous, are shocked, and some, who are not so,
take it as a matter of course. Others feel pity, sorrow,
pain, compassion. Rarely do we feel indignation — in
dignation at what caused all, and is the source of all.
Jesus now, when he saw death, (shall I use the expression
and not be misconstrued,) was shocked at it, grieved at it.
Death, I repeat, is the most unnatural thing, and the more
one thinks of it, the more horrible does it appear— that
this excellent frame-work, made originally to live for ever,
to bloom in amaranthine beauty, never to have a gray

THE LORD AND GIVER OF LIFE. 119
hair, or a wrinkle, or a stiff joint, or a deaf ear, or a
darkened eye ; once so beautiful and so good that it was
like God himself — that this exquisite thing, so fearfully
and wonderfully made, should become so decayed that the
dearest one must bury it out of sight. What hath sin done !
How is the gold become- dim, and the most fine gold
changed ! But, what has Jesus done, who can enable us to
look upon that dead face, and on that tomb, and say, 0
death ! where, notwithstanding all this, is thy sting ? 0
grave ! where is thy victory ? To gaze upon the crowded
burial-ground, to feel it true of every saint that sleeps
there, " Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory,
even here, through Jesus Christ our Lord;" this is Chris
tianity. We read here, too, in this interesting passage,
that they evidently went to a distant place to the grave.
It is quite plain from the statement that they rose and fol
lowed her, saying, " She goeth unto the grave to weep
there ;" and from what we read at the thirty-eighth' verse,
" Jesus, therefore, again groaning in himself, cometh to the
grave ; it was a cave, and a stone lay upon it." All these
words imply that the grave was not in the city. We boast
verymuchof our being the civilized people ofthe nineteenth
century ; in fact it is the great boast of the day, that
science has enabled us to do things that the ancients never
dreamed of. One thing, however, science has not done.
Among the ancient Greeks there was no such thing as a
burial-place within a city; in the time of the ancient
Jews, too, such a thing as a grave within the walls of Je
rusalem was not known. It is one of those habits that,
with all our science, we seem most sedulously to cherish ;
yet a habit in itself more unsuitable, in its origin more
superstitious, in its effects more pernicious, I do not know.
The origin of it was this : In Roman Catholic times, while
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120 FORESHADOWS.
away, people came to believe that the church was not
merely a sacred place, but that it was, as it were, a part
of the sacrifice and merit of the Saviour; and in old
Roman Catholic churches you will always find the rich
sacerdotal and noble men buried either under the altar
or somewhere near it ; and you will find the other graves
crowding around the altar in order to get within its sancti
fying influence. This was the origin of the graveyard
around churches. I admit that a great deal of beautiful
sentiment may arise from it ; I feel that the " Elegy in a
Country Churchyard," by Gray, is extremely beautiful;
but facts tell us that such churchyards are extremely perni
cious, and otherwise answer no good purpose. They had
their origin only in superstition ; and I think in the nine
teenth century, in this particular, we may just fall back
into the first, and do what ought to have been done years
ago — form cemeteries far outside our cities, and henceforth
on no consideration within them.
Martha, it is plain, thought that the body had gone
completely to corruption. There was no evidence that it
really was so ; it was only her individual impression ; and
she said so to our Lord. We then read, "Jesus lifted
up his eyes and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast
heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always ;
but because of the people which stand by, I said it, that
they may believe that thou hast sent me." Now these
words seem liable, at first, to misconstruction ; as if they
meant that Jesus might ask and not be answered ; or as if
they implied that he was only a petitioning creature, and
not also "the mighty God." But you will see that the
words are to be construed from the circumstances under
which they were uttered. The Jews argued that the power
that he exercised was a power from beneath. They said
it was by Beelzebub that he cast out devils : this was one

THE LORD AND GIVER OF LIFE. 121
of their great accusations. Our Lord, therefore, in address
ing the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob on this
occasion, showed them by his address to God, that the
power he exercised was a power that came from God, and
therefore we hear him saying here, " But because of the
people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that
thou hast sent me ; that they may see in me one who does
these works of greatness by a power that is divine, and
that in that prayer they may have a foretaste of my me
diatorial and intercessory work before the throne." Then
we read, " And when he had thus spoken, he cried with a
lout voice, Lazarus, come forth." This was the voice of
the trumpet. You recollect reading of the trump of the
archangel. We are all in the habit of talking of angels
a!nd archangels, but there is only one archangel mentioned
in the New Testament, and I suspect that archangel is the
Lord Jesus Christ. It means, literally, chief messenger ;
as when we read of angels we might render the word mes
sengers. In the sentence, "I send my messenger," the
word might have been rendered "angel." This voice that
sounded in the tomb of Lazarus was the first note of the trump
of the archangel ; and an earnest of that period when those
words, " Come forth," shall go down into nature's depths,
and rise up to nature's heights, and receive a magnificent
response. ' There is not an atom, not a disintegrated atom
of the dust of the dear dead we have left in their resting-
places, that shall not hear the voice of Him that made it.
We shall rise, and this corruptible shall put on incor-
ruption, and this mortal immortality ; and death shall be
swallowed up in victory. We need not keep our dead near
the church, as if the church could do them good ; it mat
ters not where they are. True, one likes to see a place
set apart where their ashes may rest; but it is really
matter of very little consequence whether we are devoured
il

122 FORESHADOWS.
by the fishes of the deep, or by the beasts of the forest ; or
whether the sand of the desert be our winding-sheet and the
song of the ocean's waves our requiem. It matters little.
Every particle shall hear the voice and trump of the arch
angel, and we shall meet again in circumstances of beauty, of
blessedness, and of joy, which, if we knew and felt as we
might, would make one frequently say, " Oh that I had
wings like a dove, that I, too, might be there and be at
rest !"
Lazarus heard the voice, and came forth. Here I may
pause to notice how this explains (for I gather the lessons
as I pass) the importance of speaking to dead souls. Some
persons say, Why preach to a man who is dead in sins,
when, from its very condition, his soul cannot hear you ?
You might as well have said to Jesus, " Why speak to the
dead man Lazarus?" Ours is the duty to address every
one, but the Lord has the power to make that address
of use.
Jesus said, "Loose him, and let him go." What does
this teach us ? First, the loosing of him was to let them
see that it was truly a miracle, that there might be no
carping; and, secondly, that Christ never does for man
what man can do for himself. Christ saves us not in in
dolence, but he saves us from indolence ; and any man
who will plead, " I cannot read, I cannot pray, I cannot
go to church till God draw me," is either deceiving me or
deceiving himself. You can do many things, and it is no
excuse to say, " I cannot do this, and I cannot do that,
till God first move me." I say, rise, pray, hear, read;
and if any man will do Christ's will, he shall know of the
doctrine whether it be of God.
One fact I must not omit to notice here — that in the
rocords of the coming forth of Lazarus, there is nothing
said about any disclosures made by him in reference to the

THE LORD AND GIVER OF LIFE. 123
unseen world. There have been many idle stories founded
on this miracle. With many of the ancient fathers and
writers, when they get any hint from the future world, the
first thing discussed is the account of what the person saw,
and what he heard, and what he was, and how he felt. Now
the grand silence which is here preserved is, to my mind,
an indirect and latent evidence of the truth of this story.
Lazarus says nothing of the other world; all is silence.
Christ alone tells us afterward what awaits us in the fu
ture. How did the Jews act upon this occasion? We see
that, instead of being convinced and converted, they were
only, or seemed to be, exasperated and roused the more.
They ran and told the Pharisees and the scribes. They
argued in this way: "If we let this man alone, then the
Romans will come and take away our nation." They rea
soned: "This man pretends to be a king, and if we let
him have his way, Caesar will come and destroy us ; because
we thereby show that we cease to be a province, and as
sume to have a dynasty and sovereignty of our own."
What a remarkable illustration have we here of the great
fact, that the very thing which they thought would avert
the destruction of their nation, was just the very thing
that brought down the thunderbolts of God's righteous
judgments upon them! They argued that, if they left
him alone, it would be the means of their nation being de
stroyed. They did not let him alone. They slew him to
save the nation, and this deed was the cause of their nation
being scattered throughout the earth. The high-priest of
that year, a bold, bad man, (qualities that you will find
occasionally developed in the case of great criminals,)
dared to give utterance to a sentiment which all felt.
When there is a great crowd, a revolution brewing, or
something of that kind, there is generally found a vague
sentiment floating in a thousand breasts, waiting for

124 FORESHADOWS.
an interpreter. What makes the orator, the leader, the
man that turns up a celebrated hero ? His having the
boldness to give utterance to the sentiment that all feel,
but which none else have the courage to express. This
was the case with Caiaphas : he gave utterance to the sen
timent that they had not the cruel courage to express. He
says, '"Ye know nothing at all;' you are a people of no
understanding, and no skill ; listen to me. You do not
' consider that it is expedient for us that one man should
die for the people;' " he meant, "It is expedient we should
put this man to death, and get rid of him— 'that one man
should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish
not.' " Thus he dared to suggest the death of Jesus, as
the great panacea for the cure of their ills ; the only means
of securing the constancy and continuance of their nation.
In other words, he was, like many modern men, a man of
expediency ; he only thought of expediency. There are
two classes of men we meet with in this world : some men
who never will move unless their foot can be upon a prin
ciple, a fixed principle, a great truth; and whose whole
conduct shall take its shape, its tone, and direction, and
colouring, from the principle they stand on, or the truth
they grasp ; and there are other men who are hot acquainted
with principles, who are not much troubled with a con
science, who have no great truths to stand upon ; and they
merely calculate chances. They look around, and before,
and above, and beneath, (or rather, not above, but every
where else,) and they say, " If this is done, this will be the
result." They suppose that men are exactly like,a number
of pieces upon a draught-board, and that they have only
to calculate the forces and anticipate the sure movements,
and the result will be so and so ; forgetting that they have
corrupted wills to deal with, and that they have a reigning
God whom they have omitted from their calculations, and

THE LORD AND GIVER OF LIFE. 125
that so great an omission vitiates all. We shall find, that
what is true, and just, and holy, is always expedient ; and
what is not holy, not true, not just, may be vastly plausible,
full of promise, very significant of good, yet, in the end,
most inexpedient. The highest duty is the highest expe
diency. All experience proves that it is so. But it is
added here, when Caiaphas made use of those words, "And
this spake he not of himself; but being high-priest that
year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation."
Then John adds, (not Caiaphas,) "And not for that nation
only, but that also he should gather together in one the
children of God that were scattered abroad." It is very
remarkable, that Caiaphas should have here prophesied.
It is an instance of what are called unconscious prophecies ;
and many such have occurred in the history of the church
and of the world before. So Balaam, a bad man, prophe
sied. And not merely have prophecies been uttered in the
shape of predictions of what will be, but I believe all facts
that ever have occurred are not only results of the past,
but are also prophets and seers, and earnests of what will
be. Take an instance: Pilate wrote, "Jesus of Nazareth,
the King of the Jews." The Jews said, " Why, this is just
asserting what we deny. Say that he said, I am the King
of the Jews?" What did Pilate reply? "What I have
written I have written." Did he say that of himself? No,
God taught him to say so ; and when he said so he uttered
an unconscious prophecy, just as here the high-priest ut
tered an unconscious prophecy. So the purple robe, the
sceptre, and the crown of thorns which they put upon
Jesus — what were these ? They were facts, history says :
they were prophecies and types, our experience, enlightened
from the word of God, says. The name Caiaphas is merely
a Hebrew modification of the same word applied to Peter :
Cephas, a rock. There must be something significant in
11*

126 FORESHADOWS.
this, that the last high-priest, as if he were the last type
of the true High-Priest, should be called (in mockery, if I
might use the word) a rock; but a rock that was soon to
be shaken and moved. There is something striking in this,
that just as the priesthood of Levi passed away, never to
be resuscitated, the Urim and Thummim, the lights and
perfections on his breast, should be suddenly illuminated
with an unearthly glory ; so that as a candle, before it goes
out, gives its brightest flame, the priesthood of Aaron, as
it passed away and perished for ever, gave forth a dying
splendour that indicated it was over, and the true High-
Priest was come. So now, in the present day, facts that
are taking place around us, are not bare naked facts, but
significant. Every fact that occurs is a rehearsal of a
greater fact that will be. The fall of Tyre, of Nineveh,
and of Babylon, all facts in history, are yet declared dis
tinctly to have been prophecies too. And all that has taken
place in 1848 on the continent of Europe, is just a rehearsal
of what will take place on a yet larger scale, and with more
terrific and tremendous results, by-and-by.
All things indicate, as I have said, that we are passing
into the last days. I am more and more confirmed in this
conclusion ; we shall hear and experience soon such things
as have not been known upon earth before. Never was
there a day, in which I solemnly believe every one was
more called upon to make ready. The sailor, when he
hears the first whistling of the storm amid the shrouds,
begins to put his vessel in trim, and prepare her to brave
the storm. Should we not also learn a lesson from the
signs of the times,, and be ready, knowing not what a day
may bring forth? This we do know, and with this I con
clude my lecture, that he died — what the priest prophesied
in his ignorance — he died — what the evangelist added from
his light — that he might "gather together in one the chil

THE LORD AND GIVER OF LIFE. 127
dren of God that were scattered abroad." Christ is the
great magnet, the great centre of attraction, the great
source and bond of union, and of unity. "This is a faith
ful saying, and worthy of all acceptation," of all men, at
all times, and in all circumstances, " that Jesus Christ came
into the world to save sinners," of whom you, I, may be
the chief; he came to save us, even us; not because we are
sinners, but in spite of our sins ; not because we deserved
it, but in spite of what we deserve.

128

LECTURE VII.
THE GREAT TYPICAL DISEASE.
And it came to pass, when he was in a certain city, behold a man full of leprosy
who seeing Jesus, fell on his face, and besought him, saying, Lord, if thou
wilt, thou canst make me clean. And he put forth his hand, and touched him,
saying, I will : be thou clean. And immediately the leprosy departed from
him. And he charged him to tell no man : but go, and show thyself to the
priest, and offer for thy cleansing, according as Moses commanded, for a tes
timony unto them. — Luke v. 12-14.
The disease called the leprosy is one which it is not
possible, perhaps, accurately to describe ; nor is it neces
sary to do so. Its physical characteristics and symptoms
belong to the province of the physician, not to the discourse
of the minister of the gospel. I take this disease, which
so often occurs, in reference, or allusion, or judgment,
throughout the Scripture, to be the great typical and teach
ing disease. It was selected from the rest of those diseases
to which humanity has been subject, not because it was
the worst of them, but in order that it should be a type,
and symbol, and teacher of that more dreadful disease
which has overspread the soul, the wages of which is death,
and the issue of which is everlasting banishment from the
presence of CJod.
All diseases are unnatural, monstrous, horrible. Man
was never made to be diseased, nor was he meant to die.
Yet there is no such phenomenon on earth as a perfectly
healthy man : there is no such state. The instant we are
born, such seeds and germs and elements of disease are

THE GREAT TYPICAL DISEASE. 129
in us, as must eventually bring us to the grave ; the instant
man sinned, that moment death seized upon him. What
is disease itself? It is death in its beginning. Disease is
to death just what the acorn is to the oak ; it is the first
germ that contains all the rest. All diseases are the ex
ponents of an inward derangement ; they are the echoes,
heard without, of a disorganization that is going on within.
And this disease, called the leprosy, was, as I have said,
selected not because it was the worst, but to be a sort of
awful sacrament, as it were, of that death to which sin,
the counterpart of the leprosy, leads; and to teach us that
a universal plague, worse than pestilence, famine, and
sword, has fallen on all humanity; and that there is but
one mode of deliverance from it, that mode which was con
summated on the cross, and is preached in the Bible, and
enunciated by every faithful minister of the gospel.
This disease, from its typical nature, to which I must
refer by-and-by, was called by the Jews the "finger of
God;" by others of them it was called "the stroke," from
the way in which they were struck by it. It first attacked
a man's house, it is said ; next, his clothing ; and lastly,
his person: and it was to be healed, mark you, (and here
was its typical nature,) not by the physician's prescription,
but by the priest's treatment. In this respect it is singled
out and made to differ from all other diseases, and there
fore it is what I have called it — a typical and significant
disease. In the case of the leprosy, it was not always the guiltiest
that were its victims ; just as in the case which I explained
in reading the chapter this morning, it was not always the
guiltiest who were most punished; although when special
sins were committed against the theocracy, that is, the
personal government of Israel by God himself, we find that
this disease was almost always the judgment that was in-

130 FORESHADOWS.
flicted. This was the case of Gehazi, who sinned so griev
ously against God, that he went forth " a leper white as
snow." You recollect also the case of Uzziah, who, when
he touched the ark, was smitten with leprosy. These were
especially sinful persons visited with a special judgment;
but in the case of other persons, we do not know why they
were visited. In the case of the leprous man before us,
we cannot say why he was afflicted. It is the foolish ques
tion that was asked of old, and is asked still, "Who hath
sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
They were right in tracing the affliction to sin ; wrong in
supposing that in this dispensation, where there is special
individual suffering, there is therefore special individual
guilt. Our Lord says, in Luke, (and this is a proper cor
rective of people's notions still,) "Think ye that those
eighteen upon whom the tower of Siloam fell and slew
them, think ye that they were sinners above all men?"
Human nature is apt to think so. Strange it is, there is a
lingering sense in the depths of man's heart of the con
nection between sin and punishment that he never can get
rid of; but he manifests it wrongly, and applies his judg
ment indiscreetly, when he assumes that the eighteen who
were made the victims of a signal punishment were sinners
above all men. When you see one man smitten down by
the sword, another dropping down by disease of the heart,
another by some epidemic, you are not to say, " That man
was evidently the guiltiest ; he was a very great sinner,
because he is singled out for a special judgment." The
lesson you are to learn is this, "Except ye repent, ye shall
all likewise perish."
I may notice in the next place, that there is no evidence
that the leprosy was what is called infectious. I say there
is no evidence in the Bible that it could be communicated
from one person to another by contact. On the contrary,

THE GREAT TYPICAL DISEASE. 131
we find that the Levitical priests, whose duty it was mi
nutely to examine its symptoms, and pronounce upon its
existence or its removal, touched the person, and never, in
any one instance, caught the disease. Where the Levitical
laws were not binding, persons infected with leprosy moved
with others, and took their place in society. Here was the
commanding officer of a great army, Naaman, the Syrian,
who laboured under the disease, and yet lived in no separa
tion. Persons lived twenty, thirty, or forty years under
the leprosy, mixing with mankind, and discharging the
duties of their respective offices. Gehazi, when smitten
with it, approached the king of Israel, and there was felt
no fear that the disease would be communicated. And you
will recollect, where the law of Moses was binding, the
sojourner and the stranger in the midst of Israel was not
under the laws in this matter to which the Israelite was
subject, but might freely mix with the people, although he
might be smitten with leprosy. All these facts thus teach
us that this disease was not infectious. Perhaps no disease
is so. And I believe that as light, and science, and real
wisdom grow among mankind, they will come to discover
that these books of Moses, with which the infidel has made
so much merriment, are, after all, not merely exponents
of the highest and most sublime divinity, but are also phar
macopoeias for prescriptions far more precious than at pre
sent we are disposed to admit. It may yet be discovered
perhaps, (and experience seems more and more to confirm
it,) that in the case of diseases which have long been
thought contagious there is no contagion at all, and that it
needs some vile churchyard, or some vault below the floor
on which the living are^ — or some undrained neighbour
hoods, or excess of eating and drinking, or destitution of
raiment, of food, or of drink — to be conductors of the
otherwise innocuous diseases; just as the lightning will

132 FORESHADOWS.
play in all its splendours innocently in the skies, until it
find a conductor to carry it down in order to smite some
one, and number him with the dead. It may be with our
worst diseases as with the lightnings in the clouds, that
there must be a conductor in order to carry down either.
I believe, however, in the present day, — and I rejoice to
see the feeling, for Christianity ministers to and contem
plates the well-being of the body as well as the salvation
of the soul, — that efforts are being made extensively to
diminish these conductors of disease. I was informed by
a physician what I can confirm from experience, that few
have any idea of the awful, brutalized, impure physical
state in which the poor are ; so much so that I fear the
efforts of our city missionaries and our tract-distributors
will all be sadly valueless till something is done to mitigate
the physical suffering, and raise the domestic condition of
our poor at least to a level with the dogs in many a noble
man's kennel, who are far better cared for, and far more
generously treated. You need not be informed that that
which brings down the heaviest judgments of God upon a
land, is that land's neglect of the poor. I do hope that
every individual who has and to spare, and who knows
where the poor are — not rogues, impostors, and vagabonds,
who always will make poverty a stalking-horse on which
to prosecute their iniquitous designs — will seek them out
and minister to them. It is a great luxury to do so. Help
them, cheer them, encourage them ; and we shall do
more in this way for the Christianization of the land, by
such pioneering efforts, than we are at first disposed to an
ticipate. I believe that the gin-shops would very exten
sively be closed if we could only raise the physical condition
of the poor. What makes them crave after alcohol, and
drink to excess, is their frightful physical depression.
Teetotal societies would not be wanted, and many a che

THE GREAT TYPICAL DISEASE. 133
mist's shop would be closed, if the poor people could only
get clean houses, pure water, and good food to live upon.
Encourage them, minister to them, comfort them, and sc
you will arrest disease that may in turn scathe yourselves ;
for if the poor are loft to be great sufferers, it will be seen
that the rich will suffer also ; and it is well ; we are thank
ful that it is so. If suffering did not reach the healthy,
they would never sympathize with those who suffer. Mi
nister to the poor, and feel that this is a commission and
a ministry that God has given you. My dear friends, we
are all passing rapidly to that state into which our money
and our resources cannot go with us. He that is rich to
ward God, and lays up treasure in the skies, will, as a
Christian, have the greatest peace below, and the most
cordial welcome above: for, "Inasmuch as ye did it unto
the least of these my brethren, ye did it unto me."
But if this disease was not contagious, why, it may be
asked, were there those severe regulations respecting it?
The person who was a leper was to have his lips covered,
to keep his hand upon his mouth, his garments rent and
torn ; and he was to cry, the moment any one approached
him, "Unclean, unclean." Why so? Superficial readers
say it was because the disease was contagious. I believe
it was because the disease was significant. The leper was
meant to be a parable of death — to be, in a sensuous dis
pensation, in which outward symbols were made the vehi
cles of spiritual and inner truths, a voice sounding in the
depths of the wilderness, " The wages of sin is death."
Separation from the healthy, which was part of the law
of the leper, was not because the disease was contagious,
but because it was typical or significant — and was meant
to teach that sin is the great separating element. When
Jesus was crucified, he was crucified without the camp.
Our sins were laid upon him; and as, by imputation, he
12

134 FORESHADOWS.
was the greatest sinner, so he suffered for our sins, and
in our stead, without the camp. It is said of the New
Jerusalem, that nothing that defileth shall enter it, and
that all polluted, diseased things shall be outside. Sin
is the gr>at rending, splitting, separating element ; it
separates man from man, and it separates man from God.
It has made a chasm between heaven and earth so wide
and so deep, that it needed God in our nature to span it,
and make a pathway back again to the skies. All the
laws of the leper were designed to teach us these great
and important lessons in reference to sin. If you wish to
see the history of the position and treatment of the leper,
read at your leisure the 13th, 14th, and 15th chapters of
the book of Leviticus, where you will find a full descrip
tion of the whole.
Then the cure of the leper was remarkable. It was not
a cure to be achieved by medicine or by sanitary treat
ment, although perhaps these were employed, (for God is
a God of means, and such means are right in their place,)
but it was to be healed by special ecclesiastical or spiritual
rites. There were chosen two birds ; one was to be slain,
and the other was to be dismissed ; the hyssop was to be
dipped in the blood of the slain bird, and sprinkled on the
leper. This will explain the beautiful expression of David,
(Psalm li.,) "Purge" — or cleanse — "me with hyssop;"
that is, the hyssop thus dipped in the blood of the slain
bird, without shedding of blood there being no remission
of sins. As that blood was sprinkled upon the leper, and
the man was then pronounced clean, so David, looking
through the outward symbol to the inner and spiritual
truth, says, " Cleanse me with hyssop ; yea, Lord, wash
me in that blood that cleanseth from all sin, of which the
sacrifice of that bird was but the faint and the imperfect
type."

THE GREAT TYPICAL DISEASE. 135
Thus, we see this disease was cured by cedar, and
hyssop, and scarlet, and a sacrifice especially appointed
for that purpose. And this confirms the view I have
taken, that it was a type significant of what sin is, and
what the issues of sin are, and how it may be put away.
The fact that Jesus healed this disease, is evidence that
he sustained no ordinary office or character. He did not
heal it by that miraculous virtue, by exerting which he
healed the ordinarily diseased ; but he assumed, in heal
ing it, to be the great High-Priest, the antetype of him
whose priesthood was about to pass away. When John
asked for evidences that Christ was the Messiah, we read
that one of the evidences given, and not the least ex
pressive, was, " The lepers are cleansed." That was not
a reference to his power, nor to his mercy, but evidence
that the Aaronitic priesthood was passing into the true
priesthood and the rites of Levi merging into the realities
of the glorious gospel.
When the leper approached Jesus, he used the very
humble, yet very trustful language, "If thou wilt, thou
canst make me clean." That leper saw in Christ more
than a mere healer of disease by miraculous power. He
knew quite well that leprosy was, if I might so speak, an
ecclesiastical disease — that it could only be cured by ec
clesiastical prescription, or by divine power. When,
therefore, he asked Jesus to cure his leprosy, he recog
nised him not only as omnipotent, and able to heal the
disease, but as a priest in Israel, able to minister to that
peculiar form of disease which the priest alone was to
deal with. You will notice too, when the leper came to
Jesus, no claim was expressed upon his sympathy; he
uttered not a word that indicated his feeling that he had
a title to his favour ; he approached him with all the
abasement of a sinner, as we should do ; and yet with all

136 FORESHADOWS.
the confidence of a son, as we may also do. A soul that
sees its sin, and that sin deadly, and sees in Jesus a Sa
viour, and that Saviour willing and able, is not to be re
pelled or restrained from approaching him. As the leper
in this case trampled down the Levitical law, which for
bade him to touch anybody, and ran to Jesus ; so we are
to trample down all obstructions, and, as the greatest of
sinners, come at once, in spite of our sins, into contact
with the greatest Saviour, and obtain absolution, forgive
ness, and remission.
Persons argue, and argue most foolishly, that they may
not go to Christ with confidence because they are sinners.
It is because you are sinners that you may go ; it is as
sinners that you are invited ; and it is in spite of your
sins that you are to take courage ; in fact, you will never
taste what the freedom and the fulness of the gospel are,
till you feel that the greatest sin that has stained your
history in the past, may this very moment, on simple ap
plication, be blotted out and remembered no more against
you, through that blood which cleanseth from all sin.
Jesus treated the Levitical law just as the leper treated
it: it was no obstruction to the exercise of his power and
goodness. It is said he touched the leper. If it was con
trary to the Levitical law for the leper to go to Jesus, it
was just as contrary to the Levitical law for Jesus to touch
the leper. The fact that Christ touched the leper is a
gleam of an inner and hidden truth, that he was more than
man. If Jesus had been a mere man, to have touched the
leper would have been to defile himself ; but he was more
than man, and did not, therefore, defile himself, but cured
the leper of his leprosy. The sun that shines in the firma
ment casts his beams upon all that is polluted on the earth
below, but retains unscathed his own purity and splendour.
Infinite health could come into contact with disease, and

THE GREAT TYPICAL DISEASE. 137
not be diseased; infinite and,eternal life could come into
contact with death, and neither be tainted nor die. The
fact therefore that Jesus touched the leper, and when he
did so, cured him, is the evidence that he was more than
man, the mighty God, the Prince of Peace. And, my
dear friends, is Christ dead ? Has he ceased to be ? No.
We do not see him, but he no less lives ; we do not hear
him, but he no less reigns ; because he is beyond the hori
zon of our vision he is not beyond the reach of our prayers,
he has neither ceased to hear prayer nor to answer it. He
is just as able to keep you from disease as he is to cure
disease. We may ask him to do so. I am one of those
who believe that we ought to pray for temporal blessings.
He has thus taught us : " Give us this day our daily
br ad." You may ask for temporal blessings; and if
they are for his glory, and to your greatest good, they
will be given to you; if not, then, "Thy will be done on
earth even as it is done in heaven," should be the utterance
of our hearts.
When the patient was cured, Jesus said to him, " See
that thou tell no man, but go and show thyself to the
priest." What was meant by this ? If the man, the in
stant he was cured, had blazoned it abroad, the priest
would have heard of it ; he would have looked upon him,
and out of spite and malice (sins by which the priests and
Pharisees were deeply stained at that moment) he would
have said, "There is no cure; the man is labouring under
leprosy still." But when the man went quietly, and
showed himself to the proper appointed officer, the priest,
not knowing who made the cure, pronounced, from his
own inspection, that the man was clean. Thus there was
the voice of an enemy testifying that the finger of God
was in the cure of that man's leprosy. And thus all the
miracles of Jesus will stand the test of all his enemies ;
12*

138 FORESHADOWS.
and I may add, what is equally true, that all the words of
Jesus, all that are contained in this book, will stand all
ordeals, and survive all opposition, and come forth from
all examinations, only bearing a brighter and more vivid
signature that they are the inspiration of the Spirit, and
the teaching of the Son of God.
Have any of you been cured of sin ? Have any of you
had your sins forgiven ? — it is not presumption, but piety,
to feel so : — then, my dear friends, you are called upon to
go and act. Our forgiveness is not the ultimate result,
but only the preface to a future life of devotedness, of
service, of activity. Go and do, is the direction to every
one that is healed. First the cure, then consistent con
duct; first the forgiveness of our sins, then obedience.
And mark the beautiful force of such obedience. When
an unforgiven man tries to do God's will, he does it as a
person hired tries to do the work which he is engaged to
do in order to earn the wages promised him ; he works as
a slave, and has the feelings of a slave ; but when a person
is forgiven, he goes and does God's will, not in order to
obtain something, but because he has obtained all. The
first works as a slave, the second obeys as a son. The
first does it in bondage, cringes, and shrinks in the pre
sence of a taskmaster ; the latter walks as a son in the
sunshine of a father's love, holding communion and fellow
ship with one who delights to bless him and to do him
good. Go you then, my dear reader, do justly, love mercy,
and walk humbly with God. Go and tell what great things
God has done for you. Go and devote your energies to
every cause for which those energies may be fitted, and
for which you can spare them ; not to be justified, but
because you are justified ; not to reach forgiveness, but
because you have obtained forgiveness; and you will
do so then with joyful emotions, an elastic footstep, and a

THE GREAT TYPICAL DISEASE. 130
bounding heart.. So much for the history of this cure.
Let me now draw three practical lessons from all I have
stated. We, too, are the subjects of a disease far more terrible
than leprosy. That disease is described by Isaiah, when
he says, " The whole head is sick, and the whole heart
faint. From the sole of the foot even to the head there is
no soundness in it ; but wounds, and bruises, and putre
fying sores : they have not been closed, neither bound up,
neither mollified with ointment." We were shapen in sin,
(this terrible disease,) we were brought forth in iniquity
(this worse than Gehazi's leprosy ;) its sting is poison, its
wages is death. The house is infected, and the inhabit
ants too; the garment is infected, and the wearer too;
the world is infected, and all that dwell therein. A miasma
far more terrible than all the plagues that have visited
humanity, creeps through every home, nestles in every
heart, infects every soul, taints every thought, pollutes
every conscience, and, unless we are delivered from its
terrible poison, the issue of it must be everlasting misery
and estrangement from God.
In the next place, no human being can atone for, or
cleanse from, this terrible disease. The Jew felt it in
his temple; the Gentile is conscious of it in his pagoda;
and in both temple and pagoda, from the earliest moment
of the fall, Jew and Gentile, the one by divine light and
the other by human light, have been trying if they could
propitiate him against whom their consciences tell them
they have sinned, and draw down from God those bless
ings which their own hearts assure them they have justly
forfeited. But no atonement man can make is adequate
to remove it. The prophet says, and says justly and ex
pressively, "Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and
bow myself before the high God ? Shall I come before

140 FORESHADOWS.
him with burnt- offerings, with calves of a year old ? Will
the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten
thousands of rivers of oil ? Shall I give my first-born for
my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my
soul?" All these are vain, and utterly profitless. No
moral, ecclesiastical, or sacramental rite can cleanse us;
all the tears that penitence ever shed cannot cleanse us ;
all the sufferings that martyrs ever endured at the stake
cannot cleanse us ; all we tan pay or promise can never
cleanse us. The dye is too deep for aught human to ex
punge it, the guilt is too high for aught that man can do
to reach it. " By the deeds of the law no flesh can be justi
fied." This plague none but a priest, the High-Priest who
is in heaven, can heal and remove.
And this leads me, therefore, to announce that blessed
truth, which is the very music and glory of the gospel,
that " In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the
house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for
sin and for uncleanness." If we are all the victims of
this great, wasting, moral plague, if nothing we can pay,
or procure, or promise, or suffer, or do, can sweep it away,
how blessed, how welcome are these tidings, that the Lamb
of God taketh away — not took away, not will take away,
but taketh away — the sins of the world ; conveying to us
this bright idea, that every moment there is a transfer of
our sins to him who takes them away into a land of forget-
fulness for ever ! How blessed to such sin-convinced and
plague-smitten persons is this glorious passage, "The
blood of Jesus Christ, his Son [not once did cleanse, and
now has lost its efficacy ; not will one day cleanse when
we are more worthy of it ; but now,] cleanseth from [not
this sin, or that sin, or little sin, if such there be, but it
cleanseth from] all sin !" and its virtues are lasting as the
wants of humanity ; its efficacy is a present efficacy.

THE GREAT TYPICAL DISEASE. 141
Throw your hope upon this blessed truth, that the blood
of Jesus cleanseth from all sin. Plead at the mercy-seat
this fact, that he that knew no sin was made sin for us,
that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
Just as God's wrath settles, and lights, and fastens with a
consuming and corroding power upon every soul that is
not_ sprinkled with that blood, so sure God's love, and
mercy, and peace settle and fasten with saving power upon
every soul that is sprinkled with that precious blood. But
what is it to be sprinkled with it ? Not to be literally so.
The soldiers who pierced the side of Jesus on the cross
were sprinkled literally with his blood, but they were not
one whit better for that. To be sprinkled with this blood
is to believe God's testimony about it. It is just to say,
this to God: "Oh ! my God, the plague is in my heart,
consuming, wasting, sinking me to the depths of hell ;
and, if left so, I must perish for ever. And oh ! my
God, thou hast told me that Jesus died for all that believe,
that he endured the curse for all that rest on him. I be
lieve, 0 Lord, what thou hast told me — the blood of Jesus
cleanseth from all sin; I believe thy love can lighten
where that blood is, and thy wrath cannot scathe where
that blood is. Lord, I ask of thee to give me thy peace,
to bestow upon me thy mercy, and shed down upon me
thy forgiveness, for no reason in the wide universe, in me,
or out of me, or about me, but for this reason alone, that
Jesus died that I, a poor sinner, might live." If you say
so, and feel so from the very depth of your heart, there
is no truth in the Bible if you are not forgiven ; there is
no truth in Christianity if God does not pardon you. He
himself says, "Seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it
shall be opened unto you; ask, and ye shall obtain."
The gospel, my dear reader, is good news ; and not good
news for to-morrow, but good news for to-day. And the

142 FORESHADOWS.
good news are these — that he that believeth on the Son of
God had eternal life. The blood of Christ cleanseth from
all sin. The Lamb of God taketh away the sins of the
world. I am convinced and persuaded that no man who
thus feels and thus prays will ever perish.
In closing my remarks, let me allude once more to what
I touched upon in a previous lecture in this work — the
great truth, that while individuals, conscious of indivi
dual sin, are seeking that the blood of the Lamb may
sprinkle individual consciences, how beautiful it would be
if the whole nation would get, as the Israelites of old got,
within the threshold, the blood of the Lamb being sprin
kled upon that threshold without ; and pray that God would
remember them according to his covenant and his loving-
kindness, and have mercy upon them, and spare them !
This loads me also to notice what I have seen as pro
fessed philosophy — but which is the very essence of in
fidelity — in some of the papers, in very few of them, I be
lieve, but in two certainly, where they argue that the
existing epidemic* in the atmosphere is a law of the world.
Perhaps only philosophers know that the word "law"
means a great fact — a thing that must be, a thing that
always is. They argue that the existence of disease in
the air is a great law, just as much as that the wind blows,
the rain falls, rivers roll, stones fall to the ground ; and
that it being a great law, it is most absurd for a nation to
pray that God would be pleased to remove that which is
necessary, and, with some small evil, is nevertheless doing
gigantic good. Suppose now that it is a law. Whence
did this law come ? Did God make the atmosphere ori
ginally in such a condition ? We know he did not. Disease
arose from sin ; it is a child of sin. But surely to acknow
ledge our sin, and seek forgiveness of it, may lead, not-
* The epidemic of 1849.

THE GREAT TYPICAL DISEASE. 143
withstanding all the boasts of proud philosophy, to its re
moval notwithstanding. If it be a law that there shall
be a certain taint in the atmosphere, there is another law
that these literary philosophers forget, namely, that con
scious weakness, in its sufferings, always feels an instinctive
impulse to appeal to omnipotent power for deliverance.
If the one J>e recognised as a law, why not recognise the
other as such ! Instead, therefore, of the first law being
a reason for trampling on the second, the recognition of
the first should be received by true philosophers, and will
be received by true Christians, as only contemporaneous
with the practice and observance of the last, which is, to
seek deliverance from him who is mighty to save. But
amid all this jargon about the laws of nature, I beg to re
mark, there is an old-fashioned book, commonly known by
the name of the Bible, not an unknown book in this land,
however little it may be known in some newspaper offices ;
and that book tells us — words we have often heard, and
that dying saints have delighted in, and have had their
hearts kindled with the first rays of glory radiant from
its pages — " Is any man afflicted ? Let him pray." That
is a law. "Seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall
be opened to you; ask, and ye shall obtain." Why, that
is a law too. If the first be a law, that there shall be a
taint in the atmosphere, as they say, then the last is not
only a law, but an express obligation, privilege, and com
mandment ; and it is their duty, therefore, if they will
observe the first, not to neglect and despise the second.
But they say, " Can you expect that God will work a mi
racle?" You will recollect that I explained the nature of
a miracle in the case of the water being turned into wine.
Ordinarily, the vine produces grapes, and the grapes are
turned into wine ; but Jesus did in a minute what it takes
a, twelvemonth's process to do in ordinary circumstances.

144 FORESHADOWS.
The tree is planted, the rain and dews fall, the grapes
grow and are pressed, and the juice is fermented, and thus
turned into wine. Jesus only shortened the process, and
N turned the water by his look into wine. I believe mira
cles are wrought now just as truly as they were wrought
then ; only we have got so accustomed to atheistic philo
sophy, that what is God's finger we call in our proud and
vaunting wisdom "great laws," "vast phenomena," that
we must not meddle with, or dare to touch. But here may
be the difference. When Jesus wrought a miracle in curing
the leper, he did so visibly, before men's eyes ; but may
he not wprk miracles still, only not before our eyes ? The
whole difference may be that the miracle, instead of being
done by Jesus on this lower floor, is still done by him in
the upper sanctuary. The process by which he removes
disease we cannot explain ; but the fact that he answers
prayer we rejoice to know ; and no infidelity shall be able
to take it from us. The instincts of nature are often
nobler in their wreck than the inductions of modern phi
losophy. Let a mother hear the wind whistle, and see the
waves roll with tempestuous fury, and let her know that her
first-born, and her only son, is in the frail bark that is tossed
upon the billows ; let that mother see the ship struggling,
and wrestling, and creaking, amid the terrible waves, do you
think she would be persuaded by the philosophy of news
papers not to pray to God to preserve her child ? All the
instincts of her nature would rise and pray, " 0 God, save
my child !" And these instincts are the highest philo
sophy when they are sustained and confirmed by the word
of God. Then, my dear friends, cast the skeptic news
papers to the dogs ; pity the poor editor who writes such
nonsense, and tries, under the garb of philosophy, to avert
national humiliation and national prayer. Cleave to this,
that God does hear prayer.

145

LECTURE VIII.
LONELY THANKFULNESS.
And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the
midst of Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered into a certain village,
there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: and they lifted
up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he
saw them, he said unto them, Go show yourselves unto the priests. And it
came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when
he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God,
and fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks ; and he was a Sa
maritan. And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed ? but
where are the nine 1 There are not found that returned to give glory to God,
save this stranger. And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way : thy faith hath
made thee whole. — Luke xvii. 11-19.
In my last lecture I explained the nature, or rather the
moral and spiritual significance, of the disease which is
here alluded to. I did so in commenting upon the cure
of the leper, whom Jesus healed, and then sent to the
priest to show himself, that he might have the attestation
of the priest that it was a cure, and that the ordinance of
God, as long as it stood, might be thereby honoured. The
physical disease has all but disappeared from the earth ;
its spiritual and moral significance as the type of sin, as
I explained before, remains, and is instructive still. If
the leprosy has passed away like the types of Levi, the
spiritual disease of sin remains coeval with the existence
of humanity ; and, blessed be God, not wider than the
cure that can thoroughly remove it.
We read on the last occasion of one leper; on the
present occasion we read of ten. These ten were a mixed
13

146 FORESHADOWS.
company ; there was, at all events, one thankful Samaritan,
and there may have been more Samaritans, though thank
less, and associated in spirit, as in person, with the Jews.
Let us recollect that the Jew and the Samaritan were the
bitterest antagonists. The one professed to be a church
man, the other assumed to be a seceder. This was not
probably the proper modern explanation of their position,
but certainly modern antipathies are the nearest possible
approach to the antipathies that existed between the Jew
and the Samaritan ; for they held even exclusive dealing :
"the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans." This
group, we find, are together — two hostile parties consti
tuting one company apparently without murmur, protest,
or dispute, or expression of the enmity they felt, and did
not hesitate to express, on other and different occasions.
Now what can be the explanation of their present concord ?
Our Lord could not meet the Samaritan woman without
her reviving the old exasperating controversy, whether in
this mountain or in that men should worship ; but on this
occasion, strange to say, the ten lepers, Jews and Samari
tans, had no quarrel about where they should worship,
but seem to have prayed in one litany for the blessing
'which they felt they must obtain. What was the reason?
Perhaps it is this — that parties who, in ordinary circum
stances, are full of exasperating feelings, of ill-will, ani
mosity, pride, exclusiveness, want of forbearance, are,
beneath the heat and pressure of a common calamity,
fused into one, and made to forget in judgment what they
will not forego in love — the deep and rankling sense of
their common quarrels and disputes. A sense of common
danger buries all disputes. Let a storm overtake the
gallant ship; let the passengers have been at daggers-
drawn in the cabin a few hours before ; when the masts
bend before the gale, and her timbers creak, and a watery

LONELY THANKFULNESS. 147
grave threatens every soul, they all forget their quarrels,
and try to co-operate for deliverance. Let the storm
come, with thunder, lightning, hail, and rain ; and we
shall find churchman and dissenter, tory and whig, Jew
and Gentile, all rush into one shelter, so thankful for a
covert from the storm that they forget they had been
fighting only hours before. The knowledge of this, then,
is the explanation, perhaps, of the fact that Jew and
Samaritan were here present in peace. And may it not
be, that the severe epidemic that has overflowed the land,
and smitten great masses of the people, has been sent not
only for the reasons which I specified on a previous Sab
bath, but also to make men forget, beneath the pressure
of a dire calamity, what they would neither forget or for
give amid the enjoyment of great blessings. I grieve that
there should be any feeling among Christians that should
require such judgment in order to eradicate it. Esau and
Jacob, who quarrelled so bitterly in their prosperity, when
their aged father died, met over his body and mingled
their tears together in mutual sympathy and earnest for
giveness. Thus God sometimes drives together by the
scourge those who will not be drawn together by the at
tractions of his mercy. If any man, then, have quarrelled
with another — if there be any churchman now who is very
bitter to dissenters, or any dissenter who is very bitter
against churchmen, remember that one of the duties which
every judgment God sends inculcates, is to be tender
hearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's
sake, hath forgiven us. It is to teach all to pray, and
pray as none ever prayed before, "Forgive us our tres
passes, 0 our Father, even as we forgive- them that tres
pass against us."
These ten, we read, as one man, "stood afar off." This
Was duty. I explained this to be the position that the leper

148 FORESHADOWS.
was bound by the law of the land to assume; not that the
disease was contagious, but that it was significant or typical
of the great separation that sin makes. Thus they stood
afar off. This the law of the leper still teaches us, and
was meant to teach the Jew in a sensuous economy, in which
material things were made mirrors of spiritual and moral
truths, that sin is the great separating, rending, splitting
element. It is this that keeps us far off from God, and
far off from each other. Nations are separated by seas,
and languages, and deserts ; and these languages, which
we spend our youth in acquiring, are evidences of the sin
and rebellion of man against God. Churches are separated
by forms, ceremonies, protests, contendings, wrestlings, as
they call them, for things which they deem significant, but
which, when looked at in the right light, are too paltry,
and in some respects worthless. Individuals are separated
by place, by feeling, by enstrangement, by fear, by dread,
from one another ; and all are separated from God ; till at
length the points of repulsion between man and man, and
man and God, grow more numerous and powerful than the
points of attraction that should bind us into one brother
hood, and all into one family, with God our Father. These
lepers stand afar off; and they tell us, as they stand, that
sin has made us afar off; and remind us, by contrast, of
the blessed truth, that we who were afar off are made nigh
through the blood of the covenant in Christ Jesus.
The lepers, however, though standing afar off, prayed.
Beautiful is this truth ; there is no distance from God to
which sin can drive us by its centrifugal force, which the
voice of prayer cannot span ; there is no chasm between
God and us which the feet of love cannot wade, and which
the wing of love cannot cross. It matters not how deep
we have fallen, or how distant we have been driven ; the
silent, half-choked, half-suppressed cry, " God, be merciful

LONELY THANKFULNESS. 149
to me a sinner," will span that chasm, and cross that depth,
and be heard in God's ear louder than the thunders, and
sound the most musical tone amid the hosannas and halle
lujahs of the blessed ; for there is no shout in heaven more
joyful or more beautiful than when an angel cries, or Jesus
proclaims, "Behold, he prays." May I not say, if judg
ments have led us to pray, how sanctified ! If fear for the
safety of the poor casket has made the jewel think of the
Rock from which it was struck, and to which it may be
united, how blessed has that judgment been !
When these lepers prayed, they showed that they felt
their misery. No man prays for deliverance till he feels
danger ; no one seeks a cure till he feels a disease. It is
a strange contrast between sin in the soul, the moral disease,
and the leprosy, or any other disease of the body, that the
worse the bodily disease the more one feels it, but the worse
the spiritual disease the less one feels it. In the spiritual
disease insensibility is the evidence of the greatest peril.
No man is so bad as he who says in his heart, " I am rich,
and increased in goods, and in need of nothing ;" for it is
of that very man that God utters or registers the verdict
in heaven, " Thou knowest not that thou art poor, and
wretched, and blind, and miserable, and in need of all
things." A deep sense of sin is one of the best evidences
of a true interest in the grace of God, and in the salvation
of the gospel. We do not say that men are to desire their
sin should be great, but that their sense of their sinfulness
should be deeper, more poignant, more real. Whenever
there is a deep sense of sin created in the sinner's heart,
there is the best evidence that the Spirit of God has begun
that work which he will consummate in his own good time.
With one voice, then, they prayed that Jesus would have
mercy upon them, expressing their cure by the word mercy.
There is skill in the cure of disease, and there may be at-
13*

150 FORESHADOWS.
tention, for all of which we are to be thankful ; but in tho
cure of every disease there is also mercy. We need mercy
to forgive the sin which is the root of suffering ; and it is
the end of mercy to heal the disease which is only the ex
pression and product of that sin.
Jesus, on this occasion, bade them go to the priest,
and show themselves. Now, this was just reversing the
process that he pursued on a previous occasion. In the
case of the leper on which I last commented, Jesus first
cured the man, and then bade him go and show himself to
the priest. How can we explain what seems conflicting ?
What would be contradiction in the case of an ordinary
man, who can only judge of inner feeling by outer acts, is
perfect harmony in the case of Jesus, whose eye could pene
trate the depths of the heart and conscience, and see what
mode of treatment was the best for the patient who was
placed in his hand. He saw, truly, that while one mode
might be most useful in one case, it would yet be the most
useless in another case. I appeal to every one's experience.
All men are not brought to a knowledge of the gospel in
the same way. And the great risk, I think, of what is
called experimental preaching ; the highest and holiest and
purest eloquence, proceeding, as it does, from the depths
of a deep acquaintance with the mind of God, and a rich
experience of the gospel of Christ — the risk, I say, of such
preaching, in ordinary hands, is that the minister sets up
the mode of his own conversion as a standard and model
by which others are to be converted. This should not be.
God convinces one in one way, and another in another way.
One man he pardons on his first appeal, and gives him a
deep and joyous sense that he is forgiven ; another man
he allows to grope in darkness, to be oppressed by doubts,
and overwhelmed with fears, and to have at times a sense
of deep despondency, approaching to absolute despair ; but

LONELY THANKFULNESS. 151
both men, the one by a straight line, and the other by a cir
cuitous and zig-zag, but equally divine line, are being
brought to Jesus for forgiveness and acceptance before him.
Let us then learn that no man's conversion to God ought
to be set up as a type or model of every other man's ; each
must take mercy from Christ in the shape in which he is
pleased to bestow it. Each must be satisfied to rest in God,
and never to prescribe to God. I believe that one cause
of our disquiet is, that we think that because God does not
come to us in the way we have laid down, therefore he dbes
not come to us at all ; or that because he does not give us
now what others obtain at the same moment, and under
the same circumstances, therefore he has forgotten or for
saken us. This is just imitating the conduct of Naaman
the Syrian. It is said of him, " Elisha sent a messenger
unto him, saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and
thy flesh shall come again unto thee and thou shalt be clean."
Now this prescription was in all outward respects just as
improbable and unlikely to cure him as " Go and show thy
self to the priest." What did Naaman say ? " Naaman
was wroth, [like many a person still,] and went away and
said, Behold, I thought he will surely come out to me, [that
is, the prophet,] and stand, and call on the name of the
Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and re
cover the leper." He went with his mind pre-made up to
undergo a certain treatment ; and if he did not become the
subject of that treatment, he augured that there was no
possibility of cure. Then he added: '"Are not Abana
and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters
of Israel ?' This prophet is not only adopting a new pro
cess, which, to me, seems empiricism, but is actually slight
ing my country, and putting up his Jordan, that river in
which the Jew glories, in comparison with our splendid
Abana and Pharpar, which are at least as full, and rich,

152 FORESHADOWS.
and beautiful. If I am to wash, therefore, and be clean,
may I not wash nearer home, and save the long journey,
— wash in better water, and thus be cured?" "So he
turned, and went away in a rage." Now the servant,
who had that rare gift, common sense, (and Christianity is
common sense in its highest manifestation,) " came near,
and spake unto him and said, My father, if the prophet
had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have
done it ? How much rather, then, when he saith to thee,
Wash and be clean ?" How true is such philosophy ! If
a minister or priest were to bid some go and make a pil
grimage, to Edinburgh, Dublin, or Petersburg, or Paris, or
Rome, and wear hair-cloth girdles or iron spikes, and then
tell them their sins would be forgiven — if he were to bid
them do some great things like these, they would do them
at once. " How much rather, then, when he saith unto
thee, Wash and be clean ?" Is it not the strange, but
painful experience, that we can induce a man to sleep with
nettles, or wear hair-cloth, or fast as long as we like, in
order to obtain forgiveness, far more easily than persuade
him to renounce a cherished lust, give up a beloved passion,
put confidence in God, and do God's bidding under all cir
cumstances ? So true is it that human nature, whether it
wash in the Jordan, or in Abana and Pharpar, rivers of
Damascus, — whether personated in Naaman, the Syrian,
or in us, the sinners, is the same human nature, till trans
formed by the touch of the Spirit of God, and so made to
see things at another angle, and to understand them in a
very different light.
When the ten lepers were told to go and show them
selves to the priest, they proved by their obedience that
they had great confidence in him who gave them the com
mission, for they instantly rose, we are told, and went.
They knew that the priest could not heal them, the law

LONELY THANKFULNESS. 153
being that he could only pronounce whether they were
clean or not. I think I have already remarked in some
former lecture, that we have, in this, some light cast upon
the assumed prerogative of the priests of Rome, and of
certain priests who are going toward Rome, both of whom
profess to have the power of forgiving sins judicially. It
is stated in Leviticus, that the priest shall cleanse the
leper, and they have argued that, by parity of reason, the
modern priests may pardon sin. Certainly, if to cleanse
the leper means that the priest could cure the leper, the
analogy would seem conclusive, and the modern priest
might fairly and logically infer that he too might pardon
sin. But the word translated "cleanse," is only the He
brew form, as is explained in parallel and contiguous pas
sages, for pronouncing clean. The power that the priest
had was not to cleanse the leper, but only to examine him,
and say, "He is clean," or "He is not clean." The He
brew word for pronouncing clean, is "cleanse." We read,
"Ye shall pronounce him unclean." In the Hebrew it is,
"Ye shall unclean him." The literal translation of the
one passage is, "Ye shall cleanse him," and of the other,
"Ye shall uncleanse him." In the one clause, however,
our translators have given the meaning instead of the
word itself; and if they did it in one clause, they ought,
by the same paraphrase, to have given the meaning in the
other. The modern minister of the gospel, then, has no
power, implied in this illustration, to forgive sin. This
one thing he can do, however, and so can the layman too,
if he sees evidences of love and faith, he can comfort him
that is in doubt, perplexity of mind, and fear, by assu
rances, not from any oracle within him, but from God's
word without him, that such a one gives evidence of for
giveness, and may take the hope, the comfort, and the joy
of it too.

154 FORESHADOWS.
These lepers knew that the priest could only pronounce
clean or unclean, but still they went. Christ's word is the
secret of all possible virtue. Every precept of Jesus is
two-thirds of it a promise. A command from the lips of
Jesus assumes a different formula from a command from
Mount Sinai. The command from Sinai is, " Thou shalt,"
and " Thou shaltnot;" but the command of Jesus, "Bless
ed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God;" here is
the benediction, or the preface : " the pure in heart," this
is the command: " they shall see God," this is the pro
mise. Thus, his command has a benediction for its pre
face, and a promise for its peroration, or close. That the
command might not cause terror in those to whom it is
addressed, he makes a blessing introduce it and a promise
seal it. Thus, Christ's commands are two-thirds promises.
The lepers heard his command, and gave instant obedi
ence ; and it is said, "as they went they were cleansed."
This teaches us, that if any man will do Christ's will, he
shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of him. If I
now address any reader who does not see fully, as I think
I see, and as I think, by God's grace, I could teach him
to see, that this blessed book is God's book, I would say,
just act up fully to the light you have, and pray for more,
and you will never be left in darkness. Let any one act
up to the light that he now has, and be fervent in prayer
for more light, and such a one will not be abandoned to
darkness. It is no excuse to say, you have not light, when
you are not walking in what you have. Act up to what
you have, and wait upon God for more; and see if he
does not honour your obedience to the light you possess,
by giving the light that you are anxious to obtain.
The lepers were cured as they went. We have evidence
here of the deity of Christ. The air they breathed became
the vehicle of his power ; the distance, as it lengthened

LONELY THANKFULNESS. 155
between them and Jesus, was spanned by his almighty
goodness ; his mercy followed its objects, and neither
missed them in its transit, nor misapprehended them in
its application. "And as they went they were cured."
And is this Christ the same this year that he was in the
year 32 ? No doubt of it. His power is not parted with
by his ascent ; nor is it in the least spent in its daily pas
sage to the earth, but operates its miracles still. "Laws
of nature," is but atheistic phraseology for ordinances of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And at this moment he has but
to touch the upper strata of the air we breathe, and the
under strata and currents of air shall be restored to their
virgin purity and to their Eden health; he has but to
speak the word and all battle, and all sword, and famine,
and pestilence, shall be swept from the world, and the
earth shall put on her coronation robes and her primal
glory, and silently praise him who has transformed her by
his touch, and made her what she is. But if, as they say,
we are not to expect miracles, — if in the cure of disease
God does not alter the air, may he not suggest lessons to
the physician? I believe the physician to be a divine
officer ; I believe medicine to be a divine ordinance ; I
believe it to be the yearning efforts of man to bring back
nature to what Adam found her before he sinned. The
physician is continued, by a succession that shall not
cease, as the testimony of what once was, what now is,
and what will again be, when the great Physician shall
heal all, and put into the springs of nature that pure and
precious branch which shall sweeten, and purify, and sanc
tify them all. May not, then, he who could thus heal at
a distance — to whom space was no obstruction — who could
Bay, Go, thy son, or thy daughter liveth — may he not, at
this moment, when, as I told you in my Apocalyptic

156 FORESHADOWS.
Sketches, the seventh vial is poured into the air — gra
ciously breathe into the physician's mind a prescription
that will heal where healing efforts are, during the existing
epidemic, perfectly paralyzed ?
Thus, God may breathe into the surgeon's or physician's
mind a new thought, or he may touch the air and impreg
nate it with new healing. In either case it is God. We
may and ought to ask for temporal blessings : Christ
teaches us to do so, " Give us this day our daily bread."
Why not, " Give us health?" We need not only bread,
but health to eat it. Every one, therefore, should pray
that God would be pleased to give us health and safety and
strength ; and not pray for ourselves only, as if we were
selfishly seeking, but for the numbers of poor who suffer ;
and show thus that we sympathize with them. The virtue
is not in what we eat, but in the blessing that accompanies
it. The cure is not in the prescription, but in thepre-
scriber. "As they went they were cured."
The very first emotion in the hearts of these ten lepers
ought to have been gratitude and joy. These ten men, I
say, ought, the instant they were cured, to have returned
and thanked their Benefactor; this should have been their
instinctive emotion ; but, strange to say, nine snatched at
the blessing, but went away and forgot the Blesser ; one
took the blessing and ran instantly to him who had given
it, and burst forth into adoring gratitude and praise. And
how did Jesus reply to him? " Go thy way," he said, " thy
faith hath saved thee." The poor man was so charmed
with the blessing that he was riveted to the spot in the
presence of his Benefactor. I have no doubt the man felt,
"This is such a change, such an evidence of power, that I
will cleave to the skirts of this great and divine man's
robes, so that everybody in the world shall see what he

LONELY THANKFULNESS. 157
has done for me, what change he has operated upon me;
and thus all will believe him to be, what I know he is, the
Messiah. But Jesus said, "Go thy way; this is not what
I want ; your home is empty, you are needed there ; your
shop is empty, you are needed there ; your place is vacant,
you are needed there : go thy way ; fulfil the functions that
God in his providence has given you ; be a Christian trades
man, a Christian senator, a Christian shopkeeper, a Chris
tian soldier or sailor; and thus you will glorify me more
than by cleaving to me in this way, and saying how much
I have done for you.
And who is this man, so thankful? Surely this must
have been a rabbi; surely some one whose trumpet sounded
in every synagogue, and whose phylactery was the bright
est and broadest amid the worshippers ; surely it was co
vered with texts, and the wearer almost canonized as a
saint in Israel. You know well it was not. The Jew had
the pure ordinances, the pure liturgy, the pure Bible, the
right temple, and the right hill to build it on ; the Sama
ritan accepted but the Pentateuch, or the Five Books of
Moses, worshipped on the wrong hill, (Gerizim,) and was
guilty in his alienation and separation from the true Israel ;
and yet this Samaritan was the Christian; the nine Jews
showed that they were no Christians at all. It is possible
to use the purest form, and not to pray at all ; it is possible
to be orthodox in our creed, and yet not to be Christians ;
it is quite possible to be raised to heaven in the enjoyment
of the loftiest privileges, and to sink into the depths of
hell by reason of our misuse and abuse of those privileges.
It is not the privilege, but our use of it, that is of value.
The Gospel of Matthew was written especially for the Jew ;
and the Gospel of Luke, which, with the Acts of the Apos
tles, (as every one knows who is acquainted with the ori-
u

158 FORESHADOWS.
ginal,) is the product of a highly educated mind, was
written for the Gentile. Mark the design of it. The
Jew was humbled by the thought that nine Jews were un
thankful ; and the Gentile, for whom this gospel was more
especially designed, was encouraged, and drawn to Jesus,
by this blessed instance of the Samaritan being accepted
while the Jews were rejected.
Thus, the Samaritan glorified God, and thanked the Sa
viour for the great blessing he had experienced. And we
read that his coming to thank him for a temporal mercy
was made the occasion of his receiving a spiritual mercy;
for Jesus added, "Go thy way, thy faith hath saved thee."
Here is a spiritual added to a temporal blessing. But it
may be asked, Is faith a Saviour ? Certainly not. Yet
in Scripture every one must have noticed that the same
things are attributed to faith that are attributed to the
Saviour himself. Why is this ? The explanation is simple.
Christ is the refuge ; faith runs to the refuge. Our faith
saves us in this sense — that the refuge, as far as I am con
cerned, would be useless if I did not run to it. Christ is
the living bread ; faith eats that bread. It is my faith, in
that sense, that nourishes me, because in vain there is bread
if I do not eat of it. Christ is the medicine, the physician,
the cure; faith goes to him, applies to him, accepts him.
Faith saves me, because in vain there is medicine in the
druggist's shop, if it is not taken by the patient who suf
fers. Christ saves us meritoriously; faith saves us instru-
mentally. Christ is the Saviour; faith the hand that
seizes, the feet that run, the eye that looks, the ear that
hears, the heart that clings. Thus our faith saves us. Let
us then learn this blessed lesson — that if we are thankful
for the mercies that we have, we may expect new mercies
to come. I believe God honours a thankful man, as he

LONELY THANKFULNESS. 15<i
honours also a happy man ; and that he does not honour
murmuring, thankless, complaining, and dissatisfied men.
If our sins should humble us, our mercies should make us
thankful. Sins can never be over-punished ; mercies can
never be over-acknowledged. In our sorest sufferings we
have reason to be silent; in our least mercies we have rea
son to be thankful. I believe that he who is an unthankful
possessor of mercies will not be a long possessor, or a quiet
possessor. God treats your mercies as the bee treats the
flower. The bee gathers its nutriment from the flower ;
and the flower, instead of being injured by the bee's appli
cation to it, is, as the botanists will tell you, positively be
nefited and nourished. We are to receive the blessing, but
the tribute God exacts from us is the tribue of thanksgiving
and praise. If our cup runs over, it is that the overflow
ing of it may reach those that need it, and that in the
brightness of it we may see the face of him that filled it.
Let me gather one or two lessons from this. First, it is
possible to receive temporal blessings from God, and yet
none for the soul. Do not conclude, therefore, that be
cause it is well with you in your temporal estate, it is ne
cessarily well with you in your spiritual state. In the next
place, adversity, tribulation, and affliction make those
friends and brothers who formerly were enemies. We find
there were here Jew and Samaritan together, when suffer
ing a common calamity. But it is still possible to be as
those described by God himself, "They poured out their
prayer when under my chastening hand, but afterward they
forgot me." Read some of the Psalms, and you will see
how often the Jews were delivered, and how often they forgot
their deliverer.
Let me apply this. Of those who have been spared in
the epidemic that so severely smote our country so very

160 FORESHADOWS.
recently, how many are there who will not be a whit more
spiritual, more devoted, more thankful ! Think of this.
God expects thankfulness for the benefits we receive.
Christ said, "Ten have got benefits; where are the nine?"
So he said, "Lo, these three years I came seeking fruit
from this fig-tree, and I find none." So he says of his
vineyard, "I looked for grapes, and it brought forth wild
grapes." God looks at, and counts, and weighs the pri
vileges, the opportunities, the means, the money, the in
fluence, the blessings that we have ; and he watches for the
use we make of them; he waits for gratitude to acknow
ledge them, and for a good use to be made of them.
Let me next draw this lesson — that what your conscience
shows to be right, when that conscience is enlightened by
God's word, you must not hesitate to do because many do
the very opposite. Nine laughed at the idea of returning
to thank their Benefactor. No doubt they reasoned, as
some newspapers reason on other benefits : " It is a change
in the weather ; it is a finer climate we have got into ; no
doubt, in going to the priest, we have eaten something
that has agreed with us ; or it is good exercise we have
taken ; it is a ' great law ;' there is a change in the air,
the weather has become colder, or warmer; and as for the
idea of returning and thanking Jesus of Nazareth, why,
the thing is absurd." And I have no doubt that the priests,
and scribes, and Pharisees, and rulers of the land agreed
with them, and laughed at and made excellent fun of that
pious Samaritan, who felt the weather and its sunshine as
they did, but returned amid all the weather, and saw that
there was present in his cure the touch and the goodness
of the Lord of life, the Healer of disease, the Fountain
of health. In these times we must not mind standing
alone. If nine thousand, or nine millions, should go the

LONELY THANKFULNESS. 161
wrong way, we must still go the right way. We must learn
to be a peculiar people ; we must not mind being scoffed
at ; we must not care if newspapers turn us into ridicule,
if the whole world should mock at us. Hold by your duty ;
fix your hearts upon what is right, and true, and holy ;
and if the multitude laugh at you, pity them, and pray for
them. "As for me," let your answer be, "I will serve
the Lord."

14*

162

LECTURE IX.
MATERNAL LOVE.
Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. And,
behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him,
saying, Have mercy on me, 0 Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is
grievously vexed with a devil. But he answered her not a word. And his
disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away, for she crieth after
us. But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the
house of Israel. Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.
But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to
cast it to the dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord : yet the dogs eat of the crumbs
which fall from their masters' table. Then Jesus answered and said unto
her, 0 woman, great is thy faith : be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And
her daughter was made whole from that very hour. — Matt. xv. 21-2S.
In the Gospel of St. Mark, where the parallel passage
occurs, and in which the same miracle is related, we read
that our Lord would have no man know it, when he arrived
at the coasts of Tyre and Sidon ; but the more he seemed
to conceal himself, the more he became known. It was
indeed impossible that such light should be buried in a
world of darkness, that so great a Physician should be
unnoticed in a world of sickness, that the very Fountain
of life, that overflowed with life, should not be approached
where it was unsealed in a land where death revelled and
spread around him the trophies of his all but almighty
power. His name was as ointment poured forth, and its
perfume penetrated all obstructions, and diffused itself over
the length and breadth of the land. So will it be with

MATERNAL LOVE. 163
true Christians in their measure. Christianity cannot be
hidden. To say one's Christianity is hidden, is equivalent
to saying that there is none. If you live, life will develop
itself; if grace be within you, that grace will show itself.
Hide the sun, and conceal the stars, and you may hide
the life and the love of God existing in your hearts.
This woman, who appealed to Christ, was a Canaanite,
or a Syro-phenician, and therefore, of course, a Gentile.
Her nation's history was dotted with judgments from the
Lord ; its guilt had risen to heaven and cried for vengeance,
and corresponding retributions had lighted upon it ; but in
spite of all the guilt which cleaved to her land, in spite
of all the estrangement which she inherited, as a Canaanite,
from a. country stained with infamy and sin, in spite of her
own deep sense of personal demerit, she rushed to him
under whose wings the guiltiest sinner, seeking forgiveness,
may nestle, and in whose blood the greatest sin may be
washed away. She fled to him, in spite of her sins that
drew her back, and would have plunged her into despair,
and sought forgiveness. I may notice that the difference
between a conviction of sin that is saving, and a con-
victin of sin that is damning, is this — that the conviction
of sin which is from beneath leads one to despair ; on the
other hand, the conviction of sin that God's Spirit implants
carries us on the wings of an irresistible impulse to a
Saviour's presence, there to pray and wait till these sins
are forgiven.
This woman's prayer is in these words, " Have mercy
'on me, for my daughter is vexed with a devil." This state
was not bodily sickness, or epilepsy, but literally, truly,
an evidence that one of Satan's fallen spirits, that accom
pany him and act with him, inhabited and kept possession
of the woman's soul. One reason that confirms this opinion,
is the fact — that where God has a work of any kind in the

164 FORESHADOWS.
world, Satan, ever active, ever watchful, sets up a counter
part to it ; wherever he sees God's coin in currency, he cir
culates his own forged and false coin. Thus we find, that
when Moses did miracles, Pharaoh and those that were
with him had their mimicry of them. When God's pro
phets prophesied, Satan's false prophets predicted too;
and when God became incarnate, or manifest in the flesh,
the devil made an effort to mimic it, and in his measure
was incarnate, or manifest in the flesh, too. And now
that we are in the dispensation of the Spirit, in which the
Spirit of God, directly influencing the heart and making
men Christians, is the grand characteristic, we shall see
Satan also plunging people into fanaticism, skepticism, and
monstrous delusions, so that, if it were possible, he would
deceive the very elect, by his mimicry of God's work. It
is evident that demoniac possessions were but one step in
Satan's progression, and one among many proofs of his
constant mimicry of God. That these were literally and
strictly demoniac possessions is evident from this — the
demons spoke to Christ ; they left one person, and took
up their habitation in another person; they asked ques
tions; they deprecated judgment; and all the laws of
fair, honest, common-sense interpretation must lead you to
believe that they were literally fallen spirits that took up
their abodes in fallen men. I do not believe there are
demoniac possessions in that sense now ; but I believe that
there is Satanic influence in the great crimes that occa
sionally stain our land ; and that these great crimes are
suffered in the providence of God, just to lead us to see
how the world would become a pandemonium, and men
would become like devils, if God's restraining grace were
withdrawn, and man and Satan left to work it out upon a
world which sin has so stained and marred.
Her prayer, then, was, " Have mercy on me, for my

MATERNAL LOVE. 165
daughter is vexed with a devil." How beautifully is de
veloped here a mother's affection to her child ! She seeks
mercy for herself, because her daughter is vexed with a
devil : she thus identifies herself with her daughter ; what
would be deliverance to the one would be mercy to the
other. She bare her daughter's burden, as Christians are
still taught to bear each other's burdens ; or perhaps she
thought — rightly or wrongly it is not for me to say — that
her own sins had brought this judgment on her daughter ;
perhaps from a superstitious feeling, such as that mani
fested by the disciples, when they asked, "Who hath
sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
she may have thought that her daughter was thus vexed
because she herself had so sinned.
But let us learn the lesson that her appeal teaches.
Her tribulation led her to her Saviour. As it is true of
sin, so also of afflictions — for the affliction that leads us
from God deeper into the world for its opiates, its stimu
lants, or its follies, is unsanctified; but the affliction —
national, domestic, or personal — that leads us to Jesus
that he may forgive it first, and sanctify us next, is a visi
tation for which we shall have to bless God throughout
eternity : it has an apostle's mission, and it has in it the
superintendence of an apostle's Lord.
Our Lord, we are told, when he heard the woman's
appeal, " answered her not a word." This was unusual;
it startled the -poor petitioner ; she had heard of his in
finite beneficence ; she had seen the miracles which strewed
his path; and she could not understand how, if others had
applied, and Almighty Beneficence had responded to their
appeal, that she should apply, and silence, which, in her
judgment, was equivalent to a refusal, should be all the
reception she could obtain. Many times, in our experi
ence, we cannot explain God's proceedings ; many a time

166 FORESHADOWS.
we have to trust where we cannot trace ; many a time we
must wait and wonder, and wonder and wait ; but just as
often, after we have long wondered and long waited, a still
small voice comes from the oracles of heaven, " Stand still,
and see the salvation of God." Be not rash to judge God.
Do not construe rapidly, lest you misconstrue. Behind a
frowning cloud he often hides a smiling face.
" The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower."
Let us wait. The woman no doubt felt deeply dis
couraged, but she did not despair. Though Christ was
silent she persisted still; so much so that "his disciples
came and besought him, saying, Send her away ; for she
crieth after us." At the first blush one would say, "Here
are the disciples pleading for her. How good these men
must have been ! how sympathizing thus to interpose and
plead!" But it was not love that made them say so.
"Send her away." Why? "Give her what she wants,
and send her away;" — because she is needy, because she
is faint? No, but "because she crieth after us." Just
so it is with mankind. When a very importunate beggar
comes after them, they fling him sixpence, not out of love
to the beggar, or pity for his sorrows, but in order to get
rid of him — one of the most inhuman methods of giving
what is popularly called "charity" that one can possibly
adopt. If we cannot give sixpence, give a kind word, say
something encouraging or comforting ; and whenever we
do give, let the kindness of our words be at least equal to
the amount of our gift. The disciples, then, out of selfish
ness, not sympathy — out of self-love, not love — wished to
send her away, saying, She torments us ; she is interfering
with our comfort; "she crieth after us." But Jesus did
not answer the disciples according to their wish, any
more than he did the woman according to hers; but "he

MATERNAL LOVE. 167
answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep
of the house of Israel." Of course this is true, because
Christ said it; but what is the explanation of a statement
which seems to us at first somewhat contradictory ? The
explanation lies in this — that his personal ministry had a
specialty in it ; it was restricted almost exclusively to Ju
dea : but that this was not the ultimate design of his gospel
is plain from his last words, " Go ye, and teach all nations,
baptizing them [or, literally, go and disciple all nations,
baptizing them] in the name of the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Ghost." In another place he says, "Go ye into
all the world;" showing that his mission was to be com
mensurate with the world. The meaning then of the ex
pression, "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the
house of Israel," is, plainly, that his personal ministry
was restricted, for great, wise, and righteous ends, to the
land of Judea. Almost all his miracles were done there ;
almost all his bright and beautiful and precious discourses
were preached there; his birth was there, his life was
there, and his death was there : and those instances of
Gentiles tasting of his goodness, which are here and there
scattered over his life and ministry, were but foreshadows
of what will be — earnests and first-fruits of the great
future. It was to teach the Jew, that while, in compliance
with the purposes of heaven, his personal ministry was to
be restricted to the land of Judsea, when that ministry
was done, the Spirit should be poured out, to be bounded
only by the bound-lines of humanity, and be carried
" From sea to sea, and shore to shore,
Till suns should rise and set no more."
The' woman however, when she heard this remark made
by our Lord to his disciples, was not discouraged : for, it is
said, "she came and worshipped him." I do not know
that that was religious worship ; I think it must -have been

168 FORESHADOWS.
the respect she.had to a great and superior being. " Lord,
(or Master,) she said, "help me." The more she was re
pulsed, the closer she crept to him ; the more he seemed to
treat her petitions with indifference, the more intensely she
charged that petition with the expression of her sorrow,
her sympathy, and her wants. At last Christ speaks. But
if his silence damped her feelings, his speech must have
discouraged her still more. He said, " Is it meet to take
the children's bread, and cast it to the dogs?" No doubt
this was a proverbial expression used among the Jews, to
denote a sense of their national superiority and greatness
over other nations ; but, whether or not the Jews were re
garded as nationally God's adoption, they were the children
of Abraham by profession, and their responsibility was to
be so really and truly. Our Lord, then, adopts the phrase
— which does not imply that he called the Gentiles dogs,
and the Jews children — and speaks in words which that
Gentile had been accustomed to, "Why, you know, it is an
aphorism which you have heard, that it is not meet to take
the children's bread, and cast it to the dogs." It is a cu
rious fact, worth stating, and rather remarkable, that
throughout the whole Bible the nobler qualities of the dog
are never referred to, but only his worst qualities. I do
not know why it is. We know that the dog has some of
the noblest qualities of any animal, but in Scripture the
frequent illustration is drawn from his baser ones. The
Gentiles are called by the Jews dogs ; and you recollect
one said, "Is thy servant a dog, that he should do such a
thing?" Our Lord says, then, "If the children are en
titled to bread, it is not meet to take it from them, and
cast it to the dogs." This was enough to daunt any one;
but so rooted in her heart was confidence in him, and so
ardent was her attachment to her child, that she turned
the very repulse that Jesus uttered into a reason for ap-

MATERNAL LOVE. 169
proaching him yet more closely and confidentially, ane
pleading more eloquently with him. She draws, in fact,
an argument in her favour from what seemed against her ;
with the ready wit that deep feeling ever generates, she
made what would have been a dissuasive into a persuasive.
The ear of love hears what the ear of the ordinary man
cannot ; and her ear and her heart heard an undertone of
"yea" in the loud-spoken accents that breathed only
"nay." She argues, therefore, as much as to say, "I
admit I am a Gentile ; I admit I am called a dog ; nay, I
will assume that I am really what the proverb calls me ;
but this, instead of excluding me from food, is an argument
for giving me food. Is it not the experience of humanity,
that if the children sit round the table and eat, the dogs
come and lie down beside them, and get the crumbs that
fall from the table? I do not ask a child's place; but give
me the dog's place, and I am content. It is a law that the
dog shall have food as well as the child ; therefore, blessed
Master, your argument, your remark, your application of
this proverb, only teaches me that I am within the reach
of thy mercies, not without them." Just as the poor pro
digal said, "Make me a hired servant, if it be only under
thy roof, and not a son." Thus she says, " Call me a
dog, but give me a dog's portion, and I shall be abundantly
satisfied." We too must learn, in using the promises of Scripture
and turning them into prayer, fully to admit the truth of
all that God says ; and even from his frowns, his chastise
ments, his judgments, fetch new arguments, and point new
appeals for mercy and forgiveness. And does God call
this presumption ? No. We may call it so, but he never
does. He waits to be gracious ; he longs to hear a people's
prayer, that he may let loose upon that people showers of
benedictions. 15

170 FORESHADOWS.
How did the woman succeed then ? Just as all ever do
who may imitate her example. She conquered. This is
the victory that overcometh the world — one might add, that
overcometh God — even our faith. Jacob wrestled with the
angel of the covenant a whole night, and Jacob overcame ;
and he was called Israel, because he had prevailed with
God. You say, "How can prayer have such power?" It
has no power in itself. The brass serpent on the pole had
no virtue in itself; but if God is pleased to command it,
it is ours to pray, and his to give.
The thought here suggests itself — how was it that this
woman was so differently treated from others in almost si
milar circumstances ? To one he offered mercy before it
was asked ; to another, he complied with the request the
moment it was made ; but to this woman he gave repulse
upon repulse. And why? He knew each man's case, and,
like a skilful physician, he adapted himself to each man's
(if you will allow the word) idiosyncrasy. He knew the
tenacity of her faith before he tried it. And he knew
Abraham's faith before he tried Abraham ; he knew quite
well (and this meets the infidel's objection) that Abraham
would not be obliged to sacrifice the child, but that his con
fidence in God would triumph and prevail. He knew,
therefore, that having such tenacity of faith to deal with,
he might teach a lesson to us who read the glory, while he
was trying the strength of that woman's faith upon the
shores of Canaan.
It is interesting also here to remark, that we have
throughout a striking illustration of the great strength of
the woman's faith. In the case of the paralytic, recorded
in the Gospel of Mark, we find faith or confidence in the
Lord breaking through all physical obstructions. When
they could not come nigh unto him for the press, they un
covered the roof where he was ; and when they had broken

MATERNAL LOVE. 171
it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy
lay. We have also in the case of blind Bartimeus-, who
came to Christ that he might recover his sight, an instance
of faith overcoming hostile obstructions thrown in his way
by those who were near the Saviour. Many charged him
that he should hold his peace, but Bartimeus cried the
more, "Have mercy on me, thou Son of David." But in
the case of the woman, we have an instance of faith over
coming obstructions, not physical, as those of the paralytics
were, not personally hostile, as those of Bartimeus were,
but obstructions apparently in Christ himself. Well, there
fore, and truly did he say to her, "Great is thy faith; be
it unto thee as thou wilt."
Now let us draw one or two lessons from the whole of
this miracle. This woman, we have said, was an inhabitant
of Canaan, a Syro-phenician, a Gentile, not within the
Jewish covenant. There are Christian brethren where we
think not, and oft see not; there are believers in the worst
of circumstances, Christians in the most unpromising of
all communions ; there are gems in the depths of the sea
which have never reflected the sunshine ; there are flowers
in the untrodden desert; there are Christians in heathen
dom; there are Protestants in the midst of the Papal
Apostasy; unknown, are weak things that will yet be mo
numents of God's power, and defective things that will
yet be the trophies of God's strength. Let us not judge
according to sense, but judge righteous judgment; and
rejoice that there will come to God, and sit down with
Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, from the east and
from the west, from the north and from the south, strangers
to us, and. also to communions within whose walls, in our
bigotry and exclusiveness, We imagined there was exclusive
salvation. Let us also draw the lesson — a very important one — that

172 FORESHADOWS.
afflictions bring those to the Saviour whom prosperity would
keep away. This woman's child, suffering under a terrible
judgment, was the means of this woman's applying to a
Saviour for acceptance for herself, and cure for her child.
We know quite well, when we have lost some near and dear
one, how it dims the glory of this world. Never does man
feel money to be so utterly worthless as when he is labour
ing under the deep pain of some great, sorrowful bereave
ment. These things are sent just to dim tho world's sheen,
to darken the world's glory, to weaken the world's attrac
tions. Sorrow washes away from tho eye the films that
intercept the light of the countenance of God. Affliction
is the furnace into which we are thrown, that the oxides
contracted in this world may be burned off, and that on the
pure gold that remains there may be struck tha image and
reflected the likeness and the glory of our God. He has
sharp-cutting tools — the sword, the pestilence, the noisome
beast, and the famine. These cutting. tools and files he
uses for polishing his own jewels; and those very jewels
that he means to reflect his glory most brightly, and that
he deems the most precious in his cabinet, are those on
which these rough tools will be oftenest; and the brighter
the ultimate lustre, the longer will the workman be in po
lishing. Many a one, therefore, will say in heaven, what
perhaps he cannot now say, "It was good for me that I
have been afflicted." Let us not forget that the evidence
that an affliction, or judgment, national, social, or personal,
has been sanctified to us, is what it leaves behind — not
what we feel now, precious as that is, but what it leaves
behind. We know when the storm, and the wind, and the
rain burst upon your garden in the winter, all the effect
is seen in pools, decaying leaves, fragments of wreck, and
wide disorder, with no intervening hope, at that moment,
of a change; but when the storm comes in summer, in

MATERNAL LOVE. 173
showers and heavy rain, it falls upon the flowers, the trees,
and the leaves ; and it is no sooner over than the sun breaks
forth again, and the flowers look only more beautiful for
the bath which they have enjoyed. So fall afflictions on
those to whom they are not, and on those to whom they
are sanctified. In the case of those to whom they are not
sanctified, they are the winter storms that leave but wreck,
and misery, and chaos; but to those to whom they are
blessed, they are as the summer storm that beautifies, not
blasts, the vegetation on which it falls. Bereavement, and
affliction, and judgment, make the thoughtless think, and
the prayerless pray, and the thinking think more deeply,
and the praying pray more fervently; till all add, as an
expression of their blessed experience, "It was good for
me that I was afflicted."
We learn another lesson. The spiritual and temporal
prosperity of all with whom we are associated by ties of
relationship, neighbourhood, country, kith, or kin, should
be most dear to us, and should be borne upon our hearts
when we draw near to God. This woman brought her
daughter to the Saviour along with herself. The help me
is associated with help her. She fulfilled the royal law
of bearing one another's burdens. We, too, should fulfil
the royal law in another formula, " Thou shalt love thy
neighbour as thyself."
This is not all. True Christians do, and may, and will
meet with many discouragements in prayer. Some say to
me, "I cannot pray as I could wish; when I attempt to
pray, doubts, distractions, wanderings, come into my mind,
and perplex me." Let me instruct you that, if you could
pray as you could wish, you would not be in the church
militant but in the church triumphant ; if you were what
you would be, this would not be grace, but glory. Thus
these are evidences of grace — not your doubts, and your
15*

174 FORESHADOWS.
distractions, but your sense of and sorrow for them. He,
therefore, who has learned from his prayers that he has
never prayed as he should, and cannot now pray as he
would, has been taught a precious lesson, for it will humble
him, 'and lead him to pray for that strength which is made
perfect in weakness, and for that aid which exalts the
lowly and abases only the proud.
Another lesson that we may draw from this interesting
miracle is, that the people of God are to persevere in
prayer. God does not say, "Ask once, and I will give;"
he says, "Ask, and ye shall obtain; seek, and ye shall
find ; knock, (an intenser expression,) and it shall be
opened unto you." God has not said that you shall have
an answer after you have prayed one, twice, or thrice ; he
has merely promised to give an answer. It is yours to
pray, and to persist in prayer — not long prayer, not many
words, but the deep, fervent utterance of a heart that feels
deeply and prays truly — God will answer that prayer
sooner or later. So it was with this woman : she was re
pulsed once, twice, thrice, but she persisted ; she had per
severance; and, at last, she found that the stream that
had been only banked up, in the end burst forth from its
channel and overflowed in more glorious abundance. She
felt, what you will feel, that the blessings you have long
asked for, and which have been long delayed, will at length
come down exceeding abundantly above all that you can
ask, or think, or desire. Persist, then, in prayer ; pray
always, and not faint. Hear what the apostle says, that
men should " pray always ;" that men should " pray at all
times;" that men should "pray without fear or doubting;"
that they should "pray everywhere;" that they should
pray "with all perseverance." And pray for what?
"Whatsoever things ye have need of." Now whatever be
the sorrow that lies nearest any heart in this assembly,

MATERNAL LOVE. 17«j
whatever be the burden that is heaviest, whatever be the
suffering that is most pungent and poignant — pray that
that may be removed. It is right, it is duty, it is privi
lege. Some say, " I don't know if it be good for me that
it should be removed." That is not your business ; it is
God's. What God asks is that we shall disclose to him
our deep wants, whatever these wants may be ; leaving to
him to determine in his wisdom what is best and most ex
pedient for us. If you do not ask temporal blessings, you
are saying that the blessings of the footstool are not worth
having. But is not health an inestimable blessing ? Is
not "neither poverty nor riches, but food convenient for
us," an inestimable blessing? Is not protection and pre
servation from danger a blessing? Ask these things,
then, that he would feed you with daily bread, that he
would save you from " the terror by night, and the arrow
.that flieth by day;" that he would keep you under his
feathers ; that he would give you all good things. Mother,
pray for the child ; child, pray for the mother ; healthy,
pray for the sick ; ask temporal blessings, ask them fully,
as children of a Father ; and when you ask them, do not
trouble yourself with thinking, " I am afraid to ask, be
cause I do not know whether it will be good for me."
You are thus intruding into God's seat : you must leave
with him to determine whether it be good for you. It is
for you to lay bare your aching heart and its deep wants,
in the presence of your Father ; and you will find what
peace and comfort there is in the thought, " I have told
him what I feel honestly to be the want that is deepest ;
I leave it with him who knows all things completely, to
give it when and how he pleases, or to withhold it when it
seems to him most expedient." I beliveve we have many
wrong views of prayer. We ask things, and doubt whether
it is right to ask them or not. Ask every thing you honestly

176 FORESHADOWS.
believe you have need of. Leave it to God, and he will
withhold as his wisdom may see to be most expedient.
Do not intrude into God's province ; take the supplicant's
part; for "whatsoever things ye have need of" you are
to ask for ; you are to pray " in all things." " Is any man
afflicted ? Let him pray. Is any man merry ? Let him
sing psalms." Let every thing bring you to God; and tell
your heavenly Father of all the wants you feel that he
may relieve them. Not that prayer is necessary because
God needs information of what you want. He knows it ;
but it is his law, it is his arrangement, that whatever you
want you are to tell him of it, and he will give it exceed
ing abundantly. And if he give you not that very thing
which you ask, he will give you something ten times bet
ter ; he will never give you worse than you ask, but
always better. " If ye, being evil, know how to give good
gifts unto your children, how much more will your hea
venly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him."
Do not think that God's delay is unwillingness : his will
ingness is infinite ; his unwillingness is seeming, his will
ingness is real ; his seeming unwillingness is to make you
do as the Canaanite woman did — persevere ; his willing
ness waits to bestow more than we can ask or think. Do
not, then, argue, as some have ignorantly and skeptically
argued, that God knows what we want, and that if he is
determined to give it, he will give it without prayer ; and
that if he is determined not to give it, it is of no use to
pray for it. That is atheism. We are, my dear friends,
to feel satisfied that God, in his decrees and eternal pur
poses, has resolved to give to prayer what he is resolved
not to give without prayer. Prayer may be one of the
wheels on which his purposes move to performance. It is
his law — a law that we are under, and that we are to re
ceive — that if we ask not we shall not obtain ; and it is

MATERNAL LOVE. 177
his law, equally explicit, that if we ask we shall obtain.
All that he requires of you is the unfeigned, earnest, sin
cere, persevering disclosure of all your wants — your little
wants, and your great wants : for do not think, as some
think, of his providence, that it takes care of kings, but
does not condescend to beggars — that it takes care of em
pires, and not of atoms — that it takes care ofthe leviathan,
but not of the emmet or the fly. God's providence em
braces all things — rises to the greatest, and descends to
the minutest — is in the disclosures of the microscope, as
well as the discoveries of the telescope. So with reference
to prayer ; God hears prayer for little things as well as
for great things ; and little things may be the hinges on
which great ones turn. Therefore, the lesson that I would
again repeat, is, whatsoever ye want or need, ask and pray
for, at all times, every where — lifting up holy hands,
nothing doubting that the hearer of prayer will hear and
answer. So our experience on earth, and our retrospect
for glory, will equally prove that we never sincerely and
earnestly prayed in vain.

178

LECTURE X.
THE CALMER OF THE STORM.
And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him. And, behold,
there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered
with the waves : but he was asleep. And his disciples came to him, and awoke
him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish. And he saith unto them, Why are ye
fearful, 0 ye of little faith ? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea ;
and there was a great calm. But the men marvelled, saying, What manner of
man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him !— Matt. viii. 23-27.
Many of the miracles on which I have lectured have re
lated to the diseases of the body, to which Christ was the
great Physician ; and the death of that body, to which he
had proved himself the life. This miracle relates not to
disease or to death in the experience of man, but to an
other of the effects of sin, the storms and tempests, or dis
harmony of nature, of which he alone is the queller, and
from which he alone will one day retrieve her.
It appears that Jesus, as stated in the record of the
miracle here given, went into a ship. Never, certainly,
did the waves of the sea bear a more precious burden ;
never had ship constructed by man a more glorious pas
senger ; it was the glory of that sea that its bosom bore
him ; it was an honour to those winds that they were per
mitted to waft him ; for it was not one that had shared with
them in nature's shock, but one who made it holy, — for
" all things were made by him," — and came to right it, for
he is the great Redeemer of all things.
It appears that when he was in this ship, a storm arose.

THE CALMER OF THE STORM. 179
The sea, commonly called so, is a large loch or lake ; it was
inland, but of great extent; and, like all inland seas, as
one may be aware, subject to tempestuous hurricanes, that
rushed down the mountain gorges unexpectedly, and very
frequently buried large vessels in its waters. It appears
that one of these gales or storms smote the ship in which
Jesus and his disciples were. The fishermen, or the sailors,
plainly felt it to be no common or ordinary storm, by the
very fact that they appealed to him for deliverance. A
sailor will never take foreign help as long as he has a
muscle that he can use, or a rag of canvas that he can
hoist, or an effort that his skill, his genius, or his physical
powers can have recourse to. Whenever a sailor has re
course to foreign help on the sea, it is generally evidence
that he has given up all for lost. These men were ac
customed to storms and tempests, and, no doubt, would not
have appealed to Jesus for miraculous deliverance unless
they had been fully conscious that human strength was
weakness, human skill was folly, and that without such
interposition all was hopeless.
We gather from these facts that the presence of Christ,
near and dear to his people, does not exempt them from
affliction. Christ has promised to conduct us to an ever
lasting and glorious haven ; but he has not promised that
we shall also have a fair wind, a smooth sea, and a delight
ful and serene passage. The passage may indeed be tem
pestuous, but the haven will certainly be reached; and
often the storm by the way is a necessary element in that
process by which we are fitted for the enjoyment of the
haven that is before us. No one so enjoys the calm har
bour as the long tempest-tossed sailor ; no one so enjoys
his home as the weary traveller who has come many a mile
to reach it ; and the Christian will find heaven 'not to be
the less sweet, but the more so, that he has buffeted many

180 FORESHADOWS.
a wind, passed through many a storm, and often felt tho
roughly persuaded that there was no hope or deliverance
for him. He shall then find these tempests not worthy to
be compared with the glory that is to be revealed; he will
then discover that each trial was just as necessary for him
as that Christ should have died for him; and instead of
being a random accident in disturbed nature, it was a mes
senger sent from on high to help him on his journey, with
out whose help he might never have reached the end.
Jesus, it is said, in the midst of the tempest which he
and his disciples shared, was asleep on the stern, or hinder
part of the ship. Jonah once slept in the ship, in the
midst of a storm; but his sleep was the result of the
opiate of a dead and benumbed conscience. Jesus slept
in the storm, but his sleep was because of a pure, an inno
cent, and holy conscience. Jonah was the cause of the
storm in which he was ; Jesus was the queller of the storm
in which he was. One was a fugitive from God ; the other
was a messenger of God, coming to do God's work, and
gather in God's people, and glorify God's name. And
may we not see from all this, that the church of Christ,
and the people of God, may very often seem to be almost
cast off — the winds awake, the waves arise, as if some evil
power roused the one and lashed the other to their utmost
fury ; and what aggravates their state and magnifies their
peril is, that he who alone can quell those waves, and hush
those winds, is asleep — and in fact seems not to regard
them. It was in such circumstances that the believer,
in the Psalms, called out, "Hath God forgotten to be
gracious? How long wilt thou forsake me, 0 Lord?"
Yet let Christ seem to have forgotten his people-^let there
be no Divine word sent from the sky, announcing deliver
ance — let there be no rainbow spanning it, intimating that
the storm is about to pass away — let there be no prescrip-

THE CALMER OF THE STORM, 181
tion dropped from above, to show us that the disease is
about to be healed — let all seem desperate, there is no
depth into which man can be plunged in which he should
not pray, and there is no depth or distance from God, to
which affliction may drive him, in which prayer may not
be heard ; for it was when the storm was in its fury, and
Jesus was asleep, that they cried, in their agony, "Lord,
save us ! Carest thou not that we perish?" And yet in
that petition of these poor fishermen, while there was faith,
there was also a mixture of infirmity. They said, "Save
us; we perish." They thought that Christ and they would
perish ; but how impossible is that ! Christ, and his peo
ple whom he knows--— some of them born and re-born;
others of them born, but not re-born ; others of them not
yet born, or re-born; some circumcised, and others uncir-
cumcised; some circumcised, like Abraham; some bap
tized, like Paul, but not circumcised; and some neither,
but yet chosen in him before the foundation of the world,
the members of his living body, the ransom of his precious
blood ; they are all safe as if they were already in heaven ;
for he himself hath said, "I give unto them eternal life,
and none shall be able to pluck them out of my hand."
The Lord, it is said, when appealed to, addressed the
men, and rebuked them gently and tenderly for weakness :
"0 ye of little faith." It was not the evidence of their
little faith that they appealed to Christ, but that they
were so alarmed, as to be almost overpowered and over
whelmed by that alarm. Then, it is said, he arose and
rebuked the winds. When does Christ interpose to help
us ? Just when we have come to learn the lesson that we
cannot help ourselves. Never does a Christian know what
strength is till he feels what his utter, entire weakness is
in the sight of God. It is then that in weakness he is
made strong. Have we not had something to transfer
16

182 FORESHADOWS.
the illustration of the miracle to an analogous case?
Have we not had something like this in our recent ex
perience ? Just at the time that the late epidemic was
darkening more and more our horizon, the registrar-gene
ral wrote, "Now we can see light;" and the very two
weeks during which he saw light were the darkest of all.
At the very time that the Times paper and others said,
"Now we have turned the corner," that very time the
victims fell in greater numbers. Nostrum followed nos
trum, prescription was published after prescription, till
men were more likely to be poisoned by men's prescrip
tions than to be smitten down by God's pestilence. There
was cleansing, watering, flushing, de-odorizing, disinfect
ing, shutting up pestilential foci, (all most important in
their places, and it is only a pity they were not done
before ;) every effort was made, yet they found that they
were stopping up one leak, while a dozen were starting
out besides. There was great faith in physicians, great
faith in preventive measures, but little faith in, and
scarcely a whisper of, an appeal to Him who kills and
makes alive ; till at length the multiplying victims, mown
down on every side, began to teach man his helplessness.
The conquering epidemic rode from the lane to the well-
paved street, from the cellar to the noble's hall, and from
the filthy place, where they said its hdbitdt was, and out
of which it dared not come, it entered the most splendid
drawing-rooms; it touched even the judicial bench, and
picked out its victims there; till, in short, the pestilence,
like Death upon the pale horse in the Apocalypse, rode
forth, conquering on all sides, with terror in his van, and
death in his rear. Then men saw what their nostrums
and specifics were worth — their faith in man, their trust
in physic ; till at last a nation, in its helplessness, flung
all behind it, and rushed, in a nation's agony, and gave

THE CALMER OF THE STORM. 183
utterance to a nation's prayers, in ten thousand temples,
"Lord, save us; we perish." And the Lord stretched
out his hand, and stayed the plague, and "there was a
great calm." God has been teaching us first to feel our
helplessness, and then to rejoice in our deliverance.
Do not draw from what I say any inference that I dis
approve of all the efforts that have been made. On the
contrary, I am one of those who believe that God sent
this judgment just to teach the rich, the great, the noble,
of all ranks, that they have neglected their duties, that
they have left the poor to starve, or to live and to be
housed like brutes, instead of each person looking round
his hall, his park, his palace, his residence, remembering
that if God has made him more rich, it is that some very
poor one may be bettered ; and that if God has given him
more comforts, it is that those who have none may get
some. I believe that this is one of the great lessons to be
gathered from the judgment, and I hope it will not be for
gotten. At the same time it does seem to me, while we
have been taught this, we have been taught also to recog
nise the finger of God. He has crowded physicians, and
skill, and talent, and prevention, and all other measures
into one humble, lowly place ; and from the graves of the
victims, and the homes of the spared, the weepers because
of lost' ones, and the rejoicers because of spared ones, have
learned this truth, which I think is deeper engraved upon
our country's heart than ever it was engraved before —
that we are saved and kept healthy, and blessed, and
prospered, not by might nor by power, but by the Spirit
of the Lord. Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom,
nor the physician in his skill, nor the statesman in his
policy ; but let him that glorieth glory only in the Lord :
and let all learn — what we have forgotten — that we are
not under the dominion of those contemptible gods of the

184 FORESHADOWS.
Pantheon of the nineteenth century, called "laws of
nature;" but that we are under the dominion of Him who
reigns in heaven, and rules amid the inhabitants of the
earth, and who turneth the hearts of kings whithersoever
he will. These are noble lessons. If we have learned
them, as I trust many have, we shall bless God for the
pestilence that laid so many below the ground in 1849,
because of the beneficent and precious lessons it taught to
so many who yet live.
Jesus arose, it is said, and rebuked the wind and the
wave. The Physician rebuked the disease; the Creator
rebuked the storms of creation. Whether the word "re
buke," which is often applied to the miracles of Christ,
when he speaks to nature, means that there was any living
agency concerned, it is perhaps difficult to say. It seems
as if it taught us that storms and tempests are the results
of some usurping powers that have come into the world.
We know that Satan is the god of this world ; we know
that he is trying to grasp the sceptre which he cannot hold ;
and that he intrudes and does mischief wherever he is per
mitted, and has power to do so. Whether it be that the
Lord looked upon these storms as the mere expression of a
malignant agency beneath, and rebuked the evil powers
because of what had taken place, I cannot say. Perhaps
it was that he looked upon nature as his own child. "The
sea is his," says the Psalmist, " and he made it ;" and then,
when he spoke to the winds, they folded their wings and
slept beside him, recognising in the words of Jesus the
voice of him that gave them their creation and their com
mission at the first; and when the waves heard that voice,
they lay like babes beside a mother, gentle, and obedient
to him whose is the sea, and whose also is the dry land:
and they showed how truly David wrote, when he sang by
the Spirit of David's Lord, « Thou rulest the raging of the

THE CALMER OF THE STORM. 185
sea; when the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them."
And how beautifully the same David wrote in another place :
" They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business
in great waters ; these see the works of the Lord, and his
wonders in the deep. For he commandeth, and raiseth
the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. They
mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths :
their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and
fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit's
end. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and
he bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the
storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then
are they glad because they be quiet ; so he bringeth them
unto their desired haven. Oh that men would praise the
Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the
children of men!"
What Jesus did on this occasion was not, let me remind
you, as I have done before, was not a mere miraculous feat :
it was also a prophetic fact. No act of Jesus was finished
when it was done ; each was a foreshadow of a grand result
yet to be. All things, I believe, are far more typical than
we think them ; all facts are pregnant with effects yet more
glorious than we see. There is no such thing as a dead
fact ; it is always living and prolific ; and whatever Jesus
did, especially, was significant of something yet brighter
and better that Jesus will do. So then, the fact that he
quelled the storm is only an earnest of that better day,
when the great Peacemaker will come forth like the high-
priest from the holy of holies, and screw up creation's
strings to their primeval harmony, bring all things back to
their Eden bliss, give the wind and waves and sea a new
and a Divine commission, recover and resume the sceptre,
expel the disturber, reverse the curse, strip nature of her
ashen garments, in which she has wept and groaned, a pe-
16*

186 FORESHADOWS.
nitent and a sufferer, and put on her coronation robes, her
bridal apparel, when the marriage of the Lamb shall have
come ; and all nature shall be made glad. We believe that
this will be so, not merely from this fact that is an earnest
of it, but because the Lord Jesus himself has expressly
said so. And at this moment, as in the past, his arm is
not shortened that it cannot save, nor his ear heavy that
it cannot hear. In the midst of storms and tempests we
may seek of him a calm ; in sorrow, and sickness, and suffer
ing, we may pray for help. We ought to ask for temporal
blessings absolutely, as we ask for spirtual blessings. It
is God's part to determine, in his wisdom, what he will give
and what he will withhold ; it is our part simply to disclose
the felt and the deep wants of our soul, and ask him to
supply them. If therefore any one is ill, and wants help,
pray for it ; if any of us be poor and starving, and need
bread, pray for it; if any of us have a relative suffering
and ill, pray for his recovery, and pray in faith ; it is ours
to pray; it is God's part to determine what he will give.
Do not say, "But is this expedient? Is this according to
the will of God?" That is not your business. Ask what
your conscience, enlightened by God's word, shows you to
be, or that seems to you to be good ; ask what you really
need, and leave it with God to give or withhold as to him
may seem most expedient. He authorized us to seek all
temporal blessings, when he taught us to say, " Give us
daily bread;" he enjoined us to seek all spiritual blessings,
when he taught us to say, "Forgive us our trespasses."
Temporal blessings are the blessings of the footstool ; spi
ritual blessings are the blessings of the throne: let us ask
both. God has given us a body as well as a soul, and he
means that there should be provision for the one as well
as for the other. Ask for both, and ask in faith ; do not
doubt; and if his wisdom do not always give you the pre-

THE CALMER OF THE STORM. 187
cise thing that you ask, his goodness will give you a better
thing, exceeding abundantly above all you can ask : thu3
his name will be glorified, and you will be blessed.
It is on these accounts that I again refer to another
topic, on which I say so much because I wish that it may
be sanctified, and never forgotten. We have ourselves had
evidence that God answers the prayers of the people. We
see how rapidly the prevalent epidemic has decreased ever
since the nation began earnestly to pray. And I rejoice
to say that the public newspapers now begin to show a
holier feeling on the subject. I may perhaps be pardoned,
if I read a short extract from one of them, which has been
most refreshing to my mind. I have said that most of the
papers were asserting this cause, and that cause, and that
no doubt the cold weather would abate the disease ; yet hot
weather actually came, and yet there was a decrease ; but
one paper has changed its tone — the leading paper of the
age, and remarkable, not for originating public feeling, but
— and nothing but this would justify my reading the ex
tract here — for being the exponent of it. I refer to it (and
I do not speak disrespectfully of its great talent when I
say so) just as I should quote the weathercock, not as the
cause of the wind blowing in a certain direction, but simply
as the evidence of it. This great daily paper, after bat
tling a long time to account for the disease on every prin
ciple but the right one, and hesitating about the propriety
of a day of national prayer, at last writes an article which
seems to compensate for all the mischief it has done; and
for which I thank God, because I regard it not as the ex
pression of the individual writer's feelings, but as the forced
utterance of what the writer knows to be the nation's heart,
the popular feeling, the universal sympathy.
"It would be as impossible," says the Times of Thurs
day, September 27th, "to exaggerate the sentiment of

188 FORESHADOWS.
gratitude which is felt throughout the metropolis at the
abatement of the pest from which we are beginning tc
escape, as it would be to exaggerate the misery which its
further continuance would have inflicted. The plague is
stayed. Death strikes with a feeble and fitful hand where
he so lately smote with so fearful a force. Terror and
despondence, the satellites and companions of Death, are
flying before the power which has destroyed the gaunt
destroyer. The streets, which still bear the aspect of
mourning and sadness, no longer witness the daily insignia
of mortality. One meets, indeed, in every place, the
memorials of irreparable losses, and the tokens of lasting
grief, [all this indicates what a terrible moment we have
passed through.] In the throng of the Exchange, in the
great thoroughfares, in the crowded streets, we jostle
against those who have, within a few days, lost their
nearest and dearest kin. One man, a week ago the happy
husband or proud father, has since followed wife and
children to the grave. The prattle of infancy and the
soft accents of affection have been suddenly hushed in a
thousand homes. A havoc has been wrought in innume
rable families which a long life will fail to repair. But
the plague is already stayed ; and, great as the calamity
may have been, it is slight compared with what old tradi
tions and modern experience taught us to expect. London
has escaped with half the loss sustained in Paris, and a
tithe of the destruction which ravaged Moscow, Peters
burg, or Delhi.
"A termination almost so unhoped for has filled men's
hearts with gratitude. They recognise in the mercy that
has arrested the hand of the destroying angel the salva
tion of this country from all those, the moral and material
ills, which have ever followed in the train of great, pesti
lences. Had the disease remained among us for any time

THE CALMER OF THE STORM. 189
without abatement, experience tells us it could hardly
have remained without increase. The mortality, which
had risen from the usual weekly average of nine hundred
to three thousand, would not have remained many weeks
as low as three thousand. Had it gone on in the same
ratio of increase, it is hardly too much to say that whole
districts in the metropolis and its suburbs would have been
laid bare and desolate. True, this would have happened
among the abodes of the very poor. But would the con
sequences of the affliction have been restricted to those
spots ? Could whole families have been plunged in desti
tution, and whole parishes have been desolated by panic,
in the offskirts of a huge city, without infecting the other
and healthier elements of society ? Impossible ! Of the
plague which has already, we trust, spent its worst malig
nity, the deaths which it caused were not the sole nor the
most terrible result. The great historian of Greece has
depicted in indelible colours the moral which goes hand
in hand with the physical pest. We, as a nation, indeed,
may not be in the same state as that refined and volatile
people which erected altars to ' The Unknown God.' But,
can any one who knows any thing of our great cities, and
especially of our greatest, say that, were a pest let loose
with unmitigated violence on them or in it, the mere
destruction of human life would measure the havoc and
the calamity endured ? Would the poorer masses of our
population go untainted by that same utter recklessness of
all save present gain and present enjoyment — the same
indifference to death or life — honour or dishonour — good
or evil — which poisoned the minds of the Athenians more
than the plague destroyed their bodies? The historian
of the Great Plague of London bears testimony to the
frightful immorality, hardness of heart, and savage reck
lessness which disputed with piety, contrition, and repent-

190 FORESHADOWS.
ance, the dominion over men's minds. In our age the vast
increase of population, the more than proportionate in
crease of luxury and wealth — the great contrast of condi
tions and fortunes, have all raised up elements of discord,
contention, and bitter strife, which were unknown in De
Foe's time, but which, in a wide-spread pestilence, might
now ferment into anarchy and ruin. The metropolis "could
not have suffered alone. It would have infected all Eng
land. We have escaped these evils. We have escaped
panic. We have escaped anarchy. We have escaped
national convulsions [what grounds of gratitude !] There
have, doubtless, been great suffering, privation, destitu
tion, and despair inflicted on us. There have likewise
been much hardness, selfishness, and cruelty elicited by
it. But, still, how little have these been compared with
the probable and almost inevitable consequences of a
heavier and wider mortality!"
But I wish especially to refer to what follows :
"And, if this be, as we believe it to be, the case, does
not an occasion so solemn deserve an expression of senti
ments so profound ? Should there not be some public and
universal recognition of the Might which has stood be
tween the living and the dead — of the Mercy which has
spared us the consummation of a dreadful chastisement ?
We know that there are men who refuse to acknowledge
the hand of God in any great dispensation of his provi
dence, — to whom all the vicissitudes of the material world
are but the casual results of fortuitous combinations, or
the inevitable operations of undetected laws. Fortunately,
the majority of mankind have not concurred in ousting
the Deity from all concern in the world which he has
made. Most men still feel sensible that there is One,
omniscient and all-powerful, who directs and determines
the issues of life and death to men and nations. It is

THE CALMER OF THE STORM. 191
useless to talk of secondary causes. Secondary causes are
but the instruments which the Deity chooses to employ.
Sickness, famine, and death, are warnings by which he
reminds mankind of their weakness, their helplessness,
and their mortality. Every man feels this in his own
family, person, and circumstances. The sickness thati
hurries a favourite child or an affectionate wife to an
early grave is an humbling but effective example of Divine
power and human weakness. The palsy that prostrates
the strong man in the full flush of health and vigour — the
distress and poverty which stun the rich man in the height
of his prosperity — these are but secondary, often tertiary
causes ; they may often be traced step by step through
devious but connected consequences ; but each man, in
his own heart, feels them to be the indications of a supreme
will and the tokens of supreme power. And when these
befall individuals, the prayer is put up in an earnest con
fidence that He who has inflicted the wound — though he
may not heal it — will yet temper the infliction with a
blessing. "Doubtless the cholera, like any other phenomenon,
either of the corporeal or the mundane system, follows
certain definite and ascertainable laws. So does typhus
fever, so do hurricanes, so do waterspouts, so do thunder
storms, so do earthquakes. But the laws of which we
Speak are but a convenient phrase to express the will of
the great Lawgiver. He who made can abate, modify,
suspend, or warp them. He who can bid a plague rise in
the East, may direct its sinuous course so as to baffle the
observations of the most sagacious and the deductions of
the most intelligent. After all, when we have ascertained
the law, we are nearly as helpless as we were before. We
may foresee a certain number of cases and mitigate a cer
tain number ; but the highest degree of knowledge which

192 FORESHADOWS.
we attain is, that we know but little about them ; and our
utmost skill is baffled by contingencies which defy its ex
planation. One fact ever appears prominent above the
rest — that we are in the hands of a higher Power.
"And this is a merciful dispensation. Without such,
men would stagnate into a moral apathy, and, forgetting
the existence of a God, would forget the duties which he
has enjoined. It is by these visitations that men are re
minded that they are weak. But they are also reminded
that they are accountable. There never yet was a great
national affliction without some previous neglect of public
or private duties. The very plague which has visited us
was made more violent by the omission of kindly acts, and
the neglect of beneficent laws. The loss of life and the
loss of money which we are suffering are penalties by
which Almighty Wisdom punishes the delinquencies of go
vernments and states. Had we observed the duties of
charity and justice more than we have, we should have
suffered bss than we have. Had we been more devout,
we should have been moce just and more charitable.
"Those who have suffered and those who have escaped
the pestilence of this year will need no exhortations to
acts of individual devotion and thanksgiving. But the
suffering assumed the form of a national suffering ; the
deliverance has been a national deliverance. The thanks
giving should be national also."
If one had uttered all these things from the pulpit, per
sons would have taken them as mere commonplace obser
vations. Now, however, we read these words from a news
paper, as an exponent of a deep-rooted public sentiment ;
and we must hear it, not as the ordinary commonplaces of
theology, but as the solemn conviction of those who are
not generally supposed to pay such deference to the Bible
as one could wish.

THE CALMER OF THE STORM. 193
" The form and mode of it we do not undertake to pre
scribe. But we are confident that the people of this land
will feel it their duty to utter a solemn and public expression
of their thanks to Him who has heard their prayer in due
season ; and that, moreover, they will not forget that the
mere expression of thanks, solemnized by whatever cere
monial it may be, will, in a season like this, be but a poor
and unworthy homage at the throne of Infinite Justice.
There is a sacrifice which should be performed. The graves
of our cities have been crowded with the victims of greedy
speculation, careless legislation, and frigid selfishness. They
who have perished have for the most part perished in fetid
alleys, noisome and pestiferous houses, vile and infectious
cellars, the structures or properties which were owned by
selfish covetousness, and erected by selfish indifference."
When I said this, it was thought by far too strong. Now
that a newspaper says it, that knows much better of these
things, it is admitted to be true. The writer continues : —
" Let us take warning from our past stupidity or neglect,
and not mock a religious solemnity by persisting in cruelty
and apathy. While we allow the houses of the poor to be
without air, light, or water, while we taint the breath of
the living with the exhalations of the dead, and while we
squabble in the midst of a destroying pest about the rights
of vestries and commissions, our fast will be but an impious
hypocrisy, and our prayers a hideous mummery."
Then this splendid article, so truly Christian, and so
magnificent in its conception and eloquence, concludes with
words that I rejoice to see in a newspaper, and for which
we should be unspeakably grateful : —
"'Is it such a fast as I have chosen ? A day for a man
to afflict his soul ? To bow down his head as a bulrush,
and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him ? Wilt thou
call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord ? Is
ir

194 FORESHADOWS.
not this the fas$ that I have chosen ? — To loose the bands
of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the
oppressed go free; and that ye break every yoke?' "
This is so much like what most ministers have said, that
it seems as if there were a universal feeling originating in
all minds the very same ideas, and that the press, like the
pulpit, has grown prophetic. And of what does this give
evidence ? That all men are under a deep and solemn feel
ing that the judgment has been so far sanctified. I trust '
it will be sanctified yet more; and that while there will be
the expression of a nation's gratitude, there will be at the
same time the fast that God has chosen — the undoing the
heavy burdens. For while one deplores that there should
be any in distress, while the judgment is upon us, one will
deplore yet more deeply that there should be any want of
gratitude, of adoring gratitude, when the judgment passes
away. I far more dread lest, after deliverance, we should
bring forth no fragrant fruits of gratitude, than that during
the judgment we should not pray to God for deliverance.
I trust that the expression of public feeling and public
sentiment which I have read will not be like the mornino- O
cloud and the early dew, but that it will last for many days
to come. If these things do take place, I have great hopes
for our country still. Every thing that I have seen about
this judgment leads one to bless God, and to be thankful ;
while we lament the gaps it has made, we thank him for
the moral impression it has left behind.
The result of this storm was, that the disciples asked,
" What manner of man is this, that the winds and the sea
obey him?" The result of this epidemic will be, that the
people will think, " What God is this, whose finger appear
ed in the judgment, whose power and goodness have also,
as acknowledged in the vehicles of public information, ap
peared in the repression of it ?" Let us bless God for his

THE CALMER OF THE STORM. 195
mercies ; let us bless him for his judgments ; let us praise
him for the storm ; let us praise him for the calm ; let us
see him in all things ; let us see him teaching the minister
in his pulpit, and whispering to the newspaper editor in
his room ; let us hear him in all ; let us recognise him in all ;
and let us feel, as we never felt before, that religion — true,
vital religion, is the only thing worth living for, as it is the
only thing in which we can happily die.*
* Th ese remarks were made in the autumn of 1849, during the epidemic, the
subduing, and sanctifying, and suggestive effects of which are now, alas, neither
so deep nor so general as we once ventured to hope.

196

LECTURE XI.
BETHESDA AND ITS BLESSINGS.
After this there was a feast of the Jews ; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the
Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude
of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the
water. For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled
tho water : whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in
was made whole of whatsoever disease he had. And a certain man was
there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years. When Jesus saw him
lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto
him, Wilt thou be made whole 1 The impotent man answered him, Sir, I
have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool : but while
I am coming, another steppeth down before me. Jesus saith unto him, Rise,
take up thy bed, and walk. And immediately the man was made whole, and
took up his bed, and walked : and on the same day was the sabbath. The
Jews therefore said unto him that was cured, It is tho sabbath day : it is not
lawful for thee to carry thy bed. He answered them, He that made me
whole, the same said unto me, Take up thy bed, and walk. Then asked they
him, What man is that which said unto thee, Take up thy bed, and walk ?
And he that was healed wist not who it was : for Jesus had conveyed him
self away, a multitude being in that place. Afterward Jesus findeth him in
the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole : sin no more,
lest a worse thing come unto thee. The man departed, and told the Jews
that it was Jesus, which had made him whole. And therefore did the Jews
persecute Jesus, and sought to slay him, because he had done these things
on the sabbath day. But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto,
and I work. Therefore tho Jews sought the more to kill him, ^because he not
only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making
himself equal with God. — John v. 1-18.
At what feast of the Jews this special miracle was
wrought it is difficult to say ; and it is not of very mate
rial moment that we should be able to determine. The

BETHESDA AND ITS BLESSINGS. 197
feast is called "a feast of the Jews," that is, it was pecu
liar to the Jews. The moment, however, that Jesus touched
it by his presence, that moment it was gone ; for he was
the end of all types ; he was the substance of all shadows :
and just as the shades of night depart when the sun rises
above the horizon, so the feasts and fasts and institutions
of the Jews passed away the moment that the Sun of right
eousness shone upon them.
Bethesda, literally translated, means the house of mercy.
The place is still traditionally pointed out ; and in most
books upon Palestine, a certain pool or deep well is alluded
to as the pool of Bethesda; but Robinson, an American
writer, in his Biblical Researches, has shown, and it seems
to me conclusively, that it is not the same ; and that we
do not know where it was. Nor does it much matter. The
local is the circumstantial and the transient ; the moral
and the spiritual lessons of Bethesda endure now and for
ever. The pool, it seems, was either miraculously impregnated
with medicinal virtue after an angel had stirred it, or it
was permanently endued with that virtue, so that every
one that stepped into it after it had been stirred by the
angel, was healed of whatever disease he had. It is per
haps a distinction without a difference whether it was per
manently medicinal, or made temporarily and specially
so ; for the high and true view of nature is his, who sees
in nature One above it, and beyond it, and superior to it.
We speak of causes and effects ; we say that such a medi
cinal virtue is the cause of such a cure ; we say that such
a substance is the cause of such an effect ; whereas when
we have so spoken, we have not discovered causes, but
only, to use the language of philosophers, sequences of
phenomena, when we parade what are called secondary
causes ; and in each sequence is developed the power, the
17*

198 FORESHADOWS.
presence, and the energy of Deity. A cause may be no
more related to what is called its effect than one link in a
chain may be the cause of the link that succeeds it : the
one follows the other, but the one is not necessarily the
cause of the other. And they are the true Christians and
the right philosophers, who are not satisfied with tracing
link after link, the one as depending on the other, till they
find the whole chain fastened by its staple to the throne
of God; and see God's energy and power transmitted
along every link, and explain all effects by the fact that
God is, and works, in them all.
It appears that at this pool, whether its virtues were
permanently healing or only temporarily so, there were
multitudes of the halt, the lame, and the impotent. It
reminds one of our modern watering-places, as they are
called. What are Cheltenham, Harrowgate, Leamington,
but modern Bethesdas ? What are the multitudes in the
inns that are there but crowds of impotent folk, and blind,
and maimed, and sick, waiting for the health which they
have lost? And what is the medicinal virtue in these
wells ? The inspiration, the gift of the goodness of God
— as much so, as truly so, as if an angel had left the skies,
descended into each, and had given them all their healing
virtues. In this crowd that surrounded the pool of Bethesda, and
in the crowds that surround modern Bethesdas, if such I
may venture to call them, we have a suggestive fact, which
will not be forgotten at the judgment-day. Men who have
lost the health of the body that is day by day approximat
ing to the dust, will go to the ends of the earth, if perad-
venture they may obtain its recovery; but persons who
know they have lost the health of their soul, and there
by the hopes of glory, are found few and far between, if
we take the nation as a whole, crowding those true and

BETHESDA AND ITS BLESSINGS. igg
lasting Bethesdas, the sanctuaries of God and the houses of
prayer, into which not a created angel, but the Angel of the
everlasting covenant, statedly descends, to heal the broken
spirit, and bind up the bleeding heart ; to give beauty for
ashes, and the opening of the eyes to them that are blind.
The cause of this contrast may lie in this very true, but
very painful fact, that if we have bodily disease we are
conscious of it, and in proportion to the danger or the
poignancy of our complaint is the speed and the sacrifice
which we make in order to get a recovery; but it happens
in soul diseases that that man's spiritual state is the most
dangerous of all whose insensibility is the greatest of all:
so that no man is so far gone in spiritual disease, as he
who has the least consciousness that he is so, or who con
gratulates himself with the frequent remark, " I am rich,
and increased in goods, and healthy, and have need of
nothing." Hence it happens that man needs not to be
awakened to a sense of the danger of a bodily disease, but
in every case man needs to be awakened to a sense of his
spiritual disease. There went to Bethesda men who felt
their disease, and wished to get it healed; we come to the
house of God, not merely feeling our disease, but seeking
to feel it, and after feeling it, to pray that it may be
healed. One invalid appeared at this place who had been labour
ing under his disease thirty-eight years — not who had been
there thirty-eight years, as some have construed it. This
invalid was despised or jostled aside by the crowds. It is
a strange fact, that a certain amount of misfortune does
make men sympathize with each other ; but when it be
comes rapid, terrible, and universal, it creates an intense
selfishness in all, so that each is ready to tread down his
brother in order to find a rescue and deliverance for him
self. This poor man had been so treated; the greatest

200 FORESHADOWS.
sufferer had fared the worst at man's hands. On him,
however, Jesus cast his eye. The deepest affliction upon
earth has ever the readiest response in heaven ; that man
who has few to sympathize with him here, has the Lord
of glory most assuredly to sympathize with him there.
Jesus cast the eye of his pity, not upon the selfish crowd
who had few ailments, which their strength enabled them
the more readily to use the means of removing, but first
on the greatest sufferer, and to that sufferer he showed the
greatest mercy. May it not be still that the greatest sin
ner shall find acceptance with Christ, that he who had
pity on the greatest sufferer, will not put from him the
greatest criminal that seeks from him that forgiveness
which man cannot give, and would not if he could, but
which God rejoices to bestow upon all that ask him?
Our Lord, then, casting his eye upon the sufferer, asked
him the question, "Wilt thou be made whole?" This
seems a superfluous question. Why, there could be no
doubt that the poor man would be made whole, for he had
come on purpose, and had waited many a weary day to
be so. And yet Christ never spoke a superfluous word,
nor did a superfluous deed. There was a reason in all he
said, and a necessity for all he did. And no doubt, the
question that he put here was meant to quicken hopes that
were dead in the poor sufferer's bosom ; to revive withered
feelings, affections, and desires; and to create in the
desponding man's soul a presentiment of approaching cure,
and cast over it the first rays of that sunshine into which
Christ was soon to introduce him.
The sick man, roused by this question — and nothing so
delights and revives a sufferer as a word of unexpected
sympathy — instantly answered, "I have no man near me
to put me into the pool-, but when I am going another
steppeth down before me." As if he had said, "Most

BETHESDA AND ITS BLESSINGS. 201
gladly would I be cured; I have been looking for it, and
waiting for it ; but I have the misfortune to be so thoroughly
impotent that I am not able to reach the pool, and others,
abler and stronger, with greater patronage or with greater
aid, rush in first, and are healed." The man felt that
there was no healing outside Bethesda, and that if he
could not be lifted into it, he could not be healed; just as
many persons think there is no virtue extrinsic to the ordi
nance. Christ works ordinarily by means of ordinances,
but the Lord of the ordinance can work above it, without
it, and beyond it. His grace is sovereign, and it descends
often where it is the least expected, always where it is not
deserved. Let us honour him by drawing near to him in
the use of his ordinances ; but let us honour him still more,
when these ordinances are inaccessible, by feeling perfectly
satisfied that he can work without them, above them, and
beyond them.
Now if Christ had been mere man, he would have lifted
the impotent person from the spot he had so long and
hopelessly held, and would have placed him in the pool of
Bethesda; but he did not do so. He left Bethesda to
those who worshipped it as the whole spring of their re
covery, and cured the impotent man by that word which
was more healing than all Bethesda's waters: "Arise,
take up thy bed, and walk." It is well that Christ is thus
sovereign ; it is glorious to him, and it is also good for us.
I believe that were there a specific curative power in every
medicine for specific diseases, the moment that that medi
cine was applied, and produced its effect, one result would
invariably occur — men would worship the drug as their
god ; the pharmacopoeia would supersede the Bible ; the
chemist's shop would be more sacred than the Christian
temple; and the physician would be another iEsculapius,
worshipped under another name by modern idolaters. But

202 FORESHADOWS.
God interposes, and shows us, as he has shown us that
there are diseases beside which the physician's skill is
paralyzed, medicinal virtues are utterly worthless, and
where even the atheist's lips must give utterance to the
Christian's homage, "This is the finger of God." By
thus teaching us that the virtue that heals is not in the
drug, but in him that made it, he leads us from resting on
and worshipping the things that are seen, to look up, and
repose our souls, and worship the invisible God, in whom
we live, and move, and have our being.
Christ, then, instantly addressed the man : " Arise, take
up thy bed, walk." I need scarcely explain that the bed
was a sort of couch on which the man lay, and which could
be folded like a tent, and carried away by him. If this
man, when Christ said to him, "Arise, take up thy bed and
walk," had been a modern theologian, he would first have
introduced the question, that man had no strength of his
own, and that unless he would give him strength it was
absurd to attempt to obey the order that Christ had issued.
Such reasoning is always perilous, very often mistaken.
The man however reasoned none, but instantly obeyed the
bidding of his Lord; and the moment he made the effort,
that moment divine strength enabled him to succeed.
Christ says to you and me, "Pray, repent, live." You are
not to pause, and say, "I cannot obey thy command till
thou givest me divine power;" but you are to do it, and
the very disposition that prompts you to do it is the vehicle
that carries to your heart new life, and to your limbs new
strength, and to the whole man a healthy, a vigorous, and
a Christian tone. The grand secret of Christianity is,
instant obedience to the commands of God. When he com
mands a duty, he always gives strength to do it ; when he
sends a soldier to warfare, he never does so at his own

BETHESDA AND ITS BLESSINGS. 203
charge ; and as our day is, we shall always find our strength
to be.
The Jews, when they saw this cure, instantly objected
to the man on this ground — that he was carrying his couch
upon the sabbath-day, urging that it was not lawful to do
so. It was not zeal for the sabbath that animated them,
but hatred to him who had wrought the miracle. These
Jews, as we have noticed, (and when John speaks of the
Jews he always means the elders and principal personages
among them,) were watching to discover reasons for cruci
fying the Lord of glory. Whatever he did, however beau
tiful, beneficent, and good, was tortured and construed by
their wicked ingenuity into a reason for exciting popular
feeling against the Redeemer. Like the tarantula spider,
which sucks poison from the sweetest roses, these Jews,
with malignant hearts, drew venomous antipathy to Jesus
from that which was in truth the highest reason for accept
ing, adoring, and worshipping him.
The man's answer to the Jews who thus cavilled at him
was truly admirable. It was the very essence of that rarest
sense — common sense: "The man, I know not who he was,
that made me whole, the same said unto me, Take up thy
bed and walk." He argued: "The love, the pity, the
power that healed me surely would not have bade me do
that which is in itself sinful, or to violate the sanctity of
the sabbath-day." As if he had said, "The power that
has been put forth is to me evidence that it was the Lord
of the sabbath that raised me from my weakness, and re
stored me to life. Such a Physician (he argued) is worthy
of being regarded by me as a legislator ; he that can give
such prescriptions I am authorized in regarding as com
petent to give precepts that I am to obey; I regard him,
therefore, that healed me of my disease, as my master,
whose behests and commandments are to be implicitly re-

204 FORESHADOWS.
ceived by me." Is not this the feeling in every rightly
constituted Christian mind ? He who has pardoned our
sins is he whose precepts we shall delight to obey ; he whose
cross has been to us our glory and our deliverance, is wel
come to give us that yoke which is easy, and that burden
which is light. That man who has the deepest and most
grateful sense of Christ as his sin-forgiver, will ever feel
the deepest obligation to Christ as his legislator, his master,
and his Lord ; and he has no right sense of Christianity or
of its Author, who imagines that his deliverance from the
condemnation of sin is excuse from his duty to Qbey all the
prescriptions of his Lord, or a warrant to cease to let his
light so shine before men that they, seeing his good works,
might glorify his Father which is in heaven.
We gather from the context that the poor man went im
mediately to the temple. How beautiful is this trait in his
character! He sees Divinity in his cure; he recognises
the Lord of the temple in the restoration he has expe
rienced ; and instinctively, after reaping so gracious a bless
ing, he goes to that holy place, that there he may openly,
before the world, render praise and thanksgiving to -him
who had compassion on him, and delivered him. Do you
do so, my dear reader, when you are healed and raised from
the bed of sickness ? When you thank the physician who
was the instrument, do you not often forget to thank God
who gave to the physician all his skill, and communicated
to the medicine all its virtue ? Let us never forget, that
our being raised from a sick-bed is a reason for our going
to the temple, and presenting in the temple, in the midst
of the great congregation, praise and thanksgiving to him
who blessed the means, and without whose blessing all the
medicine that could have been prescribed would only have
been as dust, worthless and without virtue.
And when the poor man went to the temple, was he dis-

BETHESDA AND ITS BLESSINGS. 205
appointed in finding him who was justly called the Lord
of the temple ? No, for we read that Jesus finds him there.
Never did adoring gratitude draw near to Christ to thank
him, and was either repelled or unheard. Never yet did
a sinner seek Christ, and miss him. Let it be known to
every creature on earth, that never did man, conscious of
his sin, seek by earnest prayer the forgiveness of the Sa
viour, and experience rejection, or lose an answer to his
prayer. He himself has committed his word to the truth
of this: "Seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be
opened." "He never said to the seed of Jacob, Seek ye
my face in vain."
Mark the address of our Lord to the man whom he had
cured: "Go, and sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto
thee." Jesus did here what we cannot copy, and which
we ought not to attempt to copy; he traced the connection
between the sufferings of thirty-eight years and some spe
cific sin which clung to that man's character; he saw at
one glance unrolled before his eye all the biography of the
man, and he beheld at one point in that biography eight
and thirty years long the sin which had been the prolific
parent of all the sufferings he had endured for so long and
so painful a period. But while Christ, who saw the past,
the present, and the future, could thus trace the connection
between the special sin and the special suffering, we, to
whom the past is often perplexed enough, to whose eyes
the present is partially seen, and from whom the future is
sequestered by a vail that we cannot penetrate, are not
warranted in pronouncing that special suffering is the result
of a special sin; we are commanded to conclude, as our
Saviour taught the Jews to conclude, "Think ye that those
eighteen men, upon whom the tower of Siloam fell, were
sinners above all men? I tell you nay," — showing that if
in one instance he traced the connection, in another in-
18

206 FORESHADOWS.
stance he showed there was no connection — " I tell you nay,
but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." In the
great majority of cases we are called upon, where we can
not see clearly, to judge with the greatest caution, always
with the greatest charity ; because this is not the day when
"justice is laid to the line, and equity to the plumb-line,"
or when each individual is dealt with according to his de
merits. That day is to come. This is the day of grace,
when sin is forgiven : there will be its sequel, the day of
judgment, when sin will be punished. But while all this
is perfectly true, it is not improbable that many a man
suffers in his old age for the sins of his young days. It is
too true, that many a one — his own conscience the faithful
and infallible interpreter — endures in his later years the
penalties of the sins and crimes which he committed in his
earlier days ; and very often too, God punishes the sinner
in the same way in which the sinner sinned. Thus Jacob,
the deceiver, is punished by being deceived himself; thus
David, who violated the sanctities and purities of home,
was punished by seeing similar sins, and feeling analogous
penalties, in his own home. And many a one, if he will
examine himself — while neither minister nor brother is to
pronounce upon him — may see in his sufferings, as in a
bright mirror, the sins that he committed either in the light
that he had, or, without the light that was competent to
direct him in the days of his youth. But each man is to
examine himself; no man's minister or brother is to do it
for him. The apostle says, "examine yourselves;" "ex-
mine your own souls." And may the Spirit of God lead
you to a right judgment.
Another thought is suggested by the words of our Lord,
"lest a worse thing come unto thee." A worse thing.
Eight and thirty years of suffering on his bed, inability to
move a limb, to enjoy the scenes and festivities of social

BETHESDA AND ITS BLESSINGS. 207
life — why, what worse thing than this, one might ask, could
possibly happen to him ? That remark of our Saviour is
like the lifting of a nook of the curtain that shrouds from
us the awful future penalties of sin. It shows that sin is
an exceeding great evil, and that thirty-eight years of suf
fering was not the worst and sorest penalty that is paid for
a sin committed in this life.
The man, when thus acquitted and absolved, instantly
went forth to proclaim the glories of his Physician ; he
went and told the Jews who it was that healed him. In
this he presents a noble precedent for us. He who has
found a medicine that has healed his disease is sure to go
and tell his brother, suffering under the same disease, of
the medicine that will do him good ; so the man who has
found a Saviour who has forgiven his sins will be sure to
run and tell every one he meets that there is forgiveness
with God, that he may be feared. In other words, we are
made the saints of God, that we may become the servants
of men. He that receives from on high the unction of the
Christian, feels instantly devolving on him the responsi
bilities of the servant. No man is a Christian who is not
a missionary. When I use the word missionary, I use
merely what expresses the duties that a teacher can dis
charge in a school, that a father ought to discharge in his
family, and that any one may discharge by proxy, by
sending missionaries to distant lands and heathen climes
in order to instruct those that are in darkness. Whatever
be the formula in which missionary zeal expends itself,
this law remains ever in force, — that he who has been the
greatest receiver will also feel bound to be the greatest
giver ; and having received so great a mercy as salvation
from his Lord, he will not rest until all within the reach
of his influence shall be made to taste of, or at least to
have the offer of that mercy too,

208 FORESHADOWS.
But we read that when the poor man went and told the
Jews of the great Physician, like many a poor missionary,
he met with very little success. He could not help this.
We have long ago learned that we are not to judge of
duties by the contingent success that follows them. The
success rests with God ; the duty devolves upon us : ours
are duties ; his, and his only, are the issues. We must
be no more discouraged so as to despair when we fail of
success, than we must be encouraged so as to presume
when we meet with success. We must still cleave to the
duty, when all seems to be against us, just as we do when
all seems to be with us ; knowing that it is he that gives
the blessing, or withholds it in his sovereignty, who has
called upon us to go and do what he enjoins us.
The Jews were not benefited by what the man said ; on
the contrary, they continued their cavils ; they shut their
eyes to the eloquent lesson of the miracle, and opened
them only to the supposed violation of their superstitious
notions on the Jewish or Christian sabbath. Our Lord's
reply was a conclusive one: "You blame me for working
a miracle on the sabbath ; you blame the man for doing
my bidding, and carrying the couch on which he lay, like
a trophy of his cure, upon the sabbath. You argue, the
sabbath is the holy rest ; ' Remember the sabbath-day to
keep it holy;' on that day there shall be no work, 'neither
thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle,
nor the stranger within thy gates.' You argue truly, it
is rest ; but you misapprehend whatJfhe nature of that
rest is. You say, that God rested on the sabbath. So he
did ; but you forget, that while he rested on the sabbath,
he 'worketh hitherto,' and just as he worketh hitherto, 'I
work.' " As if he had said, if I may expand his sentiment,
"Who is it that waters the fields of corn upon the sabbath
morning as upon the Saturday night? Who is it that

BETHESDA AND ITS BLESSINGS. 209
makes the grass to grow in sabbath sunshine as well as
amid Saturday's rains? Who is it that hears the cry
of the raven on Sunday morning, and feeds it ? Who is
it that keeps up the pulsation of every heart, from which,
if God were to withdraw his finger for a moment, each
heart would be still, and life would instantly depart?"
The answer is, It is God. " Therefore (argues our Sa
viour) God works upon the sabbath just as he works upon
the week-day. ' My Father worketh hitherto, and I also
work.' " There is something exquisitely beautiful in this,
"My Father worketh hitherto, and I also work." In our
hospitals, wards, and sick-rooms; in the broken limb,
where the bone is gradually united ; in the severed muscle,
where a mediatorial substance, typical and significant of a
higher mediation, is put forth that rejoins it ; in the health
that returns to the withered frame — we read in all these
sick-beds, and 'in all these wards, our Father working
hitherto, on Saturday and Sunday, and on all the days of
the week. We have the same process taking place in our
hospitals every day that took place at the pool of Bethesda ;
only in our hospitals, sick-rooms, and wards, God uses
nurses, medicines, physicians; while in the case of the
pool of Bethesda he bade them all stand aside, and healed
without them. The difference was in the time of the cure,
not either in the author or in the virtue requisite to the
cure. In our hospitals and wards he works by Bethesda
— the means ; at the pool of Bethesda he worked without
it, and above it ; out in both cases, whether Christ heals
by a word, or by a medicine ; whether he heals by moist
clay, or by a physician, it is all the same — the Healer
working hitherto. It is he alone who healeth our dis
eases, and satisfieth our mouth with good things ; and to
him, as did the impotent man, we ought still to give the
praise, the honour, and the glory.
18*

210 FORESHADOWS.
But while thus seeing that God works upon the sabbath,
let us recollect that his works are in keeping with the
spirit of the sabbath — works of beneficence, of goodness,
and of love. So our rest on the sabbath is not a rest from
working, but only a rest from working our own works. It
is like the rest' in heaven: it is said, "they rest;" and
yet it is said, " They rest not day nor night, giving praise,
and glory, and honour, and blessing unto the Lamb, and
to him that sitteth upon the throne for evermore."
This reminds me of what has been long threatened in
our land, but which I hope will not take place — that the
post-office is to be opened, or at least partially so, upon
the sabbath, and much of the stir and bustle and toil of a
Saturday to be exhibited upon that day which, with all its
flaws and faults, has on the whole, and in comparison with
the continent, been so sacredly observed in the midst of
us. I am thoroughly assured of the accuracy of the state
ment made by the chief-magistrate of London, at a meet
ing over which he presided, that if the letters that come
from the country and the continent are to be carried
through the post-office on the sabbath-day, there will be
present three or four times the number of clerks. But
what is a clerk's life worth ? Who cares whether it be
twenty or thirty years, or whether he die, and is damned
for ever ? This is the feeling of avaricious men, who are
prepared to screw out of men's muscles, and bones, and
souls, money-, money, honestly if they can, but money
still. But London letters, it is said, are not to be deli
vered on Sunday. Through letters only are to be trans
mitted. And what will be the effect of this? London
will say : " The letters that arrive on Sunday morning
are transmitted instantly to Liverpool, while our letters
lie in the post-office till next day ; Liverpool, therefore,
will know the markets twelve hours before we do. It is

BETHESDA AND ITS BLESSINGS. 211
not fair that the Liverpool merchants should be better off
than we ; let us have our letters too." The nobleman
then will say, " If the merchant has his letters, why should
I not have mine ?" And the tradesman will say, " If the
merchants and gentry have their letters, why should I not
have mine?" And in less than twelve months we shall
have hundreds of clerks and hundreds of postmen em
ployed, the post-office working, counting-houses open, the
clerks at their places, and the correspondence going on as
usual. Surely, after the recent national deliverance that
this great nation has reaped at the hand of God, it will
bring down the most awful and consuming judgments if,
in its national character — and I care not who hears what
I say — it shall thus nationally sin against the Lord of the
sabbath, that sabbath which is the exponent of a nation's
Christianity more than any other fact that I can quote or
refer to. It is, incontestibly, matter of history, that
wheresoever the sabbath has been hallowed, there Chris
tianity has flourished. I do not stop to inquire whether
the sabbath be the product of Christianity or Christianity
be the product of the sabbath, but this I feel — that the
sabbath is the index of the ebb and flow of Christianity in
the midst of us. Wherever it has been concluded that
there shall be no sabbaths, the result has very soon fol
lowed — no Christianity ; and also, as France can testify
in its sanguinary records — no God. I believe that Paris
has suffered more from the exhaustion of its sabbaths than
ever it did from the writings of Diderot and Voltaire ; so
I believe that Germany, and Vienna especially, has suf
fered more from the loss of its sabbaths than from all the
skeptical productions of the great Frederick. In the pre
sent day, I am convinced that the last dying effort of the
infidel against Christianity is to be made in this direction.
The persecutor of Christians and of Christianity does not

212 FORESHADOWS.
see any prospect of being able to use successfully his
ancient weapons against the gospel. Past experiments
have all failed ; persecution has been felt by Satan him
self to have been one of his grossest blunders. Christianity
rose from the martyr's fire radiant with more terrible
beauty. And the more that Christians suffered, the more
Christianity spread. The inquisition is not likely to appear
a production of the nineteenth century; auto-da-fe's are
not at all likely to be found in the streets of London ; and
the skeptic's only experience tells him that weapons of
reasoning, of fact, and of history, and evidence, are wea
pons very perilous to his cause ; for he has failed in the
use of them, and if he wield the same weapons he will
signally fail again. He finds that open siege will not do,
that open assault will fail ; and therefore he now attempts
sapping and mining ; he will endeavour to introduce into
popular preference the love of whatever is calculated to
make the sabbath a day of pleasure and of pleasure-taking,
of business and of money-making, a day of spectacles, and
tea-gardens, and military reviews, after the example of
our continental neighbours ; he sees that he can make the
railway and the steamboat far more powerful weapons of
assault on Christianity than any weapon taken from the
inquisition or from the arsenals of history, reason, or fact
which he has heretofore employed. Should this succeed,
farewell to the progress of the gospel in the midst of us.
It will not be Christianity that will suffer by the loss of
our sabbath, but it will be our country that will suffer ;
our candlestick will then indeed be removed, and other
lands will have the light which we in God's mercy have
received, but which, by our ingratitude, we have almost
extinguished. This mode of aggression which I have alluded to is, 1
feel, less justified, or rather sanctioned, at the present day

BETHESDA AND ITS BLESSINGS. 213
than at any other time. When I heard of the railway,
and of the wonderful discoveries of steam and electricity,
I thought, " Surely this will furnish stronger reasons,
kindly produced in the providence of God, for hallowing
the sabbath than ever before." Some time ago it took,
at the greatest possible speed, to send a letter to the capital
of Scotland, three days ; now they can transmit a message
in a few minutes, and send a letter in twelve hours. Surely,
instead of making this grand discovery, given us in the
goodness of God, a new reason for desecrating the sabbath,
bestowed by the grace of God, it ought to be a reason
rather for more heartfelt remembering the sabbath day to
keep it holy.
And let us remember, that they who will most suffer
temporally, I do not say spiritually, will be the poor ser
vants, the employed, the poor man in every shape and form.
Most persons well know the law of what is called political
economy — that the more labour there is in the market, the
less pay will there be to the labourer; when there is a
surplus of labour, there must be a deficiency in the pay
ment of the labourer ; when there are few labourers, with
little labour in the market, then labour will meet with a
high price. Now, throwing a seventh day into the labour
market will be equivalent to introducing a seventh portion
more of labourers into the field.; and the consequence will
be, that the working man will get for his seven days' labour
probably less wages than he now gets for six ; but there
will also be stamped upon him the brand of a slave through
out the remainder of his life. Surely that beautiful day
is the poor man's glory, when the servant is free from his
master ; when all men may meet together, and feel the en
nobling persuasion that they are the peers of God, if they
should be the despised plebeians of men ; that beautiful
day which is the pearl of days, the queen, as it were, of

214 FORESHADOWS.
the week; that place of sunshine which seems like an
island broken off from the continent of heaven, and let
fall into the midst of the roar, and rush, and eddies of
this world's traffic ; whereon man standing, may catch a
glimpse of the better land, and may hear the music of the
skies ; and may go forth from his sabbath-day's refresh
ment to his week-day's work, strong to serve his master,
glorify his God, and promote the cause of that Master
which is thus dearer to him than all besides. Part with
your cathedrals — architects can build other and better
ones ; but part not with your sabbaths : part with any
thing, however precious it may be, with life itself — but, as
patriots, as Christians, having received your sabbaths from
your fathers in all their beauty, determine that when your
children shall stand beside the graves where the green sods
cover you, they shall be able to say, as they recollect your
memory, "If our fathers did not increase our heritage,
they did not diminish it; but, having received a trust
sacred from their fathers, they have handed it down to
their children; they have laboured, and we have entered
into their labours."
I am convinced that so good men, as many of those are
who are now in power, will not consent to the desecration
of the sabbath, which would be, perhaps, the greatest ca
lamity they could inflict upon the poor man. We have
sinned as a nation already ; God grant that we may not
add to our national sins.
But suppose the sabbath were thrown into the crowd of
the week-days, do you think all sense of our need of such
a day would perish ? No ; the sabbath is not an arbitrary
enactment, but a physical necessity, an element in our
very nature and constitution. Every muscle in our body
is an argument for the sabbath ; it will not bear to be all
the year fatigued for seven days in the week. Our very

BETHESDA AND ITS BLESSINGS. 215
cattle furnish an argument in favour of the sabbath. The
man who wishes to get the largest and the longest work
from a horse, knows quite well that he must give him a
seventh portion of his time for rest, or he will fail to serve
him as he would do otherwise. I care not whether the
day be Saturday or Sunday, as far as the horse is con
cerned ; I am speaking only of the physical law, that the
brute creation, "the cattle within thy gates," must have
rest in order most efficiently to do thy work. So shall we
find it with men. The man that works seven days every
week of the year in the same weary round will not live
half his time. The man who can go upon the sabbath-day
to the house of God, and change the current of his thoughts,
feelings, desires, emotions, add to his knowledge, and vary
his attention, secures a change for his mind, and so for his
body, of the most precious description. In the walk, too,
that he has to the sanctuary, he has at least a little exer
cise. And when we have shorter hours and equal pay, as
I hope will be, and as every day leads me to believe will
soon be, you will not need to take any portion of the sab
bath for fresh air ; you will have a portion of Saturday
given you, in justice as well as in generosity, for the re
freshment of the body, and to prepare you for the exer
cises of the sanctuary on the sabbath. The Greeks and
Romans had their festivals ; the Mohammedans have still
the seventh portion of their time; and in all countries
there are days on which there is a cessation of business.
And why? Because man cannot stand perpetual work.
Let sacredness be separated from the sabbath, and what
will take place? Men must be free at intervals; they
must be loosed; they cannot stand incessant drudgery.
The public-house, the play-house, the various scenes of
amusement, dissipation, and folly, will all be opened; the
flood-gates of sin and immorality will be removed ; sti-

216 FORESHADOWS.
mulants to all sorts of depravity will be presented ; and
this country, which is a perfect contrast, as I can testify
from personal knowledge, to all the countries around us,
will sink to a deeper degradation because of the pinnacle
of privilege from which she has fallen. Let us, then, up
hold the sacredness of the sabbath in its integrity; but
while we rest from the works that are our own, let us not
rest from those works which are for the glory of God and
the good of our fellow-men ; remembering that we, like
Christ, must say, as we must feel, " My Father worketh
hitherto, and I also work." May the Lord bless every
effort to keep the sabbath, and give us a delight in it,
calling it a delightful day, for Christ's sake ! Amen.

217

LECTURE XII.
THE FISHERMEN.
And it came to pass, that, as the people pressed upon him to hear the word of
God, he stood by the lake of Gennesaret, and saw two ships standing by the
lake: but the fishermen were gone out of them, and were washing their nets.
And he entered into one of the ships, which was Simon's, and prayed him
that he would thrust out a little from the land. And he sat down, and taught
the people out of tho ship. Now when he had left speaking, he said unto
Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught. And
Simon answering said unto him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have
taken nothing : nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net. And when
they had this done, they enclosed a great multitude of fishes : and their net
brake. And they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other ship,
that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the
ships, so that they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down
at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me ; for I am a sinful man, 0 Lord.
For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the draught of the fishes
which they had taken. — Luke v. 1-9.
We find Jesus, in the opening part of the chapter from
which I have selected the words for our lecture, surrounded
by the people pressing on him to hear the word of the Lord ;
and himself going into a boat, a large fishing-boat, (here
rendered ship ;) and, seated upon that, instructing the peo
ple in the things of everlasting life.
It appears that while the crowd were listening to him
who spake as never man spake, Peter and the rest that
were with him were busy washing their nets. This was
their trade ; they were in their proper employment, feeling
— what we need to feel and be taught — that we serve God
as truly when we do the duties of our station as when we
preach the gospel or carry the ark of the Lord. It is
19

218 FORESHADOWS.
possible to glorify God wherever his providence has placed
us; and they that have right hearts will never find them
selves engaged in the wrong work.
When he had left speaking to the people, it is added, he
addressed Simon Peter, and said, Launch out into the deep,
and let down your nets for a draught. But Peter objected,
stating that they had already been labouring in the night
season, which was the best season for catching fish ; and
it having failed, it was unreasonable to expect they would
succeed in the daytime. But still, with that beautiful do
cility which grace nourished and strengthened within him,
he recognised his Master's authority in his Master's pre
sence, and said, "Nevertheless at thy word I will let down
the net."
In looking at the whole of this miracle, we witness an
other of those beautiful and impressive scenes which so
frequently occur in the life and biography of Jesus, in
which we know not which most to admire — the divine
power and lofty beneficence that broke forth in his actions,
or the wonderful wisdom that developed itself in the teach
ing that he founded upon them. We see evidence, at all
events, in this of a new fact in the history of Jesus — that
the sea and land were equally obedient to him — that all the
fishes of the deep, the flowers of the earth, the husbandmen
in the field, and the fishermen at their nets, were all un
complainingly subject to his control, and could all be made
instructive teachers to his believing and his obedient peo
ple. We see in Christ the true Land-lord and the true Sea-
lord, the Lord of heaven and of earth, whom all things in
heaven, and all things on earth, and all things under the
sea perpetually obey.
From this one miracle Jesus educes the consecration of
his earliest apostles, of his first followers, to be ministers
of the gospel and teachers of all nations. In fact, Jesus

THE FISHERMEN. 219
saw over all creation, as if on one grand and beautiful ca
thedral, many a holy and significant inscription; he had
only to look upon them with his glorious countenance, and
instantly their meaning became apparent. And if we had
the anointed eye and the sanctified heart, we too, as the
poet says, should hear "sermons in stones," and read les
sons of piety everywhere.
Jesus bade Simon, as I have noticed, launch out. He
could have brought ten thousand fishes on the shore, and
left them high and dry upon the beach, if he had pleased;
but he did not do so. He commands the use of means:
no means are of weight unless Christ bless them ; and the
least are sufficient if his blessing be with them. Try to
do something for him, or connected with his cause, by the
greatest means, under the greatest patronage, but in de
fiance of his blessing, and disaster is sure to be the con
sequence ; but attempt the greatest things in connection
with his cause, and for the glory of his name, in humble
reliance on his blessing, and you will learn the lesson that
has been written upon all the history of the past, and will
be writ upon the earth when restored from its ruin, and on
the sky when illuminated with a new and lasting glory :
"It is not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith
the Lord of hosts."
Let me notice Peter's objections. First, they were
weary and exhausted; they had been fishing and toiling,
spreading their nets and drawing them in, the whole night ;
and as they had failed in the season most fitted for fishing,
it was improbable and unlikely that they should succeed in
the daylight, which was not so suited for that employment.
But very lovingly does Peter add, "Nevertheless" — though
my own reason is against thine; though my conclusions
are the opposite of thine ; though I am a fisherman, and
have the greater experience in my trade, and the knowledge

220 FORESHADOWS.
of the best seasons for prosecuting it, and of all the like.
lihoods or unlikelihoods of success that may attend it—
"nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net." My
reason shall be laid prostrate at thy feet; my conclusions
shall be dismissed ; and because thou biddest me, I will do
it. What a precedent for us ! Peter, if he had rugged
features in his character, had also under these rugged fea
tures depths of tender and beautiful emotion, lowliness and
humility of heart, worthy of all imitation on our part. It
is a precedent, I say, for us. Our first thing should be to
take care that we have a commandment from God ; the
second thing is, to care little about the obstructions in our
way, or the difficulties we shall meet with in obeying that
command. It will simplify extremely our course through
out the whole of life, if our first inquiry shall be, "Is this
according to the mind, or, still higher, is it according to
the command of God?" And if it be, you are to regard
mountains as plains and valleys as level, and to know that
nothing shall deprive him of success who goes forth to
duty in obedience to the command and in reliance on the
blessing of his Lord.
The consequence of Peter's single eye, and single-hearted
obedience to the word of Christ, was unprecedented suc
cess. They enclosed so many fishes that the nets began to
break, and the large boats, or half ships and half boats,
began to sink with the load. Many have tried to explain
this. The Rationalists, who are always labouring to get
rid of a miracle, have tried to explain it away ; and not
the Rationalists of Germany only; — do we not detect in
our own bosoms, whenever we read of any thing superna
tural, a desire to see if it cannot be explained in some
other way? whether it cannot be reduced to a lower level?
whether there be not some law that will explain the phe
nomenon without supposing it to be the response to the

THE FISHERMEN. 221
instant touch of the Sovereign Ruler of all things? The
tendency of great learning, without grace, is to explain
every thing supernatural by what are called "laws," or
"second causes." The tendency of great ignorance, with
out grace, is to see all sorts of forms of superstition in
every thing that occurs, and to explain nothing as natural,
or ordinary, or to be expected. But the tendency of the
highest learning and the least learning, inspired by the
grace of God, is to recognise God's finger where God says
it is, and to be satisfied in so doing. The explanation
given by some of the expounders of Scripture in Germany
is, Jesus happened at the time to pass a shoal of fish, and
he saw them as they passed, and, just at the moment when
success was certain, he made them launch out the net.
This is man's commentary upon God's word. But is it
likely that Jesus — supposing him to be what they say he
was, a mere human teacher, in the presence of Peter, who
was, as they will admit, a thoroughly experienced and prac
tical fisherman — a peasant, unaccustomed to fishing, should
have been able to detect the fish at a distance much sooner
and easier than the fishermen, who had been brought up at
that trade all their life long ? I have myself stood upon a
bridge of the Dee, near the stream by which the days of
my boyhood were spent, and have seen a fisherman watch
ing for salmon as they came up the stream ; and while his
experienced eye could see the fish many hundred yards
distant, I could not see it even when it was passing through
the arches of the bridge on which I stood. His eye had
a tact, from trained habits, that mine had not. So seamen
can detect a sail at sea when landsmen can see nothing
but fog. This explanation of the Rationalists, therefore,
is contradictory and suicidal. The presumption is, that
Peter would have seen the shoal, and, anxious to make up
for the disappointments of the night, would have been the
19*

222 FORESHADOWS.
first to launch out and catch the fish at the proper time ;
rather than that Jesus, unacquainted with the trade, and
unaccustomed to its observations, should have first seen the
fish and suggested pursuit. Surely it is far more simple,
and accordant with right reason, and with a proper and
simple-minded acceptance of God's word, to see in this
the finger of God ; to recognise upon the lake of Genne
sareth him to whom belongs the Psalm, " 0 Lord, our Lord,
how excellent is thy name in all the earth ! who hast set
thy glory above the heavens. * * * All sheep and oxen,
yea, and the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air, and
the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the
paths of the seas" — all these things are put under his feet.
At that lake of Gennesareth, then, was present the Lord
and Sovereign of the heavens, the earth, and the sea ; and
he had only to speak, or signify his simple volition, and
all things would deeply feel the presence of their Lord, and
instantly obey.
Let us notice here another interesting feature — namely,
our Lord availing himself of the previous trade and habits
of his followers, and consecrating these trades and habits
to a new and glorious mission. In fact, this feature per
vades the whole of God's word. It is stated in the Old
Testament Scripture, that David, feeding the sheep of his
father Jesse, was brought to be a king, and the subjects
of that kingdom were handed to him as the sheep of his
fold. The magi, who were astronomers, were brought to
Jesus by a star that stood in the firmament over the place
where he was. The Samaritan woman, who came, as pro
bably was her business, and as she had done for many a
day and many a year, to draw water, was led by Jesus
from drawing water at Jacob's well, to drink living water
from the Fountain of Jacob's God. We may recollect
how the Capernaites, greedy, and looking only for the

THE FISHERMEN. 223
loaves and fishes, were instructed by Jesus in the true
bread which cometh down from heaven, and of which if a
man eat, he shall live for ever. And here you see Peter,
and James, and John, who were fishermen, are taught that
their trade is only the earthly pedestal on which its divine
and spiritual significance shall shine and glow afar ; and
that out of the meanest trades and the most repulsive
employments there can be extracted, by the touch and will
of Jesus, a holy and a blessed mission. Perhaps there
was more in this than mere accidental circumstances — if
any circumstance at all can be called accidental. The
trade, the profession, the business to which one has been
brought up, is that whose formulas, whose modes, whose
habits have become most inveterate in our minds ; and
when that is the case, to illustrate Divine truth by ap
pealing to recognised habits, and felt prejudices even, and
prepossessions, is the most effective way of bringing home
great lessons to the mind of the most of mankind.
But I must now turn to the miracle itself. When the
net was taken in full of fishes, and the boats were full too,
Peter was overwhelmed, or, to use the language of the
text, "he was astonished, and all that were with him;"
and "he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from
me, for I am a sinful man, 0 Lord." He felt the presence
of Deity ; the stupendous miracle indicated to Peter's
mind the nearness of him who is the holy, holy, holy One ;
and under the overwhelming impression of a present God,
he gave utterance to that which was the first and deepest
emotion in his heart. There are crises in the experience
of men, when one is so overwhelmed by some great spec
tacle, or some dread fact, that all the ordinary currency
of human speech disappears, all the conventionalisms of
human intercourse are swept away, and that which is
deepest in our hearts seems to well up from the heart's

224 FORESHADOWS.
inner and most hidden springs, and to find expression on
our lips, so as to let men see and hear what is really and
truly within us. It was so in the case of Peter : he gave
utterance to the deepest feeling of his heart, when he said,
"Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, 0 Lord." And
so it has been in the Old Testament Scriptures, whenever
God has manifested himself. When God revealed himself
to Moses, the people said, " Speak thou with us, and we
will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die."
We also recollect what Manoah said, " We shall surely
die, for we have seen the Lord." In the case of Isaiah,
when the Lord Jesus was revealed to him — declared to
have been Christ, by Christ himself — he said, "Wo is
me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips ;
for mine eyes have seen the Lord of hosts." Is there not
in the language which Peter used, when he felt the pre
sence of Jesus, the echo of the very language used by
Moses, Manoah, and Isaiah, when they recognised the pre
sence of the Lord of hosts ? And is there not here an in
direct — we should say in human writing undesigned; cer
tainly in a Divine writing we can say indirect — evidence
that he that gathered the fishes into the net — that sat
upon the bow of the boat, and taught the people — that
Peter recognised as the carpenter's son, but wonderfully
gifted, and still more wonderfully graced (for Peter was
not yet sure who he was) — was he who appeared in the
burning bush, who spake to Moses, who was manifested to
Manoah, who revealed himself amid angels and archangels
to Isaiah ; in short, the Lord of hosts, the King of glory
— so far indirect evidence therefore of the Deity of Christ?
But in this language of Peter, so perfectly natural, and
having so many precedents in previous expressions used on
similar occasions, there was much that consisted of griev
ous misapprehension, although there was much that was true

THE FISHERMEN. 225
and becoming in the circumstances in which he was
placed. Nearn-ess to God is ever humbling to man. A really
wise man, a really learned man, is always, and must always
be, a truly humble man. It is a law even in human learning,
that the more we learn, the more we discover to be learned.
When we see our horizon, and go to its margin, we find
we are only in the centre of another horizon equally as
large. When we climb one crag of the mountain, and
think we have reached its summit, we find there is another
portion as high still to be climbed. So much so is this,
that the personation of the greatest acquaintance with the
sky and all its glorious contents, Sir Isaac Newton, after
he had swept the canopy of heaven, weighed the stars,
estimated their distances, determined their density, de
clared at the close that so little did he see and know, and
so little had he yet discovered, that he felt he was like a
little child gathering pebles and shells upon the sea-beach,
while the great unsounded ocean stretched still before him.
But if such be the feeling in the study of human know
ledge, which has a bottom, how deep must be the feeling
in the sight of that infinite holiness which we can neither
fathom, conceive, nor express ! It is in the presence of
God that the splendour of human wisdom dims and becomes
pale ; it is in such a presence that the radiance of infinite
holiness deepens all the shades of conscious sin. Never
does the stain of crime appear so deep in its dye, so heinous
in its demerits, as when it is seen in the light of that God
who has told the wicked — the most awful statement in the
Bible — that he will set their secret sins in the light of his
countenance. At present, when we look at sin, it appears
to us insignificant, just because the medium, through which
we see it, and the organ, the inner eye, with which we
look at it, are both so imperfect. But when sin shall be
seen in the intense light of God, its stain will have a

226 FORESHADOWS.
heinousness so real, so deep, that we shall only wonder
that Scripture did not use yet stronger language to denote
it, and that we ever supposed that the language which
Scripture does use was stronger than was actually re
quired. In proportion, then, as man sees God, in the
same proportion will he become humbled: Christendom
shall be prostrate on the pavement, and say, probably,
surely with no faint lips, "We are sinful men;" when
there shall be revealed through its length and breadth the
glory of him who is the holy, holy, holy One of Israel.
Look at sin in the light of the law, and it is exceeding
sinful; look at sin in the light of God the Legislator, and
it appears still more sinful ; but look at sin in the light of
the countenance of Jesus, and it not only seems to be the
deepest stain, but to be charged with the intensest base
ness and ingratitude to our Benefactor. Nearness, then,
to Deity, I have said, creates and teaches great humility
in man ; but it will not only teach us our sinfulness, and
cause us to say, as Peter said, "I am a sinful man," but
it will prompt us, if we have nothing better to guide us,
to say, "Depart from me." Why? Because the holy
God, revealed to the unholy creature, is a consuming fire ;
and when we see our sins in the light^ and effulgence and
blaze of that consuming fire,1 we instantly feel that our
only chance of safety is in separation from God. Most
natural was the sentiment, " I am sinful," when God looked
upon the sinner; equally natural was the prayer, "Depart
from me, for I am a sinful man." Yet Peter knew not what
he said : departure from God is the very essence of hell ;
nearness to God is the very essence and central element
of heaven. The incessant litany of the lost is, " Depart
from us;" and the farther they depart from God, and God
from them, the more dire and intolerable that misery
becomes. And yet the cry was natural on the part of

THE FISHERMEN. 227
Peter, "Depart from me," because he had the sense of
danger, the sense of demerit, he had no clear apprehension
of a Saviour, and felt therefore that safety was only in
severance and distance from God.
But our blessed Lord does not take Peter at his word :
he does not depart from Peter, but draws near to him.
All flesh cried, before Christ came, "Depart from us;"
"No God!" Its conscious sin made it deprecate the ap
proach of the great Legislator. But God's ways are not
as our ways ; and therefore, instead of departing from us,
as all humanity beseeched him, he came near to us. We
read in an old writer of the second or third century, that
such were the crimes, so flagrant the abominations of all
the inhabitants of the earth, at the birth of Jesus, that a
crisis had arrived so terrible that either God must crush
the world he had made, or convert it, and bring it back to
himself. Humanity expected judgment, and, lo! God
came unexpectedly in mercy and in love. And just while
Peter was saying, "Depart from me," Jesus was giving
expression to the consolatory words, "Fear not." How
interesting, and yet how, like God ! he comes over the
mountains of our transgression, forgiving, cheering, com
forting, and presenting himself, not as a consuming fire,
but as the Asylum for the oppressed, as the Physician for
the sick, as the Resurrection of the dead, as the great
Saviour in whom was redemption through his blood;
teaching Peter, and us all, not to deprecate his presence
in the language of the lost, "Depart from me," but to
court his presence in the language of the blessed, "Lord,
to whom can we go but unto thee? Thou hast the words
of eternal life." Never let us forget, that when we have
gone farthest from God, our safety is, not in lengthening
that departure, but in returning to God. His invitation
is, "Return, backsliding Israel, and I will heal you;" so

228 FORESHADOWS.
our nearest course is still to return — our only safe one ia
to arise and go to your Father. Never say, "Depart
from us;" never breathe, "No God." Let our breathing,
our prayer, our entreaty be, "Lord Jesus, to whom can
we go but unto thee? Thou hast the words of eternal
life." Our Lord, we read, taught Peter, "Henceforth thou
shalt catch men;" using the trade to which Peter had
been accustomed, in order to illustrate the great mission
on which he was now sending him. It is remarkable, as
I have been saying, that in every instance almost in the
Old Testament Scripture, God lays hold of the gifts and
the knowledge that each individual has, and consecrates
these to the higher cause and to the nobler work to which
he has called and appointed them. "Thou shalt catch
men;" and you shall learn from the trade which you are
now leaving as profane, many a holy, instructive, and di
rective lesson in that sublimer employment to which I
have now called you. And when we think of Peter's em
ployment, catching fish, and Peter's new — not holier, but
more useful one, catching men, we see something that is
contrast, and something that is similarity. Then he
caught fishes — his only reward; now he shall catch im
mortal men, heirs of glory. Then he caught fishes only
for death; now he shall catch men for life and happiness
for ever. Then he caught the fishes by deceit, by decep
tion, by overreaching, if I might apply such language to
the craft of a fisherman ; now he shall catch, not by guile,
nor by carnal weapons, nor by deceit, but by the truth
spoken freely in love.
It is very remarkable, that in looking at the various
trades or employments which God has sanctified in the
gospel, we find the hunter is never used or referred to as
an employment casting the least light upon any employ-

THE FISHERMEN. 229
ment in connection with the gospel. We read of almost
every other profession of ancient times sanctified : we read
of the shepherd, the astronomer, the servant, the drawer
of water, all consecrated; but we read not of "Nimrod,
the mighty hunter. ' Hunting seems spoken of in Scrip
ture — I speak not now of its merits or demerits — not as a
beautiful, a lovely, or as a Christian employment; but
fishing, which certainly would not, in itself, seem intrinsi
cally nobler, is referred to frequently in Scripture, and
made a storehouse from which illustrations are drawn of
great and precious truths in teaching the gospel of Christ.
It is very remarkable, too, that so much was the idea of
the fish as the type of a Christian, and the fisherman as
the great type of Jesus, incorporated with the feelings and
habits of early Christians, that the anagram which was
written upon ancient churches, which is found in some of
the catacombs, and which is expressly alluded to by Au
gustine and Chrysostom, is I/Olx;, which means a fish.
Christians, when they wished to speak of Christ, frequently
wrote among themselves, and in the presence of the
heathen, //06<r, a fish. They thought there was a sort of
charm in it, some designed harmony or coincidence. Each
letter in the word is the first letter of a name of Jesus.
The first, /, for Yij<roD<r; /, for Xptarog; 6, for Osoo; u, for ulbs;
and a for o-mrrjp: making 'I-qaouq xptoroc; dsou olds, awrjjp,
"Jesus Christ, Son of God, the Saviour." Hence you
often find fyfug mentioned in the writings of the Fathers,
struck on ancient coins, and on the walls of the cata
combs; the meaning of the word, which to a heathen
would simply be "a fish," being "Jesus, who consecrated
the fishermen to be fishers of men, and himself to be the
great Guide and Governor of them all." Thus the pope
of Rome, who keeps up many things by contrast, and thus
reminds one of the great original, calls himself "the fisher-
20

230 FORESHADOWS.
man;" and when he signs any document, adds, "sealed
and signed with the ring of the fisherman:" meaning that
he is a descendant of St. Peter, and that that employment
was consecrated thus to express a great and divine re
lationship. Thus Christ takes the trades to which men have been
accustomed, and makes them the means of teaching them
important lessons ; thus he found the fishermen of Galilee
on the banks of the lake of Gennesareth, and taught them,
and consecrated them to be henceforth fishers of men;
and he taught them, too, by that lesson, that they might
toil all night, spreading the net with the greatest care,
rowing the boat with the greatest energy, and yet not
catch a single fish. So too the minister of the gospel may
preach with the greatest power, he may reason with the
most conclusive logic, and yet all shall be as the tinkling
cymbal and the sounding brass unless God shall bless it.
In the case of Peter, his net was cast all night, spread,
and drawn in, and all was vain ; but the instant that Jesus
poured his blessing on the net, and his benediction on the
deep, that instant he had more even than he could manage.
So the minister of the gospel, the Sunday-school teacher,
the tract distributor, may toil and labour with persevering
and commendable efforts, in all directions, at all hours,
by night and by day, and yet catch nothing; but when
they begin, under a sense of their own insufficiency, to
appeal to the sufficiency. of God, then the morning will
dawn, and the blessing will descend, and they will be made
the joyful fishers of men, to the glory of God and to the
salvation of souls.
We read, as the sequel of this miracle, that the disciples
of Jesus, " when they had brought their ships to land, for
sook all, and followed him." Rationalists have referred to
this circumstance ; and Strauss, especially, with a sneer

THE FISHERMEN. 231
upon this "forsook all," asks, "What right had Peter to
take credit, as he does, for forsaking all ? What did he
forsake ? He forsook nothing worth retaining ; and there
fore to say he forsook«,ll is to exaggerate a very insignificant
act ; and for Peter to take credit for it was to take credit
for a thing of very little value." This proceeds just from
ignorance. Little as it was which they forsook, you must
recollect that they forsook their all. The hut which is all
that a widow has, is just as precious to her, and as reluc
tantly resigned, as the palace which is the royal all of a
queen. Worldliness is not measured by the amount it pos
sesses, but by the tenacity with which it grasps the little
or the much that it has. It is not, therefore, the property
that is sinful, but it is the passion which cleaves with ex
cessive love to that property, be it large or small. Hence
the possessor of a million may be a far less covetous man
than the possessor of £250 a year ; the occupant of a
throne may be a far less proud and ambitious man than
some poor dweller in a cottage. And what we are to leave
and forsake, in the providence of God, is not the property
that God has given us for use, and for consecration, and
for good, but those worldly desires that make the property
all, and the Giver of that property to be dislodged and
displaced by an inferior love and passion. It is not the
world that we are to leave, but worldliness ; it is not money
that we are to forsake — money is a good thing, a most ex
cellent thing — but it is avarice, or the excessive love of
money, that we are to leave ; it is not honour that we are
to refuse, but it is ambition; it. is not power that is given
us in the providence of God that we are to renounce, but
it is the pride which the possession of power is apt to ge
nerate. The world we are to use, as not abusing it ; world
liness we are to forsake. Money we are to consecrate to
the noblest end ; but covetousness we are to abjure. Hence

232 FORESHADOWS.
in Jeremiah we do not read, "Let the wise man put away
his wisdom, let the rich man cast away his riches, let the
strong man deprive himself of his strength," — yet, those
who confound the world with worldliness, and money with
avarice, and wisdom with pride, should so read it, — but the
prophet says, "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom,"
which shows that he may keep his wisdom, "nor the strong
man in his strength, nor the rich man in his riches," which
shows that we may have riches, and yet not be covetous.
We learn, therefore, that we are to forsake all by forsaking
it in spirit, not forsaking it mechanically and in fact : just
as we renounce the world, not by leaving the world me
chanically and going into convents, but by keeping the
world in its place, that God may occupy the throne of our
hearts alone.
When they forsook all, it is said, they followed Christ.
They followed his person, which was then visible to them,
and his principles, which were ever sounding from his lips.
We follow his person, invisible to us, but not unknown, (for
we cannot follow or love the unknown, though we may fol
low and love the unseen,) and we follow his principles still
embodied in the Scriptures — those Scriptures which reason
still of righteousness, and temperance, and judgment. And
in what respects are we to follow Jesus ? Time would fail
me to enumerate all; let me mention one or two.
We are to follow him in self-sacrifice. True, we cannot
offer our lives as a sacrifice for sin, for this he did once,
and it is not to be done again ; but we can surrender all
that is dear, and near, and.precious, when it stands in the
way of acceptance of his word, or obedience to his will.
Jesus went about not merely making a sacrifice for sin, but
as a beautiful example, leaving us a model we are to imitate,
and footprints in which we are carefully and prayerfully to
tread. And if there was one trait more characteristic of

THE FISHERMEN. 233
Jesus than another, it was the intense, the untiring bene
ficence which descended, not, as ours often does, upon those
who we think will appreciate it, or thank us for it ; or who
are of our own party, our own country, or our own deno
mination; but like the rain-drops and sunbeams, on the just
and on the unjust, on the evil and unthankful. One of the
great blights that nip and freeze up our benevolence in its
very bud, is our thinking we are not to oblige a man who
will not repay us, and that we are not to relieve a poor
person because that person will not appreciate our goodness
or give us any thanks. Never shall we have, or feel, or
show the spirit of our Master, till we relieve want because
it is want, and because he bids us, irrespective of what the
subject of that want may think, or say, or return to us.
Self-sacrificing benevolence, for benevolence' sake, was one
of the great and holy characteristics of our blessed Master.
We are also to follow him in another interesting trait —
the subordination which we have noticed in all these mi
racles, and in all the lessons he raised upon them, of what
is circumstantial to what is essential. We have noticed
frequently in his discourses, and inferences, and lessons,
how the one is subordinated to the other. For instance,
he prescribed a form of prayer on one occasion, but he
practised extemporaneous prayer on most occasions; and
lest there should be a dispute about the comparative ex
cellency of the one, or the comparative defects of the other,
he says, "Neither in this mountain nor in that mountain
shall we worship the Father, for God is a Spirit, and they
that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth ;
for such the Father seeketh to worship him." Again, in
the sabbath-day we find him appearing in the synagogue
worshipping with the rest ; and yet doing miracles, in order
to rescue it from the traditionary perversions of the scribes
and Pharisees. Again, with regard to fasting, he shows
20*

234 FORESHADOWS.
how it is proper in one case, but improper in another ; and
that fasting, therefore, still more than the sabbath, was
made for man, not man for fasting.
Another trait in the character of Jesus which we ought
to follow, is his faithful and sublime indifference to the op
position of party, or of power, or of sect, in his discharge of
the solemn and august mission which was committed to his
hands. He tells the Pharisees that they were superstitious
hypocrites, not fearing the wrath of that powerful eccle
siastical faction. On the other hand, he drives the money
changers from their temple, not fearing the revenge of the
money interest, the most powerful then, as it is not the
least powerful now. He defies the wrath of the crafty
Herod, telling him plainly of his craft; and he stands the
most kingly one, when at the tribunal of Pilate, accused
as a criminal before an earthly judge.
Let us in these respects imitate him; let us care little
for prospects of honour, for preferment in the church, for
increase of power, for any thing that man can give ; but
let us fearlessly and faithfully do the duty that devolves
upon us. We may be honoured, we may be popular, we
may be great, we may be rich, but we must be faithful as
ambassadors for God, and servants to his people.
Yet, while we mark in the conduct of Jesus this sublime
indifference to all contingent persecution, we must notice
also the beautiful gentleness that shines through it. Look
at him on one occasion, when he took their babes from the
bosoms of their ragged mothers, and laid his hands upon
them, and blessed them, and told these down-trodden ones
that of such was the kingdom of heaven. Watch him again
sympathizing with the sisters of Bethany, weeping with
them, and bringing back their lost brother to their circle;
or with the widow of Nain, restoring her only son to be
her comfort and her support. Look at him again in his

THE FISHERMEN. 235
last dread agony, when he committed his mother — a beau
tiful example to us — to the charge of John ; and when he
addressed the daughters of Jerusalem, "Weep not for me,
but weep for yourselves."
Because he is our sacrifice, our precious sacrifice, our
only trust, our only atonement, our only righteousness —
we must not lose sight of him as our perfect example, our
model, our precedent in every difficulty in which humanity
can be placed. Whether I look at the silence, or at the
speech of Jesus — at what he did, or at what he taught, or
at what he suffered, or at what he was everywhere, I see
a heart in which every sound of human joy and sorrow
found an echo — I see one whose life throughout was a per
fect model, and whose example is now left with us that we
may follow in his steps. And following him as our sacri
fice and our example upon earth, and our works following
us as the evidence of what we have been to the world
through which we have passed, it shall be written over our
dead ashes, "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord;"
and to our glad souls it shall be said, " Come, ye blessed,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation
of the world."

236

LECTURE XIII.
NATURE SITTING AT THE FEET OF JESUS.
And they came over unto the other side of the sea, into tho country of the
Gadarenos. And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met
him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling
among the tombs ; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains : because
that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been
plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces : neither could any
man tame him. And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and
in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones. But when he saw Jesus
afar off, he ran and worshipped him, and cried with a loud voice, and said,
What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God ? I adjure
thee by God, that thou torment me not. For ho said unto him, Come out of
the man, thou unclean spirit. And he asked him, What is thy name? And
he answered, saying, My name is Legion : for we are many. And he besought
him much that he would not send them away out of the country. Now there
was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding. And all
the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into
them. And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went
out, and entered into the swine : and the herd ran violently down a steep place
into the sea, (they were about two thousand;) and were choked in the sea.
And they that fed the swine fled, and told it in the city, and in the country.
And they went out to see what it was that was done. And they come to
Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion,
sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind : and they were afraid. And they
that saw it told them how it befell to him that was possessed with the devil,
and also concerning the swine. And they began to pray him to depart out
of their coasts. — Make v. 1-17.
We learn, from the close of the previous chapter, that
Jesus had just shown himself the Lord of the storms, the
controller of the elements by which our world is assailed;
and in the commencement of this chapter he shows him
self in a light still more glorious — the Lord of the inner

NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 237
storms by which the human mind is deranged. In the first
case, he stills the sea, and there is a calm; in the second,
he casts out the demon, and he that was possessed is sitting
at his feet, clothed and in his right mind. Now in opening
this miracle, which I have taken as the next in succession,
a great difficulty has been felt by some, and expressed by
not a few, as to there being or not being any real distinc
tion between what are called demoniacal possessions in the
New Testament, and mania, or maladies of various sorts
and degrees of intensity. One fact alone seems to me
almost conclusive on the subject, and it is this, that the
diseases to which the body is incident, and demoniac pos
sessions with which men have been afflicted, are stated by
our Lord himself as distinct and separate things. Thus
he says, for instance, in the Gospel of St. Matthew, iv. 24,
"And his fame went throughout all Syria ; and they brought
unto him all sick people that were taken with divers dis
eases and torments, [that is, one class of afflicted beings ;
then here is another class,] and those which were possessed
with devils, [there is a second class,] and those which were
lunatic;" there is a third class. Now this is not mere re
petition of the same idea in varied phraseology, but it is
the enumeration of three distinct classes of maladies ; and,
in these three distinct classes, possession with demons is
stated to be a separate one. I might show the very same
distinction in Matt. viii. 16, and also in Mark i. 33. I will
refer only to the last, namely Mark i. 33: "And all the
city was gathered together at the door; and he healed
many that were sick of divers diseases, [that's one class,]
and cast out many devils, and suffered not the devils to
speak, because they knew him." Here again the distinc
tion is made broad, clear, and decided between one class
of disease, lunacy, or mania, or any other, and this specific
class of suffering, called demoniacal possession.

238 FORESHADOWS.
In the next place, the language of our Lord on the oc
casion of his casting out devils, is such as to warrant us in
concluding that it was an actual, or literal, demoniacal
possession. When he approached the person that was pos
sessed with a demon he said, "Hold thy peace;" and again
he said, transferring his address from the man and address
ing the demon, " Come out of him, thou unclean spirit."
Now such an address to a mere physical disease would be
a perfect playing upon words ; and if we believe that Jesus
ever spoke as never man spoke, we must conclude that there
was a reality in this, and that he did not merely express
himself in a figurative manner. But Strauss, and some
of those who see myths, because they see through a mist, in
every page of the word of God, and other infidels of the
same Rationalistic school in Germany, say that Jesus ac
commodated his language to the popular and prevailing
notions of the people among whom he sojourned. Were
my estimate of Jesus the same as theirs, I could perhaps
conceive such accommodation at least possible; but I be
lieve that Jesus was not only the truth-speaker, but the
truth itself: he came not to make a lie the basis of his
mission, but to dislodge the lie, and destroy it by the ap
plication of truth. He came to put an end to all decep
tions, to all hypocrisies, to all falsehoods, and to establish
supreme in each man's heart, and ultimately in the world
itself, the sovereignty of pure truth and of perfect right
eousness. I admit that we sometimes apply a word that
means something very different in its first application, to
things to which it is in some degree now inapplicable ; for
instance, in the present day we call persons who are de
ranged, lunatics; we speak of a lunatic asylum; we use
the term lunacy. The origin of these words was this:
people supposed in the first instance that the moon exer
cised a specific power over certain individuals, and they

NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 239
became lunatic, moon-struck, or affected by the moon. We
now know better, because science has taught us better, and
we now apply the word lunacy without encouraging decep
tion in the least degree, because it is the general and po
pular word for mania, or derangement of the mind. But
if I were to go further — mark you now, here is the point
of distinction — and try to cure a lunatic, or if a physician
were to try to cure a lunatic, by saying to him, "Thou
moon, come out of him," or, "Moon, cease to influence
him," then there would be there, not the use of a mere
word that has become stereotyped, but there would be the
recognition of the superstitious notion that the moon did
influence him, and that he was under the sovereignty and
dominion of that planet. But our Lord applies this very
formula and process of speech to demoniacal possessions ;
and this alone is evidence to me that he did not use a po
pular name by which to delineate a well-known, painful,
but common disease, but that he spoke to demons who
lodged in the human soul, and drove that soul whither they
would. Now, in looking at the demoniacs who are spoken of in
the New Testament, and the Gadarene demoniac seems to
have been one of the very worst cases of them all, I may
notice that these demoniacs were not necessarily or in every
instance the guiltiest of men, but they were in all instances
the unhappiest of men. Satan entered into Judas, and he
betrayed and sold his Lord. That was a totally different
possession. Seven demons dwelt in Mary Magdalene ; and
a demon dwelt in this Gadarene demoniac ; but each was a
totally distinct state. Though the real demoniac may have
been guilty of what opened the door and courted the in
rush, as it were, of these evil spirits, yet still his case in
the main was misfortune — more misfortune than it was
crime. It is also remarkable in the case of the demoniacs,

240 FORESHADOWS.
that there was a groaning under the tyranny they endured.
They lifted up a piercing cry continually for deliverance;
and, in the case of this demoniac, there was not only this
cry for deliverance, but a flinging himself at the feet of
Jesus, and asking that Saviour to interpose and to deliver
him. In other words, these demoniacs were evidences not
merely of Satan acting on and influencing the human heart
as he still does, and as he always has done, but they were
evidences of what man is very anxious to deny — that Satan
had, as it were, burst the bands with which we confine him ;
that he had found, not a moral influence upon the heart,
but an actual foot-hold upon the earth; that he had al
ready, as it were, got within his grasp one or two unhappy
victims, evidences of what he would do if he only could,
and teaching us by that exhibition Satan's energy and ma
lignant efforts and daring everywhere.
Again, that it was an actual demoniac possession would
be evident from this fact too, that there seemed to have
been two wills in the person — the will of the victim and
the will of the spirit driving him wherever he would. The
best exposition of it is the counter-possession, when persons
were possessed by the Holy Spirit, in the apostolical dis
pensation. We read that the Spirit spake by them in di
vers tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance; and the
apostle himself says, "I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth
in me." There was, as it were, the will of the individual
acted upon by the will of the Spirit, and in special mira
culous cases the Spirit acted independent of, and even con
trary to, that will.
Now, the question will be asked by many who are skep
tical, and to whom this reasoning does not appear so con
clusive as it does to me, "If demoniac possessions were in
those days, how is it that demoniac possessions are not
now?" The best way to answer many foolish questions

NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 241
that very foolish men often put, is by asking them another.
If you will not accept facts, because you cannot solve all
the accompanying difficulties, you will have to live a life
of perfect Pyrrhonism, of absolute skepticism. Will you
answer me how it is that epidemics that existed once do not
exist now ? Will you tell me why it is that the last epi
demic, the cholera, was not known in Europe, (I believe,)
or in India, till 1817 ? Will you tell me why it came in
1832, was suspended, and then came in 1849? It will be
time enough to answer why demoniac possession is not now,
when you solve many other mysteries in prophecy and pro
vidence just as inscrutable as this. But may it not be in
God's permissive providence that Satan shall have a mani
festation in one century that is not permitted to him in an
other ? that he shall show his malignity in one formula
to-day, and exhibit that malignity in a totally distinct for
mula to-morrow ? It may be that the Satan of the nine
teenth century, the angel of light, is a more dangerous
demon than the Satan of the first century, driving the de
moniac, and cutting him, and impelling him whither he
would. There may, however, perhaps be another solution of the
difficulty, and it is this, that just before Christ came into
the world, Satan's sovereignty had reached its highest pitch ;
evil had attained, if I may so speak, its culminating point ;
there seems to have arrived (and I speak from the testimony
of heathen writers, as well as from the testimony of inspired
writers) about the year 1, a state of things so terrible, that,
judging after man's judgment, there appeared to be but
two alternatives left for God: either to crush the world
and expunge it from amid the shining orbs of creation, or
to come down to it, redeem it, and restore it. God's ways
are not our ways ; and when he might have come in wrath
he came in mercy. Now, if it be true that the world was
21

242 FORESHADOWS.
in that terrible state, it may be that Satan had then attained
his most terrible and expressive development, and that the
demoniac possession, which was, as it were, the highest
ground he had reached in vthis world, subsided, as Satan's
power subsided, after the cry was heard, "It is finished,"
and the Spirit descended on the day of Pentecost.
I know some will start in the midst of all this another
difficulty — Why does God suffer it to be so ? The answer
to that difficulty is, that we know little why evil was in
troduced, we know not why evil is continued, and we know
still less of the great and ultimate objects which are tri
umphantly to evolve from its presence and its permission :
this we know, however, that evil is not eternal, as the old
Manicheans maintained ; and we believe, too, that evil is
not unripe good, as the present Pantheists maintain — one
of the latest and absurdest notions in the world. Emerson,
and some of his school, allege that evil, or sin, murder,
adultery, theft, are unripe honesty, unripe goodness, un
ripe justice, and unripe truth; as if (strange!) a sour,
poisonous fruit could, by sunshine and sunbeams, become
a delicious and arnutritive one. The thing is absurd; we
do not believe in either of these things ; but this we do
believe, that sin is in the creature, and that God is de
termined to expunge and utterly destroy it ; but then he
is determined to do so, not by an act of omnipotence,
which would not be victory ; but by truth, by love, by the
manifestation of his own mind and will, and through the
instrumentality of his own chosen and redeemed people.
We know that sin will be vanquished, and Satan too ; but
neither will be vanquished by a stroke of omnipotence, but
by the penetrating, persistent, gentle power of love in
men's hearts, and the truth in men's heads.
Another reason why we may deem demoniacal pos
sessions to have ceased, if they have ceased — and I am

NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 243
supposing that they have ceased, though some doubt and
question this — may be the universally admitted and actual
fact, that Satan, however powerful at our Redeemer's birth,
yet by our Redeemer's atonement received a blow from
which he has never recovered. Our Lord himself says,
"I saw Satan like lightning fall from heaven," which
would seem to indicate a dethronement, or a subordination
which he had not before. And there remains this fact,
too — whatever God does in the world, Satan always gets
up something very like it, because his hope of progress is
by deception. We may quote the miracles of the ma
gicians of Egypt: Satan got up his miracles too, perhaps
real miracles, at least supernatural ones. When there
were true prophets, Satan had his company of prophets
too. When God was manifest in the flesh, which was one
thousand eight hundred and fifty-one years ago, Satan
was manifest in the flesh too : he got up a mimicry of it —
demoniacal possessions. We find the same fact now-a-
days ; for as God manifest in the flesh was the truth that
seems to have struck Satan down, so the preaching of this
truth strikes down Satan still. Rhennius had the idea
that among many of the Indians there is something ap
proaching to demoniac possessions. And missionaries
declare that they sometimes find manifested among the
heathen, the unconverted savages of the desert, a power
that is all but superhuman; so that whenever the gospel
is preached in heathen lands, there is always a desperate
effort to crush and to extinguish it. And who knows, but
that in some of our lunatic asylums (though I would not
dare to say that this or that lunatic is demoniacally pos
sessed) there may be still actual demoniac possessions?
I have seen a lunatic asylum ; and of all sights it is, I
think, the most humiliating and terrible. I could look
upon the battle-field covered with the mangled dead, but

244 FORESHADOWS.
the cells and inmates of a lunatic asylum present the most
painful, humbling, and all but intolerable sight it was ever
my lot to gaze upon. The body in its worst ruin is no
thing to the awful wreck of that more glorious intellectual
life which. God gave to man. And yet these lunatics may
be far nearer the kingdom of heaven than many a wiser
man. They may have been Christians before they lost
their responsibility; their madness may be their misfor
tune, not crime ; chastisement, not penalty; many of these
may shine like the brightness of the stars for ever, when
others, who have turned the wisdom that God has spared
them to unwise and guilty purposes, shall be condemned
to eternal wo.
Thus, then, we have stated a few reasons for supposing
that demoniac possession may have ceased, and some
reasons for believing it may still continue. My opinion
of the Church of Rome is, that it is one colossal demoniac
possession. I know that certain men look on it merely as
a corrupt church, a church a little astray. I am not deny
ing that there are good men in that church in spite of it ;
but this I do say, and persist in, that the system seems to
me one huge demoniacal possession, where Satan has his
license and his miracles. I believe that many of the mira
cles wrought by priests in the Middle Ages were super
natural, or infranatural rather. Whenever I hear a priest
say, "We have wrought miracles," I admit it. I say,
" Certainly you have. I do not doubt it. If you had not
done them, you would have lost one of the brands by which
your church is distinguished." I believe that that system
of apostasy is just the counterpart to the true church;
and no man can fail to notice, throughout the Book of
Revelation, how the two great opposing bodies are, the
Lamb, and the wife of the Lamb, and they that are his,

NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 245
and the "beast" of the apostasy, and they that belong to
him and are his.
But I pass on to notice the special and individual por
trait that is sketched in the chapter on which I am now
lecturing. He was one specimen of demoniacal possession
— the most awful perhaps that we can well imagine. It
appears that he dwelt in the tombs. This seems all mys
tery to us, because, professing to have advanced in civiliza
tion, and having our graves six feet in the earth, and in
the midst of our very houses, in order to keep up incessant
typhus and cholera among us, we fancy immediately, when
we read of a man among the tombs, that it must be among
those green hillocks that we see in our neighbourhood,
some of which so many parochial authorities are resolved
to retain as enclosures, because, I presume, they must en
joy them. But in these countries it was not so. The
Jews had no such things as intramural interments. There
were no such thing suffered in a single city, as the dead
piled up among the living : and bad as were the Athenians,
Romans, and Greeks, they knew of no such habit. And
yet we say, This is the nineteenth century, and we have
great light. We ought to learn that, as long as such
things are suffered, we shall have plenty of pestilence and
disease to testify against us. But in the countries of the
East, and in Judea, it was altogether different. They had
their graves far distant from the city; so that when the
demoniac is represented as running among the graves, he
appears to be among the mountains, and for the reason
that they had for burial-places immense cavities cut into
the rock, deep recesses in which the dead were buried,
and into some of which such a person as the demoniac of
Gadara might enter. Burckhardt, a recent traveller,
states, that near Gadara, at the present day, there are
vast tombs of gigantic capaoity, which have evidently been
21*

246 FORESHADOWS.
used for the burial of the dead ; and this poor creature,
like a spirit cut off from his kind, crept about these tombs,
and felt his only congenial habitation to be, as it were,
among the dead, and there, in the language of the passage
I have read, cut and wounded himself, and howled among
the mountains. It is very remarkable to notice the con
trast in his character. It seems that the evil spirit held,
and drove, and impelled him where he would not. You
can see in the man a human consciousness, indicating un
extinguished human sensibilities, which led him to the feet
of Jesus ; and you can see, overpowering this human will,
this personal consciousness, some terrible demoniac power,
crying out from his bosom to Jesus, " I adjure thee by the
living God that thou let us alone." You can see, as it
were, two natures in the man, the human in its agony,
groaning to be delivered, and the fiendish in its depravity,
imploring to be let alone.
And there is something, too, remarkable in this, that
the evil spirit, as it is recorded in another Gospel, says,
"Art thou come to torment us before the time?" "Be
fore the time"— how remarkable is that expression ! The
very demons believed the prophecy that had sounded in
their hearing for four thousand years ; they knew that
they were kept in chains till the judgment of the great
day ; they believed that the earth would be disentangled
and disinfected of their horrible and malignant presence ;
and the very prayer that these demons uttered implied
that their greatest torment was being in their own place.
"Art thou come here to torment us?" How torment
them ? By casting them out of this man ? That is not
torment. It was sending them to their own place. Satan's
only joy is his success in seducing and destroying others,
and the greatest torment that Satan feels is where he meets
with the greatest resistance. The only fresh air he

NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 247
breathes, the only sweet scenes he witnesses, are when he
has a foothold on earth and a prospect of getting a broader,
wider, and firmer one ; and never does he feel his torment
reach its greatest acme until he is sent to his own place,
and driven from among men. What a terrible idea of
torment this gives ! That one should deprecate his home
as his punishment is a very awful feature ; and that the
demons should deprecate their own place as being the site,
the scene, and the source of their intensest agony, gives a
picture of what they are, and where their fall has plunged
them, very dark and terrible indeed.
It appears that when Jesus drew near to the man, he
was not delivered of the demons instantly, but underwent
a tremendous paroxysm of suffering and distress. Why it
was so, we know not. Whether it was to make the thing
more apparent, we know not. Jesus £.sks the poor de
moniac his name. There is something beautiful in this.
When we approach an excited man with some quiet, gentle
word, or approach a man walking in a dream and just
breathe to him his name, the spell is broken, and he listens,
and is restored to his mind. Our Lord seems, in the
exercise of that sublime philosophy which he alone knew,
just to have breathed the man's name — simply to have
asked the man his name. The poor man's answer would
have been, A, or B, or C, John, or Peter, or whatever it
was ; but the evil spirits repress the answer of the man,
and they shout, as it were, in the earnestness of triumph,
"We are legion." A legion in the Roman army consisted
of six thousand persons, three thousand horse and three
thousand foot. And why do they say so to Jesus ? It was
because they wished to intimidate him, as though they had
said, "Don't meddle with us : if you do we are more than
a match for you. You will find that we are not one that

248 FORESHADOWS.
you can easily crush, but a mighty multitude, that will rush
upon you and destroy you also."
We read that the evil spirits prayed that, if let loose,
(this is related in the parallel passage in Luke viii. 31,)
they might not be driven out into the deep. It is, and
ought to be translated, "into the abyss." And then they
besought him to let them go into a herd of swine. Now
there has been a great deal of difficulty expressed, and a
great deal of scoffing uttered about this very thing. The
speaking of the ass of Balaam in the Old Testament, and
the rushing into the sea of the demonically possessed swine
in the New Testament, have been standing gibes for silly
infidels in all ages and in all countries. But just let us
study it, and we shall see, that if skeptics would think
more and read more, and be less partial, they would see
justice, truth, harmony, beauty, where now they can see
nothing. In the first place, it seems to us a mystery that Christ
should answer the prayer of the demons at all. Sometimes
he does not answer his own people ; and to such it will
appear a mystery that he should answer the demons prayer.
But the answering of that prayer was in this case, as the
granting of prayer has been in other cases, the greatest
possible calamity. I sometimes think, God shows greater
love to us in refusing to answer our prayers — many prayers
that we offer — than in giving us the answers that we
demand^ Jesus gave them permission. He did not command the
demons to go into the herd of swine, but permitted them
to do so. However, I do not lay stress upon that. If
there is any other way of disposing of them, why let the
demons take possession of the swine, and why let the swine
be thus destroyed ? First, if in any way the destruction
of the brute can contribute to the good, or the support, or

NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 249
the instruction, or the progress of man, it was only the
exemplification of a fact that occurs every day. If the
Lord, that made all things and made these swine, could do
man good, morally, physically, or otherwise, by their de
struction, he only did then and in that act what is done
every day when the innocent lamb, the unoffending bird,
the patient ox, are slaughtered for man's nutriment. But,
in the second place, such a transition to the swine may
have been to give the poor demoniac a more clear and con
clusive evidence that he was delivered from the demon.
We have a parallel case to this in the history of the Is
raelites. When they crossed the Red Sea they would not
believe that they were delivered from their pursuers, until
they were permitted to see the dead bodies of their enemies
high and dry upon the beach. And so here it may have
been in condescending love to him who had been a most
unequalled sufferer, that the Lord Jesus permitted him to
see the utter destruction of the swine, that he might be
satisfied that he was thus cured, and might fear no more.
But some will say, "Was it not a very great loss to the
owners of these swine to destroy two thousand of them,
who apparently had done our Lord or done the demoniac
no harm at all?" I answer, is it a loss very unusual or
very strange ? Was it not an unjust thing in God to send
the potato disease and create famine in Ireland ? And
was it not a very unjust thing to send murrain among the
sheep and oxen the other year, and destroy whole flocks
and herds ? Yet if you did not complain of God in his
providence doing this, why do you complain of God, as
recorded in the page of the gospel, doing on a less scale,
and with less disastrous effects, one and the very same
thing? But there was more than this. The cure of the
demoniac was made only the more remarkable because it
was associated with the chastisement and punishment of

250 FORESHADOWS.
them that deserved it. These swine were kept by Jews, —
Jewish proprietors, — and these Jewish proprietors em
ployed the Gadarenes to do what they themselves held to
be unlawful, as it is said of Jews still, that they will feed
their servants on food that they would not eat themselves,
and command them to do things on their sabbath, and,
because they do not put a finger of their own to them,
think that they escape the sin of profaning what they call
the true sabbath. Well, these Jewish proprietors em
ployed these Gadarenes to keep their swine. The Gadarene
swineherds were paid their wages, and the Jewish pro
prietors pocketed the results. It was against the law
of Moses to keep such swine, and these men that thus kept
them knowingly sinned and offended against the express
injunctions of that law which they had promised strictly
and rigidly to obey ; and thus they were punished for their
conduct in neglecting plain duties in order to indulge in
gross avarice. But, alas, there is much of the avaricious
Jew still in many a London landlord. They grieve more
that the murrain should cut off their sheep, their swine,
and their cattle, than that cholera and typhus fever, con
ducted by the filthy channels which their avarice has left,
should cut off whole families and depopulate whole neigh
bourhoods. And the reason is this : — when the pestilence
has emptied their lodgings, their lodgings will let again ;
but when the disease has cut off their swine, they cannot
recall the swine to life again. It is the loss they sustain,
and not the humanity they feel, that thus actuates and
guides them.
The rush of the swine into the sea, however, teaches us
another lesson, and it is perhaps a lesson of some import
ance. We always suppose that Satan and the evil spirits
have a foothold only in rational beings ; but it is not im
possible, nor improbable, that Satan and Satanic influences

NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 251
may be in the brute creation also. My first reason is what
the apostle advances when he says, that "the whole crea
tion [I believe that to be the brute creation and the mate
rial universe] groans and travails in pain even until now,
waiting to be delivered." Why groan? Because Satan
bestrides them. Why in pain, and crying for deliverance?
Because it is demoniacally possessed. Whether God per
mits, commands, or restrains the tempest, or the demon
may ride the winds or lash the waves, it may do very well
for a material philosophy to dispute ; but they that know
that Satan's outer world and our inner world are at cer
tain parts interlaced and intermingled, will not be the
first to dispute. But do we not now, to take a parallel
case — and a German writer advances this very fact — find
animals receptive of human influence ? Let the rider sit
firm upon his horse, and the animal will feel the influence,
and be full of heroism, he will rear himself and sympathize
with him, he will brave every danger and prance heroi
cally. But let the rider, on the other hand, be timid,
fearful, and paralyzed, and the very horse himself seems
to lose his courage and his mettle, and to sympathize with
his rider in his fears. Have you not noticed that the dog
will almost echo your lamentations, and that, when your
face is bright with smiles, the poor brute will almost reflect
them ? What is this, but proving that the brute creation
is receptive of human influence ? And why may we not
conclude that the brute creation may be receptive of the
demoniac influence too ? Thus, as the" apostle says in
Romans viii., creation, when' it groans, may do so because
it is conscious of an intrusive element from beneath — a
demoniacal possession that influences, guides, and con
trols it.
Another fact we may notice here. It is, how completely
the wicked often outwit themselves ! Satan has blundered

252 FORESHADOWS.
often in his dealings during the last eighteen hundred
years ; and this shows that, malignant as he is, he is not
infallible. These demons thought they had got a grand
concession when they prayed that they might be allowed
to enter into the swine ; but that concession was only pre
cipitating them more speedily into that abyss which they
deprecated as the place of their torment.
We read that the Gadarenes also presented a petition
to- Christ; and what is that. petition? Mysterious fact!
strange, startling, painful fact ! That men that saw such
a triumphant thing as the demoniac healed, clothed, and
in his right mind, should call upon and beseech the Divine
messenger that made him so, to leave their coasts just as
quickly as he could — how inexcusably criminal must they
have been ! And yet, even in this land, it is possible for
us to imitate their example. Do we not act in some such
way, or rather, may we not act in some such way, when
we say, "See what Christianity has done; how it has
transfigured with a celestial glory every land it has touched,
indicating by the trail of light and beauty and happiness
in its path, that it is the ambassadress of God, and the
benefactress of the earth;" and yet — what I trust we
never shall be permitted to do — look into the face of
Christianity, that fair face, the sabbath, which shines so
brightly on the benighted, which radiates mercy upon the
down-trodden, and gives joy to the sorrowful, and say to
it, "Depart from our coasts!" Our merchants would not
be enriched by the loss of the sabbath ; our land would
not be elevated by its surrender. It is that beautiful
respite which restores us, so that the Christian touches
heaven every sabbath, as Antaeus of old touched the earth,
and gets new strength and vigour for the duties and sacri
fices of the week.
And let me say, the demoniac wandering amid the

NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 253
tombs, cutting himself, howling amid the mountains, torn
by demons, is only the meet type of that Sabbathless land
across the Channel, which is ever restless, ever complaining,
ever howling some new shout ; but, unlike the demoniac,
never fleeing to Jesus for deliverance and for safety. Con
trast with it this land of ours, with all its faults, with all
its defects, its sins, and its deficiencies ; a land oversha
dowing with its wings almost the four quarters of the globe ;
a land that spreads its sail to every breeze, and drops its
anchor on every strand; the home of' exiles, the asylum
of the persecuted, where even the Hungarian Bem might
come and find a shelter, without the necessity of changing
his faith and taking ours; where Turk, Mohammedan,
Mussulman, Hungarian, and Russian, may come and find
peace ; a land whose acres are dotted with temples as with
stars, and from whose homes and hearths there ascends
everywhere increasingly the song of praise ; and where all
men, blessed be God, may have, and I hope ever will have
while it lasts, a sabbath rest and a sabbath repose. I ask,
my dear friends, if you find not in the demoniac, clothed,
restored, and in his right mind, sitting at the feet of Jesus,
the very type of our land, enjoying its sabbaths, thus
blessed, thus mighty. And what has made it so ? Who
has made us to differ ? Only the Son of God, through his
Bible, which is his will, through his sabbath, which is his
witness, through the gospel, which is his voice. Perish
all England's "swine together, but let her sabbaths still
shine. Let all depart from our coasts, but, in the lan
guage of the disciples going to Emmaus, " Blessed Master,
abide with us even unto the end." Amen.

22

254

LECTURE XIV.
NATURE SITTING AT THE FEET OF JESUS.
And they arrived at the country of the Gadarenes, which is over against Galilee.
And when he went forth to land, there met him out of the city a certain man,
which had devils long time, and ware no clothes, neither abode in any house,
but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out, and fell down before
him, and with a loud voice said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou
Son of God most high 1 I beseech thee, torment me not. (For he had com
manded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. For oftentimes it had
caught him : and he was kept bound with chains and in fetters ; and he brake
the bands, and was driven of the devil into the wilderness.) And Jesus asked
him, saying, What is thy name ? And he said, Legion : because many devils
were entered into him. And they besought him that he would not command
them to go out into the deep. And there was there an herd of many swine
feeding on the mountain : and they besought him that he would suffer them
to enter iuto them. And he suffered them. Then went the devils out of the
man, and entered into the swine : and the herd ran violently down a steep
place into the lake, and were choked. When they that fed them saw what
was done, they fled, and went and told it in the city and in the country. Then
they went out to see what was done; and came to Jesus, and found the man,
out of whom the devils were . departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed,
and in his right mind : and they were afraid. They also which saw it told
them by what means he that was possessed of the devils was healed. Then
the whole multitude of the country of the Gadarenes round about besought
him to depart from them ; for they wero taken with great fear : and he went
up into the ship, and returned back again. Now the man out of whom the
devils were departed besought him that he might be with him : but Jesus sent
him away, saying, Return to thine own house, and show how great things God
hath done for thee. And he went his way, and published throughout the
whole city how great thing Jesus had done unto him. — Luke viii. 26-39.
The passage which is parallel to this, and which contains
in substance the same sentiment, in words little different,
is in Mark v., where we read, "And they come to Jesus,
and see him that was possessed with a devil, and had the

NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 255
legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind: and
they were afraid. And when Jesus was come into the ship,
he that had been possessed with the devil prayed him that
he might be with him. Howbeit Jesus suffered him not,
but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them
how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath
had compassion on thee. And he departed, and began to
publish in Decapolis [that is, in the city] how great things
Jesus had done for him: and all men did marvel."
In my last lecture I described at length the historical
portion of the very remarkable, and, in some respects, dif
ficult miracle, the record of which I have now read. I do
not here recapitulate, but proceed to notice two grand fea
tures in the close of the parable: first, the position in
which the man was found ; and, secondly, the duty which
our Lord devolved upon him.
The position in which he was found, we are told, was
sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind.
How interesting is this spectacle ! how appropriate the seat
selected by the recovered demoniac ! It was the place of
•nearness to Jesus, and intimate communion with him.
From that blessed source he had received a great and un
speakable blessing, and to that Lord his love and gratitude
taught him to cling and cleave closer and closer. Perhaps
he selected this place also as the site of safety. The man
feared that there might be a return of the evil spirits that
had departed from him, and therefore he sat near to him
who alone was mighty to exorcise them, and in whose pre
sence alone he thought he would be able to prevent their
ultimate return. Or perhaps his sitting at the feet of Jesus
may denote that, having been delivered from the grievous
curse under which he groaned, he may have now been seek
ing that instruction which was requisite to guide and to
direct him. I need not say that sitting at the feet of one

256 FORESHADOWS.
is a Scripture phrase for becoming a pupil or scholar to one.
Thus, we read that God called Abraham to his feet — that
is, placed Abraham in the position and relation of a pupil
to be instructed by God, the great Teacher of his family.
Thus, we read that Saul was brought up at the feet of Ga
maliel — that is, was taught by him. Mary sat at the feet
of Jesus — that is, listened to him, and learned from his
lips new lessons of love, responsibility, and duty. Thus
the recovered Gadarene sat at the feet of Jesus, seeking,
no doubt, to be instructed by him. And so far he is a
precedent for us. If we have felt the power of Christ as
our Deliverer from condemnation, our very first duty is to
draw near to him and ask him to be our Teacher also. We
need not only emancipation from the curse of sin by his
most precious blood, but also direction, teaching, instruc
tion, line upon line, from his holy and sacred lips. And
if we go to him, he will teach us to count all but loss for
the excellency of him who has saved us with a high hand
and an outstretched arm ; to prefer a day in his courts to
a thousand in the gates of sin ; to leave all we love, and
brave all we dread, and follow him; he will teach us to rest
in him, and wait patiently for him, in all time of our tri
bulation; to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk
humbly with our God.
What occurred in the case of the demoniac is only a
foreshadow of what will take place in the state of all crea
tion. The author of that power which racks the earth is
Satan, the great usurper; the cause of atrocious crimes,
the source of many an evil, unholy, and awful suggestion,
is the presence, not of a figment, a fiction, or a figure, as
infidels imagine, but of a personal being, possessed of the
archangel's wisdom, the fiend's depravity, and the arch
angel's power to use that wisdom and apply that depravity
to mankind. But the day comes, we are told, when Satan

NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 257
shall fall like lightning from heaven ; when this earth, that
groans and travails, waiting to be delivered, shall be healed,
and its fever laid, and the demons cast out, and holiness,
and happiness, and beauty, and loyalty, and love shall over
flow all, like a mighty and unfathomable sea. This demo
niac recovered was an earnest of it. I explained in pre
vious passages, that the miracles of our Lord were not
simply acts of power, or expressions of beneficence, but
that they were earnests, foreshadows, pledges of the grand
and universal emancipation that will yet dawn upon the
world. What is miracle now will be nature in the age to
come. Our discoveries and our sciences are efforts to
hasten its arrival, and to actualize the prophecies that pre
dict it. What is medicine ? It is, if I may so speak, a
portion of the virtue the woman received from the skirt
of Jesus' garment, left to tell us that disease is not supreme,
that there are portions left of his remedial powers, that we
are not to despair but to hope. There is enough in medi
cine to keep us from despair ; there is not enough to pre
vent us from longing for the great Physician to come and
heal all : there is just enough to be an earnest and a pledge
of that universal redemption when there shall be no more
sickness, nor sorrow, nor death. ,
Having noticed this position, which is perhaps the least
important and instructive, I now proceed to examine one
that, to my mind, is exceedingly beautiful and interesting.
The demoniac went to Jesus, and begged of him that he
might be allowed to remain with him, or to accompany him.
Jesus said to him, "No, go home, and tell your family what
great things God has done for you." Why did the demo
niac recovered wish to be with Jesus, and so to accompany
him in all his travels and his journeys ? He might perhaps
have recollected, not the words, because he had not been
taught them, but the fact of which the words are the descrip-
22*

258 FORESHADOWS.
tion, recorded in the Gospel of St. Matthew, chap. xii. 43.
" When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh
through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then
he saith, I will return into my own house from whence I
came out ; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept,
and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with him seven
other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in
and dwell there : and the last state of that man is worse
than the first." The poor man expected some such recur
rence as this, at least he feared it ; he no doubt rejoiced
in the deliverance he had felt, but he rejoiced with trem
bling. He was alarmed lest the spirits that had left him
should return with more, and should take possession of him
again, and so his last state should be worse than the first.
Therefore he says, " Let me be with him that delivered me,
for he alone can defend me ; let me be with him that had
power to expel the demons that dwelt in me, for in him
alone shall I find a sure shelter from their next, desperate
assault." But is there not embodied in the conduct of this
poor recovered man a precedent for us ? If we have ob
tained any thing from Christ for which we feel thankful, we
shall be jealous lest we lose it. If we have received the
forgiveness of our sins, the spirit of adoption for the spirit
of bondage, if we have obtained joy for sorrow, and hope
for despair, we shall be anxious to guard the precious and
deeply valued deposit thus mercifully intrusted to our
charge. What can be more natural than to flee to him
who gave the blessing in his goodness, in order that he may
guard it by his power in the bosom in which he has im
planted it. He has little who is not alive to the defence
of that little. A life that comes from Christ will ever creep
close to Christ for its maintenance; and a blessing- that wo
feel to have been derived from his hand, we shall beg of
him in his goodness to preserve unimpaired, and to perpe-

NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 259
tuate it to -us and ours. But perhaps the reason of the
man's clinging to him may have been to give expression to
the deep love that he felt to him. We need not wonder
that this poor man felt new emotions under so new and un
expected circumstances. He had been accustomed to run
wild among the tombs, to howl like a maniac amid the de
sert-hills, to shrink from contact with man and communion
with society, as means of aggravating, not removing, the
dire curse under which he groaned ; the first spot he had
gazed upon in calm complacency for many a year, was that
beautiful and divine face which looked upon him in his
ruin, and restored him from the oppression of the evil one
into the light and life and liberty, not only of rational men,
but of the children of God; and when he came to his right
mind and felt no demons raging within, and saw no swine
feeding without, but himself and that divine countenance
only, that looked as never man's countenance looked, gaz
ing upon him, his admiration fixed him to the spot, his love
made him look long and intensely on him, and love made
him cling closer to him, and pray for permission that where
he lodged he might lodge, and where Jesus went he might
go, that his God might be his God, and Christ's people his
people. Is there in this no precedent also for us ? Once
we were — not indeed demoniacs literally, but we were so
in a worse sense than the demoniac ; for Judas, though not
a demoniac, was possessed by the devil in a more awful
sense than Mary Magdalene, or the Gadarene whose history
we are reading. We were once then demoniacs, without
the irresponsibility of the Gadarene, wandering amid the
tombs of time, and many in the charnel-houses of corrup
tion, decay, and darkness, without God, without Christ,
aliens to what is holy, beautiful, and true. Christ looked
upon us in our ruin, and said, "Live;" the strong man en
tered our bosoms and expelled the strong usurper, who had

260 FORESHADOWS.
long possessed them. And if we know this fact — for if
we do not know it, awful and perilous is our position — ¦
then are we instinctively constrained to exclaim, "Lord,
to whom can wTe go but unto thee ? Thou hast the words
of eternal life. It is good for me to be here. Thou wilt
never leave me, and I will never leave thee, my Lord, my
all and in all!"
But whatever were the motives that made the Gadarene
demoniac, when- recovered from his possession, cleave to
Jesus, we have the actual answer that Christ gave him,
" Return to thine own house, and show how great things
God has done for you." There seems to be a contradiction
in Christ's conduct ; of course, only seeming, not real —
like all the alleged contradictions in the Bible — apparent,
not actual. We find, for instance, in this very same eighth
chapter of Luke, that he restores the daughter of Jairus.
One says, " Thy daughter is dead ; trouble not the Master.
But when Jesus heard it, he answered him, saying, Fear
not, believe only, and she shall be made whole. And
when he came into the house, he suffered no man to go in,
save Peter, and James, and John, and the father and the
mother of the maiden. They all wept and bewailed her :
but he said, Weep not : she is not dead, but sleepeth.
And they laughed him to scorn, knowing that she was dead.
And he put them all out, and took her by the hand, and
called, saying, Maid, arise. And her spirit came again,
and she arose straightway : and he commanded to give her
meat. And her parents were astonished ; but he charged
them that they should tell no man what was done." It
seems strange, that in the one case he should tell the man
that was healed to go and tell every body, and that in the
other case, I quote one amid many, he should tell the
healed person, or the relatives of the healed person, to tell
no one. Why is this ? Christ saw and read the heart, the

NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 261
habits, the tastes, the temperaments of those he spoke to.
In the one case, when he said, " Tell no one," he saw a
loquacious person who would meditate^ little and talk in
cessantly, and therefore he says, "tell no one;" and in
the other case, he saw a gloomy, melancholy person, who
would brood over the past, and fear for the future, and to
him he said, " Go, in the exercise of active benevolence,
and tell every body." The prescription for the after-
recovery, or the after-lesson, was accommodated to the
temperament of the person to whom it was addressed.
Now when he said to this person, " Go and tell what great
things the Lord has done for you," and when the man said,
and showed by his conduct, that he would rather cleave to
Jesus, and be with him, we have in this, indirect but
striking evidence of the divinity of the character of
Jesus. A mere common wonder-worker would have been
too glad of having a living specimen of his great power
to accompany him into all lands, and to be the dumb but
expressive evidence of the virtue that the wonder-worker
possessed ; but Jesus had no such feeling : he was a man,
but he was also more than man ; he showed the recovery
to a sufficient number of witnesses ; but more than that he
wanted not yet. His kingdom was not yet coming with
observation ; it was the silent, penetrating leaven, that
was to work its way by the omnipotence of love. It was
not to be accompanied by the noise, pomp, and grandeur
of a majestic procession. There was no ostentation in
any thing that Jesus did ; there was enough in all he did
for evidence, there was nothing for display. I have no
doubt Jesus not only spoke many words that are not written
in this book, but did many things that are not recorded
here : many a broken heart did he heal, that we shall
only hear of at the last day. The miracles that are re
corded, are given here as evidences of miracles that are

262 FORESHADOWS.
unrecorded, and were the expressions of that untiring be
neficence which embraced the highest, and condescended
to the lowest, and the weakest, and the most worthless
even of mankind. In the commission of Jesus to the re
covered demoniac we have this great lesson taught us —
that he that receives the largest blessing from Christ is
bound to go and be the largest and most untiring dis
tributer of that blessing. We receive not for ourselves,
but for diffusion ; we taste the efficacy of the prescription,
that we may go forth and praise, and exalt, and proclaim
the great Physician. No heart will so overflow with love
as that which has been healed by the Saviour's touch ; no
lips will be so eloquent as those, once dumb, that have
been opened by the Saviour's finger ; no tongue will speak
with the thrilling and persuasive accents of his which
Jesus has unloosed. Our Lord will not infringe this ordi
nance : he will lose an ever-accompanying witness to his
power rather than interrupt the grand law, that we are
made sons that we may become servants, that we receive
that we may distribute. All experience will show us that
he that has and refuses to give, will not long have ; and
that he that knows and refuses to make known, will not
long have any thing worth making known.
The command of Jesus reveals another great lesson,
precious and instructive. In answer to the man's desire
to be with Christ — "Let me be with you, let me sit at thy
feet for ever, let me follow thee whither thou goest" —
Jesus says, " Go, and tell what the Lord has done for you."
This teaches us — and I mean this for the young, who have
spare time — that the way, if we are Christians, to be with
Christ, and to be with him most closely, is to go out and
labour for Christ with the greatest diligence. In other
words, God teaches us here, that we are never so near to
Christ as when, in his spirit and in his name, we are doing

NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 263
his work and fulfilling his will. The Sunday-school teacher,
therefore, that denies himself many a sweet privilege and
many an easy hour ; the tract distributor, the Bible col
porteur, the missionary, the visitor of the sick, who are all
denying themselves privileges to outward sense, are yet in
truth drinking deeper of them ; they are all apparently
losing sweet communion with Christ — they are all really
leaning on hin bosom, walking with him closer, drinking
deeper into his joys, because they are labouring in his
work and for his name's sake. Active co-operation with
Jesus is the way of nearest communion with him.
We learn also this lesson — that labouring for Christ
according to Christ's command, is the very way to enjoy
the greatest happiness that results from being with Christ.
This man sought to be with Christ, that he might thus be
safe from the reflux of the demons, and might realize per
petually the joy which he then felt. Christ says to him,
" The way to bask perpetually in the light of my coun
tenance, is to go out on my errands." Labour for Christ
and happiness from Christ are twins that are never se
parated ; the first-born is labour, the second-born is happi
ness. In the future world labour is happiness, and happi
ness is labour. Indolence and inactivity are not known
among the blessed. In this world labour is the introduction
to happiness, and without labour for Christ we shall never
taste, in all its serene beauty, the happiness that flows
from communion with Christ. Christ gives the soul, first,
a sweet sense of pardoning love, and then he says, " Go
and work in my vineyard." " If ye love me, keep my
commandments." So he gives the promise, " Go and teach
all nations — and lo ! I am with you;" but, "go and re
fuse to teach all nations, and instantly I depart from you."
The teaching toil on our part, and the presence of the Sa
viour on his part, are inseparable. This is a right precious

264 FORESHADOWS.
truth ! Let us try to recollect that the working hand and
the happy heart are inseparable : it is God's great or
dinance, that we shall enjoy Christ's love and peace and
happiness only in doing his work in his name and in his
spirit. A poor monk, who, in spite of his cowl, seems from the
fact to have been one of God's hidden ones, was one day,
according to a mediaeval legend, meditating in his ceil.
A glorious vision burst upon him, it is recorded, with the
brilliancy of noon-day, and revealed in its bosom the
"Man of sorrows," the "acquainted with grief." The
monk was gazing on the spectacle, charmed, delighted,
adoring. The convent bell rang ; and that bell was the
daily signal for the monk to go to the pfyor that were
crowding round the convent gate, and distribute bread and
fragments of food among them. The monk hesitated
whether he should remain to enjoy the splendid apoca
lypse, or should go out to do the daily drudgery that
belonged to him. At last he decided on the latter; he
left the vision with regret, and went out at the bidding of
the bell to distribute the alms, and bread, and crumbs
among the poor. He returned, of course expecting that,
because of his not seeming to appreciate it, the vision
would be darkened ; but to his surprise, when he returned,
the vision was there still ; and on his expressing his amaze
ment that his apparent want of appreciating it and being
thankful for it should be overlooked, and that the vision
should still continue in augmented splendour, a voice came
from the lips of the Saviour it revealed, which said, " If
you had stayed, I had not."
This may be a legend, but it teaches a great lesson —
that active duty in Christ's name and for Christ's sake is
the way to retain the vision of his peace in all its perma-
Sence and power. The peace that passeth understanding

NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 265
keepeth our hearts and minds continually, while our hands
and feet are actively engaged in Christ's work.
While quoting from this incident of the monk, I may
state that the very passage I am now commenting on con
demns monaticism, monkery, quietude, and the varied
asceticism in which the mystics of former ages prided
themselves. I say all these are condemned by the simple
fact, that active love is nobler than meditative love ; that
gazing on Christ and communion with him are not to be
the end in this age, but only the means toward an end,
which is work for Christ. Try to stay with Christ in
order to enjoy exclusively his presence, and he will leave
you; go forth, as it were, in obedience to Christ's com
mand, to do his will, and he will continue with you. Go
out, forgetting self in your sympathy with the sorrows of
a brother, and you will find that Christ will most manifest
himself to you, and that you will enjoy the greatest hap
piness. The next lesson we learn from the sequel of this miracle,
is this — that as Christ, in healing the demoniac, had an
object beyond him, so, in healing us, he has an object
beyond us. Let us ever recollect and act upon this great
and important truth. "Let not every man," says the
apostle, "look upon his own things, but also look upon the
things of others." "As every man," he says, "has re
ceived the good gift, let him minister the same one to
another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God."
Whoever, therefore, toils and labours for the good of
others, always feej/.-himself happiest in so doing; and
whoever tries to monopolize the happiness he has for his
own enjoyment, to the neglect of others, is generally the
most miserable. The words in our language denoting the
highest happiness are words that mean living beyond self,
getting out of self, standing outside of self; " ecstasy,"
23

266 FORESHADOWS.
extasis, standing without one's self; "rapture," from
rapio, to be carried away from one's self; "transport,"
transporto, to be carried beyond one's self: every word
that denotes the highest enjoyment also involes the least
selfishness. Human nature, apart from sanctified human
nature, can testify that there is no music so thrilling as
the accents of the voice that thanks us for the goodness
you have done its possessor; and that no countenance
beams so beautifully to our eye as the countenance of the
orphan and the widow made to rejoice by our beneficence.
The poor man's desire was to remain with Christ;
Christ's command to him was, Go and engage in active
duties for Christ. Did the man obey? Instantly, and
seemingly without reluctance, for it is added, He went
and proclaimed in Decapolis the great things that Christ
had done for him. Is not this an example for Us ? Our
desires and our duties may very often clash : we may de
sire one thing, while duty, with its stern tapering finger,
may point to us the very opposite. We are to sacrifice
our desires to our duties, and never our duties to our
desires ; we are to leave the warm fire-side when duty bids
us, and brave the storm, and engage in the rough conflicts
of human life ; we are to launch forth from the quiet and
sheltered haven when Christ commands, and to cross the
stormy and tempestuous sea, saying, in reference to duties,
what we are taught to say in reference to trials, "Not as
1 will, but as thou wilt, 0 Lord."
But there is something very instructive, too, in the place
that the Saviour bade this recovered demoniac go to. He
says, "Go home, and proclaim." He docs not say, "Go
into the midst of the venerable sanhedrim, or into the
synagogues of the land, and there proclaim what I have
done for you;" but, "Go home, and do it." Another
lesson is this for us ! The first impulse of many a young

NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 267
Christian, when his eyes have been opened, and his heart
has been touched, is to go and be a preacher of the gospel,
to ascend the pulpit, to lift up his voice in the forum, to
call upon men to believe in the midst of the market-place
itself. There may be much in this that is pure, but there
is something of alloy in'it too. We would rather all of us
prefer to be the splendid lights that shine upon the world,
that men will see and be dazzled with, than the quiet salt
that gradually penetrates the world, and, without noise
and without observation, makes all like itself. Our Lord,
knowing this temperament of ours, says to the demoniac,
"Not to the sanhedrim, nor to the synagogue; but go
back (what we say to every Christian) to the sphere in
which providence has placed you, and into that sphere
bring the glorious riches with which grace has enriched
you. The gospel is not a scene-shifter, but a heart-
changer ; the gospel bids the new man go back into the
old place ; it bids him go into the little pulpit that is at
every man's fire-side, and try his hand there, before he
go into the greater pulpit, and speak to the whole congre
gation. Test your missionary powers at home before you
try them in the school, in the congregation, the wide world
of mankind.
But there is more in this commission of Jesus than even
this. I believe there is here a special allusion to that
most musical word in our language — a word almost pe
culiar in significance to the English language, and, it is
said, though far be it from me to depreciate other lands,
almost peculiar to the Saxon land — namely, home! I
know not a word more precious. Legislators in the par
liament have too much looked on men as individuals and
nations ; ministers in the pulpit have too much looked at
them as individuals and congregations; but there is a
sphere, a place more precious than the nation, because it

268 FORESHADOWS.
feeds the nation; more precious than the congregation,
because what it is the congregation will be — that is, the
home. The little home, the family, is the fountain that
feeds with a pure and noble population the large home,
which is the country. Loyalty, and love, and happiness in
Britain's homes, will make loyalty ,*and happiness and love
be reflected from Britain's altars and from Britain's shores.
There may be a mob, or there may be slaves; but let states
men recollect there cannot be a people unless there be a
home. I repeat, there may be in a country slaves, or
there may be mobs, but there cannot be in a country a
people, the people, unless it be a country of holy and happy
homes. And he that helps to elevate, sustain, ennoble,
and sanctify the homes of a country, contributes more to
its glory, its beauty, its permanence, than all its legisla
tors, its laws, its literature, its science, its poetry together.
Our Lord began at the first home that was found at Betha-
bara beyond Jordan — the home of Andrew and Peter;
and starting from it, he carried the glorious gospel of
which he was the author into the home of Mary and Mar
tha at Bethany, of Cornelius the centurion, of Lydia, of
the jailer of Philippi, of Crispus, and finally of Timothy ;
and these consecrated and converted homes became multi
plying foci amid the world's darkness, till the scattered
and ever multiplying lights shall be gathered one day into
one broad blaze, that shall illuminate and make glad the
wide world. Let us begin at home, but let us not stop
there. It is groups of homes that make a congregation ;
it is clusters of congregations that make a country. So
Jesus felt and acted. All along the shores of the lake of
Gennesareth there might be detected successive and innu
merable homes illumined by the light of truth, and at morn
and eventide echoing with the glad voices of praise and
adoration. The poor leper, who was long exiled from

NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 269
society, and dare not approach it, is restored to his home ;
and we can well conceive, that when the restored father
mingled with his family again, its roof-tree rang with most
musical songs, and the hearts within it beat with joy inex
pressibly full. A fair maiden is smitten down in her
prime ; the Saviour sees the dead body laid on the bier,
and feels for the weepers that stand around it. He speaks
to her, Talitha eumi, and the maid arose, and came again
to life and light ; and that bright flower bloomed in the
vase of that happy home more beautiful because the look
of Jesus had given it new tints, and the breath of Jesus
had given it new fragrance. A son is carried on his bier
to his last resting-place, the only son of a widow to whom
he was the whole support ; Jesus speaks to him, and he is
restored to his widowed mother again. Can we doubt
that in that family, thus made glad, the name of Jesus was
mentioned with the joyful reverence due to the name of
God, and yet with the frequency and fervour of the dearest
household word ? God passed before Moses of old, and
proclaimed himself "the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and
gracious, long-suffering, forgiving iniquity, transgression,
and sin;" but I see a procession not less glorious follow
the "Man of sorrows;" he walks amid the homes of Je
rusalem, amid the broken hearts that throb around Gen
nesareth, and in his majestic, yet peaceful and quiet,
march, he shows himself realizing what Moses had only
heard proclaimed, "the Lord God, merciful and gracious."
He touches one, and there is life ; he lays his finger on
the complaining lips of another, and they complain no
more ; he casts one bright look upon a third, and the home
is happy ; .he speaks one word to a fourth, and it goes
into the very heart's depths ; and thus Christ rejoiced to
make desolate and dreary homes glad, that we, in imita-
23«

270 FORESHADOWS.
tion of his example, may go and begin our mission at
home, and exert our Christian philanthropy.
Conceive, if you can, the return of the man whose reco
very is recorded in this passage. He went home, and
proclaimed not only there, but in all Decapolis, what God
had done for him. Conceive, if you can, the picture re
alized in his reception. He turns his face quietly to his
home the first time, perhaps, for years — the first time, at
least, that he recollects. One child of his, looking from
the casement, sees the father return, and gives the alarm:
every door is doubly bolted ; and the mother and children
cling together in one group, lest the supposed still fierce
demoniac, who had so often torn and assailed them before,
should again tear and utterly destroy them. But a second
child, looking, calls out, " My father is clothed ; before
he was not clothed at all." A third child shouts to the
mother, "My father is not only clothed, but he comes
home so quietly, so beautifully, that he looks as when he
dandled us upon his knee, kissed us, and told us sweet and
interesting stories : can this be he ?" A fourth exclaims,
" It is my father, and he seems so gentle, and so quiet,
and so beautiful — come, my mother, and see." The mo
ther, not believing it to be true, but wishing it were so,
runs and looks with skeptical belief; and lo! it is the
dead one alive, it is the lost one found, it is the naked one
clothed, it is the demon-possessed one, holy, happy, peace
ful ; and when he comes and mingles with that glad and
welcoming household, the group upon the threshold grows
too beautiful before my imagination for me to attempt to
delineate, and its hearts are too happy for human language
to express. The recovered crosses the threshold, and the
inmates welcome him home to their fireside. The father
gathers his children around him, while his wife sits and
listens, and is not weary with listening the whole day and

NATURE SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 271
the whole night, as he tells them how one who proclaimed
himself to be the Messiah, who is the Prophet promised to
the fathers, the Wonderful, the Counsellor, the mighty
God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace, spake to
him, exorcised the demons, and restored him to his right
mind, and made him happy. In that family their past
morning and evening desires and prayers had been, " 0
that the Messiah would come ; 0 that salvation were come
out of Israel;" but that day's delightful privileges, and
that day's most precious domestic communion, they closed
not with prayer for a deliverer to come, but with praise
for one who was come — "Hosanna to the Son of David.
Blessed is he that is come in the name of the Lord ; unto
whom, even to Jesus, be glory and honour, and thanks
giving and praise." Amen.

272

LECTURE XV.
THE RESTORED SON.
And it came to pass the day after, that he went into a city called Nain ; and
many of his disciples went with him, and much people. Now when he came
nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out, the
only son of his mother, and she was a widow: and much people of the city
was with her. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and
said unto her, Weep not. And he came and touched the bier: and they
that bare him stood stilL And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise.
And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And he delivered him
to his mother. And there came a fear on all: and they glorified God, say
ing, That a great prophet is risen up among us; and, That God hath visited
his people. And this rumour of him went forth throughout all Judsea, and
throughout all the region round about. And the disciples of John showed
him of all these things. — Luke vii. 11 — 18.
It appears, from the period at which we are arrived in
the ministry of Jesus, that, in order to perform the miracle
related in the passage I have read, our Lord had to pass
through a small city, called Nain, to reach the place of his
destination, Jerusalem. Accidentally, the thoughtless
world would say, not by the pre-arrangement and in the
determined providence of God, the Saviour came to the
gate of the city of Nain just as the funeral procession
passed by. The circumstance of the funeral procession
being found in the gate of the city is explained by the
fact I have stated several times before — that interments
were not allowed within the walls of cities in ancient times,
the bodies of the departed were always conveyed through
the gate and beyond the walls of the city, to a suitable
place appointed for the interment.

THE RESTORED SON. 273
It appears, that on this occasion much people followed
the widow of Nain as she accompanied the remains of her
only son to their last resting-place. They no doubt did
so to express the respect they felt for her ; to be, in some
degree, a ministry of comfort and sympathy. And you
know that there are losses, calamities, and sorrows which
no man can remove, but which any feeling man can miti
gate by sympathizing in them and with them. This was
all they felt they could do to the widow bereaved of her
son ; and that little they felt it their privilege and their
duty to do. You that cannot help the poor can express
your sympathy with them ; you that from poverty cannot
give a penny to the destitute, can give the expression of
your best wishes, the utterance of your sincerest prayers.
Sympathy with hunger ever softens it; sympathy with
rags ever mitigates the misery of them ; and if we cannot
give (for it is only in such circumstances that sympathy
can be a substitute) there is no one that cannot sympa
thize, because there is no man who has not a heart that
was designed of God to do so.
The depth and extent of this poor woman's affliction is
expressed in few words, but these eloquently significant.
She had lost her husband — she had now lost her son : the
first prop of the house was gone — the last remaining prop
was swept away ; she was a widow, and she mourned the
loss of an only son. There is no one loss referred to in
Scripture, which is spoken of as so deep, severe, and pain
ful, as the loss of an only son : thus, in Zech. xii. 10,
"They shall mourn for her as one mourneth for an only
son;" denoting the intensest bitterness. And in Amos
viii. 10, "And I will make it as the mourning of an only
son, and the end thereof as a bitter day." A Jewish wife
felt it a calamity not to have a son, but it was the most
terrible calamity when the only son, the stay and the hope

274 FORESHADOWS.
of the home, was removed by the hand of death. We have,
in these words, an instance of those touches in Scripture,
where one chord is only gently stirred, and a thousand
vibrate with it ; where one word only is uttered, but a
whole chapter of thought is instantly kindled and called
into being by it.
It is said when Jesus saw her thus weeping, and follow
ing the remains of her son, he said to her, "Weep not."
The words uttered by any other than by the Son of God
would have been absurd : to say to a widow following the
remains of her only son, "Weep not," is almost to insult
her. If there had not been behind the words "Weep not"
a latent beneficence that was to make real by deeds what
was here audible in words, it would have been an insult.
When we visit the mourner — the one that mourns as this
widow and mother mourned, never let us say after the first
blow of calamity, "Weep not." Who does not know that
there are times when grief is so great that it needs an echo
in the sympathizer, not an attempt to arrest it ? The
worse consolation we can give is to say, "Why do you
weep? It is not proper to weep so ; it is not right." God
never warrants us in saying so. When the grief is so bit
ter, the best way to comfort the weeper is to "weep with
them that weep," and give an echo to that grief, as a
response from our heart, showing that we have a fellow-
feeling. We shall give more consolation by this than by
all the little hackneyed, commonplace truisms that are
called comforts, which many, like Job's miserable com
forters, try to deal out. But from the lips of Jesus these
words, which were inappropriate in others, were sufficiently
appropriate, because his word was not a mere sound ; it
was always accompanied with power ; it embodied in it
beneficence ; it carried healing under its wings ; it trans
lated itself into deeds ; so that whatever he said was no

THE RESTORED SON. 275
sooner said than it was done. Therefore, when Jesus said
"Weep not," he did not say, "Be the stoic, and cease to
be the woman ;" but, "Be the woman, and weep now, but
prepare instantly to be comforted." How beautiful are
these words now, even in their diluted echo ! They are a
reverberation from the future, when he shall call to the
heart of all humanity, "Weep not;" when what is now
prophesied, "He shall wipe all tears from all eyes," —
literally translated out of all eyes, — shall be realized. I
may perhaps explain that the Hebrew word which means
"the eye" also means "a fountain;" and when it says
"He shall wipe all tears from all eyes," the idea of a
fountain is clearly present. The word wipe not only
means to remove, but to sponge out, to completely exter
minate. He will not only take away the tears, which may
be succeeded, as it is in this world, by other tears, but he
will extinguish the very springs and founts of tears, so
that to weep shall be impossible, as it shall be unnecessary.
The day comes, then, when that which is now prophecy
shall then be performance ; and "Weep not" addressed to
all redeemed humanity shall instantly be followed by the
fulfilment of that prophecy in which we have hoped and
trusted : "He shall wipe away all tears from all eyes."
Yet when Jesus performed this miracle which we are
now to consider, he did not do it simply and exclusively to
comfort the mother. I say the great design of this miracle
(and this warrants the other lessons which I draw from it)
was not simply to comfort and console the mother. He
could have comforted her by the recollection of her dead
son just as truly as by the presence of a restored and liv
ing son. Besides, we cannot suppose that any one being
upon earth exists or gets life merely as means to serve an
other — merely as an instrument for another's comfort or
for another's purposes, and nothing more. Man is far

276 FORESHADOWS.
greater than this : he has a distinct reference to God, to
eternity, to truth; and he is not merely born to give com
fort to another — that is only one end. The consolation of
the mother was the nearest thing, the most visible result,
but it was not the ultimate and the only thing. That
young man was raised, I have no doubt, his body from the
tomb, and his soul brought back from its home, not merely
to comfort the weeping widow, but to be also a minister
of beneficence and goodness to her, to be the priest of the
house in which he had long been the pillar : so that that
mother should not only have the joy of her son brought
back from the dead to beautify and rebuild her home, but
she should also have the joy of the Lord, which would be
a greater strength, in his talking to her not only of what
Christ had done but of what Christ was — "the light to
lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of his people Israel."
We read that our Lord, when he saw the funeral pro
cession, touched the bier, and said to the young man,
"Young man, I say unto thee, Arise." Strange, myste
rious address ! The dead, pale, lifeless, insensitive body,
stiff with the rigours of death, is addressed by Jesus in
words that would make the experience of humanity smile :
"I say unto thee, young man, Arise." And instantly ani
mal life warmed every vein and artery and limb, and —
more mysterious still ! — the soul came from the place where
it was, and took possession of that body : these words, so
softly spoken by the lips of Jesus, were heard by that soul,
wherever it was, louder than the peal of the last trumpet,
and instantly it came, and entered again its forsaken shrine,
and the young man arose, and looked, and spake. When
he thus arose, and looked, and spake, we may notice that
nothing is said as to what the conversation was. I look
upon this, and the sequel of the resurrection of Lazarus
too, as indirect evidence of not only the grand dignity but

# THE RESTORED SON. 277
of the inspiration of this blessed book. If this story had
been got up by a regular story-teller — if the whole of these
incidents were a mere figment of the fancy — if it were not
the actual record of an actual occurrence ; the author, and
every such teller of a story, would have given whole pages
of the conversation of the young man on his return to this
world : we should have heard from him what he felt when
he left the body, where the wings that were then imparted
to him carried him, what porches he passed through, what
bright apocalypse he saw in the better land, what company
he had, what converse he heard, what songs he joined in,
what spectacles he witnessed — all these would have been
told with great minuteness, and at great length ; and the
story-teller would have done it with the greater boldness,
because he knew that no wing could follow him to see the
district he described, and confront him with refutation or
the evidences of its reality. But the silence of Scripture
in this>espect is positively sublime. The perfect silence
on the part of Lazarus, the no less strict silence on the
part of the daughter of Jairus, and on the part of the
young man the absence of the slightest hint of what he
saw, what death was, what he felt, what he heard, is to me
indirect evidence that the penman here was inspired by a
higher than man, that the record here is the record of an
actual fact, and that the holy evangelist wrote this dignified
record inspired by the Spirit of God.
When the young man was raised from the dead, we read
that Jesus delivered him to his mother. There is some
thing in this act very beautiful. Jesus did not say to the
young man, "Now you have experienced my power you
are a monument of my goodness, come with me, leave your
mother and follow me." He might have done so, and in
other circumstances, in the performance of different mira
cles, he did so ; but here, with that exquisite sympathy
24

278 FORESHADOWS. .
with human relationship, with that true human heart which
Jesus had, besides his divine nature, he felt for that mo
ther's sorrow, and he who breathed in his last agonies from
the cross, "Son, behold thy mother," in this, his ministry
of power and beneficence, took care to dry a mother's tears,
and bring back the full warm tide of a mother's joy and
delight — "he delivered him to his mother." These words
alone are sufficient; all that I can say upon them is only
to mar their grand suggestive simplicity. He delivered him
to his mother, that mother received him. She had once
joy that a man-child was born; but what joy that such a
man-child was restored from the dead and placed beside
her again! And ever, no doubt, as she listened to his
voice, she heard mingling with it the words, " I say unto
thee, young man, Arise;" and ever as she gazed upon that
only son's countenance, she could see there not the likeness
of his father only, but also mingling with those features
the bright beams of that countenance which was more
marred than any man's ; and ever as she received from that
son comfort, joy, or daily bread, thankfully she took the
blessing that the son bestowed, but she looked behind and
beyond and above the son, and gave the glory to him who
had restored the son to her. How beautiful, we may well
conceive, then, did that old home look to that new couple,
the mother and the son, who returned to it ! It was in
their eyes re-consecrated and re-built by the word and by
the hand of Jesus ; and the recollection of that mercy thus
vouchsafed at the gate of Nain made its lintel and door
post and fireside and roof glow with new lustre; it made
their songs at morning and at eventide more heartfelt ; it
became a little sanctuary ; their renewed life had new sig
nificance, and became, as it were, a perpetual sacrament.
Depend upon it, they never forgot that gate of the city of

THE RESTORED SON. 279
Nain, nor those words uttered by Jesus, nor the infinite
obligation they owed him as the Lord of life.
But I should notice also, in alluding to the expression,
"He delivered him to his mother," that there may be in
this — and I am sure there is in it — a foreshadow of that
which shall be at the grand resurrection of the pious dead ;
that the delivery of this son to the mother is only a type
and an earnest of what shall be when every restored son
shall be delivered to his rejoicing mother ; and the joy that
was felt in the home at Nain shall only be a dim, dim fore-
light of that intenser joy that shall be felt in the heavenly
home when all lost relationship shall be restored, all sus
pended communion shall be resumed, and each shall know
the other, and reciprocate each other's joys, and sing as
they never sang before that new song which is ever new
and never old, because it never wearies, and can never bo
exhausted. It is said that the effect of this restoration was first felt,
or early felt, by the multitude. "When they saw it," it
is said, "they glorified God, and said, A great prophet is
come, for he hath visited his people." The multitude were
eye-witnesses ; they saw the funeral, they beheld the dead
young man, they heard the words of Jesus, "Arise," and
they saw the young man rise. And this gospel record of
it was written and circulated while many of these persons
were alive, who might and would have stood up and denied
its truth if it had not been the actual narrative of truth.
The multitude •exclaimed, "A great prophet is come:"
perhaps they meant it was the prophet, the true prophet
that Moses promised, like unto him, raised up from among
their brethren, and to whom they should give heed in all
things. We have thus, then, the procession, the dead, the living,
the restored, the home made happy. The sun dawned that

280 FORESHADOWS.
morning upon a weeping family and a miserable home ; the
sun set that evening upon a happy mother and a rejoicing
son. That night looked brighter than the sunniest day.
It seemed to them as if it were a new day. Let us now
learn some lessons from all this.
The first I would desire to learn is, that Jesus was truly,
strictly, literally, man. "He had compassion on him:"
"he was," as we are told elsewhere, "exceeding sorrowful;"
and at the grave of Lazarus it is said he wept. Can I
doubt, then, that he who thus sympathized with man was
man — that he who thus felt a compassion so earnest, so
deep, so inexhaustible, (for it only seemed to accumulate
as it met with the calamities of mankind,) was truly and
literally man? "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,"
was his announcement ; " the Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the
poor," was the sermon which he himself preached : " I say
unto thee, young man, Arise," was the evidence that he
had compassion to sympathize with the weeping, and that
he had, in the second place, what I wish next to notice,
power to remove the cause of that weeping. He was, in
other words, God. I have said that he was man — truly,
strictly, literally man ; all that can be said of me, sin ex
cepted, could be said of him ; he had not merely a body —
that is, animal life — but he had a soul — that is, my other
part, my intellectual life. But he was, in addition to all
this, also God, and the evidence of this is sufficiently dis
played in the miracle that was here done. Notice the con
trast between the resurrections that occur in other circum
stances with the resurrection that occurs here. When Elijah
was about to raise the widow's son, he cried unto the Lord
and said, " 0 Lord, my God, hast thou also brought evil
upon the widow with whom I sojourned, by slaying her son ?
And he stretched himself upon the child three times, and

THE RESTORED SON. 281
cried unto the Lord, and said, 0 Lord, my God, I pray
thee, let this child's soul come into him again." That was
a man armed with miraculous powers, doing miracles. But
how did Elijah do it ? He did it simply as the minister of
God, simply as the channel through which God's power
flowed, and he recognised that power, and gave the glory
to the author of the miracle before and after he did it-
But when Jesus comes to do the miracle, he does not first
say, " 0 God, do it," he does not acknowledge, as Elijah
did, that he had no power to do it, but he says, " Young
man, I say unto thee, Arise." When the apostles did mi
racles they did them amid prayer, or in the name of Jesus
— "in the name of Jesus of Nazareth;" they proved that
their power and authority were altogether borrowed ; but
when Jesus did miracles, he showed that his power was
original, unborrowed and underived. Elijah did the mi
racle as a man, Jesus did it as God ; Jesus was not only
man then, but he was also God.
We have also to learn from this passage the hope, that
great hope which the apostle eloquently declaims upon —
the resurrection from the dead. It is as easy to raise a
million of the dead as it is to raise one ; the same power
that could raise that dead young man, can raise the millions
upon millions that sleep, as far as their ashes are concerned,
beneath the very dust on which we tread ; it is not one whit
more difficult, because the difficulty in both cases implies
omnipotence, to give life again to all the sleeping dead of
the six or seven thousand years that are past. "I am,"
says the Saviour, " the resurrection and the life. All power
is given unto me in heaven and in earth." That power is
not exhausted by its use, it is not spent by distance ; he is
the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. Persons argue,
and I have argued, and in its place we may fairly argue,
that we have analogies that show us the possibility of a
21*

282 FORESHADOWS.
resurrection ; in the dry root, so unprepossessing and un-
beautiful, under the influence of summer showers and suns
bursting into the rose ; in the case of the insect, a repulsivo
worm in its chrysalis state, by-and-by unfurling its wings
and floating like a living flower in the air, in the shape of
a butterfly ; we see in all the buds that burst out in spring
analogies clear and beautiful of the possibility of the re
surrection : but let us recolleet, an analogy does not prove
any thing, it only says that the divine promise is in har
mony with providential and divine facts. And I may also
notice, to show how little these analogies prove, that the
most gifted of ancient philosophers never dreamed of a
resurrection ; Socrates, Plato, Cicero, Seneca, Epictetus,
saw flowers and felt springs, and yet never thought of a
resurrection ; they cannot be supposed, therefore, to be
proofs. But one fact is worth a thousand arguments, and
ten thousand analogies. You have here, not an analogy,
not a dim hint, but a fact that Christ did restore life to one
that was dead; and that one fact is infinitely more con
clusive than all the arguments man can use, and all the
analogies genius can find out. The resurrection is not
merely a thing probable, not only a thing possible, but a
fact that has already been done.
Let all that mourn the loss of those that are not lost,
but gone before, seek consolation where this poor widow
found, her consolation. Christ may not recall your dead
from the tomb, but he can do better for them and for you
— he can fill the chasm they have made with yet richer
and intenser consolation. The restoration of the widow's
son to her fireside was one way of comforting, and only
one ; Christ might have given her richer comfort in mani
fold ways, without restoring her son from the dead ; he
can do more than give consolation — he can himself take
the empty place, the vacated niche, and fill it with the ful-

THE RESTORED SON. 283
ness of Him that filleth all and in all. He has promised
to comfort you under all your trials and your losses, but
he reserves to himself the when, and the manner in which
he will do it. Ask of him consolation, but leave to his
own goodness and wisdom the mode in which he will send
that consolation. The restoration of the dead is only one
way, and it may not be the best way ; he has many more.
In the next place, let us anticipate the reunion of all
our relatives, and children, and fathers, and mothers, that
have fallen asleep in Jesus Christ. When a relative we
love, a child, a son, a parent, dies, and leaves us alone,
that stern and indomitable silence that sits upon the cold
pale lips, that once were so eloquent with words of af
fection, is the most solemn thing of all ; often we wish,
when we see the dead, and gaze on that which was all life,
all sympathy, that flashed with joy, or that was channelled
with tears — all so indomitably still, answering nothing,
hearing nothing, responding to nothing — earnestly we long
in such circumstances for some sign from the spirit-land,
some beam from the unutterable glory, some sweet voice
to tell us audibly and clearly, "Your dead one yet lives."
But no sign comes, no voice is heard, no response is given
us. Then, in such a case, let us leave the presence and
trappings of the dead, let us leave the chamber of mourn
ing and of wo, and let us go to the gates of Nain ; let us
call back through eighteen centuries that glorious spectacle,
let us listen to these words, " Young man, arise ;" and
then let us hear reverberating in multiplied echoes from
the mighty multitude that saw it, " The Lord hath visited
his people, the great prophet is come," and we shall then
know that our dead do live, and that we shall meet them
again, as that mother met her restored son. Above all,
let us add to this, this blessed fact^-that the long pro
cession of the dead has not only been turned by Jesus in

284 FORESHADOWS.
three separate instances in the New Testament, but it has
been completely diverted by himself. Jesus rose from tho
dead, " the first fruits of them that sleep." We may, then,
gather spring flowers with which to beautify the graves of
our beloved dead from the garden in which they laid him ;
we may thus learn that death is to the believer but the
angel of love, and the grave to a saint but the narrow gate
that leads to glory. What blessed hope, then, does this
Christianity teach us ; what noble consolations does this
Bible give us ! Let us cherish it, let us love it, let us praise
God for it, let us seek to feel it.
We learn here also, that the soul, separated from the
body, plainly lives independent of that body. When this
young man was raised, if there had been restored to him
the mere animal life, he would have been nothing more
than one of the brutes of the field ; but there was restored
to him not merely the beating heart, the breathing lungs,
the circulating life-blood, the animal life which the horse,
and the ox, and the dog all have in common with us, but
there was restored to him the intellectual life and the
moral life, the soul which is the man, and which man alone
has. I have often tried to think — but perhaps it is wrong
to speculate — where the soul is when it is severed from
the body. It is a very solemn thought. We know, if it
be a child of God, what it is — we know what it enjoys,
but the locality where it is, we know not. My impression
is this — that the souls of those that are gone may be far
nearer to us than our absent friends and relatives arc at
this moment — that the soul of your child, your father,
your mother, your brother, or your sister, may be nearer
to you at this moment than your actual living brother or
sister. In other words, it may be perfectly true, that just
as there are minute living creatures which our naked eye
cannot see without a microscope, so there may be present

THE RESTORED SON. 285
spiritual beings in the midst of us too ethereal for our
gross senses to see in this economy. As the ocean is a
finer medium than the earth, the air a finer medium than
the ocean, there may be a finer medium above all, and that
may be where souls now are. There is something pleasing
in this ; that those that are gone, as we call it, may be
actually present in the midst of us, seeing us, though we
cannot see them, hearing us though we cannot hear them,
frequenting our homes, visiting our abodes, appearing on
our streets, near to us, and close to us. And yet we must
neither pray to them, nor need we attempt to speak to
them, for we can neither see them nor hear them. It is
said by Roman Catholics that departed Christians pray
for those that are left. It is not impossible ; I do not see
any thing unscriptural in the idea that saints that are in
heaven may pray in heaven for those they have left upon
earth. I do not assert that it is so, because the Scripture
does not ; but I do not see any thing impossible in it. It
is quite a different thing for us to pray to them — that is
idolatry, gross idolatry ; we have but one Mediator, and
that Mediator is Jesus Christ. If this be fact, then, it
may be that those with whom we held sweet communion
on earth may be merely gone into an upper room in the
same house, separated from us only by a transparent vail,
a thin partition, in short, that they are only in the chancel
end of the same grand cathedral, and are there with us
worshipping the same blessed Father, so that the com
munion of saints, the church militant with the church in
glory, may be near and interlacing and intermingling, like
the land and the sea. But wherever the soul of a be
liever is, it is infinitely happy, perfectly happy, and un
scathed by earth's troubles. Chalmers said that heaven,
the present abode of the soul, is not so much a locality, as
a character. Let there be perfoct holiness in any soul,

286 FORESHADOWS.
and let that soul be where you like, there it must have
perfect happiness. Wherever there is perfect holiness,
there there must be perfect happiness. If this thought
can be made good by Scripture, or, indeed, if it is not
contradicted by Scripture, let us draw instruction from it.
We may be surrounded by a cloud of glorious witnesses,
millions upon millions maybe gazing upon this battle-field,
wondering and waiting for the issue of this grand struggle,
longing for that blessed day when to him that overcometh,
as it is stated in Revelation, will be given to sit down with
Christ upon his throne, as he has overcome and sat with
the Father upon his throne.
The last lesson I would briefly notice, as I have already
alluded to it, is our perfect recognition of each other in
the future. I believe souls now severed from the body
may recognise each other ; I believe that souls, when re
stored and reunited to the body, shall fully recognise each
other. In each of the three miracles of resurrection per
formed by Jesus in the Gospels, he restored the raised one
to the family from whom he had fled. So likewise in the
case of the daughter of Jairus, the maiden was restored to
her parents, and they saw by her personal identity it was
the same one that died. When Lazarus was raised, he
was restored to Mary and Martha, and they knew him and
conversed with him. When the young man was raised, he
sat up ; his mother knew that it was he, and he knew that
that was his mother. I think there must be in these facts,
so fully and so minutely stated, that the restored dead
ones saw and were seen, spoke and were spoken to, and
fully recognised each other, a dim foreshadow of that
blessed day when all shall recognise each other, and groups
shall be in heaven among whom personal friendships,
begun on earth, shall last for ever. I do not think that
friendship is so earthly in its nature that it perishes with

THE RESTORED SON. 287
the body. Jesus recognised his mother in the agonies of
death ; Jesus had a friend, and that friend was Lazarus ;
and a disciple that he especially loved, and that was "the
beloved disciple ;" thus proving that Jesus hallowed friend
ships and relationships — and what he hallowed has the
element of perpetuity, nay, of eternity itself, and shall
last for ever. Let us rejoice in this blessed hope — that
all circles will yet be restored, that all suspended relation
ships will yet be renewed, and that the joy the mother
feels in the presence of the Lamb shall be reflected in the
countenance of the child that feels it too, and that both
shall be one ceaseless, uninterrupted, happy family in the
presence of God and of the Lamb for ever !

288

LECTURE XVI.
THE RESTORED DAUGHTER.
While he spake these things unto them, behold, there came a certain ruler, and
worshipped him, saying, My daughter is even now dead :' but come and lay
thy hand upon her, and she shall live. And Jesus arose, and followed him,
and so did his disciples. And, behold, a woman, which was diseased with an
issue of blood twelve years, came behind him, and touched the hem of his
garment : for she said within herself, If I may hut touch his garment, I shall
be whole. But Jesus turned him about, and when he saw her, he said,
Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole. And the
woman was made whole from that hour. And when Jesus came into the
ruler's house, and saw the minstrels and the people making a noise, he said
unto them, Give place : for the maid is not dead, but sleepeth. And they
laughed him to scorn. But when the people were put forth, he went in, and
took her by the hand, and the maid arose. — Matt. ix. 18-25.
Three great instances of resurrection from the dead
are recorded in the Gospels, as achieved by him who is the
Resurrection and the Life. Two of these I have already
examined : I now direct your attention to the last, not the
least beautiful and instructive of the three.
It appears that Jairus was a ruler, or, as he is called,
apxv> a chief person or prince of the synagogue. It would
also seem, as this miracle was performed at Capernaum,
that this ruler Jairus, the father of the maiden who was
raised from the dead, was one of the elders spoken of in
Luke vii., and who came to Jesus pleading for a certain
centurion's servant, who was sick and ready to die. He
was there pleading for the restoration of another ; he is
here pleading — if it be possible to conceive that he realized
the idea of a resurrection of his daughter from the dead —

THE RESTORED DAUGHTER. 289
for the restoration of his own. And what does this con
trast teach us ? That sympathy with others in their trials
is the earnest of succour to us in ours.
The statement that was made by Jairus, when he ap
pealed to the Lord, was, "My daughter is now dead."
But in turning to the Gospel by Mark, we find his account
to be, "My daughter is even now at the point of death."
This seems to be one of those apparent discrepancies in
the Gospels which prove that there was not, as has been
imputed to the evangelists, a conspiracy among them to
write the same thing, and thus to palm a joint imposture
on a credulous world. Those apparent discrepancies are
the evidence that each evangelist wrote distinctly and
separate from the others, that there was no combination
to write the same thing, and that independent witnesses of
facts are the independent recorders of the performance of
these facts ; and what seems to be a discrepancy or discord
is found to be only a grander harmony when it is really
and thoroughly understood. It appears that this maiden,
the daughter of Jairus, was so ill that the father rushed to
Jesus, fully expecting that she would be dead before he
reached him ; for be it observed, it is afterward recorded,-
that the messengers came and told Jairus that his daughter
was already dead, as it is alleged in the other Gospel, and
that therefore they were not to trouble the Master : show
ing us that when the father left her she was in that critical
state that he was positively sure she would be numbered
with the dead before he could have finished his journey.
Matthew seizes one part of his statement, "she is dead;"
Mark seizes what was no doubt another and preceding part
of his statement, "she is at the point of death." Pro
bably when the father rushed with impetuous feeling and
paternal sympathy, he exclaimed, as we can conceive in
such circumstances, "My daughter is at the point of death;
25

290 FORESHADOWS.
nay, I am sure she is already dead. Pray come ; if it be
possible, recover her, if living; restore her, if dead."
Thus we have not a real discrepancy, but one evangelist
recording one portion of the father's remark, and the
other evangelist recording the other portion, and both thus
giving a full portrait of what actually occurred upon the
occasion. Now, while Jesus was performing another miracle on a
woman who was diseased, who met him in the way, and
whose meeting of him is alluded to by all the evangelists
as occurring in the midst of this miracle, certain parties
came to him, as it is narrated by the other evangelist, and
told the father not to trouble the Master, and that his
daughter was already dead: conveying their solemn and
natural impression, that however efficient Jesus might be
as a physician, they could not expect that he had any
power to call back life into the cold frame, or the pulsation
of the blood into the still and silent heart. They regarded
death as the paralysis of all hope, as the close of all inte
rest, as the distinct evidence that man's power had reached
its limit, and that there was no help or cure. But what
seemed to man utterly impossible, was not so to Jesus, and
the sequel shows it.
But before I pass on to the fact of the resurrection of
this maiden, let me notice here that we have an instance
of death entering into the family of a distinguished, pious,
devoted ruler of the ancient Jewish synagogue. We see
it legible upon the whole history of the world — that death
enters into all circles. The happy family of Lazarus, and
Martha, and Mary, whose home was so bright, whose sis
terhood and brotherhood were so beautiful, is intruded into
by death, and the stay, the roof-tree, of the home is snatched
away and borne to the grave. We see here death entering
into the family of a pious, distinguished, and devoted ruler

THE RESTORED DAUGHTER. 291
of the synagogue ; and I need not remark that even royalty
itself, with all the appliances that art could give, with all
that science could prescribe, with all that wealth could pur
chase, with all that sympathy could minister, has not been
able to attain the ripe old-age which peasants and mechanics
frequently reach; thus proving to us that the dead level
of human happiness has far fewer interruptions than men
are apt to suppose. But when we think of death entering
into all circles, the circles of the pious, the good, the rich,
the homes of the royal, is it not strange that a fact that
stares us daily and hourly in the face, in all lands, and
from all points, is so little felt, and so infrequently consi
dered? How is it that preparation for meeting and pass
ing through death occupies so little space in the thoughts
and anxieties of mankind ? But I will not say death ; for
death is nothing that we have to do with, except to defy
it; we have to lift up our heads and look above it. We
have nothing to do with preparing to meet death, but pre
paring to meet God. Death is the mere loosener of the
strings that moor us to the shores of time ; the mere dis-
solver of the cement that glues us, as it were, to things
that perish in the using ; and what we are to do is to de
spise death — not to think of it. It is only suggested to
me by death to speak of that subject at all. Prepare to
receive God in our nature, when he comes to you, if such
should be your happy alternative; and we have nothing to
do with preparing for, or thinking to meet death. And
if you are to meet that crisis at all which separates from
time and unites to eternity, remember that our preparation
for meeting God is not the hour we spend with a priest
before we die, or the few prayers that escape amid the
agonies of a dissolving frame; but the true arena of the
victory over death is the journey of life; the true prepara
tion for dying is living now. The light thing is to die—

292 FORESHADOWS.
the solemn thing is to live. The awful place is not, in my
judgment, the death chamber; but the places that are
fraught with stirring and tremendous issues, are the count
ing-house, the place of business, the social circle, the fire
side — these are the solemn places ; in these the battle of
life is fought ; in these the victory is lost or won. By what
we are there is our preparation or our unpreparation to
meet God upon a judgment-seat: it is in these that the soul
fights the battle of life; it is on the death-bed that the soul,
if a Christian soul, begins to reap the laurels and to seize
the spoils of its victory. Never forget, then, that the only
preparation for dying as we could wish to die, is living as
God bids us live. But I believe the very common and very
pernicious notion is, that we are to live a life exclusively
the world's ; and if we can snatch an hour, when the sha
dows of approaching dissolution lie dark and heavy upon
us, to give utterance to a parting cry, which even animal
nature may give vent to, apart altogether from the soul,
then all will be well. Far be it from me to cast the least
shadow of suspicion upon this — that while there is a pulse
at the wrist there is a hope for the heart. Far be it from
me to disbelieve — that the dying eye may catch a look of
the exalted Saviour; and, looking, even in the agonies of
death, may live for ever. But I am speaking, not to the
dying, whom I would try to point to that Saviour, but to
the living; and I assure you that all experience proves,
what all Scripture plainly intimates, that most men die just
as they live. Is not this the law of nature — that the pre
vious state we are in is always the preparation for, and
gives its tone to, the state that succeeds ? We reap pre
cisely as we sow. And what is this meant to teach us but
the lesson, Prepare in life to meet God in death ? What
is manhood? Our manhood is very much what our youth
was ; and our old age, which feeds upon the past, and can

THE RESTORED DAUGHTER. 293
no longer feed upon the future here, though it should and
may feed upon a brighter and better future hereafter, is
very much what our manhood was. Is it not the case in
trade ? It is not the splendid advantage that comes across
his path that makes the successful tradesman, but it is the
clever and judicious seizure, on the instant, of the advan
tage, while it passes. Many tradesmen who have been un
fortunate and ruined in the world, have had far more
splendid advantages offered them than others who have
been successful, and have retired prosperous and happy
men. It is not the magnificence of the opportunity that
meets us, but it is the force and intensity with which we
seize it and turn it to advantage. It is not, I am sure, the
grandeur or the multitude of our Christian privileges that
is securing our final victory, but the instancy with which
we seize them, and the grace we receive from God to sanc
tify and rightly employ them. So we find it in taking a
larger view of life — that the nursery in which wc play a
part as children gives its tone very much to the nursery in
which we take a part as parents. It is wonderful how little
the main, substantial elements of human character alter:
we easily let slip from memory events about ten years old,
while we easily recollect the things of youth. The last
sounds that will ring in the old man's heart will be the song
that his mother sang over him when he prattled by her knee,
or listened to her loving and affectionate commands. Les
sons instilled in the nursery often experience a resurrection
in old age, and live when all between seems hushed and ut
terly expunged. Let us then never forget this great lesson,
that as we live so we die ; that the present is preparation
for the future — not for dying, for that is not worth consi
dering, but for being with God in happiness, or being exiles
and strangers to that happiness for ever.
When the news was brought to our Lord that the daugh-
25«

294 FORESHADOWS.
ter of Jairus was dead, we read in the parallel passage that
he gave but one prescription — one noble prescription — that
which is the key to victory still, as it was the key to vic
tory then — "Be not afraid, but only believe." This was
Christ's prescription for hope, and not only for hope, but
for victory. What is the circumstance, I ask, that makes
death seem so insignificant to a Christian? He looks upon
it in the light of him who is the conqueror of death. And
what makes death so terrible to a man who is not a Chris
tian ? Because he sees it just as death came into the world,
and has continued ever since. If a Christian meets death,
he meets him as a friend, and then he thanks him to let
him go ; but if he meets him as an enemy, he says with
derisive scorn, " 0 death, where is thy sting ?" The great
peril is, when man meets death as .a stranger, knows no
thing about what he is to do, or where he is to lead him ;
then he may tremble, whether he be a judge upon the
bench, or a monarch on his throne, or the occupant of the
highest and the happiest sphere in which humanity can be
placed. But if the believer has his eye resting on
Christ, the conqueror of death, his ear is open to his
blessed accents, "Be not afraid, but believe." If his every
day life be the reflection of the life of Christ, and the life
that he lives the life of Christ in him ; then when he comes
to die, or when he anticipates the hour of dying, he can
say, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, I will fear no evil ; for Christ has illuminated it by
the transit of his own glory." Christ has opened the king
dom of heaven to all believers ; Christ has overcome the
sharpness of death, to use the language of an ancient hymn,
and therefore blunted it utterly to all believers. And the
man that thus hopes, and trusts, and looks at death in this
light, has nothing to fear in dying, because it is the struggle
of a moment that ushers him into the glories of eternity.

THE RESTORED DAUGHTER. 295
Jesus said of this maiden, "The maid is not dead, but
sleepeth." You are not to suppose from this that she was
not really dead, for he uses the same words respecting
Lazarus, "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth;" and only when
they evidently misconstrued the expression, he explained
it to them: "Jesus told them plainly, Lazarus is dead."
Sleep is the Christian name for death; it is the beautiful
and prophetic colour that Christ spreads over the features
of the dead, and is designed to intimate, that as sure as a
morning comes to the sleeper on his couch, so sure an
everlasting morning shall break upon the tenants of the
tomb. To this maiden the sleep was very short, and there
fore it was not fit to be called death; for already, in her
case, the Sun of righteousness had entered through the
casement of her chamber, his first beams were falling softly
on her eyelids; and one word more, "Talitha cumi," as
he spake in another Gospel, "Maid, arise," and she rises
from the torpor of death, and mingles with the joys and
sympathies of the living.
It is impossible, in looking at Christ thus raising this
maid, to fail to notice one remarkable feature in Jesus —
the quiet power, the calm self-possession that he indicated.
Mourners here, weepers there, distress in another place ;
and the only one who appears calm, and unmoved, and
perfectly composed, is the Son of God. I do not state
this as peculiar to this miracle, but as remarkable in all.
We must see in every miracle that Jesus did, a manifesta
tion of quiet self-composure and self-possession, the most
striking and remarkable. And what was this the evidence
of? All great men are quiet men. Evidence of power
is self-composure, self-possession. All the greatest forces
in nature make the least noise. The lightning flashes,
the thunder rolls, and men call that great : but there is
a power infinitely greater. The light that comes from

296 FORESHADOWS.
the sun descends with a speed that is almost incalculable,
and when it falls upon the earth it makes the secret life
of every flower and tree instantly burst into expression,
and put forth their foliage ; and yet that light, possessed
of such power that in one month it will clothe the whole
earth with verdure and beauty and blossom, comes so
quietly that we cannot hear it, and so softly that it falls
upon the infant's eye, and yet does not injure it. All
great things are quiet things; and the very quiet that
Jesus showed amid the most stirring and startling events,
is evidence that if never man spake like this man, never
man acted like this man.
Before Jesus proceeds, however, to raise the maiden
from her sleep, or rather from her death, he clears the
house of the mourners. History tells us that at ancient
funerals mourners were regularly hired ; it seems strange
and absurd to us, yet such was the fact ; they were hired
in order to express by their lamentations the sorrow that
the relatives felt on account of the loss of their near and
dear relations. These minstrels and other persons who
came to the house — some, it may be, to sympathize, others
only to make mourning — scorned the very idea that the
maid merely slept. "They laughed him to scorn," it is
said ; they thought it most absurd and ridiculous to talk
of one sleeping who had given so clear and unequivocal
proof that she was already dead. Jesus therefore removed
them: it was not meet that unbelief and scorn should be
present in that holy chamber, or be witnesses of that sub
lime manifestation of divine power. He ordered them
away ; and those that remain are Peter, James, and John,
the three favourite apostles, as they have been called, the
representatives of the church of Christ, to witness what
was done. And standing over the couch of the maiden,
like twin funeral tapers, are the father and the mother,

THE RESTORED DAUGHTER. 297
with conflicting feelings and emotions, whether the hopes
of restoration were delusive, whether Jesus had the power
not only to open the eyes of the blind, but also to raise
the dead and bring them to life and happiness again.
Jesus spake to her, "Talitha cumi," Maid, arise, and it
is added, "the spirit came again;" or as it is in another
evangelist, "the spirit came upon her again." And this,
again, is evidence how near that spirit was to her; it is
evidence to us that Jesus saw the world of spirits as dis
tinct from the world of matter. It is clear, too, that the
soul is a thing distinct from the body in which that soul
sojourns. The Jews have an ancient legend, which they
believe, that after death the soul of the departed hovers
near the body for several days before it takes its final
farewell. There may be in this legend of the Jew the
basis of fact. In the room where the weeping relatives
are, and only the dead body is visible to the eye, there
may be present still, for a little time, the soul of him whose
body lies before them ; and if that soul could speak, it
would say to them, "Weep not for me; I am emancipated,
unfettered ; prepared to take my voyage to more glorious
realms — weep only for yourselves." What is remarkable
enough, the highest science has reached the conclusion
that the last echoes of life ring in the body that seems to
us dead much longer than persons actually suppose; and
that it is not impossible that before decay begins the soul
may be lingering in the chambers into which it is to enter
once again at the resurrection from the dead, taking its
last and solemn farewell, and, it may be, calling up many
of the sweetest, noblest, dearest reminiscences of life.
Who has not sometimes observed after the death of a pious
man, that the features will assume a placid, calm, and
beautiful quiet ? I have heard the relatives say, in such
circumstances, "He looks more like himself than ever he

298 FORESHADOWS.
looked in his lifetime;" the very hour or two after death
giving an ideal portrait of the man, so perfect and so
beautiful, that it never was presented in all its beauty by
actual life. And may there not be much truth in this ?
The death-struggle is over ; the agony of disease is laid ;
the machinery of life stands still ; it is the Sabbath that
follows the life week. The soul is not yet gone; it is
traversing the chambers it is so soon to desert; it is re
tracing the journey, and recounting the battles of life ; it
is spreading over those features that once expressed anxiety
and toil to the world, the calm, the repose, and happiness
it now feels, and, it may be, singing in an under tone that
quiet vesper song, that solemn requiem, the last notes of
which shall mingle with the first notes of the orisons of an
eternal and blessed jubilee. Death does not take place,
even science will tell you, till decay commences ; and may
it not be true, that when the body seems dead, the soul
and the body, at perfect ease, are about to take the one
its farewell of the other, till the trumpet shall sound, and
they that were made twain and severed for a season shall
be made one, and so be for ever happy with the Lord.
It is said that when Jesus raised this maid, that he com
manded that meat should be given to her. Now, to a very
careless reader of the Bible, this would seem very puerile :
it looks like a transition from the highest sublime to the
meanest commonplace exhortation ; but it is not so. It
is because we cannot appreciate it that we think thus, not
because it is so. It seems to me that the last sketch in
the miracle is the loveliest of all. The command that she
should have meat, is, to my mind, only second, if second,
to the command, "I say unto thee, Maid, arise." For
what does it prove? It indicates the presence of Him,
and therefore makes the analogy complete, who takes care
of the least thing as truly as he does of the greatest thing ;

THE RESTORED DAUGHTER. 299
it demonstrates the presence of Him to whom nothing is so
minute as to be beneath his notice, before whom nothing
is so magnificent as to be beyond his control; it is a proof
of the presence of that Being who feeds the ant and minis
ters to the archangel beside the throne ; who will not let
a sparrow fall without his control, and who will not let a
seraph go beyond and defy that control. So too the com
mand to give her meat, which it is very likely they would
forget, is the evidence to me that Jesus not only gives life,
but provides for the maintenance of that life; not only
gives spiritual life, but will find living bread wherewith to
nourish that life.
We have thus seen the dead maiden ; we have seen the
anxious parents, and the hypocrisy of the hired mourners ;
we have seen the chamber cleared ; we have seen the Sun
of righteousness, the Resurrection, and the Life, draw
near; we have heard, if not the original, the echo of his
words, "I say unto thee, Arise;" and we have seen the
soul that had just forsaken, if it had forsaken, the frame
in which it sojourned, take up its abode again, resume its
throne, begin its sublime functions, and the maid arise,
and mingle with the living. Let us rejoice that Christ is
still the resurrection and the life of all that are in their
graves. That maid, and Lazarus, and the young man, the
son of the widow of Nain, and all that fall asleep in Christ,
shall hear the last trump, and rise to the enjoyment of
everlasting life.
In speaking of the resurrection from the dead, I cannot
but notice, what I dare say will be referred to this day in
almost every pulpit in the land, the death of one occupy
ing all but the loftiest sphere in this kingdom, whose ex
emplary and beautiful life adorned the dignities she held
— I mean the death of Adelaide, the queen-dowager. All
of us must sympathize with the loss sustained by those to

300 FORESHADOWS.
whom she was dear, and who were benefited by her,
because never in the history of England, I believe, and I
am no flatterer of royalty, was there one whose example
was so beautiful, whose charity was so unbounded, and
whose munificence so many institutions of our country
have beneficially felt. There is, I fear, scarcely a charity
in the whole land that will not miss the queen-dowager.
There is not in our land a section of the church of Christ
which, after having exhausted its own beneficence, has not
as its last resort said, "We will make an appeal to the
queen-dowager;" and never, I am sure, was a just appeal
made that was not answered. I recollect she was asked
to give something toward the maintenance of our Scottish
church at Holloway, and she sent £50 ; she was asked to
contribute to our mission at Kennington, and she gave
.£20; she was asked to give something to our schools, and
sent, I believe, £10. I quote these simply as specimens
of her charity, comparatively minute and trifling; yet in
stances of charity and generosity on a larger scale, and to
nobler and far greater institutions, of which there are
many witnesses. I see, indeed, in her life the evidence
of a royalty nobler than kings and queens have, and in
her character the earnest of a crown more glorious than
that of the greatest monarch. It is literally true that she
adorned her diadem ; her diadem did not adorn her. And
while we respect the memory of an illustrious queen, we
should rather dwell in ©ur recollections on the memorials
of a good, a pious, and a Christian woman. . Much as I
reverence and much as I respect authority, which God in
his providence has either placed or permitted, much and
truly as I feel of loyalty to our beloved queen, and reve
rence to all placed over us, yet I revere the woman more
than the queen. The woman is the creation of God ; the
queen is but the conventionalism of man. And if this be

THE RESTORED DAUGHTER. 301
so, the Christian is higher than the woman, nobler than
the queen; for the Christian is the re-creation, the re
generation of the woman by the Holy Spirit of God. It
is beautiful and interesting, however, and a matter of
gratitude, to see the sacredness of the Christian sustain
the dignity of the queen; the piety of the one and the
power of the other allied with beneficence, and charity,
and love. And we feel the more pleasure in noting this, ¦
because the days were, in which royal pastimes and royal
pursuits were of a very different description; war, and
revelry, and licentiousness were once the only games at
which kings played; and pomp, and splendour, and show,
and fashion, and dress were the only amusements that
royalty indulged in. A great change has taken place in
church and state. No such monarchs are likely to reign
now ; just as no hunting parsons, as they were called, are
now any longer tolerated. A purer air has animated pa
laces ; better feelings are now found in royal bosoms. Our
consolation, when we think of the good queen-dowager we
have lost, is in the equally consistent, and still more beloved
queen that we haye — a queen in whose character as an in
dividual so much that is amiable, lovely, and of good re
port is blended with so much that is wise, patriotic, and con
sistent in her as a sovereign, that we know not which to
admire most, the uncrowned womanhood of Victoria, the
sister of us all, or the diademed royalty of Queen Victoria,
the sovereign and the monarch of us all ; thankful that
her dignity in the one is only heightened by her consistent
and beautiful walk in the other. If we have lost, there
fore, a queen-dowager, whose beneficence all bear testi
mony to, let us thank God that we have swaying the
sceptre, and seated on the throne of these realms, one
that even the most intense republican must love, that even
the red republican could not refuse to obey, and whom we
26

302 FORESHADOWS.
Englishmen, and Scotchmen, and Irishmen, Christians, I
trust, all of us, obey not only because we are loyal sub
jects, but because we are Christian men, fearing God and
honouring the queen. It was, to my mind, beautiful in
deed to see, when the queen-dowager no longer shared the
throne of a monarch, how softly she fell into the shadow,
and adorned the quiet and retired life that she led, by
gems brighter than a monarch's crown can have, by deeds
of goodness, of love, and charity, and beneficence. She
is gone, we can say without hesitation, to the rest that re
maineth to the people of God. I have heard from those
who knew well, that as her life was spent in doing good,
her last hours were spent in the exercises of implicit trust
and confidence in that only Saviour whose blood — blessed
be the precious Bible that reveals it ! — cleanses beggars
from their sins, and cleanses monarchs from their sins
also ; trusting in the merits of that blessed Mediator, who
is the only way to heaven for the highest, and the welcome
way to heaven for the lowest. May we be quickened by
his Spirit; and when our bodies shall be surrendered to
the dust, may we, with the daughter of Jairus, the son of
the widow of Nain, and Lazarus, and the queen-dowager,
and all that have fallen asleep in Jesus, rise, and reign,
and rejoice with him, wearing a crown of glory and par
taking of an inheritance which is incorruptible and unde-
filed, and that fadeth not away.

303

LECTURE XVII.
CREATIVE GOODNESS.
When Jesus then lifted up his eyes, and saw a great company come unto him,
he saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat ? And
this he said to prove him : for he himself knew what he would do. Philip
answered him, Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them,
that every one of them may take a little. One of his disciples, Andvew,
Simon Peter's brother, saith unto him, There is a lad here, which hath five
barley loaves, and two small fishes : but what are they among so many ?
And Jesus said, Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the
place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand. And Jesus
took the loaves ; and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the dis
ciples, and the disciples to them that were set down ; and likewise of the
fishes as much as they would. When they were filled, he said unto his dis
ciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost. There
fore they gathered thorn together, and filled twelve baskets with the frag
ments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them
that had eaten. — John vi. 5-13.
It appears the crowd that had been charmed with the
miraculous cures which Jesus had so often performed,
having seen the lame leap, the dead even arise, the blind
see, and the deaf hear, instinctively and naturally, it may
be in some degree selfishly, went after one who was able
to do so many wonderful works. They followed him, too,
when he sought, it appears from the preceding passages,
to be alone. He neither forbade them, nor turned them
back : it was his meat and his drink to do the will of his
Father : he suspended the enjoyment of his rest that he
might minister to the necessities of the people ; his life,
like his death, was self-sacrificing and vicarious. This

304 FORESHADOWS.
large multitude came into a desert place — not desert in
the sense that nothing grew upon it, for it might rather be
called a place of steppes or plains, covered with grass,
where there was no possibility of making a purchase, still
less of gathering any thing that would sustain fainting
nature ; and when he found that this immense multitude
had been long without meat, and were ready to perish for
want of bread, he showed them that if he could heal the
sick and make the lame leap like the roe, unstring the
dumb tongue that it might praise him and open the deaf
ear that it might hear him, he could also so multiply the
little bread that it would be able to supply the wants of
five thousand instead of being able to meet, as it seemed,
the necessities of only five. He therefore answers first
the question he addressed to Philip, when he lifted up his
eyes and saw a great company, " Whence shall we buy
bread, that these may eat ?" — a question it appears which
was put by Philip in the morning, to which the miracle,
judging from the whole strain of the narrative, was his
answer in the evening. The difficulty was addressed to
Philip in the morning, that he might think upon it all the
day, and work it out as a great problem in his own mind.
And only when Philip had come to the conclusion that
there was no possibility of feeding them, would Christ be
gin to show that with omnipotence all things are possible;
and that confidence in God is a richer practical supply
than the available treasures of the world. This is God's
way of dealing still with his people. There are no such
things as superfluous miracles in the New Testament ; or
works of supererogation on the part of God. He works
a miracle where a miracle only is required ; he supplies
necessities only that are truly felt. He makes man feel
his own insufficiency before he manifests the fulness of
God, — he causes the creature to see that his cisterns are

CREATIVE GOODNESS. 305
broken and empty before he unseals to him the fountain
of living waters, that he may drink and be abundantly
satisfied. This question was perhaps especially addressed
to Philip, because he seemed, by a previous remark which
he had uttered in this Gospel, to have made greater pro
gress than the rest of the disciples. It was Philip who,
in the first chapter of John, is stated to have found Na-
thanael, and to have said unto him, " We have found him
of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write, Jesus
of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." It will be also recol
lected that Moses had wrought a miracle analogous to that
which is recorded here, when he brought, as it is said,
food from heaven. We read also that the prophet Elisha
once wrought a kindred miracle. It might therefore be
supposed that Philip, having pointed out Jesus as that
glorious Being of whom Moses wrote, as the prophet like
unto him in all things, and whom Elisha foreshadowed as
a greater and more illustrious than he, would expect that
this Jesus, with greater power than Moses and Elisha had,
would be able to perform a miracle that would feed the
five thousand even with a few barley loaves and a few
fishes. But Philip had forgotten these facts. He had not
come to this conclusion. It shows us that we need to be
taught the emptiness that is within as well as the unsatis-
factoriness that is without. The case of Philip shows that
it is possible to know Scripture, and to quote Scripture,
and to prove prophecies performed, and yet not be able
to see savingly Him to whom all the prophets gave witness.
Philip learned slowly to depend upon Jesus. He saw
nothing but the outward means and elements and powers
of nature, and had no idea, if we may judge from this
passage, of the presence of nature's Lord. He unfolded
in his character a striking feature, still obvious enough in
man, the strange, but true fact, that he never appeals to
26*

306 FORESHADOWS.
a divine power as long as he can work his way by means
of human power. The creature never goes to God for
salvation till he has found out that there is no salvation
any where else. He never thinks of applying to God for
interposition in the hour and power of famine, or of pesti
lence, or of trial, till he has learned that human granaries
are empty in the. one, and that human prescriptions are
unsatisfactory in the other, and then he goes to God.
And what a God ! After we have tried the creature in all
its phases, and found that creature fail, God, instead of re
jecting us, as we deserved, for so doing, accepts us when
we flee to him as a last resort, and makes us welcome ;
and heaven is glad that they who found all cisterns broken,
have applied to the fountain and found it sufficient.
Andrew was next appealed to, and he seems to have
had no more faith or trust above the creature than Philip,
for he saith, "There is a lad here which hath five barley-
loaves and two small fishes ; but what are they among so
many?" We have in Philip the commercial power at its
wits' end : money, a little money, but not enough money
in the market. We have in the case of Andrew, Simon
Peter's brother, the agricultural power at fault : a little
bread, a few fishes, but what is the use of these? We
have money and bread both deficient ; the creature para
lyzed in the terrible emergency, and seeing not one ray
of hope, or of light, for deliverance or for safety. So true
is it that God paralyzes first, our agriculture, next our
commerce, lastly our health ; and, as recently shown, how
precarious are our religious privileges ; and perhaps it is
just upon the back of the sorest judgments that God is
about to cause to shine upon us mercies exceeding abun
dantly above all we have either asked or thought. We will
hope. I must say, that I have of our country greater and
brighter hopes than ever. I think it will yet be a Goshen

CREATIVE GOODNESS. 307
in the midst of the nations of the earth. Recent judg
ments, physical and moral, have brought to light an amount
of deep Protestantism, hidden and real piety, which I trust
is only the beginning of that dawn of brighter and better
things which will soon overtake the world. May God
grant that it be so !
We read that our Lord prepares a table in the midst of
the wilderness, and in order to do so, he says, " Make the
men sit down. Now, there was much grass in the place."
I cannot help noticing the remark, " there was much grass
in the place." A mere writer of a story got up would
never have thought of using that expression. It is so na
tural, so unartistic-like, that it is plainly the evidence of a
story written upon the spot, and describing facts that had
been actually seen. " So the men sat down, in number
about five thousand." God is the God of method and of
order. Just take a survey of all God's works in providence
and nature. How beautifully arranged they are ! what
harmony and order among them ! And so here he shows
the same great law pervading this temporary arrangement,
when he bids the people sit down in platoons, or in com
panies, as the language would bear, like garden plots nicely
and neatly arranged ; partly because order is one of hea
ven's first laws ; partly because it was so convenient that
the poorest and weakest were not likely to be omitted when
the whole company was divided into twelve sections, and
the twelve apostles were made to minister to those com
panies. So should it be in our communion arrangements ;
so should it be in the construction of our churches. They
should be arranged so that in the first every one may be
administered to, and in the second that every one may
hear and see. The grand end ought to be .always in view.
Architects, ministers, and elders should always recollect
the object for which a house is built or an institution is

308 FORESHADOWS.
arranged. It is for practical purposes: every thing as
beautiful as can be, but every thing should be subordinated
and made to contribute to usefulness. When a church is
so beautiful that everybody admires } the architecture, but
barely hears, or scarcely attends to the sermon, it may be
splendid architecture, but it is a bad church. When the
sermon is so eloquent that everybody is charmed with the
language, but does not think of what it is meant to teach,
it may be a very intellectual sermon, very grand, very
beautiful, very fine, but it is not worth hearing. And
when the arrangement in any thing connected with the
worship of God is made to take the place of the real ob
ject, the means of the end, the machinery of the result,
there is a radical defect at the very core. God is the God
of beauty and order, but the good and benefit of his people
are the grand results he contemplates in all.
We read that, when he had thus arranged these people,
and made them so conveniently seated that they could
easily be ministered to, he "took the loaves, and gave
thanks, and then distributed to his disciples." He gave
thanks. What a beautiful model and precedent for us !
The Lord of glory gave thanks for the bread that he held
in his hand. Do we ever think sufficiently, that two things
are needed in order that we may derive benefit from our
daily bread ? There is first the bread to be eaten — and
that is the least important, although many people think it
the most important ; and there is next the health to eat it.
The most pure bread may be poison without the blessing
of God; the most imperfect bread may do us good with
the blessing of God. At all events, we who have the best
bread surely do not omit to thank the Giver ; and those
who have all the comforts and luxuries of life, surely they
do not omit to give the glory to Him who gave them all ;
or to show the reality of their thanksgiving by distributing

CREATIVE GOODNESS. 309
to the creatures made by the same hand, to whom God has
not been so bountiful. And then this thanksgiving presents
a contrast to my mind the most striking. In his making the
five loaves feed five thousand, we have the interposition of a
God ; in his taking up that piece of bread and giving thanks,
we have evidence of a creature. None but a true historian
would have combined and coupled things which seem con
tradictory, but which when analyzed and seen in the light
of the rest of Scripture are full of harmony, and present
the perfect One. He that could create the bread, and
show that he was God, equally acknowledged himself a
creature, and proved he was so by giving thanks. If I
am asked, was Christ man? I answer, yes; look at the
dependent creature giving thanks for his daily bread. If
I am asked, was Christ God ? I answer, yes ; look at the
Almighty Creator creating bread by the breath of his
nostrils. If you ask me, what was he ? I answer, God
who satisfied for our sins, man who suffered for them ; the
one Mediator, the glorious Days-man, who lays his right
hand upon the throne and his left upon us : and so of
God and man the twain that were at issue makes one.
Christ having given thanks, "distributed to the disciples,
and the disciples to them that were sat down:" just as he
commanded the prophet to speak to the dry bones and he
did so, so the disciples, without questioning, or any dis
cussion, or hesitation, did what the Lord commanded them.
And the bread grew as they gave it : what they thought
an impossibility became a palpable fact. They asked the
questions, the one, how will these pence buy food for so
many ? the other, there are but five barley loaves and two
small fishes ;. and lo, the men that asked despairingly, in
their conscious paralysis of all hope, themselves answered
the question by feeding the five thousand with these few
barley loaves and few fishes. And what does this teach

310 FORESHADOWS.
us ? That to use what we have is the way to get more.
The man who will make a good use of the little religious
light that he has, is sure to get more. I believe an in
quiring skeptic who will live up to the light that he has,
will not be left to grope in darkness ; I am sure the least
enlightened Christian who will act up to the light that
shines upon him, will not be left without more. God gives
to him that hath, and takes away what he hath from him
that makes no use of it. We are also taught by this and
by the fact recorded here — the barley loaves feeding and
nourishing so many — that a little embosomed in the bene
diction of Christ can supply many ; that much, deprived
of that benediction, or blasted by his curse, will feed none.
Why is it that bread feeds us, and not sand ? Ask the
chemist, ask the physician, ask Liebig himself. He will
talk to you about this affinity and that affinity, and this
process of assimilation and that power of nutrition ; but
when he has said his all we shall be just as wise as he is :
neither know any thing about it. The reason why bread
feeds me and sand does not, is the ordinance of God ; it is
merely the fulfilment, and this miracle is specially so, of that
beautiful saying, " Man doth not live by bread alone, but
by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."
We see in this miracle, what I may notice as I pass, an
illustration of the text, " Seek first the kingdom of God,
and all other things will be added." This multitude was
drawn to Jesus not merely, I think, by seeing the miracles
that he wrought, for they were not sick, or lame, or blind,
or deaf; but as to the miracle-worker, some in sincere and
anxious admiration, others in questioning perplexity, and
both to the great Prophet that should come into the world.
So enthusiastic was their attachment that they followed
him into the desert. Listening to the words that pro
ceeded from his mouth, they forgot they had bodies to be

REATIVE GOODNESS. 311
fed as well as souls to be enlightened ; some were so intent
upon the enlightening of the one, that they forgot for the
time being the necessities of the other. Wonderful is the
power that the mind has over the body. Let the mind be
intensely interested or absorbed in any subject, and man
will forget that he is hungry, thirsty, weary, cold. In the
case of this multitude, they were so rapt and fascinated
by all that Jesus said, that they forgot there was no food
to be purchased and none to be borrowed in the wilderness
into which they had wandered. But they followed Jesus,
and so far sought first the kingdom of God, and then they
found it fulfilled, "and all things will be added." So will
it be with us ; let us seek first to honour God, and happi
ness will spring up beneath our footsteps as we seek him.
"Them that honour me I will honour." And let our.
nation, let our country, do so at the present crisis. Let
it hallow God's Sabbath ; let it forget the possible advan
tages of a Sunday post-office, and remember the obligation
of the fourth commandment : let us try rather to save
souls than to save time; let us be more anxious about
doing what is duty than prosecuting what is expedient ;
and we shall see that if the railway and the electric tele
graph have been given as means of rapid communication
and blessings from God, he has other blessings in store,
that will render what is now thought to be expedient less
necessary and less expedient than it is supposed to be.
Depend upon it, that expediency follows principle, not
principle a seeming expediency; and the highest expe
diency in the universe is unreserved, unquestioning obe
dience to God.
Our blessed Lord then wrought the miracle to satisfy the
wants of them who had left their homes in order to hear
the gospel. And they were conscious of the miracle; they
saw it, they felt it, and there was no doubt that it was a

312 FORESHADOWS.
miracle. And this leads me to suggest what a miracle is.
It has often been disputed in the present day whether mi
racles be in the church : one party saying they are, the other
party saying they are not. The only evidence of a miracle
is not fancy nor imagination, but the senses. If there be
no visible miracle, there is no miracle at all; for the very
definition of a miracle is, something above nature, and that
the senses can see and testify to, or that on good historical
authority and testimony we can accept as having been
done, and so far the evidence of the interposition of God.
How or by what mysterious process this miracle was done
it is not for us to determine. There is a difference between
it and the miracle of the water being turned into wine. In
the case of the water being turned into wine I already ob
served, that the difference between the vine growing in the
vineyard and yielding its grapes, and then ultimately com
ing from the press and being drunk in the shape of wine,
and the instantaneous creation of the wine, was a differ
ence of time : that the ordinary miracle takes a whole year
to turn the vine sap into wine; that in the extraordinary
one, Christ accomplished in minutes what it takes twelve
months in other circumstances to do. But here it was not
merely hastening a process, but it was turning a few barley
loaves into a quantity of bread, prepared and fit for the
people to eat. The only explanation of it we can give is,
that the worlds were formed by the word of God, so that
things which are seen were not made of things that do ap
pear. We need to learn this lesson in looking at the mi
racles of God, that omnipotence can do what we cannot
do, but it also can do and does do what we cannot compre
hend ; so that not only shall our physical powers be put
into their proper narrow space, but our intellectual power
shall also be taught that it is the power of a creature finite,
and not of the Creator infinite. And yet we cannot but

CREATIVE GOODNESS. 313
notice that the same power that was here seen is displayed
every day. In the seed of the corn that shoots into the
stalk, the blade, and the ear, we have a miracle just every
whit as great. In the acorn cast into the earth, that de
velops itself into the gigantic and overshadowing oak, we
have a process just as marvellous every whit as turning the
few barley loaves into a bountiful and gracious supply.
But we are so accustomed to the former process, that we
call it the natural one, and give the honour and glory to
what we call the "laws of nature:" we are so startled by
the latter process, that we are constrained to acknowledge
and admit, This is the finger of God. But if the pro
cesses were reversed, if the usual law were that the word
of some being turned one loaf into a hundred, and if the
unusual thing were that a little seed cast into the earth
shot up and grew into. ears of corn, we should call the latter
the miracle. We live amid miracles : every pulse of our
heart is a miracle, every inspiration and expiration of our
lungs is a miracle, the movement of the arm by the voli
tion of the mind is a miracle ; but we are so accustomed to
these things that we call them natural occurrences, and only
when the same result is achieved by a more rapid or a more
startling process do we call it a miracle. God occasionally
suspends the ordinary process, and interferes by an extra
ordinary one, to teach man that creation is not God, and
that in God all creation lives and moves and has its being.
But there is one touch in the picture inimitably beauti
ful, which one cannot pass by. It is the prudent economy
manifested by the Lord, who had omnipotence adequate to
the supply of twenty times five thousand more. For he
says to his disciples after he had performed this miracle
and fed them, " Gather up the fragments that remain, that
nothing be lost." In performing the miracle he moved in
the orbit of a God: in saying, "Gather up the fragments

314 FORESHADOWS.
that remain," he reassumed his place, reaccepted the laws,
and re-entered the domain of man. In the first, you have
the proof that there was present the mighty God ; in the
last, you have the proof that there was the dependent man.
What a strange combination ! Bounty the most profuse,
economy the most rigid. We cannot but advert to this
fact — and I like to notice such as these, because they are
better even than lectures upon evidence — I say, the very
utterance of these words in the middle -of so stupendous a
miracle, is to me evidence of the inspiration of the writer.
If I had been writing a story, or getting up an account
from my own mind, I should have taken good care never
to have put in any thing that would seem contradictory, or
that would detract from the glory of the stupendous miracle
that had been wrought. Mere human writers would have
argued thus : If we state that our hero, whoever he was,
performed such a miracle, and show him desiring those
about him to gather up the crumbs that remain, it will be
said, here is inconsistency in the story, here is contradic
tion, the shading will detract from the grandeur of the
figure in the foreground, and we must do every thing to
heighten, not dim that. But John wrote by the guidance
of the Spirit of God, stated fact, described fact, wrote
truth; and therefore you have here the combination of
creature economy with creative power ; a trait that no un
inspired narrator would have given. And yet those who
are best acquainted with the laws and processes of nature,
know that this is in perfect keeping with what they find in
the world. It is most remarkable that, fallen as this world
is, it has many vestiges of deity still, there is a most won
derful combination of exuberance and saving, of profuse
bounty and severe economy. There are no unnecessary
things in nature ; there is no needless waste ; and thus wo
see, in the Lord of the miracle, the very counterpart of

CREATIVE GOODNESS. 315
the Lord of nature ; we thus learn that both results come
from the same God, who is over all and in all.
The fragments that remained amounted to twelve baskets
full. It is worthy of observation, that in the miracle where
four thousand are fed, another word is used for baskets,
a-upidat;, but in this miracle, the word used is xocplvouc;, the
Greek word from which our word coffin comes — a very
strange derivation — and some commentators have tried to
show that the one indicated the basket which the apostle
carried with him to supply his daily wants, and that the
other referred to baskets of larger dimensions. This, how
ever, is a very immaterial point, and I only notice it in
passing. The twelve baskets full of fragments were a
greater quantity than the original five barley loaves and
two fishes. And what does this teach us ? That love aug
ments, not exhausts itself; that beneficence never becomes
poorer by its exercise ; that the Christian receives in the
ratio in which he gives, so that the greatest giver is always
the greatest receiver ; and the Christianity that unfolds
itself in missionary sympathy, by a beautiful reflex opera
tion, becomes deeper and richer in the heart of him that
has it.
The miracle produced a very great impression upon the
minds of the people. It was so like the miracles performed
by Moses, that the people saw at once in it evidence of the
presence of the great prophet like unto him. Instead,
however, of looking at the impression it produced upon
the people, let me draw some lessons instructive to our
selves. The very first lesson we learn is, here was the
evidence of a God. Let us recollect the following distinc
tion : when the apostles performed a miracle they always
said, "In the name of Jesus;" when Christ performed a
miracle, he did so as the I am, in his own name, by his
own authority. Now herein is a distinction so palpable,

316 FORESHADOWS.
that I cannot conceive how we can escape the conclusion,
that if Jesus was not God, he was something infinitely
higher than man ; but he was God, for who could do such
miracles in such wise except God ?
And there was in this miracle, be it observed, something
greater than in any of the other miracles which I have en
deavoured to explain. When Christ healed the lame, when
he opened the eyes of the blind, when he unstopped the
ears of the deaf, we saw restorative miracles; they were
restoring nature to what nature was, or what nature should
be. But in this miracle there was not a restorative or re
demptive act, but clearly a feat of creative power.
Let us mark another fact in the miracles of Christ : he
never performed a miracle, if I may use the expression, in
vacuo ; he always laid hold of a substratum to work upon.
This seems by analogy to teach us that God is not going
to supplant this earth by another earth, and to supersede
our present bodies by other bodies ; but out of the present
earth to construct a glorious one ; and out of our present
bodies, to raise incorruptible from corruptible, and immortal
from mortal, till death is swallowed up in victory. And
so in regeneration : when God makes a natural man a Chris
tian he does not extinguish him, and substitute another in
his place, but he retunes him, he restores him, he disen
tangles his affections, he dips them in the fountain of living
waters ; he requickens his soul and makes a new creature
evolve out of the old creature ; he does not create another
creature perfectly distinct and different. In this we have
a foreshadow and earnest of the age to come.
In the miracles of healing, we had the evidence that
Christ was the great Physician ; in the miracle of raising
from the dead, we had the evidence that Christ was Lord
of life ; in this miracle, the feeding the hungry, we have

CREATIVE GOODNESS. 317
the evidence that by him all things were made, and that
he is the creator of all, as well as Lord of all.
In this miracle there is a grand apocalypse. He draws
aside that all but impenetrable and mysterious mantle, which
conceals the Creator from the creature in the midst of his
creation ; and he shows us — not indeed sunshine and shower,
sowing and reaping — but he shows us Christ, the compen
dium of them all, and from whom all of them issue ; the
Lord of the sunshine and of the shower, the Lord of the
spring and of the harvest, the Lord of the fertility of the
soil and the produce of the earth. In this miracle we see
that the good of things is not in the things, but in the
Lord of the things ; and that things are but the vehicles
and the exponents of a virtue not in themselves, but pro
ceeding from Him who made all things, and gives to every
thing its mission. You have, as it were, here revealed the
holy of holies of God's creation. In our ordinary view
we have results ; in this view we have the source of results :
in our ordinary sphere, we trace, dimly and imperfectly,
the creature up to the creature's Creator, but here of a
sudden the vail is drawn aside, the light shines into the
holy place, and reveals the Creator at the head of all, and
we see that it is not the creature that has the virtue, but
that the creature is the empty thing which Christ fills with
virtue, and charges to his work of ministering toward them
that are his.
And who is this hungry multitude in the desert? All
humanity. What is this desert ? The world in which we
live. What the five barley loaves and two fishes ? The
money, the rank, the title, the^lonour, the greatness of
mankind. And they that seek happiness, satisfaction, and
repose in their money, their estates, their robes, their titles,
their rank, are like poor Andrew, Simon Peter's brother,
seeking nutriment for five thousand from five barley loaves
2J*

318 FORESHADOWS.
and two fishes, seeking the living among the dead ; and their
own experience will tell them, however bitter the lesson may
taste, that they shall never be able to find it. There is no
satisfaction in any created thing without Christ's blessing
upon it, and in it. Any possession which we have, disrup-
tured and dissociated from Christ, will not prove a blessing
in our experience. When the heart is heavy with sorrow,
nothing upon earth will satisfy it. I have seen the heart
so depressed frequently that it has wished the sun would
not shine, that the birds would not sing, that there should
bo nothing musical heard, and nothing beautiful seen. At
such a moment, when the heart is utterly desolate, life and
riches, titles and honour, all appear in their true light, all
are seen at the right angle, and are pronounced by such a
heart to be bitterness, and vanity, and vexation of spirit.
And so it is really and truly, if we could look at all these
things just as they are. It is the presence of Christ in the
blessing that makes it sweet ; it is the absence of Christ
from the richest and best things that make them utterly
worthless. To have all things, and to hold them, and to feel that we
hold them from Christ's hand, is the true way to enjoy
them. As long as I receive what I have, whatever it be,
from Christ, so long uncertainty and anxiety are scattered.
I then begin to feel, that if the harvest fail the Lord of
the harvest remains ; if my health fail, and medicines and
prescriptions and earthly physicians can do no good, the
great Physician still remains ; if provision leave me, the
great Provider does not. But when we look at the thing,
and not at the Lord of tht thing, then when the provision
fails, or when health goes, or when the harvest comes short,
all is gone, and we have nothing to fall back upon. But
as long as man can feel that these things, while they last,
are the expressions of God's goodness, -and when these

CREATIVE GOODNESS. 319
things go, that the author and the giver of them still re
mains, there is thereby communicated steadiness and con
sistency to every pulse of man's heart, and to every footstep
in man's walk, and this becomes the victory that overcometh
the world.
In the next place, when we receive blessings, whatever
they are, from Christ's hand, and regard them as the ex
pressions of his gift, all created things taste of a sweetness
they never had before, and all blessings become, as it were,
double blessings. I have no doubt when these poor people
received the bread that Christ had so blessed, and so mul
tiplied, that they felt a sweetness in that bread that they
never experienced in any bread before. Pious men have
learned to look to Christ as the giver of their blessings,
and to see the cross upon the poorest crumb that they have ;
in other words, they have realized that good idea which the
Roman Catholics carnalize, as they do every thing, when
on Good Friday they draw a cross on the bread they eat,
and think it 'is all thus sanctified: it is just the shell or husk
of a great and true thought, viz. that every crumb of bread
has the cross of Christ upon it to the eye of faith ; that
the least mercy is the purchase of his blood. As soon as
we can see and feel the great fact and reality, that our
largest and least blessings are derived from Christ, we shall
see Christ's image reflected from every thing ; we shall hear
the sweet tones of his voice running through all sounds ;
we shall taste in bread something sweeter than bread ; all
life will become to us a grand sacrament, earth itself a
communion table, the whole world, as it were, a eucharistic
festival; and all men will be felt to be brethren and fellow-
communicants ; and to our eye the very desert will rejoice,
and the wilderness blossom as the rose.
And then, in the last place, the result of the continuous
view of Christ giving all, and doing all, is that we become

320 FORESHADOWS.
daily more assimilated to him, and grow more and more
like him : by the constant practice of rising from the gift
to the giver, from the bread to the bread-giver, we come
to drink into his spirit, and with increasing speed conformed
to him. And thus our daily meals become Scriptures,
our commonest acts become divine ones; we see him
acting in all, and hear him speaking in all; new lights
sparkle to us upon the mountain-tops; a new beauty glows
in every landscape ; the earth becomes girdled with a richer
and more glorious zone; and we see brethren in heights
and in depths, in palaces and in huts, and in hovels ; every
day becomes a Lord's day, and its dawn the dawn of that
millennial day when the giver shall take the place of his
gifts; and men shall live and rejoice, not in the streamlet,
but in the fountain ; not in the creature, but in the Creator ;
not in the dead bread, but in the living bread that cometh
down from heaven. Let us, in the mean time, follow Jesus,
into the wilderness if needs be; let us trust in Jesus for
the supply of the wants that we feel; and while we ask
him for the bread that perisheth, let us ask him that he
would give us that better bread that endures unto life
eternal.

321

LECTURE XVIII.
THE BLIND MAN.
And as Jesus passed by, ho saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his
disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that
he was born blind ? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his
parents : but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. I must
work tho works of him that sent me, while it is day : the night cometh, when
no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.
When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle,
and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, and said unto him,
Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went
his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing. The neighbours therefor'e,
and they which before had seen him that he was blind, said, Is not this he
that sat and begged ? Some said, This is he : others said, He is like him :
but he said, I am he. Therefore said they unto him, How were thine eyes
opened? He answered and said, A man that is called Jesus made clay, and
anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash : and
I went and washed, and I received sight. Then said they unto him, Where
is he ? He said, I know not. They brought to the Pharisees him that afore
time was blind. And it was the sabbath day when Jesus made the clay, and
opened his eyes. Then again the Pharisees also asked him how he had re
ceived his sight. He said unto them, He put clay upon mine eyes, and I
washed, and do see. Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not
of God, because he keepeth not the sabbath day. Others said, How can aman
that is a sinner do such miracles ? And there was a division among them.
They say unto the blind man again, What sayest thou of him, that he hath
opened thine eyes ? He said, He is a prophet. But the Jews did not believe
concerning him, that he had been blind, and received his sight, until they
called the parents of him that had received his sight. And they asked them,
saying, Is this your son, who ye say was born blind? how then doth he now
see ? His parents answered them and said, We know that this is our son, and
that he was born blind : but by what means he now seeth; we know not; or
who hath opened his eyes, we know not : he is of age ; ask him : he shall
speak for himself. These words spake his parents, because they feared the
Jews : for the Jews had agreed already, that if any man did confess that he
was Christ, ho should be put out of the synagogue. Therefore said his parents,
He is of age ; ask him. Then again called they the man that was blind, and

322 FORESHADOWS.
said unto him, Give God the praise : we know that this man is a sinner. He
answered and said, Whether he 'le a sinner or no, I know not : one thing I
know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see. Then said they to him again,
What did he to thee ? how opened he thine eyes ? He answered them, I have
told you already, and ye did not hear: wherefore would ye hear it again?
will ye also be his disciples ? Then they reviled him, and said, Thou art his
disciple ; but we are Moses' disciples. We know that God spake unto Moses :
as for this fellow, we know not from whence he is. The man answered and
said unto them, Why herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from
whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes. Now we know that God
beareth not sinners : but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his
will, him he heareth. Since the world began was it not heard that any man
opened the eyes of one that was born blind. If this man were not of God, he
could do nothing. They answered and said unto him, Thou wast altogether
born in sins, and dost thou teach us? And they cast him out. Jesus heard
that they had cast him out; and when he had found him, he said unto him,
Dost thou beliove on the Son of God ? He answered and said, Who is he,
Lord, that I might believe on him? And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast
both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee. And he said, Lord, I be
lieve. And he worshipped him. And Jesus said, For judgment I am come
into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see
might be made blind. And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard
these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also? Jesus said unto them,
If ye were blind, ye should have no sin : but now ye say, We see; therefore
your sin remaineth. — Johh ix.
I believe that this chapter is one of the most expressive
sketches of contrasted human character that is contained
in the Bible, and is not the least suggestive, to every one
that reads and thoroughly understands it, of important
practical reflections.
It appears from the close of the previous chapter, that
Jesus had been proscribed and persecuted by the Pharisees ;
for it is said, "They took up stones to cast at him, but
Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going
through the midst of them, and so passed by." And this
ninth chapter, which is evidently the sequel of the previous
one, goes on to say, that " As he passed by [running from
the stones of the Pharisees] he saw a man that was blind
from his birth." Teaching us the remarkable and import
ant lesson, that the persecution which Jesus experienced

THE BLIND MAN. 323
from some only led him to minister more graciously and
beneficently to others; the evil treatment he experienced
from one class only made him more busy in expressing his
mercy and infinite goodness to another. No ill treatment
experienced by Jesus arrested his compassion. While he
runs from the stones of the Pharisee, he stops, notwith
standing the shower that followed him, to open the eyes
of one that was born blind !
It is remarkable that the blind man says nothing : he
seems to have been dumb, as well as blind ; but the eye
of Jesus saw him, and the heart of Jesus had compassion
on him, and the hand of Jesus instantly cured him. How
true is this fact in a higher sense ! Christ looks upon us
before we look to him ; he pities us before we pray to him ;
his eye is fixed on us in infinite compassion before our
hearts respond to him in adoring gratitude and praise.
It appears that this man was blind from his birth; and
from several expressions that occur in the chapter, he
seems to have been a well-known and familiar beggar, that
everybody knew, that all had seen, and perhaps were ac
customed to relieve, as they passed to the feasts and festi
vals of Jerusalem. Seeing this person, then, the disciples
of Jesus, not the Jews, so far but not perfectly enlightened,
asked the question, "Who did sin, this man or his parents,
that he was born blind?" Three explanations have been
given .of the origin of the question. The first is, that
certain of the Jews believed, from tradition, not from
Scripture, in the transmigration of souls, a dogma still
held by the Buddhists in India, which alleges that the soul
goes from one person to another, or even from an animal
to a man, or from a man to an animal, according to its
faithfulness to its trust in the place in which God first
planted it; and the Jews thought this man, or his soul,
had inhabited a previous organization, and in that organ-

324 FORESHADOWS.
ization had sinned, and that he was born blind as a penalty
for that previous sin. The second explanation is given by
Lightfoot and others, who say that many of the Jews be
lieved that previous to birth an unborn infant could sin,
quoting the case of Esau and Jacob striving for mastery
or pre-eminence before they were born. Another explana
tion suggested by some is, that God foresaw that this man
would commit some great sin, and therefore thus early
afflicted him ; but retribution follows punishment, and the
idea that he was previously punished for sin that he sub
sequently committed, is so repugnant to all the analogy
of God's providential and retributive dealings that we can
not for a moment admit it.
But instead of speculating upon this question, let us see
how Jesus treated it. Before doing so, however, I may
notice how much of truth there was in the question, and
how much falsehood also was. in it. When the disciples
asked, "Who hath sinned?" they evidently assumed the
fact, universally true, that sin, is the source of suffering.
If there had been no sin, there never had been felt any
suffering. But they assumed in addition to this another
idea, that man's punishment in this life was proportioned
to his sin in this life. This is not correct ; because hell
is pure, unmingled evil, and pure and righteous retribu
tion, while heaven is pure, unmingled good, and pure, un
mingled reward ; but in this world the two powers are in
collision — holiness and sin, the powers of evil and the
powers of good; and God uses suffering as a medicine to
his own, and the greatest sufferer is not always the greatest
sinner, and the most prosperous man is not always the
loftiest saint. "For," says the Saviour, "think ye that
those eighteen upon whom the tower of Siloam fell were
sinners above all men? I tell you, nay" — that is not the
inference you are to draw ; but the inference you are to

THE BLIND MAN. 325
draw is a far more precious one, a practical and personal
one — "except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish."
Still, the main idea of the disciples was just, that sin is
the root and that sufferings are but the branches. That
sin causes suffering who can doubt who has ever witnessed
an infant die ? That infant never committed actual sin,
yet it comes under the doom denounced upon humanity,
"In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely-
die." But while that infant's death is the evidence of sin
somewhere, of sin touching at some point, let us rejoice
to know that that infant's certain salvation is the evidence,
that if sin has so abounded that it smites the babe that
has not sinned after Adam's transgression, grace has
much more abounded, and saves the babe that cannot per
sonally, because physically incapable, believe on the second
Adam for its salvation. There was also a measure of truth
in the other idea contained in the question of the disciples
— "Who hath sinned, this man or his parents?" Every
body must admit a fact not peculiar to Revelation, but
which is legible on every chapter of God's providence,
that the fathers do eat sour grapes, and the children's
teeth do stand on an edge, to use the language of the pro
phet — that there is a connection between the sins of the
parents and the sufferings of their offspring. Is it not
also a fact in Providence ? — a parent leads a dissipated
life, destroys his health, his vigour, and his mind — his
children that he leaves behind him are the sufferers. We
see it in civil law : a nobleman commits high-treason — he
loses his coronet, and his son is born a commoner. We
read it next in God's word, (and thus the three kingdoms
are in harmony,) where it is said, "Visiting the sins of
the fathers upon the children;" but in all three it is not
visiting the children with eternal ruin because the parents
have sinned, but with temporal chastisement or suffering,
28

326 FORESHADOWS.
that their parents may see in their suffering the effects
and fruits of their own transgression. And I can con
ceive no more dire punishment to a profligate, debauched,
and abandoned parent, than to see his sins staring him in
the face from the suffering of his children ; and every time
he hears the cry of one's agony, or sees the sufferings
of another's physical debility, or stands by the grave that
contains the ashes of a third, what a stern and eloquent
rebuke of nis past transgressions must rise and pierce to
the very depths of his heart, preaching to him repentance
and the need of forgiveness of sins. The very reason why
God has thus arranged it is, that parents may be more
prayerful, diligent, and exemplary. In looking sometimes
into judicial proceedings, I have.noticed that when a parent
who has been guilty of some great crime, and has thus
made himself liable to banishment or a heavy fine, adduces
as a plea for mitigation of penalty, " I have a wife and
six children, and I hope, therefore, the punishment will be
mitigated," — the answer of the judge, I have noticed, in
every case has been, " You ought to have thought of this
before you committed the sin ;" thus reminding us that the
sin of the parent is visited on the children. So little in
justice, then, is there in the proposition that is declared
in the Bible, that it is recognised upon our tribunals, and
is witnessed in all the providential dealings of God among
mankind. Let us look, in the next place, at our Lord's reply: it
is after all the more practical one ; it will show that the
disciples had no business to ask the question ; and that
when we see children suffer we are not warranted, as
spectators of their suffering, to conclude that their fathers
sinned, and therefore the children suffer the penalty. Our
Lord rebukes this idea altogether; and I think it is one
of the most beautiful and striking evidences of the infinite

THE BLIND MAN. 327
wisdom of our blessed Lord, that he always turns man's
mind away from the sphere in which it loves to revel, the
sphere of uncharitableness, misjudgment, and wild specula
tion, and brings it back again into the plain high-road of
common duty, obligation, and responsibility. He therefore
says to them very strikingly, "Neither hath this man
sinned nor his parents, but that the works of God should
be made manifest in him." He does not mean by these
words that he was afflicted on purpose that God's works
might be made manifest ; but that the inference we are to
draw from the poor man's blindness is, that it shall issue
to the glory of God; as if he had said to his disciple:
"Do not seek in the life of the parents the cause of the
blindness of the man ; do not pry into the secrets of
families, and fish up imaginary causes of the sufferings of
the parents or the diseases of their children ; do not try
to ascertain by guessing what can have brought this judg
ment upon that family, what has entailed that misery upon
another family ; but see whether you cannot seize the suf
fering that exists as a fact, and on that fact build a super
structure of good to mankind and glory to God whose
providence has permitted it. You are not, therefore, (as
if our Saviour had said,) to speculate upon the blindness
of this man, or upon the deafness of that man, or upon the
sufferings of a third ; but to see what good can be extracted
out of each visitation you meet with; in other words, to
ascertain how sweet a flower may grow from so bitter a
bud. That the works of God may be made manifest, is to
be the end and aim of your study of the suffering of this
man. This is the inference you are to draw, this is the
light in which you are to look at it ; you are not to try to
search out hidden springs of misfortunes, which you never
can accurately detect, but to see what lesson of duty, or
of obligation, you can gather from facts which you can

328 FORESHADOWS.
easily distinguish." And so I say, with reference to the
recent epidemic* that overflowed our land. I refer to it,
perhaps some will think, too often ; but we are forgetting
it too quickly to make it unnecessary to refer to it often.
Instead of doing as some did — trying to discover what sin
in the government, or what wickedness in the people, what
fault upon the bench, or what flaw in the subject — whether
it was sin here, or short-comings there, that caused it —
instead of thus speculating upon the causes that brought,
down upon us the judgment of God, let us learn the lesson
our Saviour here dictates, and see what duties of new de-
votedness, what obligations to fresh beneficence, what good
we can do to make that great minister of judgment to be
after all a minister of mercy, so that the poor of after
ages shall bless their fathers, when they are gone, and
say, "They laboured, and we enjoy the fruits of their
labours." To the man himself, however, we can see, his blindness
was scarcely a calamity ; the result shows it. At this mo
ment, when Jesus looked upon him, he must have felt that
the unsetting Sun that rose upon his soul in the midnight
of his physical blindness, was more than a compensation
for all the privations he had endured. God thus often
gives compensatory elements. In the inner light which
that man began now to see, he had a compensation for the
absence of the outer light, which man's heart can feel but
man's tongue cannot express. It is so still. Upon the
bosom of the blind there often shine the splendours of an
unsetting sun, so much so that I have heard of blind men,
made Christians by the grace of God, who have said they
deprecated the removal of their blindness lest the inner
light, which they so much enjoyed, should ever be ex-
* In 1849.

THE BLIND MAN. 329,
tinguished. Hence, too, we find that upon the souls of
the deaf, there often sound the chimes of celestial melo
dies ; the lame man has been made to mount as with
eagle's wings ; and the old man in the decrepitude of
decay has felt all the elasticity and vigour of youth ; for a
new heart given to an old man makes him, by the grace
of God, to feel young and take heart for the pilgrimage
of life again.
Our Lord adds this remark upon the conversation which
he held with his disciples : " I must work the works of
him that sent me while it is day ; the night cometh when
no man can work." This has been cavilled at ; as if our
Lord meant to say that he could only work during his
biography on earth ; and that his saying " the night cometh
when no man can work" is contradicted by the fact that
his apostles worked, and worked successfully, after him.
All this arises from a misconception of the true meaning
and origin of the words he used. He quoted a popular
proverb ; he says, " The proverb is, Work while it is
called to-day; the night cometh, when no man can work."
This is true, it is true literally, it is true morally, it is true
eternally; and now while the day lasts, while the op
portunity endures, I must work, knowing that the night
of my death cometh, when I shall have finished my course ;
and knowing, too, that to each man there is a day, which
his allowing to pass away prevents him from doing what
belongs to that day. Is it not found in our own experience,
that each day has its own duties ? If you neglect the
duties of to-day, you never can make up for them to
morrow, because each day has duties that completely fill
it ; and if the duties of to-day are neglected, you cannot
crowd them into to-morrow. You require all your strength
and all your power to do to-morrow's duties ; and if you
miss one day's duties, you. have left undone that which
28*

330 FORESHADOWS.
never can be done. So our Lord says: "Work while it
is called to-day ; the night cometh, when no man can
work." Our Lord then took the moistened clay, it is said, and
applied it to the man's eyes, and he immediately saw.
Now what was the design of our Lord in thus using clay ?
I answer, that, judging from the whole face of the nar
rative, it was to make the blind man sensible of the fact
that it was Jesus that healed him. The man could not see
Jesus, but he could feel his hand touch his eyes with the
clay ; he could be made conscious of going and washing,
and then seeing. Or it may have been, perhaps, to con
vince those that stood by that the virtue that healed was
in Jesus. Whenever he performed a miracle, he invariably
used a medium : sometimes the medium was a touch, some
times it was a word, sometimes it was clay. There was no
more virtue in the clay than in the touch, and no more in
the touch than in the word ; the virtue was in Christ. But
the reason why he used the medium, whether it was clay,
or a touch, or a word, was to show sensibly to the eyes of
the spectators that Christ was the Fountain, and that from
him direct to the subject of infirmity the healing virtue
flowed. Christ can work without means, or against means,
or above means. A straw in ah infant's hand, directed
by him, is mighty ; a sword in a giant's hand, blasted by
him, is impotent and useless.
Our Lord then says, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam;"
and the man did it. "Siloam," says John, "which is by
interpretation, Sent." This, perhaps, was to try his obe
dience ; just as in the almost analogous case of the miracle
performed on Naaman the Syrian, concerning which we
read that " Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go
and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come
again to thee, and thou shalt. be clean. But Naaman was

THE BLIND MAN. 331
wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I thought he will
surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name
of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place,
and recover the leper." This man, however, in favourable
contrast, obeyed the command, and went, and washed, and
saw. It has been very much disputed what can have been
John's reason for saying, "which is by interpretation,
Sent." There is no evidence that it is in any way a type
of Christ, or that it was associated with evangelical truth.
The presumption is, that John heard in the very word the
pool the sound of a Saviour's mission, and that he saw, as
it were, reflected in it the brightness of his Saviour's face,
even of that Saviour who was sent by the Father. The
word repeatedly used to describe him whose life was a
mission, or a constant sending, was instantly suggested to
the evangelist by the name of the pool of Siloam.
The man, we read, saw; and the moment he saw he re
turned to his home. The dialogue that takes place there
at the fireside is remarkable. No doubt his parents, his
friends, all his neighbours crowded into the house to see
this wonderful transformation in the case of a well-known
blind beggar, now perfectly seeing and perfectly happy.
But so incredulous were they that they could not believe
it. "Some said, It is he." How very natural ! Let a
blind man's eyes be opened, and the change that takes
place is much greater than the space occupied by the eye.
A blind man walks with his head back, and puts his foot
or his hand foremost, to feel that the way is clear, but the
moment his eyesight is restored the head resumes its na
tural position. Not only is the face altered, but the whole
shape, tone, mannerism of the man undergoes a complete
transformation. We can therefore easily conceive how
naturally some of his neighbours said, "This is he; and

332 FORESHADOWS.
others said, It is like him ; but he said, [which settles all
disputes,] I am he" — whatever I may be like, I am he.
They doubted his identity, and asked him how the change
took place. He gave them the simple story: "A man
[for he was not yet convinced that Christ was the Messiah]
made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, Go
to the pool of Siloam and wash; and I went and washed,
and I received sight." The next thing his friends and
neighbours did was to bring him to the Pharisees. There
was a smaller sanhedrim that always sat in Jerusalem to
try all minor cases, to receive reports of all religious mat
ters ; they brought him to this sanhedrim, not out of a
malevolent or hostile feeling, but rather in order to get
the case perfectly expiscated, in order to ascertain whether
a miracle had been wrought, and what was the amount of
credit due to this man who had wrought so wonderful a
miracle. They, therefore, it is said, brought him to the
Pharisees, who asked him how he had received his sight.
We see the carping Pharisee at once there. They knew
as well as the man did that Jesus wrought miracles, for
they had seen several ; they had not the least doubt it was
an actual miracle, and they did not ask, " Is it a fact that
your eyes have been opened?" — this would have been the
question of a plain unbiased judge — but, " How did he
open them?" Notice the man's reply; and in the reply
you will see how transparently genuine, and authentic,
and real the narrative is. When examined by his neigh
bours, his statement is long, minute, and frank. He says,
"A man made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said
unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam and wash, and I went
and washed, and I received sight." But when he is cross-
questioned by the Pharisees, whose hostility he well knew,
his answers assume a more cautious shape ; he replies
much more briefly, and says, (ver. 15,) " He put clay upon

THE BLIND MAN. 333
mine eyes, and I washed and do see." We clearly see
how cautious his reply was to this synod or ecclesiastical
court that inquisitorially examined him, and how strongly
it contrasts with the frank, open manner in which he re
plied to his neighbours and parents. The moment he
replied, they said, "What sayest thou of him, that he hath
opened thine eyes ?" This reads badly: it means, "What
do you say ? Do you mean to say that he has opened your
eyes? and what think you of him, if he has done so?"
The man answered with great frankness, " He is a pro
phet." "But the Jews did not believe concerning him
that he had been blind, and received his sight, until they
called the parents of him that received his sight." And
when the man had made his statement, we read, (ver. 16,)
" Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not
of God, because he keepeth not the Sabbath day. Others
said, How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles ?
And there was a division among them." This lets out an~
interesting fact, that in this sanhedrim there were two
parties. The one party does not try to meet the fact that
a miracle was done, and disprove it, but they ask how it
was done, urge that the man that did it cannot be a pro
phet, or the Messiah, for he has broken the Sabbath. The
other party in the sanhedrim, who, from the mode in which
they started their difficulty, evidently felt that they were
a minority, and could not carry the day, put in the quiet
question, very suggestive however, "How can a man that
is a sinner do such miracles?" Is there any evidence at
this time in the condition of the Jews indicating that there
was such a minority ? Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea
were constituent members of this very sanhedrim; and
while the great majority argued that the man must be a
bad man because he had done this miracle on the Sabbath
day, these men of nobler mettle, rising superior to the

834 FORESHADOWS.
mere partisanship of the age, impressed with the magni
ficence of power and beneficence concentrated and com
bined in all that Jesus did, afraid to take too decided a
part, yet determined not to be silent when truth was
threatened with martyrdom, lifted up their still, small, but
singularly suggestive voice, and said, "How can a man
that is a sinner [that is, an impostor, a thoroughly bad
man] do such miracles?" — so stamped with evidence of
power, and so replete with proofs of beneficence. We
cannot believe that he is an impostor, or a sinner. The
Pharisees again put the question, "What sayest thou? we
have heard one explanation, and we have found two mem
bers of the sanhedrim who dispute it — What sayest thou ?
What is your idea of the man?" It was a question, but
it was, at the same time, a hint to the man, (seeing that
there was a vast majority against Christ, and only two
individuals for him,) insinuating that the less he said for
Christ the better, and that if he could get his conscience
and his tongue to co-operate in stating his impression that
Christ wrought miracles by the power of Beelzebub the
prince of devils, he would be promoted, get some prefer
ment, or some valuable situation. But the witness was an
honest man ; he was frank, generous, and grateful for the
miracle of which he had been the subject ; and he replied
at once with great manliness and real honesty, fearing
neither their frown, nor desiring their approbation, "I
believe he is a prophet." They were foiled; they expected
something to help them, but they found that which more
and more entangled and perplexed them. Seeing they
could make nothing of the man, they resolved to ascertain
if they could detect in his statement any thing that would
clash with the statement of his parents. They therefore
sent for the man's parents and spoke to them. "The
parents," we are told, " answered and said, We know that

THE BLIND MAN. 335
this is our son, and that he was born blind ; [we cannot
deny that : everybody knows it ;] but by what means he
now seeth we know not, or who hath opened his eyes we
know not." And they added, with great cunning and
great respect for their personal safety, " He is of age, ask
him;" recollecting that if any one confessed Jesus, he was
instantly to be cast out of the synagogue. The Pharisees
expected that the parents would have contradicted some
thing the son had said, but they found it otherwise ; the
parents were too honest, or rather too convinced of the
impossibility of disproof, to deny that their son was born
blind ; and they were too honest to deny that he now saw,
or rather, they felt they dared not do so ; but, at the same
time, they were too prudent, as this world would call it,
to say that Christ or a prophet had opened their son's
eyes, because they knew quite well they would be cast out
from the synagogue if they confessed Christ ; they there
fore cautiously and quietly shifted the responsibility from
their own shoulders and threw it back upon the shoulders
of the son. Were not these parents a type of a party still
existing? Is there not a class in every congregation who
are too convinced that the Bible is true, and Christianity
from God, openly to deny it ; but who are too respectful
to the fashion of the age, or the praise, the censure, or
the profits of the world, manfully to say, "We are Chris
tians, and we believe that living, vital religion is from
above;" and therefore when they speak to persons before
whom they are anxious to take care how much they let
out, as well as how much they keep in, they say, "We
think so and so ; no doubt the Bible is true, but really,
instead of discussing the matter, let us turn to the busi
ness before us ; if you will come next Sunday, and hear
our minister, you will find one able to explain his own
sentiments." They wish to say nothing upon a subject

336 FORESHADOWS.
which comes too close to their own consciences. Even
infidelity has remarked, that if Christianity be true, there
must be few upon earth that really believe it, because the
life and sacrifices of Christians do not indicate that they
feel the weight and responsibility of a religion that de
mands and suggests so many.
The sanhedrim again dealt with the man ; and in verse 24
it is said, " Then again called they the man that was blind,
and said unto him, Give God the praise ; we know that
this man is a sinner." Here were gross fraud, falsehood,
and deception. They insinuated to the man, when they
called him a second time, " We have now seen your pa
rents, we have thoroughly examined the whole matter, and
we are now at the bottom of it, we are in the secret ; do
not venture to assert again that Christ opened your eyes ;
we have found it a delusio visus, or a complete trumped-up
story, a thorough fiction ; you are the victim of a heated
imagination, or a deceiver ; no real miracle has been
wrought : give God the praise ; we know Christ is an im
postor, and that your idea of him is altogether absurd.
Just take the hint ; deny that Christ wrought the miracle ;
do not persist in asserting what we are prepared to dis
prove if you attempt to do so."
How did the man receive all this ? His answer was,
"Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not." He does
not mean to imply that he had any doubt in his own mind,
but he means to say, " I do not enter upon that dis
cussion ; whether this prophet who has opened my eyes be
a sinner or an impostor or not, I am not now here to dis
cuss with you — that is for you, the superior officers of the
church, to discuss and settle among yourselves ; but the
matter of fact (as a plain, honest man, he says) I can
thoroughly understand, and it is this — one thing I know,
that, whereas I was blind, now I see." What common

THE BLIND MAN. . 83/
sense was there here, what candour, what honesty ! And
how great a rebuke to those ecclesiastical officers who tried
to lead him into deception, and into the utterance of a
lie ! There are many in every Christian audience who can
testify in a higher sphere to the same blessed experience.
Many a one, I have no doubt, in my own congregation,
may be able, and is able, to say, What the external or in
ternal evidence of Christianity may be I know not ; what
Butler says, what Chalmers argues, I know very little ;
what the evidence from miracles is, or what the testimony
from history is, I am not competent to discuss, to narrate,
or even able to remember, if I ever read it ; but one thing
I do know, that once I was blind, and now I see ; once I
was dead in sins, and now I am alive to God; once I was
poor indeed, and now I am unsearchably rich ; once I
looked into eternity and saw nothing but a dark and re
pulsive blank, now I have been taught by that book, called
the Bible, the origin of which, the history of which, the
outer evidence of which I know comparatively very little,
to call God my Father, and heaven my home; and no
logic that man can use will ever convince me that this
religion is not from God, for a religion that comes from
God is the only religion that can lead a man to God ; and
I am therefore satisfied.
Thus the Pharisees, finding that the more they ex-
piscated the matter the less they really gained, again
asked the poor man, "What did he do to thee? How
opened he thine eyes ?" The man then became irritated,
and said, " I have told you already, and ye did not hear :
wherefore would ye hear it again ?" And then, with con
summate irony, which must have told with tremendous
effect upon their feelings and passions, he says, " Will ye
also become his disciples ?" " Then they reviled him, and
said, Thou art his disciple ; but we are Moses' disciples :
29

338 . FORESHADOWS.
we know that God spake unto Moses ; but as for this fel
low, we know not from whence he is." Then the man
answered, resuming all his past coolness, "Herein is a
marvellous thing, that ye know not from whence he is, and
yet he hath opened mine eyes." This one single layman
puzzles a whole synod, call them bishops, archbishops,
presbyters, or what you will, — he puzzles them all. And
why? Because truth in one man is mightier than a lie in
a whole synod, general council, or assembly. The meaning
of the phrase "from whence," is this: they argued that
Christ was from beneath, that he did miracles by the power
of Satan. He says, " This cannot be ; it is strange ye do
not know whence he is ; Satan does not open blind men's
eyes, or unstop deaf men's ears." They argued in a pre
vious part of the discussion, " This man is a sinner, and
God does not hear sinners." The man takes the premises
they laid down — namely, that God does not hear sinners,
and says, "Here is a man that has been heard of God,
and armed by God with miraculous power ; and therefore,
on your own terms, on your own premises, there is evi
dence that the man is not from below, but that he comes
from above." Nothing can be more delightful than to see
this great and pretending synod, this assuming camarilla
of scribes, and Pharisees, and lawyers, these proud as-
serters of the independence of the church, and its ex
clusive jurisdiction over all things, temporal, ecclesiastical,
civil, and spiritual, thus puzzled and perplexed, and put
down by the plain statement of truth by an honest man,
gifted with common sense, and with nothing more. The
tables are beautifully turned ; the scholar instructs the
teacher ; the layman is wiser than the master ; the pew
puts the pulpit right ; the blind man sees, and the seeing
men are blind ; and the humbling lesson that the synod

THE BLIND MAN. 339
learned from that day might have done them good for
many days to come.
But what did they do after this ? Such irony and such
logic were alike irresistible ; they had recourse to other
weapons, to which conscious weakness and want of truth
always has recourse. They persecuted him; they cast him
out of the synagogue, and said to him, " Thou wast alto
gether born in sin, and dost thou teach us?" These words
are extremely expressive, "Altogether born in sin — you
were born blind on account of sins ; you are blind in soul,
and blind in body; and oh, blind man, your mind is even
darker than your body, fit for no good, utterly unable to
teach us : the best treatment we can give you is to cast
you out as a withered branch, not fit to belong to that sy
nagogue over which we preside." Thus, then, they thrust
him out ; they silenced, though they could not confute ; they
threw out the man, since they were unable to neutralize and
reply to his reasons.
Now, the. lesson we learn from the whole of this scene
is, that the lineal priests of the Lord lost the spirit and
the mind of the Lord. Mark the fact : these men had a
true lineal succession from the days of Aaron ; there was
no flaw in the personal succession of these men ; there was
not a priest in that sanhedrim who could not trace his line
age right upward to Aaron himself; and yet these men
denied the faith, disclaimed the gospel, crucified the Lord
of glory. And should not this teach a lesson to others
who make similar pretensions in this day? It is possible
to succeed the apostles by the most accurate lineal succes
sion, and yet to have lost all the doctrines of the apostles
in all we preach and in all we define. It is not true, be
cause a man has apostolic succession, that therefore he
preaches apostolic doctrine; but it is true, that he that
preaches apostolic doctrine has unquestionably apostolic

340 FORESHADOWS.
succession. It is not true, that he who can trace his ge
nealogy to Paul or Peter, therefore must preach truth ; but
it is true, that the minister who preaches truth, whether he
can trace it or not, is a successor of the apostles and an
ambassador of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The next lesson we learn from this is, that our Lord and
the apostles received the Old Testament Scriptures from
the hands of these very men. Now you know it is an ar
gument of the present day, which Dr. Wiseman, especially,
wields on all occasions, and sometimes with effect — that
the Protestants received the Bible from the Church of
Rome, and that we ought therefore to take the Church of
Rome's interpretation of the Bible. The proper reply to
this is very obvious. Suppose we received the Bible from
the Church of Rome, (which I deny, and can disprove,) it
does not follow that we are to take her opinion of its con
tents. Our Lord and his apostles received the Old Testa
ment from these men in this very synod or sanhedrim of
Pharisees, but they repudiated their interpretation of it;
they took the book in all its perfection, but they repudiated
the interpretation the ecclesiastics of the day put upon it.
So with us. If we received the New Testament from the
Church of Rome, we accept the- document, thankful that
God made so unfaithful a guardian convey to us so precious
a deposit, regretting that she was so blind while she carried
in her hand so bright a lantern; but when she says, "You
must take our interpretation," we answer, "We must treat
you as the apostles treated the Pharisees and scribes; we
will take the document, but we will not see or hear what
the pope says about the Bible, but what the Bible says
about him." It is our prerogative to read the Bible at first
hand; let us never forget that. If there be one truth that
our Protestant forefathers sealed with their blood it is this :
that I am God's child, and I must hear my Father's grand

THE BLIND MAN. 341
voice in the original, and not in Words reflected in priestly,
and conciliar, and patristic echoes, from generation to ge
neration. When I want to know the truth, I must tell
Duns Scotus, Thomas Aquinas, Pio Nono, and Gregory the
Sixteenth, all the fathers, councils, and schoolmen, to stand
at the bottom of the hill, while, like the patriarch of old,
I ascend alone to the sun-lit top, and hold sweet commu
nion with my God and my Saviour's God, with my Father
and his Father.
Next, I would notice how calculated are prepossession,
and prejudice, and passion to tell on and influence the
mind. These men's judgments were warped by their pas
sions ; they knew what was true, but their hearts would
not let them receive it. Does not this suggest the true
spirit of much of the infidelity of the present day? It is
not that men need new heads, but new hearts ; it is not
deficiency of light, but deficiency of love and grace, and
divine power in their hearts and consciences. Nobody can
determine by any calculus he can use how much the judg
ment is the scholar of the heart. How frequently do we
believe to be true that which our passions or prejudices bid
us wish to be true ! and how few men are there who, in the
cold light of reason, can come to cold conclusions, irrespec
tive and independent of their hearts and passions and feel
ings. Therefore what we need the Holy Spirit to do is,
not to give us new Bibles, but new hearts wherewith to read
them ; it is not to give us more light, for I say we have far
more light and far more evidence that the Bible is true,
than any jury in the Old Bailey ever had for the conclusion
that a prisoner was guilty; and if the evidence we have
for the truth of this book is not sufficient to prove it, inno
cent men have heen sacrificed for the past four or five cen
turies by the sentences of our judges, and the whole world
has proceeded upon a supposition, an imagination, a fancy.
29*

342 FORESHADOWS.
Let us pray, then, that the Spirit of God may give us not
new judgments only, or new lights only, though both may
be useful, but new hearts, new sympathies, and thus make
all things new.
Lastly, let us learn, that if there be no infallibility in
popes, there is no infallibility in general councils, in pres
byteries, in general assemblies. If we are not to call the
pope our master, we must be taught to call no council our
master. We must set aside the council as a decisive au
thority ; we may take its reasoning, or its suggestions, or
its prescriptions, but we are to bring all that the ablest and
the most gifted assert, all that the most venerable council
propounds, to the law and to the testimony ; if they speak
not according to it, it is because there is no truth in them.
Let us ever remember that the visible church is not always
Christ's true church. The visible church in the days of
our Lord had been utterly apostate ; it has become apostate
since. The true church was composed of Joseph of Ari-
mathea and Nicodemus, and the rest in that sanhedrim con
stituted the apostasy. The true church still consists of all
the true members of the body of Christ, and all beyond
and besides are only portions of the apostasy. At present
the tares are mingled with the wheat ; the day comes when
the tares shall be gathered into bundles, and cast into ever
lasting fire, and they that are the wheat shall shine forth
in the kingdom of their Father, like the stars, for ever and
ever. Amen.

343

LECTURE XIX.
THE WITHERED HAND.
And it came to pass, that he went through the corn-fields on the sabbath day ;
and his disciples began, as they went, to pluck the ears of corn. And tho
Pharisees said unto him, Behold, why do they on the sabbath day that which
is not lawful 1 And he said unto them, Have ye never read what David did,
when he had need, and was an hungred, he, and they that were with him ?
How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest,
and did eat the shewbread, which is not lawful to eat but for the priests, and
gavo also to them which were with him ? And he said unto them, The sab
bath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath : therefore the Son of
man is Lord also of the sabbath. And he entered again into the synagogue ;
and there was a man there which had a withered hand. And they watched
him, whether he would heal him on the sabbath day ; that they might accuse
him. And he saith unto the man which had the withered hand, Stand forth.
And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to
do evil? to save life, or to kill? But they held their peace. And when he
had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness
of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he
stretched it out : and his hand was restored whole as the other. And the
Pharisees went forth, and straightway took counsel with the Herodians
against him, how they might destroy him. — Mark ii. 23-28 ; iii. 1-6.
Before proceeding to explain the interesting and in
structive facts recorded in the passage I have chosen, I
may just state that there is, what is very important, ano
ther version of this same transaction, differing only in
words, though fuller in some portions of the narrative, in
Matt. xii. " At that time Jesus went on the sabbath day
through the corn ; and his disciples were an hungred, and
began to pluck the ears of corn, and to eat. But when
the Pharisees saw it, they said unto him, Behold, thy dis
ciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the sabbath

344 FORESHADOWS.
day. But he said unto them, Have ye not read what David
did, when he was an hungred, and they that were with
him ; how he entered into the house of God, and did eat
the shewbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither
for them which were with him, but only for the priests ?
Or have ye not read in the law [here is the additional
illustration] how that on the sabbath days the priests in
the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless ? But
I say unto you, that in this place [this also is additional]
is one greater than the temple. But if ye had known
what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice,
ye would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son
of man is Lord even of the sabbath day. And when he
¦was departed thence, he went into their synagogue : and,
behold, there was a man which had his hand withered.
And they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the
sabbath days? that they might accuse him. And he said
unto them, What man shall there be among you, that shall
have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the sabbath day,
will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out ? How much then
is a man better than a sheep ? Wherefore it is lawful to
do well on the sabbath days. Then saith he to the man,
Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it forth ; and
it was restored whole, like as the other. Then the Phari
sees went out, and held a council against him, how they
might destroy him."
We thus perceive that the two narrators of the transac
tion that occurred on the very same day, were not in any
way in communication one with the other, or copyists the
one of the other's narrative. We have here (putting alto
gether out of question, for the moment, that each was in
spired) the independent versions of one transaction, as it
presented itself to two distinct persons, told each in his
own way, and according to the impression made at the

THE WITHERED HAND. 345
time. We invariably find, when two witnesses are exa
mined before a judge and jury about one transaction which
both witnesses saw, that the one will state facts which the
other omits, and his testimony will be supplemented by
other facts which the other narrates. The reason of this
is, that no two men, looking at one occurrence, are equally
touched by every incident in that occurrence. One fact
strikes one, and makes the deepest impression upon him ;
another fact strikes the other, and makes the deepest im
pression upon him ; and when each gives his statement of
what he saw, he states first and at greatest length the
facts that made the deepest impression, and are therefore
retained the most in his memory; and thus the judge and
jury have the clear evidence that these are two impartial
narrators of an actual transaction. Now this is one of the
indirect, but quiet proofs, that the evangelists who record
the life and transactions of Jesus, were actual witnesses
of all they wrote, and that they have given in their narra
tive the facts as they saw them, guided and governed at
the same time by that overshadowing inspiration which
guarded them from all error, and guided them to the
statement of all that was absolutely necessary, and eter
nally true.
In looking at this narrative, and the portion with which
I have connected it, we see another of those miracles to
which I have alluded performed on the Sabbath day. In
the Gospels we shall find in all seven miracles performed
by our Lord upon successive Sabbath days. The question
occurs sometimes to a fair and honest reader of the Bible,
Why, when our Lord saw that doing the miracles on the
Sabbath day was so detestable to the Pharisee, whether
that detestation was real or assumed, did he persist in
doing them ? The answer is, in the first place, the objects
on whom they were wrought came in. his path on the Sab-

346 FORESHADOWS.
bath day; and the true question is, therefore, not why
should he do them, but why should he not do them ? In
the next place, superstition had perverted to its own mi
serable ends that sublime and blessed institution, the
Sabbath day. The traditionists had displaced it from its
true, holy, and original position, and had placed the Sab
bath in the room of the Sabbath's Lord, the ceremonial in
the room of the moral, the ritual in the stead of the spi
ritual ; and it needed our Lord, the great purifier of the
temple, and the Lord of the Saobath, to purify and restore
his own divine institution to its true, original, and useful
position. These are sufficient reasons why Christ wrought
these miracles upon the Sabbath day. Few readers of
the New Testament can fail to notice that the Pharisees
had completely substituted the sanctimonious use of the
Sabbath, in the room of moral, humane, and merciful
duties ; they pleaded its sacredness as -a reason why they
should not do good ; they urged its obligations as sufficient
apologies for utterly trampling down the most precious
offices ; they had inverted the order of things, by placing
the means, which was the Sabbath, in the room of the end,
which was the improvement of the creature and the glory
of God. Hence the Sabbath had come to be an obstruc
tion to religion in the hands of the Pharisees, not an im
pulse and incentive to it. To perform certain mere cere
monial rites upon their Sabbath was sacredly to observe
it: to let a neighbour die by the roadside on that day, to
let the poor, the hungry, the starving, the naked, go with
out food and raiment because it was the Sabbath, was a
common and applauded practice with the Pharisees of old.
The previous chapter, which introduces the miracle in
the passage I am about to comment on, tells us that the
disciples, wearied and hungry, plucked the ears of corn as
they passed through the corn-field and by the wayside.

THE WITHERED HAND. 347
There was no dishonesty in this, because by an express
law — -and one of those laws that show that the Levitical
economy unfolds an estimate of what is due to the poor,
and of the best way of treating them, at least not inferior
to the best of modern legislation — this act of the disciples
was permitted. In Deut. xxiii. it is written, "When thou
comest into the standing corn of thy neighbour, then thou
mayest pluck the ears with thine hand ; but thou shalt not
move a sickle unto thy neighbour's standing corn." That
is, if a hungry man, passing through the corn-fields of
Judea, should gather with his hand as much as he could
eat, he was welcome to do so, and the proprietor dared
not prohibit or disturb him ; but he must not bring the
sickle, because that would be to cut down the corn, and
carry it home, which would have been trespass and actual
dishonesty : the Mosaic ritual thus teaching the rich pro
prietor of the corn-field, that he was not the absolute
owner, but the steward, partly for himself, and partly, too,
for the wants of the poor. Hence the practice still sur
vives in many countries, of allowing gleaners to go into
the field, and gather up all the corn that remains when the
proprietor has carried home what he feels to be his own.
But modern machinery, I am told, has very much put an
end to this ancient usage. It is painful to note a melan
choly and- yawning chasm too long forming between one
and another class of mankind ; this is real misfortune — it
is ever pregnant with evil; for when such a chasm has
reached its maximum depth and breadth, then will come
the terrible collision, which ends in revolution, in common
ruin, in wide-spread destruction. Let us try to recognise
in the poorest a brother, and in all want a claim. Let
nations and individuals regard the poor in the land, whom
they have always, as substantially and morally entitled to
their bounty and beneficence under all circumstances.

348 FORESHADOWS.
Our Lord met the Pharisees, when they made this ob
jection, upon their own ground, and specified two distinct
cases where the objection would find its solution without
their going beyond their own books for it. The first is
the case of David. He and his friends were hungry ; they
went to the high-priest, and in their hunger partook of the
sacramental bread, as I might call it — the shewbread;
and yet they did not desecrate the Sabbath or defile the
temple, or do an unholy thing, of which they would have
been guilty under ordinary circumstances. Necessity has
no law. It would have been sin in David to have eaten
the shewbread under ordinary circumstances, but when
starving for want of food, he and his friends were
warranted, in order to escape death by hunger, in eating
the sacred bread laid up in the sanctuary of God. So,
with reference to the Sabbath, in the words of the admira
ble Scotch Shorter Catechism,* "works of necessity are
excepted." What must be done upon the Sabbath, as the
prescription of absolute necessity, it is not desecrating
the Sabbath; to do. The Jew still clings in his exile to
the ceremonial of his fathers, and though perplexed by
the circumstances of his position, he gets over his difficul
ties thus: he finds there are certain things, in this country
for instance, which it is absolutely necessary to do upon
the Sabbath ; these he will not touch himself, and therefore
he gets a Gentile to do them for him ; he thus thinks he is
escaping the consequence of violating his law by inducing
the Gentile to step in and do the sin in his stead, for
getting that it is done in his name, and that upon his
shoulders, if there be sin, must rest the responsibility.
In the parallel passage in Matthew, our Lord quotes
the case of the priests in the temple, as doing things there
which were not strictly sacred, but necessary to enable
them to perform their sacred functions. They were ob-

THE WITHERED HAND. 349
liged to circumcise, to put on and off their robes, and per
form divers washings. And again he urges, that if a man
has a sheep that has fallen into the ditch, surely he is not
to let it perish because it is the Sabbath day. Some per
sons would argue that he ought not, if he had a sheep or
a horse thus in danger, to go and rescue it. I think he
ought; it is his duty; it is a "work of mercy." Or were
your corn on fire in your field, and it were absolutely plain
that it would be consumed in a few hours by a flame that
was making its way toward it, it would be your duty to cut
it down, even upon the Sabbath day — and that as fast as
possible. These last two instances come under the cate
gory of works of mercy. We see a work of necessity in
David's case, to do which is not to desecrate the Sabbath;
and we have a work of mercy in the case of the priests of
the temple, and the man's rescuing his sheep, which is also
to be done on the Sabbath, and yet the Sabbath is not dese
crated thereby. With the exception of these two, works
of necessity and of mercy — and every man's conscience,
enlightened by God's word, must determine what is a work
of necessity, and what is a work of mercy — the Sabbath
is to be hallowed, and kept holy to the Lord.
Our Lord thus interposed, and at the same time emitted
one of those magnificent thoughts which form great central
principles, in the light of which, and in relation to which,
all subordinate questions of casuistry may be fairly settled.
He saysr " You do certain things which are necessary in
the temple on the Sabbath day;" and then, anticipating
their objection, or rather seeing their objection in their
hearts — "Your disciples were not in the temple; they
were in the fields, and therefore your illustration is inap
plicable" — the Lord instantly says, "One greater than
the temple is here." What a sublime sentiment is this !
and how much is it in accordance with other passages in
30

350 FORESHADOWS.
Scripture! such as, "Destroy this temple, and in three
days I will build it up. He spake of the temple of his
body;" and that beautiful passage in the Apocalypse, "I
saw no temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty, even
the Lamb, [_xa\, even — that is the translation,] is the tem
ple thereof." We see how the moral eclipses the material.
The spiritual temple, Christ and his people, are more glo
rious than the temple on which the Jews prided themselves,
and which they quoted as, the grand ornament of their
country. Christ in the midst of his own constitutes the
true, grand, eternal cathedral, for which stone and lime
can be no substitute, in the absence of whom we may have
a crypt of the dead but not a sanctuary of the living. A
crowd we may have without Christ; a church we cannot
have except Christ be in the midst of it. Living stones,
built upon the living Christ, rise up the eternal and the
true temple not made with hands — which the Lord builds,
not man.
Then Christ adds this other remark, equally instructive,
explaining their objection; "If you had known that, 'I
will have mercy and not sacrifice' — if you had only known
this, you would not have objected to my disciples plucking
the ears of corn when they were absolutely hungry. They
were priests in the true temple, doing a priestly act, when,
in my presence, and in subserviency to me, they satisfied
their hunger with ears of corn. Or, to put it on a lower
ground, (he says,) if you had only known, I would have
mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have thus objected."
He thus charges them with ignorance of their own law, and
with being unacquainted with that express declaration of
the prophet, that God prefers the exercise of mercy to the
performance of the most splendid sacrifice. If the cere
monial stand in the way of the moral, let the ceremonial
give way, not the moral. The most gorgeous ceremony that

THE WITHERED HAND. 351
obstructs the vision of the countenance of God should be
rent, and torn, and cast away. Let the ceremonial by all
means be the vehicle of the moral ; but if it interfere with
the manifestation of the moral, it is not the moral that is
to yield, but the ceremonial. Give, for instance, by all
means, the sacrifice of praise to God; but let the praise
rise from a heart loaded with adoring gratitude to God.
If the question is to be, Shall I have beautiful music and
cold hearts, or bad music and warm, and grateful, and
glowing ones ? there is to be no hesitation — the loving and
the praising heart makes sweeter music in the ear of God
than timbrels, and cymbals, and trumpets, and organs, and
all instruments of pleasing sound. By all means, give the
sacrifice of raiment to the naked, of bread to the hungry,
of water to the thirsty ; but let the hand that gives it be
the almoner of the heart within, that overflows with mercy,
goodness, and beneficence. Better the heart that would
give if it had the power, than the hand that does give with
out the least connection with the heart, but on some other
ground, and for some other end. By all means, let love
and liberality, like twins, live together ; but part with libe
rality rather than with love. Be willing to give, rather
than give from necessity, and from no sympathy with them
that need. " So," says our blessed Lord, "it has been with
my disciples. If God loves mercy rather than sacrifice,
moral duties rather than ceremonial rites, then my disciples,
by their seeming profanation of the Sabbath, have caught
its true spirit, and honoured it ; and you Pharisees, by your
seeming honouring of the Sabbath, have lost its true spirit,
and you daily desecrate and destroy it." I ask, did ever
man speak like this man? Did such sentiments as these
ever fall from the lips of humanity? And have we not in
the very perusal of them the evidence that not the temple,

352 FORESHADOWS.
nor the priest, but the Lord of the temple, and the Creator
of the priest, spake here?
Another sentiment he utters one cannot but study, as no
less beautiful and true. It casts still more light upon the
idea which I am endeavouring to express and teach. " The
Sabbath," he says, "was made for man, not man for the
Sabbath." Here again is another grand maxim. If this
sentiment were only kept in the minds of all men clearly,
it would be, not a mere aphorism to be quoted to point a
speech, or to justify some deviation from what is good ; but
it would be received as a grand, central, regulating ele
ment of thought in all we are, in all we say, and in all we
do, with reference to religion. We may adopt this senti
ment, for instance, with regard to fasting. Fasting is not
an absolute order of God, so that man is to fast as a duty ;
but it is a prescription of God, which man is to take if his
own sensations teach him, and that will help him more truly
to think of, and meditate on, God; but which his common
sense will tell him he ought not to take, if he find that
fasting, instead of enabling him to read and think and me
ditate, will just have the opposite effect ; for fasting was
made for the convenience of man, not man for the obser
vance of fasting. So, again, with prayer itself. Prayer
is not a duty to be performed, a penance to be done, an
expiation to be made ; but it is to be the expression of our
wants, and the seeking of satisfaction of those wants from
God. If any man, therefore, who does not feel Wants,
prays as a mechanical duty, because God has commanded
it, he misses altogether the true end and meaning of prayer.
I do not pray because God has commanded me, just as I
would give to the poor because God has commanded it;
but I pray, as the use of a commanded means in order to
obtain a promised end — a blessing. Prayer is not an ulti
mate duty, to be done because a duty, and so to be done

THE WITHERED HAND. 353
with ; but it is a means toward an ultimate end, and we are
not to be satisfied till we reach the end, and cease to use
the means. Thus, coming to the house of God is a duty.
Nothing is more noble than an audience of intelligent men
met to praise the God in whom they live ; and to seek bless
ings from him without whose blessing they cannot live ; but
if there be a sick one at home that needs your sympathy,
a dying one at home that requires your presence, then the
duty of going to the sanctuary, which is the ceremonial,
yields to the work of necessity and mercy, which is the
moral ; and you ought to stop at home, and minister to the
sick, and attend to the dying. Again, in reference to the
communion or the church that you love, whatever it may
be, you are to love it, and attach yourselves to it, as means
toward an end; but the church that you love the most,
without the gospel, must be let go in order to enter another
church which you do not prefer, but which has the gospel ;
because the church is not an end to. be attached to as an
ultimate thing, but a means, an instrument toward an end,
which you are to use till that end be obtained. The sabbath
in the soul, the bowing of the knee of the heart, the worship
in spirit and in truth — these are greater, because more last
ing, than all ceremony. All outward institutions — Sab
baths, prayer, reading, and communion, are but the scaffold
ing, precious in their place, for without the scaffolding the
building cannot be raised ; but they are not to be made to
supersede the hope of the grand building which is to come,
but to be used and honoured till that building be complete,
and then the scaffolding shall be taken down. Let the eye
be only single, let the inward purpose of the soul be pure,
and meek, and true, and all things will fall into their proper
place, and assume their true and holy relationship. Then
Sabbaths, and sanctuaries, and ceremonies will be wings to
the soul, not weights to it ; then the Sabbath, and prayer,
30*

354 FORESHADOWS.
and reading will be the foot-prints that show you the way
to Jesus, not blinds to the knowledge of him, and super
seding him — voices crying in the wilderness, "Behold the
Lamb !" not drowning his still small voice — steps and helps
to find Jesus, not substitutes for him — in one word, means
to an end, and not that end itself.
Our Lord adds another maxim which I cannot but
notice also : " For the Son of man is Lord of the Sab
bath." There was present on that Sabbath, not the law,
but the Legislator himself; not merely the hallowed
Sabbath, but the Fountain out of which its hallowing
came. He originally constituted it, he originally hal
lowed it, and he had power to suspend it, change it, or
use it as he pleased, for it existed for him and to him, and
it must not be placed in the room of him.
Such then is the scene preliminary to the performance
of the miracle recorded in the third chapter of Mark.
In order to show these truths in action, our Lord proceeds
to heal this man, as the conclusion of this discourse which
he had now pronounced. By the most irresistible reason,
by exhibiting the purest and noblest sentiments in their
own sacred books, by argument as plain as it was con
clusive, he showed them it was right and lawful to heal
the sick, raise the dead, give sight to the blind, hearing
to the deaf, even though it was upon the Sabbath day.
When the Pharisees cavilled, and asked, was it lawful to
heal on the Sabbath day, he puts their question in its true
shape ; he does not give a direct answer ; they put their
question in a sophistical shape, but he puts it in its true
light, and says, " Is it lawful to do good, or to do evil, on
the Sabbath day ?" He says, " The real question is not,
Is it lawful to do, or not to do, on the Sabbath ? but, Is it
lawful to do good or evil, on the Sabbath?" And that
question, by inference, implies that not doing the good

THE WITHERED HAND. 355
that was presented on the Sabbath day was tantamount to
doing evil. We read that when he put the question to
them in that light they were silent. He therefore holds
no more discussion preliminary to the miracle he per
forms ; he brings his theory into practice, his utterance
into action: " Stretch forth thine hand." The man did
it, and instantly the withered hand, whatever was the
nature of its disease, was made whole, even as the other.
We read that when Jesus was about to do this miracle,
(and I refer to it especially-hecause it embodies a very
important and precious sentiment,) "he looked (ver 5)
round about on them with anger, being grieved for the
hardness of their hearts, and saith unto the man, Stretch
forth thine hand. And he stretched it out : and his hand
was restored whole as the other." As we read the first
clause, " When he looked round about on them with
anger," our best emotions are momentarily checked; we
instantly conceive that that beautiful, that calm, that holy
bosom, so still, so placid, so self-composed, was ruffled by
the emotion of anger. But then when we read what
follows, our surprise is instantly removed; for we find
that while he looked round with anger, it was " being
grieved at the hardness of their hearts." The anger that
he felt at the sin resolved itself into pity and compassion
toward the men that were guilty of it. We have a pa
rallel casein that beautiful exclamation, "0 Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets^ and stonest
them that are sent unto thee, [the language of indignant
accusation; but instantly followed up by] how often
would I have gathered thee as a hen gathereth her
chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" — the lan
guage of tender and infinite compassion. Now here is
the perfect model, and there is no such model to be found
anywhere but in Jesus ; here is the model, not for out-

356 FORESHADOWS.
ward conformity, but for inward feeling and emotion, for
anger, pity, all that is pure that can actuate the human
heart. We learn from this feeling of our blessed Lord, that
the emotion we should feel, when we behold wickedness,
crime, and transgression, is not indignation only — for if
there be indignation only at the criminal, it prompts to
persecution: not compassion only — for if there be com
passion only when we see a criminal, it instantly makes
us connive at, explain away, or modify the sin : not
apathy — for that is stoicism ; not the pantheistic acqui
escence in evil, as if evil were only " unripe good," as
they call it ; nor must there be the philosophic sneering
quietism which says, " It is just what you might have
expected;" but there must be a holy, a righteous, strong
indignation at sin, because it is sin — and that indignation
set in the bosom of compassion, revealing by the flash of
its purity, how you ought to pity and compassionate the
man who is the victim of that transgression. Thus, then,
when we see some one guilty of grievous sin — it may be
the sin that we are most ready to take notice of, sin
against oneself — some one who has wronged, cheated, de
ceived, maligned, and misrepresented us ; when we look
at that man, we cannot but feel indignation — and it is
very easy to feel so ; there is no merit in the world in
feeling indignant, for human nature is quick enough to
resent the wrongs it feels ; but while we thus look at him,
we think of him whose spirit we have imbued, and if we be
Christians, we must be indignant indeed, but we shall also
learn to check the indignation by a deep sense of pity
and compassion. No man is so to be pitied as he that
sins; he wrongs himself; the great injury he inflicts is
not upon me whom he cheats, deceives, and maltreats, but
upon himself, and the recollection of his crime, it is pos-

THE WITHERED HAND. 357
sible, may cleave to his conscience, a corrosive and con
suming punishment, for ever and for ever. In that
beautiful sermon preached upon the Mount there is no
benediction pronounced upon indignant men ; but a thou
sand benedictions upon the merciful, the peaceful, the sin
forgiver, those that pray for them that despitefully use
them. With respect to some great criminal from whom
is exacted his life, as an offering to the violated laws of his
country, if we knew all of that criminal which he knows
of himself, we should feel that there was much for holy
indignation, but much, very much, for pity, for deep and
thrilling compassion. That guilty criminal who sur
renders his life upon the scaffold for his crimes, may
have been left early an orphan ; there may have been no
school to snatch him from the streets provided by us, as
there ought to have been ; he may have been flung into
contact with the rest of the offscourings and the degraded
of human society ; he may have been placed in circum
stances of the most trying, most perilous, and most seduc
tive nature ; he may have known what it was to want a
morsel of bread, and have been driven under strong pangs
of hunger to steal ; he may have never known what it was
to hear a holy advice, or to learn a pure and true lesson :
— if we knew all these dread preparatives to the last crime
he committed, while we should be indignant at the crime
so heinous, we should feel deep compassion for the criminal
so guilty. And what should soften our indignation too,
when we think of the worst of criminals is this ; that
criminal is a man ; he was nursed upon a mother's knee ;
he was once tended by a father ; he was once loved by his
sisters; he remains a man, just as we are, with all the
hopes, the emotions, the feelings, the sympathies that we
have; but he was left in circumstances and to circum-

358 FORESHADOWS. -
stances from which, in the providence of God, we were
delivered. Oh ! feel indignant at the crime ; but let not
tender pity and compassion fail to modify that indigna
tion ; pray for the criminal. And recollect that if you
had been equally God-forsaken — if you had been early
left an orphan — if you had never been schooled in early
years — if no Christian teacher had taught you, and no
kind parents had set a beautiful and true example before
you ; if no softening and subduing influences had ever
reached your heart, you might have been where the crimi
nal now stands, and the criminal might have been where
you now are. There is great room for compassion, there
is room also for gratitude to God ; and this must subdue
and modify mightily the indignation you feel at the great
crime of which he has been guilty. If we look around
us now, do we not see in the circumstances of the very
worst of society much room for pity ? Whe'n I think of
all the modifying elements that I meet with — when I
think of what we might have been, if we had been other
wise placed in the providence of God, and when I think
that we deserve nothing of the distinguishing goodness
we have enjoyed any more than those who never had it —
I must say, I am more and more disposed to pity the
guiltiest, and I feel less competent or disposed to sit upon
the judgment-throne and pronounce indignant sentences
upon any. It is God's high prerogative to pronounce the
sentence of condemnation ; it is man's noble function to
pity, compassionate, and pray for the criminal. When we
look at homes that are miserable — at poverty, nakedness,
hunger, starvation, all the accompaniments of many a poor
man — we see in them much to excite our compassion ; but
are there not more terrible things than these ? If you could
look, not at the poverty, the hunger, the nakedness, but into

THE WITHERED HAND. 359
the man's bosom, and see bruised affections, a bleeding heart,
disappointed hopes, bitter disappointments, you would see
in that poor man, when driven to some dread crime, much
that would make you pity and pray for him, while there is
and may be only what would make others justly condemn
him. And when I think, above all, of that blessed Lord,
whose example I am now quoting, that he had compassion
for others, but none for himself — "Daughters of Jeru
salem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and your
children" — when I remember that mercy was the great
feeling that consumed him, and that in compassion to our
souls, and to us as transgressors, he bowed the heavens,
and bare the cross, and despised the shame, I am sure
that I show most of his spirit, when I feel far less indig
nation and far more compassion toward the guiltiest and
the worst of mankind. Depend upon it, if we were more
ready to compassionate, and less ready to be indignant,
we should succeed far more speedily in elevating and
improving mankind. I need not bid you be indignant at
criminals — that you will be, quickly enough — but the high
Christian feeling which we need more and more to enter
tain and exercise, is that of pity and compassion.
We read that our Lord was surrounded by men — those
men whom he thus pitied and was grieved at for the hard
ness of their hearts — who no sooner saw the miracle than
they conspired (the Herodians, or the parties in alliance
with Rome, with the Pharisees, or the parties who detested
Rome, and longed to be emancipated from its yoke) to
destroy Jesus, as they did in condemning him in the last
moment of his life : teaching us that all forms of error
will co-operate when the truth is to be put down ; that
i.nternal antagonisms between conflicting systems of error
will all be merged and buried in one current, when

360 FORESHADOWS.
God's great truth is to be resisted and banished from the
earth. Let us pray that our views of the Sabbath may be those
enlightened ones -which Jesus taught — that our feeling
toward the criminal may be less indignation and more
compassion, such as Jesus showed ; and bless God that
Christ, who left us a propitiation for the sins of all that
believe, has left us also an example, that we may follow in
his steps.

361

LECTURE XX.
ELOQUENT NATURE.
And he left them, and went out of the city into Bethany; and he lodged there.
Now in the morning as he returned into the city, he hungered. And when
he saw a fig-tree in the way, he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but
leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for
ever. And presently the fig-tree withered away. And when the disciples
saw it, they marvelled, saying, How soon is the fig-tree withered away !
Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith,
and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig-tree, but also
if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou- cast into
the sea ; it shall be done. And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer
believing, ye shall receive. — Matt. xxi. 17-22.
In the Gospel which contains an account exactly parallel
to this, there is one clause added which makes in some
degree a distinction, without a real difference, between the
two narratives. It is stated in the Gospel by St. Mark,
that when Jesus saw the tree, " and came if haply he
might find any thing thereon," "he found nothing but
leaves;" and it is added, "for the time of figs was not
yet." This is the only addition given by Mark.
This is the last of the miracles performed by our blessed
Lord which I have endeavoured to explain in successive
lectures. It differs from the rest in its tone and in its
character ; it is also beset with some difficulties which lie
upon the surface, not however insurmountable; for when we
look beneath, we shall find the elements of easy recon
ciliation, and that the apparent discords are only portions
of latent and of real harmony. 31

362 FORESHADOWS.
The question has been asked— which contains one diffi
culty in the narrative—" How could Jesus, being omnis
cient as God, expect to find figs upon a fig-tree which he
must have known contained none ? The answer is, that
we are not to expect in what is partly a parable, (for such
this is, as well as a miracle,) that the mere outward facts
are historically true, but that they are probably true. In
all probability no such history actually occurred as that
of the sower who went- forth to sow: it was merely an
outward probable narrative, that might be true, that occurs
every year in every land, and which every one can accept
as true, and justly consecrated to be the outward covering
of an inner, glorious, and spiritual truth. The historical
statement is the scaffolding or the pedestal for sustaining,
and making more clear and vivid by the contrast, the great
moral and spiritual truth which it was intended to convey.
Now, Jesus coming and expecting fruit, and finding none,
is so natural, and what we might so truly expect of any
man approaching the tree in similar circumstances, that
speaking as a man, and actings throughout as the perfect
man, he might have expected fruit — it ought to have been ;
he was hungry — he found nothing to satisfy his hunger :
and so it is stated in the narrative before us. We find in
parallel passages difficulties as great. It is said that God
came down from heaven to see if there were any that did
good. Now, it cannot be true that God was ignorant of
what was the state of the earth ; it cannot mean that God
actually changed his locality — omnipresence is everywhere ;
but it is what can be predicated of a man whose nature is
thus ascribed to that God who took upon him our nature,
— sin, falsehood, imperfection of character alone excepted,
Throughout the Bible we hear God speaking, repenting,
promising, beseeching ; and thus addressing Jerusalem as
if it were impregnable to grace — " How often would I have

ELOQUENT NATURE. 363
gathered you, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her
wings, but ye would not !" All this is divine thought au
dible in the language of man, great eternal truths clothed
with the imperfect drapery of human speech — the accom
modation, as it were, of what would be infinite and incon
ceivable to the finite and imperfect apprehension and
comprehension of man. The great idea here meant to be
conveyed is, that just as Christ looked for fruit on that fig-
tree, and found none, he comes down to earth still, and
looks for practical fruits, such as those enumerated in
Gal. v. 22, in the conduct of every believer, and there
finds them, or finds them not.
The other difficulty that has been adduced as peculiar to
this miracle is, that there seems to be expressed an un
natural and almost unnecessary revenge in blasting by a
curse the fig-tree, because it had no fruit to satisfy the
hunger of Jesus. But this objection originates in a feel
ing that there is something inconsistent with what we should
expect in the character of Jesus when he displayed any
thing like anger, or what might bear the likeness of resent
ment. But in truth it arises from a feeling that nothing
like judgment should occur in the dispensations of God —
from a secret persuasion that we entertain in the depths of
our hearts, that there is nothing in the creature to neces
sitate punishment, but every thing to draw down approba
tion, affection, and love. But we do read of Jesus being
angry ; we read of the love of Christ, we read also of the
wrath of the Lamb. In one word, Jesus was man. But
we shall see that historically and morally there was a reason
for the peculiar manifestation of divine displeasure which
is embodied in this miracle. Every miracle that we have
before examined has been expressive of unmingled benefi
cence ; now it docs seem that there was needed some divine
manifestation of justice and of judgment also. Amid so

364 FORESHADOWS.
many and so glorious rays of infinite goodness, it does seem
natural that there should be at least seen, if not in all its
intensity, one ray of that God who is the consuming fire.
Amid so much as we have been considering to draw out
love from man's heart, something was wanted to prevent
presumption appearing in any man's bosom. And yet, even
here, where there is a miracle to teach us that while God
overflows with love, he is yet a just God, and angry with
the wicked every day — yet even here, and amid such evi
dence of judgment, there are seen the reflections of good
ness and mercy. Mercy is mingled with judgment ; for
while the subject of healing, in every miracle we have con
sidered, was a man — while the object of the goodness that
Jesus displayed was the living and sensitive and rational
creature, the monument of his curse is not a rational, sen
sitive man, but an irrational, insensible, and unconscious
tree. Thus we see that when he was teaching how good
he was, he made man to be the recipient of that goodness,
and the page on which he wrote the lesson ; but when he
was teaching how holy he was, and how truly he would
avenge sin, he made an unconscious tree to be the lesson-
book, and the recipient of that judgment : so that in the
very midst of his judgment we see mercy ; and we are
taught by these spectacles more and more that goodness is
his every-day delight, and that judgment is his "strange
work." But it has been asked, in the next place, " Why so treat
a tree? Why so treat an unconscious and unoffending
tree?" I answer: Christ did not ascribe to the tree re
sponsible or moral qualities ; he merely made it the symbol
of such responsibility and of such moral qualities. We
read, for instance, in the prophet Hosea, a similar image :
"I saw your fathers as the first ripe fruit in the fig-tree at
her first time." So in Joel, "He hath laid my vine waste,

ELOQUENT NATURE. 365
x
and barked my fig-tree : he hath made it clean bare, and
cast it away." And in Luke, " He spake also this parable ;
a certain man had a fig-tree planted in his vineyard."
That is not historically true ; it is merely a probable history
used to represent and embody eternal and spiritual truths.
All external imagery is perishing, but the inner and spiri
tual thought for which it was constructed lives for ever.
Jesus came, it is said, and sought fruit, but found none.
The tree is used as a symbol, and it was blasted to teach
man a great moral and spiritual truth. The very fact that
it was a thing, and not a man — in other words, the very
objection that some make to the blasting of the fig-tree in
order to teach a lesson to mankind, is the best and strongest
reason why it should be selected for this purpose ; for all
nature was made to be subservient to man, nature's lord
and king. All things now exist for man's good as well as
for man's glory; and the selection of this tree, even by
its sacrifice and destruction, to convey a new lesson to man
kind, is an instalment and foreshadow of that glorious epoch
when nature shall hear the last trump, and rise from her
degradation and her ruin, and become the mighty lesson-
book from which a vast and redeemed population shall learn
new and glorious lessons of the goodness, and mercy, and
beneficence of God.
I may also notice, (and I mention these things because
they are historical facts worth recollecting,) that while the
vine is used to represent what is beautiful and good, the
fig-tree is never or rarely used in the Bible except as the
symbol of what seems bad. It is the barren fig-tree we
read of; it is the fig-tree cast down and destroyed. And
it is remarkable that the ancient Rabbis of the Jews assert
in their traditions that the tree of knowledge of good and
evil was a fig-tree ; and it is no less remarkable that, among
the Greeks, with whom the primeval traditions of Para-
31*

366 FORESHADOWS.
dise seem to have survived, or who gathered them, rather,
from the Phoenicians, who brought them from the East, a
fig-tree is generally used in a bad sense. A Greek would
call a bad man, coxtvoi; avyp, a fig-tree man. So the word
"sycophant" — a flatterer, a man who acts dishonestly —
when literally translated, means a man that shows figs :
showing how widely this association may spread, and what
changes it has outlived, as it still runs through the language
of mankind ; as. if the traditions of the Jewish Rabbis were
true, that the fig-tree was the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil. There can be no absurdity in supposing its being
so. It might have been an apple-tree, a pear-tree, or an
orange-tree, or a bramble; the gist of the appointment
was not in what the tree was, but in what it was the symbol
of ; its representative character was the reality. God ap
pointed the tree simply as a test — a visible test, to show
man that he was a creature owing allegiance to his Creator,
and that the instant he did what his Creator forbade, that
moment he assumed to be his God, and gave up the lowly
position of a dependent creature, and wickedly attempted
the sovereignty of the independent God.
But the greatest difficulty that has been felt in the in
terpretation of the miracle, and of the statements that im
mediately precede it, arises from the clause inserted in the
account of St. Mark, that "the time of figs was not yet."
An objection has been raised on this by those who search
the Bible for reasons for rejecting it, as has been done by
Strauss, for he is the only infidel who seems to have really
read the Bible. Paine, Voltaire, Hume, and those men who
made jokes at the expense of the Bible, but really at their
own expense, acknowledged that they had never read it :
the one party had only gathered fragments of it from the
missals and breviaries of Rome, and the other party only
fragments of it at second-hand, and from not the most

ELOQUENT NATURE. 367
faithful recorders. But Strauss, who has appeared in Ger
many, and who, I may state, has been thoroughly exposed
— alike his sophisms and absurdities — by very able German
and American theologians, is one of those who have read
the New Testament in search of reasons for rejecting it,
just as Zoilus of old read Homer, looking only for errors
and inconsistencies. And no doubt, if a man set about
such a work, his diseased imagination, sustained by an un-
regenerate heart, will be very likely to discover difficulties
and objections where none really exist. His objection is
— that it is a most unreasonable and absurd thing to suppose
that our Lord should expect figs, when his own evangelist
expressly declares that the time for figs was not yet come.
What should we think of that man who should go into the
fields looking for ripe wheat in the season of spring, or
for ripe apples in the month of March ? We should say,
he must either be ignorant or bent on mischief. Then how
can we justify, or how can we solve the apparent difficulty
of our Lord expecting in the month of March, which was
the month when this miracle was wrought, to find figs, when
we are expressly told "the time of figs was not yet?" I
think the explanation is perfectly satisfactory. In the
month of March, at that early season of the year, it is true
there were neither leaves nor figs to be expected on a fig-
tree ; but it is matter of historical record in the page of
the evangelist, that this fig-tree did put forth leaves. I
have seen buds in the month of January ; and in the pre
mature warmth of the earliest moment of spring, you may
see a stray leaf that starts out only to be nipped and de
stroyed. Now this tree in the month of March seems to
have had leaves. But you say, "This does not justify ex
pecting fruit." It does : a fig-tree bears its fruit before
it shows its leaves ; and the fact that this tree had put
forth leaves was a silent proclamation that it had fruit, and

368 FORESHADOWS.
that if anybody would search for the fruit he would be sure
to find it. In other words, the fig-tree gave sign of fruit;
while it had not the reality. Seeing leaves, the traveller
would naturally look for fruit ; but when, hungry and way
worn, he beat the branches of the tree, in order to find the
fruit, the narrative is that he found none. It invited the
passer-by, by its leaves, to come and find fruit; it dis
appointed him the moment he made the search. It was
like a sign-board hung out over a*h empty house, proclaim
ing that there were good things within, whereat the traveller
enters, and finds only desolation, cold, and misery. It was
not the sin of the tree, if you will allow the expression,
that it had no fruit, but it was its sin that it put forth leaves,
pretending to have fruit, when it really had none at all.
Therefore the miracle, instead of being historically and
physically unnatural, is perfectly natural. There is no
charge, I repeat, against the tree that it had no fruit, but
the real gravamen of the charge lies in this — that while it
pretended to have fruit, it not only had none, but it gave
the hungry and weary traveller the trouble of searching.
We, brethren, are represented in Scripture as trees of
some kind. We read of two classes of trees — trees of
righteousness that bear fruit, and the trees that bear none.
Like trees, we need to be planted in a congenial soil ; like
trees, we need a divine breath to pass over us, in order to
make us blossom and bear fruit. The spring, and the
summer, and the autumn have successively passed over us ;
have they left upon us the traces that they have not passed
in vain? Is our spring come? Do we bear fruit? Are
we barren trees, cumberers of the ground, or fruitful trees,
giving glory to God, and distributing blessings among man
kind? The spring, in the natural world, is the great mi
racle of nature — it is the annual blossoming of Aaron's
rod. If the spring came but once in a lifetime, how should

ELOQUENT NATURE. 369
we wonder at it ! or if it came amid all the pomp and pro
cession of thunder, and lightning, and noise, how should
we be struck by it! But it does not so: it comes silently
and softly, but with irresistible power; and alas, we take
little note and feel few thanks. The cessation of spring
would be the miracle to us now, not its continuation. The
soul needs a spring — the day-spring from on high — just as
much as the trees of the wood ; and when the soul is acted
on by the Spirit of all life, it moves away from its cheerless
and wintry aspect, it turns near to the sun, clothes its
wintry branches with life, and fruit, and blossom, and
constitutes itself by the grace of God a fruitful tree, the
planting of the Lord.
But the real relation, I believe, of the miracle, and the
narrative which precedes it, is not so much individual, as
national. I believe the Jewish nation is the race of which
the fig-tree was the symbol, and whose fate was foresha
dowed by its destruction. The Gentiles made no profession
of religion — they made no pretension to it at all. The
Gentiles were the naked stems that spread their skeleton
branches in the frosty and biting winds, with neither life,
nor bud, nor promise of fruit or blossom ; they did not pre
tend to have any thing. But the Jews professed to bear
the choicest fruit ; they were clothed with the leaves of
profession ; they bare even the blossoms that indicated the
approach and the advent of fruit ; they were righteous, as
they thought themselves; they treated with supercilious
contempt all the nations of the world besides ; they pro
fessed to have a righteousness so great that it was adequate
to justify them ; and they declared that the Gentiles had
sunk into a degradation so complete that they were not fit
to communicate with them, or even, in any degree, to be
admitted to the participation of their peculiar advantages.
Our Lord wished to teach them this lesson — that the Jew.

870 FORESHADOWS.
with his blossoms without fruit, was nearer cursing than
the Gentile, who had neither leaf, nor blossom, nor fruit ;
because the first had great advantages, and only great
hypocrisy as the result of them ; while the last had great
disadvantages, no pretension, and little else might reason
ably be expected from them. It is therefore in such words
as these that this miracle is described by the apostle Paul,
when he said, "Behold, thou art called a Jew, and restest
in the law, and makest thy boast of God, and knowest his
will, and approvest the things that are more excellent,
being instructed out of the law; and art confident that
thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which
are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of
babes, which hast the form of knowledge and of the truth
in the law." These are the blossoms — these are the leaves
upon the fig-tree; but then, mark the evidence that there
was no fruit: "Thou therefore which teachesf another,
teachest thou not thyself? thou that preachest a man should
not steal, dost thou steal? Thou that sayest a man should
not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery ? thou that
abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege? Thou that
makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law
dishonourest thou God? For the name of God is blas
phemed among the Gentiles through you, as it is written.
For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the law : but
if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made
uncircumcision. Therefore if the uncircumcision [that is,
the Gentiles] keep the righteousness of the law, shall not
his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision ? And shall
not uncircumcision which is by nature, if it fulfil the law,
judge thee [the Jew, that is] who by the letter and cir
cumcision dost transgress the law?" We have the very
same idea carried out in explanatory language in the tenth
chapter, where the apostle says, "For they [the Jews]

ELOQUENT NATURE. 371
being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to
establish their own righteousness, have not submitted them
selves unto the righteousness of God." "To Israel he
saith, All day long have I stretched forth my hands unto
a disobedient and gainsaying people." "Israel hath not
obtained that which he seeketh for, but the election hath
obtained it, and the rest were blinded (according as it is
-written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes
that they should not see, and ears that they should not
hear,) unto this day. And David said, Let their table be
made a snare, and a trap, and a stumbling-block, and a re
compense unto them : let their eyes be darkened, that they
may not see, and bow down their back alway." Now, in
all these words used by the apostle, in his address to the
Roman Christians, we have the exposition, in clear and
common words, of the great idea which is embodied in the
semi-parable, semi-miracle on which I am now commenting.
He shows that the Jews had all the temporal advantages a
nation could possibly enjoy, that they had great moral and
spiritual privileges, such as no nation on earth had ever
reached before, that they shot forth in all directions the
green and promising leaves of a large and rich profession.
They professed to be something — to be exalted above and
distinguished from the rest of the nations of the earth, and
therefore something was to be expected from them; but
when the great Lord of the vineyard came, and saw the
leaves, and began to search for fruit, you might expect that
if the Gentiles were left, the Jew should be cursed, and
that the blasting of the fig-tree was no less merited than
it was natural to that guilty and ungrateful nation. And
have we not in the existence of the Jew in our land irre
sistible and awful evidence of the blasted fig-tree ? What
is all Palestine but God's fig-tree, in the language of Hosea,
"barked and laid low?" What is the Jewish nation in

372 FORESHADOWS.
every part of the world, but the withered and blasted
branches of the once fruitful, the now scarcely professing
fig-tree? Palestine itself at this moment seems almost
overspread by the curse. Its cities are the cities of the
dead ; its every acre is covered with the tombs of departed
ages : it has a soil fit to grow corn that would positively
crowd and overflow all the granaries of the world, but it
cannot provide corn enough to feed its miserable, its starved,
and wretched peasantry. At this very moment there is no
Mount Nebo, or Mount Pisgah, from which a successor of
Moses can see a goodly land overflowing with milk and
honey. On every part of that land the iron hoof of the
Arab steed and the naked foot of the Papal monk have
trod in succession, and warred for supremacy. In rapid
succession, the Roman, the Persian, the Arab, the Turk,
the robber, have taken possession of Palestine, and the
poor Jew — the fig-tree, blasted, deservedly blasted — has a
home anywhere and everywhere, but least a home is his
own home; has possessions everywhere, but none in that
land which is his by title-deeds more lasting than those of
the aristocracy of England. His title-deeds are in Ezekiel,
in Jeremiah, in Isaiah, in the Psalms, and must last and
live for ever and ever. You have then in the Jew, where-
ever you find him, a blasted fig-tree, a miracle-stricken
nation, a people scathed by a curse that cleaves to them
and consumes them, the people of the weary foot, the exiles
of the earth, in it and not of it ; as if their very existence
was a symbol of what God's people should be — in the
world,- and not of the world.
But there is yet more in this curse. I have noticed the
interesting fact, that when Christ is teaching how benefi
cent he is, he makes man the lesson-book ; but when he is
teaching how holy and just he is, and how offended he is
with sin, he makes a dead tree the lesson-book. But even

ELOQUENT NATURE. 373
in this there is a limitation. He says, " Let no man eat
fruit of thee for ever." Even in this malison that alighted
upon the Jewish nation there is a limit. The words com
monly used to express "for ever" are ek robs almcu; ; but
here it is, "Let no man eat fruit of thee" ek rdv alwva —
"until the age," "until the dispensation." That is, This
Jewish fig-tree which has been blasted by my curse, shall
not be blasted eternally, but until the aHZv o~ p.eUwv — the
dispensation that is to be — come. And what dispensation
is this ? The apostle Paul tells you that the Jews shall
have a restoration ; and if their depression was the enrich
ing of the Gentiles, what shall their resurrection be but
life to the Gentiles from the dead ? Therefore, it is here
indicated that an age will come, an age long predicted,
when the curse shall be reversed, when the withered roots
of Judah shall receive new life, when the sap that is now
stagnant in the national stem shall rise from the roots,
and permeate every branch of that tree, burst forth into a
foliage richer than nature's choicest and loveliest; and
Aaron's rod, long dead, shall blossom with a new and per
petual beauty. Already the fig-tree begins to put forth
its leaves ; and thus reminds me of what I might have
noticed before — that the blossoming of this long-cursed fig-
tree is to be one of the symbols of the approach of the end
of this dispensation, and of the near dawn of the rdv aiibva
here spoken of — the dispensation that is to come. When
our Lord has described- the fall of Jerusalem, he proceeds
to describe the end of the world: "Immediately after the
tribulation of those days the sun shall be darkened, [the
symbol of imperial power,] and the moon shall not give
her light, [ecclesiastical power,] and the stars shall fall
from heaven [the high ones of the earth shall fall from
their places."] Who can look at the history of the past
few years without seeing this? How many thrones or
32

374 FORESHADOWS.
suns have been overthrown, how many darkened ; and if
there seems to be a momentary rekindling and restoration
of the light, you have only to read the statements of the
impartial investigators of the actual state of the continent,
and you will find that their united testimony is, that every
throne in Europe rocks on a volcano. The truth is, that
there is no moral element by which thrones and people
can cohere upon the continent. In Paris, at this moment,
it is well known that every eleventh man who is sick, dies
or recovers in a hospital ; and half the births in Paris are
illegitimate — literally and truly, one half! What can you
expect of a population among whom there is no home,
where holy ties are maintained so imperfectly, where that
which is the very substance of the life and coherence of a
nation, is so extensively rotting in the midst of them?
What can you expect but dissolution, disorganization,
decay? Would to God that all rulers and statesmen
would recollect that the great element of a nation's cohe
sion is religion ; that a religious, Bible education is the
strength, as it is the substance, of a nation's grandeur and
a nation's stability. Suns then have been darkened.
"The moon shall not give her light." I have said that
when great Babylon fell, the cities of the nations — the
ecclesiastical and political institutions — should begin to
fall. The Church of England is at this moment vibrating
in the balance of life or death ; sections of its clergy are
"darkened," and, like wandering stars, plunging into the
very darkness of Babylon, having left their orbits and lost
their glory. All our institutions are to be broken up to
make way for better ones, all our relationships will dis
solve to make way for nobler ones. This is the age of
disorganization. In chemistry there is, first of all, total
disorganization, then new affinities are put forth, and new
combinations take place. We are now in the process of

ELOQUENT NATURE. 375
dissolution and disorganization; every thing smashing,
breaking up, and coming down, in order to make way for
a better age ; but in the midst of the crash, I can hear the
footfall of Him who comes to ascend the throne, and sway
the sceptre, and say, "I make all things new;" when the
new Jerusalem shall come down from heaven, like a bride
adorned for the bridegroom ; and there shall be no more
sorrow, nor tears, nor crying, nor sighing, for all former
things shall have passed away. But what takes place
next? "And then shall appear the sign of the Son of
man in heaven : and then shall all the tribes of the earth
mourn, when they see the Son of man coming in the clouds
of heaven, with power and- great glory. And he shall
send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they
shall gather together his elect [the first resurrection] from
the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other."
And then what is added? "Now learn a parable of the
fig-tree ; when his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth
leaves, ye know that summer is nigh : so likewise ye, when
ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at
the doors." The fig-tree is the great symbol of the Jewish
nation ;' the fig-tree, beginning to put forth a bud here and
a blossom there, to show the signs of its having felt the
spring, and recovered its lost vitality, is symptomatic of
the events recorded in this chapter. Who does not know
that never was so great an interest taken in the fate of
the Jews ; never were so many books written about them,
so many sermons preached in reference to them ; never
were kings so puzzled, and cabinets so perplexed, and
parliaments so plagued, as they are by that unmanageable
people — a people who do not trouble, and yet who indi
rectly perplex their measures, cross their purposes, and
place them at their wits' end. What is the great question
in our country ? "What shall we do with the Jew?" And

d76 FORESHADOWS.
what is it that helped to make the pope's return to Rome.
almost impracticable? The poor Jews struggling, and
appealing even to the New Testament, for reasons against
his return, because they know that the oppressor of their
brethren returns when the pope comes back to Rome. We
have then in these things, and many more which I could
mention if time permitted, the buds of the fig-tree, the
signs of the approaching age, when this curse shall be
reversed, and the fig-tree shall again blossom ; when the
Jew shall abandon his tradition, (and there are synagogues
already formed in which the traditions of the Rabbis are
repudiated,) and shall accept the pure Christianity of
Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, which is only the dawn
of the Christianity of Mount Tabor, of Calvary, and of
Mount Zion. Thus we see mercy in limiting the curse,
as well as in the elements that mingle with it.
In drawing one or two practical remarks from the narra
tive which I have rather tried to vindicate than to expound
at length, let me ask you, reader, if you are bringing forth
fruit, or if you are a cumberer of the ground? Is the
world any better for you ? Will it miss you when you are
gone ? Will it acknowledge, when you are removed, that
the widow has lost a husband, the orphan a father, the
needy a munificent friend ? Or will it be glad when you
are gone, as one that stinted, starved, oppressed, or
despised it ? In other words, are you a cumberer of the
ground, occupying the place of one that would be a bless
ing to the ground ? Or are you a fruitful tree, the plant
ing of the Lord? Let us ask ourselves this question,
at the close of each year. Each year seems to fly away
like successive dissolving views, the last faint gleams of
which are all that survive ; the sands of time rush spark
ling through the hour-glass more rapidly as they approach
the end. Each day leaves sunshine or shadows upon our

ELOQUENT NATURE. 377
hearts ; it makes upon each' of us impressions that form
together a character which stretches into eternity, and
lives for ever in unspeakable joy, or pines for ever in
unutterable agony and wo. If we have lost past years,
oh let us seek to redeem the time by making a holier, in
tenser, nobler use of what remains. "Redeem the time:"
the future years are open, waiting for you to pour into
them what will make them or mar them, as far as you are
concerned. And if years shall pass over us, and leave
us with gray hairs, and if we shall drop into our graves
without some real, living, personal hold of a Saviour, sal
vation, glory, happiness, we shall discover that no such
terrible avengers are in the regions of the lost as lost op
portunities. There is no Calvary in the realms of misery;
there is no shadow or sound of a Saviour where God hath
forgotten to be gracious. Are we, then, thinking of the
safety of our souls, as, not the one thing, but the supreme
thing, beside which all other things are subordinate and
comparatively worthless. The names of heroes, of literati,
of philosophers, of geologists, and astronomers, are fast
passing away ; but those who are stars in the galaxy of
the blessed shall shine like the brightness of the firmament
for ever; and such stars, of immortal renown and of im
perishable lustre, may shoot up from every peasant's hut,
and from every lowly home, and be fixed in that firmament
where by grace they shall shine and sparkle when suns
shall rise and set no more. Do not grasp a .world that is
slipping like quicksilver through your fingers ever as you
try to hold it ; do not follow after a world that leaves you,
the instant you try to make any use of it. Look at times
at the remains of those who have left us; go and gaze
upon the face of the dead; think for one moment, as you
stand beside that dumb, but eloquent sermon — the remains
of the near and dear dead : What was it to that dying man
32*

378 FORESHADOWS.
that he was rich ? If he was a Christian, whence did he
draw his joy in the last hours of life ? Was it from what
he was leaving behind him ? from the money he had gained ?
from the friends he had made ? from the patronage he en
joyed? from the power he had wielded ? Did these things
give him any joy ? were these the springs of his satisfac
tion, as he was about to close his eyes upon the world ?
The only ray of joy that he could see, or would look for,
was from above, not from below; the only drop of water
that was sweet to him, was from the fountain in the skies,
not from the broken cisterns in the earth. We shall find,
when we come Co die, that all we have now, about which
we are fighting, struggling, quarrelling, is utterly incapa
ble of giving us one atom of real happiness as we close our
eyes upon it to open them upon another world. And if
we know of any who died strangers to the gospel, as they
had lived strangers to it, what was the world to them when
they were leaving it ? They felt they were losing their
gods, and they had no God to help ; they saw the springs
from which they drank sealed and shut one by one, and
they had no fountain of living waters to go to ; they saw
all that was dearest to them — that which was their religion
and their life — sweeping away like a ship at sea, and them
selves about to open their eyes upon a world, in which these
things that they accumulated as their only joys upon earth,
were likely to be a millstone about their necks that would
sink them deeper and deeper into the abyss of eternity.
Thus we have traced the outlines of some foreshadows
of the better age. May we find our portion there in that
day ! Amen. THE END.

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on,
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tverj intelligent layman, as a safe and exceedingly instructive guide, through
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actually accomplishes more than its title promises," Ac. &a. — (Andover) Bibli
otheca Safi-a, April, 1855.

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Dr. J. H. Kurtz's Manual of Sacred History is the production of a very
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distinguished for his learning, his orthodoxy, his liberality, his piety, and his
originality. He writes with great clearness and condensation, and presents in
a brief compass a large amount of matter. His various works, and particularly
his Histories, have received the highest endorsement abroad in their popularity
and multiplied editions, and are commended in the strongest terms by the most
eminent divines. Guericke, Bruno Lindner, and Rudelbach, laud his Histo
ries in the strongest terms, and the Evangelical Review,* in the United States,
has furnished evidence of his great merits from authentic sources. The admi
rable Manual of Sacred History, translated by Dr. Schaeffer, (and, having ex
amined some parts of the translation, we may say well translated,) will consti
tute a rich contribution to our theological literature. Having encouraged the
translator to undertake the work, we are the more free to express our high
opinion of it, and the fidelity with which it has been executed. We hope this
will be the forerunner of other translations of works of the author.
C. P. KRAUTH,
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Sept. 16, 1854.
The Sacred History of Dr. J. H. Kurtz, does not belong to the ordinary class
of historic Manuals, with which the literature of Germany abounds. On the
contrary, after considerable acquaintance with it, we hesitate not to pronounce
it a production of very superior merit in its department, possessed of high lite
rary and theological excellence. Its style is pure and perspicuous, its divisions
are natural and appropriate, and the grouping of events felicitous and impres
sive. Without assenting to every sentiment of the author,"we cordially recom
mend his work to the patronage of the Christian public, and consider Dr
Schaeffer as entitled to the gratitude ofthe church, for presenting this ManuaJ
to the English public in so accurate and excellent a translation.
S. S. SCHMUCKER,
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Sept. 17, 1854. 
I know of no work in the English or German language which gives, in so
abort a compass, so full and clear an account of the gradual development of
the divine plan of salvation, from the fall of man to the resurrection of Christ
and the founding of the apostolic church, and which is, at the same time, so
sound in sentiment, so evangelical in tone, and, without being superficial, so
well adapted for popular use, as the "Manual of Sacred History," by Dr. J.
II. Kurtz. The translation of the Rev. Dr. Charles F. Schaeffer seems to me,
ay far as I have examined it, to do full justice to the German original, as well
iB to the English idiom. PHILIP SCHAFF,
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clearness, though in a condensed form. * * * The translator has placed in
the sacred historical library a work of rare merit." — Easton Whig, of Jan.
17, 1855.

"The author's remarkable genius and vast attainments have already given
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of Europe. The present work * * * requires to be thoroughly examined in
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ment, of. its felicitous selection of historical events, of the harmony of the va
rious parts, and the bearing of the whole upon one glorious consummation. * *
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suggestions, and its constant exhibition of unity in all God's plans and dispen
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much accustomed to lose sight.
" This book is, according to the Lutheran standard, thoroughly orthodox in
matters of doctrine, and is more thoroughly religious in spirit than any similar
German work with which we are acquainted.
"The English translation is, in our opinion, highly creditable to its author;
not only accurate, so far as we have yet had time to judge it, but less disfigured
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" * * * The present volume treats of the subject of Sacred History on a
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the Bible, considered as illustrations of the divine purpose in the salvation of
man. The style is clear, compact, and forcible, presenting a mass of weighty
thoughts, in simple and appropriate language." — N. Y. Tribune, of Jan. 5, 1855.

" * • An important addition to the line of text-books. The plan of the
work is as novel as it is happy. * * * Like all other of the recent German
theological and metaphysical works, the analytical arrangement is exquisitely
delicate and minute, perhaps too much so; and the amount of valuable histo
rical material as well as of doctrinal exposition it contains, bears a proportion
to the amount of space which those who are accustomed to our own looser
method of composition may well welcome." — Episcopal Recorder.

"The arrangement is admirable, the explanatory remarks are instructive,
and the whole work one of marked ability." * * — Baltimore (Baptist) True
Union.

" All classes of readers may study it with advantage." — JV. Y. Commercial.

" An admirable volume. Its literary and theological merits are of a high
order, and entitle it to a wide circulation among the lovers of a relio-ious lite
rature. The translator has faithfully executed his task." — Christian Chronicle.

" It is a work of great value as a text-book for Bible classes and schools, and
which may be made extensively useful in a family." — (Boston) Baily Evening
Traveller. "We have perused this volume with great satisfaction. It is a succinct yet
comprehensive sacred history, narrated in a style of great purity and attractive
ness; and though its subject is ancient, and hundreds of volumes have been
written upon it, yet the book is as full of freshness and charm 'as if it were s
romance." — New York Observer, of April 19, 1855. 3

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

3 9002 05046 1178

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