Stem t^e feifirar^ of (ptofeBBot T»tmam Otiffer (pajton, ©.©., &&.©. (J}re0enfe^ 6l? (gire. (Jpaxfon to t^e £t6rar^ of Qptinceton t^eofogicaf JJemiMrg SABBATH EVENING READINGS ON THE NEW TESTAMENT. ' BY THE EEV. JOHS CUMMISG, D.D., F.E.S.E., MINISTER OP THE SCOTTISH NATIONAL CHURCH, CROWN COORT, COTENT GARDEN, LONDOX ST. MATTHEW BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY JOHN P. JEWETT AND COMPANY. CLEVELAND, OHIO: JEWETT, PROCTOR, AND WORTIIINGTON. NEW YORK : SHELDON, LAMPORT AND BLAKEMAN. 1855. CAMBRIDGE : AtLEN AND PARNHAM, STERE0TYPEB3 AND PIUNTEBS. PREFACE. The first volume of these Sabbath Evening Read- ings is now before the public. The Author is truly- thankful at hearing of the very extensive demand for the Weekly Numbers of which it is composed. He has made additions to the expositions larger and more numerous than he first intended, but these are calculated, he believes, to impart additional instruc- tion, interest, and light. These comments are slightly critical, but suf- ficiently explanatory of difficult passages to enable the ordinary reader to ascertain with the least possi- ble obstruction the mind of the Spirit. They may prove useful to schools. Scripture readers, families far off from an edifying and instructive ministry, to travellers, and many others, who have neither time, nor talent, nor taste to investigate learned and elab- orate works. The reason why these expositions, IV PREFACE. and those that will follow, appear in numbers, is the Author's desire to, reach and benefit the poor. The Readings on Mark succeed these on Mat- thew, and when complete will form another small volume. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Page Old and New Testament — The Gospels — Apocryphal Gospels — Matthew's Gospel — Prefix Saint — Language of this Gos- pel — Inspiration — Matthew's Gospel for the Jews — Geneal- ogy of Jesus — Birth of Jesus — The Virgin Mother ... 1 CHAPTER II. Introduction — The Star — The Magi — Herod — Synod — Mas- sacre of Innocents — Rachel's Sorrow — The Sinfulness of the Human Heart in its Treatment of the Saviour .... 7 CHAPTER III. John the Baptist — His Mission, Repentance — Reign of Christ — Hebrew and Greek Names — Deity in Humanity — Baptist's Food and Clothing — Baptism — Private Communion — Bap- tism of Jesus — Descent of Spirit — Trinity 13 CHAPTER IV. The Temptation — First and Second Adam — Jesus led into the Desert — Satan's Suggestions — Our Shield and Sword — Honor of Scripture — Call of Peter and Andrew — Of Zebe- dee's Children — Synagogues and Christian Churches — Pa- tristic Usages — Texts — Healing and Teaching — Demoniacs 23 CHAPTER V. Sermon on the Mount — The Salt of the Earth — Living to God — New Testament the Fulness of the Old — Righteousness of Pharisees — Law of God reaches Motives and Feelings — Quarrels — Seventh Commandment — Oaths — Sacrifices — Alms 32 CHAPTER VI. Springs of Morality — Motives — Prayer — Our Father — Primi- tive "Worship — Amen — Fasting — Insurance — Cares . . 42 VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. Inspired Teaching — Judging — Season for Every thing — Prayer — Grand Social Maxim — The Way to Heaven — False Teach- ing — Tests of Character — The liock the only Safe Founda- tion — Authorized Teaching 52 CHAPTER VIII. Popularity of our Lord's Teaching — Leprosy Healed — A Sol- dier's Servant — The Last Festival — Peter's Mother-in-Law — Following Christ Jesus on Shipboard — Demoniacs — The Demon and the Swine 61 CHAPTER IX. The City of Jesus — The Palsied — The Sin Forgiver, and the Healer of Disease — Popularity — Call of Levi — The Friend of Publicans and Sinners — Fasting — Wine and Teetotalism — The Maid Restored — Demoniacs — The Harvest and Reapers 71 CHAPTER X. The Twelve — Learning — The Ministry — The Laborer and his Hire — The Limits of the Apostles' Diocese — The Samari- tans — Miracles — Persecution — Inspired Oratory — God's Care of his Ambassadors — The Sword Unsheathed through Christianity — Bearing the Cross 81 CHAPTER XI. Message of the Baptist to Jesus — Credentials of Messiah — Character of John the Baptist — Elijah — Hearers — National Responsibility — The " Wise and Prudent" — Babes — Their Privilege — Invitation 90 CHAPTER XII. The hungry Disciples eat Corn — The Pharisees cavil — Reply of Jesus — Sabbath-healing — Crystal Palace — Long Hours — Convocation — Priest, Prince, and People — Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit — Dislodging Evil by Good — Virgin Mary 98 CHAPTER XIII. Myths, Fables, Allegories, and Parables — The Ancient Teacher — The Seedsman of Heaven — Various Soils — Varied Har- vests — Tares and Wheat — Mustard Seed — Leaven — Home Renown lU CHAPTER XIV. The Baptist's Martyrdom — Popularity of the Gospel — Feeding Five Thousand — Miracles — The Storm at Sea — Fears and Misapprehensions — Peter Sinking — Jesus enters the Ship, and there is a Calm — Normal and Abnormal 122 CONTENTS. TH CHAPTER XV. Cavilling Scribes — Tradition — Wills and Property — The Heart Reader — Hj'pocrisy — Eating with Unwashen Hands — Women of Canaan, or JBelieving Prayer — Resurrection — Feeding the Multitude 130 CHAPTER XVI. Dissatisfaction of the Sadducees — A Sign from Heaven — Signs of the Times — Heart and Creed — Carnal Misinterpretations — Individuality of Gospel — Peter and his Successors — Self- denial — The Soul's Worth 146 CHAPTER XVII. Transfiguration 160 CHAPTER XVII. (Continued.) The Glory and the Cloud — The Voice of Jesus the Beloved — Hear Him 174 CHAPTER XVII. {Continued.} Coming of Elijah — A Father's Prayer — Lunacy — Satan's Mimicrv — Ignorance of the Apostles — An Ecclesiastical Tax / 188 CHAPTER XVIII. Dispute about Supremacy — A Little Child — Offences — Guar- dian Angels — Lost Orb — Tell it to the Church — Forgive- ness 195 CHAPTER XIX. Popnliirity of Truth — Divorces — Cln-ist answers from Scrip- ture — God's Toleration of Evil — Babes broug:ht to Jesus — The Rich Young Man — Sacrifices for Christ, and Reward . 211 CHAPTER XX. The Householder — Short Hours — The Sabbath— The Called and Chosen — A Mother and her Sons — Baptism — Blind Way-side Beggars 224 CHAPTER XXI. Prophecy Fulfille-d minutely — Popular Welcome — Holy Places - — The Hosanna of Children — The Fig-tree Curse — Au- thority — The Vineyard — The Husbandman's Interest in it . 245 CHAPTER XXII. The Great Feast- The Invited — The Despisers 256 CHAPTER XXIL {Co7itinued.) The Unworthy — The Wedding Robe— The Sadducees — The Resurrection — A Snare laid 260 Vlll CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXIII. Solemn Traths — Hypocrisy — Moses' Seat — Apostolic Succes- sion — Phylacteries — Pride — The Keys — Mediajval Copy of , Pharisees — Oaths — The Madiais — Mistranslation . . . 274 CHAPTER XXIV. Importance of this Chapter — Judea — The Temple — Jews — America — The Abomination 297 CHAPTER XXIV. (Continued.) Sabbath Day — Warnings — Antichrist — Signs in Last Days — Proof of Christ's Advent — Budding of the Fig-tree — This Generation — State of World before the Advent 302 CHAPTER XXV. The Parable of the Ten Virgins 311 CHAPTER XXV. {Continued.) The Parable of the Talents — The two great Divisions — The Heathen — Sufferers — Heaven and Hell 317 CHAPTER XXVI. The Passover — Enmity of Priests — Precious Perfume poured on the Head of Jesus — Rich and Poor — Pro.J)hccy of Be- trayal — The Lord's Supper — Transubstantiation — The Agony — Prayer 332 CHAPTER XXVI. [Continued.) Peter's Pali — Sin— Danger — Duty — Repentance — Restoration 351 CHAPTER XXVII. The Remorse of Judas — His only Consolation — The Purchase of the Potter's Pield — Jesus before Pilate — Barabbas pre- ferred to Jesus — Dream of Pilate's Wife — Pilate's Con- science and Course — Inscription on the Cross — Death of the Great Sacrifice — The Grave that will give up no Dead . . 363 CHAPTER XXVIII. The Resurrection — The Sabbath — Misrepresentations of Scribes, and Pharisees, and Soldiers, sifted and shown 388 CHAPTER XXVIII. [Continued.) The Master's Presence 395 CHAPTER XXVIII. [Continued.) The Minister's Dutv 404 SCRIPTURE READINGS. EXPOSITION OF MATTHEW I. OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT — THE GOSPELS — APOCHRYPHAL GOS- PELS — aiATTHEW'S GOSPEL — PREFIX SAINT — LANGUAGE OF THIS GOSPEL — INSPIRATION — MATTHEW'S GOSPEL FOR THE JEWS — GENEALOGY OF JESUS — BIRTH OF JESUS — THE VIR- GIN MOTHER. We here begin once more, in the course of evening read- ing, the New Testament Scriptures, so called in contra- distinction to the Old, or the ancient form in which the same Gospel was revealed to the prophets, the patriarchs, and the people of Israel. The four Gospels differ in many respects from each other. They have each peculiarities of style, expression, and de- sign. They have left us each different parts of our Lord's biography, one Gospel containing what the other omits, and the other, again, giving at greater length that which another presents more succinctly. It is plain that we have a full view of the blessed Redeemer only from a full study of all the four Gospels. The meaning of the word " Gospel," you have often heard me say, is " good news," derived frora, the two Saxon words God spell. It is the translation of the Greek word evayyiTitov, which meant amongst ancient classic Writers, a sacrifice or a thank-offering for good news ; but in later Greek authors and the New Testament it denotes the good news themselves. 1 2 SCRIPTURE READINGS. We have four Gospels, — why neither less nor morel cannot say, — and these four have always been accepted in every age of the world, and on most conclusive proofs, as the inspired and accredited records of that mysterious, un- precedented, and wonderful biography, the Life of the Lord Jesus Christ. I need not say, that, at a subsequent age, additional Gospels, called pseudo Gospels, were compiled, and thrust upon the Christian Church, partly by dreamy monks and fanatics. Some extracts from these I have read and seen, but they need only be known in order to be repudiated as gross and scandalous impostures. They indi- cate their human origin, in the first place, in dwelling on alleged grotesque and showy miracles of Jesus. The " Gos- pel of Nicodemus " is the title of one, and the " Gospel of the Infancy " is another ; these and other palpable forgeries expend their resources in dilating upon the wonderful mira- cles, so wonderful as to be puerile, that Christ, as they say, did wlien he was an infant. They give all the evidences one could desire, of being anile and absurd traditions. Be- sides, if that were not enough, they contain in themselves references and allusions to incidents which occurred after the apostolic age, and which alone are conclusive proofs that they were written at least two hundred years after the life and death of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus. If, for instance, a document professing to be written in the year 1780, contained allusion to the Roman Cathohc Eman- cipation Bill of 1829, you would say that that document must have been composed after that political event occurred, that it could not have been written prior to it. Now these Gospels, which were compiled, some of them by pious, but ignorant, and others by superstitious men, show that they were composed after the apostolic age, and in their char- acter and contents they evince such a contrast to the Inspired Record, that it needs no great skill to prove that they were subsequent compositions, drawn up by men who gave heed MATTHEW I. 3 to the traditions of the priests, or to the dreams of super- stition, instead of borrowing, as they ought, every incident, and doctrine, and truth, from the Fountains of Truth, the' Records of God. The author of the Gospel which we are now to read on successive Sabbath evenings, is called Matthew. He was a publican ; the word publican, as you are aware, in ancient times, being a word that denoted a tax-gatherer, or a person appointed by the Roman empire to collect the taxes which the Jews, or subject colony, owed to Caesar. He is called sometimes Levi, but the name by which he was generally known, and by which he is distinguished now, is Matthew. The word " saint " is prefixed to the authors of the Gospels, but that name is not more due to them than to any other Christian. All Christians are saints. They are all believers, the ayioi " the holy people." Every Epistle is addressed to the " saints," that is, to Christians. Yet it seems by uni- versal consent, that the title " saint " should be accorded, though not restricted, to the evangelists, and to the apostles, and writers of the New Testament, as a mark of their in- spiration and their writing of the Sacred Record. It is a very remarkable fact, that almost universal an- tiquity asserts, that this Gospel was originally written in Hebrew, or rather in the Syro-Chaldaic language, the lan- guage spoken by the Jews in the days of our Lord. All ancient writers, as may be seen in Eusebius, the Greek ecclesiastical historian, Irenaeus, Epiphanius, repeatedly say that this Gospel was written in the Hebrew, or the Syro- Chaldaic tongue. But that it was very early translated into Greek is certain, for the early editions of it now only exist in Greek ; and the testimony to this is derived from passages which indicate translation, as if the Greek were not the original, but a copy. It is reported by some ancient writers that Matthew translated it himself. It may have been so ; at all events, we have it only in Greek, if this be 4 SCRIPTURE READINGS. a translation, and it has been received by the whole Christian Church, as it indeed internally evinces, onward to the pres- ent moment, as the inspired and actual history of Jesus, composed by Matthew. In fact, I cannot conceive how any- body could suppose that a man originally vulgar minded, uneducated, without any original thought, sentiment, or deli- cate feeling, a tax-gatherer by trade — not a very respect- able one at that day, and generally in the hands of very unpopular men — that such a man composed out of his own head the majestic and impressive Sermon on the Mount. Give me the Sermon on the Mount only in St. Matthew's Gospel as my proof, and that alone, I assert, bears so vividly the impress of a celestial origin, that my inference must be alike just and natural, that he that recorded it only recorded what he heard, not invented out of his own mind what was his own. This Gospel contains some of our Lord's dis- courses, especially the Sermon on the Mount, at far greater length than any of the remaining Gospels, if I except St, John's, to which, if spared, we hope to come, and then I shall be able to examine its peculiarities. The peculiar distinction of this Gospel according to Mat- thew is, that it seems to have been addressed primarily to the Jews. It has a Jewish tinge and coloring, and allusions pervading it, all of which indicates that Matthew meant it to be especially for his countrymen, the Jews ; and, in fact, there are evidences, on examining the four Gospels, that Matthew's Gospel was the Gospel chiefly for the Jews, that Luke's Gospel is chiefly for the Gentiles ; the Hebraistic, or the Hellenistic Greek of Matthew, contrasting with the more Attic Greek of Luke, and indicating the classes for which they were respectively designed, as well as the men they were written by ; and John's Gospel has been called the Gospel of the Father, meant for Jew, and Greek, and all mankind. The first chapter begins by giving the generation, or tlie MATTHEW I. 5 descent of Christ. First, it shows he was the Son of Abraham, and, therefore, the great fulfilment of the ancient promise, which we have been considering on successive Sabbath mornings, that, " In thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed." Again, he is men- tioned as the offspring of David, to indicate his royal descent, and to respond to the many promises that show that Jesus, the Messiah, should be descended from David, and be David's son. The expression Jesus "the Christ" occurs only in the prefatory matter of each of the Gospels, and seems to be almost dropped in the sequel or remainder. After this genealogy has been given, we read of the birth of Christ being on this wise. Mary was espoused to Joseph. In ancient times a woman was espoused to a man at least twelve months before she was actually married to him ; and during these twelve months she was as sacredly regarded as his wife as if she had been actually married to him, and any unfaithfulness then was as great a sin as after- wards. It is recorded, that she was thus espoused to Joseph, and pledged and set apart to be his wife. Mary showed she was soon to be a mother, and Joseph, not un- derstanding the mysterious circumstances in which she was divinely placed, and which alone explained her state, and misjudging, by weighing facts according to a human stand- ard, and thinking that a sin, which the Virgin only by divine tidings knew, to be miraculous fact, was inclined to put her away as guilty of unfaithfulness ; " not willing to make her a public example," thereby indicating his love, for he might have divorced her by public letters, which was in his power. A divine messenger told him the mys- terious fact, so mysterious as to be incredible to flesh and blood without a direct revelation from the fountain of all truth — " She shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus," which, translated literally, is, "he shall 1* 6 SCRIPTURE READINGS. save his people from their sins." Here is the moral and the spiritual work of the Gospel, at a period when all earthly kings were disturbed by the foolish notion, that Christ had come to set up a rival monarchy, intended to dislodge the thrones, and to break the sceptres of the rest of the kingdoms of the world. Then the promise is appealed to as the origin; " Behold, a virgin shall be with child : " it is, literally translated, " the virgin shall be with child " — tj Trap&ivog, the translation of Ha-almah in the Hebrew, " the virgin," not " a virgin shall be with child " — so as virgin never was before ; " and shall bring forth a son," so as never son was born before, and never will be born afterwards ; "and they shall call his name Em- manuel," which is, translated in our tongue, " God with us." Joseph understood it, and then took to be his wife her who was previously espoused to him, and called the name of the child Jesus. The last verse of the chapter appears to prove that Mary afterwards was the mother of other children. Note. — [Title] evayyeAiov, in earlier Greek, signifies a present made as a return for good news (see Horn. Od. ^. 152, 166 ; also 2 Kings iv. 10, LXX.), or a sacrifice offered in thanksgiving for the same (Aristoph. Eq, 658) ; in later Greek, the good news itself as in LXX. and New Testament passim, in the appropriated sense of the good news of salvation by Christ Jesus. Hence it came to be applied to the writings themselves which contain this good news very early ; so, Justin M. Apol. ol u-kootoKolIv rolq yevoiifivoig vtc' avTcJv uTro/ivij- fiovevfiaciv, u KaTielrai evayyeTua, p. 98. — Alford. CHAPTEE II. INTRODUCTION — THE STAR — THE MAGI — HEROD — SYNOD — MAS- SACRE OP INNOCENTS — RACHEL's SORROW — THE SINFULNESS OF THE HUMAN HEART IN ITS TREATMENT OP THE SAVIOUR. It appears from the testimony of heathen historians, that a rumor prevailed all over the East about 1853 or 1854: years ago, that is, immediately before the birth of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, that a great king was soon to arise in the midst of Israel, to whom the dominion of the whole earth should be consigned. These eastern kings, or students of astronomy, versed in the science of the stars, and no less acquainted with the traditions of their land, believed that such an event was soon to take place ; and a star, or a meteor, it may have been, that they could neither explain nor discover in their chart, that crossed their reckon- ing, and contradicted all their calculations, signified to them that this great King of the Jews was now born, and that it was their duty to go and offer him incense, adoration, and praise. An inspiration from on high was ho doubt their strongest impulse. There has been much discussion among divines what this star was. Evidently, as the merest tyro knows, it was not a star that left its orbit, and took an eccentric course, because that, as far as we can see, was neither necessary nor prob- able ; but it has been actually calculated by modern histo- rians, that at the very period when it can be proved chrono- logically that Christ was born, there was a conjunction of two of the planets unprecedented for thousands of years ; 8 SCRIPTURE READINGS. and that such a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, happen- ing at that period, would present the appearance of a star of unearthly and unprecedented brilliancy ; and that no doubt was the sign that God employed to call attention to a new fact, to show the place where Christ was born, and to lead the wise men to Bethlehem to visit Him, who was born King of the Jews. But, whatever be the mode that was adopted, it is sufficient to believe that there was a celestial phenomenon of an unearthly splendor, which awakened and aroused the minds of watchful and inquiring students versed in astronomy to the occurrence of some supernatural fact, or new and startling interposition ; and this bright sign, as- sociated with the traditions of the east, and more probably still with the immediate suggestion and inspiration of God, brought these eastern kings to see and to worship Him who was " the bright and morning star." In the Roman Catholic Church there is a tradition that these kings were three. For this there is no reliable au- thority. In fact, at Cologne any one may see the reputed three skulls of the three Magi still preserved, crowned with golden diadems ; and even the names of the three kings are given. These names are of course very recent, and as authentic as the skulls they designate. The whole story at Cologne is the merest tradition, and, like most traditions, of no weight or authority whatever. They may have been ten, or twenty, for aught we know. The sacred record merely states that certain kings came from the east to Jeru- salem, seeking him who was born King of the Jews. We read next of the impression made on the mind of Herod, a cruel and a sanguinary tyrant, who had murdered his own wife, and had been guilty of very many and very great atrocities. He no sooner heard of this strange and supernatural fact, than his conscience suggested, what he felt was his desert, that he might lose his kingdom ; his fears became prophetic, and told him that a rival had come MATTHEW II. 9 into the world, who, he supposed, would deprive him of his sceptre. The Evangelist, therefore, adds — " When Herod the king heard these things, he was troubled." In the original it is, " he was exceedingly agitated and convulsed with fear." What did he do ? He resolved to consult the chief priests and scribes, whom he despised, but whom he was willing enough to make use of to carry out his own nefarious purposes ; and under the pretence of religion, he called them to a Synod, and gathered them together in general assembly, to ascertain from them in what place Christ should be born. This Synod that met in obedience to his command, decided unanimously that He should be born in Bethlehem of Judea ; and they set a precedent which one would wish that all modern Synods would adopt, — they rested their decision on Scriptural grounds, to which they unanimously appealed. They did not profess to decide by the aids of tradition, or infallibility, as if infal- libility were their prerogative ; but they said, what Synods have not been very much given to say, but rather very much given to conceal, in their past history — " Thus it is written by the prophet, And thou, Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda ; for out of thee shall come a governor, that shall rule my peo- ple Israel." Here was Scripture justly appealed to ; the place truly specified, so that Plerod now knew the locality of Christ's birth with the highest certainty. Well, he sent next to the wise men, and " inquired of them diligently what time the star appeared ; " that is, having found out the place, his next anxiety was to find the time, so that he might know the age of the child as well as where he was born. Wicked men pursue minutely their designs. He said to them — " Go, and search diligently for the young child ; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also." This was a royal falsehood. How revolting the hypocrisy that pretended 10 SCRIPTURE READINGS. that he was anxious to worship him, whilst he really de- sired to destroy him. Very often religion is made the covert of nefarious crimes, and under the garb of sacred- ness, deeds have been done that were never perpetrated by open and avowed criminality. " When they had heard the king, they departed ; and lo, the star which they saw in the east went before them," or, at least, seemed to go before them, " till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down and worshipped him." They recognized in the infant of a day the Prince of Peace, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the subject of ancient prophecy, and "they pre- sented unto him gifts, gold, and frankincense." In that babe, born in a lowly place, and of an obscure mother, they seem to have recognized the King of kings and Lord of lords. They seem to have had more than mere traditional light ; one would imagine they must have been guided and governed by the grace and Spirit of God. - They were " warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, and departed into their own country another way." And Joseph, the reputed father, was told to take Mary and the child, and to flee into Egypt. How truly Christ came unto his own, and his own received him not ! He was despised and rejected of men. From his first breath as the babe of Bethlehem to his last agony upon the cross of Cal- vary, he was a man of sorrows, persecuted, proscribed, de- spised. There was awful consistency in this treatment. There is no explanation of so mysterious and peculiar a life, except the explanation of the sacred record, that on him were laid the iniquities of us all, that he was bruised for our sins, and that he was smitten for our transgression, that, in short, he lived and died a sufferer, because he was a sacrifice. MATTHEW II. 11 A prophecy is applied to circumstances connected with the birth of Jesus which belonged historically to the chil- dren of Israel ; but as they and their history have a typical application to Christ's history, the peculiar prophecy applied by the Spirit of God to the Lord Jesus Christ is apposite and just. Of this we read in the account of the monstrous cruelty that Herod is here said to have perpetrated. He destroyed all the young children under two years of age that were born in Bethlehem, these very probably not very many, Bethlehem being a small village with a very small population. He did this inhuman act in order to make sure of the death of him who had been born, as he thought, a political rival, but whom his conscience feared as a holy and avenging judge, come to punish him before the time. " Then," we read, " was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children ; " not Rachel the wife of Jacob, but plainly Israel represented as and personated by Rachel ; that is, all the mothers of Israel are represented under the figure of Rachel, the mother of that family, whose husband Jacob was first called Israel, weeping for their ofi'spring, " and would not be comforted, because they are not." Many a Rachel still weeps for her lost babes. They are not lost, they are gone before. Their Father has forgiven them their pilgrimage. But Herod did not live for ever. His death is here re- corded, and on the occurrence of what many must have rejoiced at, Joseph returned, being guided in a dream by the Spirit of God. He sought again the land of Israel. " But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judaea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither." He was afraid that the son would imitate the precedent set before him by his father, and would be as reaciy to destroy the child as was Herod. One fears the effect of evil 12 SCRIPTURE READINGS. parental example. " Notwithstanding, being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee ; and he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth." It would appear as if this were the merest accident, but under God, it was designed that Jesus might thus live in Nazareth in order that he might be called a Nazarene, which was the epithet given in scorn to a despised and unworthy person. In that lowly birth were also the signs of no ordinary visitant to earth. In so sinful a reception by all ranks, prince, and priest, and peasant, with a few bright excep- tions, we see how far man is fallen. Blessed Jesus, may we have grace to say, " To whom can we go, but unto thee ? Thou hast the words of eternal life." Note. — Herod the Great, son of Antipater, an Idumean, by an Arabian mother, made king of Judaea on occasion of his having fled to Rome, being driven from his tetrarchy by the pretender Anti- gonus. (Jos. Ant. XIV. xiv. 4.) This title was confirmed to him after the battle of Actium by Octavianus. He sought to strengthen his throne by a series of cruelties and slaughters, putting to death even his wife Mariamne, and his sons Alexander and Aristobulus. His cruelties, and his affectation of Gentile customs, gained for him a hatred among the Jews, which neither his magnificent rebuilding of the temple, nor his liberality in other public works, nor his provident care of the people dui-ing a severe famine, could mitigate. He died miserably, five days after he had put to death his son Antipater, in the seventieth year of his age and the thirty-seventh of his reign, and the seven hundred and fiftieth year of Rome. The modern objections to this narrative may be answered best by remembering the monstrous character of this tyrant, of whom Jose- phus asserts (Ant. XVII. vi. 5) [li'Kaiva xo^V clvtov rjpei km iraaiv k^ayptaivovaa. Herod had marked the way to his throne, and his reign itself, with blood ; and had murdered his wife and three sons, (the last just about this time,) and was likely enough, in bUnd fury, to have made no inquiries, but given the savage order at once. Be- sides, there might have been a reason for not making inquiry, but rather taking the course he did, which was sure, he thought, to answer the end without divulging the purpose. — Alford. CHAPTER III. JOIIX THE BAPTIST HIS MISSION, KEPENTANCE EEIGN OF CHRIST HEBREW AND GREEK NAMES DEITY IX HUMANITY baptist's food and CLOTHING BAPTISM — PRIVATE COJI- MUNION BAPTISM OF JESUS DESCENT OF SPIRIT TKINITY\ , We have described, in the chapter we have read, the great preparatory office of that remarkable character who herakled in the Advent of Christ, John the Baptist. We read that he came " in those da3's," that is, " immediately preceding the public ministry of Christ;" preaching in " the wilderness," the wilderness denoting, not a desert and an uninhabited place, but a place thinly peopled and poor, not cultivated or taken in. The very first text that he ad- dressed to them was the exhortation that became the rough- ness, if I may so speak, or rather, the faithful intrepidity of his peculiar character, — " Repent ye," that is. Reform your lives, alter your minds, turn from the love and pursuit of practices that are evil to practices and principles that are true ; I warn and implore you to do so ; the reign of the Messiah draws near, one of the peculiar accompaniments of which will be, that He will take retributive vengeance on them that know him not, sooner or later, but surely he will be glorified and admired in all them that believe " at that day." The expressions " repent " and " repentance," occur fre- quently in the New Testament. One Greek word so trans- lated denotes simply a change of mind; the other Greek 2 14 SCllirTURE READINGS. word so translated means properly a change of character and conduct ; true repentance includes both ; but the one word is sometimes used, as on this occasion, in its own restricted and peculiar meaning. The word "kingdom" might be translated better " reign." We cannot well con- ceive of a " kingdom " being at hand, because we associate with the word " kingdom," what is geographical, or local, or restricted ; but the expression (iacikEia ruv ovpavuv strictly means the " reign of heaven," that is, that universal reign and holy sovereignty with which the Psalms are burdened, of which prophe<;ies speak, when Christ shall reign from sea to sea, and from the rivers to the end of the earth. For he sliall have dominion O'er river, sea, and shore ; Far as the eagle's pinion, Or dove's hglit wing can soar. We next read that John " was spoken of by the prophet Esaias." Let me state, in explanation, that Old Testament names that end in ah, are ended in Greek with as. Thus, instead of Jeremiah we have Jeremias, instead of Elijah we have Elias, and in one instance, instead of Joshua, which is the strict Hebrew word of which Jesus is the translation, we have, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, Jesus. So that, many of those words that seem different from the primary word on account of the spelling, you will easily be able to ascertain to be the same words, only differently spelt, owing to the difference of the languages in which they are ren- dered. John is stated by Esaias to be " The voice of one crying in the wilderness. Prepare ye the way of the Lord." He precedes a royal personage, he thus heralds a royal ad- vent. It was worthy of him who was Prince of the kings of the earth to send a harbinger before him, and this even in his humiliation. You will be struck in the perusal of the Gospels, on which we have just entered, by observing that MATTHEW III. 15 in the deepest depression of the Son of Man there flashed forth bright beams, indicating the presence of the glory of the Son of God. You will never see Jesus so exclusively set forth as the Man, that there are no gleams flashing through of his essential and divine glory; and you will never see him so entirely portrayed as God, that there are no evidences of his essential and true humanity interming- ling with and subduing and softening it. Here you have him as God and man, sending a harbinger before him that proclaimed his dignity ; yet, his advent being to preach and to suffer, there is also enough to indicate his humanity. This John " had his raiment of camel's hair," that is, a cloak made of the roughest hair of the camel, still worn by the Arabs of the desert ; " and a leathern girdle about his loins ; and his meat was locusts." I believe this to be the insect strictly so called, which is still used by the Arabs, after being baked in the oven, as meat ; and I do not know that there is any thing more repulsive in their eating them, than in our eating shrimps, which, to the eastern taste, is Btill abhorrent, yet to ours it is perfectly natural. lie ate also " wild honey," Palestine being a country abounding in honey, the bees building in the rocks and the branches of trees. Such food was j3lentiful, wholesome, and easily accessible. " Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan ; " that is, people went out from each of these places : it cannot mean that the whole population crowded around him, for that would have been impossible ; but that persons came from each of these places to hear him ; " and were baptized of him in Jordan, con- fessing their sins," not privately, but publicly. This baptism of John clearly was a totally distinct baptism from Christian baptism. It was the custom among the Jews, when a prose- lyte was admitted to their economy, to perform three rites ; one was oblation, another circumcision, and another baptism, lustration, or washing. Now, John here, before Jesus had 16 SCRIPTURE READINGS. preached tlie Gospel and instituted Christian baptism, ac- cording to a practice that he had seen frequently, baptized, that is admitted his proselytes into the outward kingdom of heaven by this rite of baptism in the Jordan. You are aware that there has been a very great deal of discussion about the word (3a7VTcCo). I believe that what is called im- mersion was as frequently practised as sprinkling. The Greek word (San-n^u is a corruption or modification of the Greek word [SuTrro : there has been a dispute about its mean- ing. One party says, it means to immerse only — that is not the fact; others say, it means to sprinkle only — that is not the fact. It means sometimes to sprinkle, sometimes to immerse, and sometimes io dip ; the most frequent sense in which the Hebrew word that corresponds to it is used, is to dip — " to dip the rod in honey " — " to dip tlie staff in oil " — " to dip the foot in oil," in all of which passages it is absurd to infer the employment of immersion : dipping a part of tlie body in liquid is not necessarily immersion. It is used by the Greeks often in the sense of sprinkling. For instance, I think it is in the Iliad or the Odyssey that it is said that the field was baptized with dew ; that does not mean that it was plunged or dipped in it, but sprinkled with it. Homer speaks of the shields " baptized with arrows ;" that is, arrows were shot at them, and stuck fast in them. Some persons who are rather tenacious say, John immersed Jesus in the Jordan. I doubt if the Jordan at Jerusalem is really so very deep, except in times of floods, as would be sufficient. At least, it does not follow that he was baptized by im- mersion, because he was baptized in the Jordan ; and if the ancient pictures of the early masters be true, — which they are not of necessity, of course, for they are tradition, and not proof, — the earliest picture of this fact represents John taking a cup of water, and pouring its contents on the head of Jesus. But I would not care to spend much time in arguing with our Baptist brethren upon the amount of MATTHEW III. 1-7 water contained in a word ; I would only meet them when they become exclusive and bigoted as I have found some, and denounce that as no baptism which is not accompanied with immersion of tlie whole body in water. This exclu- siveness is a diluted Puseyism. My conviction is, that even if in every instance in primitive times baptism was ad- ministered by immersion, still this would be no reason why we should be bound exactly to have it so now. In ancient times, the Lord's Supper was celebrated in the evening: when Jesus instituted it, he did not partake of it kneeling, as the members of the Church of England do, or sitting at a communion table, as the members of the Church of Scot- land do ; but he did it leaning on his left elbow, and with the apostles leaning on their left sides. Now, if you will insist that we be rigidly conformed to apostolical practices in outward things, you must set the example of being so in all their details, and not adopt one practice, and dispense with all the rest. There was no organ, nor any other hymn than David's psalm, at this first festival. My idea of baptism is, that we should approach as near to the outward usage as circumstances will admit ; but I do feel, that to take a poor babe and plunge it over head in cold water in winter, is al- most to be guilty of murder ; and certainly to take an adult, and plunge him in water, the temperature of which is below zero, to say the least of it, if it be not a penance, it is not convenient. Perhaps you say, the water is to be heated ; but the waters in the Jordan could not be heated. It must be a river, and as you are rigidly rubrical, it must be in winter or summer in India or Greenland. The temperature, certainly, would be warm in the instance under notice, be- cause it was in an eastern climate ; but still, the temperature of rivers varies, and our Thames, even if as clean, which I very much doubt, is much colder than the Jordan ; and, therefore, it would be inconvenient in this latitude ; and the poor Greenlanders would find baptism simply martyrdom. 18 SCRIPTURE READINGS. Christianity is not a religion of rigid, external, unbending forms, but a religion of righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, — an inner life, not an outer conformity. The ceremony must always give way to the substance, never the substance give way to the ceremony, nor health be affected by rigid adherence to a form. We read that those baptized by John were baptized after- wards by our blessed Lord. That would prove that they were not recipients of Christian baptism. You read in the Acts that many received Christian baptism who had re- ceived the baptism of John ; and, therefore, to argue from John's baptism and its meaning, whatever that may be, to Christian baptism, with its peculiar meaning, is to argue erroneously, for the two things are perfectly distinct. 1 admit that the real controversy is not whether it should be immersion or sprinkling, but whether it should be children or adults. This is a very different question. I do not hold that it is wrong to baptize adults, and, therefore, I say, that the Baptists are right in baptizing adults ; but I deny that they are right in saying that the baptism of infants is wrong. I am prepared to produce admissions from the ear- liest ages, that infant baptism was used ; and strange enough, when a proselyte was admitted into the Jewish economy, all his children were also admitted by baptism. There is no denial of this fact, that when a Gentile prose- lyte was admitted into the Jewish economy by baptism, all his children were instantly admitted by a rite also. It is not a discussion that one would wish to agitate in these times ; but still, it is right that every one should express his deep and honest convictions in charity. It does seem to me that the baptism of infants is most scriptural. Is there any thing more beautiful than the sight in this congregation, when two parents, who, we think, are the proper sponsors, publicly present and dedicate their babe, amidst the prayers of a whole congregation, solemnly to God by that expres- MATTHEW III. 19 Bive rite of Christian baptism ? I should not like to let go that beautiful sight ; I should not like to part with so im- pressive a ceremony. I always refuse to baptize infants in private, unless sickness renders it expedient ; and generally all classes, high and low, rich and poor, on being reasoned with for a few minutes, agree in the propriety of this ar- rangement. It is too beautiful and too impressive a thing to be done in a corner ; and I cannot understand how some of my copresbyters of the Scotch Church in the north jus- tify themselves, in protesting as they do vehemently against the Lord's Supper being administered to a dying person in the sick room, who may never have had an opportunity of joining in it in pirblic, while they are willing to administer baptism in the presence of two or three witnesses, or even of none but the parents. I am convinced that the General Assembly were wrong when they refused to entertain a motion made by a nobleman who is an elder of the church, who moved that it be lawful for ministers to administer the Lord's Supper in private, for reasons for which baptism is administered in private ; of course-, not to dying criminals as a passport, nor to persons who superstitiously avail them- selves of it as a charm. If I find a person converted upon a sick-bed, brought to know and love the Saviour, and there- fore a Christian, and if he says, " I never celebrated upon earth that beautiful rite, the Communion, that commemo- rates my Saviour's death and sacrifice, and love, and is to his own his holy pledge and seal, and I should like, if it were possible to do so, but I am so weak that I cannot leave my sick room ; " I could say, " You need not the outward rite, as if essentially necessary; the inward communion is for you ; and if you love and trust that Saviour, it is com- munion with him." But if he says, " I admit all this, and deeply and joyfully, but still I should like to partake of the Communion ; " how is it that that very church which say^ that there is a church wherever two or three of God's peo- 20 SCRIPTURE READINGS. pie meet together in Christ's name, should object to the ordinances of a church being administered where two or three are met together in that Name in a sick room ? Many a sick chamber has a consecration parish churches have not. Over and over again was the Lord's Supper adminis- tered in houses, and in prisons, in the catacombs beneath the soil of Rome, in the Mamertine prison, in the caves and dens of the Alps ; and it may be so again before the dis- pensation closes. John, we find, explains next the thorough nature of his mission. He says : Do not say that we have Abraham for our father ; do not plead the patriarchal succession — which was just with them what the Apostolical succession is in these days ; — do not say that we have a patriarch or an apostle whose succession we inherit ; " for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham," and successors to the apostles. The truth is, the tree is good that bears good fruit, whatever be its succession or its descent, and the tree is bad that bears bad fruit. "And the axe is laid under the root of the trees ; there- fore," he says, like a thorough out-and-out reformer, " every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit, is hewn down and cast into the fire." Here is the great law of God, that he will bear with the tree long. The interceding Christ cries — " Spare it another year." God will spare it another year ; but if it bring not forth fruit, it is to be cut down, not merely because it is barren, but because it casts a shadow, and prevents other fruits and flowers growing up where it stands, — it is a cumberer of the ground; it must be re- moved. He adds : " I indeed baptize you with water " — that is all my mission — "but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear ; he shall bap- tize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire ; " not, I think, exclusively relating to that Pentecostal baptism, but to the MATTHEW III. 21 baptism that Christ still gives. The minister still baptizes with water ; it is Christ alone who baptizes with the Holy Ghost. "We next read of the baptism of Jesus ; but, I think, to quote the baptism of Jesus as any precedent of ours, is to misquote Scripture. When any person argues that baptism is to be administered at twenty or thirty years of age, be- cause Jesus was thirty years old when it was administered to him, he surely errs. There is no parallelism ; because John's baptism was not a Christian baptism, since the sub- jects of John's baptism had to come under Christ's baptism afterwards. The Law was then in force, and it became Jesus, as under the Law, while the Law of Levi lasted, " to fulfil all righteousness," and to join all the outward adminis- trations of Levi, just as any other Jew. It was not because Jesus needed regeneration, nor was baptism, in his case, meant to be the type, the symbol, or the seal of it ; but he was baptized as introductory to his great office, wliich he began to fill at thirty years of age, when he began to preach the great truths that he sealed with his precious blood. On this occasion " the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove : " some think, in the form of a dove ; others state that the descent was like the descent of a dove, and no more : how- ever, in one of the Gospels it says, " in the bodily form of a dove." Then a voice comes " from heaven, saying, This is my be- loved Son." The Hebrew word David means beloved, and the voice, when pronounced in the Syriac language, or, probably, in the Hebrew, would mean — " This is my David" — this is the David of whom David sings in the Psalms, this is the root and offspring of David, this is the true beloved who is to sit upon David's throne. You will notice here, there is the whole Trinity present. 22 SCllIPTURE READINGS. There is the Holy Spirit descending upon Jesus, and the Father speaking from heaven, and Jesus, the subject of the new inauguration and baptism, — Father, Son, and Holy Ghost preceding this dispensation, — Father, Son, and Holy Ghost receiving the glory of it when this dispensation shall close. Note. — Sha,w found locusts eaten by the Moors in Barbarj. (Trav- els, p. 164.) — fzeTu uypiov. See 1 Sam. xiv. 25. Here again, there is no need to suppose any thing else meant but honey made by wild bees. Schulz (cited by Wince, Realwand de Wette) found such honey in this very wilderness in our own time. Sec Psalm Ixxxi. 16; Judg. xiv. 8 ; Deut. xxxii. 13. This was not a sudden and temporary descent of the Spirit, but a permanent, though special, anointing of the Saviour for his holy office. It "abode upon him," (John i. 32). And from this moment his ministry and mediatorial work (in the active official sense) begins ; evdiug, the Spirit carries him away to the wilderness : the day of his return thence John points him out as the Lamb of God ; the next day Peter, Andrew, and Philip are called ; and the third day is the first miracle at the mamage of Cana. But we must not imagine any change in the nature or person of our Loi'd to have taken place at his baptism. The anointing and crowning are but signs of the official assumption of the power which the king has by a right independent of, and higher than these. The Avhole is in remarkable pai-allelism with that of the transfiguration. — Alford. CHAPTER lY. THE TEMPTATION — FIRST AND SECOND ADAM — JESUS LED INTO THE DESERT — SATAn's SUGGESTIONS OUR SHIELD AND SWORD — HONOR OF SCRIPTURE — CALL OF PETER AND AN- DREW — OF ZEBEDEE's children — SYNAGOGUES AND CHRIS- TIAN CHURCHES — PATRISTIC USAGES — TEXTS — HEALING AND TEACHING — DEMONIACS. The introductory part of the chapter I have read is one of the most remarkable in the records of inspiration. It describes, not a phantom scene depicted by a poet, or a dream that passed through the mind of Jesus, but, as we are bound to conclude in the exercise of fair and honest and impartial criticism, a literal historical fact. We cannot deny that it is Satan personally who here appears ; it is Jesus personally who was assailed by him ; and it is over Satan that Jesus, by the use of celestial weapons, gains the victory. The first Adam fell amid the beauties and the advan- tages of a garden ; the second Adam triumphed amid the hunger, the bleakness, and the cold of a desert. It was in a garden our crown of glory was lost ; it was in a desert that a crown of yet richer glory, beauty, and perfection was earned. We read that " Jesus was led np of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil." He is presented here, mark you, not simply as God, but also as the proto- type and specimen of the perfect believer. Jesus not only came into the world to atone for our sins by his death, but to set a perfect example for our imitation in his life. And 24 SCRIPTURE READINGS. • in this conflict with Satan lie presents the precedent of the perfect believer, showing ns where the arena is, what our weapons are, and how certain our victory will be in the use of these weapons, and in reliance on the right source of triumph and of victory. He did not go or thrust himself into the Avilderness — he was led. If you are led in the providence of God into scenes of trial, the same God who leads you there, if you look to him, will keep you there from falling ; but if you go spontaneously or from idle curiosity into scenes of trial, temptation, and danger, and calculate that God will keep you where you have wickedly and wil- fully exposed yourself, you have no reason to look for God's assistance, for it is written, " Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." " When he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungered." That fast, we learn from the parallel passage in Luke, who says he ate nothing, was absolute and entire abstinence from food. Now, there are certain traits in Jesus which we cannot imitate, there are other traits which are precedents for us to imitate. When he stilled the waves, he did not set a precedent for us to imitate him in this — if we try, we shall foil. When he raised the dead, and walked upon the unruly waters, he did what human power cannot do, and what it would be folly or fanaticism in us to attempt to do. But there Avere certain things which he did do, which are designed and intended to be examples and precedents for us, and these are recorded in his life throughout the Gospels. Here now is fasting forty days and forty nights, which surely is not a precedent for us. Try it completely, and death must ensue ; imitate it imperfectly, and there can be no end or object in your doing so. It is not morally, but physically impossible. He was placed where it became a necessity, and for us to take that necessity and turn it into a duty for our adoption, or for any to try to imitate, is not to follow the example of MATTHEW IV. 25 Jesus, as it was meant to be followed, but to fly at impossi- bilities. When the tempter came to Him, he put the hypothetical expression, " If thou be the Son of God," — Satan knew quite Avell he was the Son of God, but this was in order to try him — " If thoU be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread ; " that is, You are hungry ; do not, therefore, wait for bread in the ordinary way of Providential supply, but turn these stones into bread. Now, how did Jesus answer ? He might have said, " I tell thee from the depths of my own unsearchable wisdom that what you have said is wrong. I tell you from my own personal knowledge that man lives not by bread alone." But he did not say so ; he foiled every temptation by an appeal, not to tradition, not to the fountains of inexhaustible wisdom, but to that blessed book which he has caused to be written for our learning ; and he said, " It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that pro- ceedeth out of the mouth of God." I know no eulogium on Scripture more decided or impressive than this, that He who inspired it quotes it as the rule of his faith, and life; that the Son of God, who was above it, and needed not to quote from it, so honored it, that it might be an example to us, that he foils every temptation by a simple extract from the word — "It is written, Man doth not live by bread alone." This was his sword, and here too his shield. We then read that Satan, foiled here, " taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple." That word rendered 'pinnacle might be translated " a wing of the temple." It seems to have been some lofty platform, probably the Beautiful Gate, or Solomon's Porch on the side of a lofty hill. This may have been days or a week after the former temptation ; it does not follow that it was in instantaneous succession to the former trial. " And he said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself 3 26 SCRIPTURE READINGS. down ; " and Satan noticing that Christ appealed to Scripture in the first trial, imitates his example so far, that he too quotes Scripture in the second — "for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee : and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone." Now this was quite true ; this was a quotation taken from God's holy word ; and it teaches IS this lesson, that Satan can quote the most solemn words of Scripture when it suits his purpose ; but when he quotes it, he generally does it not correctly and truly ; for it is written, " He shall give his angels charge concerning thee to keep thee in all thy ways ; " not to keep thee absolutely wherever you choose to go, but to keep thee always in the path of duty. Satan leaves out the modifying clause, quotes the absolute promise, and then says to our Lord, " Show that this is true by casting yourself down from the temple." " And Jesus said unto him, It is written again," — if you have quoted what is written, yet " it is written again. Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." How apposite ! What indication of wisdom was here ! "Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain," probably a portion of the mountain on which the temple was built, " and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them." Satan is the prince of this world, a usurper, but a usurper armed with power, possession, and influence; and he says, "All these things M'ill I give thee," — whether he spake truly or not is an- other question, — " if thou wilt fall down and worship me." Many a one is caught by this bait still. For the sake of wealth they will worship the prince of the power of the air. For the sake of preferment — the lust of splendor and the thipst of advancement in the world — they will sacrifice all that is dutiful to God, and take the very path prescribed by Satan the usurper and the great deceiver. But Jesus an- swered him again, " It is written, Thou shalt worship the MATTHEW IV. 27 Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." How com- plete was each answer, and how interesting that each was taken from Scripture, and what a precious precedent and consolation for us ! " It is written," is the sword of the Spirit ; and wherever it is wielded in the strength of Him who has inspired it, it will be crowned with victory. " Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him." Angels visited the holy con- queror. "Now when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee," and by the place he came to he showed the fulfilment of an ancient prophecy contained in Isaiah, that " the people which sat in darkness saw great light." Jesus then began to preach, and as if he had caught up the very echoes of John's ministry, he says, " Repent : for the kingdom of heaven," or the reign of heaven, "is at hand." We then read that he saw Peter and Andrew, who were fishermen, casting their nets into the sea ; and, borrowing an illustration from their trade, he tells them that if they will follow him, he will make them fishers of a nobler stamp ; and they, inspired by the Spirit of him who ad- dressed to them the command, straightway left their nets, which were their all, and followed Jesus. We read then of the sons of Zebedee, John and James, following him; and they immediately left the ship which was their property, and their father and their relatives, and followed him ; teaching us that we should leave father, and mother, and sister, and brother, and houses, and lands, and our own life, if needs be, and follow Christ when he bids us. We then read that Jesus went about teaching in all their synagogues. This is the first use of one expression that needs to be explained, namely, the Synagogue of the ancient Jews. It is always understood that the Christian Church 28 SCRIPTURE READINGS. or the Christian congregation is built, not upon the model of the temple, but on the model of the synagogue. In the temple was the high-priest, and the altar, and sacrifices offered for the sins of the people ; but in the synagogue there was no altar, but only a pulpit or a desk, from which the reader read the law, and expounded its meaning to the people who were present. The temple was the place for sacrifice, the synagogue was the place for preaching in. The synagogue means the assembling together, or the church, or the collection of the people, and it was so con- stituted, that if any Jew was travelling through the land, and came into a synagogue in another place, it Avas lawful for the chief reader or ruler of the synagogue to ask if any brother had a word to speak, and to ask him, as a believing Jew, to go into the pulpit and address the people. It is plain that upon this is founded the Christian congregation in its modern aspect ; and no doubt one of the great secrets of the errors that are creeping into the different sections of the church at the present day, is, that they look to the tem- ple as the type of the Christian Church instead of the syn- agogue. And while speaking of the chief ruler asking any Jew present in the congregation to address the people, I may notice that for three centuries after the Christian era, it was not uncommon for the bishop or the chief minister in the Christian congregation, when he saw in the midst of his auditory an enlightened Cliristian person, though a layman, to invite him to go up into the pulpit and preach. This, I know, would shock the views and sentiments of some mod- ern divines ; when we examine the habits of the Patristic age, or the Nicene Church, we discover remarkably enough that those who profess to be the most enthusiastic imitators of the Patristic practices, only imitate them as far as it suits their own taste and purpose, and refuse that imita- tion where such imitation would be disagreeable to their MATTHEW IV. 29 This fact, tliat any stranger passing through the land was suffered to address the people in the ancient synagogue, ex- plains why Jesus so often preached in the synagogue. It is said, that Jesus went teaching in all their synagogues, and preacliing the Gospel of the kingdom unto them ; and you will find frequent allusions to this practice in the Acts. Whilst the law and the prophets were being read in the synagogue, the reader always stood, and the people with him : but when the preacher addressed the people by w#y of explanation of the chapter he had read, he sat down, and all the people sat down also. We shall find an instance of this in a subsequent Gospel, where Jesus read from the Prophet Isaiah, then sat down and addressed the people. And it is remarkable, if you will notice the precedents of preaching in the New Testament,^ that rarely is a single verse taken — most frequently a large mass of Scripture ; and hence I think it so important and so useful that the les- sons that we read in constant and regular succession from the Bible at every service should be explained, as far as one is able to cast light upon them, so that in your homes you may read the Scriptures, not as a penance, not as a mere duty, but with profit, and with understanding, and with delight. The origin of texts was in the scholastic ages, when the plan was to try how much meaning could be extorted from the least possible portion- of Scripture. Sometimes a text is most proper, because it is so replete with instructive meaning; but the best way is, in most cases, to take a large mass of Scripture, and from it to enlighten the hearers. He also healed all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. Jesus, wherever he conferred spiritual, conferred temporal blessings; and when he thus cured diseases, he gave an earnest and a foreshadow of that blessed era, when all diseases shall be healed, when all sick ness shall be ended, when man shall be restored to more 3* 30 SCRIPTURE READINGS. than his pristine health, and beauty, and perfection ; and all things made good at the beginning shall be made vastly bet- ter in the paradise that is to be. When Jesus healed dis- eases, he restored man so far to his normal or his original state, and gave in each act an earnest and a prophecy of what he will do when he conies down from heaven and makes all things new. Many were "possessed with devils." Now, I believe tWs was literal possession. Besides Satan the archfiend, there were many, and there are still many, fallen fiends with him. It is matter of fact, for it is recorded in history, that these fallen spirits took possession of man, although there is no evidence of demoniacal possession subsequent to the death of our Blessed Lord. It is a very singular circum- stance, that every work of God has been imitated by Satan. You remember, that when miracles were done by Moses in Egypt, the Egyptian magicians imitated them ; and when Jesus appeared in the flesh, demoniacal possession became frequent, as if Satan would show that he had also appeared in the flesh : now that we have the Spirit, he does not pos- sess men by dwelling in them, but by the seductions of sin, the fascinations of philosophy, the mazes of error, and all the heresies that he has poured forth like a flood in the midst of the Christian Church. He healed also those that were " lunatic." Now, to show that possession with devils was an actual and a real thing, and was not a mere derangement, we have another class of diseases specified, those that were lunatic. The word luna- tic is, perhaps, a correct translation, but its origin is absurd. It means moonstruck. The popular tradition was, that the moon was the cause of lunacy, and that in certain phases of the moon the lunatic was peculiarly affected. There is no good foundation, it is supposed, for this notion ; but though the origin of the word has passed away with the progress of science and the enlightenment of the humau MATTHEW IV. 31 mind, yet the word itself is still retained, and is sufficiently expressive of that mental derangement for which it is em- ployed. And also he healed those that had the palsy ; " and there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan." All these cures of bodily dis- ease effected by our blessed Lord were earnests of that ulti- mate state of health, repose, and happiness, in which all creation shall culminate. Disease and death are not the normal state of things. We see death so often, and so im- partial in its strokes, that we conclude it is the constitution of nature. It is not so. Disease was not a part of God's creation. Death was not to be the gate through which man should ascend higher. The whole economy of nature is more 08 less disorganized. Sin has smitten with its poison- ous influence all man's world. Sin opened a door for the irruption of a vast flood of moral and physical evils. It will not be always thus. A year of redemption comes. Jesus, in healing the sick and raising the dead, has given an earnest and a pledge of it. Blessed Physician, heal our souls, and hasten thy healing of all creation ! Note. — [4.] The words in Deutei'onomy are spoken of the chil- dren of Israel eating manna in the wilderness. The Lord does not give way to the temptation, so as to meet him with a clear declaration, "I am the Son of God." Thus, indeed, he might have asserted his lordship over him, but not have been his conqueror for us. The first word which he uses against him reaches far deeper : " Man shall not live, etc." This, like the other text, is taken from the history of Israel's temptation in the wilderness ; for Israel represents, in a fore- shadowing type, the Son of Man, the Servant of God for righteous- ness, the one kpxoiievog, in whom alone that nature which is in all men has not degenerated into sin. — Alford. CHAPTER V. SERMON ON THE MOUNT THE SALT OF THE EARTH — LIVING TO GOD NEW TESTAMENT THE FULNESS OF THE OLD — RIGHT- EOUSNESS OF PHARISEES — LAW OF GOD REACHES MOTIVES AND FEELING S QUARRELS — SEVENTH COMMANDMENT OATHS SACRIFICES — ALMS. In the sublime and truly precious chapter I ha^ read, we have the first discourse delivered by Jesus, in his ca- pacity of the great Prophet and Teacher of his people ; and, surely, no morality that ever flowed from the lips or was written with the pen of man can be compared with this for depth, for purity, for applicability to all the states, the circumstances, the wants, the peculiarities of the human family; and it needs no prophet's vision in order to see that, if this chapter were made actual in the life and conduct of all mankind, the moral deserts of the earth would be re- claimed, and its wildest wildernesses would blossom as the rose. One feels, in his inmost conscience, that the law laid down here is right, and true, and beautiful, and good. There is a response, more or less, to it in the worst of con- sciences, — an admission that it is good, even when corrupt passions so sway the will that it apostatizes to that which is evil. Jesus sat down upon a mountain : this was the attitude of ancient teachers. In modern times we stand up to speak, and the people who listen sit down. In ancient times the speaker sat, and the people not unfrequently stood. You MATTHEW V. 33 read in another passage that Jesus opened the Book of the Law, and read from the prophet Isaiah, standing while he read it ; and then, closing the book, he sat down and ad- dressed the people. Jesus here sat upon a mountain, his sublime pulpit, and the vast mass assembled was his con- gregation ; and, according to the ancient and Eastern phrase- ology, " he opened his mouth, and taught them." How beautifully the first sermon comes — it dawns in benedictions, it breaks in blessings. His first miracle was at a marriage feast, sweetening nature's joys before he went forth to sympathize with nature's sorrows ; and his first sermon is a sermon not denouncing w^rath, nor threatening punishment, but breaking in the multiplying and varying lights and colors of the most precious benedictions : — " Blessed are the poor in spirit." " Blessed are they that mourn." " Blessed are the meek." " Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness." " Blessed are the merciful, the pure in heart, and the peacemakers." He pronounces his blessings, not upon outward states, but upon inward character. It is the inner heart that makes the outer state ; it is not the outer state that guarantees the inner heart. There are royal hearts clothed in rags, — there are mean and vulgar ones clothed in purple, in ermine, and in fine linen every day. Wherever there is holiness and happiness within, all must be sunshine without. Where- ever there is storm, impurity, remorse, sin, tumultuous passion within, all must be misery and wretchedness with- out. He proceeds, after pronouncing these benedictions,* to tell his people, not the apostles only, but the multitude that believed, the disciples, all Christians, — " Ye are the salt of the earth." It does not mean that all professors are so, but that all true Christians are so. Now, what is the character =* I hope to give these benedictions in a small volume. 34 SCRIPTURE READINGS. of salt ? Not only has it a virtue peculiar to itself, but that virtue it never selfishly retains, it always liberally commu- nicates. So Christians have a divine virtue, not for selfish monopoly, but for continuous diffusion. " But if the salt have lost its savor." Some have said that common table salt (muriate of soda — muriatic acid with soda for its base) never can lose its savor. But it may undergo some decom- position which may cause it to lose its virtue. Eastern travellers say that on the banks of the Dead vSea there is what seems to be salt, but that it is now destitute of all savor. But, whether possible or not, the hypothesis is as- sumed as the basis of an argument ; and we are taught that if it have ceased to communicate its virtue, then it has lost what constitutes its only value — " it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden underfoot." Some have thought that the salt here alluded to is not the common culinary salt, but aromatic salt, which, if it lack its aroma by exposure, is worthless, the residuum being nothing more than dry dust, and only fit " to be cast out, and to be trodden underfoot." Whatever be the specific substance, the idea is perfectly plain, that a Christianity that ceases to diffuse itself, is a Christianity that ceases to be real. The heart of grace, like the heart of nature, ceases to beat when it ceases to circulate the tide that is committed to it. He says, "Ye are the light of the world;" that is, all true Christians are so. Now, what is light ? You cannot conceive light without attaching to it the idea of diffusion. Radiation is inseparable from the idea of light. Now, " a city," it is said, " that is set upon a hill " — a lofty city, with its spires sparkling in rising and in setting suns, must be seen from afar. A city with splendid architecture, lighted up with all its lamps in its streets, must be visible from afar. So that if you be true Christians, a congregation of real believers, it is impossible that the world can fail to take notice that you are so. There will be something distinctive, MATTHEW V. 35 peculiar, inseparable from Christians, that will break from you as rays from the sun, which must be seen. And again, " Men do not light a candle to put it under a bushel." If a candle be lighted, it is meant to give light to some one : putting a candle under a bushel is so absurd that you can hardly conceive it possible. " Let your light," he therefore says, " so shine before men, that they may see your good works." I think there may be as much sin in what is called a scrupulous reserve, as there is in an ostentatious parade. We are neither to display our good works for ostentation, nor are we to conceal them out of what we may call modesty, — yet not truly so, but an un- healthy scrupulosity, — but we are to let them be seen ; so that not we who work them, but God who inspires them, may get the glory. So, when some persons say, " Such a one takes care that others may know what he does," I can conceive a person doing this from the purest of motives and for the best of ends. It ought to be recollected that, if we be light, it is impossible that we can be hidden ; if we be light, it is impossible that we can be wholly invisible ; if we be salt, it is impossible that we can cease to be felt or tasted at all ; and if we be Christians at all, we shall do our good works in that self-sacrificing, unostentatious spirit and way, which will give glory to Him who is the Author of them, and not set them forth as canvassers for praise to us who do them. Our Lord next lays down a very important lesson : — • *' Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets : I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you. Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in nowise pass from the law, till all be ful- filled." In other words, the New Testament is not to super- sede the Old, but to be its complement. The word " fulfil " does not mean to lay aside what was, and to substitute a new thing that was not ; but it means, to take hold of what 36 SCRIPTURE READINGS. was, and fill up its empty spaces, complete what seem to be its deficiencies, and wherever it came short, there to make it perfect and cemplete. So Jesus says, " I am not come to do away with the law," which was the bud, " but to develop that law " into the blossom, which is the New Testament Scriptures. I am come, not to silence the Old Testament, but to show its divine original, by adding to it that which is its complement, its perfection, and its fulness, — the New Testament. " Whoever, therefore, shall break one of these least com- mandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called " — that is, shall be — " the least in the kingdom of heaven," speaking of teachers. And then he says, " Except your righteousness shall ex- ceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." Their righteousness was outside, formal, hypocritical, ostentatious. Ours must have its roots in the heart, its inspiration from God, its fruits in the life, — the latter dependent on the former. Then he shows specimens of fulfilling the law. For instance, " It was said by them of old time ; " that is, by the children of the bondwoman, the traditional interpreters of the law, " Thou shalt not kill ; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment," speaking of it as a national offence ; " but I say unto you. The law is more than that That is the external law^, but I will tell you what is its inner spirit, that gives its external shape all its vitality and all its virtue. The shell is, Thou shalt not kill ; the inner kernel is, Whosoever is angry with his brother with- out a cause, shall be in danger of what you scribes and Pharisees call the judgment : and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca," an offensive epithet, " shall be in danger of the council," that was, a legal tribunal ; " but whosoever shall say. Thou fool," that is, in the spirit of it, in wrath, MATTHEAV V. 37 and in anger, " shall be in danger of hell fire." All these are simply illustrations of the passion of anger, revenge, or malice towards a brother, cherished and fanned in the human heart ; and the object of it is to show that you will not only be in danger of punishment by actually killing, but that you are guilty of murder in principle, if you entertain towards a brother without a cause, anger, wrath, malice, ill-will, uncharitableness. J^"^ other words, the law not only covers the life, but extends to the inmost heart. Christ's law deals, not with facts only, which human law does, but with prin- ciples and passions, which human law cannot do. Then he says, " If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee ; leave there thy gift before the altar." This does not assume that there is an altar in the Christian Church : there is none; but he takes the language of the existing economy, when and where there w^as an altar, for it was the Jewish economy, and he says, if any one go to church to pray and to worship, and recollect that he has a quarrel wdth a brother, he ought to make up that quarrel. If any one come to the Lord's table, which is not an altar, to partake of the Com- munion, which is not a propitiatory sacrifice, but a sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise, he should first be reconciled to his brother before he comes there. In other words, love to God never can exist before there is love to our brethren of mankind. The two sections of the law are inseparable ; the one cannot be honored, and the other dishonored. The great Teacher next alludes to impure thoughts and passions as forbidden in the seventh commandment. The expression " to look on " means to look on with evil desire, appetite, and impure passion ; it is not the random thought, but the deliberate purpose, intention, and design to sin if he can — - that is the idea embodied in that statement. " Whosoever shall put away his wife," it was said, " let him give her a waiting of divorcement," — a very common 4 38 SCRIPTURE READINGS. practice, carried to the most extravagant extent ; but he says that ftiere is but one reason for dissolving that bond, — all others are invalid, — and that whosoever puts away his wife for any thing short of that is guilty along with her of the highest offence. " Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths: but I say^unto you. Swear not at all." That this expression is to be limited in its appli- cation seems to be plain, because the apostles have used expressions almost similar to this. An oath is simply an appeal to heaven, or an appeal to God, denoting the sol- emnity, the earnestness, and the sincerity of the person who makes a statement. Now, our Blessed Redeemer in speak- ing says, " Amen, Amen, I say unto you." That has all the solemnity of an oath. The Apostle Paul uses language which is almost, if not altogether, equivalent to an oath. He says in the Epistle to the Galatians, i. 20, — " Now the things which I write unto you, behold, before God, I lie not." That is the form of an oath ; and therefore, it does not mean that an oath in a public court, required by public authority and solemn circumstances, is invalid, but that the habit of swearing that prevailed amongst the Jews, and is not yet rooted out among us, was a sin and an offence in the sight of a holy God. At the same time, I think that just as Christianity prevails, oaths even in public courts of justice will be dispensed with. The very requirement of an oath is the evidence of a very corrupt and unsatisfactory state of things. I think that in courts of justice, where a person says, " I cannot conscientiously take an oath," he should remember that the same obligation to speak the truth, and the same responsibility to God, rest upon him, as would de- volve upon him were he to take an oath in its accustomed form. I have no doubt that as real religion spreads amongst mankind, oaths will be abolished ; and I have not the least MATTHEW V. 39 doubt that this chapter lays down what is the perfection of Christian life, and bids us not rest with present attainments until that perfect state is ultimately and thoroughly reached. Again, he shows that the feeling of revenge, " an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," is altogether inconsistent with Christian principle. I would notice the passage, " If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out." You understand it is not literal, it is using figurative language to denote sacrifices for Christ's sake. Whatever stands in your way to heaven, give it up. What- ever prevents your acting in conformity with God's will, however profitable, give it up. If it be dear as a right eye, all, father, mother, sister, and brother, and houses and lands, all must be given up for Christ's sake. Again, he uses language which also must not be taken in its strict sense. " If any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak," that is, thy under garment, " also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away." Well, all that obviously must be construed and accepted in the spirit, and not in the letter, just as the ex- pression, " If thy right hand oifend thee, cut it off," must be taken in the spirit, and not in the letter. The text that embodies it all is given by an apostle, when he says, " as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men." Rather than have a quarrel, give thy upper as well as thy under coat. Rather than go to law, and contend there, and lose all, and your temper too, sacrifice something at the begin- ning. And that the expression is not to be taken in its strict and literal sense, is plain from this, — " Give to him- that asketh thee." If you were to give to every one who asks you, you would be like a neighboring and rather no- torious gentleman, who gives to all the beggars of London, and whose life is therefore rendered miserable to himselfj 40 SCRIPTURE READINGS. and to others by his vast retinue. The expression implies discrimination. Sometimes if a person desires to borrow, it is a duty to lend ; but often it would be an injury both to the borrower and yourself so to do. Such expressions as these are clearly to be taken in the spirit in which they are written ; for the letter might kill, but the spirit giveth life. Then he concludes the whole of this most beautiful chap- ter, " That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven : for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." You must always in these things err on the safe side. Rather give to two undeserving j^ersons, than send a de- serving one away empty. Act in the spirit -of him who makes his rain to fall upon the bad man's garden as well as upon the good man's, and his sun to rise upon the evil and the good. And then he says, " Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." That does not here mean perfect in the sense of perfectly holy, but the word is used as the apostle uses it in the Epistle to the Hebrews — " Go on unto perfection" — be ye perfect, do not be one- sided, act on broad, liberal, enlightened principles, in the spirit of the Gospel, and of Christian charity, and after tlie example, and according to the prescription, of' that Father who is in heaven, and who is perfect. Beautiful and perfect law ! May he who spake it seal it, and write it upon our hearts, and to his name be the praise. Amen. Note. — Elisha healed the unwholesome water by means of salt (2 Kings ii. 20) ; and the ordinary use of salt for culinary purposes is to prevent putrefection: so (see Gen. xviii.23 — 33) are the righteous, the people of God, in this corrupt Avorld. It hardly seems necessary to find instances of the actual occurrence of salt losing its savor, for this is merely hypothetical ; yet it is perhaps worth noticing, that Maun- MATTHEW V. 41 drell, in his travels, found salt in the Valley of Salt, near Gehul, which had the appearance but not the taste, having lost it by exposure to the elements [but qu. 1] : and that Schottgen maintains that a kind of bitumen from the Dead Sea was called " Sal Sodomiticus," and was used to sprinkle the sacrifices in the temple ; which salt was used when its savor was gone to strew the temple pavement, that the priests might not slip. This, however, is but poorly made out by him. — Alford. 4* CHAPTER VI. SPRINGS OF MORALITY — MOTIVES PRAYER — OUR FATHER — PRIMITIVE WORSHIP AMEN — FASTING INSURANCE — CARES. Last Sabbath evening we read the 5th chapter, which consists of benedictions pronounced upon certain characters, and also upon the observance of certain practical and obvi- ous duties, either misunderstood by the Jews, or merged in their traditions, and not felt to be obligatory in all the length and breadth in which our Saviour shows them to be. In this chapter we read of the springs, roots, or sources of these duties. In the oth he deals with acts, in the 6th chapter he deals with principles ; and therefore he begins the chapter by saying, " Take heed that ye do not your alms before men to be seen of them : otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven ; " and then he guards them against the practice of the Pharisees, who sounded a trum- pet, which may be a proverbial expression for making a parade, or, as we should call it now, putting an advertise- ment in the paper, when they did their alms, and with this object, that they might have glory of men. Now, the great sin that is condemned in this passage is, not letting men know what you do, but the motive and the end which you have in view in letting it be known. If you let what you do be known with discretion and prudence, and absence of all self-laudation, your object being, that others may be stimulated to follow your example, and so give glory to your Father wlio is in heaven, you do not only what is right, but what is expedient in the sight of God, and for the good MATTHEW VI. 43 of mankind. But if the object that you have in view is, that others may say, " How charitable is such a one ! how liberal is such a one ! " if your object be to show that you are more munificent, or richer, or better than others, then you inherit the succession of the ancient Pharisees, — you do it to get praise from men ; and if you get it, you get all the reward you have reason to expect, or that can possibly follow you. " Verily I say unto you. Ye have your reward." But if, on the other hand, when you do alms, you conceal from -a person on the left-hand what you have done with your right, and give your alms, or your contribution to a spiritual or charitable object, from the purest motives, laying it upon Christ the altar, and letting the* amount be known only to Him to whom all hearts are open, and from whom no secrets are hid, then your reward is, "There is that scattereth and yet increaseth ; and he that watereth others shall be watered himself ; " and you will be satisfied with so munificent a reward, when you receive it. It is, therefore, the motive that gives its coloring to the act ; it is the design you have in view that gives its tone, — its moral character and bearing, to what the hand does. If the heart be right, the hand will be loyal and obedient to it. If the heart be wrong, the most splendid deed, outwardly seeming so, is the most hateful in the sight of God. And hence, you are not to measure a man's charity by what he holds in his hand, but by what he feels in his heart. Many a rich man puts pounds in a plate at a charitable collection, and gives truly nothing; many a poor widow casts her mite therein, who gives truly and munificently her all. It is what is in the heart, not what is in the purse, that determines the char- acter and the claims of him who gives. God can judge, we cannot. Then He speaks of prayer. When you pray, you are not to pray standing in the corners of the streets. The charge here is not against standing. The Jews frequently 44 SCRIPTURE READINGS. Stood in prayer ; indeed, kneeling would have been the more ostentatious mode in the synagogue. The publican stood, and yet he prayed rightly. It is not the attitude that makes prayer, it is the heart. You may kneel, or stand, or sit, — you may be in the sanctuary, or upon the sea sand, — you may be tossed against the gale on the ocean's bosom, or you may be in the coal-pit, or on the Alpine height; it matters not where you are, it matters not what the formula is ; if there be the praying heart, praying in the only name, there there is prayer that rises faster than an angel's wing can clip, and receives a response exceeding abundantly above all that we can either ask or think. True, forms are beau- tiful, expressions of religion are desirable; and if we approach an earthly sovereign with acts of reverence, we cannot do wrong — nay, we must so far be doing right — in approaching the King of kings in the most reverential way in which it is possible to do so ; only remember, it is not the bowed knee, but the bowed heart, that is true humility and devotion in the sight of God ; and, therefore, when you pray, do not stand and bid people come and see how elo- quently you can pray, — how gifted you are with prayer; but, on the contrary, go into your closet, (speaking of pri- vate prayer,) and there pray alone, and your Father, who heareth and seeth in secret, will reward you openly. And again, " When ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do." This does not mean that you may not use the same words over again. Our blessed Lord three times prayed in the very same words, — " If it be possible, let this cup* pass from me." The meaning of it is, that you are not to suppose that the length of the prayer is the measure of the devotion that inspires it. You are not to suppose that God will hear a long prayer, which cost you great labor, and that he will be deaf to a short prayer that leaps living from the heart. It is, in fact, guarding you from the Romish system, which is this, that twenty, thirty, or a hun- MATTHEW VI. 45 dred pater-?iosiers repeated with the lips, are far more effica- cious than a living " Our Father " breathed from the heart. In other words, it is not the number of times that you pray, or the form in which you pray, but the spirit in which you pray, that constitutes true devotion. You may pray with a liturgy, or without one, and there may be no real prayer ; or you may pray with a liturgy, or without one, and there may be real prayer. You may pray kneeling, standing, sitting, on the way-side, or in the sanctuary ; you may pray in few words, or in many words ; it is the heart that God looks to : he listens not to the expressions of the lip, but to the beatings of the heart. As a man feels, so is he in God's holy sight. He then proceeds to give a model of prayer. I do not think that he prescribes it as a liturgy ; that is, that you are always bound to use these words ; because in each Gospel the words differ : but he does prescribe it as a key-note, if I may use the expression, to all prayer, as a great and beau- tiful model of simplicity, earnestness, and filial devotion. And I know nothing so expressive, so comprehensive, so exhaustive of all that man can want, as that most simple, yet most magnificent liturgy, the Lord's Prayer. It begins with that beautiful address, which a heathen never dreamed of, which the Jew dimly comprehended, which the Christian feels, because he has the " spirit of adoption," " Our Father " — not " my Father," for that would be selfish ; but, kneeling with the whole family of believers, " our Father." And then it says, " Our Father, Avhich art in heaven." Not the pantheistic deity, all things being God, and God being all things ; but the God who is a jjersonal Being, whose throne is in the heavens, who is highly ex- alted above all, at the seat and source of jurisdiction, of empire, of beneficence, and of power. " Hallowed be thy name." Not the word, but all that is comprehended in God's name, may it be regarded as a holy thing. It is the 46 SCRIPTURE READINGS. holiest thing in the universe ; and to feel a sense of its majesty, and to seek that it may be revered as holy over all the earth, is what we here pray for. " Thy kingdom come." Not man's, not Luther's, not Calvin's, but "thy kingdom come." " Thy will be done on earth," which is our sanctifi- cation. Not our will, which often runs cross to it, but " thy will be done on earth," just as perfectly, as continuously, " as it is done in heaven." This ends the first half; for you will notice the prayer is divided into two parts. The first part contains an unfolding of the riches of God ; the last part contains an expression of the emptiness of man. The first part is, "Thy will," "Thy kingdom," "Thy name ; " the last part is " Give us," " Forgive us," " Lead us not," " Deliver us." In other words, the praying man proclaims, as he adores, the fulness of his Father, and begs supply for what he admits, the emptiness of himself. He first seeks God's glory ; he next asks for his own satisfac- tion. In the second half, the first petition is, " Give us this day " — not a fortune, as so many toil, and travail, and labor for, but — "our daily 'bread." What a beautiful commentary uj)on this is the prayer of Agur ! " Give me not riches, lest I forget thee" — there is the temptation; " give me not poverty, lest I steal " — there is the tempta- tion there ; " give me neither poverty nor riches, but feed me with food convenient for me." That prayer is too grand to have a human origin ; it needs but to be known to show upon its brow the signature of its author, God. " Give us this day our daily bread." And then the next very natural petition is, as sinners, " Forgive us our debts." We owe all, and can pay nothing ; and, therefore, God must frankly forgive us all, or we cannot be forgiven. And we ask him in this spirit — "as we forgive others." The man who has no forgiving spirit to a brother, never had yet a praying spirit for forgiveness from a father. The best test that we ourselves, conscious of our sins, have sued in the right spirit MATTHEW VI. 47 for pardon, is, that the reflection and reaction of that feel- ing shows itself in ample and heart-felt forgiveness towards all who have grieved and offended us. And then he adds, "Lead us not into temptation;" that is, "Do not lead us into a temptation we cannot withstand. If we are led into it, perfect thy strength in our weakness, or, at all events, deliver us from the evil of it. Give us the pain, if that pain shall be good for us, but save us from the evil or sin of that temptation." And then he adds, " Thou hast power to do all this ; for thine is the kingdom — not ours — and thine also is the power to do all, an^ thine, at the winding up of all, will be the glory of all. Amen," which means, " So be it," or " Verily." When our blessed Lord says in the Gospels, " Verily, verily, I say unto you," it ought to be translated, " I, the Amen, the Amen, say unto you." In the Hebrew, that beautiful passage, " I will give him living waters," is " I will give him Amen waters." And again, it is said, "A covenant in all things stablished, lasting, and sure," but literally it is, "An Amen covenant." The mean- ing of " Amen " is, " so be iff" The practice of the ancient Church, as to the use of this Avord, we read in the words of Justin Martyr, in an apology that he addressed to the Emperor, an apology meaning a defence. He gives a pic- ture of the Christian service on the Sabbath, and it appears from his short epitome of it, that, first of all, they praised God by singing, as Pliny calls it on another occasion, a hymn together. He then says that the President of the brethren offered up prayers just as he was able; plainly at that day, however useful on subsequent occasions forms may be, extemporary prayers. Then, it is added, the Scriptures were read, and then wine mixed with water, and bread, were blessed and distributed amongst the brethren; — but not a word is said here about the sacrifice of the mass, or tran- substantiation, but wine and bread blessed by the President, and distributed to the brethren. And he adds, that at the 48 SCRIPTURE READINGS. end of the minister's prayers, which were extemporaneous, all the people said aloud, "Amen," meaning, the unanimous consent of the whole congregation to the petitions addressed to the throne of grace ; but whether it be said audibly or not, it ought to be said by the heart. In our Scottish Church, when the minister prays, he does not pray for you, as if he were a priest ; he is simply the mouth-piece of the congregation. I think it is a very beautiful feature in the sister Church of England, that when the prayers are offered, the minister is upon the floor as their mouth-piece ; a leader, and no mojjp; but it is very important, that whether he be above you or below you should remem- ber this, — that when he prays, he is not praying for you, but trying to put into words your deepest and truest wants ; so that it is you that pray, and not he only who prays. We must get rid of that horrid idea of a priesthood in the church. We have but one High-Priest, who is beside the throne ever living to make intercession for us. Our blessed Lord then reasons very beautifully, showing that, if we have not the spirit t)f forgiveness, we cannot be forgiven. Then it is said, " When ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance." In tKe Roman Catholic Church they fast as a merit ; but our blessed Lord does not say here you must fast ; but " when ye fast." Then, the ques- tion is. When should we fast ? I answer. Just wdien your own common sense, enlightened by God's Holy Spirit, shows it to be best for you. If you feel that your fasting to-day will assist your communion with God in prayer to- morrow, then you ought to fast ; but if I am satisfied that, by fasting, the reverse would be the result, then it is my duty not to fast ; and perhaps the best way is, neither to fast nor to feast, — neither to have a Carnival nor a Lent, but to eat and drink to the glory of God, not to meet exact- ing appetites, but what is sufficient for us. I have always MATTHEW VI. 49 noticed that the greatest fastee of the one day is the great- est feastee of the next; and in the Romish Church the Carnival and the Lent play at seesaw, the one compensat- ing for the other. " When ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces" — they put on a melancholy appearance. Now, it appears to me that a joyous face is more like the index of Christianity than a melancholy one. And then he says, " Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal : but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven." Some Christians — not, I think, of enlightened consciences, but of what are called scrupulous consciences, that is, who have feverish consciences, — have said, " Then we ought not to lay up any thing at all ; we ought not to insure our lives." I know some excellent ministers, who have said that it is positively sinful to insure labor for the bread that perisheth ; and if, after having given what your heart shows to be right to the claims of beneficence and religion, there be a surplus, what are you to do with it ? throw it at the bottom of the sea ? or give it where you do not see it right to give it ? No ; insure your life ; and that seems to me the very perfection of social Christianity : it is letting the burden that would crush one be distributed over twenty ; it is making a thousand bear the burden that, if concentrated upon one, would have crushed him. And, therefore, I say it is the duty of every young person, and every newly married person, to insure his life. There are opportunities of doing so now that ought not to be neglected. I know that some cannot do it ; it is very sad, yet let them be still steadfast, and still hope on ; and a day may come when they can, and if not, God, who feeds the ravens, will feed you. But you are not to have your heart in the insurance office ; this would be 5 50 SCRIPTURE READINGS. trusting it, not God: just insure, and leave it alone, and think no more of it. The whole prescription at the close of this beautiful chap- ter, — the ideas of which it would take days to exhaust, — is to guard against over anxiety, not against proper and just provision ; for if that expression, " Take no thought for your life," — " Take no thought for the morrow," were to be interpreted according to our translation, it would be absurd. We must take thought ; there is not a master of a house of business who has not to take thought before he can pay what is just, and complete all his engagements aftd arrangements in the world. We must think, and the man who does not think will soon have to taste the bitter conse- quences of it. The expression is fisptfiva ; and if you will refer to a Greek Lexicon, j^ou will find that it does not mean " thought," but " carking and vexing anxiety." To take thought of a thing is a Christian duty, but to indulge in carking, irritating anxiety, is sin. Many persons are not satisfied with meeting to-day's duties in to-day's strength, but they cast the net into the unsounded future of to-mor- row ; they draw it in shore, and in it are all venomous rep- tiles that sting their hearts with a thousand anxieties. Now, what is the use of tacking to-day's troubles on to- morrow's troubles, when you have only to-day's strength ? God has not promised strength for two days at once, but for each day as it dawns — " Sufficient for the day is the trou- ble " (for that is the translation) " thereof." And besides, thinking painfully of to-morrow does not lighten the bur- dens of to-morrow. Let us, therefore, do the duties of to- day, and draw from the Fountain of strength, to-morrow, strength for to-morrow; and then we shall find that, by thus seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, to-day's and to-morrow's things shall be added unto us, for He has promised it. O blessed Lord, help us in all our ways thus to act ! MATTHEW VI. 51 Note. — [28.] These lilies have been supposed to be the crown imperial, (Fritillaria iraperialis,) which grows wild in Palestine, or the Amaryllis lutea (Sir J. E. Smith, cited by F. M.) whose golden liliaceous flowers cover the autuninal fields of the Levant. Probably, however, the word here may be taken in a wider import, as signifying all wild flowers. Trwf is not interrogative, but relative : " how they grow." [29.] We here have the declaration of the Creator himself concerning the relative glory and beauty of all human pomp, com- pared with the meanest of his own works. (See 2 Chron. ix. 15-28.) And the meaning hidden beneath the text should not escape the stu- dent. As the beauty of the flower is unfolded by the divine Creator spirit from within, from the laws and capacities of its own individual life, so must all ti'ue adornment of man be unfolded from within by the same Almighty Spirit. (See 1 Pet. iii. 3, 4.) As nothing from without can defile a man (Matt. xv. 11), so neither can anything from without adorn him. — Alford. CHAPTER VII. INSPIRED TEACHING — JUDGING — SEASON FOR EVERY THING — PRATER — GRAND SOCIAL MAXIM — THE WAY TO HEAVEN FALSE TEACHING — TESTS OF CHARACTER THE ROCK THE ONLY SAFE FOUNDATION — AUTHORIZED TEACHING. The chapter I have read, closes that magnificent sermon delivered from the mountain pulpit I have already ex- plained, as reported, or recorded, in the 5th and 6th, and now, lastly, the 7th chapters of the Gospel according to St. Matthew. It is plainly the practical conclusion and winding up of the whole discourse. This chapter contains prescriptions and directions that, if carried out in actual and living society, would make every desert rejoice, and the world's most wilderness places blossom even as the rose. This one chapter if we had nothing else in the New Testament, would be evidence, not simply that our Lord spake as never man spake, but that he spake as God in our nature might be expected to speak. The morality is so pure, the motives so deep, and true, and real, and the practical fruits of these motives and of this morality so fragrant and beautiful wherever it is car- ried into fruitage, that one cannot believe it possible that the publican Matthew, an illiterate, uncultivated, inexpe- rienced tax-gatherer, ever could have conceived or written such sentiments out of his own mind. The thing is absurd. You might as well expect Newton's Princlpia from the MATTHEW VII. 53 humblest peasant on a hill-side, as expect the Sermon on the Mount from the mind of a publican. The fact is, that the publican was but the trumpet, the breath that spake through it was Divine. Matthew was but the amanuensis ; the Author was the Lord Jesus Christ. This sermon, which appears to us quite natural, because we are so ac- customed to it, when compared with any thing that ever was known, or spoken, or written amongst mankind, will give the clearest and the most irresistible evidence that the publican Levi, the Apostle St. Matthew, spake as he was moved by the Holy Ghost, and that he recorded the very words and truths that Jesus spake. The first prescription is, "Judge not, that ye be not judged." This does not apply to public and judicial per- sons, any more than " Swear not at all " applies to evidence in courts of justice. The prohibition is, not against judi- cial decisions, but against that uncharitable, carping, acri- monious censure, which the world is too prone to indulge in ; and certainly, it means that where you can possibly form a good opinion, do not form a bad one ; and where the evidence is equally balanced respecting any individual, or any fact in that individual's conduct, rather than form a bad opinion, do not judge at all. Do not be rash or hasty to pronounce censure, but wait, and watch, and study ; and if you can find no reason for pronouncing an eulogium, at least, wait, and see if what seems to indicate an opposite character may not be explained satisfactorily, and vin- dicated, where reproach and censure seemed at first to be deserved. " Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?" Who is to throw the first stone ? It is not the man who has the beam in his own eye, who is to prescribe for the re- moval of the mote that is in another's eye ; for when we are in fault ourselves, we are the last persons on earth who 5* 54 SCRIPTURE READINGS. are fit to pronounce judgment. It needs a pure heart, as well as an unbiassed mind, to enunciate a righteous decision. And then, speaking to the hypocrite, the person who wears a mask — for that is the meaning of the word ; he says, " First cast out the beam out of thhie own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." That is, first right thyself in thy rela- tionship to God, and then thou wilt be able to prescribe to thy brother what he is to do. That man's judgment is most worthy of respect, whose character is most exempt from censure. " Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine." That is, there is a season for every thing. I have heard most excellent and truly pious persons quote a text in circumstances where silence would have been the richest exhibition of Christian character; and you have heard others misquote and misapply Scripture, where they had better not have made the experiment at aU. It is said, " A word in season, how good it is ! " but even a text out of season, how mischievous it is, or rather the use of it often proves ! " Give not that which is holy unto the dogs." To speak of religion to a drunken man, to speak of the fear of God to an excited and an exasperated temper, are all out of place. Wait for the proper moment, and then the word in season uttered at that moment may be pro- ductive, not of a revolution, but of a reformation that time itself will not exhaust. And then, what an encouragement to prayer have we here ! " Ask, and it shall be given you ; " and, lest you should not understand that, " Seek, and ye shall find ; " and, lest you should not fully apprehend that, " Knock, and .t shall be opened unto you." Now, either this is a great truth, or it is a great deception. If it be true, then if I ask sincerely, I must obtain ; if I seek earnestly, I must find ; If I knock diligently, to me it must be opened. If MATTHEW VII. 55 there be truth in the Bible, it is so. And what are we to ask ? you say. I answer, we are not judges of what is best for us, but we are each of us conscious of what we want. Now, when a person prays, he should just ask of God every thing that he feels he needs. If such a one should answer, "But how do I know that this will be good for me, or that that will not injure me ? " I answer, that is not your province. It is God's prerogative to decide what is good for you ; it is your privilege to ask every thing that you feel you want, and to seek for what you feel you need, and to knock until the door is opened by the hand of Him who bids you do so. Our privilege is to ask all we think (it may be, in our ignorance) that we need ; it is God's gracious and paternal prerogative to withhold the things that we ask, which are not expedient for us, and to bestow upon us the things that we need, often in spite of our asking, and oftener still whether we ask them or ask them not. For encouragement, he appeals to that which is deepest in the parental heart, and says, " If ye, in spite of your being evil, imperfect, liable to gusts of passion and varieties of feeling, — if ye, fathers and mothers, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more '* — reasoning from paternal feeling upon earth, which is but a rivulet, to the paternal feeling in heaven, which is the ocean fulness and fountain of all — "how much more" — it is not for us to calculate — " will God bestow upon you all good things ? " And then he enunciates one of those grand maxims that, like the law of gravitation, keeps every thing and every one in society in its place, and adjusts the thing to the place, and the place to the thing ; " Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." Now, where else did you ever read or hear such a maxim as that ? When you are going to treat a brother, an enemy, a friend, a foe, then think of this, how would you like that he should treat 56 SCRIPTURE READINGS. you as you mean to treat him ? and then treat him, and deal with him just as you would wish that he in similar circum- stances, and under similar provocation, would deal with you. Were this maxim carried into practical effect, I suspect at- torneys and barristers would have very little to do ; in all likelihood, judges and juries would be rarely summoned, the one to the bench, and the other to the box. I should an- ticipate that society would rise to a pitch of social, moral, and national glory, that would prove to all mankind how truly the righteousness of God exalteth a people ; and it would be found that the cement, as well as the sweetener, of all society, is that religion which begins in heaven, comes down to earth, and culminates in heaven again. He then exhorts them to enter in at the strait gate : " for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to de- struction, and many there be which go in thereat." Why do many go in at the wide gate ? Just because they prefer it. Why do few go in at the strait gate ? Just because they dislike to make sacrifice. The gate is not strait in itself, but strait relatively ; the way is not absolutely, but relatively narrow. The straitness of the way to heaven is because we will not consent to walk in it, and to enter on it just as we are. We want to take something with us — the Pharisee his phylactery ; the Sadducee his rationalism ; the Churchman his Church ; the Dissenter his Dissent ; and all of us our self-righteousness. Now this way is so constructed, that the greatest sinner who would escape from his sins, and obtain forgiveness, may have easy entrance ; but the greatest sinner upon earth, who wants to take any thing of his own with him, will find it so strait, that he cannot get admission at all. And the wide gate and the broad way that lead to destruction are so, because there be many that go in thereat. The one is down, the other is up the stream ; the one is in accordance with the feelings, the tendencies, and the prefer- ences of fallen humanity ; the other crosses them all. The MATTHEW VII. 57 one is the way of nature, in which the fall has left us ; the other is the way of grace, into which Christ alone can intro- duce us. Then he bids them " beware of false prophets, which come in sheep's clothing." They seem to be sheep, in- offensive beings, feeding in the green pastures, and wander- ing by the still waters ; but their real spirit is that of " ravening wolves." He is speaking of preachers, and min- isters of the Gospel ; and he says, " How shall we know them ? By their fruits." That is a good tree which has good fruit ; that is a true minister whose life and conduct are what they should be, and are commanded to be in the word of God. We may depend upon it, men do not gather " grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles. Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit ; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit." There may be on the good tree some fruits that are faulty, and very often the wasp will seize the fruit that is sweetest, and injure it the most ; but the general law is, that the good tree brings forth good fruit, though there may be flaws and specks in the best and ripest: whereas, the general law is, that the corrupt tree brings forth bad fruit, and the occasional gleams of glory that may be on it are only the appearance of the apples of Sodom and Gomorrali, beautiful without, but, being the fruit of a bad tree, they are only dust within. Hence, says our blessed Lord, you are not to judge of men by what they say, but by what they are, and by what they do. It is not the man who can say most earnestly, " Lord, Lord," who shall enter into the kingdom of heaven ; it is not the man who can make the most beautiful prayers, nor who can enunciate the Creed with the greatest accuracy ; but it is he who not only knows, but does ; whose conduct is his creed, whose char- acter is the test of his relationship, and who shows that he belongs to Christ by having the spirit, wearing the livery, doing the works, and walking in the ways of Christ. 58 SCRirXURE READINGS. And then lie announces this very solemn fact, that at the judgment-day many will appear at that tribunal amazed at the possibility of their own rejection, and they will say, " Lord, Lord," the language of great earnestness, " have we not prophesied in thy name?" that is, preached the Gospel, " and in thy name have cast out devils ? and in thy name done many wonderful works ? " What a striking testimony that a man may have faith so that he can remove mountain?; ; that he may have faith so that he can cast out devils ; that he may have faith so that he can do many wonderful works ; and yet that he may not have the faith that children have, and that aged men cannot be saved without — the faith that worketh by love, that purifieth the heart, that overcometh the world. And it is not improbable that some may come in the last days doing all these things. But if -I were to see a man do a miracle, that would not prove that he was a Christian. If a man were to cast out devils, that would not prove that he was a cMld of God. The only thing that shows whether a man is a child of God is the character that he has, the life that he lives, and the fruits of all things that are just, and true, and lovely, and of good report, that he bears and brings forth in this present life. And then, says our blessed Lord, " I will profess unto them I never knew you." What a striking evidence of that doctrine, which is branded as the exclusive doctrine of Cal- vinism, but which is really the peculiar teaching of the Gospel, that once a Christian, you can never cease to be so ; once born again, you must grow to the stature of the perfect man. It is not true that you are a Christian to-day, and that you may cease to be a Christian to-morrow ; for our Lord does not say to these men, that he knew them for a little season, and then cast them off, and henceforth rejected them ; but that notAvithstanding all their loud and eloquent professions, all their plausible pretences, all their miraculous investiture, all that they did which so looked like Christian MATTHEW VII. 59 character, he never knew thera, accepted them, or regarded them as his at all. " Therefore," he says, " whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock." No one doubts who that rock is. " I lay in Zion a foundation stone." " Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, Christ Jesus." " Ye are built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ being the chief corner and foundation stone." Built on that stone, as our support, and then plumbed, if I use the proper expression, by that stone as our directory, we rise until grace is lost in glory. But, on the other hand, those who do not build upon that stone, those who do not dig deep enough to find it, but who build upon the dust, the soil, or the sand, which first presents itself, are like the men who build their house upon the sand ; the rains wash away the sand, the floods more and more undermine it; and at last the whol-e house comes down, and in proportion to the height and weight of the superstructure will be the crash that necessarily follows. He is speaking here of Christians built on Christ. Remember that it is not doctrines that are built on Christ ; it is living Christians that are built on him. " Ye, as living stones, are built a spiritual house, and grow up a holy priesthood." Then those who heard him were struck with his teaching. " He taught them as one having authority." He did not say, " I think it is so," or, " I hope it may turn out to be so," or, " My inference, liable to imperfection and to mis- calculation, is so ; " but he said, " Thus it is," and " thus it is written ; " and the very authority with which he spake was one of the credentials of the divinity of him who spake. In the present day, men say, they leave the Protestant Church because they want to have and hear authority. I answer, they need not leave it for that purpose ; for in the Protestant Church there is One who speaks with authority ; 60 SCRIPTURE READINGS. and if they will open their ears and their eyes, and listen to him who so speaks in the sanctuary still, the echoes of whose voice are the sermons of his faithful'ministers, they will not need to wander into a church that indeed speaks with authority ; (no doubt of it ;) but then its authority is not from above, but demonstrably from below ; and the very dogmatism with Avhich it enunciates its doctrines, while it may deceive by its plausibility the unwary and the thought- less, will not be misconstrued or misinterpreted by the chil- dren of God as the authority of Him who spake as never man spake. Note. — Neither the preaching of Christ, nor doing miracles in his name, are infallible signs of being his genuine servants, but only the de- votion of life to God's will which this knowledge brings about. [24.] ToiJc Aoyovg TovToiig seems to bind together the sermon, and preclude, as indeed does the whole structure of the sermon, the supposition that these last chapters are merely a collection of sayings uttered at differ- ent times. I'Ofxotcjacj] Meyer and Tholuck take this word to signify not " I will compare him," but " I will make him like," {ev eKeivy Ty fj[iipa,) as in ch. vi. 8 ; Rom. ix. 29. But it is perhaps more in anal- ogy with the usage of the Lord's discourses to understand it, " I Avill compare him : " so, 6fj.oiuao), ch. xi. 16 ; Luke xiii. 18, and reff. [25.] This similitude must not be pressed to an allegorical and symbolical meaning in its details, e.g. so that the rains, floods, and winds should mean three distinct kinds of temptation ; but the rock, as signifying him who spake this, is of too frequent use in Scripture for us to over- look it here. He founds his house on a rock, who, hearing the words of Christ, brings his heart and life into accordance with his expressed will, and is thus by faith in union with him, founded on him. "Whereas he who merely hears his words, but does them not, has never dug down to the rock, nor become united with it, nor has any stability in the hour of trial; — t7)v neTpav — r^v ajinov, — the articles imj^orting that these two were usually found in the countiy where the discourse was delivered ; ppoxv — ol no ra/xoc — ol uvefiot, that such trials of the stability of a house were common. In the whole of the simili- tude reference is probably made to the prophetic passage, Is. xxix. 15-18. CHAPTER VIII. POPULARITY OF OUR LORD's TKACHIXG LEPROSY HEALED A soldier's servant THE LAST FESTIA'AL PETER's MOTHER- IN-LAW FOLLOWING CHRIST JESUS ON SHIPBOARD DEMO- NIACS THE DEMON AND THE SAVINE. The whole chapter I have read is a rich collection of very beautiful miniatures, each exhibiting the mercy, power, and compassion of our blessed Lord. It appears that when Jesus came down from the moun- tain, from which he had pronounced so many beautiful benedictions, " great multitudes followed him." It is a sin- gular fact that, whether the ministry of Jesus was blessed to multitudes or not, which may be doubted, multitudes did follow him. He spake, it is said, to the common people, and, whoever went away, " the common people heard him gladly." These multitudes may have followed from question- able motives, but they did follow; and, if they followed from wrong motives, they may have got, and many of them did get, in their pursuit, better, true, and nobler ones. There came to him, among the very first, a leper, who must have had great confidence in his power, or he would not have broken the cordon-sanitaire, the restrictions, or the limits that were assigned to him by the laws of his country. This leper said to him, " If thou wilt " — if thou hast the will, I know thou hast the power to make me clean. Now, leprosy was regarded as the affliction of God ; its cure was regarded as the act of God ; and such an address to Jesus of Nazareth indicated that the leper had learned somewhere 6 62 SCRIPTURE READINGS. that He was God manifest in the flesh. Jesus, not afraid of the contagion that was supposed to be there, and still less averse to break the mere ceremony that restricted the leper to a place, and prevented any contact with him on the part of the healthy, " touched him, saying, I will " — what a proof of the presence of a God ! — "be thou clean " — what evidence of the power of God ! " And immediately his leprosy was cleansed." This cure is not a dead fact, true in the past ; but also a foreshadow of what will be in the future, — an earnest and a specimen of that universal heal- ing of which all humanity w^ill be the subject, when the great Physician and Redeemer shall lay his tender hand upon nature's aching heart, and say, " I will ; be thou holy and happy for ever and ever." When he was healed, Jesus said unto him, " See thou tell no man" — that is, at this moment tell no man of your cure ; but go first to the priest, who was divinely appointed, not to heal the leprosy, but to pronounce the leper clean, or the leper unclean ; for remember always, that the priest did not cure, but only decided from proofs whether the victim was cured or not. And this unveils to us a very important truth, that I wish some who seem to be ignorant of it would learn. In the original Hebrew language, when the treatment of the leper is spoken of, if I were to trans- late the words in Leviticus literally, it would be, " The leper shall go to the priest, and the priest shall cleanse him ; " or, " The leper shall go to the priest, and the priest shall un- cleanse him : " but we know from the ceremony that the priest neither cleansed nor uncleansed ; he merely pro- nounced clean, when he saw evidence of it. Here, there- fore, is the explanation of, and the light in whicli we are to read these words, " Whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained ; and whose soever sins ye forgive, they are for- given ; " that is, whose sins ye pronounce retained, by their rejecting the Saviour, are retained ; and whose sins ye pro- MATTHEW VIII. 6^ nounce to be forgiven, by the party giving evidence of his faith in Christ, these sins are forgiven. At the same time, Jesus sent him to the priest first, that his cure might be tested, that there might he no misconstruction or misrepre- sentation of it, and that by the priest's examination and certificate it might be seen that there vras an actual cure. And secondly, he did so, in order to obey all righteousness, not wishing nor attempting to break the law of the land in which he was, and of which he was then a subject. Let us also notice what is added, " Show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift." He assumed that if he showed himself to the priest, he would be pronounced clean ; and therefore he adds, in anticipation, " Offer the customary thank-offering which is due and proper upon the occasion." When he came to Capernaum, there came to him, not a leper from the hospital, but a soldier from his barracks ; and the centurion said, " Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented." The statement of the malady was enough for Jesus. Blessed thought, that we need but to tell him how fallen we are, in order to re- ceive from him the restoration that we need, and that he can give ! And how interesting, too, that this soldier brought not himself, but his servant. Well, if a soldier n^ht bring his sick orderly to Jesus, a parent may surely bring his sick child, a brother his sick brother, a sister her sick sister: and He who listened to a master's interces- sion for a servant's cure will not turn a deaf ear to such petitions as these. Jesus said to him at once, " I will come and heal him." The soldier was so struck with this, that he said, " This is more than I expected, I never dreamed of such a thing, I am not worthy, I am a poor simple Gentile, I am not a Jew, — I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof; but I am quite certain of this, that if thou wouldest only speak the word, then my servant will be healed : " and he gave an illustration of this, and the illus" 64 SCRIPTURE READINGS. tration was perfectly beautiful, " For I am a man under au- thority ; I am not the commander-in-chief, but colonel, or major, or lieutenant. I have soldiers under me, and by the law and usage of military discipline, I say to one man. Go, and he goeth ; and to another man. Come, and he cometh ; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. Well, then, if my soldiers thus readily obey me who am their superior, I know that wind and wave, and all the elements of nature, will obey thee, who art the Commander-in-chief of all the hosts of heaven and of all the inhabitants of the earth; and therefore," he argued, " if thou, blessed Master, wilt only say the w^ord, the very winds will hear that word, and that word, descending into my servant's heart, will instantly operate as a perfect cure." Now, when Jesus heard this, he marvelled — expressed his wonder, for he knew what was in the heart ; and he said, " Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel." — "I have not found such Chris- tianity as this," as if he had said, " in the church of Christ ; I find in this Gentile a simplicity of faith that I have not found under the phylactery of the Pharisee, or in the heart and conduct of the loudest professor that I have met with." And he adds a very striking thought, " That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abra- ham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven : bi5t the children of the kingdom shall be cast out;" that is, many a Gentile shall be found in heaven, who was thought by us to be an alien, while many a loud professor will be missing there, who was pronoimced infallibly by popes, and synods, and assemblies, and bishops, to be a true Christian. Many will be there we never expected to meet, and some at least will be missing we made certain of finding there. It is not sect, it is not system, it is not latitude or longitude, that are the limits of Cliristianity. God has his own hidden ones, where the world least suspects them. "And Jesus said MATTHEW Vlir. ^ 65 unto the centurion, Go thy way ; and as thou hast believed, so be it unto thee. And his servant was healed in the self- same hour." Afterwards we have a third picture, in itself a perfect gem. Jesus came to Peter's house, and saw there what would have surprised a Roman Catholic, if such had been in those days, " Peter's Avife's mother ; " and if Peter had been living in modern days, he must have presented a rela- tion who would have made him instantly be cast out as a breaker of the law and covenant of the church ; for Peter, it appears from this, was a married man, — " his wife's mother." And, therefore, a bishop may be the husband of one wife ; marriage may be and is honorable in all men, minister or layman; and certainly, if the first pope, so assumed to be, was married, the last pope need not hesitate to imitate his example. If this was apostolic practice, there seems to be a loss of apostolic succession in the want of that practice on the part of the modern church of Rome. When our Lord came, and saw Peter's wife's mother sick of a fever, " he touched her hand, and the fever left her." We found Him, in the first place, at the hospital, next at the barracks, and now we find him beneath the roof-tree, and by the domestic fireside ; and there he heals the sick, and gives comfort and joy ; and tlius " he cast out the spirits with his word: that it might be fulfilled Avhich was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmi- ties," — that is, deeply sympathizes with them. The deepest and the least sorrow in the human heart had its echo in the heart of Jesus. And he is now what he was then. A certain scribe, struck with what he had seen, in the enthusiasm of the moment said, " I will follow thee whither- soever thou goest." Jesus said, " It is well ; but recollect, for it is right that you should know what you are to em- brace, it is right that you should not begin to build till you have counted the cost ; the foxes have holes, and the birds 6* 66 * SCRIPTURE READINGS. of the air have nests ; but the Son of man liath not where to lay his head." We hear no more of this enthusiastic professor ; and, perhaps, many a one still would reject the Gospel, if it were the loss of lands, and houses, and all that he has ; and those who follow Christ would perhaps be fewer, if this were now, as it has been, the penalty, although it is still what we should feel the principle of adhesion to him, while the penalty is not now always inflicted. Again, another said to him, " Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father." That exception proved he was not thoroughly in earnest ; and Jesus said, speaking in a prov- erb, perhaps popular at that time, " Follow me ; and let the dead bury their dead." Do not let any thing upon earth stand between you and instant duty. Duty first, and reverence and respect to the obsequies of a dead parent next. After this we are told, "he entered into a ship." We find him now no longer by the hospital, no longer in the army, no more at the fireside, but on the bosom of the sea — in a ship on the sea of Galilee, or Gennesaret, and "the ship was covered with the waves." There was a great storm. Christ's presence did not prevent it. " 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, O ye of little faith ? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea ; and there was a great calm." We find Christ here not only the Healer of disease, but the Stiller of the storm. " What manner of man is this," they might well exclaim, " that even the winds and the sea obey him ! " There are worse winds that blow now ; there are stormier seas that rage still : these fierce winds are human passions ; these stormy waves are human appetites : he can still them too, and enable those who have felt the storm to say, " What manner of man is this, that ihe win4p of prejudice and the waves of passion so readily MATTHEW Tin. 67 obey him ! " This incident, I observe, is an earnest of what will be. Disease is not the normal state of man, but, if I may use the word, the abnormal state. We think it is natural to have headaches and heart-aches, and infirmities, and grey hairs, and sorrows ; but all these things are most unnatural. God never made them, God does not send them ; sin intro- duced them ; but God reigns, and restrains and regulates them for his own purposes and the good of his own. But it is a very sad evidence of our mistake, as well as of our fall, that persons always see God's hand in any harm that befalls them, but so rarely do they see God's hand in blessings that lighten on them ; and yet the blessing bears more distinctly the signature of God than does the calamity ; and praise is more natural, if man were in his natural state, than prayer under suffering or affliction. A day comes when Christ will remove all disease, when he will lay storm and wind, and when the 21st and 2 2d chapters of the book of Reve- lation will no longer be prophecy, but actual fact. We next read of some that were " possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs, exceeding fierce." They said, " What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God ? " — they saw him, and recognized him — "art thou come hither to torment us before the time ? " What an expression is that ! These demons, or fiends, part of Satan's followers and legions, saw in Christ their Judge, and they anticipated as a certainty their final punishment ; but they wished that certainty to be put off as long as possible. Now, I believe that this was not disease. It was not palsy, it was not fall- ing sickness, it was not any of the nervous or physical mala- dies incident to humanity now ; but it was actual demoniac possession. And, I believe, you will find in the whole his- tory of God's providential revelation, that whatever God did, Satan always got up an imitation of it, in order to Iraw man off from giving attention to what God was doing. Did God work miracles in Egypt ? Satan did the same. Did 68 SCRIPTURE READINGS. God raise up prophets ? Satan did the same. Did God come in the flesh ? Satan was also manifest in the flesh ; and his spirits, as his servants, took literal possession of the human body. But I do not believe that demoniac possession exists now either as it was then, or indeed that it exists at all. That Satan and his servants do come in contact with the soul is quite certain ; but that Satan and his servants take demoniac possession of the body, I think, is not true ; because when Christ became incarnate, and died, and rose again, a new economy began — not the economy of God manifest in the flesh, but the economy of the Holy Spirit given at Pentecost. Satan's mimicry now is to get up a counter system, the exact counterpart and correlative of the Gospel of Christ ; his chief mimicry is the great apostasy, Romanism. It is his last and most desperate effort ; and we are thankful that it will be the last, that his all is staked on it, and that all his schemes will be consumed by the spirit of Christ's mouth, and destroyed by the brightness of his coming. The devils asked as a respite, that they might go into a herd of swine ; and Jesus said, " Go." But this does not mean that he approved of it ; all it implies is, that he per- mitted it. God often and everywhere permits in this world what he does not applaud ; and the fact that he per- mitted these devils to go into a herd of swine is not evidence that he approved of it ; it is license, and nothing more. But there may have been a reason for it in the following fact. These swine were not ostensibly kept by the Jews, who were too strict in the outward observance of their cere- monial law to do it ; and yet, too greedy not to desire the profits therefrom, they thought that they got rid of the sin which they would have committed in directly keeping swine, by getting Gergesenes to keep the swine for them, and thus to commit the sin for them, and save their consciences, as if sin might be done by proxy. I have heard that many modern MATTHEW VIII. 69 Jews, who cannot keep the ceremonial law in consistency with their own worldly interests, will get Gentiles to break it for them ; and they think that thus they get rid of the sin incurred by the violation of solemn obligations. The Jews in those days thought so; and these Gergesenes kept the swine in obedience to Jewish masters, who were the real proprietors, because the only gainers; and, of course, the Jewish masters were far more guilty than the heathens who did this work for them. Well, when Jesus allowed the swine to go into the sea, there was a just punishment in- flicted upon those avaricious Jews, who broke their law by making others do for them what they themselves would not be seen to do, and thought that thus they escaped the sin. This is an old human principle, which is carried out in mod- ern times in the Romish church, where a person may do penance for others, — that is, a sinner repent by proxy; and, in short, a criminal may hire a substitute so far to bear his punishment, and thus think that he gets rid of the conse- quences of his sin. Thus these Jews thought that by get- ting the Gergesenes to do this work, they got rid of the guilt of it. These Gergesenes, who lost their property, and probably their Jewish masters too, begged Jesus to leave them. What an awful request! When he healed their diseases they begged him to remain ; but when he deprived them of their property, they begged him to depart. It was not the salvation of their dear souls they sought, or Jesus that they loved. This earth was their all. Note, — This is a vei-sion of the prophecj differing from the LXX, which has OvTog raf d[j.apTiag TjficJv fepei Kairrep i^ficJv ddvvuTat. The exact sense in which these words are quoted is a matter of difficulty. Some understand DMjde and IjSuGraaev as merely " took away " and 70 SCRirTURE READINGS. " healed ; " but besides this being a very harsh interpretation of both words, it entirely destroys the force of avrbg, and makes it expletive. Others suppose it to refer to the personal fatigue, (or even the spiritual exhaustion, [Olshausen,] which, however, is inconsistent with sound doctrine,) which our Lord felt by these cures being long protracted into the evening. But I believe the true relevancy of the prophecy is to be sought by regarding the miracles generally to have been, as we know so many of them Avere, lesser, or typical outshowings of the great work of bearing the sin of the world which he came to accom- plish ; just as diseases themselves, on which those miracles operated, are all so many testimonies to the existence, and types of the effect of sin. Moreover, in these his deeds of mci-cy, he was touched with the feelings of our infirmities ; witness his tears at the grave of Lazarus, and his sighing over the deaf and dumb man, Mark vii. 34. The very act of compassion is a suffering with (as the name imports) its object : and if this be tme between man and man, how much more strictly so in His case who had taken upon him the wliole burden of the sin of the world, with all its sad train of sorrow and suffering ! (2.) The destruction of the sAvine is not for a moment to bethought of in the matter, as if that were an act repugnant to the merciful character of our Lord's miracles. It finds its parallel in the cursing of the fig-tree, (xxi. 17-22,) and we may well think that if God has appointed so many animals to be daily slaughtered for the sustenance of men's bodies, he may also be pleased to destroy animal life Avhen he sees fit, for the liberation or instruction of their souls. Besides, if the confessedly far greater evil of the possession of men by evil spirits, and all the misery thereupon attendant, was permitted in God's inscrutable purposes, surely much more this lesser one. Whether there may have been special reasons in this case, such as the contempt of the Mosaic law by the keepers of the swine, Ave have no means of judging; but it is at least possible. — Alford. CHAPTEK IX. THE CITY OF JESUS — THE PALSIED — THE SIN FORGIVER, AND THE HEALER OP DISEASE POPULARITY — CALL OF LEVI THE FRIEND OF PUBLICANS AND SINNERS — FASTING — WINE AND TEETOTALISM — THE MAID RESTORED — DEMONIACS — THE HARVEST AND REAPERS. I NOTICED in my remarks on the previous chapter, last Sabbath evening, that it seemed a collection of beautiful portraits, each of which revealed at once the glory of our blessed Master, and also the greatness of the mercies that were experienced from him by all those who were sick, dis- eased, needy, and destitute. This chapter is a similar, almost continuous one. It contains a series of similar blessings bestowed upon the needy, the sick, and the per- ishing; and both together show forth the glory and the greatness of Him who came, not to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance. "His own city" was Capernaum, a city signalized by its guilt, and also from his frequent visits, by the privileges and the mercies that it received, — a city, therefore, truly responsible. The persons in that city " brought to him a man sick of the palsy." Surely, it is right that they who appreciate the excellence and the ability of the Saviour should bring those who need his mercies to him ; if not personally, as these did, at least spiritually and in faith, as Christians do still in prayer. In either case it is really done. Jesus recognizes 72 SCRIPTURE READINGS. the sympathy that a relative feels in the well-being of a relative, for it is said, " Seeing their faith " — the faith of the carriers who brought the sick man to him — "he said, Son, be of good cheer ; thy sins be forgiven thee." First, he recognized him as a son, giving him the spirit of adop- tion ; and next, he pronounced over him an absolution, which man cannot bestow, and which man cannot take away — " Thy sins be forgiven thee." Perhaps the words here are not so exactly translated as they should be. It is not a prayer, " May thy sins be forgiven thee ; " but it is a declaration, " Thy sins are forgiven thee." It was not preca- tory, but judicial. After these words " certain of the scribes said within themselves. This man blasphemeth." If he were a man only — if he were a priest only, most certainly their judg- ment of him would have been true ; for of all blasphemies, the greatest is to assume the prerogative of Jesus, and pre- tend to do what he only can do — pardon and absolve them that believe. Jesus saw their thoughts, and said, " Where- fore think ye evil in your hearts?" and then he put the question to them, " Whether is it easier — not absolutely, but according to your judgment — which would you think easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee ; or to say, Arise, and walk ? I have done the one ; and, if you think the other is much more difficult, I will do that too. " But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, which you think the least, I will also heal this man;" and he said, "Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house." The healing of the sick was the visible tide that ebbed and flowed before men's eyes ; the forgiveness of sins was the undercurrent that they could not see, but which was indicated there, and was equally beneficent and real. He appealed to them by what they could appreciate, and led them thereby to infer what they did not see, and to believe that He who had power to give vigor to the pal- MATTHEW IX. 73 sied limb, had power to pronounce absolution upon the guilty soul. " When the multitudes saw it, they marvelled." How strange that, in all the past experience of the church, the priest, the presbyter, the bishop, and the scribe have gen- erally been the first to obstruct the progress of real relig- ion ; and that the great mass of the people, even when least enlightened, have been forward to recognize the finger, and to give glory to the name of God. It is a most strange fact, that will come out more and more as we read the Gos- pels, that the priest has oftenest been the great obstruction to religion, — that the people have ever been ready to accept, revere, and own it. Rather would I the domination of the sovereign, or the domination of the people, than risk or encounter the more terrible domination of the priest, the presbyter, the synod, or the bishop, in any of the formulas in which they usually present themselves. "As Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom : and he saith unto him. Follow me. And he arose, and followed him." We have recorded here the call of Matthew, the writer of this Gospel ; and in this incident, as here recorded, we have a beautiful trait, which perhaps gives the opportunity of explaining why one Evangelist omits sometimes that which another Evangelist records. In another Gospjgl it is said, " Jesus said to Matthew, " Follow me ; " and it is added, '•'•He left all^ and followed Jesus." Now, as Matthew is the historian of the fact, in this Gospel, he omits in his account what would have been construed as egotism or self-glorifica- tion. He faithfully states the fact, but modestly omits the sacrifice. And if we find that one Gospel states a fact which another omits, we may depend upon it there is a reason for it whether we see it or not. In this instance, we can see the reason. Matthew wished not to be laid open to the charge of egotism, pride, or self-glory ; and thus, in this 7 74 SCRirXURE READINGS. case, we can easily understand why he omitted what another Evangelist records. And in oilier such cases, where we cannot see the reason, Ave may depend upon it, it is not from want of a reason, but because of our blindness and ignorance, that we are not yet able to understand it. But if we know not now, let us patiently wait and devoutly pray, and we shall know hereafter. Then, " It came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples. Why eatetli your Master with publicans and sinners ? But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them. They that be whole need not a physician but they that are sick." Because Christ dined with publi- cans and sinners, that is not a precedent for you and me to go, in every instance, and promiscuously do so likewise. If you go to them as Jesus went to them — a physician to the sick, an instructor to the ignorant, go. He went into their company, not as their boon companion, to enjoy their fes- tivities, but as the Great Physician, to enlighten their igno- rance and to heal their sicknesses. And when some com- plained that he thus kept company with those in whose company, they said, he should not be found, he could answer in an aphorism that reveals the glory of his beautiful and blessed character, "they who think themselves whole, as you Scribes and Pharisees falsely think yourselves to be, of course need not a physician ; and, therefore, you will excuse me if I go not to you. But these poor publicans and sinners feel that they are sick, sinful, and dying, — they want me, and surely you will justify me in going as a physician to them." He then adds also, what ought to have rebuked them, "You forget your own Bible. You believe in the Old Testament Scriptures. Recollect what Hosea says, ' I will have mercy, and not sacrifice.' " That is, the external cere- MATTHEW IX. 75 mony must give way to the internal truth. Better violate the Sabbath-day in its letter, by relieving the sick, healing the dying, giving to the destitute and the perishing, than observe it rigidly in the letter, and violate and infringe the lessons of beneficence and goodness. " Then came to him the disciples of John, saying, Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft, but thy disciples fast not ? " That is, put into modern language, " Why are we church- men, and you dissenters ? " Why are we dissenters, and you churchmen ? Why do we worship with a liturgy, and you do not ? Why do we worship without a liturgy, and you with one ? " It is one of those questions that are always rising in diiferent formulas, but all springing from the same sectarian prejudice, which believes that the least that we do is infallibly right, and that all that a brother does is infaUibly wrong. Now, the answer. of our blessed Lord was, " Can the children of the bi-idechamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them ? " — it is the season of festivity — " but the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast." Now, he shows that mourning and fasting are here perfectly synonymous, and so we fast when we mourn ; and, moreover, he shows that there is a seasonableness in every thing, and that every thing is beautiful in its season. There is a time to fast, and there is a time not to fast ; there is a time to mourn, and there is a time to rejoice ; and every one's own heart, and conscience, and experience must be the best judge when that time is. If you feel that fasting will do you spiritually good, pray fast. If I find that lasting would do me no good, it is surely preferable not to fast ; but it seems the better prescription neither to fast, nor to feast, but to live soberly, and righteously^ and godly, and ever to remember, in all outside questions, " that the kingdom of God is neither meat nor drink," neither feasting nor fasting, " but righteous- ness, peace, and joy, in the Holy Ghost." 76 SCRIPTURE READINGS. He next illustrates the seasonableness of every thing, by saying, " No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment." That is, if the garment be worn thin by long usage, and if you sew a piece of strong cloth upon it, it will rend oif the piece of the old garment that has become thin ; and thus, instead of repairing the injury, you will only make it worse. Again, " neither do men put new wine into old bottles." This is unmeaning according to our usage ; because if new wine were put into an old glass bottle, it might be benefited, and certainly the bottle would run no risk of being broken, nor be made worse. It is necessary, here, to recollect that in Eastern countries the bottles used were skins of sheep, and sometimes the skins of oxen ; and these were thrown across a horse's back, and conveyed from place to place. You will observe, too, that this text confutes the statement of those who say that the wine in Scripture was unfermented. That there was unfermented wine in ancient times is certain, for the chief butler squeezed the grapes into Pharaoh's cup. That was unfermented ; and, perhaps, there is less likelihood that persons will do themselves harm with this wine than with the other ; but certainly there is proof here that fermented wine was used : for why would new wine do injury to old skins ? The reason is this, that all vegetable extracts and juices, by a process of chemical decomposition, evolve in that process what is called carbonic acid gas as they undergo vinous fermentation, the same gas that is found in soda-water. Well, then, if this wine were allowed to ferment in old skins that had been already ex- panded to the utmost by the wine that had previously been in them, the fotce of the new fermentation, by the creation of carbonic acid gas, would burst the skin now incapable of expansion, and both wine and bottle would be lost. So our Lord says, that just as it would be absurd to apply a piece of new cloth to an old garment, or to put new wine in old skins, so it is inappropriate to do things now which Avould MATTHEW IX. 77 be appropriate on another occasion and in other circum- stances. I may just notice here the simple fact, that how- ever beneficial the practice of what is called abstinence from alcoholic drinks may be when in health, and I think it is, on the whole, a good thing, and I should rejoice if there were thousands of lecturers moving throughout the country, who would just demonstrate to mankind that the use of alcoholic liquors may do harm, and can in health do no good ; but when this is carried out of the province of ex- pediency or health, and brought into the region of Scripture, and it is attempted to prove that wine in Scripture was not alcoholic, then it is doing injury to a good cause, and using a very lame argument to support a principle which, intelli- gently practised, may confer great benefits upon society. A bishop, it is said, must not be given to much wine. Why limit the quantity? Because there was danger in excess. " Be not filled with wine." Why limit the quantity ? Be- cause there was danger in excess. A person cannot drink too much water. It is not said that a bishop must not be given to much water. Why ? Because all the water he could drink could do him no harm. Therefore, I infer that the wine alluded to was intoxicating wine ; and I also infer that the moderate use of it, without determining whether it be healthy or not, expedient or otherwise, is not interdicted or forbidden in the word of God. We read of another incident — " 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." What faith ! We read that this was fulfilled, where he said, " Give place : for the maid is not dead, but sleepeth." Probably he meant the sleep of death ; but whether the one or the other, he raised her up ; and she was well. Another person came to him, and in the exercise of the most childlike faith said, " If I may but touch his garment, 78 SCRIPTURE READINGS. I shall be whole." Jesus recognized such simple and con- fiding faith ; he regarded her, addressed her in the language of adoption — "Daughter," and bestowed upon her the blessing that she asked — " be of good comfort ; thy faith hath made thee whole." Certain blind men also came to him, saying, " Thou Son of David, have mercy on us." He touched them, and their eyes were opened ; and he " charged them, saying, See that no man know it." Now the reason of this last injunction we do not know. In the case of the leper, in the previous chapter, we can understand why he bade him be silent, until he got the certificate of the priest that proved he was healed, and then he might proclaim it. In this case we do not know the reason ; but as there was a reason in the one case, there no doubt was a reason in the other : it is stated in the one instance, it is omitted in tlie other. We next find one "possessed with a devil," — that is, literal and strict demoniac possession, — coming to him -and asking mercy ; and he cast out the devil. The Pharisees then said, in awful and blasphemous lan- guage, " He casteth out devils through the prince of the devils." In another Gospel we have the reply, which is most conclusive, " How can this be ? If a house be divided against itself, it will fall to the ground ; and, therefore, if I cast out devils through the prince of the devils, there is division where there must be unity. That is absurd. Satan will not help to eject his own. It must be by a power, not from below, but clearly from above, that I cast out devils from them that are possessed." After this we have Jesus presented to us as the untiring and devoted missionary. He "went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues " — for it was holy ground wherever he could stand, and it was a sanctu- ary wherever he could be heard — "and preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people." MATTHEW IX. 79 It is here, then, this beautiful and truly human trait comes out, — " When he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd ; " on which he said, in one of those maxims that are never forgotten, " The harvest is plenteous " — there is plenty to do — " but the laborers are few." How true is this of the great city in which we are ! There are nearly three millions of inhabi- tants in this vast metropolis ; the City Mission have dis- covered, as I have told you, that not above one hundred thousand, that is, a thirtieth part, are communicants in any place of worship at all, out of three millions ; and one knows not sometimes whether to grieve, or to be amazed, wlien one hears that ministers of the Gospel belonging to different sections of the church of Christ, feel rivah-y, envy, and jealousy of each other, amid such a teeming harvest : where the laborers of all sorts are so few and so far between, how can there be room for rivalry ? It seems almost as un- accountable as if two small fishes in the ocean should quar- rel for want of room. It seems as lamentable as if two reapers, amid thousands of acres covered with golden grain, and the storms and rains of next day impending, should quarrel because they have not enough to do. The harvest is plenteous, the laborers are few. The patients on their beds are countless, the physicians near them are few. Let not the physicians quarrel about their diplomas, while the sick, the suffering, and the dying are passing to the judg- ment-seat, in the immediate neighborhood, without an ap- pliance to relieve them. And now, what is the cure for this ? " Pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest." What an extinction is this to all those miserable quarrels that have agitated the church of Christ about how ministers should be appointed ! One thinks the people should appoint; another the patron; another the 80 SCRIPTURE READINGS. bishop ; another the presbytery. I have always noticed that presbyteries and bishops have never made the best choice : nepotism has been too popular and prevalent in both. But neither people, nor patron, nor bishop, nor pres- bytery can create a minister of Christ : the Holy Spirit of God alone can do that ; and if he be created by the Spirit of God, I care not if the pope have the placing of him ; for he had not the making of him ; and therefore the pope's principles will not be maintained by him. The true way to get right ministers is to think less about patronage and popular election, intrusion and non-intrusion, and to pray, as we never prayed before, that the Lord of the harvest would send forth laborers into his harvest. Note. — In oui- Lord's argument, it must be carefully noted, that he does not ask. Which is easiest, — to forgive sins, or to raise a dead man? (for it could not he affirmed that that of forgiving was easier than this of healing ;) but. Which is easiest, — to claim this power or that ; to say. Thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say, Arise, and walk ? That (i. e. the former) is easiest, and I will now prove my right to say it, by saying with effect, and with an outward consequence setting its seal to my truth, the harder Avord, Arise and walk. By doing that which is capable of being put to the proof, I will vindicate my right and power to do that which in its very nature is incapable of being proved. By these visible tides of God's grace I will give you to know in what direction the great undercurrents of his love are set- ting, and that both are obedient to my word. From this which I will now do openly and before you all, you may conclude that it is "no robbery" (Phil. ii. 6) upon my part to claim also the power of forgiving men their sins. — Alford. CHAPTER X. IHE TWELVE — LEARNING THE MINISTRY — THE LABORER AND HIS HIRE — THE LI3IITS OP THE APOSTLES' DIOCESE — THE SAMARITANS — MIRACLES — PERSECUTION — INSPIRED ORATORY — god's care OF HIS AMBASSADORS — THE SWORD UNSHEATHED THROUGH CHRISTIANITY — BEARING THE CROSS. In the chapter we have read we have, first of all, laid before us the mission, or commission, of the twelve apostles to go forth, and, throughout the land of Judea, to exercise their great gifts, and bring into practical and beneficent use the miraculous powers with Avhich they were here endued. When he selected these twelve apostles, we only need to read their names and to study their biographies to see that they were not great men, lest it should be said that influence was the cause of the Gospel's success ; they were not rich men, lest it should be supposed that wealth paved the way to the accomplishment of their ends ; and they were not learned men, lest it should be said that the learning of this world, and not the power of the cross, was the secret of its spread ; but they were fishermen, net makers, and net menders, taken from their own occupations, endued with a new Spirit, invested with new powers, and so armed, sent forth to make proselytes, not to a perishing sect, but to the kingdom of heaven. You will recollect that two other apostles were subse- quently added ; so that when we speak of the twelve apostles, we ought rather to say the fourteen apostles ; for 82 SCRIPTURE READINGS. in the room of Judas, Matthias was chosen, and the Apostle Paul was subsequently, as last of all, selected. These two were added, one of them an accomplished scholar ; and prob- ably among the twelve who were selected by our blessed Lord there were some who were more enlightened than their occupations and trades would seem to indicate. At, all events, Paul was a scholar. The selection of Jesus cannot be fairly adduced as an argument against learning in the ministry now ; because unless you can show that the min- istry now has power to heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, and cast out devils, you cannot infer that they ought not to avail themselves of all the elements of power that Providence puts within their reach, in order that these elements of power may be consecrated to the spread and progress of the kingdom of heaven. One evidence of this is the fact that at Pentecost the apostles spake the tongue of every land ; but now no missionary can do so by inspiration, he must become learned, that is, he must try by study to speak strange tongues, as he is not now miraculously endowed with that gift. Learning, or study, is therefore alike dutiful and necessary. I may state, that among the twelve there is mentioned, first of all, " Simon, who is called Peter." I think it would be uncandid to the Church of Rome not to admit that in the Gospels Peter seems, at least, to have the precedency. His name is frequently first mentioned ; certainly, on all emer- gencies he is foremost to avow what was innermost, or at least uppermost, in his heart. But it must always be added, in justice to the subject, that after Pentecost Peter seems to be mingled with the rest; and you have three apostles men- tioned by Paul, and Peter's name located in the middle, and not recorded as the first; and you have the Apostle Paul rebuking Peter to his face ; and you have Peter himself innocently unconscious that he had any primacy at all, when he writes (1 Peter v. 1), " I who am a copresbyter" MATTHEW X. 83 — avvTTpsapvTepog — " I who am also a presbyter with you, write to you, and exhort you." But any precedence would not necessarily be superiority. Primus inter pares, that is, a first among equals, is not a Pope " sitting in the temple of God, showing himself as if he were God." When he sends them forth, he bids them go to " the lost sheep of the house of Israel," and to pass by the Samaritans. Who were they ? The Samaritans were the remnants of the twelve tribes mingled with the heathen who preceded them, and were settled in the half tribe of Ephraim and Manasseh, or in that part of Palestine so called. They held as obligatory only the five books of Moses, and rejected the Prophets ; they believed that Mount Zion was not the place where the temple ought to be, but that Mount Gerizim, as you will see in the 4th chapter of John, was where man ought to worship. They were a sort of Pagan Jews, half christianized, if I may use the expression. Now, our Lord says that at present, for great ends, you are to restrict your ministry to the Jews ; and it was only after he rose from the dead, that he lengthened their cords, and extended their mission to the utmost isles and nations of the Gentiles. But it Avas necessary that among the Jews, as on a prominent platform and on a restricted stage, it might be seen what Christ was, what he suffered, what he did, who his people were, and what they would become ; and that so a model, as it were, might be exhibited, in*form, if not in practice, to after ages. But it ought to be added, that even in later times the line or order of missionary exertion was " begin- ning at the Jews." The Christian mission was to begin with the Jew, and finish with the Gentile — not to stop at the Jew, nor begin with the Gentile, but to begin there, aird go forth from the Jew to the distant tribes of the earth, the Jew having the precedency of privilege, and, alas ! there- fore the precedency of responsibility. Then he invested them, we are told here, with miraculous 84 SCRIPTURE READINGS. powers — " Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils." These were prerogatives that are not now in the church. Certain parties claim them. If they have them, there is jiist one simple proof — and the only proof that will satisfy any one — let them do them. It is a mon- strous absurdity to say, " AYe have the power to do mira- cles," and yet never to give us the opportunity or benefit of witnessing the proof of the inherent power by the perform- ance of the outer miracles. If they say, " Such and such miracles were done, why, in the case of the Romish mira- cles, the details of which I have very carefully read, were they done in distant corners, and also, singularly enough, in the face of the friends of the party, never in the face of enemies to Romanism ? But the miracles of the apostles were done before friend and foe, before sceptic and believer ; so that the believer said, " It is a miracle, and it is the finger of God ; " and the sceptic said, " It is a miracle, but it is the finger of Satan." In the case of the Romish miracles, they are alleged to have been done on trivial occasions, for trivial purposes, in the face of special friends, and we only hear of them second-hand, and some are more than ques- tioned by parties among themselves as very doubtful indeed. However, the simple way of satisfying the scepticism of all Protestants is for the followers of the late Mr. Irving, who claim these powers, and the followers of Pio Nono, who also assumes these powers,^'ust to come into this great me- tropolis, and work miracles ; and then we will believe them, but not till then. He then says, " Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass, in your purses, nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves : for the workman is worthy of his meat." You say, Is not this a precedent for the ministry in all future ages ? Should the ministry take any thing by way of provision or as their means of support ? The Apostle Paul answers this. He says that the laborer MATTHEW X. 85 is worthy of his hire. He says that he had a right to sup- port, but that he generously waived that support. But you say, here is apostolic precedent for poverty. But those persons who say that ministers of the Gospel should never take any thing, in any shape, either from the people or the State, in order to support themselves, because, they say, the apostles did not do so, — such laymen who make that objec- tion should also remember another apostolic practice, that the laity of that day brought all they had, and laid it at the apostles' feet. Now, it is very well for you to argue that because the apostles took nothing, future ministers must take nothing ; but you must remember the other side of the argument, that the laity of that age kept back nothing, but laid all at the apostles' feet. But it recommends itself to common sense that, unless there be manna rained miracu- lously from heaven, there must be bread, and " the work- man," it is said, " is worthy of his meat." He who sent these apostles thus miraculously, was pledged miraculously to feed them. He adds, that when they entered a city, they were to give their peace, that is, pray for a benediction on it ; and if that people received them, then they would receive the blessing of such a presence ; but if they rejected them, then they would lose the blessing, because they lost or sent away those who could communicate that blessing. He then tells them that he sent them forth " as sheep in the midst of wolves," and gives a prescription, " Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves." The two must be combined ; the wisdom of the serpent — not cunning, but wisdom, of which the serpent was the hiero- glyph on Egyptian monuments, and the proverbial symbol in ancient times ; but with that, all the innocence, inoflfen- siveness, and harmlessness of the dove. He next predicts that they will be delivered up to coun- cils, that they will be brought before governors, js^nd scourged 8 86 SCRIPTURE READINGS. in their synagogues. This is the })ersecution to which the church of Christ has been subjected from the beginning. And he bids them to take no thought of what they should speak. Now, here was inspiration from on high pledged for the moment ; but I think that the minister who did not re- flect on the Friday or Saturday upon what he was to say on the Sunday, would have very little to say then that would be long worth hearing. As far as we know, means are necessary to ends, and hard study, as well as earnest prayer, is necessary to him who will say any thing that will do peo- ple good. He says again, " The brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child : and the children shall rise up against their parents." What atrocities are these ! and yet such atrocities have been perpetrated in the injured name of Christ, by them who hated the Gospel, on those who preached and lived it. And yet, in the 23d verse, there is the use of means, as long as means were possible ; for when you are persecuted in one city, you are not to remain in it needlessly, to provoke or encourage persecution, but to flee to another. He also adds, that if they have persecuted the Master of the house, how much more will they persecute his servants ; and if they have called the Master bad names, " how much more shall they call them of his household ? Fear them not, therefore ; for there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed." It seems at first difficult to see the applica- tion or connection of this; but it means, "Fear not: for your excellence and worth, the truth of your cause, and the purity of your motives, though concealed by the smoke of present persecution, yet shall ultimately and thoroughly be revealed and made known." " Fear not them," he says, '*' which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul : but rather fear Him " — act as in the presence of Him, and under a sense of responsibility to MATTHEW X. 87 Him — " which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." And then he argues, most beautifully, that if God feeds the sparrow, the most worthless bird of all, that has no beauty in its plumage and no music in its song, surely he will not neglect you. " The very hairs of your head," he says, " are numbered ; " that is, the most minute providen- tial superintendence is over you, and neither little things nor great things can happen to you without the cognizance, permission, or control of your Father Avho is in heaven. How very beautiful is that expression, too, that God feedeth the sparrows — " Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing ? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father." The most worthless thing never takes place with- out God seeing, knowing, or permitting it. there is what " Think not that I am come to send peace on earth : I came not to send peace, but a sword." Why, was it not said, " Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace ? " Is it not said that Jesus is the " Prince of peace ? " Are not t^e tidings of the Gospel called tidings of peace ? Then what can this mean ? You are to distin- guish, in interpreting the verse, between a cause and an oc- casion. For instance, a hospital is the cause of healing to the sick, but in the course of its erection it may be the occa- sion of the loss of life to several workmen. The building of the hospital may be the occasion of an accident, as it is called, that may end in the loss of life ; but the direct object of the hospital is the healing of the sick. Now the direct design and tendency of the Gospel is to promote peace ; but it will be the occasion, or the incidental effect, not the direct effect, of the Gospel, that sin will rise up against holiness, impurity against purity, the lover of the world against the lover of God, the lover of the praise of men against him who loveth the praise of God only ; and the result will be 88 SCRIPTURE READINGS. — incidental, not direct — occasion, not cause — that " I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household." But these divisions that are to go into domestic circles, mark jou, are all in reference to vital things. When you hear of families split up with quarrels about ecclesiastical questions — when you hear of father against mother, and child against parent, and parent against child, upon some question of ecclesiastical economy, or upon pres- byterianism, or episcopacy, or upon an established church, or a voluntary church, — then you have a division, which may be by pretext associated with the Gospel, but with which the Gospel has no connection at all ; for it is the same quarrel that takes place in political circles, transferred to ecclesiastical ground. The dispute here referred to is the dispute about living religion. Where the wife becomes a Christian in deed and in truth, and cannot see it right to conform to what the husband thinks proper, then there is such a division. But even where this occurs, it may be mit- igated by the forbearance, tenderness, ^nd gentleness of her who is in the right, in dealing with him who is clearly and scripturally in the wrong. There is nothing that we should not do to promote peace, except the compromise of duty and living truth ; and you will always find that a great deal of quarrel may be avoided, and a great deal of peace pro- moted, by gentleness, meekness, forbearance, and, above all, by the quiet answer that always turns away wrath. Blessed are the peacemakers. Most quarrels are logomachies, that is, quarrels arising on words ; and often — unhappy fact — in ecclesiastical matters, the greatest quarrel is where there is least to quarrel about. He adds, " He that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me." When a criminal was cru- cified, according to Roman punishment, he had to carry his MATTHEW X. 89 cross upon his back to the place of execution. That was his walk of shame, sorrow, and infamy. We may not only have to die as martyrs, but to carry, long in life, the shame of that martyrdom forethrown — to bear our cross, that is, reproach, for Christ's name's sake. Every man has a cross ; and if that cross be sent in providence, or incurred by holy conduct, he should carry it, for Christ's sake. Jesus says, " He that findeth his life shall lose it." He who compromises duty in order to live, will find that life a burden, or only otherwise lose it ; but he, on the other hand, who loses his temporal life, which is but for a little, for Christ's sake, shall gain it and eternal life also, which is forever. Note. — [5. Aeyuv.] If we compare this verse with ch, xi. 1, there can be little doubt that this discourse of our Lord was delivered at one time, and that, at the first sending of the twelve. How often its sol- emn injunctions may have been repeated on similar occasions we can- not say : many of them reappear at the sending of the seventy in Luke X. Its primary reference is to the then mission of the apostles to prepare liis way ; but it includes, in the germ, instructions prophet- ically delivered for the ministers and missionaries of the Gospel to the end of time. It may be divided into three great portions, in each of which different departments of the subject are treated, but which fol- low in natural sequence on one another. — Alford. 8* CHAPTER XL MESSAGE OF THE BAPTIST TO JESUS CREDENTIALS OF MESSIAH CHARACTER OF JOHN THE BAPTIST — ELIJAH — HEARERS — NATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY THE "WISE AND PRUDENT '' BABES — THEIR PRIVILEGE — INVITATION. At the commencement of the chapter I have read a mes- sage comes from John the Baptist, the herald of the advent of our Lord, who had been cast into prison, and had heard there the tidings of the great miracles that Jesus was doing in the land of Canaan, asking this question by means of his disciples, " Let me know if thou art the promised Messiah, he that should come, who was spoken of in the 118th Psalm, 'Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord,'" — the common name of the Messiah, — " or art thou only a forerunner of his advent, and may we still look and hope for another?" There has been great difficulty in determining why John asked this question ; because it is plain that long before now he knew that Jesus Christ was the Messiah. Some have said, he asked it because he had heard of the wonderful works only, and wished to know if Jesus, whom he knew, were the actual doer of them. Others think that in prison his light had been darkened and his spirits so depressed, that he had lost for a season his living apprehen- sion of Jesus as the Messiah, and that he sent this question for his own personal instruction. But it seems far more natural, worthy of John, upon the one hand, and of that sincerity for which he was distinguished, on the other, to suppose that he asked the question, not for his own sake, MATTHEW XI. 91 but for that of those that were about him ; that he wished a message to come direct from the Master, through his disci- ples, that these disciples might be convinced that Jesus was what he had preached to them, that he actually was " the light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of his people Israel." Jesus, therefore, answers this question, and so answers it, that the disciples shall receive the credentials, while John gets the proper and the exact reply : " Tell John that the blind receive their sight, — was that ever heard of before in Israel ? Tell him that the lame walk, that the lepers are cleansed, which is the distinctive character and prerogative of Deity." The leprosy was supposed to be a judgment from Heaven, that Heaven alone could remove. The priest might pronounce whether it were healed, or not ; but the priest could not heal it : and therefore, the lepers healed, the leprosy removed, Avas the evidence of the touch of the finger of God. " The deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the Gospel preached unto them," — as if it were not the least miracle of all, that, to the poor and downtrod- den of mankind were preached the glorious tidings of a home beyond the stars, and a way to it, and rich consola- tions more than compensatory for all the outer ills they are heir to. These are the unequivocal credentials of the Great Messiah, and proof that what He does is the echo of what the prophet said, and that He is in all points the counterpart of Him predicted in the pages of Isaiah, announced from the beginning, and attested by John. They then departed, and Jesus began to speak to the multitude concerning John, and said, " What did ye go out to see ? for great crowds are gone after him. To see one of your ordinary popular speakers, who make a flash, like a meteor, for a day, and then leave the darkness denser behind them for their having passed through it — a mere temporary reed shaken by the wind ? " To this he says, " No. Then 92 SCRIPTURE READINGS. what went ye out for to see ? a man clothed in soft raiment — a man who takes all things very easily, who lives thor- oughly at his ease ; and is clad in soft and beautiful apparel ? No, that cannot be the case ; because such men live in pal- aces, whereas John has had his habitation in the desert. Then what went ye out for to see ? a prophet ? So far he is a prophet, but he is more than a prophet ; for he is spec- ially singled out as the arch-prophet of all, when it is said by the prophet Malachi, ' Behold, I send my messenger be- fore thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.' " Our Lord alters a pronoun here. In the original it is, " Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me" where Jehovah speaks ; and Jesus, thus altering the pronoun, " I send my messenger before thy face," that is, before the Messiah's fac€, is assuming to himself the position and the prerogative of Deity. He then says, " Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist," — not, a holier man, — that is not tlie meaning. He is speaking of his office ; and he says, that " among all that have pre- ceded me, the Messiah, born of women, there has not been one who has occupied a loftier, more momentous, more re- sponsible, or more dignified position than John the Baptist ; and yet," he says, " notwithstanding, he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." What kingdom ? The visible church on earth. How greater ? He enjoys more privileges, he has a brighter light ; for John saw the Lamb slain in prospect, but we have read of the Lamb slain in retrospect. Many prophets and kings desired to see what we see, and were not permitted ; and therefore, we who have seen, and heard with our ears, and read, and learned, are thus far more privileged than John the Baptist, than whom none greater born of women had preceded him in the previous dispensation. And he adds, " This is Elias which was for to come." MATTHEW xr. 93 This is plainly to be understood, " in the spirit of Elias ; " for, first, Jesus absolutely predicts that Elijah shall first come, " and restore all things," which John never did, and then Christ shall come '' the second time, without sin unto salvation." Secondly, John himself expressly says, " I am no^ that prophet " — Elijah, — " but the voice of one crying in he wilderness." And therefore, this assertion is to be explained in the light of previous ones, and it is therefore to be understood that John was Elias in this respect, that he came in the spirit of Elias, herald of a Christ Avho was to suffer ; just as the Scriptures show that Elijah will literally come before the last day, and herald in the advent of Christ who is to reign in glory everlasting. But our blessed Lord says, " The perversity of this gen- eration is such, that I know not what to liken them unto. It is like unto children sitting in the markets." You will observe the play, if I may use such an expression, upon the word children. " Whereunto shall I liken this generation?" that is, evidently, " the cliildren of this generation," of whom he has spoken before ; and he says he likens them to literal children, who are sitting in the markets, and saying, " We have piped unto you, but all our music will not prevail upon you to dance ; we have mourned unto you, but all our sobs and sorrows will not induce you to sympathize with us, and weep with them that weep. We know not what plan to pursue. For John came neither eating nor drinking; and what did you say ? He hath a devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking, like the rest of his brethren," whom he was like, sin only excepted, " and you only re- garded him as a man gluttonous, and a wine-bibber." It is not, then, the character of the messenger that prevents the reception of the message ; but it is the condition of the hearers of it, whose hearts need to be renewed that they may accept it. So still, what we want, in order to embrace the Gospel, and to understand the Bible, is, not an altera 94 SCRIPTURE READINGS. tion in the message, which is perfect, but an alteration in the heart of the reader of the message, which needs to be renewed. " Nevertheless, wisdom is justified of her children." And then, in strains the most solemn, and most awfully eloquent, giving glimj^ses of the world to come, and partially lifting up the veil that shrouds the future retribution, he pro- nounces a judgment upon Jerusalem and its children, com- paring its deserts to those of cities, the ruins of which were scattered over all the earth, and the memorials of which they all were thoroughly awake to. He says, that if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon that were done in Chorazin and Bethsaida, they would have repented. That- shows that repentance on the part of a nation averts its ruin ; it reveals, that there is a connection between na- tional purity and piety, and national safety ; and it shows that the greater a nation's privileges are, the greater is that nation's responsibility. And the whole of this is cumulative. If it can be so said of Chorazin, of Bethsaida, of Caper naum, it may still more be said of England. If they hiA heard the truths that reverberate in our streets, — if they had possessed the Book whose page is open, and which no man can clasp, and no man's shadow dare darken, — if they had heard the Gospel preached in so many pulpits, and had had access to so many faithful ministers throughout the land, then their judgments had been averted, their sun had not set, they would have been still lasting monuments to present generations that righteousness exalteth a people. And lastly, at the close of this most solemn announce- ment, he addresses God, " I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes ; " that is, those great mysteries which he had come to teach. What does this mean ? Not that a wise man is necessarily further from the kingdom of heaven than an ignorant man. On the contrary, the more enlightened one is, the more likely MATTHEW XI. 95 be is to comprehend the truths of the Gospel, when they are exphiined. But it is those who think themselves wise and prudent ; just as he spoke of the righteous — "The Son of man is not come to call the righteous," that is, those who think themselves so, " but sinners to repentance." So God has hid these things from the wise in their own con- ceits, the prudent in their own estimate, to whom the Gospel is foolishness. To the Greeks, the representatives of wis- dom, the Gospel was foolishness ; to the Jews, the adherents of a past and a dying age, it was a stumbhngblock ; to the wise and prudent in their own conceits it is an inscrutable mystery ; and ever as they hear its simplest announcements, they exclaim in their hearts what they exclaimed in the days of Jesus with their lips, " Doth he not speak parables ? " But it is said, it is revealed to babes, — " Except ye become as little children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven." But not babes in all respects — not babes as the representa- tives of weakness, but babes as the representatives of that confiding affection to a parent, that unquestioning simplicity amounting almost to credulity, with which a babe receives the lesson that a parent teaches, and believes the judgment that a parent gives. So a Christian becoming like a little child, leans on his Father, loves his Father, trusts in his word as law, and follows his example as his perfect model, and thus receives in all its beauty and its fulness what is all mystery to the wise and the prudent of this world. And finally, after this he announces that "no man know- eth the Father," that is, the depths of his attributes, which no man can sound, " save the Son ; and no man knoweth the mystery of the Son " — " the mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh " — " save the Father ; " and he who knows it partially, as through a glass darkly, in this dispen- sation, is he to whom the Son is pleased to reveal it. And hence one of those great invitations is addressed to all humanity, that comes like a burst of heaven's own light. 96 SCRIPTURE READINGS. SO beautiful, so sweet to the human heart, so musical to the human ear, so consolatory to the weary and heavy laden of mankind, " Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you — " what all creation cannot give you, — whaf all art, science, palace, princedom, power, wealth, and rank cannot give you — " Come unto me, and I will give you " — that which the soul yearns for, that which the soul ever tries to dig out of ea-rth, indicating how thoroughly it has fallen, but that which the soul never can find equal to satisfy its infinite wants, revealing hoAV great that soul is — " rest." And come unto whom ? Not to the priest, not to the Church, not to the sacrament, — all these are but step- ping-stones to Christ ; but avail yourself, greatest sinner, worst and most inveterate sinner, weary with your sins, heavy laden with the load of a lifetime's guilt — avail thy- self of thine own great privilege freely given, though bought with blood — come at once, just as you are, to Christ just as he is ; and as sure as you come, his own word, oath, and promise are pledged, " I will give you what none besides can give, and what none, Avhen you get it, can take away, the rest that remaineth for the people of God." And instead of finding all this sad and sorrowful, you will learn by beautiful and blessed experience, that "my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." And this reminds me of one truth, which I will state, and after which I close. When you ask an unconverted man to take upon him all the duties of the Christian, and to give up all the pursuits of the sen- sualist and the worldling, he naturally says, " I could not do so and live. If I were not to go twice a week to the play- house, once a year to the race-course, and another day or week to the gambling table, I should commit suicide, I should not know what to do to kill time." This is perfectly natural ; because he looks at what is required of a Christian from the stand-point of an unconverted man, and forgets that when he accepts Christ's yoke, he will not only feel MATTHEW XL 97 obligatory the new pursuits that seem to him now so impos- sible, but that he will get a new taste, and new preferences, that will make these pursuits welcome. And thus, those very pursuits which may seem to you now almost exactions of life itself, will be, when you have new strength, new life, new tastes, new grace, new preferences, lik(^ a yoke that is most easy, and a burden that, instead of being heavy, will be rather wings that lift you up, and on which you soar, till faith is lost in fruition, and hope in having. Blessed God, inspire our hearts by thy Holy Spirit with thy precious truth, for Christ's sake. Note. — Is (jid^ETai in a good or a bad sense 1 Does it mean, " is taken by force," and the following;, " and men violently press in for their share of it, as for plunder ? " or does it mean, " is violently resisted," and "violent men tear it to pieces ? " (viz. its opponents, the Scribes and Pharisees). This latter meaning bears no sense as connected with the discourse before us. The subject is not the resistance made to the kingdom of heaven, but the difference between a prophesied and a present kingdom of heaven. The fifteenth verse closes the subject ; and the complaints of the arbitrary prejudices of " this generation," begin with verse 16. We conclude, then, that these words imply " from the days of John the Baptist until now (i. e. inclusively from the beginning of his preaching), the kingdom of heaven is pressed into, and violent persons — eager, ardent multitudes — seize on it." [30.] See 1 John v. 3. Owing to the conflict with evil ever incident to our corrupt nature, even under grace, the avanavatg which Christ gives is yet to be viewed as a yoke and a burden, seen on this its pain- ful side, of conflict and sorrow ; but it is a light yoke, — the inner rest in the soul, giving a peace which passeth understanding, and bearing it up against all. — See Col. iv. 16. 9 CHAPTER XII. THE HUNGEY DISCIPLES EAT CORN — THE PHARISEES CAVIL RE- PLY OF JESUS — SABBATH HEALING — CRYSTAL PALACE LONG HOURS — CONVOCATION — PRIEST, PRINCE, AND PEOPLE BLAS- PHEMY AGAINST THE HOLY SPIRIT — DISLODGING EVIL BY GOOD VIRGIN MARY. In the commencement of the interesting collection of scenes and providential paragraphs which we have now read, we find it first recorded, that as the disciples of Jesus passed through the corn fields, pining with hunger, and weary, they did wliat it was permitted to a hungry person, who had no money wherewith to purchase food, to do — namely, gather the ears of corn, grind them in their hands, and satisfy the strong claims and imperious necessities of insufferable hunger. The disciples did as others had done before. But it happened to be the Sabbath day on which they did this ; and the Scribes and Pharisees, who were the great traditionists of the age, and who had given to the ob- servance of the Sabbath an interpretation it was never meant to bear, and who were besides too ready, not from their zeal for the Sabbath, but from their hatred to Jesus, because he prophesied evil concerning them, to lay hold of any handle that came within their reach, in order to upset the claims, injure the usefulness, and arrest the success of the Son of God, — these Scribes and Pharisees said : " Thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the Sabbath day." It seemed as if they objected because of their zeal for the Sabbath; they really objected because of their MATTHEW XII. 99 hatred to the Son of Man. How often is pretended piety- made to cover real malice ! How often do men seem to be most religious when they are just about to perpetrate the greatest wrong? Not that religion is to blame, but that man's depraved heart is to blame, that makes use of the best thing wherewith to cover the worst practices. When Jesus heard them say this, he answered — " Have ye not read what David did, when he was an hungered, and they that were with him ; how he entered into the house of God," that is, the tabernacle, " and did eat the shewbread, which was not lawful for laymen to eat at all ? " You Phar- isees are the great sticklers for precedent. Almost all eccle- siastics are so. Whether south or north, what they want is always a precedent ; and very often they smother a text with a precedent, and make that to be good, which no text justifies, because some precedent, which may be based on a prejudice, exists for it. Jesus appeals to them, and says — Here is a precedent. David went into the holy place, and ate the shewbread, twelve loaves of which were appointed to be there, and lie the whole week ; and he did so because otherwise he would have died of hunger; and yet you do not condemn David. Where is the record of your con- demnation of him ? And in the next place, you know that the priests upon the Sabbath day, in order to offer up the usual sacrifices, which require two additional lambs, have to slay them, to light the fires, and to do a great deal of secu- lar drudgery. This they must do ; it is necessary and inev- itable. They, therefore, profane the Sabbath, according to your interpretation of the letter of the law, but they do what is necessary, and, therefore, they do not profane it in the spirit of it. So that you have an instance of a work of mercy done on the Sabbath in the case of David; and another of a work of necessity in the case of the priests ; and both these cases justify what seems to be the transgres- sion of the letter, but what is really no transgression of the spirit of the command. 100 SCRIPTURE READINGS. He then adds this beautiful fact — " There is One among you greater than the temple." He said — " Destroy this temple," that is, his body, " and in three days I will raise it up." "If, then," as if He had said, "you have such rever- ence to the temple, how much more should you have to the Lord of the temple ? But your idolatry of the stones and the timber is so intense, that in your admiration of the material, you have lost all apprehension of the moral ; and thus, the builder of the house is less valued by you than the house itself." So it is still with superstitious men. Holy places are preferred by them to holy acts ; holy stones are preferred by them to holy, beautiful, and Christian deeds. A man who will not for the world go irreverently into the sanctuary — and so far that is proper — will do what is unjust, untrue, and dishonest in the market. For wherever there is excessive attachment to a ceremony, there is generally under it some disguised or admitted lax- ity in the observance of a moral commandment. "And when he was departed thence, he went into their synagogue," and there met wnth another case ; and I recol- lect that in a parallel passage in another Gospel, he adds — that " the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sab- bath." That is a most important lesson. The Sabbath was not made first, and man created in order to fit it; but man was made first, and the Sabbath was instituted in order to fit man. In other words, we are not for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath is for us ; and any one who can comprehend that great truth in its length and its breadth, will not be likely to have a scrupulous conscience in reference to the Sabbath, which is bad one way ; nor wall he have a latitu- dinarian conscience, or tendency to profane it, which is as bad in the opposite direction. This text is often quoted by men who have no reverence for the Sabbath, and I have heard it quoted in order to justify the proposition, that the Crystal Palace — now erecting as a private speculation — MATTHEW XII. lOt should be opened on Sunday. Now, I took an active part, in company with most excellent and Christian men, in en- deavoring, by petition and argument, to preserve that beau- tiful structure, as I could have wished, for the use, enjoy- ment, and instruction of the people, — especially the work- ing classes ; but it was clearly understood, and when I was asked publicly to advocate it, Lord Shaftesbury told me that if Government consented to our petition, it was not to be opened on the Sabbath day. It was one of the glories of 1851 that on that day it was shut. Now, it does seem very plausible to say that the people must have pleasure and health on the Sabbath, and that it is for their good to open the new Palace. But it seems to me, that if it were pro- posed that there should be fields and parks opened round London, where the poor man, confined sixteen hours every day in close shops, could find air and enjoyment for two or three hours on Sunday, between the services, that would be so far less liable to objection. But recollect, it would not be the acquisition of health to go into a heated atmosphere, and croAvded rooms, and to see things most instructive and proper in their place, — that is not health ; it is only a trans- ference from a Christian sanctuary into a philosophical sanctuary — if I may call it so — equally close and crowded, and meanAvhile the sanctuary's teaching would be lost altogether. The British Museum would soon be open, shows and entertainments would follow also. To those who are advocating this, I would propose — what would be far better, and meet all sides — that masters should not be so anxious to screw the last atom of life and strength out of their servants, as too many do ; but that they should give half of each Saturday to visit the Crystal Palace. The fact is, that masters and employers being de- sirous to work their servants longer still, if possible, on other days, think they will give them a treat, by enabUng them to go to the Crystal Palace on Sunday, and so con< 9* 102 SCRIPTURE READINGS. tinue long hours on Saturday. The proper way is, for houses of" business to shut up earlier every night and earlier on Saturday ; and then the Sabbath will be kept for the Lord of the Sabbath, the employed will have part of Sat- urday for natural, and scientific, and interesting studies, and they will have the Sabbath for the Sabbath's work. Kext, a poor man came to Jesus with a withered hand, and they asked him the old question — "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath ? " And Jesus said — " Here is a plain illustration of it : if a sheep fall into a pit on the Sabbath day, the owner will take it out. It is necessary, it is duti- ful." Whatever your health imperiously demands, you are bound to do upon the Sabbath. Whatever mercy requires, you are bound to do. Your sheep falling into a stream, you are bound to go and rescue. A man meeting with an' accident, you are bound to go and help. A person being visited with disease, you do well to go, if he be your neigh- bor or relation, and sympathize Avith. But in order to set- tle the matter, Jesus did not on this occasion prescribe or compound a medicine ; so that they could not say that he violated the letter ; but lie told him to stretch out his hand, and it was well — thus even tlie letter of the law was kept. Now there seems to be here almost an absurdity. You know what paralysis is. The person afflicted with it can- not use his limb ; it is unmanageable by him ; he cannot send his volition through the nerves and sinews. This man might have said — " What is the use of telling me to stretch out my hand?" He obeyed notwithstanding. The secret of power is this, whatever Jesus bids you do, he gives strength to do. When Jesus says, " Believe," if you say, " How can I do that ? faith is the gift of God," that indi- cates in reality your unwillingness to believe ; for what Christ bids, you are to set about doing, asking no questions, and wasting no time, and you will find yourself endued with strength fi'om on high to believe, and go on rejoicing. MATTHEAV XII. 103 We read that " the Pharisees went out and held a council against him." That was just the old version of what we hear still. Whenever ecclesiastics cannot confute a solid argument, they will combine and hold what they are now clamoring for — a convocation; and the meaning of a con- vocation is simply that the power be granted to the Tracta- rians to expel the Protestant ministers out of the Church of England, and to let the church of Exeter and baptismal regeneration be regarded as the type of that Church. They cannot meet Protestant arguments with more solid argu- ments, and therefore they would call a convocation, feeling that then they can carry their notions with a majority, as is the case with tares, which are too often the majority in the church. We read that Jesus was followed by multitudes. And in every case we see that by his prudence, tenderness, and for- bearance, that was fulfilled which was predicted by Isaiah — " He shall not strive nor cry, neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory." Next was brought to him a man " possessed with a devil ; " and in addition to this — for it was not necessarily the con- sequence of this — he was blind and dumb ; Jesus instantly cast out the spirit, and healed the man, " insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake and saw." We read that " all the people " — who are always in mat- ters of common sense much in advance of the council or the convocation — " were amazed, and said. Is not this the son of David ? " If you desired to obtain the truest exposition of the Word of God, I doubt whether the council or the convocation could give it. In such a case, I would rather select a jury of twelve pious honest men, who never were at college, and know not Greek or Latin, and they would cer- tainly give a more honest, if not a more learned interpreta- 1G4 SCRIPTURE READINGS. tion of a passage of God's holy word, " All the people were amazed," while the Pharisees were all exasperated, and the people said, " Is not this the son of David ? " They called no council against hira. How remarkable it is, that in the large heart of humanity itself there is a sort of roundabout large common sense, that showed itself often in the days of our Lord, and breaks out still. It is said of Jesus, that whilst the Scribes and Pharisees persecuted him, " the com- mon people heard him gladly." Jesus was the most popular of preachers amongst the multitudes of the common people : only by bitter and acrimonious ecclesiastics was he opposed, assailed, and attacked. A crowd will still gather round the lifting up of Christ crucified. And it is very remarkable too, (and this ought not to be forgotten,) that the worst er- rors — now I do not speak rashly, I speak from really and* laboriously looking into it — the worst errors that have been hatched, in the history of the Church of Christ, have been hatched by priests and bishops, and monks and synods, and convocations and anchorites, and have been resisted by the people, and, let me add, almost as often by the prince also. In fact the State has often, if not generally, allied itself with evangelical religion in the past ; the people have allied them- selves with it; but the priest has generally been dead against it. And therefore, my dear friends, trust our gracious Queen, as represented by her councils, if you like ; trust even the House of Commons, if you like ; trust the people, if you like ; but do not trust a convocation of priests, for, depend upon it, their object is to lay hold of the conscience, and through the conscience to tyrannize over the freedom of Christian men. These Pharisees, when they saw the people recognizing the stamp of miraculous power, and being unable themselves to resist the impression of the miracles that Jesus wrought, said, " Well, we admit they are miracles : it is plain we can- not resist the fact any more. Jesus is doing miracles. MATTHEW XII. 105 There is no doubt of it. Then how shall we explain them ? " Here was indicated the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, that in the face of light, and in the face of conviction, they said, " The miracles are done by Satanic power." Now the evidence of a miracle not being done by Satanic power is, that it has goodness in it as well as poAver ; whereas a miracle done by Satanic power would have power in it, but malignity in it also. In the miracles of Jesus all was goodness ; and the goodness and the greatness were so conspicuous, that it was impossible to conclude that they were any thing but divine. The Pharisees said, in spite of their own convic- tions, they were from Satan. But mark how Jesus answered. There was no exaspera- tion, no wrathful explosion of passion ; he answered, as the prophet said he would, without striving. He said, knowing their thoughts as well as their words, " This is impossible, on this ground. Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation. If I am one of Satan's agents break- ing up Satan's kingdom, then Satan's kingdom is divided against itself, and must come to nought. If Satan cast out Satan," (and there is a tinge of something like satire almost in that expression,) " he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand ? But I will put this to you. If I by Satan cast out Satan, your pupils pretend to do the same ; how then do they cast out devils ? Tell me that." And then he says, " Take another illustration. How can one enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, ex- cept he first bind the strong man? How can I enter into Satan's house, drive out the evil spirit that was within it, and make the possessed happy and healthy, unless I have first mastered Satan ? Your reasoning is illogical, it is ab- surd. The fact is, he that is not with me is against me ; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad. I am not with Satan ; Satan is clearly not with me ; we are therefore antagonists : it is the woman's seed bruising the serpent's head."- 106 SCRIPTURE READINGS. In awfully solemn terms he unveils the sin of this : " All manner of blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men : but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men." Now in that case it was in the face of light and conviction saying that these miracles were done by Sa- tanic power — that was the special sin then. You ask, Is it possible to commit that sin now ? I answer, I do not be- lieve there is any one individual sin that can be specifically so called. What I understand by sin against the Holy Spirit, is a lifetime of resistance to the light and truth of the Gos- pel of Christ. I understand by sin against the Holy Ghost, resisting the claims of the Gospel, and the evidence of truth, and doing it, too, in the face of conviction that you cannot smother, for the sake of a convenience that you are anxious to follow out and enjoy. And if this be persisted in through life, then, like Pharaoh, your heart becomes hardened, and you treasure up wrath against the day of wrath. He adds, " A good tree must have good fruit, and a bad tree bad fruit ; and therefore, it is impossible that good fruits such as I have brought forth can come from a bad tree : the miracles must be from above, and not from below." Afterwards he spoke to them in awful language : " O gen- eration of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things ? '* It is remarkable that the only instance in which our Lord speaks in language of strong reprobation, using very severe language, is in the case of the Pharisees. He said of the poor woman caught in sin, " He that is without sin cast the first stone ; " and to her " Go, and sin no more." On poor Peter w^io denied him, he looked, and Peter went out, and wept bitterly. But when he speaks to the Pharisees, it is in language of strong reprobation. I do believe that of all sins hypocrisy is the worst — seeking one's ends under the covert of religion, doing the devil's work under the pretence of subserving God's glory — that is of all sins, it seems tc^ me, the most insufferable. Hence our Lord calls them MATTHEW XII. 107 " vipers." Like the cobra capella, which first bites, and then leaves, as the death of a recent unhappy victim at the Zoological Gardens too well attests, a poison behind that brings the body to the grave ; so these Pharisees first injured, and then injected into the wound that they had made by their Avickedness the poison of deadly doctrine that destroj-^s the soul forever. Then he says, "That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judg- ment." " Idle word," is perhaps not the right translation. The Greek words are, (yrjua upybv, the strict translation of which is, " a word without a work ; " that is, a word with- out any meaning, end, or object. It would seem to imply rash, profane, unjustifiable exclamations ; and it is meant to teach us that when we speak, we should speak for some use. A person may laugh for his pleasure ; he may speak a clever, bright, or witty thing for the momentary enjoyment of himself and others that are about him ; and that is not sinful. The expression here implies speaking or relating what one knows not to be true, speaking without any end or object, however trivial, wasting time, doing no good, and peradventure doing direct evil. Then some of the Scribes and Pharisees asked for a sign ; and he said, " No sign shall be given you, but one, the sign of the prophet Jonah." What was that? "Just as he was three days and three nights in the whale's belly," — and this shows that was a literal transaction, — " so the Son of man shall be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth," that is, buried ; and then he shall rise again. And he teaches them this, that " the men of Nine- veh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it; because they repented at the preaching of Jonah ; and, behold, a greater than Jonah is here ; and ye repent not. Sheba's queen, again, shall rise in judgment against you ; for she came miles, at a great sacrifice and at 108 SCRIPTURE READINGS. a large expense, to hear Solomon ; and you do not care for hearing a greater than Solomon ; on the contrary, you shut your ears, misconstrue his sentiments, and misinterpret his miracles." Then he says, " You are exactly like the man out of whom the evil spirit was cast, and of whom no better took possession, and whose last estate was worse than the first." That is, drive Popery out of a man's mind without giving him Christianity, and you only make him seven times worse. Never take away from a man what he has, without trying to give him something better in its stead. Do not drive out the evil spirit, without showing him how his heart can become the sacred temple of the Holy Ghost himself. And then, others came and said, "Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee ; " as much as to say, they have a claim upon you : "But he answered and said unto them," — and here is a prophetic rebuke to Mariolatry, that is, the worship of the Virgin Mary, — "Who is my mother? and who are my brethren ? " not implying any irreverence ; but arresting a rising Papal eiTor : yoii will recollect that when Jesus began his ministry at thirty years of age, his mother and his brethren sunk away in the shadow ; they were not allowed to take part in it. Mary was at Cana of Galilee, and Jesus rebuked her interference with his miracle there. He now was prosecuting his ministry ; and when they said, " Thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee," he said, " Who is my mother ? and who are my brethren ? And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my breth- ren ! " All natural ties are lost in diviner ones. " That which binds me to Mary, and Mary to me, is not so strong as that which binds the branch to the vine, the superstruc- ture to the rock : for whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is as near to me as my MATTHEW XII. 109 brother, and as dear to me as my mother." How absurd, therefore, to say that Mary, because she had privilege, de- serves to be worshipped as the Queen of heaven ! Note. — Bengel maintains, on the commonly received interpreta- tion of aa/3. devrepoTrpurov, Luke vi. I, that 1 Sam. xxi. was the Les- son for the day. But the Jewish Calendar of Lessons cannot be shown to have existed, in the form Avhich we now have, in the time of the Gospel history. See this teaching of the Lord illustrated and expounded in apostolic practice and injunctions, Eom. xiv. 4, 5, 17 ; Col. ii. 16, 17. Our Lord does no outward act : the healing is performed without even a word of command. The stretching forth the hand was to prove its soundness, which the Divine power wrought in the act of stretching it forth. Thus his enemies were disappointed, having no legal ground against him. The diflSculty has arisen mainly from forgetting that mii-acles, as such, are no test of truth, but have been permitted to, and prophesied of, false religion and teachers. — See Exodus vii. 1-5. [43.] This important parable, in the similitude itself, sets forth t(f us an evil spirit driven out from a man, wandering in his misery and restlessness, through desert places, and haunts of evil spirits (see Is. xiii. 21, 22; xxxiv. 14) ; and at last determining on a return to his former victim, whom he finds so prepai-ed for his purposes, that he associates with himself seven other fiends, by whom the wretched man being possessed, ends miserably.. In its interpretation we may retrace three distinct references, each full of weighty instruction. (1.) The direct application of the parable is to the Jewish people, and the parallel runs thus : — The old demon of idolatry brought down on the Jews the Baby onish Captivity, and was cast out by it. They did not, after their return, fall into it again, but rather endured persecu- tion, as under Antiochus Epiphanes. The emptying, sweeping, and garnishing, may be traced in the growth of Pharisaic hypocrisy and the Rabbinical schools between the return and the coming of our Lord. The repossession by the one, and accession of seven other spirits more malicious {TTovrjporepa) than the first, hardly needs ex- planation. The desperate infatuation of the Jews after our Lord's ascension, their bitter hostility to his church, their miserable end as a people, are known to all. Chrysostom, who gives in the main this 10 110 SCRIPTURE READINGS. interpretation, notices their continued infotuation in his own day, and instances their joining in the impieties of Julian. (2.) Strikingly- parallel with this runs the history of the Christian Church. Not long after the apostolic times, the golden calves of idolatry were set up by the Church of Rome. What the effect of the Captivity was to the Jews, that of the Reformation has been to Christendom. The first evil spirit has been cast out ; but by the growth of hypocrisy, secular- ity, and rationalism, the house has become empty, swept, and gar- nished ; swept and garnished by the decencies of civilization and dis- coveries of secular knowledge, but empty of living and earnest faith. And he must read prophecy but ill who does not see under all these seeming improvements the preparation for the final development of the man of sin, the great repossession, when idolatry and the seven TTvevfiaTU TTOvTjpoTepa shall bring the outward frame of so-called Chris- tendom to a fearful end. (3.) Another important fulfilment of the prophetic parable may be found in the histories of individuals. By religious education or impressions, the devil has been cast out of a man ; but how often do the religious lives of men spend themselves in the sweeping and garnishing, (see Luke xi. 39, 40,) in formality and hypocrisy, till utter emptiness of real faith and spirituality has pre- pared them for that second fearful invasion of the evil one which is indeed worse than the first. (See Heb. vi. 4, 6 ; 2 Pet. ii. 20-22.) — Alford. CHAPTER XIII. MTTHS, FABLES, ALLEGORIES, AND PARABLES — THE ANCIENT TEACHER THE SEEDSMAN OF HEAVEN VARIOUS SOILS — VARIED HARVESTS — TARES AND WHEAT — MUSTARD SEED — LEAVEN — HOME RENOWN. There are five modes of instruction which have been used as vehicles of practical and moral training in the his- tory of mankind, namely, what is called the Myth, the foundation of Mythology, — the Proverb, familiar to us all, — the Fable, which we all also well know, — what is called the Allegory, — and lastly, the Parable, some beauti- ful and eloquent specimens of which we have in the inter- esting chapter we have now read. The parable is distinguished from the myth, which is the foundation of mythology, "meaning the science, or the prac- tice of tales and traditions which are not true, because what is called a myth is told as truth, and pretends to be truth, which the parable does not. Again, the proverb is rather the condensed wisdom that flows naturally and beautifully from a narrative that has been told, or an experience re- corded. The fable, strictly so called, is the mere illustra- tion of worldly prudence : ^sop's Fables are instances of it. The allegory, again, is an imaginary person, — the per- sonation of a virtue put in the shoes of a real person, and the story told respecting the imaginary person as if he were an actual and a living being : such is Bunyan's " Pilgrim's Progress," one of the most striking and impressive of them all. Then, lastly, there is what is contained in this chap- 112 SCRIPTURE READINGS. ter, — the parable, — which is a serious narrative, within the limits of probability, of a course of action which indi- cates or leads to the inculcation of a moral end. It is a story got up, not real ; but obviously a story constructed, not actual, because not designed to mislead ; anS by its re- sults it teaches some great and instructive lesson. It is the cup that contains a precious balm ; it is the outward vehicle of an inner, instructive, spiritual, and moral truth. We have in this chapter parables variously stated, and in various forms of beauty, each presenting some side of man- ifold truth, and so revealing the truth at one time at one angle, or another time at another angle ; in one in one light, in another in another light ; so fully and so universally, that no man, whatever be his taste, his habits, his idiosyncracy, or his want of learning, can easily fail to understand the truth as it is thus variously, graphically, and intelligently conveyed. We read in this chapter, that " Jesus went out of the house, and sat by the seaside." In ancient times the teach- er sat, and the people stood ; his the position of dignity, theirs the attitude of attentive and anxious listeners. But the custom is now changed, — the hearer sits and the speaker stands. In either case it is but form, the substance remains. Ceremonies change and flit like clouds in the sky ; the great truths that are behind and beyond them, re- main fixed like the stars for ever and ever. We read next that " Great multitudes were gathered to- gether unto him." Jesus so preached that the multitudes came to hear, even when they were not profitably or sav- ingly taught. There is something in an earnest man speak- ing earnest truths, that will ever command an audience of some kind ; and when these truths teach the deepest, most solemn and weighty responsibilities of man, there will be found anxious inquirers seeking to know what is duty, and praying that they may have grace and strength from on MATTHEW XIII. 113 high manfully to pursue it. You maj depend upon it, where there is nobody to hear a preacher, it must be mainly the preacher's fault. I do not mean that faithfulness will not repel some, but I am sure that there is such an intense and stirring interest in the great truths of Christianity, that if it be known that somewhere they are unfolded fully, there will be at least a handful to listen, to be profited, and live. The first parable that Jesus spoke was the parable of the sower, the shell of which he first gives at length, and the kernel of which he afterwards gives, by breaking the shell. The seed is the word written, or word providential. He says that " one heareth the word of the kingdom, and un- derstandeth it not," literally, "apprehends it not." You know the difference. I speak to you sometimes a truth, which, in populai- phraseology, goes in at one ear and out at the other. That is just the nineteenth century mode of ex- pressing this statement, " hearing the word and apprehend- ing it not." But you will hear me speak another truth that will so cling to your heart, your conscience, and your soul, ' that you cannot get rid of it all the week long. That is ap- prehending the truth. The word "understand," therefore, might be better translated "apprehend," for it means just as you put forth the hand and grasp a thing, in opposition to any thing hitting the hand, and rebounding at the same angle at which it struck. Now, our Lord says that such a one, who fails to apprehend the truth, finds that " the wicked one (6 TTovrjpb^) Cometh and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart." « Pie that was sown " is the literal rendering, i. e. seed and soil are morally one. He picks it up. It has not gone into the soil of the heart ; it lies upon the hard trodden sur- face, and Satan comes instantly and picks up the loose sur- face seed, or " catcheth it away." " This is he which received seed by the way-side." You know what the way- side is — the pave, the pavement, beaten hard by the trafiic 10* 114 SCRIPTURE READINGS. of many feet. Let a seed fall upon it, it does not enter it, but lies upon the hard surface, and it must, therefore, either be crushed by the next foot, or it may be picked up by the birds of the air, who come and catch it away. Now, let every one know this ; those who come to the house of God to hear the preacher, not the message, — or to be pleased with a man, not to be impressed with a truth, are the per- sons who receive the seed by the way-side. They, too, who come to the sanctuary, and whose hearts are beaten hard by the traffic of mammon's feet, — who are so absorbed in this world, that they cannot give up the Sunday for the service of the world to come, they also receive the seed — if they receive any — by the way-side. In the next place, " he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it, yet hath he no root in himself, but dureth for a while ; for when tribulation or persecution ariseth be- cause of the word, by and by he is offended." This is a second class ; those persons who have a little of the soil of sensitive, feeling, susceptible humanity in their hearts, but mixed with it a great deal of this world, likened here to stone and earth mixed together, a very unmanageable and unproductive soil. They are they who receive the word ; the little susceptibility that they have receives it with great delight, and they seem to be Christians gladdened with the glad sound. They go out into the world, where the seed should still grow — if it has a root — and they find that when trouble comes, or persecution, — when the storms beat upon it, or when the sunshine burns and scorches it, then, because it has but a little hold, and no deep root, it withers in the sunshine, or falls before the blast, and there is no good produced by it. Then, " He that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word ; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometb MATTHEW XIII. 115 unfruitful." It grows up in his case, advances to a state of maturity, but thorns grow up faster than it, and choke it. It is a sad fact, a transmission from the fall — that in a corn- field, if left alone, the thorns will choke the good seed. So here, the thorns of time, the pomp and vanity of the world, the anxiety to be rich, to excel, to get preeminence, — A to be greater than B, and B to be greater than C, and D to be richer than them all, — these are the things that so absorb the soul, that they choke the good seed. It is not wrong to be in the world, it is not sinful to attend to the world's du- ties, it is not wrong to discharge the responsibilities of your position, and to live as that position prescribes, and as be- comes you ; but it is sinful to let these things take so great a hold that they choke the better things that ought alone to be paramount and supreme. " But he that received seed into the good ground is he that first heareth the word " — listens to a preached Gospel, " and secondly, understandeth it " — apprehends it, lays hold of it — " which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundred-fold, some sixty, some thirty." How sad ! four persons listen in these walls, one person alone is benefited and blessed. How sad ! four classes are given, all exposed to the same influence, but only one seems to derive any benefit. I would not dare to say that this is the ratio always and everywhere ; but the ratio is given here, that none may presume, and yet that none may despair. But you will notice that there is in all this progression. In the first, the seed is choked at the outset ; in the second, it springs up ; in the third, it arrives at maturity ; in the fourth, it bears fruit. In the first case, the person understands not the word ; in the second, he understands it at first, and after- wards falls ; in the third, he understands it, but is unfruitful ; in the fourth, he understands it, and sets out to practise it. The four interlace with each other. There must be the first, second, and third states without the defects realized by the 116 SCRIPTURE READINGS. believer, who perseveres in spite of each difficulty, before he enters on the fourth, and understands the Word, and brings forth much fruit to the honor and glory of God. The Lord gives another parable. I have elsewhere ex- * plained to you that the expression, " the keys of the king- dom of heaven," denotes the keys of the visible church ; and therefore I can see no objection to grant the interpretation that a minister does hold the keys of the kingdom of heaven, that he does admit into the visible church. But when I accept this, and he has gone so far, what is the value of it ? The visible church has in it tares as well as wheat, bad fishes as well as good ; and to be able to admit into it is to admit to privilege, but not necessarily to that upper Church, where the wheat only is, and where the good only live. This " kingdom of heaven " is likened, in the next place, to " a man which sowed good seed in his field," — this is another aspect or phase of the same truth, — " but while men slept his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat." Now in the explanation of this parable we are told that Christ is the Sower, and that the wicked one came, and sowed the tares. All that is good is from God ; all that is evil is from the devil. Wherever the tare came from, Christ sowed it not. He never made a wicked man ; he never made sin. Scripture is explicit upon these points. It clearly and frequently states that Christ sowed nothing but good seed. He made man perfect and holy ; and if sin has crept into the world, it was the devil who introduced it ; it was not the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, " the servants of the householder came, and said, Whence did the tares come ? " What is the origin of evil ? Why is sin admitted into the world ? The answer of the householder is, " I did not do this: an enemy hath done it." Well, then the servants, naturally feeling indignation that so beautiful a field should be marred by so pestilential an admixture, said, in the first burst of passion, " Wilt thou then that we go and gather MATTHEW Xlir. 117 them up ! " That is man's rashness. These are those who think they can get a perfect church upon earth, and who set themselves to make a separation now, which is only to be made by the Master hereafter. Our blessed Lord said, " Nay ; lest, while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them." Now we might apply all this para- •ble to doctrines. I have heard the argument repeatedly used by the champions of the Romanist side, " If the wor- ship of saints, tradition, transubstantiation, be an error, then show when it was introduced ; and if you will specify the time, then we will believe that it is false." Now, I answer, Nothing is more difficult than to show exactly when an error was introduced into the Church. The tares were not sown in the bright noonday, they were sown in the night, and in darkness ; we cannot say whether in the first watch, the second, the third, or the fourth. But the best way is, not to make it a question of chronology, but a question of fact. The tare does not become wheat, because I cannot show when it was sown ; nor does the wheat become tares, because I cannot show when it was sown. Tares are tares by their own nature, at whatever hour they were sown ; and wheat is wheat by its own intrinsic character, at whatever hour it was sown. And, therefore, to say that this must be true because we cannot show when it was introduced, is false reasoning. The answer is, the enemy sowed it in the night-time, and tare, not wheat, it must be : " let both grow till the harvest." My dear friends, I believe, the less of what is called ecclesiastical separation there is the better. A minister's great province is to preach, not to excommuni- cate. Leave to the Church of Rome the monopoly of anathemas ; let ours be the privilege of pronouncing bene- dictions. You may depend upon it, that if the pulpit speak as the pulpit should, the pews will feel more as pews should. It is not mechanical separation, but discriminating preaching, that shows who are wheat, and who are tares. 118 SCRIPTURE READINGS. He then ga^e them another parable. " The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard-seed." Now, we had in the first the effects of the Gospel preached ; we had, in the second, the admixture by Satan of tares with the truths preached, or the seed sown ; we have, in the third, the pro- gressive nature of the kingdom of Christ. It is like a grain of mustard-seed, a very small plant in our country, but. which grows to a very great size in the East, and becomes, from being an herb, a positive tree, and the birds of the air find shelter under it. So it is with the Gospel. It began with the manger at Bethlehem; it increased at Pentecost to one hundred and twenty souls ; it soon became six thousand; it has since increased to hundreds and hundreds of thou- sands ; and it will be found at the day of judgment to include under its banner a "multitude that no man can number." Having thus noticed its outer growth, by comparing it to a mustard-seed, he then shows its inner growth, by the par- able of the leaven. Some have said that leaven is always used in Scripture in a bad sense ; but our Lord uses it here, not as if leaven were a symbol of grace, but because certain peculiarities of leaven are so, and then he makes these the symbol of the inner advancement of the kingdom of God. Leaven assimilates, penetrates, turns all external to itself into its own nature, or touches and transmutes it by contact. So it is with grace. It is a progressive and ad- vancing thing, that grows until the whole mass is assimilated to it. Then we have Christ's explanation of the parable of the tares, which is most beautiful, and substantially the same as I have just given you. We have, at the close of this chapter, the account of the objections made by those who were astonished at his teach- ing. One does not wonder that they were astonished. These parables are so exquisitely beautiful, and eveiy clause so suggestive of meaning, moral and instructive, that they matthp:w XIII. 119 must have felt that, after the dry and dull teaching of the scribes, such teaching as this was almost too stirring to be borne. Why, if you were to learn for a time from a Romish priest preaching all the superstitions of his church, and then to pass from him to a faithful minister preaching vital and living Christianity, the transition would be just like that from the preaching of the Scribes and Pharisees, speaking of forms, phylacteries, traditions, to the living teaching of the Son of God. They then said, " Is not this the carpenter's son ? " — the reputed son of Joseph — " is not his mother called Mary ? " Well, what worse should that make him ? Suppose that he were so, we must not judge of a man's doctrine by his genealogy, but by the grounds which he adduces in order to establish it. But these foolish men said, "It cannot be true, because he is the son of Mary." How absurd is that !^ The man is the man whatever be his genealogy ; and he is to be judged by the grounds of his statement, not by his descent, however mean, or great, or illustrious. A lie is a lie when a nobleman speaks it ; and truth is truth when a beggar declares it. It is not the man that makes the doctrine ; it is the doctrine that dignifies and beautifies the man. And so again, they said, "Are not his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas ? " This has led to a very great, and, I must say, a very uninteresting, though very bitter controversy, especially in the Church of Rome. They deny that Jesus had any brothers or sisters accord- ing to the flesh ; and yet, while his birth was totally distinct from the birth of any, it is absolutely certain that there are brothers of Jesus, younger than he, always spoken of in connection with Mary. They are never said to be of the number of the Twelve ; their names are common Jewish names ; they are alluded to as four persons well known ; and they are spoken of as the brothers of Jesus, and are 120 SCRIPTURE READINGS. presumed, without at all touching the peculiarity of Him who was God manifest in the flesh, to be literally his breth- ren, — James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas. And what of this ? There was not a point where Jesus did not touch our humanity. He is our Elder Brother — man as we are, and yet God as God is. " Great is the mystery of godli- ness, God manifest in the flesh." Jesus then stated, in answer to all this, a well-known maxim. He did not repel what they said, but he replied, " This illustrates what is so true — A prophet," that is, a teacher, " is not without honor, save in his own country." How true is that ! The greatest man is least recognized in his own land. He is first celebrated, not unfrequently, in a foreign land, and it is only afterwards that his own land, unable to deny his genius, recognizes him. This is partly owing to the prepossessions and prejudices of man, and partly to this, that every man ceases to look great in pro- portion as we know him. The more we know of man, the more we see traces that he is born of a woman, — that he is sprung from the dust, — that he is compassed with frail- ties, and infirmities, and sin. It needs distance to make man look great. God manifest in the flesh alone can bear minute, microscopic, penetrating inspection; for He was holy, harmless, and undefiled. Note. — [12.] In this saying of the Lord is summed up the double force, — the revealing and concealing properties of the parable. By it he who hath — he who not only hears with the ear, but understands with the heart — has more given to him ; and it is for this main pur- pose undoubtedly that the Lord spoke parables, — to be to his Church revelations of the truth and mysteries of his kingdom. But the pres- ent purpose in speaking them, as further explained below, was the quality possessed by them, and declared in the latter part of this verse, of hiding their meaning from the hardhearted and sensual. By them MATTIIEAV XIII. 121 he who hath not — in whom there is no spark of spiritual desire, nor meekness to receive the ingrafted word — has taken from liim even that which he hath ("seemeth to have," Luke) ; even the poor con- fused notions of heavenly doctrine which a sensual and careless life allow him, are further bewildered and darkened by this simple teach- ing, into the depths of which he cannot penetrate so far as even to ascertain that they exist. [31.] In the general sense, the insignificant beginnings of the king- dom are set forth ; the little babe cast in the manger at Bethlehem ; the man of sorrows with no place to lay his head ; the crucified One ; or again, the hundred and twenty names who were the seed of the Church after the Lord had ascended : then we have the kingdom of God waxing onward and spreading its branches here and there, and different nations coming into it, ." He must increase," said the great Forerunner. We must beware, however, of imagining that the out- ward church form is this kingdom ; it has rather reversed the parable, and is the worldly power Avaxed to a great tree, and the churches tak- ing refuge under the shadow of it. It may be, when not corrupted by error and superstition, subservient to the growth of the heavenly plant; it is at best no more than (to change the figure) the scaffolding" to aid the building, not the building itself. 11 CHAPTER XIV. THE baptist's MARTYRDOM — POPULARITY OF THE GOSPEL — FEEDING FIVE THOUSAND — MIRACLES — THE STORM AT SEA FEARS AND MISAPPREHENSIONS — PETER SINKING — JESUS EN- TERS THE SHIP, AND THERE IS A CALM — NORMAL AND AB- NORMAL. "We have, first of all, described here one of those sad tragedies, which are recorded, not only by the inspired pen of apostles and evangelists, but are found too often in the history of every nation, and in the annals of the wide world itself — triumphant vice, oppressed and martyred virtue. On the birthday of Herod, the daughter of Herodias danced before him, and so pleased him, that he gave a promise, to please the beautiful but sensual danseuse, which nothing but omnipotence could fulfil, which nothing but blasphemy could make. He made an oath that he would give her whatsover she would demand. She did not ask an impossible thing, but she demanded what was perhaps worse, a cruel thing, the head of John the Baptist in a charger. She hated him because he rebuked her sins ; and wherever a holy man rebukes the sins of the guilty, one of two things follows — either repentance and gratitude for the rebuke, or resentment and persecution of the rebuker. The latter was the alternative adopted by Herodias ; " and Herod sent, and beheaded John in the prison." We read the beauiiful incident that followed in the 12th verse : "And the disciples of John came, and took up the MATTHEW XIV. 123 body of the beheaded Baptist, and buried it, and went and told Jesus." They did their duty to the dead, — they sought consolation from an ever-living, ever-present, ever- willing Lord. They buried the body of John, and they went and told the story of their misfortune and their loss to Him who could either be a substitute for their martyred master, or give that consolation which the world cannot give, and cannot take away. Jesus, when he heard of it, departed into a desert place, and a great multitude of people followed him. How re- markable it is, that almost everywhere when Jesus preached, there was a multitude to hear. I do not say that there was always a multitude convinced, converted, and saved ; but it does seem from this that wherever the Gospel is preached in its purity with tolerable power, there will always be found people to hear and listen to it. It is true that many hear who are not savingly convinced; but there is some- thing in the living voice, reasoning justly and earnestly of righteousness and temperance and judgment, and something so lifelike in Christianity, that these will bring numbers to hear, some to resist, and others to listen and live for ever. " When it was evening, the disciples came to him, and said, Send the multitude away, that they may go into the villages." Who had most compassion, the disciple, or the Master ? On every occasion we shall find that the disciples would rather that the multitude should be dismissed, or that their voices should be silenced ; but on all occasions Jesus was ever ready to welcome them, to feed them when they were hungry, and to comfort them when they were sorrow- ful. Better far fall into the hands of the Master than into the hands of the most feeling of his apostles. Over and over again the apostles desired that the multitude, because of their clamor and importunity, might be dismissed or silenced ; and over and over again Jesus showed that, how ever weary and wayworn with his toils, there was no sor- 124 SCRIPTURE READINGS. row in the human heart that had not a resounding echo in his, and that there was no suffering in human nature tliat had not sympathy from the Man of sorrows. " Jesus said unto them, They need not depart ; give ye them to eat." Then the disciples said, " We have here but live loaves, and two fishes. How absurd to bid us feed five thousand with these ! " They looked at natural impossibilities only — they beheld their wants and supplies in the light of nature, and they despaired. But Jesus said, " Bring them hither to me," and they did so. They did what he bade them, be- lieving that he was able, if he were only willing, to feed them. "And he commanded the multitude to sit down," and they did so. He then took the loaves and blessed them, and gave them to the disciples, and they increased by distri- bution. He did not first increase them, and then distribute them; but he made them increase in the process of distribu- tion. Whose money is it that grows fastest ? That of the man who gives most. The widow's cruse of oil and barrel of meal increased as they were drawn on ; and we shall find still, in the experience of us all, that there is that scat- tereth and yet increaseth. The man who hoards his money, and withholds from the claims of the needy that which is dutiful and meet, does not always find himself grow richer ; whereas the man whose ears are open to every appeal, and whose heart responds in sympathy to every want, and who gives, as the expression of his feelings, what will clothe the naked and fill the hungry, never finds that he gets poorer in consequence. Now this miracle seems to us indeed a miracle ; but at the same time, when we see the seed sown, and under spring rains and summer suns begin to grow up and ripen, in order to be made into bread, we think there is no miracle. Yet there is as great a miracle every spring, as there was in multiplying the loaves and fishes. The spring is as great a miracle as the blossoming of Aaron's rod. But we are so MATTHEW XIV. 125 accustomed to see the spring and summer, with the seed growing into the harvest, that we think there is no miracle : we are not accustomed to see five loaves and two fishes feed- ing five thousand, and therefore we conclude it is a miracle. But there is as much power in the one as in the other. Just in the same manner do we find the water turned into wine. The ordinary process is, that the vine shall grow and bear blossom, the blossom turn into grapes, and the grapes be squeezed, and fermented, and made into wine; and we think that is a law of nature. Our blessed Lord simply shortened the process, when he turned water into wine ; yet there is as great a miracle in the long process as in the short one ; only in the one case we see Omnipotence visibly at work, in the other we do not see Omnipotence, though it is equally behind it. The fact is, all nature is a ceaseless miracle ; all growth, reproduction, and decay, are the evidences of a present God ; but what is rare we pro- nounce miraculous, what is usual we call atheistically a law of nature : but in the one, as well as in the other, God is ; and without his blessing and omnipotent power, a blade of grass cannot grow, an ear of wheat cannot ripen, nor har- vest follow on the footsteps of spring. We breathe mira- cles, we eat miracles, we are upheld every day miraculous- ly ; and he has a blind mind, or an obdurate conscience, who does not see and recognize the hand of his Father and his God in all. The next scene presented to us is Jesus constraining his disciples to get into a ship. That ship, we afterwards read, was tossed by the waves, under the impulse of the wind in a heavy storm. But you will notice here, that Jesus " con- strained" them to go. We should never go into danger unsent. If duty bids us, let us fear no peril, — let us face every danger ; but if there be no duty, there is no evidence of the commission of our Lord, and therefore we have no 11* 126 SCRIPTURE READINGS. reason to expect his protection. He " constrained " them to go. When they went into the storm to be tossed by the sea waves, Jesus went into a mountain alone to pray. Beauti- ful thought ! while we are toiling with the storms of time, Jesus, on the mount of glory, is interceding for us ; whilst we are in peril on the sea below, the blessed Master is en- gaged in prayer for us. This is no picture of the past ; it is the experience and the fact of the present. " The ship," we are told, " was in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves : for the wind was contrary." God's own may be in trouble. And when did Jesus come to release them ? In the fourth watch of the night. The Jews, at this period, being under the Roman domination, divided the night into four watches. The first began at six, and ended at nine ; the second began at nine, and ended at twelve ; the third began at twelve, and ended at three ; and the fourth began at three, and ended at six in the morning. About five o'clock in the morning, then, after they had been toiling all night against a contrary wind, Christ came. My dear friends, Christ may not deliver you at the commence- ment of your trouble, or in the middle of it ; but either in the first, second, third, or fourth watch he will come ; for he has said, "I will never leave thee; I will never forsake thee." When he came, he said to them, " Be of good cheer ; it is I ; be not afraid." That wild wind that shrieks so sadly, and mingles with the waves, is, nevertheless, my voice. These waves that threaten you with destruction, are ambas- sadors and apostles from me. That trial which strikes you dumb is sent by Christ. In all times of your tribulation, in all times of your health, in the hour of death, and in the day of judgment, hear, ringing louder than the loud storm, and musical as the voice of Him we love, "It is I; be not MATTHEW XIV. 127 afraid." To know that an affliction is from Him, is to know that its issue will be good. Not to be sure that the affliction is from Him, is indeed to be in trouble, and just ground for being alarmed. But when he came to them walking upon the waves, they were afraid, and said, " It is a spirit." Now this is human nature still. Our consciences are always the interpreters of providence. When a man is living in sin, every thing that happens to him he construes as judgment. It is only when the conscience is at peace with God, that it construes every thing that betides us as a messenger from him. But the apostles themselves were conscious of doubt and of sin ; and when even their greatest Friend came to save them, their consciences, blinded by sin, made them suspect it was an emissary from beneath approaching to crush them. It was only his own familiar accents ringing louder than the noise of the sea waves, that hushed their fears, and made them not be afraid. Peter, ever first to speak, readiest to dare, " answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou," as if he were not quite sure, " bid me come unto thee on the water " — I should like to test thy word. He was not sure that it was Christ. "And Jesus said, Come." Peter went, and walked on the water, but soon began to sink. Why did he begin to sink ? It is told us in the 30th verse, " When he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid." He looked at the waves, listened to the wind, and looked away from the Lord of wind and wave. It is so too often with us. If we look at the trial, and not at Him who sends it, we may well be alarmed ; but if we look at Him who sends the trial, and see him direct- ing and overruling it, then we shall feel that neither life, nor death, nor height, nor depth, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things past, present, or to come, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Jesus Christ our Lord. 128 SCRIPTURE READINGS. When Jesus came into the ship, the wind ceased. The secret of a nation's peace, is Christ recognized in the midst of it. The secret of domestic joy, is Christ in the midst of our home. The secret of the world's regeneration, is Christ in the midst of it. That ship that has a Jonah in it, let it be built of the strongest ribs of the strongest oaks, will founder in the storm ; whereas that ship which has the living Saviour, the Lord of the wind, the tempest, and the calm, in it, will never suffer shipwreck, but bear its burden and its crew to the haven of everlasting peace ; for Christ is there, and it cannot perish, and there will be a great calm. "And when they were gone over, they came into the land of Gennesaret. And when the men of that place had knowledge of him, they sent out into all that country round about, and brought unto him all that were diseased." They recognized the Great Physician. "And they besought him that they might only touch the hem of his garment : and as many as touched were made perfectly whole." Now, we are all apt to suppose that storm, tempest, and disease, are the natural things ; and we are so accustomed to them, that we think such is the natural state of the human race. But they are not so. We shall find from the Bible, that every miracle of Jesus was meant to be a forestalment of his last grand state, when all creation shall be replaced in its first orbit, and reinstated in its pristine harmony. Disease is not natural. It is not natural that I should have a headache or a heartache. It is not natural that I should die. There is nothing on earth so unnatural as death. Man was never made to die, nor meant to die ; and he dies, not because God so made him, but because sin has so diseased and dis- ordered him. Tempest, storm, nakedness, famine, are not the normal state of things, but the abnormal; and every miracle of Jesus was, not simply a feat of great power, but it was an instalment of the universal redemption, — a fore- shadow of that glorious day, when all storm and tempest MATTHEW XIV. 129 shall be laid, when all disease shall be expelled, when all death shall die, and the world shall close, as the world be- gan, with Paradise, — man living for ever, for ever holy, for ever happy, because united to the Fountain and the Lord of Life, Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of them all. Note. — [Mark vi. 14-29 ; Luke ix. 7-9, who does not relate the death of John. — 1.] This Herod was Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great, e/c MaMa/cT/f r^f I,a/j,apeiTidog, and own bi'other of Arche- laus. (Jos. B. J. i. 28. 4.) The portion of the kingdom allotted to him by the second will of his father (in the fii'st he was left as king) was the tetrarchy of Galilee and Perasa. (Jos. Ant. xvii. 8. 1.) He married the daughter of the Arabian king Ai-etas ; but having, during a visit to his half-brother, Herod Philip, (not the tetrarch of that name, but another son of Herod the Great, disinherited by his father,) be- come enamoured of his wife Herodias, he prevailed on her to leave her husband, and live with him. This step, accompanied as it was with a stipulation of putting away the daughter of Aretas-, involved him in a war with his father-in-law, which, however, did not break out till a year before the death of Tiberius, a.d. 37, u.c. 790, (Jos. Ant. xiii. 5. 1-3,) and in which he was totally defeated, and his army destroyed by Aretas. A divine vengeance, according to the Jcavs, foi the death of John the Baptist. (Josephus, ibid.) He and Herodias afterwards went to Rome at the beginning of Caligula's reign, to com- plain of the assumption of the title of king by Agrippa, his nephew, son of Aristobulus ; but Caligula having heard the claims of both, banished Antipas and Herodias to Lyons in Gaul, Avhence he Avas afterwards removed to Spain, and there died. (Jos. Ant. viii. 7. 1,2.) The Jews attached more importance to the traditionary exposition than to the scriqture text itself. CHAPTER XV. CAVILLING SCRIBES — TRADITION — WILLS AND PROPERTY — THE HEART READER HYPOCRISY — EATING WITH UNAVASHED HANDS — WOMAN OF CANAAN, OR BELIEVING PRAYER — RES- URRECTION FEEDING THE MULTITUDE. In the commencement of the chapter we read that the ever carping and unsatisfied, because insatiable Pharisees, came to our blessed Lord, and tempted him again, evidently trying to lead him into a snare. They said, " Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders ? " These men were the professed guardians of the sacred oracles ; they professed to beheve in God's inspired word : and yet, you observe, the first fault that they found with Jesus was, not that he transgressed, which indeed he did not, any por- tion of God's inspired word, but that he transgressed what they thought equally important, the tradition of the scribes and the elders. It is remarkable, that with respect to tra- dition and Scripture, no man can serve two masters. The moment that a church, a minister, or a party, tries to exalt tradition to exactly the same place or level as God's written word, in a very few years the practical result is, that tradi- tion gets the upper hand, and Scripture takes the lower. You say. How can this be accounted for? On this simple principle, that when the two masters come, not only by the law that we cannot serve two equally, but by a higher law, that we shall serve most the one that suits most our fallen taste — (now tradition suits the fallen heart ; Scripture re- bukes its corruptions) — the result is, that man comes to MATTHEW XV. 131 like the prophet, Tradition, that prophesies only good about him ; and he dislikes the prophet, Scripture, because it tes- tifies against him that his deeds are evil. Jesus answered their question by asking another, " Why do ye transgress, what is infinitely more important, but what you have forgot- ten, the commandment of God by your tradition ? " The fact is, that in that day the Pharisaic church held the same position to the church of Zacharias and Simeon, that the Roman church does to the church of Knox, Latimer, Rid- ley, and Cranmer. The whole truth was overlaid by human tradition, till God's word had ceased to speak, and man's sentiments were alone audible. Jesus then cites a proof of his statement, as if he had said, " I wall not urge this vaguely, I will prove it. Ye say, Whosover shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, he shall be free from obeying the fifth commandment." This aUudes to a prevalent practice. Jews or Pharisees who wished to will away their estates from their nearest relatives made a vow that they would give it to the priests, to the altar, and to sacred usages ; and this vow w^as re- garded as so binding, that if a man dying worth £10,000 had devised it to the church, his father and mother might beg upon the streets. Now, what is this but that which in later years we have seen enacted before the eyes of our own country, — the fact, that men have been induced to will away, through the manoeuvres of modern Pharisees, their money to " pious uses," as they are devoutly called, but Avhich mean, priestly gratification ; and then the relatives are left to starve ? The best way is for men to be liberal in life, by giving what they can spare, — not superfluity, but sacrifice ; and then, what they leave behind let those who belong to them have if they need it, for they have the best claim ; but certainly the worst use to which it can be applied is that which is called a " pious use," or a priestly purpose. 132 SCRIPTURE READINGS. Our Lord adds, " Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you." We are not warranted in denouncing any man as a hypocrite. We may not judge, because we cannot always judge righteous judgments. But recollect that He who said so in this place was He to whom all hearts are open. How pitiful was the state of these poor Pharisees ! They thought they were so clever, that even the Son of God could not find them out ; and they little knew that that bright and penetrating eye was upon every thought, intricacy, wish, plan, and purpose, in their hearts ; and that while they could only read the outward page, he could read, decipher, and lay bare the inward recesses of the heart ! Therefore, he could say what you and I would not be warranted in saying, " Ye hypocrites." And here, again, I ask you to notice, that the class of men whom Jesus seems to have re- buked with the most unsparing severity were hypocrites. It is a most striking fact, that to the poor woman caught in great sin, while he forgave the sinner and denounced the sin, he said, " Go, and sin no more," — to the chiefest of sinners he seemed to have a fold in his bosom ; the greatest grief had an echo in his heart, the greatest sin had forgive- ness in his blood ; but hypocrisy he seems to have withered constantly by the greatest censure. And I know nothing more worthy of it. The man who makes religion a stalk- ing-horse, — who knowingly makes use of religion in order to get power, wealth, popularity, a name, progress, is one whose conduct cannot be denounced with too great severity, and whose instant repentance and conversion cannot be prayed for too earnestly. But He says, notwithstanding all this, " In vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." He then explains what he had said to them, saying, that eating with unwashen hands is nothing. It is not what, nor how people eat, that commends them in the sight of God. That they should wash their hands previously may be a MATTHEW XV. 133 matter of propriety or delicacy, but it is not of divine obli- gation. And therefore, it is absurd to talk of the mode in which people eat or drink, as a thing that affects their moral characters and well-being. It is not what goes into a man's mouth that defiles him, but what comes out of his heart. Wliat rich common sense is in this Avonderful Book ! I say common sense, though it ought to be called rare sense, of which an illustrious one lately gone was so striking and magnificent a specimen. It is the next thing to inspiration. Howells, than whom no one was more competent to judge, said in Long Acre puljDit, " The Bible is common sense inspired." It is not what peoj^le eat that makes them better or worse, but it is what people's hearts are. God looks not at what you eat, but he listens to what the heart beats. Let a man fast, if it suits him ; and let another not fast, if it suits him. It is not fasting or feasting that constitutes Christianity. " The kingdom of God is not meat nor drink ; " it is something far better, " righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." He then enumerates the things that come out of the heart. And what a picture is this ! My dear friends, if I were to say that out of any human heart, " proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blas- phemies ; " some people would charge me with exaggera- tion and extravagance. And yet, this is the language of that tender, merciful, truth speaking, truth loving Saviour. He tells us that the human heart in its natural state — your heart, my heart — is exactly this. And if these streams do not come from our hearts, do not say, " That is because I was born superior to other men," but " because I have been reborn by the Holy Spirit of God." There came to him a woman of Canaan, and therefore a Gentile, and said, " Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David ; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil," — a literal and actual demoniacal possession. Now mark 12 134 SCRIPTURE READINGS. the identity here indicated between the mother and the daughter. The daughter's case was so thoroughly the mother's by sympathy, that she said, " Have mercy upon we." Why ? " For my daughter is vexed with a devil ; " that is, " I ask mercy for myself, when I ask a cure or de- liverance for my daughter." Well, the first result of her appeal was, " He answered her not a word." We some- times pray, and no instant answer comes ; but it does not follow that our prayer is not heard : the very silence of Jesus may be most significant. The interval between the prayer and the reply may be the interval when he is work- ing for us, and sympathizing deeply with us. But " his dis- ciples came and besought him, saying. Send her away." Oh ! what a contrast between the blessed Master and even the best of his disciples. And, if you want acceptance still, it will not always be in the bosom of the priest, the bishop, or the church. It is best to leave these where Christ has left them, at the lowest step. They may say, " Send them away ; " but you will always find in one Bosom perfect shel- ter and repose. He never sent away a single applicant for acceptance. " But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheej) of the house of Israel ; " that is, my mis- sion is now to Israel. He told the disciples not to go beyond Palestine, whereas a day would come when they were to go into all the world. Nevertheless, it seems as if that deep Fountain of mercy, which was meant at that time only for Palestine, so overflowed at times, that its droppings, like the gentle rain, twice blessed, blessing him that gives and him that takes, fell occasionally, because irrepressible, upon Gen- tiles and Canaanities. " Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me." Her perseverance was most remarkable. Our Lord has told us to pray ; but he has not said, "Pray to-day, and I will answer to-morrow." He says, " Pray to-day and to-morrow : it is my prerogative to answer when I please." We constantly intrude on God's MATTHEW XV. 135 province by doubting if this be right or that good for us, instead of confining ourselves to our own, which is tsimply to ask supplies from the Almighty. He said, again, what seemed worse that ever, " It is not meet to take the chil- dren's bread, and to cast it to dogs," as the Gentiles were called. It is very remarkable that the " dog " is used almost invariably throughout the Bible to denote an unclean and rather hateful animal. It is surely most singular that the most sagacious of ani- mals should be regarded in Scripture as almost a repulsive one. But in this instance it is not the usual Greek word for " dog ; " it is a diminutive, and seems to contain in it a new idea of affection or love, and means, that to dogs, however esteemed, it is not proper to give the bread of the children of Abraham. But mark her most striking eloquence ; and of all pleaders a woman is always the most eloquent, and, if a Christian, the most efiective, because the most delicate shades of argument seem naturally to occur to her. She therefore pressed closer upon Him, who seemed to repulse her, and turned his replies into her reasons, and opposition into argument, saying, " Truth, Lord : yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table." And if she had said, " The children of Abraham are around the table of thy rich beneficence, blessed Lord ; I am but a poor, though an affectionate dog. Yet I am just under the edge or margin of that table ; for I am in Canaan, not in a distant land, but in one that borders on the land of the chil- dren. And therefore, if some little crumbs fall accidentally, w^hy should not I, dog as I am, partake of them ? " Jesus, who inspired the grace that prayed, expressed his admira- tion of the faith that so persevered ; and he said, " O woman, great is thy faith." He did not say, " Great is thy argu- ment, great thy patience, and thy love," all of which were most eminently great ; but he seized upon the mother grace, from which all other graces flow, and he said, " Great is 136 SCRIPTURE READINGS. that faith, which worketh by love, which purifieth the heart, which overcometh the world ; " and he gave her more than she asked,,-^ " Be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her dau/i'^ Whv V. made whole from that very hour." 4^'\c*W>'^' and others so struck the multitude, that they brought to him the " lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others." Now that expression " maimed " is very remark- able. It means those who had lost an arm, or a leg, or a foot. You will not charge me with extravagant belief or credulity, when I say that I believe that such were literally healed. Was there any thing impossible in restoring an arm to one who had lost it, and the very arm that was lost ? I believe, in the case of those heroes who are the shattered wrecks and remains of Waterloo, some of whom have lost limbs in battle, that at the resurrection morn, when the trumpet shall sound, and the dead dust of our AVellingtons and others shall rise, that arms will rejoin bodies, and limb will come to limb, and those very limbs that are now mingled with the dust, and over which the corn waves peacefully, shall be restored perfect and beautiful. The apostle does not say that this body shall be exchanged for an immortal body ; or that this corruptible body shall be exchanged for an incorruptible body. If it were so, then it would be easily explained in the ordinary way. But he says, " This very mortal shall put on immortality, and this very corrupti- ble shall put on incorruption." You say, how is it possible ? A man who is drowned in the ocean is devoured by the fishes of the deep. The remains of shot, and shell, and all the enginery of war, are in the depths of the sea, and buried on battle fields, and scattered over all Europe. How can all these be collected ? A chemist will tell you that there is no such thing as anniliilation. If I take the flax that grows in the field, it is beaten, purified, and turned into thread ; that thread is woven into linen ; that linen is torn to atoms by the most powerful machinery, and made into paper, oa MATTHEW XV. 137 which you write a letter ; that letter is thrown into the fire ; and it then ascends in the shape of carbon or smoke into the air ; but that flax exists as truly now, as it did when it was growing in the field. Change of structure is the law, not annihilation. And if the chemist can by his tests separate, disintegrate, distinguish elements, so that if arsenic or prus- " sic acid has been taken into the body, he can bring it into the court of justice, and show it has been there ; will you hold that'the great Creator of all the chemical laws of the world, the Omniscient and Omnipresent, cannot speak, and atom shall come to atom, every atom from its separate place, and limb shall come to limb, and the dry bones in a thou- sand valleys shall be an army of men shining in the splen- dor of the resurrection morn ? We read of another miracle performed on this occasion. The disciples came and said the multitude had nothing to eat ; and how exquisitely touching is that reply, " I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint by the way ! " How beautiful ! that He who governs angels, should condescend to notice even the humblest wants of the human body. But the disciples, never so tender and sympathizing as the Mas- ter, as it were said, " How absurd ! Whence should we have so much bread in the wilderness as to fill so great a multitude ? " Jesus " commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground. And they did all eat and were filled." Now, you will pardon me if I allude to the monstroi* absurd- ity of certain German rationalists, who say that Matthew forgot that he had told the same story before, just as a preacher may forget that he has stated the same things before, and that Matthew made a mistake in his second story, in saying seven instead of five. Now the evidence on the face of the narrative is, that this is quite a distinct miracle from that in the previous chapter. The best proof of it is Matthew xvi. 9, 10, where our Lord says, " Do ye not yet understand, neither remember the five loaves of the five thou- 12* 138 SCRIPTURE READINGS. sand, and how many baskets ye took up ? neither the seven loaves of the four thousand, and how many baskets ye took up ? " He refers to two distinct miracles. And there is a remarkable clue to their distinctness. In the Greek lan- guage there are two words, both meaning a basket, one is Kodivoc, the other is oTcvpig. Now it is singularly conclusive that the world used in the first miracle is ii6(pLvo^, and in the second, anvpi^, another word altogether. And, accordingly, when Jesus refers to the two miracles in his statement in the 16th chapter, this distinction is studiously preserved, " Do ye not remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many KO(l>ivovg ye took up ? neither the seveft loaves of the four thousand, and how many GTrvpldac ye took up ? " preserving the very phraseology, and so proving, he refers to two distinct miracles. We may depend upon it, it is ignorance that quarrels with Scripture. I find that what were once my difficulties are now my axioms; and that the more I read, and study, and think, and ponder over this blessed "Word, the more I am struck with the irresistible evi- dence of the inspiration of the Almighty. 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 bless- ing 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 to the qreatures made by the same hand, to whom God has not MATTHEW XV. 139 been so bountiful. And then this thanksgiving presents a contrast to my mind most striking. In his making tlie five loaves feed five thousand, we have the interposition of a God: in his taking up that piece of bread and giving thanks, we have the evidence of a creature. None but a true his- torian would have combined and coupled things which seem contradictory, but which, when analyzed and seen in the light of the rest of Scripture, are full of harmony, and present the perfect One. He that could create the bread, and show that he was God, equally acknowledged himself a creature, and proved he was so by giving thanks. If I am asked. Was Christ a man ? I answer. Yes ; look at the de- pendent 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 nos- trils. 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 Day's 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 ques- tions, 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 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, 140 SCRIPTURE READINGS. is sure to get more. I believe an inquiring sceptic, who will live up to the light that he has, will not be left to grope in darkness : I am sure the least enlightened 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 bar- ley loaves feeding and nourishing so many — that a little embosomed in the benediction of Christ can supply many ; that much deprived of that benediction or blasted by his curse, will feed none. Why is it that bread feeds us, and not sand ? Ask the chemist — ask the physician — ask Lie- big 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 spe- cially so — of that beautiful saying, " Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth 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 observed, that the difference between the vine growing in the vineyard and yielding its grapes, and then ultimately coming from the press and being drunk in the shape of wine, and the instantaneous creation of the wine, was a difference 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 l?ere it was not merely hastening a process, but it was turn- ing a few barley loaves into a quantity of bread, prepared MATTHEW XV. 141 and fit for the people to eat. The only explanation of it we can give is, that the worlds were formed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things that do appear. We need to learn this lesson in looking at the miracles of God, that Omnipotence can do what we cannot do, but it also can do, and does do, what we cannot comprehend ; so that not only shall our physical powers be put into their proper space, but our intellectual power also shall be taught that it is the power of a creature finite, and not of the Creator infinite. And yet we cannot but notice that the same power that was here seen is displayed every day. In the seed of the corn that shoots into the stalk, the blade, and the ear, we have a miracle just every whit as great. In the acorn cast into earth, that develops 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 honor and glory to what we call " the laws of nature : " we are so startled by the latter pro- cess, that we are constrained to admit " this is the finger of God." But if the processes were reversed, — if the usual law were that the word of some being turned one loaf into a hundred, and if the unusual thing were that a little seed cast into the earth shot up and grew into ears of corn, we should call the latter the miracle. "VVe live amid miracles : every pulse of our heart is a miracle — every inspiration and expiration of our lungs is a miracle — the movement of the arm by the volition of the mind is a miracle ; but we are so accustomed to these things that we call them natural occurrences, and only when the same result is achieved by a more rapid oa' a more startling process do we call it a miracle. God occasionally suspends the ordinary process, and interferes by an extraordinary one, to teach 142 SCRIPTURE READINGS. man that creation is not God, and that in God all creation lives, and moves, and has its being. When Christ healed the lame, when he opened the eyes of the bhnd, 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 redemptive act, but clearly a feat of creative power. Let us mark another fact in the miracles of Christ ; he never performed a miracle, if I may use the expression, in vacuo ; he always laid hold of a substratum to work upon. This seems by analogy to teach us that God is not going to supplant this earth by another earth, and to 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 disentan- gles 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 mira- cles 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 the evidence that by him all things were made, and that he is the Creator of all, as well as Lord of all. Li 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 MATTHEW XV. 143 indeed sunshine and shower, sowing and reaping, but he sjiows us Christ, the compendium of them all, and from whom all of them issue ; the Lord of the sunshine and of the shower, the Lord of the spring and of the 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 proceeding from Him who made all things, and gives to every thing its mission. You have, as it were, here revealed the holy of holies of God's creation. In our ordinary view 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 veil is drawn aside, the light shines into the holy place and reveals the Creator at the head of all, and we see that it is not the creature that has the virtue, but that the creature is the empty thing which Christ fills with virtue, and charges to his work of ministering toward them that are his. 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. When I begin to feel that if the harvest fail, the Lord of the harvest remains ; if my health give way, 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 the thing, then when the pro- vision 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 things fail, that the author and the giver of them still re- 144 SCRIPTURE READINGS. mains, there is thereby coramunieated steadiness and con- sistency to every pulse of man's heart, and to every foot- step in man's walk, and this becomes the victory that over- cometh the world. In the next place, when we receive blessings, whatever they are, from Christ's hand, and regard them as the expressions 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 multiplied, 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 these 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 upon the bread they eat, and think it is all thus sanc- tified ; 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 produce of his blood : as soon as we can see and feel the great fact and reality, that our largest and least bless- ings 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, faith 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. These are not the mere conjectures of human minds, but the express decrees and purposes of God. He is hastening on this blessed consummation, and in the mean time he gives at intervals earnests and fore- tastes, — sometimes as sunny spots in individual hearts, and MATTHEW XV. 145 at other times as green and fragrant patches on the bosom of the eartli. Blessed Lord, who hast given all Scripture for our learn- ing, give us grace to read, mark, and inwardly digest it, that it . may nourish our souls for eternal life, through Jesus Christ. Amen. Note. — The modern German interpreters assume the identity of this miracle with that narrated in chap. xiv. 14. If this be so, then our evangeUsts must have forged (!) the speech attributed to our Lord in ch. xvi. 9, 10. But, as Ebrad justly remarks, (Evangehen Kritik, p. 532,) every circumstance Avhich could vary, does vaiyin the two ac- counts. The situation in the wilderness, the kind of food at hand, the blessing and breaking, and distributing by means of the disciples, these are common to the two accounts, and likely to be so ; but here the matter is introduced by our Lord himself, with an expression of pity for the multitudes who had continued with him three days : here, also, the provision is greater, the numbers are less than on the former occasion. But there is one small token of authenticity which marks these two accounts as referring to two distinct events, even had we not such direct testimony as that of ch. xvi. 9, 10. It is, that whereas the baskets in which the fragments were collected on the other occasion are called by all four Evangelists Kodtvot, those used for that purpose after this miracle are, in both Matthew and Mark, oirvpiSeg. And when our Lord refers to the two miracles, the same distinction is observed ; a particularity which could not have arisen but as pointing to a matter of fact, that, whatever the distinction be, which is uncer- tain, different kinds of baskets were used on the two occasions. — Al' ford. 13 CHAPTER XVI. DISSATISFACTION OF THE SADDUCEES — A SIGX FROM HEAVEN SIGNS OF THE TI3IES — HEART AND CREED — CARNAL MISIN- TERPRETATIONS — INDIVIDUALITY OF GOSPEL PETER AND HIS SUCCESSORS — SELF-DENIAL — THE SOUl's WORTH. Notwithstanding the fact, which we h.ave read in pre- vious parts of this Gospel, that Jesus worked many most convincing miracles, the Sadducees and Pharisees were not satisfied, because insatiable, but demanded still a sign from heaven. They would not be satisfied with seeing the dead live, the sick healed, the blind seeing ; for these appeared to be signs only from the earth ; what they wanted was some- thing like a brilliant coruscation, that should startle the senses of all beholders, and prove to them that there was the presence of One who had descended from God, or was God. Now, the real truth is, if they had seen all the signs that omnipotent power could furnish, they would not have been persuaded. It was not argument they really needed, but honesty or grace. They were bigoted and prejudiced, and determined to find reasons for rejecting Jesus ; and there- fore their request of a new and startling miracle was a hypo- critical cover for their own obstinate rejection and intended betrayal of the Son of man. Jesus therefore said unto them, " Ye hypocrites," — knowing quite well that it was not more power that they wished to see, but that their demand was a covert only for the hardness of their hearts, — " ye can discern the face of MATTHEW xvr. 147 the sky ; but can ye not discern the signs of the times ? " It was probably eventide : the sun was retiring to the west, and the clouds gorgeously gilded by his retreating beams ; and as these clouds appeared in the west, and the sun dipped towards the horizon, Jesus said, " You are quite competent to determine the state of the weather by the face of the sky ; and, if you were teachers of the truth, you would be able to pronounce upon the age of the world at which we are arrived, and the facts that are before you, from signs that are as unequivocal and decisive as those that relate to the foul or the fair weather." At this very period the seventy weeks of Daniel were run out ; the forerunner of Jesus, in the person of the Baptist, had appeared. The signs were so irresistible that the Messiah was come, that unprejudiced persons at once received him ; and only the hardhearted, prejudiced, and passionate Scribes and Phari- sees invented, where lliey could not find, reasons for reject- ing him. He therefore assured them that no sign should be given them but one, and that sign " the sign of the prophet Jonas." What was that ? He explained it in a previous chap- ter — that the Son of man should be three days and nights in the earth, and then rise again. But that sign they would not receive; for "neither will they believe, though one should rise from the dead." The fact is, our hearts have a great deal to do with our creeds. A creed ought to be based on evidence — it ought to have a root in the convic- tions of the intellect ; but very often what we feel conven- ient to believe to be true, imagination is most prolific in starting reasons, real or imaginary, for so believing. When men are determined to reject a testimony, they are prepared previously to trample on every proof and evidence that can be produced, and to reject it, just because they do not like it. Then Jesus, addressing his disciples, said, " Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sad- ducees." Doctrine in Scripture is compared to leaven — 148 SCRIPTURE READINGS. sound as well as corrupt doctrine — because of its silent and growing progress. Leaven is gradually penetrating and assimilating. So it is with truth, and still more, in a fallen world, with error. But notice how the disciples misunderstood him : they interpreted carnally what he preached spiritually. And this very feature in the conduct of the disciples w^ill explain some of those passages which have been the subjects of mis- interpretation. When Jesus said, " Ye must be born again," Nicodemus interpreted it carnally. Again, when Jesus told them, " My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed," they said, " How can this man give us his flesh to eat ? " and then Jesus said, " The words that I speak unto^ you, they are spirit, and they are life." And so here the disciples thought that he spoke of literal bread ; but Jesus again explained it to them, as he had done before, and showed that he spoke of a doctrinal influence, not of a material and carnal nutriment. We have, therefore, in this a light by analogy cast upon other passages of Scripture, which the disciples misinterpreted, and which some who ought to know better now, since Pentecost, persist in misin- terpreting, asserting that baptism is regeneration, and that the bread and wine on the communion table are the literal flesh and blood of the Son of man. Jesus said to them, " Whom do men say that I the Son of man am ? And they said. Some say that thou art John the Baptist ; some, Ellas, Avho is to come at the end of the world ; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets." Then He said, what is so important, " But whom say ye that I am ? " One man thinks this — another man thinks that ; but what think ye ? The individuality that is constantly asserted in the Gospel is most striking. It is a constant appeal to every man to think less about his neighbor's state, except challtably, and to think more about his own safety in the sight of God. You remember that remarkable matthp:w XVI. 149 instance, when one said, " Lord, are there many that be saved ? " — a very curious question, and one that has been sometimes mooted. But what was the answer of Jesus ? " Strive ye to enter in at the strait gate." And when another said, " Lord, what shall this man do ? " what did Jesus say ? " What is that to thee : follow thou me." We have no time for criticisms upon others. First make sure that you are safe yourselves ; and, being assured of this, go forth to make happy and holy all that are within your reach. Peter instantly answered, in a most striking manner, not " We say " — the question was " Whom say ye that I am ? " — but Peter does not reply, " We say," lest that should not appear decisive enough, but as if he said we have not the least doubt of it, " Thou art the Anointed One, the Son of the living God." In the former passage, he is described as the Son of man ; in this, the Son of the living God : the first implying his humanity, the second his divinity. Then Jesus said, " Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona : for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven." " 'No man can say that Jesus is the Christ, except by the Spirit ; " and the promise is, "All shall be taught of God," and Peter was one of these. He adds, — what I shall afterwards illustrate, — " And I say unto thee. That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church ; and the gates of hell shall not pre- vail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven." The keys here promised to Peter are promised to all : for, in the 18th chapter of this very Gospel, we read that where there is a quarrel between brethren, they are to tell it to the church, which must mean the congregation, " Verily I say unto you. Whatsoever ye" — the plural number, and addressed to the laity — " shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven ; and what- soever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." And therefore Peter had no monopoly : whatever he had, 13* 150 SCRIPTURE READINGS. not only the apostles, but the disciples had also ; for it is a literal fact, that there is not a privilege or prerogative claimed for the clergy by those who desire to establish cler- ical power, which cannot be proved to be as much the pre- rogative of the laity. Jesus addressed the same words to the laity that he addressed to the apostles — " Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven ; and what- soever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." And then he defines this prerogative in the 20th verse of the 18th chapter, " For where two or three are gathered to- gether in my name, there am I in the midst of them." So that while Peter, in the 16th chapter, receives the commis- sion, you will recollect that in the Gospel of John all the apostles received it; and you will find, in the 18th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, that the laity also received it : and it is, therefore, a power that belongs to the humblest Christian woman, as much as, and much more than it be- longs to the Pope of Rome, or any of his bishops. Then it appears that Jesus began to explain how he should suffer many things of the chief priests. "Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee. Lord: this t^hall not be unto thee;" evidently not understanding that it was necessary that Christ should first suffer, and then enter into his glory. Peter would snatch at the crown, but would not re*acli it through the cross. Many persons like the reaping of the harvest, but they do not like the patient sowing in spring. Many would like to have heaven now : God's arrangement is, that through much tribulation we must enter into that kingdom. But what did our Lord say ? " Get thee behind me, Satan ; thou art an offence {aKdv6a?Lov) unto me." Peter says. The Christ is to many a Trhpa ci<.av6(ikov, that is, " a rock of offence," evidently in allusion to this passage. Now, suppose that in the 18th verse, Peter was made the foundation of the Church, it does not follow that Peter's MATTHEW XA^I. 151 successor is the foiintlation of it. When you think of a foundation, you can only conceive of one ; and therefore it follows, that if Peter was the foundation, his successors must be the superstructure ; or they must dislodge Peter, that Pio Nono may take Peter's place. Both cannot be the foundation : one or other must be the superstructure. If Peter, then, be the foundation, it does not follow that his successors have all his privileges and prerogatives. But suppose that the successors of Peter actually inherit all the prerogatives he had : then, if they inherit his succession as the rock (Trerpof), how do they get rid of the succession, " Get thee behind me, Satan ? " It will not do to take Peter's mantle when he speaks truth, and is praised ; and to throw it away when he commits sin and states error. They must take the succession as a whole, or not at all ; and I must say, that in the Church of Rome there is more evidence of the succession of the 23d verse, than of the 18th. If they say that what Peter personally received, they, Peter's pretended successors, also receive, they must not take the kernel, arid cast away the shell, — take the good, and reject the bad. They must take Satan Peter as well as Rock Peter. I suspect, poor Peter was often, be- fore the day of Pentecost, a fainting, a failing, and an erring foundation, rather than a strong, unerring, and per- fect one. Then Jesus tells them what a true Christian is ; " If any, man will come after me," that is, if he will be a Christian, "let him deny himself" — one of the noblest traits of a Christian, — " let him deny his passions, prejudices, prefer- ences, interest, profit, when my interests and my glory demand it ; and let him take up his cross, and follow me." Many a man has a cross from nature ; Christians only have Christ's cross, that is, a trial borne for Christ's sake. He puts the momentous question, " What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own 152 SCRIPTURE READINGS. soul ? " What value will it be to him ? What an awful idea is the loss of the soul ! Of all losses it is the greatest. If I lose my health, I may recover it by medical treatment. If 1 lose my wealth, I may recover it by industry. If I lose one friend, I may make another. But if I lose my soul, there is no recovery of that. It is not only irretrieva- ble, but there is no compensation. If I lose my eyesight, by a very beautiful provision in God's economy, the sense of hearing becomes more acute ; if I lose my hearing, the eye becomes more susceptible ; and if both, the sense of touch becomes more exquisitely delicate, — God having arranged compensations in our physical economy. But if I lose my soul, there is nothing, nothing, nothing for ever that can compensate for so awful, so irretrievable a ruin. May we know what the soul's worth is, not by its loss, but by its everlasting gain ! Some persons belonging to the Romish communion have built upon verse twenty-seven the theory, that there is abso- lute merit inherent in our works ; that all that Christ does for us is to help us to do good works, which, without him, we could not do ; and that those good works will be the grounds of our acquittal at the judgment-seat of Christ. But this is impossible. We owe to God every feeling of love, of purity, of loyalty, of holiness, which we ever felt ; and, therefore, there can be no merit in aught we feel or do. When a man pays his debts, he does his duty merely ; he does not create a fund of merit, or lay his creditor under obligation. Our purest thoughts, however, are tainted, and our best deeds mingled with alloy, and both need to be for- given ; and, therefore, they cannot surely deserve to be rewarded. Besides, whatever love we cherish, — whatever sympathy with the true, the beautiful, and the holy we feel, — whatever loyalty we reciprocate, — whatever devot- edness to God we show in our life, our conversation, and our conduct in the world, are all, not self-originated, but the MATTHEW XVI. 153 inspirations of the Spirit of God. The fountain of them is not our own, and they shame us ; our virtues are not our own, and, therefore, they cannot purchase for us. We must bring all, our best and our worst things, to the throne of the heavenly grace, and ask frank forgiveness for them all, and acceptance for ourselves only through the blood of Jesus. But, you say still, the word " reward " carries in popular apprehension the idea of merit. It has suggested to many that idea ; does it really mean so ? I answer, if happiness be the just and adequate reward of good works, then, of course, good works are properly meritorious in the sight of God. But if I show that the word " reward," in Scripture, is used, not in its strict sense, but in its loose or popular sense, then you will conclude with me, that it is not necessary to attach the idea of essential merit to the use of it by the Spirit of God. The word " buy," for instance, is used in Scripture, not in the sense of giving money as an equivalent; as in the following quotation: " Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters ; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." The merely popular and forensic use of the word means, to give so much money for so much good ; but it is obvi- ously used by the Spirit of God to denote more sensibly the excellency of the things we receive, and, in order to detach from it the idea of equivalent, there are even super- added the words, " without money and without price." We find the word " reward " used in the same way. Thus it in said of Nebuchadnezzar and his army, that " Egypt shall be their reward." Again : " Ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance." But it is plain, from this last passage, that if heaven be an " inheritance," it cannot be a reward in the strict and literal sense of that term. We read in the final sentence, " Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom." Now the word " inherit " disposes of all idea of personal desert. For instance : a nobleman dies ; his 154 SCRIPTURE READINGS. son is a profligate, but still he inherits his father's coronet ; not because of any thing he has done or deserved, nor by any thing he has undone, but simply because he is the son, and, therefore, the legal heir of his father. So we receive heaven as the sons of God and joint-heirs with Christ, and not as the reward of any merit or excellence of ours. And so, in this passage, reward does «ot necessarily imply re- ceiving that which our virtues have arned, or our merit procured. Other passages of Scripture justify this inter- pretation, and show that no idea of merit is implied. vScrip- ture says, " By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justi- fied." And again, " A man is not justified by the works of the law ; but by the faith of Christ." And again, " By grace are ye saved througli faith ; and that not of your- selves, it is the gift of God ; not of works, lest any man should boast." And again, " Who hath saved us and called us, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace." And again, " Being justified by his grace, we are made heirs of God, according to the hope of eternal life." Thus, these and kindred passages clearly prove that there can be nothing of merit in us, entitling us to the joy and felicity of everlasting life. And yet, while Scripture thus distinctly puts good works away from any share in our title, and separates from them every thing like merit, in the judgment of God, it insists upon them, through all its books, in the most eloquent and earnest terms. Thus: " We are created in Christ Jesus unto good works." Again : " Thoroughly furnished unto all good works." Again : " Rich in good works." Again : " Careful to main- tain good works." Again : " Prepared unto every good work." So we cannot fail to see perfectly consistent what at first seems a contradiction, — good works depreciated on the one page, and inculcated on the next ; dispensed with in one line ; insisted upon in another ; declared to be nothing in one chapter, and pronounced to be essential in the next. MATTHEW XVI. 155 How do we explain this ? The answer is plain. The exclusion of good works from one great doctrine of the gos- pel does not imply the extinction of good works in the Christian character. The exclusion of all good works from our title to heaveu; does not imply the extinction of all necessity for good works in our character and qualification for heaven. In other w^ords, in the matter of justification, our own works must all be pronounced as filthy rags, utterly unavailing ; whereas, in the matter of sanctification, they are the evidence of our growing fitness for the kingdom of heaven. It is as essential that the Spirit of God should make me fit for the company in which I am to spend eternity, as that the Son of God should impute to me his righeousness, and wash me from my sins, to enable me to dwell in the presence of God and of the Lamb for ever. And, therefore, just with the same earnestness wath which the inspired writers insist upon the absolute exclusion of all our good deeds from the matter of our justification, they insist upon the con- tinual practice of all good works, as the exponent and evi- dence of our fitness or qualification for heaven. Some, how- ever, have thought that there is one passage at least, in one of the Gospels, which seems contradictory to the view wdiich I have endeavored to prove, namely, that which describes the young man who came to our Lord, and a.sked the ques- tion, " Good Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life ? Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good ? there is none good " — (in that absolute sense in which the Jews used it) — "there is none good but God;" (and therefore Jesus said, — Your addressing to me the epithet Good is truly attributing to me the character of God.) " Thou know- est the commandments. Do not kill : Do not steal : Do not bear false witness : Honor thy father and thy mother. And he said, All these things have I kept from my youth up." Perhaps he did not know his own heart well enough : but 156 SCRIPTURE READINGS. our Lord took him at his word ; he said, I will not now dis- pute that you have observed ail these from your youth. *' And Jesus beholding him, loved him, and said unto him, Yet one thing thou lackest : Go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven : and come, take up thy cross, and follow me." You have observed most strictly the six commandments of the Decalogue which refer to your conduct towards your neighbor. How do you treat the first four? Here is the turning point where you are called upon to show your love to God. The whole law is summed up in two commandments ; first, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength ; " the next is, " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." The last you have done perfectly, you say ; you are now called upon to show your obedience to the first. If you have suc- ceeded in the first as you have triumphed in the last, you are a perfect character, and have a perfect title to the king- dom of heaven. " And when the young man heard that saying, he went away grieved, for he had great possessions." He could not sacrifice all for Christ's sake. In other words, he showed, by this preference of the unrighteous mgmmon to the good God, that he had broken the law in the first and weightiest commandment, and therefore he could not de-serve heaven by his own doings. Our Lord tested, in order to humble, the young man. It is, then, the Scriptural doctrine, that whilst there is nothing of merit in the works performed by us, yet the reward of glory will have a reference to those good works as done by believers. For it certainly cannot be without meaning that we find almost every reference to the* judgment-day implying the reward of works, and almost every statement of the appor- tionments of that day meted out according to the nature, the amount, the character, and the extent of those works. See that very beautiful passage, " Come, ye blessed of my MATTHEW XVI. 157 Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foun- dation of the world : for I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat : I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink : I was a stran- ger, and ye took me in : naked, and ye clothed me : I was sick, and ye visited me : I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer and say unto him, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee ? " and so on. " And these shall go into everlasting hfe." We have next the statement in my text, that " He shall reward every man according to his works." We also know the declara- tion of our Lord, that every one shall be rewarded accord- ing to his works. Then we read in 2 John 8, " Look to yourselves, that ye receive a full reward." Again, in Matt. X. 40, there is a clear intimation of the difference of reward : " He that receiveth you receiveth me ; and he that receiveth me receiveth Him that sent me. He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet, shall receive a prophet's reward ; and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man, shall receive a righteous man's reward. And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only, in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in nowise lose his reward." Now notice the gradations : first, the reception of Christ is spoken of as being followed by the great reward ; next, the reception of a prophet is followed by the enjoyment of a prophet's reward ; then the reception to hospitality and homage of a righteous man is followed by a righteous man's reward ; and lastly, the gift of a cup of cold water, given in the right spirit, and with the right motive, shall not be with- out its corresponding reward. Thus there are degrees and grades of glory indicated here. There are diversities of reward — "one star differing from another star in glory ; " each vessel full, but each vessel of capacity larger or less than the other. Now it seems to me that there is nothing legal in coming U 158 SCRIPTURE READINGS. to the conclusion that the rewards of heaven will be pro- portioned to our attainments upon earth. True, love is the great motive constraining us to whatever things are pure, and just, and lovely ; but because it is the great motive, it is not the exclusive one. Our Lord looks for the noblest alle- giance and sacrifice as the fruits of love, but he fosters and stimulates the production of those fruits by the prospects of reward according to the attainments we have made. Union to Christ's body as a living member is our safety; but the place which we are to occupy in that body, a hand, or a foot, is no doubt what we depend upon, in some degree, for the progress and perfection to which we shall have risen by grace. So there are degrees of suffering among the damned ; for the servant beaten Avitli few stripes is the figure employed to denote a less degree of suffering ; and one beaten with many stripes is the figurative expression for a greater degree of suffering. In like manner, we conclude there are different degreei of joy, felicity, and reward among the saved ; and these are degrees of enjoyment differing according to the capacity of each vessel, and the fitness of each character for it. Note. — The Herodians were more a political than a religious sect, the dependants and supporters of the dynasty of Herod, for the most part Sadducees in religions sentiment. These, though directly op- posed to the Pharisees, were yet united with them in their persecution of our Lord (see ch. xxii. 16 ; Mark iii. 6) ; and their leaven was the same — hypocrisy — however it might be disguised by external differ- ence of sentiment. They were all unbelievers at heart. The confession is not made in the terms of the other answer : it is not " We say," or " I say," but " Thou art ; " it is the expression of an inward conviction wrought by God's Spirit. The excellence of this confession is, that it brings out both the human and divine nature of the Lord : 6 Xpcorbc is the Messiah, the Son of David, the anointed MATTHEW XVI. 159 King ; 6 Ttbg tov Qeov rov ^iovTog is the eternal Son, begotten of the eternal Father, as the last word most emphatically implies, — not " Son of God " in any inferior figurative sense, — not one of the sons of God of angelic nature, — the Son of the living God, having in him the sonship and the divine nature in a sense in which they could l)e in none else. [22.] The same Peter who but just now had made so noble and spiritual a confession, and received so high a blessing, now shoAvs the weak and carnal side of his character, becomes a stumbling-block in the way of his Lord, and earns the very rebuff with which the tempter before him had been dismissed. Nor is there any thing improbable in this, as Schleiermacher would have us believe. (Translation of the Essay on St. Luke, p. 153.) The expression of spiritual faith may, and frequently does, precede the betraying of carnal weakness ; and never is this more probable than when the mind has just been uplifted, as Peter's was, by commendation and lofty promise. CHAPTER XVII TRAXSFIG URATIOK. We have, first of all, the representation, or rather the strict and literal narrative — for it is not a myth — of that great event called, and popularly known, by the name of the Transfiguration of the Lord of glory. We read that on this mount, — and it is doubtful what mountain it was, though usually it is supposed to have been Mount Tabor, — there appeared with him Moses, the representative of the Law, and Elijah, who personated the Prophets, deputies apparently from both, to attest the Messiah ; and they ap- peared with him in the shining glory in which he shone, bright " as the sun," and his raiment " white as the light ; " or, in the language of Mark, " w^hite as snow ; so as no fuller on earth can white them." When the apostles saw this sight, which dazzled Peter, " a bright cloud overshadowed them " (the very clouds of Christianity are lined with light), and a voice came out of the cloud ; and that voice pointed not to Elijah, nor did it specify Moses, but withdrew attention from each of tliem on whom the w^ondering eyes of the disciples were fixed, and directed their attention to the Son of God alone. In the brightest throng that Object ever must be to a Chris- tian's eye the central one. Hear not the saints, but Jesus. Amid the glories of the blessed, the Crucified and the Crowned must be, to a Christian, the great Object; and wherever He is present, all others fall into the shadow. If subjects of the. Queen appear to be presented to her, before MATTHEW XVII. 161 she comes into the room, as some of you may have seen, they may be gazing at the beautiful furniture, at the splen- did carpeting, or at the paintings that hang on the walls ; but the instant the Queen comes every eye is fixed upon her. The evidence that she is not there is, that eyes are gazing on other objects ; the proof that she is there is, that every loyal subject pays obeisance and deference to her. You may be sure that in a church, where paintings, statues, images absorb the thoughts of the people, the Lord of the Temple is not there ; but the fact that these sink into their own shadow, and that He presents himself alone, luminous, glorious, impressive, is the sign that he is there, and that he is what he should be, all and in all in every heart. Tabor is, so far, the type of every true church. There seems to have been here a visible pledge, an abso- lute certainty brought before the senses, of that grand era when Jesus shall be revealed in all his glory, and the whole earth shall be filled with it. In order to give a foretaste or a gleam of that glory, he lays aside the garments of a ser- vant, puts on for a transient hour his coronation robes, and appears no more the Sufferer weeping in Gethsemane, but the crowned, or at least the glorified. Prince and Redeemer upon the height of Mount Tabor. This Transfiguration, too, was meant perhaps to show that his death was not the result of sin or of necessity ; that if he died, they must not conclude that he had not power to avert the death which was rapidly approaching him. He showed them by that vision that all power in heaven and earth was his, that all the splendors of the skies might be his retinue, and that all the angels and archangels around the throne might be, if he pleased to summon them, his im- mediate ministry. This was to teach them that that death, of which he had told them before, was not inevitable because of his weakness, but because of his love : " I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it 162 SCRIPTURE READINGS. from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command- ment have I received of my Father." (John x. 17, 18.) I die a willing substitute for tlie sins of all that believe. This glorious vision, we read, was seen by his own dis- ciples only. They needed this special encouragement. They were so depressed by the tidings of his death, that they needed some strong stimulus to sustain and invigorate their fainting and failing hearts. He therefore shows them in this bright apocalypse that the Crown was connected with the Cross ; that the Throned One was very near to the Crucified One ; and that He who should sink so low, that his own friends would ignorantly forsake him, was He, never- theless, who should ascend so high that angels and archangels would be his convoy to the palace of the skies, and be the worshippers at his footstool, saying, " Holy, Holy, Holy, art thou : the whole earth is full of thy glory ! " But, it may be asked, why were these three disciples selected by Jesus to be witnesses of this Transfiguration ? I answer, that sovereignty alone might make the selection. God does many things of which we must be content to be ignorant of the why or the wherefore. When he is pleased to give a reason, it is our privilege to accept it ; but when he is pleased to be silent, it is our duty to bow the head and acquiesce. But Jesus selected these three, perhaps, because they were special friends. It is not inconsistent with the grand dignity of the Godhead that was there, to understand that Jesus, as a man, had friends. The home of Lazarus, Martha, and Mary was his frequent resort. John was the disciple whom Jesus loved — not loved as he loves you and me only, but whom he loved as a special friend. We sometimes shrink from speaking of Christ's true humanity. But exclude sin, and He had the joys, sorrows, sympathies, sufferings, par- tialities, preferences, love, and likings, that all humanity is penetrated witb. He was truly man, just as you and I are, MATTHEW XVII. ISo sin excepted ; but that is but the profile of his face : look on the other side, and you see that He was truly God, just as God the Father is. It may have been that he selected three special friends to be the witnesses of his special glory. But there may have been another reason. These three are called by the Apostle Paul " pillars " of the Church — that is, eminent, distinguished, and singularly excellent men ; and these three are distinguished in history by certain fea- tures, that do not give them a precedence of jurisdiction, but, if you like, a precedence of dignity, making them at least primi inter pares, that is, first among equals. Peter was the first to confess Christ — there was his dignity ; but yet, alas, alas ! he was the first to dissuade Christ from dying — there was the signature of his frailty. He was selected, therefore, partly because of his confession, which was privi- lege, — partly because of his faihng, which needed to be corrected. James, another who was here selected, was the first apostle who was martyred. He was in the van of the noble army of martyrs, the goodly fellowship of the prophets, the glorious company of the apostles. John, the third, was the teacher, as his whole Gospel intimates of the essential Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Gospel of St, Mat- thew was written primarily for the Jew, and therefore it teaches Christ's humanity. The dilficulty of the Jew was very different from the difl&culty of the Socinian. You can- not get the Socinian to believe that Christ is God, but the Jew had no doubt that the Messiah was God ; the difficulty was to persuade him that He had become man. The Gos- pel of John was written, not for the Jew only, but for all Catholic Christendom ; and therefore this Gospel enunciates with singular power the glory of the Deity of Jesus. " We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." And these three, too, were selected to witness that agony and bloody sweat in the garden of Gethsemane ; and they needed to see this great 164 SCRIPTURE READINGS. glory, that they might descend from the Mount, and be pre- pared to endure that so great agony. Every man must first be on Tabor, in order that he may endure when he comes into his Gethsemane. We need the strength of the one, that we may be able to pass triumphantly through the pains and the agonies of the other. Having seen these reasons, all of which may be true, some of which must be true, let me ask why he selected a mountain for this. Jesus preached on a mountain ; he fre- quently retired to a mountain to pray ; he was crucified on a mountain ; he ascended from a mountain. There seems something remarkable in this. Perhaps for this sole rea- son, that the mountain height was more insulated from the crowd that was around its base ; it was more, as it were, above the noise and the din of this world. I know not more silent or sequestered spots than the crags of some of our Scottish hills ; and I cannot conceive a scene that more reveals the insignificance of man as he is, and the awful masnificence of Him who is throned on the riches of the universe, than such a seat, in the quiet sunshine, and with an enlightened mind and a meditative lieart, v/ell and prayer- fully to ponder over it. When Jesus went up into these mountains, it must have been mainly ibr the seclusion and the quiet of the scene. But, neither in this mountain, nor in that, are we to worship the Father. Pi-ayer is no more acceptable on Mount Calvary, or Mount Tabor, or the Mount of Olives, at this moment, than it would be upon any peaks of the Alps. It is not place that gives consecration to prayer ; it is prayer that gives consecration to all space : for wherever there is the praying heart, there is the prayer hearing God. That man worships on a mountain far above the world, vAio withdraws from it. He prays in his closet, who prays with his heart ; and he prays in the streets, yet without ostentation, who prays in the midst of tumults, and worldly cares and anxieties within. MATTHEW XVII. 165 We read that Jesus prayed before liis transfiguration. He brought them into this mountain ; and we are told in the 9th of Mark, and in the Pth of Luke, that there had been a special season of prayer before. How strange it seems to us that the Son of God, the brightness of the Father's glory, should pray ! And yet, he prayed just as we do, and prayed in an agony, we are told, on another occasion. He had deep w^ants that needed to be replenished ; he had poig- nant sorrows that needed consolation ; he had trials he needed strength in ; and therefore, the Great Believer prayed, that we too might pray. And never, to my mind, did he appear so great and glorious, as when he knelt down upon the streets of Jerusalem, the twelve ignorant, erring apostles kneeling with him, and He, their spokesman, say- ing, "Our Father, which art in Heaven." If Jesus prayed for what he knew must come, should not we pray for what we are certain, if good for us, God will grant ? It is God's law that you should ask. I know the sceptic will reason, " If God intends to give it, he will ; and if he does not, no power will alter it." That may be very fine metaphysics, fit for Scotch metaphysicians to discuss ; but we have learned from our Bibles " to pray always," and that earnest prayer wnll always be followed by great and precious blessings. And therefore, we will leave the metaphysicians at the bottom of the hill, while with Abraham and Isaac we go to the moun- tain top, and address our Father who is in heaven. In the next place, it is said, Jesus " was transfigured be- fore them." Mark says, " His raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them." His garment was changed, and his counte- nance shone like the sun. No wonder. He was the Sun of righteousness. His body was the same as ours ; but there was around it an aureole of glory and of beauty, indi- cating that this poor weeping sufferer on earth had connec- tion with God and with the skies, and teachino- us this 16G SCRIPTURE READINGS. blessed truth, that that body which we commit to the dust shall be like his glorious body. Jacob's Rachel, whose dust sleeps beneath the green sods of Palestine, shall rise, and her body shall be like this glorious body ; and our dead dust that we have committed to the tomb in the hope of the resurrection from the dead, shall all be quickened, raised, and made like unto his glorious body. And no doubt this trans- fisruration was to give us an idea what the resurrection shall be, and also to give us some perception of what the future glory and happiness of the saints is. It was, as it were, the cloud rolled away for a little, that we might see the gorgeous splendors that were behind it. It was a gate opened in this poor crypt of human life, that we might look up into the grand cathedral, and hear the anthem peal, and witness that glory that man's eye hath not seen, nor his ear heard, and that man's heart hath not for a moment other- wise conceived. But we read that along with Jesus there appeared Moses and Elijah. What was their function, and why did they appear ? I answer. To be competent witnesses of the spec- tacle that was then presented ; probably to return to the choirs of the blessed, and tell them what they had seen ; but more probably still, to testify, Moses, as the representa- tive of the law, that Jesus is the Prophet, w^ho, he said, should come after him, and whom they should obey in all things — and Elijah, as the representative of ancient proph- ecy, that all the prophecies meet and mingle, and are mag- nified in Christ. And thus, the law points with the finger of Moses, and all the prophets point with the finger of Elijah, to the Lamb of God as the great substance of the law's foreshadows, as the great echo of the promises of prophecy, as the woman's seed who shall bruise the ser- pent's head, the great Messiah, the glory of his people Israel. And thus the Old and the New Testaments are one ; the types and the shadows are all met in Christ, and MATTHEW XVII. 167 have their harmony there. I have often thought that of all inexplicable things the Book of Leviticus is the most singu- larly so, if you exclude the New Testament. I should infer that the God who gave that magnificent epitome of the moral law never could have condescended to lay down those little and paltry regulations and rubrics about dresses, forms, ceremonies, and sacrifices, if I did not know the New Testament. But let the light of the New Testament fall upon the Old, — let a portion of the glory of Mount Tabor struck from the countenance of Jesus fall upon the counte- nance of Moses, and then I can see that the Gospel accord- ing to Leviticus is as true as the Gospels according to St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke, and St. John. Take all the types and ceremonies of the Old Testament, and they re- mind one of what you have seen and learned at a watch- maker's board. You will see here one, and there another pin ; here a ratchet and there a mainspring ; and if you be a stranger to the work, you can see neither meaning nor object in them. But the watchmaker puts each in its place ; and what is the result ? That they all move, and intimate the hour of the day. The types, ceremonies, shadows, and prophecies of the Old Testament are like the fragments of the watch ; but when taken and put together, you find that there was a grand design ; and when you hear strike the epochal hour of heaven and earth — " It is finished," you learn what a great and consistent preparation was made for a great and magnificent result. It is thus, then, that Elijah and Moses came there to testify that in Him, who was the glory of Tabor, all was fulfilled. But let us see, as we notice these two visitants from heaven, what it was they talked about. Surely they must have been speaking, one would guess, of the glories of heaven, of the spectacles they had witnessed there, or of the glad scenes in which they had taken a part. No ; their conversation was respecting the decease of Christ. They 168 SCRIPTURE READINGS. talked with him, we are told by Mark and Luke, respecting his death. Now how remarkable is this, that these two ce- lestial visitants just come down from the unutterable glory should, when they conversed together one with the other, and both with Christ, speak only of his decease that he should accomplish at Jerusalem ! That very event which Peter deprecated they discussed. That very thing which the apostles scarcely understood formed there and then the burden of their conversation. Surely that was no mean death that was thus magnified. Surely that was no mere martyr's suffering that thus formed the leading topic of the conversation of the blessed in glory. And still amid the choirs of the saved the crucified appears in the glorified ; the cross is not merged, but rather magnified, in the splen- dors of the crown. The burden of ancient prophecy, as you will find in the Apocalypse, is the burden of the songs of the redeemed that are around the throne ; for they see a Lamb just as if lie had been slain ; and angels and re- deemed saints say unto him — " Thou art worthy ; for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation ; and hast made us unto our God kings and priests." The only strange incident, almost inexplicable at this scene is, that the disciples should have slept. Perhaps they were weary with watching the long night ; perhaps it is to teach us how much frailty mingles wdth our best and bright- est moments. How often have you been praying with the lip, when the heart has been asleep ! How often have you been sitting in that house of prayer, when the heart has been transacting business elsewhere ! How much have we all done even in our solemn things that needs to be re- pented of, and that will, if we ask of Him who knows our frailties and remembers that we are dust, be completely forgiven. Let us learn another lesson from this, and that is, the evi MATTHEW XVII. 169 dence that we have here, that the departed are not insensi- ble, as some have said, till the resurrection morn. You are aware that some persons have tried to prove that when death takes place there is total insensibility or suspension of consciousness until the first trump of the resurrection morn. Now this is only a sort of diluted Popish purgatory. The Roman Catholic says that the dead suffer in purgatory between death and the resurrection. A little milder form of this creed is, that they remain insensible till the resur- rection. But if either of these notions be true, what am I to understand by the Apostle Paul saying — " We are con- fident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord ? " (2 Cor. v. 8.) What did he mean by saying — "To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labor : yet what I shall choose I wot not. For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ ; which is far better ? " (Phil. i. 21-23.) What is the meaning of the benediction — "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth : Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors," — not remain insensible ? The body becomes insensible enough ; but the body itself is, properly speaking, a mere machine, and noth- ing more. This that you see is not I ; it is only what God has given me to enable me to communicate with .this mate- rial world, in which I must sojourn for a little season. And whenever the soul is fit for its translation, then, just as the petal drops when the fruit is formed, and the leaf withers when the tree has completed its cycle, so this body drops off, is laid in the grave, and there, in that KoifiTjTT/piov, or sleep- ing place, in " God's acre," as the Germans call it, it re- poses until a sound pierces the stony pyramid, the mauso- leum, and the green turf, and Pharaoh shall come from his chamber, and the peasant from his resting-place, and the lost sailor from beneath the waves, and the soldier from 15 170 SCRIPTURE READINGS. beneath the battle field, to give an account of the deeds done in the body, whether they have been good, or whether they have been evil. But 1 do hot beHeve there is in dying the least suspension of the continuity of consciousness. On the contrary, when you think the dying person is becoming insensible, I believe that he is becoming truly sensible. Just when to us he seems nearest dying, I believe that he is then becoming more and more conscious of truly living. Persons dying have given expression to what they felt and saw. I do not believe they were the dreams of fanaticism, but realities. As the outer vestment falls off, as the outer wall becomes thinner, the soul apprehends far more clearly. The celestial world may be far nearer us than we some- times fancy. We think that heaven is away there, or yon- der, or somewhere else ; it may be just a higher region of this world. It may be that the saved are chanting hymns beside us that we cannot hear ; and that they are now car- rying on a conversation that we cannot appreciate ; and that our dead in Christ may be nearer you and me at this mo- ment than our relatives across the Channel, or at the other side of the Tweed. They may be so near, that they can see and hear us ; but yet, we can neitlier see, hear, nor know them. At all events, Moses and Elias, who came forth at Mount Tabor, showed that there was at least a pos- sibility of communion between the dead in Christ and the living in Christ, both constituting together but one holy and happy group. We read that very shortly after they appeared, they departed. Why did they depart ? Their function was done. They deposited the seals of their office at the feet of Christ, and returned to their everlasting happiness. They came up, like the ministers of the sovereign, to surrender the seals of office they had received, and to retire to that happi- ness that they have for ever with the Lord. Now, you will notice that the apostles, seeing Moses MATTHEW XVII. 171 and Elijah, did not pray to them ; they prayed to Christ alone. If ever there was an occasion when saints might be prayed to, this was it ; for here the saints were not to be guessed to be hearing, but were seen to be within both hear- ing and seeing. If, therefore, it were ever competent to pray to glorified saints, it was upon Mount Tabor. But the disciples prayed only to Jesus, and that in a matter affect- ing Moses and Elijah : for Peter said — " Lord, it is good for us to be here : if thou wilt, let us make here three taber- nacles ; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias." They did not pray to Moses, — " Wilt thou permit us to build thee a temple ? " but they prayed only to Jesus, in a matter that concerned Moses and Elias : thus showing that w^e may neither now nor then worship and pray to saints, because Christ is all and in all. If Christ be what all Scripture pronounces him to be, then we can do without the broken cistern, seeing we have access to the full fountain. What is the use of a farthing taper candle amid the light of the glorious sun ? What is the use of the stars, when the sun is above the horizon ? If Christ be in his Church, — and where two or three are met together in his name he is present, — I want no one to help me, or to sympathize with me, to pray to, or to praise ; for he is all and in all in my affections, and he must be so in all our prayers, and praises, and worship. " Let us make here three tabernacles," said Peter. Now, in this there was much indicative of piety, and much also indicative of human frailty. Peter would be at any labor in order to build a tabernacle for his blessed Master, and he would not do it without his Master's consent ; for he says — " If thou will, let us make here three tabernacles." There was something most unselfish and charitable in this conduct of Peter; and yet there was great infirmity in it: for we are told tliat he knew not what he said. He was evidently bewildered and dazzled by the splendor of the spectacle, 172 SCRirTURE READINGS. and gave expression in the high impetuosity of his feelings to thoughts, imaginations, and dreams, that he knew not the drift, object, nor origin of. Under the same excitement he once said — " Lord, depart from me ; " and on this occasion, under excitement, he said — " Lord, let us make here three tabernacles." His great sin evidently was, that he looked for permanence on Mount Tabor. He did not regard it as a momentary burst of sunshine in a lonely and a black night, but he regarded it as a permanent heaven where he might dwell for ever. He could not bear the idea that Calvary must still be borne, that Gethsemane must still be moistened with a Saviour's tears, that the bitter cup must still be drunk ; and it is as if he had said — " Now, Lord, we have got uj)on a sunny spot ; let us not go down into that dark valley that is below. Let us build three tabernacles where we may live and worship for ever." He would, like most of us, have the crown without the cross. He would have heaven without the tribulation. He would have all the happiness without the tears, the pangs, the sorrows, that in the case of the Son of God were the only purchase of it. How much of Peter is in us all ! "We often fancy that some bright day that dawns upon us will last for ever, and we act accord- ingly. We are placed, perhaps, in domestic circumstances of sunshine and of happiness ; and we say to ourselves — • " This will last for ever." Ah ! hearths that are now bright will one day be black enough ; merry voices that now ring beneath a Christmas roof tree will soon be clioked with sorrow, or end in bitter weeping. Forms that cross the threshold will soon cross it no more : and footfalls that jire now sweet music to the iiunates will be heard in that house no more : and well-known faces will become strange, and all the splendor of the domestic Tabor that is now, will be exchanged for the tears, the sorrows, and the sadness of Gethsemane that will be. Let us feel that life's brightest spots are but transient Tabors ; that our best blessings are MATTHEW XVII. 173 but bright intervals of joy, not to detain us here, but to strengthen us to set out with brave hearts and with earnest feelings, to tread life's long road, pilgrims and strangers, looking for the rest that remaineth for the people of God. But let us rejoice that a Tabor is yet to come, that shall have no transience, the rest that remaineth for the people of God. And meantime, let us try to make every Sabbath day a Tabor, every Communion a transfiguration, and to carry forth the glory that we receive on the holy mount into all life's duties, that its most desert places may thus be refreshed and strengthened by our provision on the Sunday ; and that, cheered and animated by the vision that has swept before us, we may go with Christ whithersoever he leads, minding less the sorrow or the joy, the Tabor or the Gethsemane, but only making sure that we are his, and of them who through faith in Him inherit the promises. 15* CHAPTER XVII. THE GLORY AND THE CLOUD — THE VOICE OF JESUS THE BELOVED — HEAR HIM. Peter, not knowing what he said, proposed that there should be permanence where there was meant only to be transcience, thinking that Mount Tabor had become an out- post of heaven itself: "While he yet spake, a bright cloud overshadowed them." No doubt it was the shechinah, which means, " the dwelHng-place," or the cloud that marched in the wilderness, as a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night, and that filled the temple, and became the dwelling-place, where ever burned and shone the glory of a present and a propitious God. Perhaps, as Peter was daz- zled by the excessive splendor of the scene, the cloud was vouchsafed in kindness, to soften and to mitigate the intense light. It is said that he was bewildered and dazzled, and something was needed to intervene and to subdue the other- Avise insupportable glory. The great God we cannot now, but we shall hereafter see as he is. In the magnificent lan- guage of Plato, the greatest of heathen writers, " God is truth, and the bright light is his shadow." " Whom no man hath seen," we may add, " nor can see." Or, perhaps, the cloud was vouchsafed to separate Elijah and Moses from Peter, who longed to have them as his fel- low worshippers upon the Mount for ever. We know that a cloud carried Jesus at his ascension out of sight. It is in the original, ^'■the cloud; and the same cloud may have MATTHEW XVII. 175 here interposed to carry Moses and Elijali far away, or at least to render them invisible to the worshippers that were outside the vail. There may be between us and the blessed in glory but a thin partition. There may be but a cool- screen intercepting from us the intense, and, to us here, in- tolerable splendors of that Sun. It may be, that the blessed in heaven are nearer us than we are to neighboring parish- ioners. It may be that, though they have no part in all that is under the sun, and can take no duty amid the scenes and tribulations of this world, they see where even we do not see, and hear our praises, and notice us as the " cloud of witnesses," running the race set before us, " looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith." Heaven is not a mechanical and material distance ; it is moral and spiritual. This bright cloud, then, carried them away, or separated them from Peter, who wished them to continue, and be fel- low worshippers with him for ever. We read that a voice came out of the cloud, and that voice Peter, who was not, on the Mount of Transfiguration, as enlightened and as holy a man as he was when he wrote his Epistle, thus describes (2 Pet. i. 16, 17) : "We have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eye-witnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount." Now that voice was, " This is my be- loved Son, in whom I am well pleased." It was, in the first place, a distinctive testimony. It pointed to Jesus as " the woman's Seed " predicted to Adam ; as the Shiloh, of whom Jacob in his dying moments spake ; as the Prince of peace, the Wonderful, the Counsellor, the Mighty God, of Isaiah ; as David's Son ; as Abraham's 176 SCRIPTURE READINGS. Heir ; as that Divine Being, that only Mediatoi in whom all the promises and prophecies respecting the Messiah met, and were illustrated, and completely fullilled. The voice, then, was a distinctive voice. Moses was an illustrious saint, Elijah was the prince of the prophets, John was a stern and solemn reformer ; but all these must fall into the shadow, they must remain at the bottom of the Mount. " This," and this alone, *' is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." It must be in the modern temple, as it was upon the ancient Tabor. Every niche must be emptied of its idol, that Christ, the only begotten and beloved Son, may be all and in all. The expression applied to Jesus, " Son," we cannot clearly comprehend. Angels are God's sons by creation ; Christians are God's sons by adoption ; but Christ is God's Son in a sense infinitely superior to either. It may denote, and was understood by the Jews, who best understood their own language and its allusions, to denote essential deity; for we read (John v. 18), "The Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his Father ; " — (the Greek word used there for " his " is Traripa ISlov, denoting that God was his Father in a peculiar sense in which he is not the Father of any one on earth), " making himself equal with God." The Jews, therefore, understood that when Jesus called himself the Son of God, he assumed equality with God. And so he did : for He is " the brightness of his glory." " For," says the apostle in the Epistle to the Hebrews, " unto which of the angels said he at any time. Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee ? And again, I will be unto him a Father, and he shall be to me a son ? And again, when he bringeth in the first-begotten into the world, he saith. And let all the angels of God worship him." It is a blessed thought that Christ is God. Were he not God, I would also trust in Peter, as far as I could trust a human being, as MATTHEW XVII. 177 the foundation of the church. But it needs the everlasting arms to be around us ; it needs the attributes of Deity to sheUer us ; it needs Omnipotent j^ower as well as inexhaust- ible love to constitute a Saviour adequate to the rescue of one soul from the ruins of the Fall, and to the restoration of that soul to communion and fellowship with God. Never give up, except with Christianity, the precious conviction that Christ is God. The poor Romanist corrupts our creed by the addition of all that is human ; the misguided So- cinian deducts from our creed all that is most precious and divine ; the one adding what corrupts, the other subtracting what leaves but a human example instead of a Divine and all-precious Saviour. God says — " This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Now, God said over the earth, when He had created it, that it was " very good ; " but the most perfect reflection of Himself, the only perfect mirror of his glory, was Christ Jesus. Jesus was " God manifest in the flesh." All that man's eye can see of God is to be seen in Christ ; all that man's ear can hear of God, is to be heard from Christ. The only way to learn Avhat God is, and what he is to me, is to study that mirror which reflects most purely his glory, and to listen to that oracle that utters most exactly his holy and paternal voice. Jesus is the beloved Son of God, in whom (for it is the aorist of the Greek verb) he has been, is, and ever shall be, well pleased. Then, because he is God's Son, in whom he is well pleased, " hear ye him." Not Moses and Elijah, both of whom were on the mount. There cannot be a clearer testi- mony, than is contained in this passage, to the nature and the dignity of Christ's teaching. Hear not Elijah, who once spake with all the rapture of a prophet ; nor Moses, who wrote with all the majesty of a lawgiver, or at least a law proclaimer ; but hear Christ. In the writings of Moses, hear not Moses, but Christ. In the words of Elijah, hear not the 178 SCRIPTURE READINGS. prophet, but Christ. In the Gospel according to St. Mat- thew, hear not the publican, but hear the Son of God. Matthew, Peter, Paul, are the trumpets, but the breath of Jesus is that which gives them all their utterance, and all their emphasis. Read the Bible, therefore, seeking to see and hear Jesus. Some men read it to hear beautiful poetry ; and they will get their reward. Others read it to see exquisite history told with inimitable simplicity; and they will get their reward. Others read it to find the loftiest morality ; and they will get their reward. But the Chris- tian cannot be satisfied with the fairest and most fragrant flowers of this garden, till he find the Rose of Sharon. He cannot be satisfied with the shadow or the fruit of any tree that grows in it : he wants to eat of that tree, whose fruit is for food, and whose leaves are for the healing of the nations, and which grows in the midst of the paradise of our God. Therefore, when you open this blessed book, remember that as Jesus is " God manifest in the flesh," the Bible is Jesus speaking still to mankind. Christ is God incarnate ; the Bible is truth inspired. The Bible is the shadow of himself he has left behind ; it is the only relic the Christian Church contains that is genuine, and it is a most precious one. It is the only image that is allowed in the Church of Christ, the very image and likeness of God : and though the Bible be the nearest likeness to God, yet we must not worship even it, but only the grand and blessed original : — " worship God." Judging from these words, " Hear ye him," we learn we are not to hear the Church. When we open the book of Revelation, we find it said, not, " Hear what the Church says," but, " Hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches," — quite the reverse of the modern interpretation of the sub- ject. Hear the Church upon any matter of personal dis- pute ; but on all doctrinal decisions, on all that relates to the destiny of the soul, on all the knowledge that can guide you, MATTHEW XVII. 179 as a lamp to your feet and a light to your path, to everlasting glory, hear, not the Church, the often crashing and mistaken echo, but hear ye Christ, the great, musical, and only original, — " hear ye him." There are many reasons for hearing him. The first is, that what he says is possessed of the highest authority. The Church has ecclesiastical authority ; the congregation, con- gregational authority ; philosophers, human authority ; but what Christ says has the superscription of God, and the stamp) of divine and absolute authority. " Never man spake like this man." His enemies heard in his words a distinct- ness and an emphasis, that made them say, that he spoke as one having authority, and not as the Scribes. If you want a decisive authority to correct the errors of private judg- ment, you have one that can be purchased (what a privi- lege !) for lOd. or Is. — the Word of God. You do not want a General Council, or an infallible Pope ; you have the Lord Jesus Christ, the infallible authority, ever accessi- ble, ever eloquent, and, as we shall see presently, ever intel- ligible. He speaks with authority. The blind, whose eyes he opened ; the deaf, whose ears he unstopped ; the dead, whose cold dust he quickened ; the sea, whose waves he laid ; the winds, whose fury he quelled ; the multitudes he has saved by his grace, and is conducting to his glory ; — all proclaim, in one simultaneous acknowledgment, " We know that thou art a teacher come from God : for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with liim." In the second place, we are to hear Christ, because he speaks on subjects of the highest interest and importance. Truths are not equally important. Two and two are four, is a truth ; the sun rises and sets, is a truth ; any two sides of a triangle are together greater than the third side, is a truth ; the square of the hypothenuse of a right-angled tri- angle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two 180 SCRIPTURE READINGS. sides, is n truth ; but you may be successful in the world, and enter into glory, without ever having heard some of these truths. If you want to learn geology, go to the treatises of Buckland ; or geometrj^, read the " Principia " of Sir Isaac Newton ; but if you want to find Christianity, hear not Buckland, Sedgwick, Maclaren, nor Euclid. The great question that has perplexed the world for a thousand years, "What must I do to be saved?" has its solution only in Christ's words. The great query, " What is the way that leads nearest and surest to heaven ? " is answered in his simple and majestic utterances. All science, literature, and poetry, are earthborn lights, that will be quenched on the margin of the everlasting world ; but the light that has been lightened by Christ the Sun will only burn the brighter when suns shall have set to rise no more. Jesus speaks on those subjects which most deeply interest us, on which it is our greatest anxiety to gain information, with a clearness, emphasis, authority, and decision, that scatters all doubts, solves all perplexities, and brings it to pass that, while great scholars may blunder, the wayfaring man, seeking his way to heaven and nothing else, will not be permitted to err therein. In the next place, Christ's voice is a living voice. You have heard that many have left the Protestant Church, be- cause it has no living and speaking tribunal. They say, " We cannot learn what is truth." What a pity that they should forget so simple a prescription ^s this, " Hear ye Him ! " Jesus speaks. The Bible is, not only, " It is writ- ten," but, "The Spirit saith." "Hear ye Him," implies that Jesus speaks. You all know that there is a freshness and an eloquence in the Bible that you find in no other book upon earth. Very few poems will bear to be often read, — very few books will bear a second, still less a third reading ; but this Book, every time I read it, and try to ex- plain it, seems to have a freshness that never departs ; and, MATTHEW XVII. 181 like sweet music from the skies, it comes down to us with all the force and beauty of the original, unspent by the dis- tance through which it has traversed, breaking on many hearts, and on the thi-eshold of many homes, in the sweet chimes of mercy and truth that have met together, and righteousness and peace that have kissed each other. That righteousness that Avas uttered in Palestine is heard still on the streets of every capital ; and no one can listen to it, without prejudice, without discovering that, as never man spake like that Man, so never was book written to be com- pared with this Book that records what he stated. And what Jesus says is also intelligible ; and therefore "hear ye Him." It would be a strange thing if Christ spake, and Evangelists recorded his speech, but either that he spake so unintelligibly, or that they have recorded it so imperfectly, that we cannot understand what he meant. If man can convey his meaning to man, surely God can make known his mind to man. But the truth is, take the Bible as a whole, and it is the most intelligible book. It is the most thorough common sense ; it is the plainest and sim- plest book that ever came from the pen of man. I admit there are allusions in it that it needs historical knowledge to explain ; and it is the use of a minister to study them, and tell you what they mean. I admit there are renderings of the original in our Bible sometimes not so exact as we could wish them. I admit that parts of the Bible are pro- found ; but they are not against reason, they are only above reason ; and one must expect that a book that is a picture of the Infinite, as well as a declaration of duty for man, will contain touches and sketches that the finite cannot com- prehend. The Infinite God must always be revealed amidst darkness round his throne ; and I have no doubt we shall find in the epochs of eternity, that the more we know of God, the more we shall see beyond remaining to be known ; that our greatest light will be in the bosom of the greatest 16 182 SCRIPTURE READINGS. darkness, beccaiise an Infinite Being unveiling himself can only unveil portions of bis glory to finite beings ; and the very splendor of the part that is revealed will only make darker the vast mass of the obscure and unknown that re- mains beyond. We must expect in the Bible mysteries that the highest intellect cannot grasp. If it had been without mystery, it would have been without one great proof of its inspiration. But we may expect that on all questions of our safety in the sight of God, it will sjieak so plainly that there will be no difficulty in understanding its meaning. But while it speaks intelligibly, we must not for- get that it needs a heart prepared to understand it savingly. One man understands the Bible theoretically ; another man understands it savingly. By the light of nature I can un- derstand this Book as a })lainly written and intelligible book; but under the influence of grace only can I under- stand it, so as it shall be the salvation of my soul. And^ therefore, what we want, to get tlie power of the Bible felt in our hearts and consciences, is not an improved Bible, but an improved heart, — is not an alteration of, nor an addi- tion to, the old Book, but a total transformation of the old heart that is dead in trespasses and sins. The Bible, then, is an intelligible book. Christ speaks intelligibly ; there- fore " hear ye Him." And you are to hear him also, because it is to every man, in every place and in every age, that Christ speaks. He does not speak to a sect, a coterie, a country, a conti- nent; but he speaks, in catholic tones, catholic truths for all mankind. There is no mourner so depressed, that Christ speaks not to that mourner's heart. There is none so high, that he needs not to sit at the feet of Jesus, and learn the lessons of Christianity there. And, blessed be his Name, from that Mount Tabor there goes forth a voice that has its echo in every tongue, and a response from increasing thou- sands of hearts that are saved, sanctified, and ennobled by MATTHEW XVir. 183 its influence, and that will spread, until the whole of the nations of the earth are gathered around the Shiloh, to learn yet more the words that have led them to happiness, peace, and rest. When we hear Jesus, we are to hear him reverently. When we open this Book, and read it, we should remember that we are listening to the very words that fell from the lips of God incarnate. This Book is the authenticated and inspired report of what Jesus stiid and taught for our learn- ing. When our Queen sends a message to her Lords and Commons, they all rise up, and w-ith uncovered heads listen to the royal mandate. The King of kings has sent this message to us, and the highest lord and humblest commoner are equally welcome to hear it ; and both, with bov/ed hearts and reverent minds, ought to listen to, read, ponder, learn, and inw^ardly digest it. We ought to hear what Christ says wnth teachable dispo- sitions. " Except ye become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." Now, the great fault of many is that they come to hear for others. But as there is no salvation by proxy, there ought to be no hearing by proxy. Each individual in the Christian assembly ought to feel that he is as much spoken to by the preacher as if he were the only individual within these walls. Preaching, to do any good, must be personal. But there is needed, not only pointed personality in the highest and holiest sense of that word, but there is needed in the hearer insulation from all around him, and listening, just as he will listen to the footfall of the approaching Judge, and to the awful words that either enfranchise or wither for ever, " Come, ye blessed," or " Depart, ye cursed." Listen to this voice, as it is emitted from this oracle, God's holy Word, not, as crit- ics, to discuss how the preacher handles it ; nor as play- goers, to witness a fine dramatic spectacle ; nor yet as opera frequenters, to listen, as Ezekiel's hearers did, to one 184 SCRIPTURE READINGS. who sings a beautiful song, or plays well upon an instru- ment; but come as poor, lost, ruined, guilty sinners, sitting down with the teachableness of little children, — forgiving what the preacher says, which has not its basis in his Mas- ter's message, but receiving with joy, humbleness, and grati- tude what the preacher speaks, which has its foundation in God's holy Word. And " hear ye Him," with personal, special, and practical application. " Be not," says James, " a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the word." Recollect that you came to hear a sermon, not as a duty, but us the means towards the dis- charge of duty. Some persons come to a Protestant church, and sit in it with the thorough feeling of Roman Catholics. They come to hear a sermon just as the Roman Catholic goes to hear Mass. They regard it as a duty ; and think, when the sermon has been preached, and the con- gregation dismissed, that the duty has been discharged. It is not so. You come to hear the minister's prescriptions, that you may go out and carry it into practice. The ser- mon is but begun when it is finished ; and it has only been heard as Christ's voice should be heard, when you translate the preacher's address into the every-day practical life of this hard, weary, and working world. The sermons you have heard to-day are for your use in your shops, your counting-houses, your drawing-rooms, wherever God in his providence may have placed you, to-morrow ; and the proof that you have heard Christ, and not his servant, is that you not only do, but enjoy it as comfort and nutriment. The sanctuary is for hearing ; the world is for working. And you may depend upon it, people will most approve of your minister, when they see his sermons translated in your prac- tice, and there eloquently, instantaneously, and silently, reason of righteousness, and temperance, and judgment. Hear Christ's words also with a deep and solemn sense of responsibility. I know not a more solemn position upon MATTHEW XVI I. 185 earth than that of a hearer of those great truths, which shall not sleep, but must meet you again at the judgment- seat of God. On the Royal Exchange, it is said, the busi- ness of the world is transacted. In the House of Commons, it is said, war, and peace, and the progress of the nation, are settled. But on the floor of a Christian Church infi- nitely greater, even inexhaustible issues and destinies, are wound up, and settled probably for ever. It is a most sol- emn truth that this gospel, however plainly, if purely, preached, is to every-body who hears it the savour of life, or the savor of death. ISTo man leaves hearing an honest, faithful sermon, exactly as he entered. He goes out more predisposed to receive the next message, or to. reject it. If you can make up your mind to-day to resist the appeal that is made to your conscience, then you have made up your mind more successfully to do it to-morrow, until a process of hardening goes on, that makes men come to the sanctu- ary, hearing as if they heard not, and literally being har- dened, not benefited and blessed, by the everlasting Gospel. It is so in all the laws of nature. A person who sleeps where a mill-wheel constantly goes, cannot well sleep with- out its noise ; persons in this great metropolis are so accus- tomed to the roar of its carriages, that if it were to cease, their rest would be disturbed ; and so, a person who can hear without attention the Gospel pointedly addressed to his conscience, becomes at length so casehardened, that the word hits the hard heart, and rebounds and disappears. What a solemn thought is it, then, that truths are spoken in these walls that will rise at the judgment-seat, either in echoes of sweet music justifying you, or in crashes and reverberations of endless and inexhaustible sorrow and remorse ! What a solemn truth is it, that seeds are sown here, which will grow up, either into harvests of beautiful wheat that the Master will gather into his everlasting gar- ners, or into weeds, thistles, and thorns, that are fit only for 186 SCRIPTURE READINGS. the burning! Then hear these words with a deep sense of responsibihty, — "I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with hira, and he with me." " Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Hear Christ's voice, as that voice is spoken through his Word, impartially. Do not hear a truth to-day, and say, " How I love that truth, and with what delight shall I go to hear that preacher address me again ! " but next Sunday, upon hearing another truth, say, " I cannot hear it, I will not go to listen to him any more." My dear friends, you must not ask,." Is this palatable ? " but, " Is it true ? " Not, " Does it dovetail with my creed ? " but, " Is it the echo of the words of the Son of God ? " One man can hear with delight this truth, " Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling ; " but when he hears next Sunday the words that follow, " For it is God which worketh in you, both to will'and to do of his good pleasure," he cannot hear it. A person of the Antinomian school can hear these words with great gratification, '' No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him," (John vi. 44) ; but when he hears, " Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life," (John v. 40,) he cannot bear it at all. Now, we must hear truth, whether it have the sanction of great men, or not. We must go as individual souls, and kneel at the feet of Jesus, and listen, not to what Elijah says, or to what Moses writes, or to what synods have decided, but, " This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased ; hear ye him." We are to hear only what Christ says. By all means study commentaries. Some of them are very useful, though others are very unsatisfactory ; and sometimes the commen- tary spoils the original. But above all, keep closely in con- tact with God's holy word. Contact w^itli man's word gener- ates scepticism; contact with the priest's word generates MATTHEW XVII. 187 superstition ; contact with Christ's word creates Christianity. Keep close to this blessed Book ; study it deeply and rev- erently. I purchased the other day a Book of the Psalms, published by Bagster, where the parallel passages are in full, and you have no idea what a force is given to a Psalm when it is thus set like an apple of gold in a network of silver. Study God's word, above all, in its own beautiful light. All ancient usage, • all illustrious learning, must remain at the foot of the Mount ; and even Peter, James, and John, who alone went up, must not speak, but listen : for " this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased ; hear ye him." I need not say, it is our privilege to hear him : 1 will not call it our duty. Ah! if we had only a couple of years in Florence, we should then begin to feel what a precious privi- lege is a Bible, that no priest's coarse hand dare close, and for the reading of which no court or judge can inflict upon you a penalty. In this great land of ours, great amid all its defects and deficiencies, there is a freedom, religious, politi- cal, national, for which w^e cannot be too thankful ; and you may depend upon it, it is the Bible that is the fountainhead of it all ; and the way to preserve all is to hold fast this blessed charter, to have it incorporated in our inmost hearts, the man of our counsel, the word upon the right and left, saying continually, " This is the way : walk ye in it." Lastly, hear the voice from Tabor, not for yourselves only, but for others. Hear that you may speak ; receive that you may give. Every man ought to be in his place a minister and preacher of the truth. There is no fear that the Tractarian notion, that the ministerial office will be trod- den underfoot, will be realized. There is no risk of too many becoming preachers of the Gospel ; there is no fear of too many going into the dens and wretched courts of this great metropolis, and telling the downtrodden of a Savioui., the lost and the dying of a great salvation. CHAPTER XVII. COMING OF ELIJAH — A FATHER'S PRAYER — LUNACY — SATAN 'S MIMICRY — IGNORANCE OF THE APOSTLES — AN ECCLESIASTICAL TAX. Then "his disciples asked him," evidently building upon His advice, " Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come ? " They said well. All prophecy predicts the coming of Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord — not before his crucifixion, but hefore his second advent. " And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come " — it is an absolute prophecy. And what shall he do ? " Restore all things." Then John the Baptist could not have been this Elijah. Elijah was seen on the mount, the companion of Moses, the representative of the Prophets ; but John the Baptist, of whom Jesus says, " that Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed," 'could not have been the same as the Elijah who appeared on the mount. Nay, when John was asked, he said, " I am not the Christ. And they asked him, What then ? Art thou Elias ? And he saith, I am not." Then how can we reconcile the two passages ? It is said in Luke i. 17, that John the Baptist " should go before him in the spirit and power of Elias ;" but John the Baptist was not Elijah ; he was not the fulfilment of the prophecy of Elijah ; and I believe, not because I guess it, but because the Bible asserts it, that before Christ's second advent Eli- jah will come, the herald of his glory, just as before Christ's first advent the Baptist came to herald his sorrow and his MATTHEW XVII. 189 suffering. I believe it upon this text, as well as others, " Elias truly shall first come " — still future — " and resto-re all things." Did John restore any thing ? He restored nothing. He was the inspired rebuker of a country's sins, and he bade them prepare for the reception of that country's Lord ; but he literally restored nothing. And, therefore, this must apply to what shall be, and not to that which has already been. " When they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him, and saying, Lord, have mercy on my son." Whether this man was a Chris- tian, I know not. He knelt down, which was homage, if he were not a Christian ; or it was worship, if he was. In the Christian church men have often disputed about forms. It is a pity that they should do so. In some parts of Scripture it is said that they kneel at worship, in other parts that they stand ; and the only form which is not mentioned is that which prevails at many places, namely, sitting at public worship ; there is no instance of that in the word of God. I know it is often difficult in our churches, so crowded, and so inconvenient in many respects, either to kneel sometimes, or to stand ; and in such circumstances God hears the prayer of the beating heart, which is true and genuine devotion. It is not, after all, the form that God looks to, but the spirit ; he looks not at this mountain or that, but at the heart of him who kneels, or stands, or reclines upon it. He said, " Have mercy on my son : for he is a lunatic." You can easily see the origin of that word " lunatic." In the Greek it is said that his son G£krivLaC,trai, "was moon- struck," or, literally, " leaps to the moon ; " and our word " lunatic " comes from the Latin word luna^ " the moon." There has always been supposed to be some connection between the moon and certain phases of madness. I am not competent to say whether there really is, but popularly it is so believed ; and, therefore, to say that a man is " lunatic," 190 SCRIPTURE READINGS. is simply to say that he is a madman, or a man influenced by the moon. But this man was more than that ; he was also demoniacally possessed : for it is said, " Jesus rebuked the devil ; and he departed out of him." Now it is not the fact that lunacy and demoniacal possession are one and the same thing, though both may be united in one person. It is ob- vious, here, that a demon took advantage of liis lunacy ; for it is impossible to suppose that this man was merely lunatic, when we find Jesus rebuking the devil that was within him. He did not rebuke the man, but the devil who had found a lodgement in his frame. I do not believe there are demoniac possessions now. It seems that they ceased when Christ rose from the dead. The devil always adapted his diplo- macy or his movements to the spiritual phasis of the day. When, for instance, Moses wrought his miracles, the magi- cians, by the inspiration of Satan, wrought supernatural feats in mimicry also. I do not think they were tricks ; I think that many of them were real supernatural acts. And so, when Jesus came in the flesh, Satan seems to have come in the flesh also, for demoniac possessions took place then that had not taken place, at least to the same extent, before. But now this is the dispensation of the Spirit ; and Satan does not take possession of the body, but he still worketh in the children of disobedience. The Holy Spirit is the great Agent in this economy among the children of God ; and Satan is the spirit that worketh in the children of disobe- dience. Satan is ever counterfeiting the work of God ; the false coin, indicating by its appearance the nature of the true — Satan's mode of acting being the counterpart of God's. Now the man said, " I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him." And " then Jesus answered and said," not in passion, nor in anger, " unbelieving and un- manageable generation," for that is the meaning of the words, " how long shall I be with you ? how long shall I suffer you " — or, bear patiently with you ? " bring him MATTHEW XVII. 191 hither to me." When we read this in our translation, we fancy it is the language of hasty and precipitate passion. It is not so : it is cahn and dehberate. " And Jesus rebuked the devil ; and he departed out of him ; and the child was cured from that very hour." He was cured, in addition to the exodus of the devil. Then the disciples asked Jesus, " AVhy could not we cast him out ? " And Jesus said, " Because of your unbelief." You say, Why should belief make the departure of a devil easier than unbelief? I answer, Why should faith be neces- sary to our salvation through the death and sacrifice of Christ Jesus ? It is God's ordinance that faith in the individual shall be connected with effects in his conduct and character ; and it is the same in working miracles as in producing the peaceable fruits of righteousness. But you say. If faith could remove a mountain then, which I believe to be liter- ally meant, does faith remove mountains now ? I answer, No. You say. Why ? Because it is not God's pleasure. Pie who gives faith fixes its limits. When, therefore, you hear any body of men say, " We can do miracles," do not say, " I will not believe," but bid them come and do them : and as a miracle is an appeal to the senses, they are compe- tent judges of it. But for any body of men to say, " We do miracles," as the Church of Rome says, and yet to per- sist in doing them in a corner, makes us suspect that they are really not done at all. If there be a miracle, show it. If there be none, do not pretend to do it. If you ask, Why did God allow miracles to faith then, and not allow miracles to faith now ? I answer, It is fact that he did allow them then, and it is also fact that he does not allow them now. Why or wherefore we know not, but we shall know hereafter. Perhaps miracles are now not needed. The seals are affixed. Again, Jesus told them of his approaching death — " The Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of men : and 192 SCRIPTURE READINGS. they shall kill him, and the third day he shall be raised again." And see how unenlightened the apostles were, — " They were exceeding sorry." The apostles were, many of them, prior to the day of Pentecost, wofully unenlight- ened. It is often so still. Many a true Christian may get to heaven holding errors, and very unenlightened in many things, provided he hold the main thing ; but some of these apostles seem at this stage, and before the day of Pentecost, to have been ignorant of vital things. They were sorry that Christ should suffer. Peter was constantly holding him back. " Far be it from them," was his language, not know- ing that the death of Jesus would be the life of his people, and that, if Christ did not bear a heavy cross, we should never wear a blessed crown. And when they were come to Capernaum, they that received tribute-money came to Peter, and said, " Doth not your master pay tribute ? " Now, to comprehend this allu- sion, you must understand it was the tem[)le money that was here demanded, and not a civil tax inflicted by Caesar for Cajsar's maintenance. It was an ecclesiastical tax, or what we should call a church-rate inflicted on the people for the maintenance of the temple and the means of public worship in that country. Jesus said, " What thinkest thou, Simon ? of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute ? of their own children, or of strangers ? " Peter ansv/ered, " Of strangers ; " that is, the sons of princes in ancient times did not pay tribute, but only the citizens or the people. Now Jesus says, " As this is an ecclesiastical tax for the maintenance of the temple, I am the Son of the great King, and therefore I may plead exemption from the payment of this tax." But that there might be an example 'for you, and for all people, he paid a tax for the mainten- ance of a religion that was corrupt. Now suppose that I were, what I am not, opposed to the established rehgion of the country 1 live in, I should give my money without best- MATTHEW XVII. 193 tatioii towards its maintenance if enjoined by the laws. If I were in Turkey, I would pay the money that the sultan demands for the maintenance of religion there ; and if I were in Plindostan, I would pay the rate levied for the maintenance of Hindooism, if it were ordered to be paid by competent authority. I would try to do every thng in my power to get a repeal of the tax, if so allowed ; but as long as the rate is law, so long it is duty to pay it. I do there- fore believe that some of our brethren do not act according to the clear and obvious meaning of the New Testament, when they refuse to pay church-rates that are exacted by competent authority. Try to alter the law, if you like ; but as long as the law exists, obedience to it is duty. You say to me, perhaps, That is your opinion, because you belong to a church establishment. It is no such thing. I base it upon this solemn deed of our blessed Lord. Whether it were church or dissent, it is certain that he wrought a miracle in order to pay the ecclesiastical tax that was due for mainten- ance of the temple of Jerusalem. If I should be called upon to pay towards the support of the religion of the coun- try in which I happen to reside, if it be a false religion, I am sorry for it : but if it be the same as my own, except as regards forms, I am surely large-hearted enough to pay towards its maintenance, and to thank God for true religion under whatever formulary it is maintained. HoTE. — [26.] The whole force of this argument depends on the fact of the payment being a divine one. It rests on this : if the sons are free, then on me, being the Son of God, has this tax no claim. K^vaog, money taken after the reckoning of the census ; a capitation tax, — a Latin Avord. 'AlloTpiuv, all Avho are not their children, those out of their family. [27.] In this, which has been pronounced (even bv Olshausen) the most difficult miracle in the Gospels, the deeper 17 194 SCRIPTURE READINGS. Student of our Lord's life and actions will find no difficulty. That not^vithstanding this immunity, we, (graciously including the apostles in the earthly payment, and omitting the distinction between them, which was not now to be told to any,) that we may not offend them, will pay what is required, and shall find it furnished by God's special providence for us. In the foreknowledge and power which this mira- cle implies, the Lord recalls Peter to that great confession which his hasty answer to the collectors shows him to have again in part forgot- ten. — Alford. CHAPTER XVIII. DISPUTE ABOUT SUPREMACY — A LITTLE CHILD — OFFENCES-^ GUARDIAN ANGELS — LOST ORB — TELL IT TO THE CHURCH — FORGIVENESS. I DO not know a more beautiful, expressive, or instructive chapter in the whole Gospel of St. Matthew, if I except the fifth, than that which I have read. It is full of lessons for every-day practice, applicable to all circumstances, and fitted to convey precious personal instruction to all who have ears to hear, and hearts at all willing to be taught. Recollect, that in the previous chapter but one Peter had received what seemed a sort of supremacy or superiority. Accordingly, a dispute arises in the commencement of this chapter, partly from the recollection, it may be, of the ap- parently special prerogative with which Peter seemed invested, partly owing to our own fallen and sinful temper, to the effect which should be greatest in the kingdom of heaven It is quite plain, that if they had understood our Lord to make Peter chief, and head, and pope, they never would have dreamed of immediately afterwards disputing which of them should be greatest. That very dispute ■which then arose, Avhile it indicates the frailty of those who engaged in it, no less clearly proves that they did not understand that Peter was invested with any ecclesiastical supremacy. When this dispute occurred, Jesus took a little child, his favorite model, — for on more than one occasion He, who truly appreciated what infancy is, set forward a child as a 196 SCRIPTURE READINGS. specimen, alike of those who in number, in temper, in char- acter, and in years, constitute the kingdom of heaven. There runs through the whole of this passage a recognition of children as the special subjects of Christ I have often said, what, I think, can be proved from Scripture, that all children who die in infancy, before years of responsibility, that is, before seven, eight, or nine years of age — without specifying a year, Avhich we have no right to do, because children vary in their intellect, character, and sense of moral obligation — are saved, baptized or unbaptized, of believing or unbelieving parents ; for we make no distinc- tion in that respect. I cannot now indicate my reasons ; but I am sure that they are quite sufficient to bear the superstructure of the conclusion that I have now stated. Jesus took a child, on whom he looked thus lovingly : and having set the child before them, he said — " Except ye be converted." This conversion is not what we understand by regeneration. He is speaking to the apostles who had turned in the wrong direction ; and he says — " Unless you turn round, change totally your opinion, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." Now, what is it in a little child that is so worthy of imitation ? First, its confidence in its parent. That confidence, in the case of an infant, is complete. Let a stranger come into a room, and look upon an infant, it will instantly hide its tiny head in its mother's bosom, as if con- scious that the spring of its life, comfort, and peace, were there. Secondly, a little child has great teachableness. You may teach it fables or truths, it alike receives them. Its teachableness is one of its bright and beautiful charac- teristics. Our Lord says. If you wish to be Christians of the highest order and stamp, you must have the confidence in your Father that little children have in their parents ; and the teachableness before me, that little children indi- cate as they listen to their parents. " Whosoever, there- MATTHEW XVIII. 197 fore, shall humble himself as this little child," that is, be teachable, " the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven." What a condemnation to all supremacy, alleged to have been given to Peter, and claimed by his pretended succes- sors ! Not he who is highest in ecclesiastical dignity, but he who is lowliest in Christian humility, is the greatest in the Church of Christ, the kingdom of heaven. He solemnly declares — " Whoso shall offend one of these little ones," or those of whom children were the types, " which believe in me, it were better for him that a mill- stone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea." Perhaps the reference here is to Judas. It were better that any one had died be- fore he should commit such an offence, that is, mislead to everlasting destruction a professing follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. He adds — " Woe unto the world because of offences ! " the world will suffer for them, — " for it must needs be that offences come " — there is no avoiding them in this imper- fect dispensation ; but there is guilt, notwithstanding, in the person who brings, or provokes, or creates them — "but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh ! " He repeats, in the 8th and 9th verses, what is stated in another chapter — "If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out." Now obviously this is not to be understood literally. He is speaking in figurative language, using the most expres- sive similes in order to convey solemn, important, and para- mount duties. The meaning of the passage plainly is, that whatever stands in your way to heaven, let it be as valua- ble as a right-hand that will defend you, or as dear as an eye that can see all that is beautiful in nature, you must part with it, rather than fall, stumble, or come short in your progress to the kingdom of God, and everlasting happiness. You will find, by looking at the fifth chapter of this Gos- pel, that a number of similar material figures are employed, 17* 198 SCRIPTURE READINGS. each meant to convey an instructive moral lesson. For any one to understand these literally, would be to act as ab- surdly as the Roman Catholic, who understands " This is my body " literally. It would be giving a carnal inter- pretation to that which is the vehicle of moral instruction. " Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones ; for I say unto you. That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my father which is in heaven." Dr. Wiseman quotes this text, in his Lectures, in order to show that there are guardian angels, and that every person upon earth has his angel who attends to him. Well, suppose the Cardinal's notions were literally and strictly true, it would not prove that the Christian, watched by an unseen angel, should turn round and worship him. It is one thing to have an angel as my servant, — it is quite another thing for me to make that angel my God, or my intercessor at God's right-hand. If the angel serve me, I am thankful to the God who sends him ; but on no account am I to worship that angel, either for his dignity or from the services he can and does render me. Nay, the experiment was made by mistake once. John fell down to worship before the feet of the angel who showed him certain things, (^. e. acted as a ministering servant,) in the Apocalypse ; and what did the angel say ? " See thou do it not : for I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book : worship God." It is quite plain, then, that even granting, for argument's sake, that there are what are called guardian angels, it does not follow that we are to worship them. But the truth is, there is no indica- tion here of a guardian angel at all. We are to explain the passage in the light of that assertion in Hebrews i. 14, "Are not the angels all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation ? " We do not deny the existence of angels, because we do not wor- ship them. We do ir)t deny that angels visit us, because MATTHEW XVIir. 199 we refuse to adore them. Angels are ministering spirits. Nay, it is the proof of a Christian or a child of God, that angels came from heaven to minister to him. " Do always behold the face of my Father " is an expression that occurs frequently in speaking of Eastern courts. " I shall see the face of the king," or, " they were permitted to see the king's face," means to be admitted into his presence. All that the passage proves, therefore, is, that angels are in the presence of God " before his face," ever ready, waiting, and willing to go forth on messages of mercy and of ministration to all God's people, scattered throughout the world. In other words, our blessed Redeemer presents himself here as the true Jacob's ladder, down which angels came to minister to them who are the heirs of salvation. Then he illustrates the idea of looking after lost ones by this ; that if a man have a hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, he wdll leave the ninety and nine, and go and seek that which is gone astray. It is so with a sinner. Suppose there were a hundred or a thousand millions in the world, and a hundredth part had gone astray, God misses that small part, and thinks more of it than of those who keep their first estate. Angels in countless myriads keep their first estate, and are in glory ; but Jesus came after us to recover us ; and thus has left the ninety and nine who are in heaven, and come after the lost ones that are here. Or, to take the idea that Dr. Chalmers understood it to involve : there are thousands of worlds beside our own ; it is absurd to imagine that those gigantic ma^es we call stars, which are vastly larger than our own world, are empty spheres. They are inhabited. All that we know is, that this is the only fallen world. Well, God has left the ninety and nine orbs, that needed no salvation — because guilty of no sin, — and has come after the stray world that needs to be recovered, because it has gone astray. And, bless'id be his name, he missed so minute a thing amid the shining mul- 200 SCRIPTURE READINGS. titudes of the sky, and that after this little thing, which might have been expunged without leaving a single gap, he has come, and at last redeemed it at a great price. He next speaks of trespasses ; " Moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against thee," you are not to challenge him to fight a duel, but you are to go and tell him what he has done, and what is your opinion of it, and ask him to satisfy you by explaining it, or, as he ought to do if he has done wrong, by making a humble apology for it. Then, " if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother ; " but if he is a man of a very irritable and wrathful temperament, take with you one or two more, in order that you may be backed by proper advocates, who will give their opinion, and by their weight, authority, and good sense, bring your brother to his right mind. But if he will not then attend to you, " tell it unto the church." Now, what can " the church " mean here ? It is absurd to interpret this to mean a general council. The last General Council closed its sittings in 1564, and that was a sham one, for it was packed with the pope's prelates, and the most impartial men, because im- partial, were kept out of it. Infallibility, therefore, if it reside in a general council, has been dead for nearly 300 years. But if this mean a general council, are two people who quarrel about a paltry matter to go and prevail on the pope to summon a general council, in order that all the bishops of Christendom may settle the dispute ? The thing is absurd. It cannot mean, either, that a general assembly, or a synod, or st presbytery, are to be called together. It means that the dispute is to be told to the church, i. e., the Christian laity assembled within four walls. The idea of the church here, while I hold the propriety and scriptural war- rant of a provincial and a national church, is the original one, or the church congregational ; and it is to it that you are to tell your dispute. It is not to the representatives of it. Alford, a most able and accomplished critic on the New Tes- MATTHEW XVIII. 201 tament, though he once held very high ecclesiastical notions, declares that the idea that this means a general council, or representative body, or any thing of that sort, is quite untenable. The last place to which I would refer a quarrel between two Christians Avould be the General Assembly in Scotland, the Convocation in England, or a General Council in Rome ; for they would make the matter infinitely worse. I would select half-a-dozen plain Christians, peasants or tradesmen, and ask them to give their judgment, and so settle the controversy, in preference to all the councils or synods that ever met ; and it is evidence of the wonderful wisdom of this blessed Book that so simple but practical a prescription is here given. " But if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a pub- lican." He is not to be persecuted or burned, but simply to be separated from your society until he repent, acknowledge his fault, and return. In the 19th verse, our Lord plainly shows Avhat he means by the church : " If two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father w^hich is in heaven." What an encour- agement to social prayer ! Private prayer is most precious ; but here there is a special promise of a special answer to congregational prayer offered up by two or three met to- gether in the name of Jesus. Then, in the 20th verse, he explains still further what is meant by the church : " For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." "Unto him shall the gathering of the people be." (Genesis xlix. 10.) Wherever two or three are gathered together in Christ's name, there is a true church. The minister is an officer necessary to instruct, an ordinance and institution of Christ ; but he is not the church. The clergy are not the church ; they are officers of the church : and if the ministers were left without the people, they would make a very sorry 202 SCRIPTURE READINGS. church indeed. The officers of the army are not the army : it is the mass of the soldiers that constitute the army ; the officers are the leaders. It is the laity who constitute the church ; the ministers or clergy are but the leaders and in- structors of it. If you let go that precious thought that you are the church, and delegate that presence, power, and pre- rogative to any synod or convocation upon earth, you com- mit ecclesiastical suicide, you denude yourselves of your great and precious privilege. How simple is that description ! " Where two or three." It does not say it must be in a place consecrated by presbyter, prelate, or pope. It may be on the tesselated pavement and under the fretted roof of the grand cathedral, or it may be on the hill-side, or on the streets of Jerusalem : and holier churches met on these last than ever met in mediaeval cathedrals in the history of European Christendom. There is a church, if two or three meet anywhere in Christ's name. We are apt to be im- pressed by the sight of a vast multitude ; and I know nothing more impressive than to see, as I saw the other day in Exeter Hall, five or six thousand met together to listen to the precious truths of the Gospel. The greatest grandeur is moral, not material. However, lest we should suppose that there is no church except where there is a crowd, Christ says, "Where two or three are gathered to- gether in my name." But the essential is, "gathered together in Christ's name." What makes a palace? The residence of the sovereign. What makes a church ? The presence of Christ. If there be no king, there is no palace. If there be no Lord and Saviour to descend into the congregation, there is no Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. I ought to add, that there has been a great misinterpreta- tion of this. Some of you may remember a sermon preached by a great northern divine, headed " Hear the Church ; " in which his argument was, that every man was listening to MATTHEW XVIII. 203 his private judgment, and the consequence was endless schism and dispute ; and that the only way to avoid this was to listen to the church, as in this passage. But there is not a word about differences in doctrine here. We are told to hear the church on personal disputes; but we are not there- fore to conclude that we are to hear the church on doctrinal matters. It may be a competent judge on personal quarrels ; it may be a very incompetent one on doctrinal questions. And besides — if private judgment be liable to so many errors, it ought not to be disguised that ecclesiastical judg- ments have been liable to very grave imputation of serious errors too. And again, when the Tractarian tells you that private judgment has done so great mischief, you will find that all his conclusions have no better foundation to rest upon than private judgment. How does a Roman Catholic find out the true church ? He exercises his private judg- ment upon the Bible, history, and evidence ; and then comes to the conclusion, that a certain corporation is the church. Well, if private judgment be sufficient for this, surely we may trust it to find out the only Saviour and the way to heaven. If private judgment be good in the former case, surely it is not worse in this last. But the Roman Catholic says, " After we have found the true church, we exercise private judgment no more ; " i. e. he is sane while he is out- side the church, but the instant he crosses the threshold he becomes insane. This is a strange and very perilous con- clusion, and would lead to very sad issues, as we should find, if we could here follow them out. " Then came Peter to him, and said. Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?" You recollect, Peter had a special privilege — " Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona : whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven ; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." Now Peter hearing that an assemblage of laymen were invested with the same 204 SCRIPTURE READINGS. power as himself, as you will see they were in the 18th verse, seems to have felt a little jealous : for he says, " How oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him ? '* He did not state openly what was in his own mind, but he asked a question that he thought would lead our Lord to give him some explanation as to whether there was any real distinction between his prerogative and the prerogative of a company of believers. Jesus answered, " You are to forgive your brother, if he sin against you, seventy times seven times." And then he gives a most instructive parable. " The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants ; " and one of them, evi- dently a satrap, subject to the supreme emperor, owed him a large sum. He " commanded him to be sold ; " but the prince asked for patience, and his master gave him more than he asked, for he frankly forgave him the debt. You will notice that the master was not Christ, but that the par- able is an illustration of Christ's way of love; and the expression " fell down and worshipped him," means simply, he paid him proper respect or homage. Well, then, you would have thought that this servant, so unexpectedly and so frankly forgiven, would have had such a spirit of forgive- ness, that he would have forgiven seventy times seven. Instead of that, he was so forgetful of his obligations, that when he found that one of his fellow-servants owed him a very small sum, he exacted the utmost penny, and cast him into prison because he could not pay, and would not let him out of prison till he had paid him all. This is just man still. We forget how much we have received ; and therefore how much we owe. Our Lord sums up the whole by say- ing, " And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tor- mentors, till he should pay all that Avas due unto him. vSo likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not everyone his brother their tres- MATTHEW XVIII. 205 passes." It is said the king had begun to reckon. And first, he laid hold of one of his servants — an eminent one it may be, but he was, to use the common expression, " accidentally " the first. He did not select the greatest debtor, but the very first that came to his hand, and him he found to be a great defaulter — one that owed a very large sum ; teaching us that there may have been others that owed him much more, that this one may have been the lightest and not the heaviest debtor, and thus far suggesting to us, If thou, O Lord, shouldest — not select the greatest sinner and mark his iniquity — but, if thou shouldest mark iniquity, yours, mine, or anybody's, who could stand ? This servant, we read in the next clause, was " brought unto him," when he had begun to reckon. " One was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents." This also is expressive. The man was brought unto him ; he never would have come himself. The last thing that a debtor that cannot pay will do is to face his creditor. What a remarkable fact is this ! There is something in sin that makes it skulk and shrink into a nook, and court darkness. A man that cannot bear to look you in the face has some- thing within that does not sit comfortably there. " He that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God." Thus this con- scious debtor would not have come to his creditor spontane- ously, of his own freewill, because sin dislikes that which reminds it of its turpitude. And if this was true of this debtor in reference to his creditor, it is no less so of us debtors in reference to our great creditor, God. What is the character of sin? It keeps the sinner at a distance from God. This is the very first and the most permanent effect that is produced by sin ; so that instead of going with our sin to God's mercy to have it expunged, we keep at a distance from God. And what is the effect of our keeping at a distance from him ? That we are treasuring up addi- 18 206 SCRIPTURE READINGS. tional debt and wrath against the day of wrath. Therefore it is never until we see God, not in the light of a creditor, (that is the natural man's light,) but in the light of a Father, that we go to him. It is not until we see God in his pater- nal character that we can go to him and say, '' Forgive us." We read in the 25th verse, " Forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and his children, and a payment to be made." By the Roman law^, a man's wife and children were his goods and chattels ; they were forfeited by his crime, and might be made slaves ; and even by the Jewish law the punishment reached also those that were beneath him. So far this teaches us a very important lesson : that sin in the head of a house, or of a province, or of a nation, brings down judgment upon inferior rulers, upon children, upon wife, upon all that is his. In other words, it shows that visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children is not a mere dry Calvinistic dogma, as it has been called, but that it is providentially and actually true ; it is true because God has said it, and obvious because facts prove it. We read " that his lord commanded him to be sold, his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made." It is not said that these when sold produced money adequate to meet the just demand ; but it means that this would be an instalment of it, and that it was all that could be got. There was one resource when the poor debtor's wife and children and all were sold. They did not liquidate the debt, for the debtor, we read, " fell down and worshipped him." The word worship here does not mean Divine adoration : it is often used to signify civil homage ; nay, in one passage in the Old Testament it is used to denote both ; " They wor- shipped both the Lord and the king ; " meaning that they worshipped the Lord as God, and gave homage to the king, that civil homage which belonged to him. This man, there- MATTHEW XVIII. 207 fore, fell down, giving all the homage to the ruler that that ruler properly required, and said, "Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all," and the subsequent facts of the parable show that it was so. But this man is not the only one that says so. Is it in human liabilities only that we ask a little time, and promise to pay all ? Are not these the very words that come from the lips of every unhumbled sinner in the sight of God at the present day ? is it not his persuasion that he needs not so much forgiveness as time ? that he needs not so much the debt to be cancelled, as a little more patience in order that he may make it up? It is this self-righteous spirit which is the key to the harsh treat- ment that this man dealt to his fellow-servant in the very same circumstances in which he Avas. The constant cry of sinners is, " Have patience with us." The self-righteous man hopes to do it by his own exertions ; the monk and the recluse hope to pay all by macerations, fastings, and bodily torture ; and the priest hopes to pay all by an appeal to that great ecclesiastical fund, called the fund of supererogation, which has been sold and purchased at so much per cent., just like public stocks upon the exchange or in the market. Each has something that he falls back upon, as the grand treasury out of which he hopes to get enough to pay all the demands of his Lord. The lord of that servant was better to him than he deserved. We are told that he loosed him, and had mercy upon him. This indicates that he, his wife, and his children, were in bondage, or why should the term " loosed " be used ? Probably they were all cast into prison ; and probably, nay, there is no doubt that, during their imprisonment, the ser- vant learned a lesson that he had not learned previously, that nothing he could do in his self-righteousness would ever give payment of the heavy liabilities that he owed to his lord. Do we not often discover by night what we have missed by day ? Do we not often learn lessons in trouble 208 SCRIPTURE READINGS. that we should never have learned in prosperity ? We read that the lord of that servant forgave him all. Thus the reckoning that alarmed the servant led to that which indeed comforted him. What seemed to him unmitigated judgment, was plainly only mercy in reversion. Having thus learned the character of this superior ser- vant, and the treatment he received from his master, we must follow him in his after life, and see what we should have done, had we been in the very same circumstances. That servant, we are told, " went out " — that same servant, the very last man we should have expected to have been guilty of it — " and found one of his fellow-servants who owed him a hundred pence " (about a hundred times seven- pence halfpenny). " He laid hands on him, and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest." Mark the first expression, he went out. This is not without meaning. When is it that we forget our obligation to God, and our responsibilities to him ? When, like Cain, we go out from God's presence. Where is the place of safety and of holi- ness, the place of strength and joy ? The answer is, In the presence of God. The servant's treatment of his fellow-servant was, clearly, extremely harsh and cruel, as well as unbecoming the cir- cumstances in which he himself was placed. It indicated a total renunciation of the position of favor he occupied. He had a right to exact the hundred pence. He might have gone into any court of justice and made that servant pay. There was no doubt of that. The superior servant did not demand from the inferior servant that which was not his due. He had a perfect right to it. Yet the exaction of right may not always be right in the sight of God. Some one has made the remark, summa justitia may be summa injuria. The highest justice may be in the sight of God the highest injury. At all events the man wished to have one treatment for Iwmself, and to administer another treat- MATTHEW XVIII. 209 ment for those who were subject to him. He wanted that God should deal with him by grace, but that he should have the convenient licence of dealing with all mankind by jus- tice. He desired that God should forgive all his demands on him, but that he should have the most convenient permis- sion to exact all his rights upon his fellow-creatures. He wanted to be meted himself by one measure, but would like to mete out a very different measure to others. He would have every thing for nothing himself; but he wanted to let nobody have any thing for nothing from him. When we look to God as simply an exactor of duties, we go forth in the same spirit, and are ourselves the greatest exactors of duties from others ; but when, on the other hand, we learn to look upon God, not in the light of an exactor of aught, but as a giver of all, we become holier and freer ourselves. By not thinking of God commanding at all, but by thinking constantly of God as giving, we shall be holiest and happi- est too. When the fellow-servants saw how he acted, what did. they do ? Did they go and smite him and abuse him, whis- per about him, put a paragraph in the newspapers in order to damage him ? No ; but it is beautifully said, " they were sorry." God may be wrathful, man can only be sorry. God is the judge, who can pronounce ; we are the fellow-servants, that should only be grieved when a fellow-servant sins against God or ourselves. This is the true light in which to look at sin. What is a man's greatest misfortune ? That he should be left to sin and error. It is indeed a great misfortune. It ought not to provoke our judgment, but to excite our sym- pathy, calling forth, not denunciations, but tenderness ; nof; wrath, but the sorrow that fellow-servants felt. We read that the lord of that servant interfered, and said, " O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me : shouldest not thou also have had compas- sion on thy fellow-servant, even as I had pity on thee ? And 18* 210 SCRIPTURE READINGS. his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him." The king ad- dressed him in language the most severe. No man is so wicked as he that sins against light, excepting the man that sins against mercy. When we have received great mercies and trample them underfoot, great blessings, and despise them, and treat them as if they were no blessings at all, surely we grievously sin against God. Slighted mercies always issue in the sharpest judgments. Hence, when those who know the truth, and have sat under the preaching of it, go out and deny that truth, they are the guiltiest of all. This man was a type of many a selfish Christian — he could pray .one part of the Lord's prayer, but not the rest. Note. — [28.] Perhaps we must not lay stress on t^e/i&ihv, as indi- cating any wrong frame of mind ah-eady begun, as Theophylact does. The sequel shows how completely he had " gone out '' from the pi-es- ence of his lord. At all events the word corresponds to the time when the trial of our principle takes place ; when we " go out " from the presence of God in prayer and spiritual exercises into the world. We may observe that forgiveness of sin does not imply a change of heart or principle in the sinner. The fellow-servant is probably not in the same station as himself, but none the less a fellow-servant. The insignificance of the sum is to show us how trifling any offence against one another is in comparison to the vastness of our sin against God. — Alford. CHAPTER XIX. POPULARITY OP TRUTH — DIVORCES — CHRIST ANSWERS FROM SCRIPTURE god's TOLERATION OF EVIL BABES BROUGHT TO JESUS — THE RICH TOUXG MAN — SACRIFICES FOR CHRIST, AND REWARD. Jesus, it appears, left Galilee, where he had been teach- ing, and crossed the Jordan " into the coasts of Judaea." Pleased with his miracles and impressed by his teachings, " great multitudes," we are told, " followed him." Wherever an earnest word is spoken, a word that goes to a man's heart, and awakens within him a sense of his lost greatness, and the possibility of reinstating himself, there will be multi- tudes to follow and to listen. It appears that such of them as were diseased he healed. The Pharisees also came to him ; but they came, not ask- ing to be cured of their diseases, nor to be satisfied in their difiiculties, but with their old habit, " tempting him," that is, endeavoring to ensnare him. They said unto him, " Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause ? " The word " every " is a wrong translation. The Greek adjective TTatrav, in this peculiar construction, means "any." And therefore the translation ought to be, " Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for any cause that seems to him satisfactory ? " Now, you ask, how could this be tempting Jesus ? It was a very plain and Scriptural question, and the ansv/er, one would suppose, must be free from any risk, and a very easy 212 SCRIPTURE READINGS. one. The secret of the difficulty in answering was this. At that time Jesus had entered the territory of Herod Antipas, who had put away his wife, and was living with a woman who was not his wife ; and therefore, they thought that Jesus by their question would be put in a great dilemma, and either way get into trouble. If he had said it was law- ful, he would have been sanctioning sin ; and if he said it was not lawful, he would be put in prison for offending Herod, as John was. Jesus answered them, however, evi- dently irrespective of any governing power, and fearless of any snare. He ever showed, what we should ever feel, that the path of truth and right and duty and principle, is always, in the long run, the path that leads to safety. " He answered and said unto them. Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female ? " Now, mark how striking this is. When Jesus was asked the most intricate and delicate questions, instead of answering from the depths of his own wisdom, as he might have done, he referred the inquirers almost invariably to the Bible. I do not know a more striking proof of the greatness and value of this Book, than that the living Author of it referred every question for a solution to " It is written," " How read- est thou ? " And if He, the Author and the Inspirer of the Book, so valued it, does it become us to put tradition on a level with it, or to neglect, or undervalue it ? It is the Book of books. " Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female ? " There is here first of all a direct and distinct recognition of Genesis as inspired. Secondly, there is a distinct recognition of Genesis as a literal narrative. You know that some of the Germans, who try to get reasons for saying all sorts of strange things, assert that the book of Genesis is fivdog, a myth or fable ; but I need not say that their conclusion, like their premises, is altogether false. We have here, however, the Lord of glory distinctly asserting that the recorded facts MATTHEW XIX. 213 in the book of Genesis are, not parabolic or a fable, but literal and historical events ; and also that the historian of those facts was an inspired penman ; and therefore, that the book he wrote is part and parcel of the inspired Word of God. Such incidental allusions as these are most precious. They are, not only the New Testament casting light upon the Old, but the New Testament pronouncing that itself with the Old are the twin witnesses of the will and word of God, and the duty and obligations of man. You will see by what our Lord refers to, that man was made originally to have one wife, — that this was God's ordinance and great law, — that it not only lies in the con- stitution of human nature, but that it is also sanctioned and consecrated by the express record of God. It is very re- markable that in nations where this great law has been overlooked or trodden underfoot, the results have been inva- riably, even physically. and temporally, the most disastrous. Such nations have utterly degenerated and declined, till they have sunk into the most contemptible of the nations of the earth. Around us are many proofs. Our Lord having thus given an answer from the Book that they themselves dared not repudiate, and from that part of the Book which neither Sadducee nor Pharisee dared reject ; the Pharisees of course could not tell Herod that Jesus had said so, but they must tell him, if they reported the conversation at all, that Moses said so long before, and that Jesus quoted only their own Scriptures. But still cavilling, they said, " Why did Moses then com- mand to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away ? " Why was divorce so easily accomplished, and so clearly permitted by Moses? Our Lord gives them an answer which unfolds a principle. He says, " Moses, be- cause of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to put away your wives ; but from the beginning it was not so." God suffers many things which he does not sanction. He 214 SCRIPTURE READINGS. allows things to be in the infancy of the race, which he expressly reprobates and prohibits in its maturer growth and development, and always in principle. God suffered, not sanctioned, this in special circumstances, and for special purposes — the hardness of the people's heart rendering such permission, not necessary, but at least expedient, in the circumstances in which it occurred. We must not sup- pose that because God suffered it then, it was meant to be always so, or that it was even right ; for our Lord refers back to the first institution, and shows what the law is, what duty ever was, what the law should be in Herod's palace, and what the law, when man is most enlightened, ever will be, and what in our land it now is. But that there may be no mistake, and lest they should suppose that the permission or sufferance of Moses was to be regarded as one for after ages, the great Lawgiver steps in, and gives to the written word its complement, perfection, and meaning, by saying, " Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for forni- cation, and shall marry another, committeth adultery : and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery." That is the laAv of the marriage relationship now. His disciples then said, evidently preferring the laxer mode that was suffered by Moses for the hardness of their hearts, "If the case of the man be so with his wife," that is, if he is to be tied to one woman all his life, " it is not good to marry." But Jesus said, "All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given ; " and then he shows that marriage must be left to every one's taste ; that there is no excessive sanctity in celibacy, and no compul- sion to marry ; but that every one, priest and people, must act according to their own personal discretion, constitution, feelings, nature ; either come under the law by which mar- riage is regulated, or have nothing to do with it at all. "Then there were brought unto him little children" — MATTHEW XIX. 215 ■Koidia, babes — " that he should put his hands on them," for they were incapable of being taught. But " the disci- ples rebuked them." They could not see in what way these babes could receive a blessing. But our blessed Lord knew better, and he said, " Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me : for of such is the kingdom of heaven." Now, w^hilst there is a most respectable and excellent section of the Christian Church who say that bap- tism should not be administered to infants, it does seem to me that it is a most impressive sight to see, as we do in this church from time to time, parents bring their babes, and present them to Christ amidst the prayers of his assembled people, all uniting in supplicating the blessing of Him who still lays his hands upon these tiny babes, and pronounces blessings that will last through life, and, it may be, through- out eternity itself At all events, I can see no reason why it should not be so ; and I must say that our Baptist breth- ren are to be pitied, not blamed, for not being able to see their way to the administration and enjoyment of so beauti- ful a rite as that of bringing their little ones, and thus early and publicly dedicating the flower in the bud to Him who alone can bless them and make them happy. I have under- stood that some Baptists make a sort of compromise, by having what they call a dedication of their children, dis- tinct from baptism. Now that does seem to me very tender ground indeed. I do not like to see any rite that Christ has not sanctioned. If they go so far, why not all the way ? I can prove, I think demonstrably, that from the earliest period of the Christian Church infants were bap- tized. The Baptists are right, no doubt, in saying that adults also were baptized ; but it is singular that one of the earliest controversies that arose is one that shows that infants were b^tized. The great dispute discussed in very early days was, whether children should be baptized on the eighth day, as was the case in circumcision in the Jewish 216 SCRIPTURE READINGS. economy, or whether it would be proper to administer the rite on some future or other day. A council met to settle this very absurd question, I admit, but the question indi- cates a prior state of things, namely, that it was the prac- tice of the Church to baptize infants. Augustine reasons on the hypothesis that infant baptism was universal. Bap- tism by water is not regeneration ; it is, like circumcision among the Jews, an admission into the outer kingdom, just as regeneration of the heart, or baptism by the Spirit, is admission into the inner kingdom. But the Jew, having previously had his children, by the rite of circumcision, admitted into the outward kingdom, would naturally say, when christianized, " If my children were admitted as members of the outward and visible church in a darker economy, why should they be inhibited from being admitted in a brighter, more beneficent and joyous one ? " It does appear to me that the real thing we should expect is, not the command to baptize infants, but the prohibition, if it were unlawful. It had been the habit, long before, to cir- cumcise infants, i. e. admit into the visible church ; and the fact that there is no prohibition of infant baptism is to me the irresistible proof that it was lawful as it was the [)rac- tice in primitive times, and that infants so baptized were admitted into the outward and visible kingdom of heaven : at all events, it is still true, " Suffer little children to come unto me," (I think baptism the best way of doing so,) " and forbid them not," whether you be Piedobaptist or Anti- paedobaptist ; "for of such is the kingdom of heaven." I know that a text is quoted against infant baptism (for it is right to state all those things, even though good men should differ about them) which I hold is in its favor, — " Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing." Here, they say, teaching is to be first, and baptism next. But if our Baptist friends would refer to the Greek Testament, they would see that if I wanted to prove infant baptism, I could MATTHEW XIX. 217 not quote a better text than that ; for the word " teach " at the beginning is literally " discipleize," that is, not teach the mind, but make a disciple by some external sign. " Go ye, therefore, and discipleize all nations," by "baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Then it is added, " teaching them " (i. e. after baptism) " to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." The discipleizing is by baptism, the teaching is subsequent to the baptism. Then one came to Him and asked what he should do to have eternal life ; and Jesus told him what the law required. He thought he had done all, and could do no more ; but when Jesus tested his love, he went away sorrowful, for he was very rich, and gave up his duty — his possession he could not. And then Jesus made the remark, " Verily I say unto you, that a rich man shall hardly " — not altogether im- possible — " enter into- the kingdom of heaven." But what is a rich man ? Not a man who has wealth, but who has excessive love of that wealth. It is not possession of a thing that may constitute a disqualification for heaven, but it is the excessive idolatry of the thing. A man who has only lOOZ. in the Savings Bank may be vastly more covetous, and in this sense richer, than a man who has 10,000Z. in the Bank of England. If you make much of your money in your heart, you have that love of it which is the root of all evil ; but if you make little of it there, then you have as though you had not, and use the world as not abusing it. A camel, a very large animal, may as soon pass through a needle's eye, a minute aperture, as a rich man enter heav- en. " Who, then, can be saved?" Jesus said, " With men this is impossible ; but with God all things are possible." Then Peter, ever first to speak, whether to state an objec- tion or a truth, said, " Behold, we have forsaken all." What had he forsaken? Simply his worn-out nets, and his trade as a fisherman. That was not much, but it was his all ; ID 218 SCRIPTURE READINGS. and there may be as great a pang in giving np a little hut, which is our all, as may ever have been felt by the great lord or lady in giving up a noble palace, which was their all also. And Peter said truly, " Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee ; what shall we have therefore ? " Per- haps there was a little of self-righteousness in that. " And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel." But notice the words " in the regeneration." Some persons read it, " Ye which have followed me in the regeneration ; " but it is, " Ye which have followed me, when th^ Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory in the regeneration," in the Millennium — the Regenesis, "also shall sit upon twelve thrones." In fact there is a parallelism made between man and the world, and it is a very remarkable one. This earth shall have its baptism just as truly as man. This earth shall have its regeneration just as truly as the human heart. Man is a little world, and the world is but the great man. The one is the type, the foreshadow, the microcosm of the other. And a day comes when this earth shall have sin expelled from every crevice, the fever that torments it from every part. The returning presence of the Lord of glory will give it that lasting regeneration that shall place it again in the orbit, out of which it has wandered eccentrically, reunite it again to the great continent of heaven, from which it has been broken off, and make it no longer an outcast colony, but part and parcel of the wide realm of glory and beauty, basking in the sunshine, and guided by the sceptre and the sway of Him who is King of kings and Lord of lords. In that day, says our Lord, all those who have done preeminent services shall have preeminence in glory. There will be different rewards and degrees of glory in heaven. That is plainly indicated in the Word of God. Yet all will MATTHEW XIX. 219 be by grace, none of merit. " And you, the twelve, who have been foremost in the fight, who have occupied the van of the noble army of martyrs, who have more before you than I dare now tell you, and will have to die for my sake — you who shall be compelled to leave houses, and brethren, and sisters, and father, and mother, and wife, and children, and lands, and all that you have, shall not go without a cor- responding and a gracious reward." Let me just notice in this 29th verse, a slight indication of what Christ asserted in the beginning — that one man and one woman, as husband and wife, is the law of the Chris- tian economy. One likes to trace these incidental proofs. " Every one that hath forsaken houses " — a man may have many houses, — " or brethren, or sisters" — a man may have many brothers and sisters, — " or father, or mother " — he c&n have but one father and mother, — " or wife " — imply- hig that a man should have but one wife. Therefore monog- amy, or the marriage of one wife, is enunciated where one would not naturally expect it. Such, he says, " shall receive an hundred-fold, and shall inherit " — not deserve by merit — "everlasting life." But who inherit? It is not merit that makes a son succeed his father, but relationship ; and therefore, these are the sons of God. But many who think they are first, shall find themselves last ; and many who think themselves lowliest, shall find themselves highest. We shall meet many around the throne of God and of the Lamb, whom we, in our uncharitableness and bigotry, excluded ; and we shall miss some, whom, in our latitudinarianism, we were disposed certainly to antici- pate there. There is added the reflection, " The last shall be first, and the first shall be last." I differ very much from the common interpretation of this verse. I do not know that I am right, but I shall state my view of the case, and leave the reader to decide. '• The last shall be first, and the first last ; for 220 SCRIPTURE READINGS. many be called, but few chosen." First, as regards the ex* pression, " the last shall be first : " 1 do not think the idea of rejection is contemplated at all. All the laborers are called into the vineyard ; not one rejects the invitation ; they are all admitted ; there is nothing stated in the conduct of one that is not contained in the conduct of another ; there is no distinction as to their toils, none as to their merits ; there is simply a difference as to the time when they were called into the vineyard. It is then said, "'Many that are last shall be first." Those that came in toward night may yet have the first reward ; and those that came in early in the morning may have the last reward. I conceive this to be fairly illustrated in such a case as this : — Many persons are early called to the knowledge of the truth. They hear the Gos- pel in early years ; they cordially embrace it ; their hearts come under the Divine influence ; and quietly and gently they pass through life blameless, — not specially distinguish- ed, nor characterized to the extent to which they should be, by making sacrifices for the Gospel, but still Christians ripening for glory. Others, again, hear the Gospel call at thirty or forty years of age — nay, some at seventy. They joy in the Gospel — they embrace it cordially; but they concentrate into the last hours of their life a degree of energy, an amount of vigor, a singleness of eye, a simplicity of purpose, a devotedness of heart, that are greater, though not longer, than all the efforts and sacrifices of those that were called before them. Such, for instance, was the case with the Apostle Paul. He was called, it may be, at forty years of age ; yet he was more abundant in labors than all the apostles. Such was the case with John Newton. He was called unto the Gospel at a late age ; yet that man's life was a life of wonderful vigor. When we look at what some of these men have been, we must be astonished at what human energy is capable of, when sustained and sanctified by the Holy Spirit of God. Now then, Paul, called at forty, MATTHEW XIX. 2^1 may have a richer reward than John, called young ; and John Newton, called late in life, may have a higher seat in the kingdom of heaven than many who were called in boy- hood, and have walked consistently to the end of their pil- grimage. Just as there are degrees of suffering among the lost, there are degrees of glory among the saved. "In my Father's house are many mansions ; " and these mansions of greater or lesser size, of brighter or lesser splendor. Each heart shall be full ; but one heart may have a ca- pacity for joy which another heart has not. Each shall be happy ; and yet one shall be happier, nobler, and greater than another. But that part of the passage on which I would differ from the common interpretation — and I am constrained to do so, just from searching out from the New Testament — is the words, " many are called." I have read several sermons on this passage, and they all understand by it, that many are called to accept the Gos- pel, but only a few, being the elect according to grace, accept it, and are thus saved. I do not think it has any such meaning. They say that the interpretation is, that many are called by the preaching of the Gospel, but that only a few accept it. Now, my reason for differing from this interpretation is, not that I disbelieve election — the very reverse; 1 believe the doctrine to be perfectly true. I cannot comprehend it, it is true ; and it would be a wonder if any finite mind could comprehend all the displays of God's infinite proce- dure. I cannot say, reader, whether you be elect or not ; but this I can say, " The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sins." I cannot say whether you be elect or not ; but this I can say, " Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Make you sure of the contact of the Gospel with your individual heart, and you may 17* 222 SCRIPTURE READINGS. make the lofty and mysterious corollary, — " Yours is the kingdom of heaven." But I conceive this expression has nothing to do with election ; for the parable does not speak of any who refuse the invitation, but of those only that came into the vineyard : for it says that all who were called on this occasion cordially embraced the call, and entered into the vineyard, and spent their time in it. But the best way of ascertaining it is by finding the meaning of the word "call." I have taken the Greek Lexicon, and searched out every instance in the New Tes- tament where it is employed ; and I have come to the con- clusion, that in not one instance does call mean call to believe, addressed to them who do not believe, and no more ; in every instance it means or involves being a Christian. The- word is kItito^. In Rom. ii., " called to be an apostle." Again, in the same chapter, ver. 46, " called of Jesus Christ." Again, at ver. 7, " called to be saints." He is speaking of them that actually were saints. What does he mean by being called to be an apostle ? Being made an apostle. Or being called to be saints ? Being made or constituted saints. So again, in Rom. viii. 28, he is speaking of all things working together for good to them that love God — " to them who are the called according to his purpose." These are unquestionably true believers. Again, in the First Epistle to the Corinthians i. 1, " To them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints." These must be true Christians, as they are described to be sanctified in Christ Jesus. Again, in ver. 24, " But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God." And then in the Rev. xvii. 14, describing true Christians, "They that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful." These are Christ's own people. Thus I have given, I think, nearly every instance of the word Khrk-, in its singular or plural number, occurring in the New Testam^,nt; and in every MATTHEW XIX. 223 instance it means truly converted. I think, therefore, I am warranted in putting this interpretation on the text, seeing the whole usage of Scripture speaks in the same way. I understand, therefore, that " many are called " implies, not that many are called who reject the Gospel, but that there are many Christians, but few preeminently, distinc- tively, peculiarly so. It is a difference of degree in Chris- tian character, not a distinction between those who are not Christians and those who are. Many are called, that is, there are many Christians, but few are the chosen. The origin of the word is the same — that is, distinctively, em- phatically, peculiarly called, so as to rise and tower above the rest, like Paul in the college of apostles, or like preem- inent Christian ministers and Christian people among the multitude around them. Note. — [21.] The disciples, or Peter rather speaking for them, recur to the t^eig t&tjg. hv ovp. said to the young man, and inquire what their reward shall be who have done all that was required of them 1 He does not ask respecting salvation, but some preeminent reward, as is manifest by the answer. The " all " which the apostles had left was not in all cases contemptible. The sons of Zebedee had hired servants (Mark i. 20), and Levi (Matthew) could make a great feast in his house. But whatever it was, it Avas their all. [28-30.] We may admire the simple truthfulness of this answer of the Lord. He does not hide from them their reward ; but tells them prophetically, tliat in the new Avorld the accomplishment of that regeneration which he came to bring in (see Acts iii. 21 ; Rev. xxi. 5 ; Matt. xxvi. 29), when he should sit {Ka^layj in the active) on his throne of glory {ett. ^povov r. 6. av.) they also should sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. — Alford. CHAPTER XX. THE HOUSEHOLDER — SHORT HOURS — THE SABBATH — THE CALLED AND CHOSEN A MOTHER AND HER SONS — BAPTISM — BLIND AVAT-SIDE BEGGARS. It is important to observe that the chapter I have read is strictly and properly the sequel, or part, of the chapter that immediately precedes it. The word with which the chap- ter begins, " For," being illative, indicates that something has been said in the previous conversation, which he is about to illustrate, prove, or enforce in the sequel, or the following chapter. But what had he said in the previous chapter ? He said, " Many that are first shall be last, and the last shall be first ; " and in order to illustrate this senti- ment, and show that the prophecy containing it will be ful- filled at the end of the w^orld, he gives the parable which is contained in this chapter, full of suggestive and practical instruction. He says, " The kingdom of heaven," that is, the outward and visible church, the company of all who profess to be followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, has this similitude. It is as if a man, that is, the Lord Jesus Christ, the great house- holder of heaven and of earth, " went out early in the morn- ing to hire laborers," apostles, evangelists, pastors, teachers, and ministers, " into his vineyard," that is, the collection of vines that are his planting, or of branches that are given to him as the members of his body, and his true people grow- ing in his light, and dews, and showers. " And when he had MATTHEW XX. 225 agreed with the laborers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard." A penny in those days was, probably, about sevenpence halfpenny. It was a common soldier's regular pay. It seems to us a very small sum to give to a person for hard work during twelve hours in a vineyard. But you are to recollect that, while we fancy money to be the most per- manent, it is really and truly the most mutable of all things. In those days 7 Id. was probably equal to 75. Qd. in the present day. AVhen money is very scarce, as political economists know, a little of it represents a great deal of labor, or food, or clothes, or, to use a familiar phrase, goes a great way ; but as money gets more plentiful, as it is likely to be in the present day, owing to gold fields and mines, whilst it does not imply that the people will have more com- fort, it is probable that two sovereigns Avill be required to purchase what one will purchase now. The value of money has always depended upon the discovery of mines ; and, therefore, it is not to be estimated by its absolute amount, but by its relative representative value at any one certain time. So the denarius purchased more, and paid for more labor then, than 7s. Gd. or half a guinea probably would do in modern times. It appears that this great householder sent them out to work early, and visited them at the close of their day's work. What was the length of a day's work in these times ? It began at six o'clock in the morning ; nine o'clock was the close of the first watch or hours ; twelve o'clock was the close of the second ; three o'clock of the third, and six o'clock in the afternoon Avas the close of the day's labor. There were no late hours then ; but literally, and in its loftiest sense, a fair day's work for a fair day's wages. This is as it should be. It is a very unhappy thing, that as the market becomes more stocked, and wages increase, and commerce is more extended and active, the result of it should not be, as it ought to be in these more advanced 226 SCRIPTURE READINGS. times, greater comfort to the laborer, as well as proper •wealth tc the employer. The result practicallj is, that the laborer is overtasked for the same wages, in order that the employer may retire with a splendid fortune in less time than would otherwise have been required to gain it. This reminds me of the dispute that has arisen about the opening the proposed Crystal Palace on the Lord's day. It seems to me, in the first place, that no Christian, who holds the decalogue to be obligatory, or the Sabbath to be a day on which thoughts and sympathies with diviner and holier, and in nature, remedial things ought to be cherished, can give direct or indirect sanction to the demand that that beautiful and instructive place should be opened on that day. I be- lieve it will be most beautiful and most instructive. Every- body should go to see it, and learn and study its contents. But my humble judgment as to the whole controversy is this. Whether those who employ labor are prepared to give up a little of the time that they exact from the laborer during the week, giving him the same wages, in order that he may have a little weekday time to enjoy and study the beauties of nature and art. The truth is, an encroachment upon the Sabbath is proposed to be made, in order that the employer may exact the greatest amount of labor on the weekdays, and then say — " The Sunday is your own ; do what you like w^ith it." Th^ plan to obviate all difficulty would be, that every employer throughout this great city should make it a rule to continue the same salary, or wages, and give to the employed some Saturday or Monday, after twelve o'clock, regularly, say once every month. And tlius, when the people have been privileged, without a loss of their fair income, to study God's works upon the Saturday, they will come refreshed to study God's word upon the Sunday. It is, therefore, simply a question of avarice, not among the directors of the palace, but among us, and no other, that is now agitated. I hope this view of it will not be lost siffht of. ^lATTHEAV XX. 227 Well, at the close of the clay's work, the great house- holder comes to pay the wages, every man receiving a penny. But when 'those who had been engaged at six o'clock in the morning saw those who had been engaged at live o'clock in the evening receive the same money with themselves, they murmured. It seemed to them unjust that those who had done so little should get as much as those who had done so much. This was meant to meet the question of the apostles in the previous chapter — " Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee ; what shall we have therefore ? " This is the re|3ly — " Because you were first in time, you are not necessarily first in merit ; and whatever excess you get is purely of my superabounding grace ; if I fulfil to you the promise I made, you are not to envy a brother who has been equally benefited with you." This teaches us that there will be men in the last ages of the world, who will be admitted on a loftier platform of glory and happiness than some who fell asleep in Christ at the beginning. Whilst all who believe in Jesus w^ill be saved, I believe there will be degrees of happiness, glory, and bliss, commensurate with the progress each has made in conformity to Christ, and in fitness for the kingdom of heaven ; and many who are last, chronologically viewed, as Plenry Martin, for instance, the missionary Williams, and many others, who lived and died for Christ's sake, will be numbered with the first ; and many who believed in the earliest ages, and who did not sacrifice nor suffer, because not called upon to do so, for Christ's sake, will be last in the kingdom of heaven. And therefore, Jesus says, it is lawful for me to do what I will with mine own. If I fulfil my promise to you, you have nothing to complain of. If I heap additional glory upon others, it is of my free grace, and ought not to provoke your jealousy. Then he adds the inference, " For many be called, but 228 SCRIPTURE READINGS. few chosen." This is one of the texts that are frequently misapplied and misconstrued. I have heard it preached on as meaning that many are summoned" to believe, but very few do believe. But the text has no such meaning at all. The passage is — "For many be the k?.7]toi, but few the EKXeKToc." Now, if you will look at the word katitoI through- out the New Testament, you will find it is invariably applied to believers. (Rom. i. 6, and viii. 30.) The apostle in writing to the Romans says — " To them that are called," meaning true Christians. How then are we to understand this text? Its meaning is gathered from its context : " Very many are summoned, and very many obey and come into the vineyard, and are true Christians ; but very few are choice, chief, and distinguished Christians, who, chronologically last, shall be from their sacrifices and sufferings greatest and first." In other words, many are believers of the common level, but few are the noblesse of Christianity, those who rise above the ordinary level, and do nobler things, and suffer greater things, for Christ's Jesus told them what he should suffer, and be called upon to endure, when he should go up to Jerusalem. His death, therefore, did not come upon him unawares. He knew his destiny in all its details, and he made ready to meet it. By and by a mother came, with all a mother's, affection for her sons, but with all a fallen creature's ambition for their greatness, and presented James and John, and desired of Jesus a certain thing. He asked her, what. And she said, " Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on thy right hand, and the other on the left, in thy kingdom." She thought still that Christ's kingdom was then to begin on earth — a political, material, and splendid economy, with precedence, rank, and renown. She asked that her two sons might occupy the two chief places, and so be the MATTHEW XX. 229 premier peers. These two sons lived to see a thief upon his right hand and a thief upon his left ; and they learned perhaps, then, what they did not know now, " Ye know not •wliat ye ask : " and therefore, Jesus said to them, " Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of?" A cup is used in Scripture to denote a lot. For instance, " Thou . makest my cup to run over," that is, " Thou givest me })lenty." Again it is said, "A cup of wrath," or, "A cup of indignation be the amount or portion." "And to be bap- tized with the baptism that I am baptized with ? " Now here is the word " baptism," about which so much dispute has been instituted^ employed in the sense of suffering. I referred on a previous day to a very magnificent and con- clusive letter by an esteemed friend. Dr. McNeile, of Liver- pool, whereby he shows that there is " one baptism for the remission of sins," but not baptism with water, or exterior baptism, but baptism by the Holy Spirit. And then he shows that the word " baptism " is used in four different senses — in the sense of baptism with water ; in the sense of baptism with sufferings ; and in the sense of regenera- tion of heart, or baptism by the Holy Spirit of God ; and lastly, baptism with water. And thus he proves that bap- tism, is regeneration ; but then you must remember it is not baptism by water that is so, but baptism with the Holy Ghost. And therefore, when any person says, " Baptism is regeneration," say to him, " You are right ; but do you un- derstand the same baptism that I do, namely, baptism of the heart by the Holy Spirit of God ? If you do, we are at one ; but if you mean that every person baptized episco- pally, presbyterially, or congregationally, in water or by water, is regenerated, visit the Old Bailey, or Bridewell, and you will see hundreds of thousands of the baptized, or your regenerates, who give no more sign of being regen- erated as Scripture defines regeneration, than they give of being Mahometans, Hindoos, or Mormons. 20 230 SCRIPTURE READINGS. I must explain to you that what our Lord says in the 23d verse is not well rendered in our translation. It is there rendered, " But to sit on ray right hand, and on my left, is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father." Now, that is not the assertion of our Lord. On looking at your Bibles you will see that the words " it shall be given to them " are in italics, denoting that there are no such Greek words in the original. Nevertheless, our translators evidently supposed that this was the exact and strict meaning. But any scholar ac- quainted with the idiom of the Greek tongue will be able to tell you that the verse conveys just the opposite meaning of what is here given. It should be rendered thus : " But to sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not mine to give, except to those for whom it is prepared of my Father." In other words, Jesus says, " It is not mine to give it to every- body who asks it, but to every one for whom it is prepared of my Father." It is his prerogative to give it, only it must be to those of whom he says, " Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." Then Jesus showed to them how yrong were all their dis- putes about precedency, and explained to them that true precedency was not in rank, but in usefulness. High bene- ficence is high rank. Lord and Lady are words derived from usefulness, and mean '' bread givers." Thus an incidental occurrence becomes the pedestal on which is exhibited to all mankind a precious and instructive lesson. That lesson is, that the disciple who desires to attain the loftiest dignity must make up his mind to be char- acterized and distinguished by the greatest usefulness. The maxim is, that whosoever desires to be greatest in the king- dom of heaven, — to be most renowned and celebrated among the wise and good of mankind, — must bear in mind that there is but one path to preeminence and real celebrity, the path of the greatest possible usefulness. MATTHEAV XX. 231 He who will have man's praise, must make up his mind to be man's servant. This is not the way of human nature. As Luther said, human nature would be glorified first with- out being crucified. It needs to be learned that there is but one way to the crown, namely, the cross ; and that through tribulation, self-sacrifice, and self-denial, in Christ Jesus, we must attain the kingdom of heaven. Now it is remarkable that society, depraved as it is, responds most nobly to this text. It is a fact evolved in history, and illustrated in the experience of us all, that the man who has had great power, but turned that power to a malignant purpose, has either ceased to be remembered at all, or his name, if remembered, is now shrouded in infamy and discredit. The Domitians, the Neros, the Attilas, the Hildebrands, provoke no gratitude by the recollection of their names — they are only remembered to be execrated ; and the good would not register their names at all, if it were not essential to the continuity of the history of man- kind. But, on the contrary, is it not the fact that the dis- coverer of the cure of some malignant disease, or of some alleviation of the sufferings and agony of the human frame, is mentioned with gratitude and esteem wherever his name is known ? The discoverer of that which makes the mari- ner's path more certain, and the mariner's shipwreck less disastrous, is recollected with grateful thanks. The philoso- pher who strikes out in his study a plan for quickening and ■ multiplying the social intercourse of nations and mankind, is still revered. The soldier who turns away the battle from the gate, and risks his own life that its sacrifice may be the broad shield of the country that he loves, is still spoken of with great veneration. The writer of a book that lives where so few live, and that conveys instruction, comfort, delight, and edification to mankind, is still remem- bered with respect, gratitude, and esteem. Depraved aa society is — sadly so, terribly so — it has yet appreciation 232 SCRIPTURE READINGS. enough to see where true dignity is, and gratitude enough to erect monuments and memorials to illustrious worth, whose greatest and chiefest distinction it was, that it was un- precedented usefulness to mankind. Thus we find, then, that the greatest benefactors of the world have always been its greatest servants. They are admu'ed by so many, just because they helped so many. The weight and splendor of their fame is in the ratio of the amount and extent of their usefulness to mankind. It is the illustration of the statement, " Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister." Let him catch the spirit, as he wears the mantle and treads in the footsteps, of the great Redeemer, who " came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many." And if it be so in the broad field of the world, it is no less so in the narrower but consecrated field of the Church of Christ. The greatest in the history of the Church have invariably been the most useful. They reap, after they are gone, the most splendid harvests of fair renown, who strewed the path on which they trod with the seeds of be- neficence, virtue, and love. The servants of to-day will be the masters and the models of to-morrow. They who suffered to make men wiser in one age, will be found and recognized as the most illustrious, and the most entitled to renown, when other ages have dawned upon us. " What a beneficent law is this — what a beautiful law ! that the man who wants to be great, must reach his great- ness through being little ; that the man who desires to be famed, must reach the high pedestal of great renown through the strait, the thorny, the arduous, and yet the blessed path of beneficence, and virtue, and love! Does Napoleon, the scourge of nations, stand on the same pedestal, or occupy a parallel niche, with Howard, the philanthropist of human- ity ? We know he does not. The very names, when sounded in our hearing, provoke conflicting echoes in our MATTHEW XX. 233 hearts. We lament the transit of the one as that of a wild meteor that awed, or of the lightning-flash that smote, man- kind. We remember the other as a bright and beneficent visitant, who made earth's weariness less, and life's load lighter: and he has reached so great renown because he descended so deep, and sacrificed so much, in benefiting and blessing mankind. If, then, my dear friends, we leave this place this night with this great lesson impressed upon your hearts, it will not be in vain that you have come here — that the way to be great is to do good, that the way to be strong is to bear others' burdens, thsM; the w^ay to increase is to scatter, that the prescription for being rich is, largely and liberally to give ; and all experience will testify in the future, what all history demonstrates in the past, that they who have done much, and sufl:ered much, and sacrificed much for mankind, have not been without the sweet reward of satisfaction and repose within, nor altogether without those laurels which grow green and beautiful around the brows of him who has put himself to trouble that others, who deserved it not, might tiave greater happiness. Having seen this truth enunciated as a great proposition, we have it embodied and illustrated in the most noble Per- sonation of it — " Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister," He came not to be min- istered unto. He left a throne of inconceivable glory, and • came down to a grave, in the world's judgment, of unutter- able shame. He left the anthems and the worship of cher- ubim, for the execration, hatred, and anathemas of the scribes, the Pharisees, the priests, and the multitude of the Jews. In the language of Scripture, " He humbled him- self; and though in the form of God, and thinking it no robbery to be equal with God, yet he took upon him the form of a servant." None went so low as the blessed Jesns ; therefore none have ascended so high. The depth of his 20* 234 SCRIPTURE READINGS. descent is the measure of his grand exaltation. It was because he endured such a cross, that he now wears so bril- liant and imperishable a crown. It was because he was the greatest minister of all, that he now receives in heaven the richest hallelujahs and adorations of all. He came not, it is 'said, to be ministered unto: and yet he might have demanded it. If any one might have exacted homage, surely it was the blessed Jesus. He consented to degrada- tion — he consented to be a man of sorrows ; and, having so consented, he might have demanded upon earth the hom- age that was due to so vast a humiliation. But, instead of summoning angels from the skies to precede his beneficent march, he was satisfied with John the Baptist. Instead of asking the cherubim and seraphim of the universe to come and attest the greatness of his beneficence, and the splendor of his miracles, he made the dead that he quickened speak for him, and the dumb whose lips he had unsealed praise him, and the deaf whose ears he had unstopped listen to him, and the lame whose withered limbs he had restored leap before him as the roe, and all exclaim, with simultane- ous and unmistakable emotion, " Truly, this is the Son of God ! " One would have thought that when he came to creation, it would have shone perpetually with the light of Tabor, and that some mighty and majestic testimony would have been given to him at every stage, — that an aureole of brightness would have been around him, — that some she- chinah, some pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, would have constantly preceded him ; or that, having made so great a sacrifice, flower, and fruit, and tree, and all bright things and beautiful things, would have formed themselves into a couch for so great and illustrious a visitant. But, instead of this, whilst the foxes of the earth had holes, and the birds of the air had nests. He who had thus humbled himself had not where to lay his head. Again, though He came not to be ministered unto, yet MATTHEW XX. 235 our sense of his visit as creatures capable of bein^^ redeemed by him might have suggested a better reception. But Pihite, instead of using his power to protect him, gave him up to the scribes and Pharisees. The priests who sat in Moses' chair, instead of recognizing Him of whom Moses wrote, shouted, " Not this man, but Barabbas." And the Jews, his own, to whom he came that he might emancipate them from a real yoke and invest them with a true freedom, rejected, despised, and crucified him. He received no min- istration — He came not to be ministered unto as his errand, but the very opposite : in the language of himself, he came " to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many," Now, if you will look at the history of our blessed Lord, you will see that his whole life was a ministry, and his death itself only a sublimer, grander, and, if possible, a more pre- cious one. If you look at his life, here he feeds the hungry by a special miracle of beneficence and power ; there he opens the eyes of the blind, restores the withered limb, un- stops the ears of the deaf, unties the tongue of the dumb, and gives to all the hope of the restoration of humanity to all its lost prerogatives, glory, and perfection. There, again, he raises a widow's only dead son, and here he quickens the sister's only dead brother. His whole life, a ministry of love — every day, a service and a sacrifice for man. On another occasion, he stills the winds, and lays the waves, and gives the earnest to mankind of that day when all winds shall be hushed, and all waves shall be laid, and the earth shall shine again in the splendor of its first dawn. On another occasion, in the hour of his trial, when one would have thought that his only cares would be about himself, he pleads only for his disciples : " Let these go away." And on the eve of his own crucifixion, when the agony of to- morrow must have lain heavy and painful on his heart, he so truly came not to be ministered unto, that he asks no con- solations from the height or from the depth ; and so truly to 236 SCRIPTURE READINGS. minister, that he institutes that beautiful celebrity, the Com- munion Table, for the consolation of all them that believe. And when he hung upon the cross, in his last agony, so little did he seek to be ministered unto, that, with the exception of the utterance, "I thirst," he sought no relief for himself; and so truly did he come to minister, that, beholding his weeping mother, he bids John take charge of her — not as a goddess for adoration, but as a suffering widow and a childless mother, for comfort and for protection. And in the agony of his last crucifixion, when one would have thought that that grief that was more than any man's, and that sor- row that was bitterer than any one's, would have so over- whelmed him, that he could have no thoughts about any one around, he spoke to the thief upon the cross, and proved the majesty of a present God amid all the suffering of poor man, " To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise." And when he rose from the dead, so little did he come to be min- istered unto, and so truly to minister, that his first anxiety seems to have been, " Go and tell the disciples," — and because there was one among them that needed the first com- fort, because he had been guilty of the greatest offence, he adds, " and Peter, — that I am risen from the dead." And just before he ascended into heaven, so little did he seek ministration from any, so truly was his life a ministry to all, that he institutes baptism, gives the ministerial commission, " Go and preach the Gospel to every creature," and ap- pends the sustaining and precious promise, " Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." We have thus, then, his life, his death, his resurrection, his presence upon earth, all one grand ministry of service to mankind. If, therefore, you wish the lesson I have taught to be conse- crated by the noblest precedent, here it is. Let us follow his example ; for he has left us that example that we should follow his steps. But to crown his ministry with its most precious and tri- MATTHEW XX. 237 umpliant feature, he gave his life " a ransom for many." He lived, a ministry to us ; he died, a ministry for us ; and whether he lived, or died, he " came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a i^ansom for many." Now, having noticed his life, what are we to un- derstand by the expression, he died " a ransom for many ? " Surely, not a mere example. He was a meek and a patient sufferer ; but it was not necessary that a God should become incarnate, that man might have a precedent how purely he should live, and how constantly and meekly he should die. Nor did he give his life as a mere martyr. Many a martyr has suffered great agony, and died most triumphaptly ; and if we wish to know how martyrs can die for Christ's sake, every Martyrology records illustrious and noble instances. Jesus did live an example, Jesus did die a martyr ; but he did more ; he lived a priest, and he died also an atonement, a sacrifice, or a ransom for the sins of mankind. Now, is it possible to attach any other meaning to such language as this, " He bare our sins ? " I am surprised how anybody can read the Bible, and come to the conclu- sion that Christ's death was nothing more than the death of a transcendently good man, or, as the Pantheist would say, of an unprecedentedly great man, showing constancy and pureness in life, and constancy and faithfulness in death. If this were all, then apostles preached and evangelists wrote in order to deceive mankind. If they understood their own language, and wished to convey to a Jew by the most unmistakable and expressive phrases that Jesus died a Sacrifice, they could not have selected more definite, une- quivocal, and unmistakable expressions. What am I to understand by this, " He bare our sins ? " Just think what the Jew did. He laid his hand upon the head of the scapegoat, and the scapegoat went away bearing his sins. Would not every Jew understand by the expression, " He bare our sins," the sacrificial relationship and character of 238 SCRIPTURE READINGS. Christ's death ? And again, when John said, " Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world," that does not carry to us the vivid associations it conveyed to a Jew. When the Jew heard that, he instantly thought of the morning and the evening sacrifice, and he recollected the Passover lamb, whose blood, you remember historically shed, sheltered from the destroying angel, and gave protec- tion to the consecrated and happy home. And besides, I believe that when John pointed to Jesus, it was the hour of the day when the Levites were leading the lamb for the morning sacrifice ; and thus, John, seeing the typical lamb led to the altar, and seeing the true Lamb standing beside him, said to the Jews, " Turn your backs upon the type : it is the shell, the kernel is not there : it is the shadow, the substance has come. Look not at that lamb any more ; but behold Jesus of Nazareth, the Lamb of God, who alone taketh away the sin of the world." Again, what am I to understand by such phraseology as this ? " The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin." And again : " Pie is the propitiation for our sins." And again, as the apostle says in the Epistle to the Hebrews, " If the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the un- clean," that is, sacrificial animal suffering or death, " sancti- fieth to the purifying of the flesh," so that I can have admission into the outer temple of David, "how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit off'ered himself without spot to God, purge," not the outer man, which the blood of animals did, but " your conscience," the inner man, which the true Sacrifice does, " from dead works to serve the living God ? " that is, to be a Levite in the house not made with hands, instead of being conse- crated merely to be a Levite in that temple, which was soon to be pulled down, and not one stone to be left upon another. But if I look at other aspects of the death of Christ, I MATTHEW XX. 239 must conclude that it was different to any other in the New Testament. First, the death of Christ is the burden of all ancient prophecy. You do not read in Isaiah of the death of John the Baptist ; there is no prediction of the martyr- dom of Paul ; but from the first promise that sounded amid the wrecks of Paradise, " The woman's seed shall bruise the serpent's head," to the last promise in Isaiah, " He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows," we have one death singled out and made prominent, and preached, and pressed upon man. Can that death belong to the category of common deaths ? Was this the death of a great martyr or a good apostle only ? Are we not rational, do we not interpret honestly, when Ave infer that it was not the death of an illustrious martyr, but of the only Sacrifice for the sins of all that believe ? Again, this death, here called "a ransom for many," excites the greatest possible interest in heaven. It is said that the angels desire to look into it ; and John opens the door that leads to choirs of the blessed, and enables you to hear the anthem peal that ever swells and never ceases, and in that anthem you ever hear, " Worthy is the Lamb that was slain." And again John says, " I beheld a Lamb just as if he had been slain." Can that, then, be the death of a mere good man, or a great example, that stirs the hearts of ancient prophets ; that sweeps, like the breath of heaven, over the hearts of the redeemed : that constitutes the burden of prophecy in the past, and that will be the key-note of the songs and adoration of the blessed, when time shall be no more ? And again, this death of Christ is the substance of all apostolical preaching. Why is it that we are called " Chris- tians," and not " Paulites," or " Peterites ? " The answer is plain. Did Paul or Peter die for you ? What does Paul say ? '' God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." And again, " I preach Christ cru- 240 SCRIPTURE READINGS. cified." This inexpressible magnificence attached to the death of Christ takes it out of the category of the greatest and the noblest ; and it was something so unique, and with- out parallel, because it was nothing else than what we believe, a ransom and atonement for the sins of them that believe. Also you will notice in this death a feature that was not in any other, namely, it was perfectly voluntary. Jesus himself said (John x. 17), "I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." That single statement, tcr my mind, would be proof that Christ was God ; but I take it now as proof of his Atonement. If he had been constrained to suffer, it w^ould not have been an Atonement ; but that language indi- cates a death very peculiar indeed. There is no man in this assembly, who dare say, " I can lay down my life." It is not yours, it is God's ; and to lay it down is suicide. The fact, therefore, that Jesus could and did say it, is evidence that he was the Lord of life, and that he laid down his life a willing, and therefore an acceptable Sacrifice for the sins of mankind. And then, if you will read the concomitant circumstances in the death of Jesus, you Avill find something very peculiar. The earth split, the rocks rent, the dead rose, angels came down and returned, and came and returned again. All nature seemed struck ; all creation shuddered to its core. This never happened at any other death. Why was this ? Because all these things were meant to mark out distinctly that the death of Jesus was not that of a patient martyr, but of an atoning victim for the sin of mankind. Now, in order to give you a very clear and conclusive proof that it was an atonement and a sacrifice, I notice that the words " to die for " — "a ransom for," would naturally suggest propitiation. For instance, David says of Absalom, MATTHEW XX. 241 « Would I had died for thee." Does that mean, " Would I had died an example for thee ? " No ; but, " Would that I had suffered death, that you might only have been kept in life ; " that is, " Would I could have been accepted a substi- tute for you." Again, it is said, " The father shall not die for the child ; " that is, suffer death, that the child may con- tinue in life. And again, Caiaphas the high-priest said, that it was expedient that one should die for the people ; that is, in the room and stead of the people. And therefore, these expressions, " an atonement for," — "a ransom for," all de- note the substitution of One, that is, Christ, for another ; that is, us that believe. And then, the expression, " ran- som," is also clearly descriptive of the same great idea. It is used in the Bible in the sense of redeeming land from mortgage, that is, the freedom of the land from the incum- brance to which it is subject. Again, it is used in the sense of releasing a slave from bondage, or paying so much money to let the slave go free. Again, in the sense of a ransom from a vow, that is, deliverance from the responsi- bility of a vow that has been made. In all these cases the word " ransom " means something paid by one, that some- thing forfeited by another may be restored to him. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ, it is said here, died a " ransom " for us ; that is, he took our sins, and bore the consequence ; and we receive from him his righteousness, and inherit the con- sequence. He took upon him our fleece as tainted, fallen, stray sheep, and was offered an atonement in it ; and we receive from him the spotless fleece of his righteousness, and, arrayed in raiment white and clean, we are presented spotless and without fault before God. What a blessed thought, that we are justified, not by any thing done by us, but by something done for us ; that we have not to work our way to heaven, but to accept heaven already paid for ; that we are ransomed, if we are believers ! The devil, sin, the world, have no right to us. We are ran- 21 242 SCRIPTURE READINGS. soraed ; the price has been paid for us ; the mark of God is on our brows ; the seal of his adoption is on our hearVs ; the mortgage is gone ; the slave is freed. Jesus gave his life a ransom for all that believe. Thus then He illustrates by a precious truth the obliga- tion he has stated in connection with another. Thus he came not to be ministered unto, but to minister unto us in his life, and to die a ransom for all that believe. How great are our obligations to the Son of God ! You are not your own ; you are bought with a price. How great, I say, are our obli- gations to him, who redeemed us, not with gold, or silver, or any such corruptible thing, but Avith the precious blood of a Lamb without blemish and without spot. "What are you doing for Him ? If he has thus ministered to us in life and in death, the least that becomes us is to minister to him. But our ministry is first ourselves. " I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice." And next, wherever you can minister to them that are his, do not do it 35 a duty, still less as a penance, but do it as a pleasure in responsive gratitude to Him who ministered his life and his death to you, that you might live and be happy for ever. Brethren, this text is a meet one wherewith to close the last Sabbath of a year that now descends into its grave, and will disappear for ever. No power can recall the fifty-two Sabbaths that are gone. No words spoken on them can be unspoken ; no deed done on them can be undone ; no thought thought during their lapse can be unthought. But if the past be gone, the present is still ours. Oh ! take the fifty- two Sabbaths past, and write at their close this only truth that we dare write, and, blessed be God, that we may write, " The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth from all sin ; " and start from the old year's grave on the new year's road with hearts kindled with divine love, and dedicated afresh unto Him who has redeemed you, prepared to sacrifice, and MATTHEW XX. 2.43 suffer, and, if needs be, die for his blessed name's sake ! What a noble prospect is before us ! The days of 1853 are still empty ; we may charge them with elements of good or evil. It may be true that 1852 has been to some one the year extra added to him by reason of the intercession which cried, " Lord, spare him another year." It may depart ; but it has not departed yet : there are six days of it yet left. During those six days let there be a new and noble purpose., that come life, come death, you will bear the name and do honor to the cause of your blessed Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus. And if we be spared through 1853, in all its ups and downs, its ills and crosses, its sunshine and shadow, its torrents, eddies, vicissitudes, and trials, what thankfulness for the past ! what a mercy to be here in health and strength, with the cross in the midst of us, and every one of us wel- come to look and live for ever ! With what praises should we close the year ! With what firm, high, and heroic resolves should we begin the year that is to come ! We have had mercies to remember and celebrate as individuals, as a congregation, as a nation. Let us walk worthy of them ; let us remember that they will not be long pos- sessors, or quiet possessors, of great mercies, who are not sanctified possessors of them ; and let us recollect that the sharpest judgments that God sends upon a people are mis- used and abused mercies and privileges. It was the city that was lifted highest to heaven in privilege that sank deepest to hell in condemnation. Let us then, my dear friends, not by ostentation, not by display, not by loud words or eloquent pretensions, but by quiet devotedness to whatsoever things are good and just, by liberality in every cause that has a fair and right claim, consecrate ourselves a ministry to Him who in life minis- tered to us, and in death died for us, and ever liveth to make intercession for us. JVe read that the victims of one of the greatest earthly 244 SCRIPTURE READINGS. calamities, the loss of sight, earnestly desired to see the light of the sun. The blind men prayed : " Have mercy on us, O Lord, thou Son of David ! " And he who was so often prayed to, never yet refused a prayer that was presented for the right thing or in the right way ; and therefore, he had " compassion on them, and touched their eyes ; and immediately their eyes received sight, and they followed him." What manner of man was this, who opened the eyes of the blind, unstopped the ears of the deaf! What great manifestation was this, whom the winds of passion, and the waves of prejudice, all obeyed, and they that were dead heard his voice, and came forth, and praised him, as the Lord of life and all things ! Blessed Lord, open thou our eyes, that we may see won- drous things out of thy law ! Take away from our minds all prejudice, and from our hearts all passion, and dwell thou in these souls of ours, blessed Redeemer, we beseech thee. Note. — The multitude appear to have silenced them, lest they should be wearisome and annoying to our Lord ; not because they called him the Son of David, for the multitudes could have no reason for repressing this cry, seeing that they themselves (being probably for the most part the same persons who entered Jerusalem with Jesus) raised it very soon after. (See ch. xxi. 9.) I have before noticed (on ix. 27) the singular occurrence of these words " Son of Da\id," in the three narratives of healing the blind in this Gospel. — Alfoid. CHAPTER XXI. PROPHECY FULFILLED MINUTELY POPULAR WELCOME HOLT PLACES THE HOSANNA OF CHILDREN THE FIG-TREE CURSE AUTHORITY THE VINEYARD THE HUSBANDMAN's INTEREST IN IT. In the commencement of the chapter we find the com- mission given by our blessed Lord to his own disciples to go and execute a message, the completion of which would be the fulfilment of an ancient prophecy. He did it because the circumstance arose at the time, and owing to the position in which he was at that moment placed, and not by a desire rigidly to fulfil a prophecy simply because it was prophecy. What he did, it was perfectly natural to do in the circum- stances. He did it, not avowedly to fulfil a prophecy, or to make that true which otherwise had been false, but because the thing itself was dutiful and seasonable ; and it came to pass, that in so doing, he fulfilled a prophecy that awaited this very crisis in order to be seen to be the inspiration and the truth of God. And hence, those passages in Scripture that frequently occur and substantially say, " All this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken," do not teach that the thing was done in order to be adapted to the prophecy, but that the thing was done, and thereby what could not fail, came to be accomplished, namely, a prophecy of God. You observe, the prophecy most minutely described the future event, — " Thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and 21* 246 SCRIPTURE READINGS. sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass." Now, the mere loose interpreter of ancient prophecy, on reading such a prediction as this, would say, No doubt it means simply that he will come in very humble and lowly circum- stances ; but we cannot expect that he will come literally sitting upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass. But it indicates more than this. You observe, the prophecy describes minutely and in detail a future event, and that future event as minutely described exactly occurs. What is our inference? That if this minute prophecy has been fulfilled, we may expect the minute predictions that are not yet fulfilled will be so fulfilled also ; and therefore that prophecy is not to be interpreted in a loose and latitudina- rian style, but under the deep and sure recollection, that heaven and earth may pass away, but not one jot nor tittle shall pass from ancient prophecy, until all has been com- pletely fulfilled. We read that when He thus came, the multitude, still struck with the splendor of his miracles, and no doubt re- freshed by his beautiful and consolatory teaching, enthusi- astically welcomed him. Some cast their garments before him, a mode in which kings and royal personages were received, and denoting the dignity attached to them, and the reverence in which they were held ; others cut down branches from the trees, as the nearest and readiest way of expressing their homage ; and the whole crowd shouted, " Hosanna," that is, ' save us,' " to the Son of David : Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord ; Ho- sanna in the highest." The multitude, you observe, quoting a Psalm that especially delineates the future triumphs and glory of the Redeemer ; and He himself, at the close of the chapter, quoting that Psalm as having its fulfilment in his reign and advent. The whole city of Jerusalem was stirred by this extraordinary fact, that the crowd, apparently under an inspiration from on high, burst forth into song, and MATTHEW XXI. 247 applied the ancient Psalms to Him whom the Pharisees believed to be a mere pretender, and not the Messiah. Jesus then came into the temple, or rather, into one of the outer courts of the temple, in which the Israelites might be, and perhaps the Gentiles also; and there he " overthrew the tables of the money-changers, and the seats of them that sold doves." But why was this employment sinful ? It was a necessary trade for the sacrifices ; they had to pay in Jewish money the shekel ; but the Jews, being a province of the Roman empire, had only the dena- rius and other Roman coins among them ; and these money- changers gave shekels for the talent or denarius, and other Roman money that was current under the Ctesars, just as we should change in France English money into French ; and they received a percentage for changing this money. Surely in that work there was no sin ; but the sin lay in their excessive avarice and its results, their competition and desire to make so much percentage leading them to carry on their trade in the very house of God, and thus to desecrate that place dedicated to other purposes, by doing in it a work which could be as well, though not so successfully, done outside the temple, and in another place altogether. So with the selling of the doves, it was right and necessary, but it might have been done elsewhere. What he con- demned, and what by this act he publicly reprobated, was turning God's house into a place of merchandise, misusing divine ordinances. But very often do not our hearts become thus desecrated within these walls ? When thoughts of the counting-house, the market, and the exchange ; thoughts of what we have to do next week, the bills to be paid, and the debts due, rush through these hearts ; then, my dear friends, we are making God's house, which should be, and in many cases is, his temple, holier in itself than the Jewish temple, a den of thieves, a place of merchandise. And \vhen we bring into the gabbath the works and employments that are 248 SCRIPTURE READINGS. proper on the weekday, we do the same. It is most im- portant that we should have one day, on which we can retreat from the world, and only hear, speak, and think about everlasting things ; that we should have one day of the seven that we can consecrate to thoughts about the soul, death, judgment, eternity, a Saviour. By all means study the contents of the Crystal Palace on the Saturday — that is creation work, and is proper on creation's closing day ; but reserve the Sabbath for redemption work, the cure and restoration of the precious soul. When the chief priests saw this, they wondered, and were especially provoked at the children shouting, " Ilosanna to the Son of David ! " and they said, " Hearest thou what these say ? " And he told them that they were saying quite right, and that their Hosanna was musical to his ears, and that it was only the fulfilment of a Psalm that the scribes did not understand, the 8th Psalm, " Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected strength," or " praise," — a Psalm applied by the apostle in the Epistle to the Hebrews to Christ, — a Psalm that is properly a Mil- lennial Psalm, relating to that period when the Son of man shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth. God grant our inner and outer sanc- tuaries may always be holy ! We read here, that our Lord '* went out of the city to 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 there- on, but leaves only, and said unto it. Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever," or, in the language of another evangelist, he "cursed" it. "And presently the fig-tree withered away." Some will say this seems a very impetuous act. It looks, and has been construed by the sceptic, as if Jesus being hungry, was disappointed in finding no fruit, and instantly in a burst of passion cursed the fig-tree. That is MATTHEW XXI. 249 the world's paraphrase or commentary upon this event. But it is no such thing. In the first place, remember that to curse, in Scripture, does not mean to pronounce or utter angry language, or give vent to violent imprecation. All it means is to separate to destruction. Recollect, too, that this is, I believe, almost the only instance of retribution, or of a curse, using it in that sense, in the whole of the miracles of our blessed Lord ; and, singular enough, that only instance is, not of a living man struck dead, but of an inanimate tree without sensibility blasted or withered. Again, recollect it was not a fact merely for the fact's sake, or for a display of power, but a parable. The Jewish nation is likened again and again to the fig-tre-e ; and this incident was brought out to impress upon them that they had the fine soil, the bright suns, the rich dews ; but that notwithstanding these advan- tages, when the great Lord comes seeking fruit, instead of finding what might have been expected, he finds none : and therefore, they should recollect that as it was with the fig- tree, it would be with them. Remember, also, that on a fig- tree the fruit appears before the leaves; but this tree was covered w^ith leaves, which was a declaration that it had fruit ; and when Jesus saw it without the fruit, it was the exact type of the Jewish nation, with all the appearance of real religion, but with no practical piety below it. This is a proof, too, how God dealt with that nation. It is still under an anathema, withered down to the very root, and every Jew upon the streets is a branch and an evidence of it. The expression, " Let no fruit grow on thee hencefor- ward for ever," is perhaps over strong, — " for ever," is not the Greek word translated " for ever," in the sense of ever- lasting ; but, "Let no fruit grow on thee elg top aluva," that is, "until the age." What age? Why, the age when the fulness of the Gentiles shall come, and the Jew shall be graffed in, and shall cease to be barren, and bear fruit abun- dantly as the rest of God's redeemed people. (See Romans xi.) 250 SCRIPTURE READINGS. No doubt the Jewish nation is the race of which the fig- tree was the symbol, and whose fate was foreshadowed by its destruction. The Gentiles made no profession of religion, — they made no pretensions 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 pretend to bear 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 professed to have a righteousness so great that it was adequate to jus- tify them ; and they declared that the Gentiles had sunk into a degradation so complete that they were not fit to com- municate 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, 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 reasonably be expected from them. It is, therefore, in such words as these that this miracle is described by the Apostle Paul, when he said, " Behold, thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God, and knowest his will, and approvest the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law ; and art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the bhnd,*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, MATTHEW XXI. 251 which teachest 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 abhorest idols, dost thou commit sacri- lege ? thou that makest thy boast of the law, through break- ing the law dishonorest thou God ? For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you, as it is written. For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the law : but if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made 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 laAv, judge thee (the Jew, that is), who by the letter and circumcision dost transgress the law ? " AVe have the very same idea carried out in explanatory language in the tenth chapter, where the apostle says, " For they (the Jews) being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted them- selves unto the righteousness of God." " To Israel he saith, All day long have I stretched forth my hands unto a disobe- dient and gainsaying people." " Israel hath not obtained that wdiich 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 saith. Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumblingblock, and a recompense 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 semiparable, semimiracle on which I am now commenting. He shows that the Jews had all the temporal advantages a nation could possibly enjoy; 252 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 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 exp-ected from them ; but when the great Lord of the vineyard came and saw the leaves, find 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, irresistible 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 every part of the world, but the withered and blasted branches of the once fruitful, the now scarcely pro- fessing 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 over- flow all tlie 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 Pisgab, from wliicli 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 posses- sion of Palestine, and the poor Jew — the fig-tree blasted, deservedly blasted — has a home anywhere and everywhere ; but least a home in his own home ; has possessions every- MATTHEW XXI. 253 where, but none in that hind which is held by title deeds more lasting than those of the aristocracy of England ; his title deeds are in Ezekiel, in Jeremiah, in Isaiah, in the Psalms, and must last and live for eVer and ever. You have, then, in the Jew, wherever you find him, a blasted fig-tree, a miracle-stricken nation, a people scathed by a curse which cleaves to them and consumes them ; the peo- ple 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. We then come to an interview between the scribes and Pharisees and Jesus, when they asked him, " By what author- ity doest thou these things ? " If this question had been an honest one, our Lord would have answered it as the ques- tion demanded ; but it was a mere attempt to ensnare him. They saw his miracles, and heard his words. His words were the echoes of ancient prophecy ; his miracles were the credentials of a present God : and therefore to ask such a question was merely to try to catch him in a snare. But Jesus answered them by asking another question, " The bap- tism of John, whence was it ? from heaven, or of men ? " Thus were the wise caught in their own craftiness. If they had said, " From heaven," he would have said, " Why then did you accept it ? " If they had said, " Of men," then . they would have been deposed by the people from Moses' seat, as being ignorant, and not enhghtened doctors of the Law. And therefore, in order to prevent present conse- quences, they told a direct lie, " We cannot tell." We read next of another instance of the teaching of Jesus — "A certain man had two sons ; and he came to the first, and said. Son, go work to-day in my vineyard. He answered and said, I will not : but afterwards he repented, and went. And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir : and went not. Whether of them twain did the will of his father ? " — the Pharisee, 22 254 SCRIPTrRE READINGS. who says, I go ; but neither goes himself, nor lets others go : or the Gentile, who now says, I will not go ; but afterwards is converted and believes, and does go ? They saw and felt the rebuke immediately. He then borrows a figure from Isaiah relating to the vine- yard — "A certain householder let out his vineyard to hus- bandmen, and went into a far country. And he sent his servants to receive the fruits of it." The servants were taken, and some were stoned, and some were slain. Isaiah was cruelly put to death ; others of the prophets were stoned, and others were rejected by the people to whom they came. Afterwards he sent his son, saying, " They will reverence my son." But when the son came, they resolved to destroy him, and did kill him. Then Jesus, after relat- ing this story, asks, " What would you now, as honest men, expect that the great proprietor of the vineyard would do to such a race, who had first killed his servants, and then his son ? " They said, what any one would have said in similar circumstances, " lie will miserably destroy those wicked men." God sent forth prophets, priests, extraordinary teach- ers, and, lastly, his Son ; but the only reception this last received from the persons in the vineyard was, " Away with him, away with him ; crucify him, crucify him ; " and with wicked hands they crucified the Lord of glory. What will God do to this Jewish vineyard ? He will scatter the nation to the four winds of heaven ; he will leave it to be trodden down by the Moslem, the Arab, and the Bedouin, and the Romanist ; and the Gentiles shall get possession of the bless- ings until that day when the Jews shall be grafFed in. He next quotes the Psalm that he had quoted before — " Did ye never read in the Scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner r ?" Let us see, my dear friends, that we are not barren, but fruitful fig-trees. Let us see that in this vineyard we are MATTHEW XXI. 255 reverencing Him who has redeemed us by his blood, and who tends it, and cares for it every day. Let us remember, as a nation, that what occurred to the Jew is still applicable and possible to us. If we give this wicked reception to God's providential and evangelical missionaries, and to the Word of God, and the privileges that we enjoy, he will mis- erably destroy our nation, and give our privileges to others. The Church is a candlestick — not a fixture, but a movable thing ; and when a nation fails to use it as it should, it will be removed from its place, as the seven churches of Asia testify, and given to another. CHAPTER XXII. THE GREAT FEAST — THE INVITED — THE DESPISERS. The chapter opens with a parable, and continues and con- cludes with a series of carping questions prepared and put to our Lord by the Pharisees and Sadducees. These men sought not information to guide them, but labored, if possi- ble, to make snares wherein to catch the Great Teacher. The chapter, I have said, begins with a parable, which is a similitude, a fact, or story, real or supposed, recorded in order to be the mirror and the background of some great spiritual lesson or seasonable and precious truth. He says, " The kingdom of heaven," that is, the Christian dispensa- tion, composed of baptized and regenerate, of those who are professors and those who are true Christians, " is like unto a certain king which made a marriage for his son." The word translated " marriage " may be applied to any festival, feast, or banquet, prepared either at the marriage of a son, or on his accession to some dignity, or at his coming of age. It denotes a royal banquet, to which the king, in his conde- scension, is pleased to invite many in the terms recorded in the sequel of the parable. He " sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding : and they would not come." The provision of the Gospel is the festival ; the servants are the apostles, the evangelists, the ministers of the truth in every age, and Jesus himself, above all, who took upon him the form of a servant, and became the preacher of that salvation of Avhich He was also the author. MATTHEW XXII. 257 These servants invited many to come and participate in this festival. The Great King would not be alone ; and it is said, what is painful to find still, not, they could not come, because it was so decreed, but, "they would* not come." It was neither to their taste, disj^osition, nor liking. They minded other things. The. reason why any one rejects the Gospel is, not that he cannot believe, but that he will not believe. The inability is in the heart, not in his own phys- ical power. And therefore, if any one perish, it is because he will not, not because he cannot be saved. The lost are suicides. But, when these refused, " he sent forth other servants." First, he sent the prophets of old to offer salvation to the Jews ; next he sent the apostles and evangelists to offer it to those to whom it never had been offered before. And he gives them the strongest of all reasons, " My oxen and my failings are killed, and all things are ready : come unto the marriage." You have not something to do, or something to pay, or something to offer ; or a month, a day, or a year to wait ; but " all things are ready; " sacrifice is offered — the price is paid — the gates are open, and all that you have to do is to believe God's sincerity in inviting you, and joy in giving welcome : accept the invitation, eat, drink, and be happy. Thus it is with the blessed Gospel. We have not a sacrifice to make, nor an atonement to offer ; this He did, once for all. We have nothing to pay ; the debt is paid ; nothing to promise, for all is unconditional ; nothing to pledge, but simply to believe God's testimony respecting his Son, and be saved, and act as the new relationship prompts. But, it is said, "they made light of it." What a sad statement is here of the reception given by sinners, to the Gospel ! Men make light of God's love ; they make light of Christ's sufferings ; they make light of their own peril ; they disregard and treat with contempt ahke the promises and threats of the blessed Gospel. And if they were sinful 22* 258 SCRIPTURE READINGS. who made light of an invitation to a festival that was soon finished, how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation for us already prepared ? And the reaso1\ they made light of it was, not that they posi- tively disapproved or disliked the provision, but that they had a stronger liking of something else — another preference shut out this. The reason why men will not accept Chris- tianity is, not that they dislike it instinctively, or after having put it to the test, but because they so like something extrinsic to it, that they have no time to examine it at all, and no room in their hearts for its presence. The reason why these men would not come to the festival, and made light of it, was, not that they disapproved of it, or disbelieved the person who invited them, but that they were so taken up with other avocations, so absorbed, one with his farm, and another with his merchandise, that they had no time to give the invitation serious and solemn consideration. Perimus in Ileitis is an ancient proverb ; that is, we perish, not so much by doing what is sinful, as by the excessive and idola- trous love of what is perfectly lawful. Sin consists not only in doing what is wrong, but it consists also in so loving something that is right, that that something dislodges from the heart the higher, holier, and more instant claims of the soul, of eternity, and of God. These parties not only did thus make light of the welcome, but they evidently became provoked with the earnestness of the servants, and in consequence entreated them spitefully, " and slew them." John the Baptist preached in such a way as to be liked by Herod ; but when he came to press home too closely and earnestly his message, Herod consented to the beheading of the preacher. So, those who were invited, at first were indifferent, next were exasperated, and lastly became persecutors of them who simply did their duty to their Lord, and tried to do them good. "When the king heard thereof, he was wroth; and he MATTHEW XXII. 259 sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city." This parable up to this point was fulfilled in the case of the Jews. They were offered the Gospel first by the prophets, and next by the apostles and evangelists ; they rejected and slew both ; and at last the Great King " sent forth his armies, and burned up their CHAPTER XXII. THE UNWORTHl — THE WEDDING ROBE — THE SADDUCEES — THE RESURRECTION — A SNARE LAID. After the Jews had refused, the king said to his ser- vants, " The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy." How not worthy? Simply, because they judged themselves so; or, as it might be rendered, they were not meet, they were not in that mood or frame of mind that would have led them to accept it. And this explains what is meant by worthy and unworthy communi- cants — " He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh condemnation," or, as it should be rendered, "judgment to himself." But the person who feels most unworthy to come to the Lord's supper, is really most worthy ; because if we wait till we are worthy, in its strict sense, we shall never come at all. But the meaning of " worthy," as applied to the Lord's supper, is meet, with that disposition of mind, with that attachment to our blessed Lord, with that submission to his laws, with that obedience to his will, which is the inseparable characteristic of a true Christian. " Go ye therefore," he says, " into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to, the marriage. So those ser- vants went out into the highways, and gathered together all as many as they found." " The highways," that is, the nooks and lanes, the hedges, ditches, and by-roads, where beggars and outcasts of society are, or such as are called, in a paper MATTHEW XXII. '261 with -which I have been furnished on the lodging-houses of London, the " Arabs " of the metropoHs, whose hand is against every man, and every man's hand against them, who are neglected by us, and not brought within the reach of Christian education, and for whose condition we are more or less responsible in the sight of God. Well, they went to the very lowest strata of the social system, and invited them to this wedding. You see how low the Gospel goes. The oldest and the youngest, the most inveterate and the most guilty, are welcome to the great remedial provision that is laid up in the Gospel of Christ ; so that if any one who has ever heard a Gospel sermon, perish, it is not from want of willingness in the great King to receive him. The wedding having been thus " furnished with guests, the king came in to see them, and he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment : and he saith unto him, Friend," — eralpe, " companion" — it is a kind word, — " how camest thou in hither, not having a wedding gar- ment ? And he w^as speechless." There are two explana- tions of this. One is, (and I think it a very just one,) that on all these great public occasions robes are hung up in the hall, and any one who came to seat himself at table, had to put on one of these robes before he presented himself before the king. This person, therefore, passed by the robe that hung in the hall for his acceptance, and said to himself sub- stantially, " My own clothing is good enough to appear in before any king on earth. I do not regard kings with so much deference. I am a thorough democrat — a real social- ist. My clothing is good enough for royalty, and I will go and seat myself at that table just as I am." But when the king asked him wdiy he had not on a wedding garment, he dared not offer any excuse, he was speechless. He was overwhelmed by a sense of the utter paltriness of the reason that he had made to himself ; and therefore, with a prudence that he did not show on entering, he was speechless. It is 262 SCRIPTURE READINGS. a very bad case, for which nothing can be said. The otlier explanation is, that the robe was not hung up for every one to accept, but that every one knew the custom of the coun- try, which was, that he should come with some preparation for the feast. The fact that he was speechless, shows that he could not say, " I could not afford a robe," or " I could not find one," but that the only reason why he had not on a wedding garment, was simply because he thought his own dress good enough for the royal presence. My dear friends, there is a wedding robe for every one in this assembly, if he will take it. It is most important that every one should feel this solemn responsibility, that, when asked at the judg- ment-seat why he is not arrayed in that raiment, white and clean, which is the righteousness of saints, he will be speech- less. Nobody will be able to say, " I could not get to heaven, and therefore I am not to be blamed." Nobody will be able to say, " I tried to get a robe, but none would give it me." Nobody will dare to say, " The blame is not mine, but thine." Here is the robe ; it is unto all and upon all that believe. We are saved, (hear it, and repeat it, wherever there are ears to hear,) not by any thing done by us, but by something done for us. We are saved, not by something that we weave ourselves, but by a robe laid up, which we have but to accept, and put on, and be justified, accepted, and acquitted in the sight of God. What a beau- tiful exposition of the Gospel is this ; and how justly was this person " cast into outer darkness, where there is weep- ing and gnashing of teeth ! " We have then the account of the Pharisees and the Herodians coming to Jesus, and trying to "entangle him" on that very delicate but true distinction that subsists be- tween the jurisdiction of Caesar and the jurisdiction of God ; or rather, their attempt to bring him into difficulty either with the crowd, who applauded him, or with the Herodians, and through them with the Idumean, who occupied the MATTHEW XXII. 263 throne at that time as the representative of Caesar. If Jesus had said, It is lawful to give tribute to Ca3sar, the Jews would have all risen up against him. If he had said, No ; Herod would have accused him of treason. After the Herodians and the Pharisees had failed, the next wdio came were the Sadducees. The Pharisees be- lieved the Old Testament, but they added to it the Rabbini- cal traditions. The Sadducees accepted only the Penta- teuch, or the five books of Moses, thus rejecting the proph- ets, and also tradition. They disbelieved also the existence of the soul as separate from the body, and also the resurrec- tion of the body at the last day. This will explain some of the answers of Jesus in this statement. They put a case, not an actual one, but a hypothetical one, and they made it very extreme, in order to make it the more palpable. They supposed that a woman had seven husbands in succession ; and they said, if all are to be raised, who will claim that ■wife in the resurrection ? The answer was, that those ties, as far as their reciprocal obligations are concerned, are all confined to the age that now is ; that in that future dispen- sation they will be dissolved ; that whilst there will be the recognition of relations who were lost on earth, the relation- ship will not be what it now is, but something far higher, nobler, better, and lasting as the immortality of the soul itself. " In the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage," but they occupy a position, not as if they were destitute of bodies, but like the angels in heaven, all independent of each other, and in common dependent upon God. Our Lord instantly explains to them how the resurrection and the separate existence of the soul, which they denied, must be true, by referring to that beautiful statement in the third chapter of Exodus, " Have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob ? 264 SCRIPTURE READINGS. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." If He be the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, then they are the property of God ; but if they be annihilated in soul and body, then there cannot be any property in them. They cannot be the property of God, if your notion be true, that their souls are annihilated, and that their bodies have ceased for ever to have any possibility of a resurrec- tion from the dead. The argument is conclusive, that the fact that they are the property of God is proof that their souls live with him in glory, and that their dead dust is knit to him by a covenant that never can be broken, and shall hear his bidding at the last day, and come forth to the resur- rection of everlasting life. Well, " when the Pharisees," after having been once repelled, " had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, " Master, which " — iroia — of what sort — what is your description of — " which is the great command- ment in the law ? " Jesus then summed up the whole deca- logue in two short, but comprehensive epitomes, — the first embracing the first four commandments, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind," — the second embracing the last six commandments, " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." In the moral law on Sinai it was negative — " Thou shalt not." In the summary of it by Jesus it is presented in its positive aspect — " Thou shalt love God, and thy neighbor as thyself." It is explained elsewhere, that love is the ful- filling of the law. The great question then, is, How shall man get the seed of love replanted, or resown, in his heart.'' The answer is. We love God, because he loved us. God's intense love to us produces responsive love in our hearts to him. Thus, Christianity is the only provision for replanting love in the human heart, and giving, not only pardon by an MATTHEW XXII. 265 atonement, but sanctification by the Spirit, or obedience to the moral law. The question put by the lawyer, whose object was to ensnare Jesus by provoking a reply that might be turned against his popularity with the crowd, and in favor of the designs and desires of the scribes and Pharisees, might be literally translated, and indeed ought to be translated, not, " Which is the great commandment in thti law ? " but, " Of what sort is the great commandment in the law ? What is your description of it? What is its character? How do you describe it ? In what language do you express the leading and prominent commandment in the law ? " He played into the hands of the scribes and Pharisees so far, because they often made the rigid, mechanical observance of one law an atonement or warrant for the breach of another law, the breach of which was agreeable to their taste, and convenient to their habits ; and he, being accus- tomed to hear that one law was better than another, and that amid all the laws there was some chief and leading one, asked our Lord, " Which of the ten is the chief one, and what sort of one is it, and how does it bear upon our responsibilities ? Tell me what sort it is." He did it, tempting Jesus, not for information, but in order to ensnare him: but our Lord, just as we saw he did on their asking liim, "Is it lawful to give tribute unto Csesar, or not?" overlooked the motive that dictated the question, and replied to it with as much magnanimous forbearance as if they had asked from the purest motives, and desired from the very heart to have the best and choicest information. He answered at once, " The great commandment is not, Thou sbalt not make unto thee any graven image ; nor is it, Remember the Sabbath day ; nor is it. Thou shalt not steal ; but it is, first and chiefest, the emotion that the heart should feel towards God ; and second, what is its shadow, and never absent companion, the feeling that the heart should 23 266 scRirTURE readings. cherish towards every other heart that beats in the world. The first and great commandment is not one of the first four singled out for supremacy over the remaining three, but it is that feeling within which covers all the four com- mandments of the Decalogue that relate to God ; and sec- ondly, and subordinately, the feeling within that covers the remaining commandments of God, and relates to all your duties to your neighbors and brethren of mankind." Now the first four commandments are embosomed in the words, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." Now this law man first broke. It was the chief commandment that man first violated in Paradise. He was placed under this law ; he broke through it ; and in doing so, he lost that tendency to God, that dependence upon his touch, control, and paternal government that would be equivalent in mate- rial things to the earth breaking loose from its attraction to the sun, and wandering eccentric from its orbit into the wilds of infinite and endless space. By the disruption of this primal tic, this first and chiefest affection, love to God, man lost his anchorage ground, and was at sea without star above, or hope before. He broke loose from the great cen- tral government, and became, in the language of Scripture, a lost son, a stray sheep, dead in trespasses, an enemy, a stranger, without hope, and without God in the world. Now, after this the Bible does not assert that no moral excellence survived in man, and experience does not war- rant us in saying so. There are many beautiful traits that still survive man's first loss ; but these beautiful traits are like ivy about a ruin, they only serve to conceal the gigan- tic deformity that is within and beneath them. "Whatever excellence survives in man's heart is just the remainder of what he once was. There is enough to tell us how magnifi- cent he was in his original relationship to God, and there is enough to prove to us what a terrible dislocation, what an MATTHEW XXII. 267 wwful wreck, sin has made of the once lair and beautiful vessel of humanity. The Scripture does not assert that man is without any trace of what he was, or that he has no moral excellence. " If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children ; " — there is the affection of parents to children, and of children to parents. There are men constitutionally honest, and generous — so just, that they would spurn to do an unfair thing — so honorable, that they would shrink from the thought of a mean thing ; and these graces, if I may call them so, are in their place beau- tiful. But what we say is, that man has lost the spring and source of all virtue that is beautiful before God, and that he has parted with that supreme and vital feeling, love to God, which gives beauty to every grace, vitahty to every virtue, and makes the good tree bring forth, not only fair and fragrant, but good fruit in the sight of God and man. Now, it is repeatedly asserted in Scripture that in the absence of this love to God no outward act has any excel- lence in his sight. It may, I repeat, be excellent in the sight of man ; weighed in human scales, and submitted to human appreciation, it may seem most valuable; but till the fruit be connected with love to God, or the parent stem — till what you do springs from what you feel towards God, there is not that which will make it acceptable in the sight of God. There is no real, lasting, moral vitality in the branch, plant it in any soil you like, however fertile it may be in this world, until it be grafted in the parent stem, partake of its sap, and bear blossom from its union with it. The. most splendid acts are but splendid sins, till they are quickened with this divine life. Whatever is done by an unconverted man is a sin, when tested by a holy and heart- searching God. It is our relationship to him, and his rela- tionship to us — it is our restoration of sonship in reference to him, and the revelation of his Fatherhood in reference to us, that communicates a new beauty, gives real life, and 268 SCRIPTURE READINGS. makes truly useful and good all the fruits, virtues, sacrifices, or good deeds, that man is able to do by grace and through the Spirit in this present life. The constant assertion of Scripture also is, not only that nothing can be really good and lasting without this, but that man is by nature wholly destitute of this. He may not be destitute of many beautiful virtues, but he is wholly desti- tute of love to God. Nay, he is not only destitute of love to God, but he has the very opposite emotion, and cherishes the very opposite feeling ; that is, hatred to God. He may love an idol he has cut from the marble, or a sentimental being he has called up in his own imagination ; and think that by loving such a being he really loves God. But this is only making an idol suitable to his taste, and loving that idol instead of the true and righteous God ; and thus, love is not only withdrawn from God, to whom it is supremely due, but it is communicated and transferred to other objects, to which it was not due at all. The fact is, the feeling of love survived the Fall, and man must have something tj occupy the niche that God forsook when the sinner fell The original law was, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God." God has forsaken us, because we have forsaken him ; but the feeling of love, with which man was created, is just as inseparable from his heart as the feeling of hunger or thirst is from his physical economy. Having lost God, the true object, whom he no longer loves, because that God con- demns him for what he is and for what he has done, he finds other objects upon whom he concentrates that love, and who occupy the place that God originally filled. He puts the creature in the place of the Creator, and loves the former vastly riore than he loves the latter. If man had no love at all surviving, then he would seek nothing to take the place of God ; but because he has still the aff"ection of love, though the Object be gone, he gropes about for another object to lean upon and love, and give the sacrifice of his MATTHEW XXII. 269 feelings and his religious worship to. Hence, there never has been a nation without a god. An atheist really and speculatively is, I believe, an impossibility. We never can get rid of the impression that there is a God. We may modify our apprehensions very much of that God, or we may give our worship to an idol, an image, or a sentiment; but something greater than himself, and more lasting than life, man instinctively worships, adores, and trusts in. But supreme love to the true and the only God by nature he has not : on the contrarj^, I have said, he hates him. You say, " How can we hate God ? " We do not know him. We love our natural conceptions of God. Poets write the most beautiful poetry, and orators make the most eloquent speeches, upon God's beneficence and power ; but God, as a holy God, who will hate, punish, and extirpate sin, is a God whom man cannot love. The best evidence of this is, that the intrusion of God many a day, many an hour, and into many a thought, would be so grievous an infraction of your peace, that your heart would recoil from it, and give utterance to the wish, not dogma, " No God," and show that there is latent in its depths an instinctive enmity, where you thought there was only approbation, complacency, and love. Whatever change has been wrought in man, the great requirement of God still remains, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." This laAv is not repealed by the Gospel. It is obligatory upon you and me, upon angels and archangels, and all created intelligences. It is binding on us all, it is the essence of heaven, it is the atmosphere of the blessed, it is the tie that knits a happy universe to God, the disruption of which would be ruin and misery to the creature, and dishonor to that God who still says, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart." And therefore, this leads me to notice how this love can b^ restored in the heart of man. How then is tlie element 23* 270 SCRIPTUP.E READINGS. of enmity to be swept out, and the heart to breathe hence- forth love to God, and the tie broken in Paradise to be re- knit in more than its pristine peace and strength? That question meets its answer from the Cross of Christ. The law is exacting love — " Thou shalt love ; " the Cross is pardoning love. We hear from the law the constant exac- tion, " Thou shalt love," and we feel that it is as impossible to love as to rise from the earth, and seat ourselves amid the fixed stars ; and the longer we listen to a God exacting what we feel from our nature to be an impossibility, the more hard- ened and exasperated we become ; and thus, the repetition of the law, instead of producing love, only increases the enmity that was within us, till we hate God only the more as he repeats the command, '• Thou shalt love." But unless there be love, there is no life, there is no salvation, there is no happiness. The way, therefore, that God has taken to produce it, is by the Cross. He there proclaims at once this great truth, " God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish ; " and we, hearing that God so loved us, that, to ex- press the intensity of that love, he spared not his own Son, listen to these glad tidings, and study the manifestation of this love ; we learn that God, wlio loved us in our Eden glory, loves us as much in our ruins now, and our confidence is at once restored. We venture to approach a God pardon- ing, not exacting, proclaiming his love to us, and saying nothing about our love to him, and, in the language of John, " We love him, because he first loved us." In other words, the plan of the law is to insist upon love, " Thou shalt love ; " the plan of the Gospel is to say nothing about what we owe to God, but to say much about what God has done for us. God's way to produce love in the human heart is, silence about our duties to him, reiterated utterance of his love, and sacrifice, and interposition for us ; and we come to regard God no l^mger as exacting dqties thjit we cannot discharge, MATTHEW XXII. 271 but only as bestowing blessings that we never deserve ; and by the very nature of our constitution, and by the very nature of this manifestation of disinterested love, there is produced responsive to it in our hearts the beginning of that love which casteth out fear, and is only perfected in the everlasting life of the world that is to come. But even this manifestation of God's love to us would not produce this love in us to him, did he not give also the Holy Spirit to take of the things of Christ, what he said, did, suf- fered, and purchased, and to apply them to us, so that, taught by the Holy Spirit, and having God's love to us revealed, expounded, unfolded, and impressed upon our hearts by him, we come by that Divine influence to love him who first loved us ; and the moment this is done, man is restored to the orbit in which he was first placed ; he is restored to his original relationship to God ; he no longer sees God on Sinai exacting duties that he cannot pay, but hears him in the still small voice of Calvary, bestowing mercies that he did not deserve ; and he cannot help break- ing forth into feelings of gratitude and responsive love to him, who thus, in spite of our sins, loved us, and, in order to remove our sins, gave his Son to die for us ; and we come to love Him with all our heart, and soul, and mind, who so loved us, that He spared not even his own Son, but gave him up unto death for us all. This love, then, when once implanted in the human heart, will grow day by day in vigor, in influence, and in power. It is not a dead thing, but a living germ planted in the living heart ; and, nourished by the Holy Spirit of God, it grows up into increasing love, till it has no fear, and never can experience any failing. The more we contemplate the object that we love, the more we shall be struck with the greatness of his love. The more we study the Cross, the more impressed we shall be with the magnificence of the love that raised it ; and thus looking unto God loving us, 272 SCRIPTURE READINGS. we shall be changed from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord, growing in love to him, not by hearing his exact- ing law, but by ever studying, ever meditating upon the sin- pardoning sacrijfice upon the Cross ; and we shall feel more an allegiance grow within us that has no comparison, and an affection nourished within us that can have no equal, till at, last we too shall understand what that meaneth, " If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." — Luke xiv. 26. We have now, in this love planted in the human heart, the spirit of all obedience to God's law. To bring men first to the law, is to read the Gospel backwards ; it is to begin at the end instead of the beginning. To bring men first to God, a Father revealed in Christ, as love, is to begin where God has appointed us to begin, and beginning where he has promised to bless us. Plant the love in the human heart which the Cross necessarily generates, and you put in every heart the root that spreads out in all the branches of the moral law. The law is fulfilled in one word — love. Love is the Decalogue in a monosyllable ; and the Decalogue are but the branches that spring from this root — love in the human heart. Hence, evangelical preaching, which shows alone how this love can be generated, alone guarantees that there shall be obedience in the life. Justification by faith is the preface to sanctification of life, or obedience to all the requirements of the law. The believer obeys the law, not in order to be justified, but because he has been justified. Love to the Justifier necessarily delights in obeying the law that he has laid down. Outward obedience to holy law is just the outer life that springs and is developed from the inner life of love to God. And wherever there is this love to God, there will be assimilation to him. The very nature of love is to produce likeness. The painter who selects a great master for his MATTHEW XXII. 273 ^udy, instinctively catches his style, and imitates his paint- /hg. The poet or the musician, whatever be the profession, "who prefers a certain master, naturally and instinctively falls into his modes, forms, traits, and distinguishing characteris- tics. And the Christian, whose heart is supremely set upon the Great Master, and Teacher, and Legislator of all, instinc- tively but progressively will be assimilated to his character, and become like Him whom he so truly and deeply loves. " Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect," is an absurdity as addressed to the unconverted man ; it is the most beautiful, possible, and welcome address to him who loves God with all his heart, and soul, and mind. And the longer you live in the light of the coun- tenance of Him who is love, the more sharply and distinctly the lines of the long effaced and faded image of God will be restored and thrown up, till at last you are found bearing the likeness of him who loved you, the sons and children of our Father w^ho is in heaven. And if you are the subjects of this love, you will love all that bears the superscription of God. You will love the Sabbath as an angel from the realms of the blessed, as an emissary from the brighter and the better land, as a frag- ment of heaven, a foretaste and an earnest of the Sabbath that remaineth for the people of God. You will love it, not because it is a respite from the labors of the week, but because it bears upon its bright brow the signature of your Father in heaven. You will love the house of prayer. It is a tent that is pitched on the Sabbath, in which God meets you, and holds communion with you, as he did with Adam in the cool of the day, and amid the bowers and walks of Paradise. You will prefer a day in God's courts to a thou- sand in the Crystal Palace. You will regard every service that you join in, every sermon that you hear, as a spring in the valley of Baca, drinking from which you are strengthened for the journey that is before you. CHAPTER XXIII. SOLEMN TRUTHS — HYPOCRISY — MOSES' SEAT — APOSTOLIC SUC- CESSION — PHYLACTERIES — PRIDE — THE KEYS MEDIiEVAL COPY OF PHARISEES OATHS — THE MADIAIS — MISTRANSLA- TION. I DO not know a more solemn and awful chapter in the whole of the Gospels — certainly not in any portion of the discourses delivered by our blessed Lord and Master Jesus Christ — than this. But, you will notice, there is nothing in it to discourage the greatest of sinners that sincerely from the heart seeks acceptance before God ; whilst there is every thing in it to denounce, and to plunge (if that be right) into despair those who, conscious that their motives, their ends, and their objects are all wicked, yet cover their inward atrocity by an outside of pretended religion and ap- parent piety. It is remarkable that our blessed Lord received to instant forgiveness the greatest of sinners, but that on every occasion he denounced in the most unsparing terms the very least of pretenders and hypocrites. The sin that he denounces here is a sin that provokes the scorn of the high-minded and honorable on earth, and that only be- comes more atrocious and dreadful when real religion is made the pretext and the reason for doing things that high- minded men even in this world would abominate and shrink from with all their hearts. Yet it is too true that religion has been again and again perverted to the worst of pur- poses. Under its cover and its pretence the worst and the most wicked things have been done. But Avhen you hear MATTHEW XXIII. 275 this, you are not, as some rashly do, to blame religion, but the human heart, that seizes Heaven's best and noblest things, and turns them by its perversity^ to the worst and most wicked of purposes. It is said there is a spider that can suck poison even from roses ; in like manner, there seems to be a power in the human heart that can take ruin from that which should be restoration, and the worst of crimes from that which was meant to put an end to all sin, and bring in everlasting righteousness. He begins this solemn, and, I may say, awful address, by saying, " The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat." They occupy his place — they are the proclaimers of his laws ; for the testimony is written and accessible to you as well as to them. "All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do." The Greek word is not TToticj, but T7]p£0), which means to observe something that is written already, not to do something proposed for the first time ; and therefore it implies, " All that those men who wear the mantle, and occupy the places of Moses, bid you keep, which Moses has written, that keep and do." It is not a declaration that the fact that they sat in the seat of Moses made them speak infallibly ; and that, because they occupied that seat, the people were to accept every thing they said as Divine : but the meaning is, that as long as they occupied his place, were clothed with his authority, and spoke forth his words, not their own — those words, because they were true, not because they were uttered by them who officially proclaimed them, the people were called upon to keep and to do ; but they must be the words of Moses, as well as uttered by the men who sat in Moses' seat. The Mantle of Moses without his truth would be of no value. His truth you are to keep, and you are to keep it notwithstanding that they who utter it, and occupy the place of Moses, yet by their deeds do discredit to the relig- ion of that great prophet. 276 SCRIPTURE READINGS. This casts light upon a doctrine which you all have fre- quently heard of, namely, the succession of those who sit in the apostles' seats. I do not believe that there can be traced any such lineal succession. These scribes and Pharisees had a lineal, exact, and traceable succession. There was not a priest in the temple who could not trace his lineage up to Aaron. There was not a teacher in the synagogue who had not his credentials that could be traced upward and backward to the very highest authority. But mark what was the worth of this succession. A nation, whose priests had succession, — whose teachers sat in Moses' seat, — crucified the Lord of glory, and preferred a thief and a robber in his stead and l^lace. If, then, men who had a real succession, and a real outward commission, thus acted, we may depend upon it that they who have but a pretended one, — an assumed, and not a real one, — would not do better if the whole of their con- duct rested on the w^orth and the value of what is called their apostolical succession. But the truth is, we can trace historically no such thing in modern times. It is the purest figment upon earth. The Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Whate- ly, one of the acutest minds living, has offered, I believe, 1,000Z. to any priest of any sect upon earth who will prove, within twelve links, his personal succession from the apos- tles. Now, since so many pretend to it, it is a j^ity that they should not enrich themselves with such a reward by pro- ducing their credentials, and showing that they sit in Peter's chair, and have a legitimate and regularly transmitted suc- cession from him. But if those who boast most would read a little more ecclesiastical history, they w^ould see the folly of such a pretence. Our position is not one horizontal with the earth, but vertical from heaven. A minister is not made so by a virtue transmitted by one before him ; a true minister of Christ is constituted so by an unction direct down from the presence of God himself; and if the Holy Spirit do not consecrate, all the consecrations of Presbyteries and MATTHEW XXIII. 27-7 Bishops, however useful, orderly, and ctecent in their place, go for absolutely nothing. Speak truth, and you sit in the right seat. Speak apostolical truth, and you give irresistible evidence of apostolical succession. If you prove your apos- tolical succession, you do not thereby vindicate as truth all that you teach. Better speak saving truth, without the least pretence to apostolical succession, than always be pre- tending to a succession, the virtues of which you show, by your living and sp-eaking, you are wholly a stranger to. Jesus truly describes the conduct of these Pharisees ; and it is a singular fact that they just illustrate what has been the case always where this pretence has been. It is singular that they who have pretended to this authority transmitted to them, have generally be€n the least worthy of being listened to, obeyed, or respected ; and that they wdio have made no pre- tence to the apostolical succession, but only sought an unction from above, have alone spoken what was worth hearing, and lived lives that were worth copying. These Pharisees and scribes, who had this succession — in their case, real — acted as we are told by our blessed Lord. " They bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne " — their traditions, their rites, their exaggerated ceremonies, their making the moral to be microscopically minute, and the ceremonial to be vast, weighty, and intolerable. " They bind heavy burdens ; but they themselves will not move them." " They make broad their phylacteries." The phy- lactery was a robe worn by the Pharisees, and there were pinned to it pieces of parchment which were called rephelim, on which were written the name of God, and some frag- ments of the Law ; thus putting a carnal meaning upon what Moses said, — " These words shall be as frontlets between thine eyes." They did with the prescript of Moses exactly what the Romanist does with the words of our Lord ; they interpreted carnally what was meant to be understood mor- ally and spiritually. The word '' phylactery " comes from 24 278 SCRIPTURE READINGS. the Greek word (pv/MTTO), " to guard." We speak of some- thing that is prophylactic against an epidemic ; and these phylacteries were regarded by the Pharisees as things that guarded them against all bodily distempers, and against all mental aberrations. But these men, with all this assumption of Scripture on their robes, are vain and ambitious ; they like greetings, all men bowing to them in the markets. They liked to be called Rabbi, to be great ecclesiastical leaders. Patriarchs, cardinals, father of fathers, and many other phrases that are well known in modern Christendom. But our Lord says, " Be not ye called Rabbi : for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father upon the earth : for one is your Father, which is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters : for one is your Mas- ter, even Christ." Now, if we were to interpret this in the letter, we should just do what the Pharisees did with the prescript of Moses, fall into a gross, carnal, and material error. It is plainly to be interpreted in the spirit ; and it implies that no man is to look up to any man, be he presbyter, bishop, cardinal, or pope, as if, because of occupying that office, he had power to teach what is absolute and infallible truth. If you were to take the words literally, you would be landed in absurdity. The servant does call his master, Master, and his mistress, Mistress ; the son does call his father, Father. It is obvious, then, from our Lord's example, that this is not to be taken in its strict, literal meaning, because it would land us in an absurdity analogous to that of the Pharisees through taking Moses' words literally. The passage means that we are to take no man's judgment as infallible, if it contradicts what is in the law and the testimony. If a Pharisee in Moses' seat, — if a Pope from the Vatican, — if a Cardinal from Rome, — if an angel from heaven, were to preach to you any other Gospel than that which is in the Bible, do not re«^,ognize him as Rabbi — treat his authority with indif- MATTHEW XXIII. 279 ference. " To the law and to the testimony ; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." Our Lord is speaking of rehgious matters, because the very same Bible says, " Honor the king " — " render honor to whom honor is due ; tribute to whom tribute." Therefore, it is to be interpreted in the spiritual sense which I have explained. In the 13th verse our Lord gives an explanation of the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Peter received these keys. Some say, that means that what Peter's alleged successors pronounce upon me has its echo in heaven, and that what- ever they bind upon me God will bind in heaven ; in this sense, that their pardon God recognizes, and their refusal to pardon God will acquiesce in. Now it does seem to me, that the meaning of the keys that were given to Peter is to open, and the meaning of this is thus explained. " Ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men." How did they shut? By preaching wrong doctrine. And they would open the kingdom of heaven by preaching true and right doctrine, and by living pure and holy lives. It is plain, then, that to have the keys of the kingdom of heaven, is simply to have a commission to preach the Gospel to every creature. He then describes, in the 14th verse, what it seems as if the priests of mediaeval Europe had transferred to their practice. Nothing can be so plain a portrait of what was done during that dark eclipse of reason and revelation to- gether, as what is stated herf. " Ye devour widows" houses, and for a pretence make long prayer : therefore, y€ shall receive the greater condemnation." I fear, if those cathedrals that we admire so much could be traced to their origin, it would be found that the funds by which they were built were raised by the most unhallowed means and the most nefarious practices. It would be fo'ind that those insti- tutions raised in mediteval Europe, were the result of what 280 SCRIPTURE READINGS. recent lawsuits have shown the Romanists can do still,— persuading men in the moment of weakness to leave money behind them for the benefit of priests, that their souls may be prayed out of purgatory. How thankful should we be for the Statutes of Mortmain, although it has been found that no laws will ever be able to restrain the wonderful tal- ent and subtlety of Jesuit priests. The Church of Rome can laugh at all the laws that nations can make. Slje will turn all to her own pur^^oses ; and she is becoming every day the richest and the most powerful corporation in Christendom. And even in this country, where you talk of the riches of the Church of England, and the small endowment of the Church of Scot land, the Church of Rome is one of the richest corporations in it. This was predicted long ago ; and a few more years will show how literally fulfilled are the predictions and alle- gations made ujTon the subject. Then He speaks of their evasion of oaths. " Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor." If you wish to see this illustrated, read the theology of Dens, or of St. Alphonsus Liguori, where you will find this eva- sion of oaths, and this wonderful evasive treatment of God's moral law, carried out with consummate talent, and with perfectly Satanic dexterity, showing how possible it is to have an angel's wisdom combined with a fiend's wickedness. Why, in that very theology it is shown that when it suits the interest of the church, *he obligation of keeping an oath may be dispensed with : it may be rendered null, it may be broken. In fact, the most talented part of the theology of Alphonsus Liguori consists in showing how men can break oaths in the cleverest way ; and it is told you frankly that any oath that is against the good of the church, of which the priest is the judge, is null and void ab initio. So that if a Roman Catholic were to keep such an oath, I should MATTHEW XXIII. 281 say, " It is because you are more of an Englishman than of a Roman Catholic ; " but if he brake it, I should say, " I pity you for your principles, but I respect you for carrying them out." These things I am not stating at second hand, but from authority which they have been challenged to me€t, and will not, because if they were it would expose so completely the wickedness of that system, that I believe the nation would be tempted to rise up against it, and say, "We can barely tolerate it." Our Lord then shows how they gave tithe of mint and anise and cumin plants, — whilst they omitted " the weightier matters of the law, judg- ment, mercy, and faith." In the 24th verse there is a mistranslation that has been transferred to every edition of the New Testament : " Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat." It should be, and I think it must have been in the original edition of 1611, "strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel." Just suppose you were drinking wine, and a gnat got into it, you would strain the gnat out; and our Lord says, " You are so very particular, that if you were drinking a glass of wine you would strain out a gnat ; but on other occasions you will do a wickedness that is as great as swallowing a camel : that is, if there is an omission in paying tithe of mint and anise and cumin, you are most excited, and would seem to be angels of heaven, so shocked are you that the law should be broken even in the most minute jot ; but crimes, provided they be committed by a Pharisee, are in your mind so triv- ial, that of you it is strictly true, that while you strain out a gnat, you swallow a camel." He then pronounces more woes upon them. " Ye are like unto whited sepulchres, beautiful of marble w'thout, but all corruption within." And again, " Ye build the tombs of the prophets," as much as to say. We could not have been guilty of the wickedness of those who preceded us ; whereas you are preparing yourselves to kill " proph- 24* 282 sciiirTURE readings. ets, and wise men, and scribes, some of whom ye will kill and crucify, and some ye will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city : that upon you may come all the vengeance that has been accumulating in the past, and that will burst like a thundercloud upon you, and upon your capital, and thoroughly overwhelm it." Here, again, the picture is anticipatory of the middle ages : for what was done then? Just what has been recently done in Florence. But that deed shall be heard in reverberations throughout Christendom. It is the greatest blunder that the Papacy ever perpetrated ; and day by day, while we lament the expense of it, we rejoice that that system is de- veloping itself more and more. It is a most remarkable fact premonitory of its fall, that the charges which in the past we made against that system are now openly avowed. Dr. Newman says most candidly, " Why do you not persecute us in England ? Because you dare not. And why do we persecute you in Rome? Because we have the power." Pie does not deny the persecution of the Papacy. And in a history of England, written for youths belonging to the Roman Catholic church, it is said in one of the chapters that queen Mary did perfectly right in burning and execut- ing the heretics, or Protestants of that day, since they were disturbers of the common weal. All this is perfectly con- sistent, and one rejoices that that church is every day more and more manifesting herself; so that no one willhave any doubt about her principles. What we were denounced as prophets of evil for stating ten years ago, that church is avowing every day. If you would only read the Canon Law, which the Pope has appointed a cardinal to carry out here, you would find that the Church of Rome is not only pledged, but sworn to carry into practice principles the most atrocious, and the most persecuting, that you can pos- sibly conceive ; and I believe the question will one day b<; mooted in Enghiud, whether a church that tolerates none MATTHEAV XXIII. 283 itself shall be tolerated at all. But this chapter shows how the principles carried out by the traditionists of old have been illustrated by all the traditionists of modern times. Then He speaks in one of those touches so rich in eloquence, so evidently indicative that it was with a breaking heart that he condemned any, and that he had an open heart to welcome all that would : " O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, my city, my country, the glory of lands, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often — heaven can remember, and earth will attest — would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not ! " What mercy ! What a reception ! What guilt in these words, " Ye would not ! " Jerusalem is now a gigantic ruin ; the land is left unto it desolate ; and it will not be restored until its people shout amidst its hills and valleys, " Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." He came near to Jerusalem geographically; he comes near to every city in Christendom, and to every individual in the midst of it, in his providence, by the ministry of the Gospel, and by his Holy Spirit ; and such he beseeches with an earnestness as great and as real as that with which he spake to Jerusalem, " Oh ! heed thou the things that belong to thy peace, before they are for ever hid from thine eyes ! " He tells us in the Gospel according to St. Luke, that she had not given heed to the things that belonged to her peace. The word " Jerusalem " means, translated into English, " the vision of peace," Teru-salem. Therefore, when Jesus says, " If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in tliis thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace," it is as if he had said, — "Thou art called by a beautiful name, the Vision of Peace. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou vision of peace, as once thou wert, would that thou didst know"*and feel now the things that are the elements, the springs, and sources of 284 SCRIPTURE READINGS. peace ! but you have lost your opportunity ; your sun sets behind the western hills, you will be laid desert, the plough- share shall upheave all your deep furrows, and the armies of Titus and Vespasian shall lay waste all your ancient magnificence ; and you shall not be rebuilt until your chil- dren, under the inspiration of Almighty grace, shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." In other words, it is possible to have a name to live by whilst we are dead. It is possible to bear the noblest name, but in our deeds and life to deny and to disclaim it. The altar may stand, but without its glory. The temple may remain, but without its vision. The high-priest may officially survive, but the Urim and the Thummim, the lights and perfections, may be quenched in judgment for his great unfaithful- ness. There are, we are told here, things that belong to peace. In other words, there cannot be peace unless there be the knowledge of the roots of that peace, called here the things that belong to it. These things are, pardon of sin, truth, holiness, righteousness. If these be not in a nation, or in a capital, it may have a peace, or it may be called Jerusalem, the vision of peace, but its peace is not lasting. And if these roots, holiness and truth, be not in an individual's heart, he has no peace. Philosophy may create a calm within the bosom ; argument may reason the passions into quiet ; but that calm will soon be broken, and that quiet will soon be disturbed. The affections of man must be sanctified, not stifled, in order that there may prevail within the peace that passeth understanding. The Holy Spirit is first the Spirit of truth, then he is the Comforter. The wisdom tha^ is from above is first pure, then it is peaceable. The superstructure of lasting peace must rest on a founda- tion of moral and Scriptural truth ; and any peace in a nation, a city, a church, a capital, that does not spring from the roots :f truth, is a calm which the next storm will break, a MATTHEW XXIII. 285 quiet which the next invasion will disturb ; it is not a peace with which a stranger cannot intermeddle, and which passeth not away. The language of this part of the chapter is scarcely less touching, perhaps more so, than the passage analogous to it in the Gospel according to St, Luke. The allusion is to the habits and instincts of birds. I have seen a young robin fall from its nest, and lie wounded and helpless on the ground ; and I have seen the mother go three, four, twenty times a day to feed it, if peradventure the maternal feeding might restore it to its strength. Some of the instincts of birds are worthy of the study of a Christian ; and because we are Christians, we must not shut our eyes to the bright world that is around us ; for in the instincts of birds, in the habits of bees, in the peculiarities of all created things, in the structure of minerals, in the petals, fragrance, habits, and climates of flowers, there is an immensity of Divine teaching. Only it needs nature's book to be read in the splendor in which it was originally written ; and when a Christian's eye reads that book, its page is full of deep, significant, and precious meaning. And a day will come when we skali look upon the book of crea- tion just as we now look upon the Book of Revelation ; when it shall undergo its second baptism, be restored to its first beauty and magnificence, and be a meet companion to that Book which contains the prophecy of its restoration, and which will be the study, the delight, and the joy of the redeemed in heaven while the years of eternity roll on, — God's holy Word. Here the lesson that our Lord draws is from the habits of the hen. We must all have noticed, that when the storm begins to threaten, or the sky is blackened with clouds, or a stranger, suspected by the strong instinct of the maternal hen to be a foe, comes near her helpless and weak brood, she gives the signal, and they all crouch beneath her warm wing, and he who will destroy the brood, must first destroy the life of the mother bird herself. So says 286 SCRIPTURE READINGS. Jesus, "I give you, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the signal of approaching ruin. I have warned you that the thunder of the armies of Rome is already in your borders. I have warned you that the vulture of Rome has poised its wings, and is hovering over you, ready to descend, and number you with the dead. In the prospect of so dread a visitation, seeing the cloud that is above ready to burst in judgment, seeing the Roman eagle that is coming near you, ready to descend and make you his prey, I have entreated and implored you with all the earnestness of humanity, with all the deep sympathies of God, to crowd around me, and to seek under my outspread wing mercy to forgive you, and righteousness to cover you ; and as sure as you accept it, so sure when the judgment comes, Pella, the distant village, will protect you from the approaching ruin, and heaven, the distant but the certain home,, will receive your happy spirits as those who have been found in Jesus, and have been accepted in his name. But — " awful close of so touching an appeal ! — " notwithstanding all this, the chickens show an instinct more true than your logic ; for they accept the signal of their parent, and croud* beneath her wing, — you repudiate the warning of your Lord. Your blood is upon your own heads." But I do not pause to view this as especially connected with Jerusalem ; though it is well to notice that even if Jerusalem had had ten righteous men in it, God probably would have spared it ; at least, if we cannot say so of Jeru- salem, we know it was so with Sodom, that if there had been ten righteous men in it, God would have saved it. And we may depend upon this, that that truth so often indi- cated in Scripture teaches us that it is not armies, nor navies, nor battlements, nor bulwarks, nor brave hearts, nor many sabres, that will save and protect our country. It is right that these things should be ; and he would be a fanatic or a traitor who would oppose these things when required j MATTHEW XXIIT. 287 but at the same time we must ever take care, whilst our Government proceeds to make preparations to defend us from without, — and they do well, — that our missionaries, our readers, and our ministers are trying to defend us yet more powerfully within, by multiplying, by God's grace, the pious, the holy, and the spiritually minded, who, when the crisis comes, are seen by God, and for their sake the city and the nation are preserved. But, my dear friends, we learn lessons from this appeal of Jesus that are personally useful to us all. All who have not fled by faith to the Lord Jesus Christ for pardon, for justification, and acceptance before God, are at this moment exposed to great and imminent danger. A foe far more terrible than Titus or Vespasian draws near to us, and digs trenches about us every day. A judgment still more ter- rific than the swords, the spears, and the arrows of imperial Rome, approaches us. The eagles of Rome, and all her chivalry and ensigns, are among the things that were ; but God's law thundering anguish, tribulation, and wrath against every soul that is out of Christ; God's justice, hoHness, and truth, that will not, and (reverently be it spoken) can- not admit to heaven or save from hell a single soul that has not fled to Christ's blood for atonement and acceptance, are still real things and present things ; and until you have fled under the shelter of Christ's outspread mercy and forgive- ness by an act of personal, living, real faith, and confidence in him, you are shelterless, and exposed to death spiritual, death eternal. How shall you meet a law that you have broken ? How shall you face a justice that you have out- raged ? How can you deal with the great God ? How can you meet him at the judgment-seat? Unless there be some great remedial provision, which we have each personally for himself availed ourselves of, how is it possible that you or I can stand at the judgment-seat of Christ ? From Christ's appeal to Jerusalem let us notice, there is 288 SCRIPTURE READINGS. perfect safety in Christ, and in him alone. I know that when I uj^e that plirase, " in Christ," some are perplexed as to what it can mean, or as to how one can be in Christ. It is just the heart and the mind believing what Christ is set forth to be, and at the same time trusting in him in that character in which he is set forth. To believe in Christ is just to say, " I am ready to depart, and to appear at the judgment-seat, perfectly satisfied that there is nothing there to alarm me. Why? Not because I am spotless, or sinless, but because my trust is in Him whom God hath set forth for this specific purpose, and relying upon whom, and under whose outspread wing, I am sure that there is no condemnation, and that nothing shall be able to separate me from God's love which is in him. No deluge can sweep me from him; no hostile blow can smite me." " Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect ? It is God that justifieth. AVho is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, -yea rather, that is risen again. I am," says the apostle, not upon slight grounds, but upon personal experience and heavenly inspiration — "I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." That power that can spiritually and everlast- ingly injure a believer, must first strike through Omnipo- tence itself. The chicken could only be smitten by pierc- ing the outspread wing of the mother bird ; the believer can only be scathed by destroying the everlasting God. What safety is his who is in Christ, around whom are the everlast- ing arms, beside whom, are encamped all the angels of the skies, to whom all things minister — the very universe itself at peace with that man who is at peace with God in Jesus Christ his Lord ! In the third place, let us learn from this passage that MATTHEW XXIII. 289 Jesus is waiting and willing to receive the worst, the oldest, the greatest, the guiltiest of you all. Some have sins that are like crimson, others like purple ; some have sinned against light, and some have sinned against love ; and all of us feel that we have not loved God with all our heart, (why, the very utterance of the words conveys rebuke,) and with all our strength; we know that we have loved the creature in some shape more than the Creator ; we know that Ave have thought infinitely more, and far more intense- ly, about some created thing, than ever we have thought about God ; we know that we have trimmed our conduct and shaped our actions with a view to exclude God alto- gether; we know that we have left undone many things that we ought to have done, and that we have done many things that we ought not to have done. But be you, like Paul, the very chiefest of sinners, or, like Paul, the very least of saints, or, like Jerusalem, the blood of prophets and of righteous men staining your robes, Christ waits, and asks you only to trust him, and then under a sense of the magnitude of his goodness to go forth and act accordingly. " Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will- give you rest." And even after he had de- nounced the rulers and chief priests of Jerusalem, whose crimes provoked these unsparing denunciations, he could not close his catalogue of woes without one last touching appeal to Jerusalem, as, shall I say ? a man ; as, shall I also say ? a patriot; as still more a Saviour, God manifest in the flesh, — " O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not ! " And as if that love to Jerusalem were quenchless as his own great life, even after he had risen from the dead, ere he was seated at the right-hand of God, he made provision that to this guilty and wicked capital the 25 290 SCRIPTURE READINGS. first and choicest offer of his mercy should be made: for he said, " Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day ; and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations," not passing by Jerusalem, but " beginning at Jerusalem." What a testimony is here, that whilst none may presume, lest, like the Pharisees, they treasure up wrath against the day of wrath, oh, none, none, none, may despair ; for if it were the heart's last throb, and the heart's last gasp, and upon the very brink of the grave, even there there is pardon, and mercy, and complete forgiveness for all — all that will. I know nothing so rich in mercy, so full of encouragement to the worst, as this blessed Gospel. And then, I know no man so guilty as the man who hears what I am saying this night, and hears it next Sunday, and next Sunday, just as the wind is heard as it passes through a ruin, or an archway, making a mo- mentary sound, and then lost in everlasting silence. My dear friends, do you believe these truths ? Are they any thing to you ? I am not describing something that relates to the sun, to Saturn, or the fixed stars ; but I am speaking of what relates to you ; for unto you, as really, as fresh, as when the words were addressed to Jerusalem, Jesus says, — " O my people, how often, by my ministry, in my providence, by your sicknesses, your sorrows, your losses, have I come near to you, and asked you to come under my wings, not for my benefit, but for your good, and (oh, terrible degeneracy of the human heart!) ye would not ! " This leads me again to say, from the language applied to Jerusalem, " How often would I have gathered thy children together," that Jesus often speaks to us, often would also gather us together. It is not true that Jesus was, and that he is not. The Bible is not a Book written for yesterday, and obsolete to-day; but it is a Book that anticipates all MATTHEW XXIII. Ml ages, that has a prescription for all sins, and a welcome for all that will ; and Jesus now speaks to you, if you can only realize it, as truly, if not as audibly, as he ever spake to Jerusalem itself. He speaks to you in every providential visitation, each of which is a missionary and an ambassador from the skies. He speaks to you from the silent graves of your dead, and from the sick-beds of your living. He speaks to you in every sorrow that saturates the heart, and every ache, ill, and pain that penetrates the body. He speaks to you in all your joys and your sorrows, in all your trials, your fears, your doubts, your losses, your crosses. He speaks to you from the silent stars that, like the eyes of God's omniscience, are ever looking on you ; and he speaks to you from the beautiful flowers that come from the earth, as if to testify whose they are, and from whom they come ; and he speaks to you in all the seasons of the year, in all the changes of the day ; and he speaks to you from every pulpit, and from every text of the Bible, " How often would I have gathered you! Again, I would gather you stilL" Oh ! do not answer with your hearts and lives, "We will not." What is every minister of the Gospel? If a true one, he is an ambassador from Christ ; he is the eclio of Christ's word ; he takes the original key-note, which is the text, and he makes that key-note speak in the manifold reverberations of truth, earnestness, love, and peace. And what is God's holy Sabbath ? It is a day fresh from the everlasting rest, bearing the signature of God, and carrying the olive-branch in its hand. And what is every sanctuary into which you enter? A sacred spot to repeat the words transmitted along the ages, " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men." In all these ways, from all these points, by all these instru- ments, oracles, and embassies, God speaks to you, saying, " I would gather you." Let not your response be that which 292 SCRIPTURE READINGS. Jerusalem gave, " We will not." But, alas ! while I trust many of you would not say so, and do not feel so, it is not uncharitable, because truth never can be uncharitable, to say that vast multitudes of professing Christendom are stran- gers to Christ altogether. They will not believe, they will not come. Why ? Because they are not yet weary of their bondage ; they are not yet sick of feeding upon the husks of the Prodigal that swine do eat ; they are not yet ashamed of their chains ; they are not yet exhausted in try- ing to dig out cisterns in the world, until, after all their days and labor are spent, they find that they are cisterns that can hold no water. When we speak to them, one goes to his farm, and another to his merchandise, and another says, " We will hear thee on some other occasion." When we speak to others, they say, " There is no fear, there is no judgment, there is no Satan, there is no sin. We cannot believe that we are under God's curse." As it was in the days of Noah, they were eating, drinking, marrying, and giving in marriage, so shall it be in these last days into which we are entering, and which are the deepening twilight that precedes the advent of the Son of Man, and the ever- lasting morn. Let me state, too, that the only reason why Jerusalem was not saved, and the only reason why any reject the Gos- pel, was and is what I have often repeated, their unwilling- ness. If there had been any other reason of Jerusalem's refusal to be saved, our Lord would have told it. The reason why it would not be saved is found in these words — not " ye could not," but "ye would not." There was nothing that prevented you, but you were not willing to be saved. And, my dear friends, the same is the reason now. There is no reason out of any creature in this assembly why that creature may not be saved this very nigiit. If there be any reason or impediment at all, it is within the man, it is not without him. It lies in his unwillingness to be what Christ MATTHEW XXIII. 293 says he must humble himself to be — a consciously ruined sinner, saveable and saved only by free, sovereign, and un- merited grac€. We must all in this matter, the noblest and the lowliest, lie down upon the same dead level ; and we must all, the highest and the humblest, seek to be saved by the same precious blood ; and we must all of us, whether high or humble, lofty or lowly, personally, as a personal act transacted in the soul's secret, sequestered, and most solemn place, enter into covenant with God in Christ ; and whilst we accept pardon, full, complete, irreversible, for all our sins, we must accept also immediately after it his yoke, which is easy, and his burden, which is light. But (oh, wondrous phenomenon !) the Judge offers pardon, and the criminal flings it back in his face ; the King offers reconciliation, and the rebel spurns it away, and will have none of it. One reason, perhaps, why so many are unwilling is, not that they are averse to being happy, but because every one has his own prescription for it, and God gives but one. What explains the rush along our streets every day ? What explains anxiety, toil, trouble, striving, all that characterizes the great streams that pour every day along our streets ? They are all in quest of happiness ; they are all wanting to be happy ; but then, each is taking his own way. Now, the Bible says, the secret of our unhappiness is a disease — called sin ; and that there is no getting happiness except by submitting to have that sin freely pardoned by Christ, and its power, roots, and poison utterly extracted by the Holy Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ. If, therefore, you will be successfully happy, you must take Christ's way, or you never can be happy at all. Try your own way — and even if you fail, it is a blessed thought that God will take the very dregs of life — but the man who knows the truth, and sets out resisting it because he thinks that one day he may be able to believe and accept it, has lost all correct notions of the Gospel, and only tempts and provokes God. But if 25* 294 SCRIPTURE READINGS. you say, "I cannot trust the Saviour," — hoAV is that? What would you think of that man who should say, " I cannot be loyal to my sovereign, because I detest that sovereign ? " Would that be an excuse ? Or what would you think of that man who should say, " Such is my antipathy to honesty, that I must be a thief?" Such is no excuse. Your inability is not physical, it is purely moral ; and it resolves itself into what I have said before, your un- willingness. Something (and you yourselves know it) in your heart, or in your conscience, stands between you and complete surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ. What that is I do not know. You dare not be utterly worldly, you will not be wholly Christian ; you attempt what seems to be an intermediate course, but what is really compromise; for, disguise it as you like, he who thinks he is taking a sort of intermediate course is not gathering with Christ, and there- fore scattering ; for he who is not with Him out and out is entirely against him. Such is our Lord's solution of it. And now, my dear friends, if all has been wrong in the past, it is not too late to retrace your steps. The sun has not set, the voice of Jesus is not yet silenced. Jerusalem, Capernaum, Chorazin, and Bethsaida have all perished ; but we are here still. " Let the wicked man forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him ; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." And let me add, the present only is ours. To-morrow you may be numbered with the silent dead ; next year the place that knows you now may know you no more for ever. Let each one look into his family circle, and into the list and catalogue of his familiar friends. Those you thought last year were likely to live longest are dead, and those you thought were in the autumn leaf have survived, and stood it out. We know not what a single day may bring forth. All we know is that tliis moment is ours. The past is not MATTHEW XXIII. 295 ours : it is gone ; we cannot recall it. The future is not ours. Now is the day of salvation. Let it sweep past, and what an awful awakening must that man's be, whose eyes see the great white throne, and Him on it from whom heaven and earth flee a^vay, and whose only recollection is, " The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and I am not saved ! " And, my dear friends, God never was more willing to receive you than he is now ; and if you were to wait a thousand years, he could not be more willing. The fact is, he looks for you, he longs for you. Only you cannot expect that God will save you as if you were a machine or an automaton. God did not ruin you : you did it yourselves. God will not save you in spite of yourselves : he will work within you first to will before he works by you to do of his good pleasure. And therefore, remember that if you are saved, it is not against your will. No man goes to heaven with protests in his mouth, and no man goes to hell ignorant of the road he is walking on. We all know much better than we like to give ourselves credit for, where we are, and whither we are going ; and it is time that Ave should well ponder and weigh so solemn and so momentous an issue, — an issue which cannot be reversed or recalled. You may lose your money, or your health, and recover it ; but if you lose your soul, there is no second chance, opening, opportu- nity, or possibility of recovery. Let it not, then, be said of you, " Ye would not ; " but this day hft up the heart to Him who waits to shelter you, and say, " Blessed Jesus, to whom can we come but unto thee? Thou hast the words of eternal life. Lord, we believe : help our unbelief. Thou knowest all things, thou knowest that we cannot love thee as we should; but thou knowest that we would not part with the little love that burns within us, for all that this world, and twenty worlds besides, contain." 296 SCRIPTURE READINGS. Note. — Moses' seat is the oflSce of judge and lawgiver of the people. (See Exodus ii. 13-26 ; Deut. xvii. 9-13.) The Lord says, " In so far as the Pharisees and scribes enforce the law and precepts of Moses, obey them ; but imitate not their conduct." 'E/cai9iaav must not be pressed too strongly, as conveying blame : " have seated themselves," — it is merely stated here as a matter of fact. Verses 8, 10, however, apply to their leadership, as well as their faults; and declare that among Christians there ai-e to be none sitting on the seat of Christ. [11.] It may serve to show us how little the letter of a precept has to do with its true observance, if we reflect that he who of all the heads of sects has most notably violated this whole command, and caused others to do so, calls himself" Servus servorum Dei." — Alford. CHAPTER XXIV. IMPORTANCE OF THIS CHAPTEK JUDEA THE TEMPLE — JEAVS AMERICA — THE ABOMIKATION. The chapter I have read is one of the most solemn and impressive of all the chapters of the New Testament, those of the Apocalypse scarcely excepted. It would take a very long time minutely and critically to illustrate it. I can only give you a mere resume, or epitome, of the conclusions that have been come to, by careful thought, and by long and elab- orate analysis, on the part of the ablest divines, and appeal to that good sense and discernment which every one who reads the Bible, not as a critic, but as a humble Christian, is more or less possessed of. First, in the previous chapter our Lord said, " Your house is left unto you desolate." In this chapter He describes the coming desolation with a graphic and prophetic minuteness, that all history bears abundant testimony to. " Your house is left unto you desolate."* Then Palestine is still the house of the Jews. It is unfur- nished, it is stripped of its ornaments, its glory, and its beauty ; but it is their house still ; and the Moslem, the Romanist, the Greek, the Arab, and the Bedouin of the desert, are simply keeping the empty house till the lawful tenant comes in, which he will do right soon. His disciples then came and pointed out to him the build- ing of the temple, whereupon he pronounced a prophecy the most unlikely he could have uttered in the circum- stances in which he was : " There shall not be left here one 298 SCRIPTURE READINGS. stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down." Some of the stones were fifteen or twenty cubits in length, mas- sive blocks of solid granite, that must have taken very powerful machinery and immense bodies of men to lift and fix in their places. That temple seemed a prophecy of im- mortality, a pledge of endurance ; but Jesus, looking on it — that solitary Man of sorrows, with scarcely a friend in the world, with no power to achieve apparently what he predicted — said, "There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down." Now, it is literally true, that Titus and Vespasian ploughed it up, and removed all its stones ; and the only memorial of its ancient magnificence and grandeur is one large block or foundation stone peeping from the ruins, which has been worn smooth by the kisses of Rabbis and Jews who visit Jerusalem, and fulfil that beautiful statement in the Psalms, — " Thy saints take pleasure in her stones : her very dust is dear to them." I have often thought, what can be the meaning of all this ? No Englishman loves his home, no Scotchman loves his country, as a Jew loves Palestine. Why is this ? Because it is his home and country ; he is a discrowned king, a weary footed wanderer, having a heritage before him, and a destiny in prophecy, in comparison of which the grandest estates are worthless ; and having a lineage and an ances- try, in comparison of which that of our proudest nobles is but of yesterday. The disciples then came to Jesus, and asked two ques- tions. " Tell us, when shall these things be ? " that is, the downfall of Jerusalem, the dislocation of all the stones of its temple, and the termination of that grand, but guilty dynasty, which ended twenty years after the birth of our blessed Lord. That is the first question. Then the second is, " What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of " — what is contemporaneous with it — "the end," not " of the world," — but Tov aiuvog, "of the Christian dispensation." MATTHEAV XXIV. 299 Our Lord proceeds to answer these tM^o questions ; but in answering the first he frequently starts from the local and the national, and depicts the universal, the ultimate, and the closing; that is, whilst speaking of the downfall of Jerusa- lem, he refers by an association of ideas to the downfall of the present dispensation ; because what the Jewish dispen- sation was to the Christian, that the Christian dispensation is to the Millennial reign and kingdom and glory ; and there will be a crash at the close of this dispensation vaster, more terrific and startling, than that which took place at the close of that ancient dispensation, which ended nearly 1800 years ago. Then He said, " Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ ; and shall deceive many." This did occur prior to the destruction of Jerusalem. False prophets and pretenders came. One said he was- the Holy Spirit. Another said he was the true Christ, and tried to seduce and deceive many by laboring to persuade the Jews that their kingdom would not fall, that some great deliverer would appear, and make it a temporal, perpetual, and magnificent dynasty. He says also, " Ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars : see that ye be not troubled : for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom : and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places." All these did actually occur. Josephus, the Jewish historian, who in all probability had never read this prophecy, gives a narrative of the events that preceded and followed the downfall of Jerusalem ; and any one who will read what Dr. Keith and Bishop Newton have written upon the prophecy and its fulfilment, will see how the one dovetails with the other. " These," he says, " are the beginning of sorrows. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you : " — all the apostles, with the exception of John, died 300 ^ SCRIPTURE READINGS. violent deaths — " and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake." "And because iniquity shall abound " — the wickedness of the nations rise to a very great height — " the love of many " — who professed the Gospel — " shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end," — that is, to the end of his life — " the same shall be saved." Then it is said, in the 14th verse, "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached h dXy r?) oUovfiivi^." This phrase is used to denote the Roman empire. Hence, we read ia Luke ii. 1, " That there went out a decree from Cassar Augustus, that all the world (iTaGav rrjv olaoixevr/v) should be taxed." That expression was applied primarily to the Roman empire, since that empire comprised the whole ex- isting civilization of the world, and might therefore very properly be used to denote all the world. — " This Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a wit- ness unto all nations ; and then shall the end come." Now I think it can be proved that the Gospel was preached in every part of the habitable globe prior to the downfall of Jerusalem. The Apostle Paul set his foot upon the shores of Great Britain ; and we learn from the Acts of the Apos- tles that the Gospel was preached in Asia Minor and Africa. America, if then inhabited at all, was peopled by a few casual emigrants from Africa and Asia ; and if it had not the Gospel preached to it territorially, it had really. It is a part of Great Britain ; and we thank God that it has the same religion, and that in the coming struggle of the na- tions of the earth, these two great kingdoms shall be linked together. He then warns them that they should see what Avould prepare and awaken those Christians who were in Jerusa- lem to flee, namely, " the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet." Some have alleged that this was the Roman eagle, or the imperial standard of Rome, which is now assumed by the new French dynasty, and MATTHEW XXIV. 301 which, being planted in the midst of Palestine, became thereby the fuUilment of the prophecy of Daniel, that the abomination of desolation, or that which the Jew detested because it intruded on the prerogatives of his God, would be set up in the midst of the Temple. But this is met fairly by the objection that the Roman eagle was upon the coins of the realm, and had been planted on every acre of Palestine, long before this ; and besides, to allege that this should be a sign to the Christian Jews to escape from the coming catastrophe, is to give a sign which really would be no sign at all. It would seem rather, I think, as it has been very strongly stated by Alford, that the Zealots, a sect among the Jews, should intrude into the sacred temple, and add the last drop to the iniquity of that people, and precipi- tate, by the desecration of the holiest part of the temple, the catastrophe that was then impending at their doors. The first two Gospels, Matthew and Mark, have an inner reference to the Jew ; the last two Gospels, Luke and John, have an outer reference to the Gentile. The abomination of desolation to the Jew would be something interfering with the sacredness of his temple ; but the eagles of Rome environing the capital would be a far more intelligible sign to the Gentiles who were in the midst of Jerusalem at that time, than to the Jews. Then he says — "Let him which is on the house-top not come down to take any thing out of his house." In Jewish houses there was an inside, and often an outside staircase. The roofs of the houses were flat ; and a Jew on the top of his house, looking for the signs of the approaching judg- ment, or watching the manoeuvring of the Roman army, when he saw this great abomination, or heard that it had taken place, was here warned not to go down into his house to carry away any of his goods, but to leave them, and escape with all speed to the mountains that were around Jerusalem. 26 CHAPTER XXIV. SABBATH DAY — WARNINGS ANTICHRIST — SIGNS IN LAST DAYS — PROOF OF cubist's ADVENT — BUDDING OF THE FIG-TREE THIS GENERATION STATE OF WORLD BEFORE THE ADVENT. Jesus continues in this remarkable 24th chapter of St. Matthew — "Pray ye that your flight be not in the win- ter," when the coldness of the season, or the bad state of the roads, might be obstructions to their escape, " neither on the Sabbath day." That does not mean that it is wrong to flee from calamity on the Sabbath day. If any thing oc- curred that threatened you with danger, it would be your duty on the Sabbatli day to make your escape from it. If our own capital were invaded — as we hope it will not be — it would be our duty on the Sabbath day to defend it to the very utmost of our power, or in case of necessity, to escape from its ruins as fast as we could. What, then, is the meaning of our Lord ? Not only on the Sabbath day was it unlawful to take a long journey, (which is not the idea of our Lord,) but the gates of the city were shut, and all means of egress prevented. Thus, if they were to escape on the Sabbath day, the impending ruin would fall upon the city before it was possible for the inmates to reach the neighboring mountains. It was simply from the usages of the Sabbath, not from its sacredness, that our Lord bade them pray that their flight might not be on that day. And then he adds, that there "shall be great tribula- tion" — and this cannot be restricted to the downfall of MATTHEW XXIV. 303 Jerusalem — " such as was not from the beginning of the world, no, nor ever shall be." Now we read expressly that the last days of this dispensation shall be far more terrific, and that there shall be troubles unprecedented since the beginning of the world. It would seem, therefore, that our Lord starts from the type to that which is typified, and sweeps from the fall of Jerusalem to the fall of the Gentile church, and mingles the two great events together, the one being exactly a type and illustration of the other. He then says — " If any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there ; believe it not." Christ will not come in that way. " For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders ; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect." I believe this applies to the future, and was only partially applicable to the downfall of Jerusalem ; be- cause I cannot conceive that our Lord repeats himself. He had said in a previous passage, that before the downfall oi' Jerusalem many should come in his name, saying, I am Christ, and should deceive many. Here he amplifies the prophecy, and evidently stretches forward to a future catas- trophe, namely, the downfall of this present Gentile dispen- sation. He says, " There shall arise false Christs." Why, what is the Pope* of Rome ? He is the avTixpLcro^, the false Christ, the pretended vicegerent of Christ. I have often made the remark (and you will never be able to understand what the mystery of iniquity is till you appreciate it), that uvrixpioTog does not mean opposed to Christ — it is not the preposition anti used in the sense of " against," as the words " antipjedobaptist," or " antitrinita- rian;" but anti, when used in connection with ^ noun of office, does not mean " against," but " in the room of" Such expressions as these are proof of this : 'AvdvKarog was not a person opposed to the consul, but a person who took the place of the consul. Again, 'AxMevg a>r dvnMuv, "Achilles 304 SCRIPTURE READINGS. is as strong as a lion " — not " one opposed to a lion," but " one who takes the place of a lion, and does what a lion can do." Again, we read in Greek writers of the uvrtlSaaiXeiic, that is, " one who takes the place of the king, and pretends to occupy his position." So we have the antij^apa. These were not persons opposed to the Popedom, but who were so enamoured with it, that they wanted to get rid of the exist- ing Pope, and occupy his place. So the uvrixpiOTog is not one opposed to Christ, but one who takes the place of Christ — arrays himself in his attributes, sits as if he were the Head of the Church, and assumes to be in all respects what he calls himself, the vicegerent of Christ upon earth ; or, as he calls himself more commonly, " the Vicar of Christ," — the vice-Christ. A vice-president is one who takes the place of the president. A vice-Christ is one who takes himself the place of God, — the Vicar of God ; by that expression sealing his own condemnation. You know that when a lay impropriator receives the tithes, as they are called in Eng- land, or the teinds, as they are called in Scotland, the per- son who occupies the pulpit is not a rector, but a vicar — wherever in a parish there is a vicar, it denotes that the rector, or proprietor of the ecclesiastical property, is absent. Now, when the Pope calls himself the Vicar of God, it is simply telling every one that God is not there, and that he is pretending to do all in his stead. In other words, " h-e, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God." Now, this is one of the " false Christs." And He adds, that they " shall show great signs and wonders," — crinela neyala koX ripara, which words denote real signs. I believe the Church of Rome will do great signs and wonders before she is cast down in ruins ; but I have given you on a previous occasion the criterion by which you are to distin- guish what is false from what is divine. All the signs of the universe never could persuade me that the Bible is not MATTHEW XXIV. 305 true ; and if an angel were to come from heaven radiant with its unutterable glorj, and were to raise a dead man, in order to persuade me that this Book was a lie, I should treat with scorn his attempts, and fall back on the conviction, lasting as the God who inspired it, " Thy Word, O God, is truth." But these miracles will evidently have great force, and cannot, therefore, be merely the foolish and anile speci- mens that Dr. Newman has given ; for I think he has not given the best selection of the miracles of the Church of Rome. Mark how strong these signs and wonders shall be — " If it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect." This implies, that it is not possible so to do; but it also implies that these miracles shall be most impressive. But the miracles that would almost deceive the elect are not the foolish things that Dr. Newman has promulgated, — such as a saint swimming across the Mediterranean on his cloak, or another carrying his head under his arm after having been beheaded, or the blood of another hardening and melting at certain times, and especially when one of the Januarides, or descendants of the saint, happens to be present on his day at Naples. These miracles, you may depend upon it, will be Satanic power in its most terrific development ; and they will so strike the senses, " that if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect." Then what is our gran trates the kingdom of heaven, by one who went into a far country, and " called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods." Some think, and, I conceive, very justly, that this parable of the talents relates to the whole human family ; and that it is the expression of that responsibility that devolves upon every man for the talent that he has, whatever that talent may be, and the use that he makes of it, either in the providence of God, if it be natural, or by the grace of God, if it be spiritual and Christian. This man gave to one of his servants five talents, to another two, and to another one. Here is sovereignty. God makes one man very clever, another man not so. He makes one ^man a noble, another a commoner. He makes one man rich, another poor. There is no sin in riches, in nobility, in talent. There is no merit in poverty, in lowli- ness, in want. We are responsible, not for the place assigned us in God's providence ; for that is not at our dis- posal ; but we are responsible for the use that we make of the talent that he puts within our reach. This parable is meant to impress upon every man a deep and solemn sense of responsibility. It is a most solemn thought, that the higher a man is, the greater is his responsibility. I know no man so much to be pitied, and needing so much to be 27* 318 • SCRIPTURE READINGS. prayed for, as the man who has vast genius, and transcen- dent talent, but who unhappily desecrates that talent to be a ministry of sin, instead of consecrating that talent to sub- serve the cause of God, and the happiness of mankind. Instead of envying and coveting great genius, we should often thank God that we are just where we should be, and frequently feel that what He expects of us is, not to try to lift ourselves out of the place his providence has put us in, but to turn to the best and most beneficent account the tal- ents that He has given us in that place for his glory, and for the service of mankind. The parable is represented by an earthly lord — the word " lord " is not our blessed Redeemer, but the master of the servants, who called them together, and gave them their talents. The story is told in its completeness ; the moral is drawn at the close of it, as its legitimate corollary. The servant who received the five talents turned them to good account, and so doubled them. That implies that whatever a man has, he is to make the best use of to benefit others, and give the praise unto God. To another he gave two, and he made other two by them. To another he gave one. Here is sovereignty. God distributes to one man wealth, and to another man poverty. He does not tell the man who has two talents to beg for five, nor the man who has one to ask for two ; nor does he say that the one who has two should produce as much as the man who has five. He only asks for the vigorous use of that which we have, and on that vigorous and prayerful use he will bestow his blessing. But the man who had one, said, " I cannot buy stock with it ; the Savings Bank even will not accept of it ; it is utterly useless ; I will just wrap it up in a napkin, and hide it, so that it shall not be stolen ; and I will then give the proprie- tor what he gave me, since he can expect nothing more." But it matters not how little talent you have, that little you MATTHEW XXV. 319 ai'e bound to use. Now, a great many people think, If we were only elevated to that position, oh, how much would we do for the circulation of the Bible, and the spread of the Gospel ! My dear friends, if you can do nothing as servants, depend upon it you would do less as masters. If you can do little for Christ with 100/. a year, depend upon it, you would do much less if you had 1,000/. a year. It is not what you have, but what you are, that makes the mighty difference. If you have only one talent, brighten it by using it. If you have two, double them ; if you have five, double them. You are answerable for what you have, not for what you have not. But what you have you are answer- able for turning to practical accumulation and usefulness in the sight of God, and amid mankind. This servant, however, tried to defend himself; and it is a very bad cause for which nothing can be said. He answered his master, " I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reap- ing where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed : and I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth : lo, there thou hast that is thine." The others did not regard him as a hard master, but as a good master. Think of God as your Father and your Benefactor, and you will serve him joyously as children. Think of God as a hard taskmaster, and you will either serve him as slaves, or you will give up serving in despair. But the master replied to this servant in the way he deserved, — " If you knew I was such, instead of that being an argument against the use of this talent, it was only a stronger argument for your use of it. If you feared me, you ought to have been more diligent in turning to account what you had. In fact, your apology aggravates your neglect. You had better, like the man without the wedding garment, have been altogether silent." Whenever a man commits a great and inexcusable fault, if he attempts to explain it away, he only makes it worse. 320 SCRIPTURE READINGS. After having given them these parables, our Lord de- scribes a scene which has created some perplexity amongst the best and most enlightened commentators as to who they are who are here summoned to the judgment-seat " when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him." Now, mark, it is said in the 32d verse, " Before him shall be gathered all nations." It is in the original Greek, " all rii tdv?) " — all the Gentiles, as if there were indicated a distinction between the Jews, whose condition and destiny have been explained in the previous parables, and the Gentiles, whose condition and destiny are evolved in the course of this present statement. But in all these nations he recognizes only two classes, the sheep and the goats ; those who are his and those who are not. " He shall set the sheep on his righthand," that is. Christians, " but the goats," that is the figure of those who are not, " on the left. Then shall the King say," — presenting himself no longer as the Priest in- terceding, or the Prophet preaching, but as the King ruling — " unto them on his right hand. Come." That is the old phrase, — " Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden." So at the judgment-seat it is still, " Come, ye blessed." Nearness to Christ is happiness ; the nearer you are, the happier you are. Everlasting heaven is everlasting approximation to the infinitely distant centre — ever near- ing it, your happiness increasing at every stage of your progression — onward and upward for ever and ever. Hence, heaven is, " Come, ye blessed." Hell in the sequel is, " Depart, ye cursed." Heaven, approaching Christ ; hell, departure from Christ. Then He calls them " ye blessed of my Father," — blessed with all spiritual blessings — therefore children — blessed of the Father. And then He says, " Inherit," — not take as a reward, but inherit. A son inherits his father's property and title, not because the son is virtuous and excellent, but because he is the son. So, MATTHEW XXV. 321 while we must be virtuous, good, and moral, we inherit heaven, we do not purchase it. We inherit it as sons, whilst cotemporaneously we serve God as his servants day and night. "Inherit the kingdom prepared for you," made ready for you. Jesus says, " I go to prepare a place for you, and I will come again." Heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people. Then He gives them, not the grounds of their merit, not the grounds of their title, but the evidences of their sonship. " For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat ; " that is not the ground of their admission, but it is the evidence of their title, or of their sonship, and, therefore, of their being heirs. " I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink." Then the righteous shall say, " Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee ? or thirsty, and gave thee drink ? " Now, I would not venture to speak positively, but I can scarcely think that this is the description of Christians ; because when a Christian gives a cup of cold water, he does it in the name of Christ ; w^iatever he does, he does for Christ's sake : therefore, I cannot suppose Christians saying at the judg- ment-seat, " Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee ? " Every Christian on reading this chapter knows that he does good from a divine impulse, and that whether he eats or drinks, he does all in the name of Christ. And therefore I have a strong impression that this has some reference to the condition of the heathen who never heard the Gospel, and that there may positively be amongst the heathen those who have been touched and transformed by divine grace, in some way unknown to us, but who have never heard the joyful sound, nor been made acquainted with the Gospel of Christ. Those who are here spoken to saw Christ sick, a stranger, and hungry, but never knew that their ministry was a ministry to Him. I cannot sup- pose that a false humility made them say so. Therefore, it may be that millions of poor Mahometans who prostrate 322 SCRIPTURE READINGS. themselves in the mosque, and millions of miserable Hindoos, who are in darkness and in the shadow of death, maj, in a way and by means that we know not, be touched and trans- formed by the grace of God, and discover in the last day that they were serving Christ when they knew it not ; this, I say, is possible. So also with regard to the Jews. I have been found fault with for a sentiment contained in a sermon preached on this very subject, in which I said, I can conceive some Jews, who rejected Jesus of Nazareth, to have yet in heart relied upon Him, the Messiah, and to find themselves at this day and at this hour to have unconsciously believed on Jesus of Nazareth, whilst they thought they were be- lieving on and looking for another Messiah altogether. This is possible. We shall find in heaven many that we did not expect ; and we may miss some whom we did expect. We may find there some poor and lowly monk with the crucifix in his hand, who looked beyond the cru- cifix, and gloried in the cross of Christ, and was saved by Jesus Christ, his Sacrifice, and Priest, and King. I do not pronounce absolutely where my argument is purely inferen- tial ; but I do submit, that this passage cannot describe enlightened Christian people, but must have reference to some who are found at the judgment-day to have been min- istering to Christ, when they themselves did not know that they were so ministering on earth, and in the presence of God. " Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." And here, my dear friends, is the true justification of our sympathy with all that suffer. It v/as said by an excellent minister, the other day, in expressing sympathy with the persecuted in Florence, that the ground of our sympathy is, " I was in prison, and ye came unto me." We cannot visit the pro- scribed and persecuted Madiai, who are in the estimate of the church of Rome justly imprisoned, and who are most canonically dealt with, and whose gaoler, if I may apply MATTHEW XXV. 323 such an expression to a royal personage, is acting most con- sistently, — and I only wish the Protestants would act as strictly in conformity with their enlightened principles as the Roman Catholics do with their bigoted ones, — we can- not visit the Madlai, but the least we can do is to sympa- thize with them. I have been telling you, for the last fifteen years, that all this persecution is perfectly consistent, that the principles that have punished the Madiai, are the inveterate principles of the church of Rome. And now, the whole continent of Europe seems to become more and more the scene of exclusiveness and proscription ; and this isle of ours, this gem on the bosom of the deep, seems re- served to be the last retreat of freedom, of loyalty, of light, and love ; and if it will only be nationally true to God, it may look with scorn acro-ss the ocean upon the whole world, and shout, as Martin Luther sung, " God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea ; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High. God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved : God shall help her, and that right early." But one word more upon this very long chapter ; and it is the intense interest of these chapters, that makes me give a disproportionate part of our time to their explana- tion ; and I do believe that such explanation is at least as instructive as any sermon that I could possibly preach. He shall say to those on his left, — " Depart from me." Now I wish you to mark the distinction. The first address is, " Come, ye blessed of my Father ; " the second is, not, " Depart, ye cursed of my Father," but, " Depart from me, ye cursed." In other words, there is here election, but no 324 SCRIPTURE READINGS. reprobation. There is here a choice to everlasting life, but there is here no decree damning any man to everlasting perdition. The saved are blessed of God, the lost are cursed in and through and by themselves. Then notice, it is, " Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you ; " but when he addresses the lost, it is, " Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, pre- pared," not for you, but "for the devil and his angels." Then, hell was never made for a human being ; its fire does not burn for a single soul. No man was made to go to hell. Hell was never made to receive any man. It is that nook iij the universe of God, that aphelion, that infinite distance from all the light, and warmth, and love of Christ, into which men plunge themselves, into which God drives and forces no human being. It is, therefore, " Come, ye blessed of my Father, into a kingdom prepared for you." It is, " Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." All that will may be saved, (let the words sound with every wind, and be wafted on every wave ! ) none need be lost, but they who refuse to be saved. At the same time, let me state, the words " everlasting fire," are -just the correlative of everlasting blessedness. Some have tried to argue that the punishment of the lost is not eternal ; they ought to argue with logical consistency that the happiness of the saved is not eternal : for if the one is not eternal, the other is not eternal. But I cannot conceive how it is possible to imagine that the lost will ever escape; because punishment has no expiatory virtue, or purifying power. Unless you can show me that some rain- bow will span the darkness of the lost, that some interposi- tion of an angel of mercy will deliver the victims of hell, I cannot conceive how it can be otherwise than that hell is just as eternal as heaven. And surely, surely, those men called Universalists, (I believe, a mischievous and deceiving MATTHEW XXV. - 325 sect,) would do far better by telling mankind how welcome they are to enter into heaven, and by showing that its gates are flung wide open, than by trying to persuade men that they need neither think of heaven, nor fear hell ; for that there is only a purgatory in the one case, that is sure to be a vestibule to the other. Such a notion is unscriptural, de- ceptive, and ruinous. It is impossible for a plain man to read God's Word, and to come to any other conclusion than this — that if heaven be eternal, hell also is eternal ; that if the joys of the one are inexhaustible, the miseries of the other are inexhaustible also. " Unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance : but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath." In other words, he who uses what God gives him for the highest good shall find it increase. He who gives most, shall find by blessed experi- ence that he will get more. The law of the Christian • economy is, the greatest giver, by a reflex and beautiful reaction, shall always be the richest receiver. He, on the other hand, who selfishly keeps what he has, shall find what he has wither in his possession. In the Christian economy monopoly is not increase, hoarding is not having ; saving for oneself, and withholding what is meet from others, is the way to lose what one has, and to do no good to those who are around us. Let me set this before you in four distinct points. First, is it providential plenty that you have — not affluence — but something over what you expend ? The rich man is not he who has thousands a-year, but he who at the year's end has a little over his expenditure. He who has 100/. a- year, and lives at 90/., is a richer man than he who has 10,000/. a-year, and lives at the rate of 12,000/. or 15,000/. a-year. I estimate riches not by annual receipts, but by the surplus that you have after paying what is justly due, and enjoying, in your sphere, the comforts and the blessings 28 326 SCRIPTURE READINGS. that God in his good providence is pleased to bestow upon you. Well, he who providentially has, and gives that sur- plus to good, beneficent, and noble ends, shall, if there be truth in the promise of God, have more abundantly; and he, on the other hand, who takes the surplus, and accumu- lates the whole, — not simply prepares for a bad day upon a fine day, or lays up in autumn a little for the incidents of a severe winter; but he who hoards the whole surplus, and lets nothing rush over for the benefit and the blessing of others, — he shall find that what he tries to save he is sure to lose, and that what he thought was contributing to his growing gain, has in it a corroding curse that will end in his present, it may be, unless altered, his everlasting loss. In order to appreciate this sentiment, just recollect that all you have, you have as stewards. No man upon earth is an absolute possessor. Pie may say in his pride, " Can I not do what I like with mine own ? " but when he says so, he forgets that he is not his own, and that nothing that he has is his own, and that every man, from the highest in the land to the humblest by the way-side, is gifted with certain talents, not for selfish monopoly, but for munificent and ex- tensive distribution. Every one, therefore, who has some- thing to spare, and gives of that something to others, will find that next year he will have more to spare. But every one who has something to spare, but determines not to spare it, but to absorb it for his own selfish purposes, will find next year that he has much less to spare. God gives to you, and expects from you a tax. You know that in this land every man has to pay the income tax, — that is, we are allowed to earn our profits and to get our wages, on condition that we contribute a certain per- centage to the purposes of the state, for the carrying on of its machinery, and the maintenance of our national inde- pendence, strength, and usefulness. That is what is ex- pected from you, because you are protected in the enjoy MATTHEW XXV. 327 ment of your gains. Well, the income tax that God expects from all to whom he gives, is that of beneficence to those who need it. Wherever, therefore, there is a poor man in want, there there is a voice reminding you that the condi- tion of your having, is the duty of paying the income tax of Christian beneficence. And this income tax is imposed so justly, so impartially, so considerately, that every one who receives is expected to give, not according to what he hath not, but exactly and precisely according to what he has. Now, this income tax, or giving of your surplus to pur- poses of Christian beneficence, is your recognition of God as the supreme Proprietor, and your admission of yourselves as beneficiaries under him, distributors of what he gives, stewards and servants of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. Now if you thus act in the sight of God, what is the result ? That you shall not only have, but you shall have abundance. Well, now, here is a statement, and some of you can attest its truth, that you shall have abundance often in kind. There is, says the Wise Man, that scatters, that is, gives away freely, and yet increases. Now, just look round upon the most beneficent men, whose names are in our lists of charities — spiritual and temporal — and you will find that they are the richest men. By a law that the world cannot explain, but that the Bible casts light upon, he who gives away most profusely in a right cause, stands before the world as the man who receives most liberally from the Giver of all that is good. And if he receive not in kind more abundance, he shall have it in another respect, he shall have it in value. AVhen God says you shall have abundance, that does not imply that if you give away a sovereign you shall have two, although that is often the case ; or that if you give away 5/., you will find that instead of being 5Z. poorer, you are 20Z. richer ; but very often He gives the compensation not in kind, but in value ; and that 328 SCRIPTURE READINGS. value is an inner feeling that the coarse and vulgar mind of the carnal man never can appreciate and understand. The inner peace, the reaction of outer beneficence, is a grand and noble compensation for the greatest sacrifice we make. Make the experiment. Give to some poor person you know to be truly so ; bestow on some cause that you believe to be truly claimant, and you yourselves must find, that just as sure as when a fire-arm is discharged there is a rebound, so sure when that donation is given to that which is right and claimant, there is a reaction of peace, repose, and satisfaction in your heart, that is worth ten times the amount you ever gave away in your life. That is not merit : it is only the light that accompanies the deed, the blessing that God bestows upon beneficence, the happiness that is tasted in the discharge of conscientious and sacred duty. " For God," it is said, " is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love, which ye have showed toward his name." And He speaks not only of the living, but of the dead, — "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth ; Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors ; and their works do folloAV them " — not, mark you, precede them as claimants for their reward, but follow them — the shining train of witnesses to their Christian character. But now look at the obverse of this, " From him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath ; " that is, he who has property, but has not the heart to make a beneficent and Christian use of it, from that man shall be taken away the little that he has. I take as the proof of this the miser. How often do you find that his wealth melts away the more he toils to amass and accumulate it ; and you will find invariably, that the passion for accumulating grows far faster than the process of accumulating increases, till the more that a man accumulates, the more he wants, and the less is his satisftiction with that which he has been MATTHEW XXV. 329 able to accumulate. You will find that the man who gives has the reaction of joy after he has given ; but the man who hoards finds the passion for having outgrown the pos- sibility of possessing so rapidly, that after he has accumu- lated hundreds of thousands, his thirst is so strong, that he feels , he has got but a drop instead of a river, a cupful instead of an ocean. And hence, avarice carries into its own bosom its own corroding curse. The profligate is a pitiful sight, but I question if the hoarding, miser- able, avaricious miser be not a more wretched and hor- rible spectacle before heaven and earth than he. At all events, he is an instance and a proof of ever accumu- lating, yet never having. And so singular is that execrable passion, that at last we find men accumulate as the hairs grow grey, and the heart begins to beat its last funeral march, and one foot is almost in the grave, — unable to let go their only god upon earth, even when they are just about to appear at the judgment-seat of Christ. What a horrible passion is that ! How shoidd we guard against it ! The young are prone to squander, the aged are passionately prone to amass. As if God would teach us how fallen we are, in youth, when accumulating would be most useful, we are prone to squander; and in old age, when giving would be most natural, we are prone to accu- mulate, — both youth and age teaching us not to set our hearts upon the brightest gold, but only upon Him who gives the gold its currency, and the heart its grace, the Lord Jesus Christ. Apply, in the next place, the text to gifts. Have you a vigorous understanding, an informed and instructed mind ? I do not speak of Christian graces, but of natural gifts. Whatever your gift be, you are not warranted in suffering it to rust. If I did not use my hand, I should soon lose the power of using it. A muscle never exerted Icses soon its 28* 330 SCRIPTURE READINGS. vigor and its strength. A gift never used ceases very soon to be a gift at all. Hoard your wheat in the granary, and either it will rot, or it will lie dead ; but scatter it in the fur- rows of the earth, and it will grow up into rich and glorious harvests. Lock up your gold in your coffers, and it will either lie dead, or oxidize and decay ; but fling it into the market of trade, or in the place of beneficence and charity, and then the solitary coin will become a shining group, and you will find that he that has shall receive more abundantly, and that he that has not shall lose and part with that which he has. So, my dear friends, whatever gift you have — if there be a place where you can speak a word for the right, the good, the true, be it the Sunday-school, the njissionary platform, the pulpit, the parliament, you have no right from God to be silent. The gift which he has given you, however feeble, is for use. Use it not, and it will decay. Use it, and it will be invigorated. And I venture to assert that no man ever did a Christian act, or spoke a word for the right, the true, the good, who did not find next year that he was able to speak two, the next three, and that the gift grew in power and in vigor the oftener that he used it in God's service, and in the cause of his fellow-creatures. Thus it is that if we have gifts, they will grow with use ; if we allow them to remain unused, they will become torpid, and decay. Take, in the next place. Christian privileges. We have all of us very great privileges. I know not a nation, with all its faults, so blessed as ours. I know not a people, with all their sins, and with all their grounds of complaint, so favored. Some are constantly grumbling. It is a pity that they have not a year's residence as subjects of the Grand Duke, or that they are not placed in some land where they would know what our national mercies are by their absence, or by positive resistance to every feeling of MATTHEW XXV. 331 freedom, of religion, and of love. Now, in this land having great privileges, what does that teach us ? That if we use them, we shall have them more abundantly; if we allow them to pass by misused, even those that we have shall be taken away from us. CHAPTER XXVI. THE PASSOVER — ENMITY OF PRIESTS — PRECIOUS PERFUME POURED ON THE HEAD OF JESUS — RICH AND POOR — PROPHECY OF BETRAYAL THE LORD's SUPPER — TRANSUBSTANTIATION THE AGONY PRAYER. It appears from the commencement of tlie chapter, that the period of the Passover, the great anniversary festi- val of the Jews, had arrived ; and that Jesus, to fulfil all righteousness, and to make that Passover the preface to a yet more precious festival, said to his disciples — " Ye know that after two days is the feast of the Passover, and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified." His death did not come upon him by surprise ; he anticipated it every hour ; he knew that it must be, and made ready for that great sacri- fice, in which is the remission of our sins. It appears next, that the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders of the people, " assembled together unto the palace of the high-priest, who was called Caiaphas, and consulted that they might take Jesus by subtlety and kill him." What a terrible apostasy was here ! The high- priest, the type, did not recognize the true High-Priest, the great substance of all the institutions, types, and shadows of the ancient law ; but, instead of hailing him as the advent of that which he typified, he joined with other conspirators amongst the Jews, in putting him to death, as if he could extinguish that precious truth, by which the whole earth is yet destined to be enlighten'^.d. MATTHEW XXVI. 333 It appears that at this season Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon, who once was a leper, but afterwards was healed ; and a woman, recognizing him as he who should come in the name of the Lord, brought " an alabaster box of very precious perfume," as it ought to be rendered, " and poured it on his head as he sat at meat." She did it, not because this could consecrate him, but because this was the only expression thai she possessed adequate to convey the intensity of her love, attachment, and devotedness to Jesus. Some of the disciples, partaking of the false economy that prevails in every age, could not understand that things that seem entirely ornamental are often useful, and with a narrow-mindedness which characterized them in too many of their own proceedings before the day of Pentecost, they said — " To what purpose is this waste ? For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor." So it might ; but it would be found that this woman, who thus expressed her love to Jesus, would be among the very fore- most to express her sympathy with the poor ; and thus they who clamor most about the demands of the poor often least express their sympathy by practical goodness and liberality. Benevolence expressed in words is one thing ; beneficence contained in acts is a very different, and far more precious thing. " Ye have the poor," he says, " always with you." Then plainly the distinction between rich and poor is part and parcel of the providential arrangement of the present world. You may mitigate, but you never can extinguish poverty. It seems to me that as. this world is, there will be hills and valleys, high places and lowly places, rich and poor, learned and ignorant to the end. But why is one man rich and another man poor ? That the rich man may see the duty of beneficence, and that the poor man, receiving that beneficence, may feel the ennobling emotion of gratitude and love. 334 scRirxuRE readings. Jesus explains to them — " For in that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial. 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." Jesus, then a sufferer, thus predicts the everlasting spread and universal triumph of his Gospel. What calmness, composure, and certainty of ultimate triumph !• And here also indirectly there is evidence that this Gospel was to be written ; be- cause the fact that this memorial was to be told in every land and through the lapse of every age, conveys the fact that a record of it was to be, from which the intimation of her love should be spread to all the ends of the earth. Judas Iscariot went to the chief priests, and covenanted to betray Jesus for about SI. or 4/. sterling ; " and from that time he sought opportunity to betray him." That opportu- nity soon presented itself. The Passover was then prepared according to the Jewish economy, only Jesus specially prescribed the place, and pre- dicted the response that would be made to the disciples when they asked for a house in which to celebrate the feast. We have the record of the Passover, and of the institution of the Eucharist, or 1 .ord's Supper, upon it. First, it was celebrated at even : it was celebrated on the night prior to his betrayal. Secondly, it was celebrated by the twelve, according to the Evangelist, sitting down. It may have been that they leant each upon the left elbow, or that they literally sat, but certainly it was celebrated in the form of a festival meal, and not with the special and distinctive ac- companiments of an act of adoration, worship, and praise. I state these things, not to find fault with others, but to show that while the ceremonial changes like the varied clouds that are above us, the great truth that is beyond it endures like the stars, bright and permanent for ever. Those who insist upon every thing being rigidly according MATTHEW XXVI. 335 to apostolic precedent, are bound to celebrate the Lord's Supper at night, and sitting, not kneeling ; or probably still more, to celebrate it leaning upon the left elbow. These things are the mere accompanimefats, or the form ; they are not the substance. We have each our preferences ; but when that preference, as it relates to form, is exalted into a vital principle, then we leave Scripture, or Protestant ground, and go over to Popish, or superstitious ground. We may prefer, as in the Church of England, to receive the communion kneeling ; or, as in the Church of Scotland, sitting, — Scottish Churchmen thinking that they have the most scriptural precedent, English Churchmen thinking that kneeling most becomes them as engaging in an act of sol- emn devotion ; only remember that the kingdom of God is neither sitting, nor kneeling, nor standing, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. Jesus predicted — " One of you shall betray me." What a startling announcement! One of you, my favorite twelve, my own selected apostle, the little college in which I have lived, where I have taught, with whom I have sympathized, to whose weaknesses and ignorances I have ministered, — one of you shall betray me. And then notice, every one of the eleven, as we gather from the passage, suspected himself, before Judas, the guilty one. What a remarkable proof is this of the deli- cacy of true Christian feeling, that the most suspicious of themselves were the innocent, that the most satisfied in his own mind, at least the most silent, was the only guilty one ! Each of the eleven said — "Is it I?" and in the 25th verse we read, that after an interval — " Then Judas, which betrayed him, answered and said, Master, is it I ? " Thus, true Christians may suspect themselves ; they may doubt their own persistency in well-doing; they may sus- pect their own love. That does not prove that they are not true Christians, but the contrary. Wherever there is 336 SCRIPTURE READINGS. the loftiest ideal of the Christian standard, there will be the greatest and most constant suspicions lest we fail, and come not up to it. Our Lord told Judas — " Thou hast said," which expres- sion denotes in Scripture — " It is so." And then — "Jesus took bread, and blessed it," — in another Gospel it is, " and gave thanks " — " and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said. Take, eat ; this is my body." How very simple is this ! Just read the statement contained in the Roman Missal, with all its rubrics, its forms, and cere- monies ; and after you have done so, read the severe and simple statement contained in the chapter w^e have read ; and then' say whether, if the Missal be Christianity, the record in this chapter be not something else. The two are not in the least connected the one with the other. They seem to be contrasts, and in no respect, as far as I can see, coincident at all. Here you have twelve poor apostles assembled together, with Jesus in the midst. You have him taking a piece of bread, and breaking it after he had blessed it, and giving it to them, and bidding them eat it, as we are told by the apostle, in remembrance of him. There can be no ground, that I can see, for the monstrous dogma of Tran- substantiation. It Avould never strike an honest, impartial, unprepossessed reader of this passage, that when Jesus said these words, the bread ceased to have the properties of bread, and became literally and truly the very flesh of the Son of Man. How could it be so ? The apostles saw him sitting at table beside them. If this bread became himself, there must have been two selves, and the veritable and real humanity of the Son of God, the most precious truth in the Gospel, is thus destroyed. Then, in the Missal it is said that the words, " This is my body," are the words that, like the utterance of a spell, transform the bread into the flesh, and the wine into the blood of the Son of God. But you will notice that the apostles had eaten it before these words MATTHEAV XXVI. 337 were pronounced ; and therefore, it cannot have been turned into iiesh beibre they partook of it. And again, the words are declarative, not creative. He did not say, " Let this bread be turned into my body." When he created light, he said, "Let there be light;" but when he used a figure, he said, " This is my body." And again, suppose that Jesus did transubstantiate the bread and wine into tiesh and blood, it Avould not follow that a priest can do it: Jesus said, " Let there be light, and there was light," but it does not follow that a priest can create light. Therefore, even if Jesus had said, " Let this bread be turned into my body," it does not follow that a priest can do it. The apostles were there as Christians, not as ministers. And again, the phrase is so common in Scripture, that one is surprised that it should be so perverted. I have counted, I think, fifty passages in the Old and New Testaments where this very phrase occurs, and ill forty-nine of them the Church of Rome accepts the figurative interpretation ; but in the fiftieth, in order to sup- port a monstrous dogma, she takes the words literally, or rather carnally. But to take the very illustration suggested by the pas- sage. When in the ancient Passover the ofiiciating person celebrated it, and distributed the roasted flesh of a lamb to the people, he said, " This is the Lord's Passover." Well, what did the Jew understand by this ? Unquestionably, he understood, " This flesh which we now eat commemorates the angel flying through Egypt, killing the first-born of Pharaoh, and sparing the first-born of Israel." In other words, every Jew understood by " This is the Lord's Pass- over," not the literal transubstantiation of the slain lamb into an angel flying through Egypt, but the commemoration of the angel's sparing them celebrated by the Jew at that great festival. In that sense our Lord used the words, *' This is my body." So again, in Rev. i. 20, " The seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches ; " 29 338 SCRIPTURE READINGS. that is, represent, not are turned into, the seven churches, So again, " That Rock was Christ ; " that is, represented, not was transubstantiated into, Christ. And again, " Thou, king, art that head of gold ; " that is, the head of gold symbolizes thee. And many other passages will readily occur to you, where this figurative phraseology is employed. 1 may say that it is not correct to state, as some have done, that in the Syriac and Hebrew languages there are no words corresponding to the word " represent." Dr. Wise- man has conclusively shown that there are plenty of such words. But we assert, that it is the Hebrew usage to say that a thing is something else, when it is only meant that it represents that something else. He then " took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying. Drink ye all of it." Now, how singular is the interpretation of these words by the Church of Rome, which is such a stickler for the literal version in the preced- ing passage ! The w^ords are not, " Drink ye of it," but, " Drink ye all of it ; " and yet no layman or priest, except the officiating one, is allowed to drink of the wine in the Church of Rome. She is most absurdly literal, when she wants to establish a monstrous dogma ; but when you come to another part, she is most transcendently figurative. When you ask why ? then the old scholastic metaphysical distinctions come in, and you are told that the bread being changed into the body, the blood must be there. But our Lord tells them not only to " eat," but to ■' drink ; " there- fore the eating of the bread cannot imply the drinking of the wine. *' Drink ye all of it. For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remis- sion of sins." And, to show that no transubstantiation took place, he says, " I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine." He calls it, you observe, the " fruit of the vine " after it was consecrated. So, the Apostle Paul, in the Epistle to MATTHEW XX VI. 339 the Corinthians, says, "As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup," after the act which, according to the Church of Rome, transubstantiates the one into the body, and the other into the blood of the Son of God. But again, how very monstrous that idea is will be seen from this that the apostle says, " Do this in remembrance of me." Now what does memory relate to ? Certainly to the absent, not to the present. Jesus is present in the midst of two or three met in his name, spiritually, but he is absent personally ; for it is said, " Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things." Acts iii. 21. Spiritually, Jesus is as truly in the midst of two or three Christians met to worship him, as at the communion table. There is no dis- tinction in that respect. To use the expression of the head of the Romanists in this country, there is no intenser pres- ence of Christ at the communion table than there is where two or three are met in his name. But you will never understand the Romish system, until you understand the Millennial Church ; for it is an attempt to forestall the splendor and the greatness of the Church of Christ, when, not the pretended vicar, but Christ himself shall appear, and take the glory, and reign personally, as he now acts spiritually, in the midst of his believing, beloved, and redeemed people. Then, after this celebration, it is said, " When they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives." The hymn is supposed to be one of the Psalms — from the 116th, probably, to the 118th Psalm. They sung the hymn, it is said. That shows that singing is part and parcel of the worship of the sanctuary. Everybody ought to learn to sing God's praise, just as he ought to learn to read God's Word. Then Jesus told them, " All ye shall be offended because of me ; " and he quotes the Scripture prophecy that illus- trates it, " I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the 340 SCRIPTURE READINGS. flock shall be scattered abroad." And then, with all the calmness and the composure of One who knew the end, as well as the beginning, he adds, " After I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee." Then Peter, ever first to smite, and first to speak ; and alas ! before the day of Pentecost, first to forsake and deny his Master, adds in the excitement of the moment, " Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended." Jesus then predicts that Peter would be the very first to be so. After that we read, that he came to the garden of Geth- semane, and said to the disciples, " Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder." And in this garden we have a proof of the true humanity of our blessed Lord. He said, " My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." The weight and pressure of the burden of a world's sins were on him. Jesus was truly and intensely man ; he was literally and strictly God. You have him here the Man of sorrows, steeped in grief, bearing the load and pressure of the sins of all that believe, and so shrinking from the terrible agony of to- morrow, that he cries, in language most awful and piercing, " O my Father," not losing his Sonship, " if it be possible," — but it was not possible — " let this bitter cup that I am now about to drink pass from me: nevertheless," he adds, "not as I will, but as thou wilt." May not we so pray too ? Are you placed in painful and afflicting trials ? Are you a mother, expecting the death of a babe, your first-born ? Are you anticipating something to-morrow painful and dreadful, and that you believe will crush you almost to the earth ? Then, you may pray, and ought to pray, " Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me." It is human nature so to pray ; it is not forbidden by the Christian character so to pray. But if you have the Christian heart, as well as the human one, you will be able to add, however bitter it may be, " Not as I will, but as thou wilt." MATTHEW XXVI. 341 He then repeats the words. Some have said that it is wj-ong to repeat prayer, because Christ condemns endless repetitions. But here we have prayer repeated. And wherever there is the deepest feeling, there will be the repe- tition of the same thing. The simplest words and the intens- est thoughts oft repeated are generally the evidence of real feeling, and of fervent prayer. But, how sad ! The disciples, it is said, all slept. They were, probably, wearied with their watchfulness and sorrow ; for when there is deep grief, there often follows it deep sleep. Jesus gently remonstrated with them, and said, " Sleep on now, and take your rest : behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners." Does that permit sleeping on ? No ; it means. Sleep, if you can ; but I know you cannot, therefore, rise, let us be going : behold he is at hand that doth betray me." Judas the traitor, who betrayed him, and who forgot alike the gratitude that he should have felt, the duties that he owed, and the dignity of the apostleship that he wore, made the symbol of friendship the sign of his betrayal, — betray- ing the Son of man with a kiss. We read next of the mildness of Jesus, expressing no indignation, as human nature might well have felt, but remonstrating in the lan- guage of faithful, almost affectionate, rebuke, — " Friend, wherefore art thou come?" As much as to say, "I am not surprised, but you ought to be surprised to find yourself in , the awful position of a traitor, and a betrayer of the Son of God." Peter struck off the ear of the servant of the high-priest ; hereby showing that the passions of the natural man were not altogether subdued and mitigated, as they ought to have been, by the grace of the converted or the Christian man. Persecution is more or less a passion common to humanity. When man cannot conquer by argument, it is too truly human to have recourse to the sword. Peter, thinking all 29* 342 scuirTniE headings. was desperate and gone, — doubting the success of the cause to M'hich he was committed, — fearing the extinction of the kingdom he anticipated as about to dawn, — drew the sword, and smote with the sword ; but received the rebuke that Peter's pretended successors ought to have received, and the effects of which they are yet destined painfully and fatally to feel, that they who use the sword, or take the sword, shall perish with the sword. The persecutor shall be persecuted ; the perse- cuted shall ultimately be triumphant. Persecution never successfully put down a bad cause ; it never yet built up a good one. And if the sword is to be unsheathed, let it be so unsheathed, not by apostles, but by apostates ; not by Peter's true successors, but by those who feel the hollo wness of their creed, and are naturally satisfied that if not sustained by an arm of flesh, it cannot be maintained at all. Let us have confidence in truth, and confidence in its supremacy, knowing the promise of its Author, that heaven and earth shall pass away, but one jot or tittle shall not iall from his Word, until all shall be fulfilled. Our blessed Lord then told them, that if he were a suf- ferer, it was not because of a necessity that Omnipotence could not control ; for that if he wished to be delivered, legions of angels would be his cohorts, and in the midst of these he would be strong, and more than conqueror. But He asks, " How then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled that thus it must be ? " What a beautiful sentiment is this ! What a dignity is conferred upon the Book that is under-, valued by some, denied by others, and cast aside or super- seded by thousands more, but that was ever present to the mind, ever preeminent in the thoughts of Jesus the Son of God ! I know no testimony to the grandeur of this Book equal to the fact that the Author of it always solved every perplexity by an appeal to it, and expressed his innermost feelings in its beautiful language. He came down from heaven to show that this Book may be undervalued by men MATTHEW XXVI. 343 who do not know it, but that it was so valued by Infinite Wisdom, so valued by the Son of God, that he could get no language so beautiful, so expressive, so completely to the purpose, to express his own infinite and otherwise unutter- able emotions, as that which the Holy Ghost inspired the pens of holy men to record in days that had passed away. Let me notice, in the next place, what Jesus regards in this remark, the fixity of Scripture. " How then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled ? " He assumes their permanence as an axiom. The very expression denotes that they were never to fail, nor in the least degree were their prophecies to fall. " How then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be ? " And what is the history of the Bible for eighteen centuries ? Sects have risen, and have subsided. Disputes have convulsed the world, and have again fallen back into the silence out of which they came. Clouds and darknesses have come and gone ; but the Bible remains in all the splendor of its first kindling, in all the purity of its first inspiration. The evidence of its origin, God ; its pro- tection. Omnipotence ; its issue, everlasting and glorious ful- filment. But Jesus appeals by this evidently to the prophecies of Scripture respecting himself. Now, I do not know any one subject that is more frequently alluded to throughout the Scriptures than the death of the Son of God. The proph- ecy of Daniel, which was written five hundred and thirty- eight years before his advent, is — " Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troub- lous times. And after threescore and two weeks shall Mes- siah be cut off", but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanc- tuary ; and the end thei-eof shall be with a flood, and unto 344 SCRIPTURE READINGS. the end of the war desolations are determined. And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week : and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation," that is, the fulness of the Gentiles. In the 22d Psalm, we have another striking prophecy ; and we can have nothing more complete than the portrait given in the 53d chapter of Isaiah, which, apart from the light that the Sun of right- eousness casts upon it, is contradictory ; for it speaks of one who shall be subject, and yet shall reign, — of one who shall die, and yet live, — of one who shall be in sorrow, and yet in great joy. Now, this cannot be predicated of any human being that ever was, except the Lord Jesus Christ. And that these prophecies refer clearly to the Messiah, is shown by the many references given to them in the Acts of the Apostles. We have, for instance, in one passage, '' But those things which God before had showed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so ful- filled." Again, in Acts viii. 29 : " Then the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near, and join thyself to this chariot. And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Esaias, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest ? And he said. How can I, except some man should guide me ? And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him. The place of the Scripture which he read was this. He was led as a sheep to the slaughter ; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth : in his humiliation his judgment was taken away ; and who shall declare his generation ? for his life is taken from the earth. And the eunuch answered Philip, and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this ? of himself, or of some other man ? Then Philip opened his mouth, and be- gan at the same Scripture, and preached unto him Jesus," that is, the end and the object of that testimony. And so JtATTHEW XXVI. 345 we have Peter, again, in numerous passages alluding to the same thing (1 Pet. i. 10, 11): "Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who proph- esied of the grace that should come unto jou : searching w^hat, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow." It was, then, clearly predicted that Christ sliould suffer, and by* a cross should enter into glory, and sit upon the throne of his father David, and sway the sceptre of a glorious kingdom that should never wane or cease. And therefore, when Peter attempted to bring the ele- ment of force into that kingdom which is maintained by weapons that are not carnal, Jesus said, "If force were necessary, the omnipotence of God is at my service ; the angels of the sky will become my champions. But then, how shall those ancient prophecies that never can pass away meet their fulfilment, and God receive his glory, and the Scripture the exhibition of its truth, except I submit, and be led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, bearing and expiating the transgres- sions of a world laid upon me ? " Notice in this the greatness of Jesus. We read prophe- cies not to fulfil them ; we read precepts only to obey them. When we read God's prophecies, we are to leave God to fulfil them when, where, and how he pleases. Our duty is to learn doctrines, and obey precepts. It is God's grand prerogative to fulfil prophecy. Do not, therefore, attempt to justify a course by saying that God predicted it. God predicted that Judas should betray the Son of God, bu^ that did not justify Judas in doing so. He predicted that the Jews should crucify the Lord of glory, but that did not justify the deed; but, on the contrary, it is said, "Ye by wicked hands took and crucified the Lord of glory." And so, w^hen we read a prophecy, we are not to proceed to ful- 346 SCRIPTURE READINGS. fil it. But Jesus did so ; and that very fact indicates that he was more than man, and that he came to fill a sphere, and fulfil a mission, and discharge a function, peculiar, exclusive, divine. Truly this was, as the prophet pre- dicted, him who himself fulfilled the prophecy, the Son of God. It is quite abundantly plain that the death of Jesus did not come upon him unexpectedly. He looked forward to a Cross as the termination of his life. Now, if Jesus was what even the sceptic, — what Rousseau, in the most elo- quent delineation of his glory out of Scripture, describes him to be — holy and spotless, how can we explain this phe- nomenon, that the holiest Being who ever appeared upon earth was the most persecuted, proscribed, and maltreated ? He was not only so, but he was so by the express sanction and approbation of God the Father himself. If Jesus was so holy, spotless, beneficent, how is it that he was the most sorrow stricken, the most afflicted, the most suffering? God's law is, that perfect holiness is perfect happiness, and that sin is essentially misery ; but here is perfect holiness which had no happiness at all, as far as outward treatment is concerned. Either Christ was something more than a mere martyr and a great suflTerer, or God has broken his own everlasting law — " Be holy, and be happy ; " " Be sinful, and suffer." We understand why it was. He bore our' sins ; our transgressions were laid on him; he was the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world ; by his stripes we are healed. In other words his death was not that of a martyr, but of a victim. He died, not simply to show how patiently he could suffer, — how magnani- mously he could depart ; but he died that our sins, trans- ferred from us, and laid upon him, might be put away for ever ; and that his righteousness, transferred from him, and laid upon us, might be our title to everlasting joy and felic- ity hereafter. The only explanation, therefore, of the MATTHEW XXVI. 347 sufferings of Christ — sufferings so great, that the most ex- pressive language fails to embody them — is, that God has set him forth to be a propitiation, .that we, through faith in his blood, might have the remission of all our sins. I know nothing so stupendous in all the providential dealings of God as those last three years that were spent by Jesus prior to his crucifixion. What sinlessness, and yet what suffering ! What explanation can we give of it, except that which the Bible has anticipated us by giving, that He died, the Just in the room of the unjust, to bring us unto God? I do not think that the figure frequently given to illus- trate the death of Christ is at all a pure one. I have read that God so loving the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, is like a king giving his son to suffer, in order that the rebellious in his kingdom may be forgiven. I think such a comparison, however popular or prevalent it may be, is altogether inapplicable here. The king who would give his son to die in such a case would be a murderer, and the son who would submit to die would necessarily be a suicide, and the people for whom he died would be criminals and rebels still. In this case it was something grander and great^. Jesus himself was God as well as man. That one phrase, " I have power to lay down my life," uttered by Jesus, is to my mind satisfactory proof of his Deity. I have no power to lay down my life. I should be a suicide if I did so. The God who gave it alone has the prerogative to take it away. None but God in our nature manifest could say, " I have power to lay down my life, and power to take it again." The Godhead was in the Crucified. He who slew became also the Sacrifice. It was God himself who selected the Ransom, and it was God himself who paid it. The riches of his OAvn mercy answered and satisfied the exactions of his own justice. It was not a man in my place who died ; but all the infinite excellence of Deity was given to every 348 SCRIPTURE READINGS. vicarious pang, sorrow, sufFering, and tear; so that while Jesus remained a Sacrifice before God, he has become therefore a Saviour to poor, lost, but believing sinners. What a magnificent thought, then, is this, that Jesus died, not as the result of sin, — not to be an exhibition of patient martyrdom, — but died because on him, not in him, was sin. He was, as I have often expressed it, the spotless- Lamb clothed in the tainted fleece of the lost sheep, that we, the lost sheep, might be clothed in the spotless fleece of his own immaculate and glorious righteousness. He took all my sins on him, and died. By faith I receive all his righteousness from him, and live for ever. When Jesus died upon the Cross, there was nothing in him worthy of death; and when I shall be admitted into glory, there will be nothing in me worthy of eternal life. He died, because of sin upon him, not in him. I shall live, because of his righteousness upon me, not in me. My sins were imputed unto him, and he appeared before heaven and earth the great Sinner, because the great Sin-bearer of the universe ; and his righteousness will be transferred to me, and I shall be justified, accepted, acquitted, and presented before God, ifot only greatly righteous, but without spot or blemish — just as righteous as Christ is, because it is his righteousness, and not mine, that is my title to everlasting glory. Thus, then, on Jesus, the great Sufferer, were laid the iniquities of all that believe. On all that are born Adam's taint lies ; only upon all that are born again Christ's righteousness lies. By nature we inherit Adam's ruin ; by faith in Christ, or the belief of God's testimony concerning him, we inherit Christ's righteousness. We are all found in Adam by nature ; only they that believe are found in Christ by grace. And now, if Christ thus died for us — if such agony, such suffering, such an expiation, was made for us — if sor- rows too big for tears, if sufferings infinite, and therefore MATTHEW XXVI, 349 inexpressible in the formulas of human speech, were Christ's for us — then can you conceive any sin greater than the sin of that man, who eats and drinks, and breathes, and rises up and lies down, and feels no more interest in this than he feels in Confucius, in Mahomet, in Julius Caesar, or in Alexander the Great? The great condemning sin is not that which we have committed, but it is our refusal of the remedy that can remove it. The language of Scripture is, " How shall we escape," not if we reject, but " if Ave neg- lect so great salvation ? " I think the infidel is a much more sensible character than the nominal believer. The apostle says, not, " How shall we escape, if we reject so great salvation ? " — that would be consistent ; — but he says, " How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salva- tion ? " — that is, if we live without it, if we pay no atten- tion to it. Now, ask yourselves this : Suppose there never had been a Bible written — suppose a Saviour had never died — should I be any thing different from what I am? Select the first dozen people you meet in the street, and if there had been no Christianity at all, they would personally just have lived as they do at this moment. This is a proof that none of its blessings have touched them ; but the awful fact is, that the responsibility of not having them rests upon them. " This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, be- cause their deeds were evil." John iii. 19. And, in the next place, let me state the blessed and joyous fact, that if Christ bore my sins, and paid in so bearing them the full penalty that was due, then in what- ever betides me in God's providence there is nothing penal. The Cross absorbed all the penalty ; nothing but the paternal can be showered from heaven upon me. In other words, when God deals with me now, he deals with me, not as a foe, but as a son. There is no condemnation to them that ai'e in Christ. Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift, 30 350 SCRIPTURE READINGS. and that Jesus thus fulfilled the Scriptures. Had he faltered or refused, our hopes and prospects had been blasted for ever. But he endured the cross, bore the betrayal of one apostle, the denial of another, the flight of all, and refused to call in allies that were at his service if he wished, not for his own sake, but for ours. CHAPTER XXVI. 69-75. Peter's fall — sin — danger — duty — repentance — restoration. The same subject is given with greater fulness in the following words by one Evangelist (Mark xiv. 72) : "And the second time the cock crew. And Peter called to mind the word that Jesus said unto him, Before the cock_ crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice. And when he thought thereon, he wept." Another thus relates it (Luke xxii. 61, 62) : "And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him. Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And Peter went out, and wept bitterly." All the expres- sions denoting the same inner feeling excited in the hear'*; of Peter, and the same outer expression of that feeling in his personal, genuine, and unfaltering repentance. The sins of Peter seem singled out in Scripture for special notice and reiterated correction. His uncalled-for presump- tion in walking on the Avares of the sea with a faltering footstep and failing confidence is rebuked in one place. His dissuading Christ from going to suffer at Jerusalem, the very end of his mission and arrival upon earth, is rebuked in another place. His rashness on the Mount of Transfigura- tion, when he said, not knowing what he uttered, for he was a: man who seems to have had a very unadvised lip before the day of Pentecost, " Let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias;" — 352 SCRIPTURE READINGS. again, his passionately unsheathing his sword, and cutting off the ear of the servant of the high-priest, a portion of his succession which his pretended successors have indubitably- inherited ; — again, his dissembling wuth the Jew\s, for which he was gently rebuked by St. Paul — are all noticed in the sacred Scriptures, and in such terms of rebuke as so great sins richly deserve. At the same time, these special rebukes of so many and so aggravated sins appear to have been blessed to Peter in the most eminent degree, as I shall after- wards show. We may sin with Peter ; but are we sure we shall repent with Peter also ? If we insist upon his trans- gressions as precedents for us, are we quite sure that we can guarantee that we shall have his repentance, which, at least, is a precedent more worthy of our study ? It is possible to sin with Peter, but to perish with Judas. Let us remember his sins as beacons in life's voyage, w^arning us of rocks and reefs, on which we too may make shipwreck ; and let us think of his repentance as an intimation as fresh as if it came now from heaven, — that there is forgiveness for the worst of sinners, and repentance for the oldest of criminals. In looking at the story recorded in the part of the chapter we have read, and especially as illustrated by the parallel passages of the other Evangelists, let us notice what led Peter into the grievous sin, which so stains his memory, the denial of his Lord and Master. First, he either ought to have been sure that he could stand where the rest could not, or he ought to have fled with them, in cowardice, it may be, but still, shrinking from the bitter possibility of being tempt- ed to deny their Lord and Master. If he was to remain, it ought to have been with deep, earnest, personal reliance on the strength, and fervent prayer for the presence, of his blessed Lord ; or, if he could not watch and pray, as his Master prescribed, he ought to have adopted the only other possible alternative — retreat w^ith the rest from the scene of peril. If you are placed in circumstances of temptation, MATTHEW XXVI. 353 either look' beyond self for superhuman strength, to conquer them, or flee from the place in which you are conscious you cannot stand. But there is no evidence in this passage, nor in the parallel passages of the other Evangelists, that Peter in the least recollected the only prescription for security given by our Lord, " Watch and pray." In this very chap- ter, as if Jesus wished Peter to foresee the possibility of his fall, he says, " TVatch and pray." We read that Peter sat warming himself by the fire ; but there is not the slightest intimation that he suspected peril, watched against its ap- proach, or prayed for divine strength to enable him to con- quer, when it should come. He sat down in the company of the enemies of Christ. Was that duty ? If God's providence places you in such a situation, then be watchful, circumspect, prayerful. You are at the post of duty ; but do not forget it is the post of dan- ger. But if your own election, and not God's providence, has placed you there, then you have no right to expect a Divine presence where there is not previously a Divine commission. We can only expect the blessing of grace, where God in his providence has placed us. At the post of duty in God's strength you are omnipotent ; anywhere else you are left to your own strength, and you will fail and falter before the very first gust of temptation and of sin. This does not imply that we are to go out of the world, in order to avoid its perils. If all the good were to leave the world, what a world it would become ! The reason why the salt is here, is that it may continue here, and saturate the mass. The reason why God kindles lights over all the earth is, that they may lead sinners to the Lamb. And, therefore, to leave the world, and to go into a nunnery or a convent, on the supposition that you escape from its perils, is to traverse the plainest will of God, even if a convent were, what it is the very reverse of, a nook of heaven, a vestibule of the blessed. If you be good people, the world has need of you ; 30* 354 SCRIPTURE READINGS. if you be bad people, you will be no better in a convent. As long as there is a soul to be converted, a sinner to be enlightened, a Bible to be circulated, or a tract to be dis- tributed, so long you are wanted in the world. Monks and suicides belong to the same category. The monk runs away from the world to escape its dangers ; the suicide runs away from the world to get rid of its trials; and both run in the face of the clear prescription of Jesus, which is, not to go out of the world, but in the world to watch and pray, pro- testing against its sins, and bringing the sunshine of a better world into the midst of its darkness. The first gust of temptation that smote Peter, was a dam- sel coming and saying, not at all in uncourteous or severe language, but plainly proper and becoming the occasion, " Thou also wast with Jesus of Galilee." That was a very simple remark ; but Peter felt he was in the wrong place, and that the first step he had taken to warm himself at that fire, and the first seat he had selected to sit down on in that company, was so far an apostasy from Christ. And then, when sin is in the conscience, a whisper sounds louder in it than thunder, and a shadow is more terrible than the most alarming sights, from beneath or from above. And, therefore, Peter's conscience being wrong, the simple remark of a damsel who passed by, making it with all the lightness of a merry and a thoughtless heart, " Thou also wast with Jesus of Galilee," was enough to awaken in Peter's conscience the sense of sin ; and having done one sin, like fools who still live in Christendom, he thought he might commit another to conceal it, and therefore denied, and denied even with an oath, that he knew Him whose apostle he was, and whose beneficence he had so largely, so often, and so liberally shared, and, in the language of the Evangelist, he " began to curse and to swear." Let him that standeth take heed lest he fall. If an apostle fell, an apostle's successor has no guarantee for security. Be not high-minded, but fear. MATTHEW XXVI. 355 " Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat : but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not." — Satan may have you for a moment ; he may sift you terribly : but still, ultimate and eternal failure will not be your experience ; for I have anticipated the temptation, and have already prayed for you, that your faith fail not. My dear friends, Satan's temptation is a reality. It is all very fine for thoughtless and ungodly men to speak of Satan as a figure of speech, a mere meta- phor, a fancy, a conceit ; but you may depend upon it, Satan is a reality. I freely admit that Satan is often blamed for what he is not guilty of. It is possible to lay to his charge what he has not perpetrated. I do not believe that he is omnipresent. He has myriads of fallen fiends, who are his apostles, and who can and do constantly act upon the human mind ; but I do not believe that Satan himself can be in two places at once. The very expression, " He goeth about seeking whom he may devour," implies change of locality. But I think the most awful prerogative of Satan is that he can touch the human mind. He can so far do what the Holy Spirit can do — touch the conscience and speak to the human mind. It is with great truth, therefore, that an apostle says, "We wrestle against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." And it is a great pre- scription that an apostle gives, but which Peter seems on this occasion to have forgotten, " Resist the devil," for he is essen- tially a coward ; because when Calvary was completed, he fell from heaven, his head was then bruised. " Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." Peter denied with an oath. Does this mean that he made a solemn affidavit that he knew not his Master ? I do not think so. To use a modern expression, this was not perjury on the part of Peter, but simply rash, violent, and thought- 356 SCRIPTURE READINGS. less swearing, just like what still takes place. Tliere are some people in the world who swear, just as some professing Christians pray ; that is, meaning nothing, the one or the other, by what they say. Thus Peter, in the excitement of the moment, confirmed his denial with an oath. My dear friends, i£ a thing be true, assert it ; and the God of truth will ultimately prove it. If a thing be false, you need not swear that it is true, for it will soon prove itself to be false. Nothing false is permanent ; every thing true is lasting as the stars. Peter thought that his rash swearing would make a false statement seem true, forgetful of all his Master said, and of all that his own better conscience knew. But what is meant, you may ask, by the expression, " Thy speech bewrayeth thee ? " Jesus is called in a pre- vious part of this narrative, "Jesus of Galilee." Galilee was the place of degradation and contempt, the Boeotia, if I may so speak, of Judea. Peter had some accent, as peo- ple have now a Scotticism, an Iricism, or an Anglicanism, that showed that he was a Galilean, and therefore a friend or companion of Jesus. This ought not to have offended him. But strange it is, that some men who will be guilty of the grossest and most scandalous offences, are exces- sively angry if they are charged with deviating in the least degree from a certain standard of conventional excellence. Some men who will do the most wicked things, will fight a duel if the least suspicion of their honor, justice, or integ- rity is mooted in their presence. Human nature is an inex- plicable phenomenon, except in the light of the Bible ; and human conduct the most extraordinary inconsistency, until you learn the secret of it — " The heart of man is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." We read that when Peter had denied our Lord, the cock crew. Infidels have cavilled at this, saying, that this domes- tic bird was not kept by the Jews. But if not kept by MATTHEW XXVI. 357 them, it was kept by the Romans ; and probably, it was Roman and not Jewish property kept near the palace of the high-priest, where Peter at this time was. The reason of this simple intimation ringing in the apos- tle's ear was, first, to remind him of his sin. As the dumb ass rebuked a prophet of old by speaking supernatlrally, so this bird crowing was to Peter significant of the great sin that he had perpetrated. It was next to remind him of the words that Jesus spake. It was dumb nature giving its Amen to the prophecy of the Lord of glory ; and it was to show Peter that that bird watched and waited to do the bid- ding of the God who made him, whilst an apostle failed to acknowledge the name and the greatness of the Lord who redeemed him by his blood, and thus to awaken in Peter's conscience an echo that might be the key-note of feelings of repentance and genuine contrition. It is recorded in an ancient Patristic writer, that Peter as long as he lived Avept when he heard a cock crow, that it was the sound of nature that he could not bear to hear ; since it reminded him ever as he heard it of the sin of which he had been guilty. And this power of association is very valuable. It is meant by God to remind us, for good, of our past transgressions, that we may be humbled ; but not to conceal from us the present Sin forgiver, that we may never despair. Peter's sin seems to have very much originated from the fact that he followed Christ afar off, morally, perhaps, as much as physically. Distance from Christ is distance from strength, light, and guidance. Walk near to him, leaning on him, and looking to him, and you are strong. Let go your dependence upon him, follow him afar off, beyond the range of his influence and his power, and you are instantly in peril. It is said in another Gospel that Jesus looked upon Peter. I think that is the most eloquent text in the whole word of God. I know nothing so exquisitely beautiful — nothing in 358 SCRIPTURE READINGS. all the oratory of ancient or modern times that can be matched with it. Jesus, the denied One, looked in the face of his apostle, his denier, and the effect was, " Peter wept bitterly." What a look must that have been ! And, my dear friends, if such is the power of that look, that it gener- ates re^ntance upon earth, what must be the withering effect of that look, when it is no longer the look of the Sin forgiver, but of the King on the great white throne, saying, '• Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire." What conviction did it shoot through all Peter's intellect ! What repentance did it instantly create in Peter's heart ! With what speed and earnestness did the poor apostle go out, and, in the language of my text, weep bitterly ! It was a blessed look. There was rebuke in it ; but there was also love. There was sorrow depicted in it ; but there was also sympathy. Precious thought, that Jesus never rebuked a sin without feeling and showing that he felt most deeply for the poor sinner ! Of all misfortunes upon earth sin is the greatest. It is not for us to denounce, when the Lord of glory himself would not do so. It is not for us to sit in judgment on a fellow, and to assign him his doom, as if we were assessors on the judgment-seat ; it is for us to pity the sinner, to pray for his conversion, to tell him the more ex-. cellent way, and to lead him to repentance. But how often do we see an atrocious, bigoted, and ferocious spirit ! Many a time the cry of " No Popery," as it is called, is the cry of a violent passion, a ferocious zeal, a persecuting spirit. I would not be at the trouble to undeceive the Romanist of his errors, except I had the thorough persuasion that I had something better to give him. I would not take from the Hindoo his Hindooism, unless I had something better to give him. Man must have a God to worship ; he must have something to trust in. Never pull down without con- temporaneously building up ; never dislodge the error, except by the mighty power of approaching truth. Do MATTHEW XXVI. 359 dot make men cease to be Papists, in order to make tliem sceptics ; for that is but driving out one foul spirit, that seven others may rush into his place ; but trj to make them cease to be the victims of superstition, that, by the blessing of the Holy Ghost, they may' become the sub- jects of genuine repentance, and of the Gospel of- the Son of God. • Let me notice now what was the evidence of Peter's repentance, which is merely stated in this passage, but is left to be developed in the rest of his life. Peter, when the Lord looked on him, went out and wept bitterly. His heart swelled with sorrow ; and beautifully it is said, he went out. Genuine repentance is not penance ; it is not something done before men — creeping up a hill, counting beads, say- ing pater-nosters ; but genuine repentance is going out from the crowd, and in private weeping bitterly. There are tears too holy for man to see ; there is a sorrow too genuine to be sounded on the streets ; there is a repentance that no trumpet must go before to herald — often the deepest where the face is washed and the hands are clean, and you are ^een of God to repent, and not by men. Again, Peter's repentance was followed by genuine refor- mation. Repentance is less a passion, it is more a rooted principle. Men are made with different susceptibilities. One man will weep at the least tale of suffering ; another man cannot be made to weep as he hears or witnesses the most terrible tragedy. I do not estimate Christianity by the depth of the feeling that is within, but by the force and spring of the principle that God has planted in the heart, and that develops itself in the life. You are to judge of Christianity, not by tears, words, or apparent feelings, but by the force and continuity of the life sustained and borne out by a feeling that is first a passion, next a principle. Now not one of the apostles showed after Pentecost such devoted- ness (and I think I may say so, even with Paul clearly 360 SCRIPTURE READINGS. before us) as the Apostle Peter. We find him, for instance, even before that, running to the tomb out of which Jesus had risen, and entering into competition with John, the younger and the more active, and endeavoring to outstrip him — in which,*however, he failed — in order to reach the grave first. Peter's heart was as warm as John's, but his youth was not equal. We see Peter, next, grieved when Jesus said to him after his resurrection, " Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?" putting the question three times, as if to let Peter hear the undertone of his threefold sin. Then, after the day of Pentecost, we read that Peter avowed the most manfully of all his attachment to the Crucified, and rebuked in the strongest terms, yet not unmingled with real love, them who crucified the Lord of glory. The disciples themselves w^ondered at the boldness of Peter. Mark you, this Peter who played the coward in the court of justice, is now singled out as the greatest personation of boldness in Christ's cause of all the apostles ; and they took knowledge of him that he had been with Jesus. And again, he rejoiced that he was thought worthy to suffer for His name's In the Bible we have the same character touched by dif- ferent pens, and yet its identity is preserved and unmistake- able throughout. Notice Peter's addresses in the Acts of the Apostles. What was the great sin that Peter never for- got ? It was his having denied his Lord. Well, what does he say in his addresses ? As if to sum up the greatest sin of the Jews in one word, he says, (Acts iii. 14,) " Ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you." And again, as if his own sin were ringing loud and piercing in the depths of his heart, he says, "Ye denied him in the presence of Pilate." And in his Epistles, as if his sin never could go out of his mind, he says, " False teachers, denying the Lord that bought them." And again, as if the same tliought were before him, he says in MATTHEW XXVI. 361 another passage in his Epistles, '^ If ye do these things, ye shall never fall." I fell because I did not attend to these things. And again, he says in another passage, (2 Peter iii. 17,) " Beware lest ye fall away from your own steadfast- ness." Read Peter's addresses in the Acts, and his Epistles ; and you will see the shadow of his own great primal sin spreading over all, never absent from his memory, but sanc- tified to him by grace, as it had been long forgiven to him in the abundant mercy of our God. From all this 'we learn that true believers may fall. Alas, alas ! we need not to be taught this. At every stage of life's long journey we are constrained to feel, " If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves." At the close of every chapter of life's long history we have still to confess that we have left undone what we ought to have done, and done what we ought not to have done. The greatest saint may fall. The sceptic will wield it as a weapon w^ith Avhich to attack the fortress of Christianity, and the hypocrite will use it as a precedent to sanction his indulgence in sin ; but the Christian, when he sees the fall of the most eminent, will feel that it is a proof liow^ frail human nature is in its best estate, and a solemn summons still to watch, and still to pray, and to feel that by grace we are saved, by grace we are sanc- tified, by grace we stand, and by grace we persevere. Note. — [13.] The only case in which the Lord has made such a promise. We cannot but be struck with the majesty of this prophetic announcement, introduced with the peculiar and weighty aiMijv Aiyo vfuv, conveying, by implication, the whole mystery of the evayyeliov, which should go forth from his death as its source, — looking forward to the end of time, when it shall have been preached in the whole world, and specifying the fact that this deed should be recorded wherever it is preached. We may notice ( 1 ) that this announcement is a distinct, prophetic recognition by the Lord of the existence of 31 362 SCRIPTURE READINGS. written records, in which the deed should be related ; for in no other conceivable way could the universality of mention be brought about. Judas at first became attached to the Lord with much the same view as the other apostles. He appears to have been a man with a prac- tical talent for this world's business, which gave occasion to his being appointed the Treasurer or Bursar, of the company (John xii. 6, xiii. 29). But the self-seeking, sensuous element, which his character had in common with that of the other apostles, was deeper rooted in him, and the Spirit and love of Christ gained no such influence over him as over the others, who were more disposed to the reception of divine things. In proportion as he found our Lord's progress disappoint his greedy anticipations, did his attachment to him give place to cold- ness and aversion. The exhibition of miracles alone could not keep him faithful, when once the deeper appreciation of the Lord's divine person failed. [26.] We may remark on this important part of our narrative, (1) That it was demonstrably the Lord's intention to found an ordinance for those who should believe on him; (2) That this ordinance had some analogy with that which He and the apostles were then celebrat- ing. The first of these assertions depends on the express Avords of the Apostle Paul ; who, in giving directions for the due celebration of the rite of the Lord's Supper, states, in relation to it, that he had received from the Lord the account of its institution, which he then gives. He who can set this aside, must set aside with it all apostolic testimony whatever. The second is shown by the fact, that what now took place was during the celebration of the Passover; that the very words of its institution were a part of the Pascal ceremony ; that the same Paul states that Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us ; thus identifying the body broken and blood shed, of which the bread and wine here are symbolic with the Pascal feast. [38. J The Lord's whole inmost life must have been one of continued trouble of spirit. He was a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; but there was an extremity of anguish now, reaching even to the utmost limit of endurance, so that it seemed that more would be death itself. The expression is said to be proverbial ; but we must remem- ber that though with us men, who see from below, proverbs are merely bold guesses at truth, with Him, who sees from above, they are the truth itself, in its very purest form ; so that although, when used by a man, a proverbial expression is not to be expressed to literal ex- actitude, when used by the Lord, it is, just because it is a proverb, to be searched into, and dwelt on all the more. — Alford. CHAPTER XXVII. THE REMORSE OF JUDAS — HIS ONI-Y CONSOLATION — THE PURCHASE OF THE potter's FIELD — JESUS BEFORE PILATE — BARABBA8 PREFERRED TO JESUS DREAM OF PILATE'S WIFE PILATE'S CONSCIENCE AND COURSE — INSCRIPTION ON THE CROSS — DEATH OF THE GREAT SACRIFICE — THE GRAVE THAT WILL GIVE UP NO DEAD. At the commencement of this chapter we read that on the dawn of Good Friday, as it is commonly called, the chief priests and elders of the people entered into a resolu- tion, or arrangement, to put Jesus to death. In order to accomplish this, which they could not do without the aid of the civil, or Roman, power, they delivered him to Pontius Pilate. Forthwith, the remorse which is the result of crime took possession of the heart of Judas in all its fury, and under the agony of convictions he could not crush, of recollections he could not extinguish, and of a sin too heinous and too. invet- erate to be expiated or forgiven, he flung the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests who had bribed him, and ex- claimed, not in penitential confession, but in bitter remorse, " I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood." But all the consolation that he received from these who were conspirators with him, was the consolation that is always given by those who urge others to perpetrate, or take part in, a great crime, and who are anxious only to excul- pate themselves, " What is that to us ? We have no business with your conscience. That is your own matter. What does it signify to us whether you are saved or lost, whether 364 SCRIPTURE READINGS. you weep or smile ? That is your business, and not ours. It is too late to repair the error, or to alter the consequences of the sin or crime that you have committed." He then went and committed suicide. In his case it was the suicide, not of lunacy, but of remorse. It was self-destruction spring- ing, not from a deranged mind, but from a diseased and a wicked heart. It was suicide in the strictest and severest sense of that expression, — a sin perpetrated in modern times only, I hope, when the mind has lost its sovereignty, and the conscience its power, the reason being deranged, and stagger- ing under the difficulties by which it is surrounded. The chief priests, instead of receiving the monay, rejected it. They did not think of the crime involved in their con- spiracy with Judas ; but they felt that to touch tke price of blood would be to defile their hands. They did not remem- ber, or if they did they did not care, tha! they had defiled their consciences by joining in a great crime, but they were most scrupulous not to defile their hands ceremonially by accepting the money returned to them by Judas. How often do we find that where men are ceremonially most rigid, they are morally most lax ; that those who will fast most severely, will at the same time be in the weightier matters of the law most careless and remiss ! " They took counsel, and bought with the money the potter's field, to bury strangers in ; " thus getting rid of it in a way that they thought would excuse them for allowing it to pass through their hands. It was a potter's field full of pits from which clay had been dug to make brick and earthen vessels. It was, therefore, of no use for agricultural purposes, and might be had for very little money ; and it was to be turned, not consecrated, into a burial-place for the Jews of the dispersion scattered throughout the world. We read that this was the fulfilment of a^ prophecy by Jeremiah ; but it seems rather to be found in Zechariah ; and some have supposed that the name Jeremiah has in some MATTHEW XXVII. 365 ray by accident got interpolated instead of that of Zechariah ; iliough it must be remembered that the Evangelists fre- quently quote a sentiment from ancient prophecy, and clothe it in their own words, — thus preserving the sentiment, but expressing it in equally true, but different language. We read then that '' Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, saying. Art thou the King of the Jews ? And Jesus said unto him, Thou sayest. And when he was accused of the chief priests and elders, he answered nothing." And Pilate, startled by his silence, asked him — " Hearest thou not how many things they witness against thee ? " But Jesus was still silent. Sometimes silence is our duty ; at other times we ought to speak forth. A sound judgment and conscious innocence must determine when it becomes us to exhibit the one, and when to give utterance to the other. Pilate told them that at this great festival of the Pass- over, it was the habit of the country to release a criminal. Just as at coronations, and at the recent marriage of the Emperor of the French, and at other great festivals cele- brated in other kingdoms, it is the custom to release state prisoners, it was then a high or great day among the Jews, and it was their custom to release, in token of gladness and joy, some criminal whom the people might select for that purpose. And what an awful choice was here ! Men have said that the voice of the people is the voice of God. Would that it were so. It will be so in the age to come, but it is not so yet. When all shall be righteous, then every utter- ance shall be truth, and every song shall be praise ; but at present the voice of the people has been often the very opposite to the voice of God ; and on this, the most solemn occasion on which that aphorism was ever tested, when a robber and the holy, spotless Lamb of God were the two, one of whom was to be released, the voice of the people, the democracy, chose Barabbas tlie robber, and said — " Let the 31* 366 SCRIPTURE READINGS. Son of God be crucified." My dear friends, both tbe auto- crat upon the throne and the mob in the agora, have alter- nately done wickedly, and voted wrong. Trust not in prince, trust not in people ; but pray that the time may come when, by God's grace, prince and people shall be the manifested sons of God ; and then they shall praise with one heart and one voice Him whoiii their fathers crucified and refused. An incident occurs, and it is a very natural and a very beautiful one. The wife of Pilate dreamed a dream, and she said to her husband — " Have thou nothing to do with that just man ; " and evidently that remonstrance of his wife made a deep impression upon Pilate. I have no doubt that dream was from God ; for I can see no reason to doubt that God may speak to people by dreams. Only we are to bring our dreams to the test of Scripture, never the Scripture to the test of our dreams. If God speak to us thus (and surely, the Eternal may speak to man's mind in any way that he thinks best), if the dream suggest duties that are obviously good, we should accept it as a memento from on high ; but should the dream suggest what is condemned in Scripture, we are to regard it, not as an inspiration from above, but as a suggestion or device from beneath. In the case of Pilate's wife, the dream told her that Jesus was holy. She remonstrated with her husband, and urged him to have nothing to do with what she felt to be a great crime ; and very plainly, the result of that was, that he endeavored in every way that he could to let Jesus go free ; for he said — " Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you ? " and again, evidently his conscience prompting the very oppo- site course to that which he was to pursue — " What shall I do with Jesus which is called Christ ? They all say unto him, Let him be crucified. And the governor said. Why, what evil hath he done ? But they cried out the more, say- ing, Let him be crucified. When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took MATTHEW XXVII. 367 water, and washed his«hands before the multitude," according to a ceremony prescribed in Deuteronomy, and he said, " I am innocent of the blood of this just person : see ye to it." How unworthy of his lofty office ! He ought to have fol- lowed his convictions at all hazards. If a man is satisfied that a particular path is that of duty, let him not ask how many agree with him, or how many oppose him, or what may be the consequence of persistent obedience to his prin- ciples ; and never let him suppose for a single moment that a ceremonial cleansing of the hands can ever exculpate the guilt that cleaves to the conscience. But how often is it, that a person guilty of a moral offence, will have recourse to a ceremonial rite in order to stupefy the conscience, or to be a sort of semblance of propitiation for the offence that he has committed ! Then the people answered, as if to encourage Pilate in his course, " His blood be on us and on our children." There seems to have been a perfect popular frenzy, — a demoniac inspiration, in the hearts of the people. " His blood be on us ; " and thanks be to God it was upon them, but not on them to condemn them, but on them to forgive them ; for to these very people, who cried criminally and ignorantly, " His blood be on us," the glorious Gospel was preached. " Repent, and be converted, and be baptized, every one of you ; " and to the Jews first at Jerusalem Avas the gospel of forgiveness preached through the blood of Jesus. God's ways truly are not our ways, nor his thoughts our thoughts. We then read of the mockery of Jesus. The soldiers arrayed him in the symbols of majesty in mockery and insult, in order that they might grieve him, and enjoy them- selves by making sport of one whom they believed to be a great criminal. " They bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, saying. Hail, King of the Jews] " Just think for one moment who this was. The Lord who made the 368 SCRIPTURE READINGS. heavens and the earth ; the King of Glory, who had hut to speak, and legions of angels would be his cohorts, and all the armies of the skies would obey his behests instantly. Yet he voluntarily submitted to shame, that he might expi- ate our transgressions. He endured the cross, that we might wear a blood-purchased, but a glorious and unfading crown. We read next, that they called upon Simon of Cyrene to bear his cross, or, as another Evangelist records, to bear it along with Jesus. And they came to a place called Golgo- tha. Some have said that this must have been a burying- ground, and called from that circumstance " a plac€ of a skull." But I do not think that such a fact would justify the phrase. It is literally " the place of a skull ; " and it has been said that the skulls of the dead lay upon the ground exposed. But the eastern people were far more civilized than we are in this respect. Their burial-grounds were always out of the city ; and such a thing never would have occurred as the exposure of the remains of the de- parted. The more probable opinion is, that this place was called so because it was a conical hill, in shape very much like the human skull ; and that thus it came to be called, " The hill, or the place of a skull." They then " gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall." It was the custom to give criminals a stupefying potion : it was offered to Jesus, but he refused it. They then crucified him, and parted his garments, which they would not divide ; thus fulfilling an ancient prophecy, "They parted my garments among them, and upon my ves- ture did they cast lots." And then they put over his head what they regarded as his crime, but what was his real character and glory, " This is Jesus, the King of the Jews." How remarkable that the spite of his enemies fulfilled the predictions of tis friends, and that you have only to listen to what the crucifiers of Jesus said, in order to see that MATTHEW XXVII. 369 God's Word is truth, and that holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. We then read the expressions of contempt and' scorn that were applied to Jesus : " If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross." " He saved others ; himself he can- not save." Now this appeared at once to refute his preten- sions, but truly it was the evidence of his mission. Because he would save others, therefore he saved not himself. Be- cause he would enable us to come up to his everlasting rest, therefore he would not come down from the cross. It was not the fury nor the power of his foes that nailed him to the cross ; his own infinite and inexhaustible love held him there. It was not that he could not, but that he would not, come down from the cross, in order that our sins might be forgiven, and that the great salvation might be thus accom- plished and finished. We then read that " from the sixth hour there was dark- ness over all the land unto the ninth hour." Very singular it is that several heathen historians notice that there was at this period a preternatural darkness over all the earth. "And about the ninth hour," that is, three o'clock, or be- tween the evenings, when the passover lamb was slain, " Jesus cried with a loud voice," not in pure Hebrew, but in the Chaldaic tongue, "My God, ray God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Some who either misunderstood him, or did not know the language that he used, (which seems the least likely, however,) or in mockery and contempt, said, " This man calleth for Elias. And straightway one of them ran," thinking that he was now in great weakness, " and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink. The rest said. Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him." But there was no answer. " Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice," indi- cating, not the exhaustion of his strength, but the perfection 370 SCRIPTURE READINGS. of his Sacrifice, " yielded up the ghost." In a very remark- able book written by an able physician it has been attempted to be proved that the heart of our blessed Lord broke, and that that was the cause of his death. He was not hanging long enough upon the cross to die of physical agony and exhaustion ; and this physician, in this elaborate work, proves from several incidental circumstances, which it would take too long to enumerate here, that it was the weight and pressure of the grief that was in that wondrous heart that broke it, and that the cry with a loud voice, the last expression that he uttered, was the evidence that, under the weight and pressure of a world's transgressions, and in the endurance of an agony that no human being has any idea of, the human heart broke, the soul was severed from the body, and Jesus finished the great salvation, and brought in everlasting righteousness ! We then read that " the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom ; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent ; " and, what is very remarkable, the Roman centurion, a heathen, who had no knowledge of the Prophets, and no acquaintance with the Gospel, exclaimed, as the conviction of impartial nature, " Truly, this was the Son of God." He had heard that He was crucified because he said he was the Son of God ; and, witnessing all the sights that accompanied his death, he exclaimed, " There is evi- dence enough to prove it." We then read of the women who followed him standing afar off, and also of the rich man of Arimathtea, Joseph, who was Jesus' disciple, and evidently one of the Sanhe- drim, going and begging the body of Jesus, and taking it, and laying it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn, not, as in modern times, from the surface of the ground, but out of the rock ; und he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, as its only covering. The enemies of Jesus recollected — for hate remembers MATTHEW XXVII. 371 what often love forgets — that He said, "After three days I will rise again ; " and in order to prevent this, or the possi- bility of delusion or deception, they procured a guard, got the stone sealed, and made every preparation that it was possible to make in order to prevent the disciples from car- rying the body away, and then asserting that he had risen from the dead. But this sealing of the stone, this covering of the tomb with a massy fragment of rock, which they meant to prevent the possibility of deception, was used after- wards, and has been appealed to, as one of the strongest proofs that the resurrection of Jesus was the result of a special miracle, and not by any possibility, as was alleged by his foes, the result of the coming of his friends by night, and taking away the body. It has been shown from the weight of the stone that must have been "at the entrance of the tomb, that it was utterly impossible that his disciples could have come in the night, and stolen the body. And thus they who endeavored to intercept the result that must occur according to ancient prophecy, facilitated unconsciously the proofs of the glorious fact, that Jesus rose from the dead, and became the first-fruits of them that slept. His is the only grave that will not give forth its dead at the resur- rection morn ; but because his grave is empty, and for ever, ours shall be empty when the trumpet shall sound, and the dead in Christ shall rise, and so be for ever with the Lord. I wish to notice those distinguishing peculiarities of the death of Christ, which insulate that death from comparison with all other deaths that ever occurred in the world besides, and which mark it out as an expiatory or atoning sacrifice made by him upon the cross for us, and for our salvation. In endeavoring to do so, I will first notice the remarkable accompaniments of his death, and secondly, those peculiari- ties of it which are easily to be gathered from the sacred page, and which go, when combined together, to show forth that death, not as the expiring of a martyr, but as the sacri- 372 SCRIPTURE READINGS. fice of a victim siifFering in our stead, and for our transgres- sions. First of all, then, let us notice the events that accompa- nied, or rather signalized the death of Jesus. Miracles in- spired by love, the expressions of omnipotent power, were the accompaniments of his everj-day life. Miracles inspired by the same love, the evidence of the same omnipotent power, were no less the accompaniments of his remarkable and peculiar death. Both miracles — those that he did when living, and those that w^ere done about him while dy- ing — were proofs to the Avorld, as they are conclusive evi- dences to us, that he was what he professed to be, the Son of God, God manifest in the flesh. Deity, like the ancient shechinah, shed its lustre on his life ; and Deity, like the same shechinah, emitted its brightest glory at his death — heaven and earth, life and death, like the centurion at the cross, attesting, " Truly this was the Son of God." The first accompaniment of his death was, " The veil of the temple was rent in twain." This veil was thick, strong tapestry. It hung from the roof downwards, and concealed the Holy of Holies, where was the ark, and in ancient times the glory, and the cherubim, and the mercy-seat ; into which the high-priest only could enter once a year. About the ninth hour, we read, this piece of tapestry, extremely strong, and incapable of being torn by human hand, was rent from the top to the bottom. At the ninth hour, when this took place, the priests were engaged in the great sacrifice that was presented upon that Friday. And upon that most memorable occasion, whilst they were thus engaged in offer- ing their ceremonial sacrifice, how startled must they have been when they heard the rending of the veil, and looked up, and saw laid bare to the profane eye that holy place, into which the high-priest alone could enter once a year ! This one fact occurring so suddenly at that precise hour, and with no human hand to rend it, as no human hand was ca- MATTHEW XXVII. 373 pable of doing so, must have struck the otficiating pr/ests with a deep sense of the presence of unearthly power, and must, from the peculiar nature of that veil, have suggested to them most instructive and impressive meaning. And it is not improbable that Annas or Caiaphas were officiating at the moment, their hands stained with the blood of the Great Victim that was sacrificed without : and if so, as they heard the rending veil, and felt the vibrating floor, and the earth- quake that rocked the great temple to its very foundations, their consciences must have smitten them with presentiments of coming woe, and their convictions must have sympathized with those of Judas, that they, too, like him, had betrayed innocent blood. And, perhaps, they may have recollected from this rending of the veil a strange scene. The high- priest under the Levitical economy was forbidden to rend his garments ; but we read, that when Jesus was accused of speaking blasphemy, the high-priest rent his garments, a deed never done before. And when there followed immedi- ately after this the rending of the veil that concealed the holy place from the gaze of the human eye, and laid bare what it was death for any mortal in other circumstances to witness, they must have felt that One more than man had given up the ghost upon the mount without, and that a vic- tim more than human had been offered up at that moment on the cross on Calvary. But this great fact of the rending of the veil, taught also some important lessons. It was not an accident caused by the separating of the walls of the temple, but it was a celes- tial interposition designed to teach the priests, and the peo- ple of the day, and us, on whom the ends of the world have come, that the instant the great expiation was completed on the cross, that instant all the shadows that preceded him, according to the institutions of Levi, passed way. The Sun had risen out of the darkness of Le^ii, a:id all the little stars that heralded his advent were merged and cancelled forever. 32 374 scriptukp: readings. The tide of life had risen now, and overflowed the creeks and bays of the ancient economy, and covered all that was peculiar in the "past, and brought in a dispensation infinitely more precious in the future. When the veil rent, it said to Caiaphas, and to the high-priests who were there, " Arise, depart; your sacerdotal robes have now no more their sanc- tity ; your sacrifices have now no more their value. Levi is done with ; ceremony must cease ; no more victims must be slain ; the temple is no more peculiarly holy ; it has no longer a monopoly of consecration ; the whole earth is con- secrated as the temple of God ; for the Great Victim has suffered on Mount Calvary without. Arise, depart ; your house is now left unto you desolate." The rending of the veil teaches us a most significant and instructive lesson — namely, that the way into the holy place is now open for all. Recollect that every thing in the Jewish economy was typical. The outer temple was for the people who were without, the holy place was for the type or sym- bol of Christ ; the high-priest to enter into only once a year. When this veil was rent, it said, by a Jewish sign, " Now, all God's people are priests. Now, there is no profane eye. Wherever there is a regenerated heart, there is now a way opened into the true heavens through the blood of sprink- ling." The holy of holies, once the monopoly of the few, is now the chancel of all Christendom. Where the high- priest alone might worship, all God's people may now adore. The glory is quenched between the cherubim by the advent of a yet brighter glory. The pathway is opened by the rending of the veil into heaven itself. The way to glory is now revealed so plainly, that the wayfaring man cannot mistake it. It is not in a temple fane, nor in a cathedral's aisle ; but it winds through every valley, it ascends every mountain crag, it is on the deck in the midst of the ocean, it sweeps through the lines of conflicting foemen upon the field of battle ; wherever there is a heart that knows the truth, MATTHEW XXVIT. 375 and believes in Jesus, there there is a traveller, a pilgrim, and a stranger marching to the holy place, and finding access through the rent veil, the crucifixion of Jesus, into the holiest of all, the sanctuary, and the presence of God. That this is the true idea is obvious from what the apostle says in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where he tells us, " Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus," — no Jew dare enter — his boldness would have been rashness and indiscretion, if he had tried to approach the place where the high-priest alone might enter — " by a new and living way" — new as to its revelation, but old as to its existence ; and a living way : an earthly way wearies the foot of him who walks it, and the longer that he walks, the more fatigued he becomes ; but this living way imparts life and vigor to him who treads it, so that the longer you walk in it, the stronger you become, till, in the language of the prophet, you run, and are not weary ; you walk, and are never faint — but "a new and living way, which Christ has consecrated for us, through the veil " — there is the allusiornto this fact — " that is to say, his flesh; and being ourselves," as if he had said, " true priests, a king- dom of priests ; and having over us a High-Priest, that is, Jesus ; let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith," quite satisfied that we are welcome, and that where the high-priest alone might tread before, now all God's people may walk — " having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water." Hebrews x. 19-22. Here then is the significance of this rending. Now, I ask, could this rending of the veil be an accident ? Is it not evident that it was done by design, and that the Apostle Paul has given the true and the only commentary upon the fact — namely, that it was a declaration to Jew and Gentile, that now the way to heaven was for every man that would walk in it, and that no eye is so v/dgar, that 376 SCRIPTURE READINGS. it may not gaze, through Christ, upon the celestial glory ; and that no feet are so common, that they may not tread the path that leads to heaven ; and that no Gentile is so far off, that he is not welcome to come, and be a fellow-heir with the saints of the inheritance of God in glory ? Let us thank God that the veil is rent ; let us bless him that there is a way to heaven ; let us praise him that we know of that way ; let us rejoice and be thankful that no man can fill it up, and resolve that by God's grace we will not suffer it to be filled up, concealed, or hidden, whilst there is a Bible in our hand, and the noble privilege of liberty to read it. What is the Jew doing in the present day? Laboring to restore the veil. What does the Tractarian attempt ? To sew up the rent. What has the Romanist done ? Built up a huge wall instead of it. And what is Protestantism? Proclaiming that the veil is rent ; the upheaving of the foundations of every obstruction ; and the proclamation to all Christendom that there is a way to heaven so broad, that the greatest sin- ner may walk it ; but so holy, that his first step is accom- panied by the surrender of the burd^ of all his trans- gressions. We read next that there was a great earthquake. If you are a believer in accidents, you might suppose that this was an accident ; but as one in a category of so remarkable phe- nomena, which were clearly divine, we must infer that this fact was not the mere explosion of a central gas, but an unearthly shudder of creation, because of the death of crea- tion's Lord. It may have been that this earthquake was because nature trembled to her heart that a deed so terrible was done ; or it may have been that nature rejoiced through- out all her economy that the price of her deliverance was paid, that the sacrifice was completed, which shall be followed by her groans ceasing, her travail ending, and her emartci- pation from the curs-e, and introduction into the sunshine and glory of the better land, the necessary and happy issue MATTHEW xxvir. 377 of it. It was the sign from below attesting to the cry from the cross, " It is finished." It was the shaking of those things that are, that those things might appear that never can be shaken. It was the declaration to the Jew, combined with the rending of the veil, that all his ancient economy- had served its end, that it now was dispensed with, and that there was no longer the exclusive possession of Israel ; but that now, neither on this mountain, nor on that, but every- where the true worshipper might worship the Father. We read also, that the rocks rent. Very singular it is that in almost all the travels I have read of persons who have visited Jerusalem, it is stated that there are huge rocks in its neighborhood with fissures or rents so singular, and so completely across the grain, that they seem to have been caused by some supernatural or extraordinary interposition or force. Whether they be some of the very rocks that rent when Jesus died, we cannot say ; but the tradition, if that be of any value, of all who have visited the spot, intimates that these rocks are remaining specimens of the truth ; that when Christ gave up the ghost, and exclaimed, in the lan- guage of joy, "It is finished," the rocks, more susceptible of impression than the priests, scribes, and Pharisees, rent, and gave sign that no common deed was done, that no common sacrifice was then completed. We read next, that there accompanied this death the opening of the graves. Perhaps the rending of the rocks was not so much the result of the earthquake, and a mere sign of nature testifying to the deed that was done ; but, as all the graves of the Jews were in cavities of rocks, the rending of the rocks may be associated with the opening of the graves ; and that all that is meant to be taught by the rocks rending, is simply that the graves that contained the buried dead of 4,000 years, opened on that occasion ; for it is said, " The earth did quake, and tho rocks rent ; and the gi'aves were opened " — these graves were in cavities or hol- 32* 378 SCRIPTUUE READINGS. lows of rocks — " and many bodies of the saints which slept arose ; " but they did not come forth then, for it is stated very simply, but very intelligibly, "and came but of the graves after his resurrection," not, you observe, at his death — as if Christ must be the first-fruits of them that slept, and no grave could be unsealed and give forth its dead, till Jesus had taken away its victory, and deprived death of its sting. It was thus then that the virtue of the resurrection and the death of Jesus penetrated the graves of 4,000 years, and many of the dead came forth. Very probably Simeon and Anna and John the Baptist rose from the dead at that time. Very probably, some of the ancient prophets who had long slept, arose. Not improbably, Abraham, whose burial we have been recently reading of in the Book of Gen- esis, and Sarah, and Isaac, and Jacob, may have risen from the dead, and are now in that glory, of which we *that believe are the destined participators ; and they rose, the dead of a thousand years, to prove that the virtue of Christ's death extended backward to the first saint, and will extend forward to the last. Graves that had been shut for many thousand years, heard the cry, " It is finished," ring through their silent caverns, and the cold dust of many a gray-haired patriarch was warmed in its silent urn, and stirred and awakened from its long lethargy, and now has rejoined the waiting and glorified spirit, and is where God's people will all be, for ever in glory, the true holy place, and with the Lord. Such, then, were sipme of the historical phenomena that accompanied Christ's death. Let me notice now two or three peculiarities of this death, which single it out as some- thing unique. I will mention only a few this evening, and reserve the rest for next Sunday evening. Was this the death of a patient martyr, or of an illustrious sacrifice ? Was there any thing in the mode or in the circumstances of the death of Jesus, that demonstrate to us that he died, MATTHEW xxvir. 879 not like Paul, or Peter, or the rest of the apostles, but bearing the load of a world's transgressions, and making expiation for the sins of all that believe ? Let me call your attention to the following statements that show there was in the death of Christ that which was in no other, and that it occupies a place in the sacred volume so great, prominent, and peculiar, that if Jesus did not die a sacrifice, the apos- tles did not know how to write, the Bible is a fable, Chris- tianity a delusion, and the forgiveness of sins a fantasy, and nothing more. First, then, the death of Jesus was predestinated from everlasting. It was not a new scheme originated at the time, in order to cover an untoward event in the past; but it was a great fact predestinated in the councils of heaven long before the world was created. The evidence of it is (Acts ii. 23), " Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." Here, then, it is stated that Jesus died according to the purpose and the de- cree of God ; that it was absolutely impossible it could be otherwise; that it was fixed from everlasting that Jesus should be crucified by those hands, by those decisions, at that hour, and under those circumstances. You say, per- haps, what a distinguished individual, who has written a book containing the biography of an eminent statesman, says — and strangely says, for a highly educated and ac- complished scholar and literary genius such as he is, — that the crucifiers were as necessary as the Crucified, and that there was no more sin in crucifying Jesus than there could be sin in Je^sus submitting to be crucified. The answer to this very mistaken reasoning is obvious : " Him, being de- livered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God," — there is the purpose — " ye have taken, and bj wicked hands," — there is your guilt notwithstanding — " have crucified and slain." Here, then, instead of entering 380 SCRIPTURE READINGS. on a metaphysical discussion as to how God's purpose and man's responsibility can be reconciled, we answer that the fulfiller of a prophecy is in a very different position from the performer of a precept. He who does what is bidden, does what is right ; but he who fulfils, consciously or un- consciously, a prophecy, is in a very different position. The Jews of their own freewill crucified the Lord of glory, and on their souls the stain of that great transgression rests at this moment. It is, therefore, not true that because the Crucified was predestinated, the crucifiers were therefore innocent. The best answer to such an assertion is the one I have given from the Acts of the Apostles, that, whatever was God's purpose, they by wicked hands carried it out. Never cease to distinguish between doing duty, which is obedience to God's revealed precepts, and fulfilling prophecy, which, conscious or unconscious, is in no case meritorious, however persons may frequently confound these two things. It was predicted that the Jews should be a byword and a scoff of all nations, — that they should have the wandering foot and the weary soul, — that they should be cursed, and hated, and persecuted of all nations to the end. That is the prophecy ; but if you were to go and maltreat a Jew, as they did in the Middle Ages, and as they do in the Ghetto at Rome still, and you were to answer, " I do it, be- cause God predicted it ; " I should answer, It is God's exclusive prerogative to mind the fulfilment of prophecy ; it is your sacred duty to do to your neighbor as you would wish your neighbor to do to you. No attempted fulfilment of a prophecy on our part can excuse a wrong done ; it is our duty to fulfil the precepts given to us ; it is God's pre- rogative to carry out the prophecy that he has given. Man does right when he obeys the command ; he steps out of his own province into that of God, when he attempts to fulfil ancient prophecy. In the next place, as the death of Christ was predes- MATTHEW xxvir. SBM tinated from everlasting ages, this eternal purpose shaped itself into frequent prophecies ; and in the Old Testament Scriptures we read that Jesus was wounded for our trans- gressions ; that the woman's seed should bruise the serpent's head ; that he should be cut off for sins, but not for him- self; or, to give the summary contained in the Acts of the Apostles iii. 18, " God befoj-e hath showed by the mouth of all his prophets that Christ should suffer." God purposed it, therefore it was prophesied. It was his secret purpose from everlasting ; it became, therefore, his repeated proph- ecy by the mouth of his holy servants of old. Now, I wish you to notice that no other death was thus predestinated, — no other death was thus prophesied : and the fact that so much of God's secret purpose, and so large a part of God's prophecy, is concerned with the death of Jesus, is presump- tive evidence that there was something in that death more than in the death of sainted apostles, or of patient martyrs of any age or of any dispensation. Again, it is frequently asserted in Scripture that it was absolutely necessary that Christ should die, and his own language shows it ; for he said, " my Father, if it be pos- sible, let this cup pass from me." That was human nature shrinking in its agony from the terrible trial. But he adds, what he only could add, " Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt." Again, he says, (Luke xxiv. 46,) " Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day." And again, he says, (John iii. 14,) "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up." It was not necessary because it was predicted; but it was predicted because it was necessary. But, you say, how could Christ's death be so necessary as this ? I answer, God so loved you and me, that he w^as willing to do any thing in the uni- verse to save us, except stain his own glory, that is, break his own law, — that is, cease to be God and Governor of 382 SCRIPTURE READINGS. the world at all; and the one thing that would meet the necessities of the case was the death of Christ, so that it should be said of him, " He saved others ; himself he can- not save." To save others, himself he would not save; and because he would save others, therefore himself could not be saved. It was therefore absolutely necessary that Jesus should die. I state, in the next place, that the death of Christ excites the intensest interest in heaven. The language of Scrip- ture is, (1 Pet. i. 12,) " These things the angels desire to look into." These words in the original are most expres- sive. They denote intense curiosity which they seek to gratify. And you remember that on the occasion of the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, Moses and Elijah came down from their celestial seats, and spent an hour upon the sunlit Mount, and talked with Jesus of what? Of his glory ? — of his conquests ? — of his miracles ? No ; but of the death that he should sufi^er at Jerusalem. What an evidence is this that the death of Christ must be the subject of intense interest in glory. Celestial visitants left the thrones which had been assigned to them, and the enjoyment of the beatific vision, and descend to the Mount of Trans- figuration, and there speak of a topic which was uppermost in heaven, though least at that moment regarded upon earth, — the death and sacrifice of the Son of God. I notice, in the next place, that the sacred penmen attach immense importance to the death of Jesus. " Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for ouj.* sins." (1 John iv. 10.) Again, " He that spared not his own Son." Again, " God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of Christ." Again, " While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Rom. V. 8.) Now, why this constant reference to Christ's death ? Why not speak of Paul's, or of Peter's ? Why not speak of the death of some of the ancient prophets ? AfcA-TTHEW XXVII. 383 The inference from this is, what I am trying to establish, and what will come out with cumulative force by the collec- tion of all these facts and features, that there was in Christ's death what there was not in any other death that ever was or will be ; and that therefore it occupies a space in heaven and in the Scriptures far — far above and beyond the space occupied by any other death upon record. Again, those who died in the ancient economy looked for- ward to Christ's death with intense interest. " Your father Abraham" rejoiced to see my day ; and he saw it, and was glad." (John viii. 56.) And again, our Lord says, (Luke xxiv. 44—46,) " These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be ful- filled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning rae. Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures, and said unto them. Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day." That death is thus viewed as a central fact, — the fact to which all the patriarchs of old looked forward, — the fact to which all the saints in modern times look back- ward ; and therefore it is possessed of a dignity, a gran- deur, and a value that no other death is clothed with, either in the annals of inspiration, or in the history of the world. Again, I notice that Jesus did not deserve, even taking the accusations of his foes, to die according to the Law of Moses. The false witnesses that were suborned to testify against him could only say that he said, " I am able to de- stroy the temple of God^ and to build it in three days." So contemptible appeared this crime imputed to him, that Pon- tius Pilate passed it by as unworthy of notice when acting in his judicial capacity ; and the only offence imputed to him was that he called himseJf the Son of God. This he did not deny. They said he blasphemed ; he protested that 384 SCRIPTURE READINGS. he was what he proclaimed himself to he, the Lord of glory, the Son of God, Deity enshrined and manifest in the flesh. In the next place, he did not deserve to die according to the laws of the Roman government. The crime that was meant to enlist all the hostilities of Csesar against him was, that he called himself a King ; but his own definition of his kingly jurisdiction is, " My kingdom is not of this world : if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight." My kingdom is not meat, nor drink, nor bayonet, nor shot, nor shell, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. And therefore he had committed no crime that could possibly, with any reasonableness, draw down upon his head the condemnation of the Roman people. And he had committed no offence against God; for on the Mount of Transfiguration the Voice said, " This is my beloved Son ; " and in the hour of his baptism the same Voice said, " This is my beloved Son." The apostles say that he was holy, harmless, and undefiled ; that he who knew no sin was made sin for us. Then, how comes it to pass that he who had committed no crime against the religion of his country, no offence against its laws, and no sin in the sight of a holy God, be- came the greatest sufferer, and died the most agonizing death — a death so fraught with agony, that his great and beneficent heart burst beneath its pressure, while he cried in the agony of his feelings, " Eli, Eli, lama sabacthani ? — My God, my " God, why hast thou forsaken me ? " The only possible solution of this most extraordinary phenome- non is, that he occupied the sinner's place ; that the spotless Lamb was laid upon the altar, that the stray sheep might be reclaimed, forgiven, and restored. The law of God's universe is, that holiness is happiness, and that sin is misery. Then how comes it to pass tjiat a Being who was Incarnate Holiness, was yet the greatest sufferer? God's law was MATTHEW XXVII. 385 broken, — God's providence was defied, — God's sceptre was treated with contempt, — if Christ died in any other capacity than that of a Sacrifice and Sin bearer, bearing on his own body the sins of all that beheve. And again, I notice that Christ's death was voluntary. Now, this is a remarkable fact. He did not die by constraint, but voluntarily. When his enemies tried to seize him and put him to death before, he evaded them, because his hour was not come ; but when the epochal hour of Christendom sounded from the heavens, and the time was come when the great Victim must suffer, and the grand Sacrifice must be completed, then he refused the aid of Peter's sword, and told him that legions of angels were at his service if he chose to appeal to them ; " but how then," said he, " shall the Scrip- tures be fulfilled, that thus it must be ? " "I lay down my life," he said, " that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." If Christ were not God, he was a suicide ; and if I were a Socinian, I should infer that crime from that strange language. I have no power to lay down my life ; it is not at my disposal. I have received it as a stewardship, and I possess it till the great Proprietor takes it back to himself. But Jesus said, " I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again " — I have jurisdiction over life ; " no man taketh it from me." That was the language of suicide, or it was the language, which we know it was, of God man- ifest in the flesh. His ^sacrifice and death, therefore, were voluntary. In the next place, the intensity of the agony that Jesus endured showed that his death was something very peculiar. Read the death of any martyr, and if Christ's sufferings were purely physical, I say that Paul, and Peter, and some of the martyrs of the 1 6th century, exhibited a magnanim- ity and a quietness greater than what appears to have been 33 386 SCRIPTURE READINGS. exhibited by Jesus. I say, if Jesus died a mere martyr, his sufferings are not without parallel — his death is not without a precedent. Others have as nobly and magnanimously died as he, if he were only a suffering and a patient martyr. But can I explain such sorrow as this on the supposition that he was no more ? He began, we are told, to be in great heaviness and amazement of mind ; he prayed in his agony three times, and the intensity of the mental and moral op- pression on his soul was so great, that he sweat great drops of blood upon the ground. I think that is the most awful expression, as it was the most awful feature, of that singular, peculiar, unparalleled agony. And again, when He looked forward to what was before him, he said, " If it be possible, let this cup pass from me." And again, he said, " My God, why hast thou forsaken me ? " If Christ had been merely a patient martyr, God never would have forsaken him. God never forsook a martyr yet ; but the fact that Christ was forsaken is the proof that he was more than a martyr. He was forsaken, that we might never be forsaken. And any one who will examine what the word " travail " means — " He shall see of the travail of his soul " — and apply that expression to the heart, the soul, the mind, will under- stand that it conveys, as it does to those who can thoroughly appreciate it, a deep and awful sense of the agony endured by the Son of God. All this, then, indicates that his death was no common one ; and it is a step towards the conclusion which we shall arrive at by subsequent details, that he died a Sacrifice, and not simply a martyr. And lastly, I notice to-night that unless there was some- thing in Christ's death totally different from what character- izes the death of any sufferer, his death was a calamity. I cannot see what was the use of the death of Jesus, unless it be regarded as a Sacrifice. It did not give an impulse to his religion, but was calculated to impede it ; for one of the strongest objections to the Gospel is, that it has its commence- MATTHEW XXVII. 387 ment with the Crucified. And if that death was not re- quired because a Sacrifice was demanded, it was a death uncalled for and unnecessary ; but on the supposition that it was, what we allege it was, a Sacrifice, an Atonement for our sins, it was necessary and inevitable. It is the glory of our religion, it is the element of our hope. Give us a Socinian religion, and we have a cross without glory, a religion without a sacrifice, an eternity without a hope, and a grave without a beam to irradiate it, or a path- way to strike through it to that rest that remaineth for the people of God. Note. — [29.] It does not appear whether the purpose of the crown was to wound, or simply for mockery ; and equally uncertain is it of what kind of thorns it was composed. The acanthus itself, with its large succulent leaves, is singularly unfit for such a purpose ; as is the plant with very long sharp thorns, known as Spinn Christi, being a brittle acacia, (robinia,) and the very length of the thorns, which would meet in the middle if it were bent into a wreath, precluding it. Some flexile shrub or plant must be understood, — possibly some variety of the cactus or prickly pear. Hasselquist, a Swedish naturalist, supposes a very common plant, — naba or nabka of the Arabs, with many small spines ; soft, round, and pliant branches ; leaves much resembling ivy, of a very deep green, as if in designed mockery of a victor's wreath. — • Travels, 288, 1766 (cited by 'F.*M.).—Alford. CHAPTER XXVIII. THE RESURRECTION — THE SABBATH — MISREPRESENTATIONS OP SCRIBES, AND PHARISEES, AND SOLDIERS SIFTED AND SHOWN. You may first of all observe that the precautions taken by the scribes, the Pharisees, and the elders, were overruled to be the completest and the most triumphant evidences of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. You recollect that in the previous chapter a deputation of the priests and the Pharisees came to Pilate, and stated that they had heard that Jesus had predicted that on the third day he would rise again from the dead. They said they did not beheve any such prophecy ; but lest some trick should be played, and the disciples and apostles should come and steal the body of Jesus, and pretend he had risen, let us, said this deputation, place a large stone at the mouth of the sepulchre ; let us plant beside it a Roman watch — men who would rather have encountered death, than have betrayed their duty — and take every requisite precaution in order that the disciples may not carry away the dead body of their Master, and spread the apocryphal report, that Jesus who was crucified for his crimes has actually risen from the dead. These pre- cautions were taken. Pilate said, " Ye have a watch," that is, a competent body of soldiers ; " go your way, make it as sure as ye can." It turns out, that while man in his folly devised the precaution, that precaution was overruled by the wisdom of God, to be the most triumphant proof that Jesus MATTHEW XXVIII. 389 had actually risen from the dead. We shall see that that was so, as we proceed to unfold the simple and short narra- tive that is here before us. " In the end of the Sabbath " denotes at the close of Satur- day, the Sabbath of the Jews, and towards the dawn, or after the dawn of the first day of the week, the Sunday or the Sabbath of the Christians. It has been said, that if the fourth commandment be obligatory at all, it refers to Satur- day, and not to what we Christians call Sunday. It would be too long now, and too irrelevant to the chapter to intro- duce the proofs ; but my answer to that statement is, that the Fourth Commandment insists upon this: six days devoted to labor, and a seventh day devoted to thoughts, studies, and preparations for the world to come, in connection with God, revealed truth, tlie soul, eternity. The Fourth Commandment does not insist upon the seventh day in numerical order, but only upon the seventh portion of our time, or one day in seven. The moral, the eternal, is a seventh portion of our time devoted to religious studies, rehgious reading, religious thought, religious subjects. The ceremonial is the Saturday with the Jews, or the Sunday with the Christians. Whether it be the first or the seventh day of the week is a ceremonial question ; but that it shall be the seventh portion of our time, or one day in seven, is a moral, an enduring, and obligatory command of God him- self. And that this must be so is obvious from the simple fact, that the ceremonial is impracticable everywhere. For instance, when it is Saturday here, it will be at the antipodes a day in advance ; that is to say, our Saturday will be at the antipodes Sunday ; and if you proceed half-way eastward, you will be so much as twelve hours in advance ; so much so, that sailors have often in the course of their voyages mis- taken the days of the week. Ceremonially, it is absolutely impossible to keep the seventh day of the week everywhere ; for while A. is keeping the seventh, B. is keeping half the 33* 390 SCRIPTURE READINGS. seventh and half the first ; and C. in another part of the world is keeping the first. But God's laws are moral laws ; and what is moral is obligatory in all latitudes and all longitudes, everywhere and always. " Thou shall not steal " is as bind- ing at the antipodes as in London, and as practicable at the antipodes as it is in London. " Thou shalt not kill " is bind- ing everywhere ; and so the observance of a seventh day kept for rehgious, devotional, Christian studies is duty every- where; but the specific day in numerical order is to be gathered, whether the seventh or the first, from the usage of the apostles, from the hints of the New Testament, and from the practice of the Christian Church always and everywhere from the beginning. We think, therefore, there are suffi- cient grounds, on which I do not now enter, for the change of the Sabbath from the seventh day of the week to the first. And surely, it does seem a very natural and reason- able thing that a seventh portion of our time should be snatched from the jurisdiction of Caesar, and consecrated to those thoughts, studies, and anticipations which relate to the growth of the soul in meetness for heaven, and to the glory of Him who has created us by his power, and ransomed and redeemed us by his precious blood. And let me tell you, that suppose you should get an Act of Parliament cancelling the first day of the week as a Sabbath, and authorizing the British Museum to be accessible, the Crystal Palace to be opened, the playhouses to be busy, (for what right has one company to open its shop and another not to open theirs ?) and all the exhibitions to be opened, the greatest sufferer will be the working man ; because when the avaricious mas- ter sees that you give up the Sabbath as a divine institution, he will say, " You prefer to have it for play, but I prefer to have it for work ; and, therefore, as it has no divine founda- tion, as your conduct evinces, I insist upon your working seven days for the same wages for which you now work six." In demanding, as many working men have done, the Sab- 3IATTHEW XXVIII. 391 bath for amusement, they are cutting the ground from be- neath their own feet, and putting a rod in the avaricious master's hand, wherewith he will be sure to scourge them. I hope such a concession will not be made, not for my own sake, nor for the sake of Christians, but for the working- man's sake. I am satisfied that if you lift the Sabbath from being a divine institution, and have it regarded as a mere holiday, and not a holy day, the result will be, that it will be either lost in dissipation, or absorbed in the working days of the week ; and then, every political economist knows well that the wages given to the working man are very much determined by the number of working men in the market ; but if you add a seventh day to the number of days in which the working man must serve his master, it is equivalent to adding a seventh* man to every six ; therefore, there will be abundance of hands, and wages will become necessarily small ; and thus the result will be that you will have more work and less wages; and then the fanatics of 1853 will be pronounced by you to be the prophets you knew not, when it is impossible to retrace your steps, or to avert the catas- trophe that you have ignorantly brought upon your own heads. In the 2d verse it is said, " There was a great earthquake." The proper translation is, " There had been a great earth- quake " previous to the visit of the women; "for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it." And then there is a very beautiful picture of the angel. " His coun- tenance was like lightning," that is, of an unearthly and intolerable splendor, " and his raiment white as snow." Angels are spirits ; but here in some way a spirit was made visible to the natural or earthly eye, with a countenance like lightning, and raiment as white as snow. And the keepers appointed to the tomb " did shake," and became paralyzed " as dead men." But " the angel answered and said unto 392 SCRIPTURE READINGS. the women, Fear not ye." Whosoever fears, you have no reason to do so — and on what ground ? " For I know that ye seek Jesus." No sinner who seeks the Saviour need fear. To seek Christ is salvation. An inquirer is ah-eady a Chris- tian. The first impulse that leads you to ask the way to heaven, is a pledge and a guarantee of the perfect possession of a Christian heart and character. " But," said the angel, " do not tarry, but go quickly, — do not take the good news as a monopoly, but go and tell his disciples. Spread the good news that he has risen from the dead." " And they de- parted quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy." What a strange mixture ! A deep and solemn sense of the awful fact, and yet a joyous impression that he who was crucified on Calvary had now risen from tlie dead. " And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying. All hail ! And they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him." Then Jesus repeated what the angel said, " Go, tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me." Then we read the conduct of the watch upon this occasion. " When they were going, behold, some of the watch came into the city, and showed unto the chief priests all the things that were done." After this, we find that the elders took counsel, gave large money to the soldiers, and bribed them to say, " His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept." Now I have not the least doubt, that unless the jury who listened to this statement had made up their minds beforehand that it must be true, it never could have carried conviction to their minds. For, first, recollect, it was a great festival of the Jews, it was bright moonlight ; secondly, recollect that at that great festival the houses of Jerusalem were unable to contain all the visitors who came from a distance to be present, and that hundreds of thou- sands were bivouacked upon the streets, living in tents, or wandering about all night unable to find a lodging. In the MATTHEW XXVIII. 393 next place, recollect that a watch of Roman soldiers was the most exclusive guarantee that no one should prevail to inter- fere successfully with their charge, except at the sacrifice of their own lives. A Roman soldier was punished with death if he slept on his watch. He would have been punished with death if he had allowed any one to interfere with his charge, whom he could prevent. And therefore, you ob- serve, for the soldiers to come and say that to the Scribes and Pharisees, and thus to impute to themselves the highest crime of which a soldier could be guilty, was absurd in itself, and not fitted to make an impression in favor of what they asserted upon any dispassionate and unprejudiced mind. For, first, how could the eleven fishermen of Galilee roll away a gigantic stone from a sepulchre in bright moonlight, in the midst of a watch of twenty-five or thirty Roman soldiers, and then take out the dead body, and exhibit so little haste, that the napkin was rolled up, and laid neatly aside in the sep- ulchre ; and then carry that dead body along the streets of Jerusalem lined with thousands who could not get accommo- dation in the city ; and so secrete that dead body, that the most vigilant inspection of all the soldiers and police of Jeru- salem should fail to detect it ? 1 say, is this probable ? And again, how could it have happened, that all the soldiers slept precisely at the same moment, and that the disciples opened the sepulchre without disturbing the slumbers of a single soldier, and that they carried away the body, and left not the least trace of haste or precipitation behind them ? I say the story carries its own refutation ; and he must be very credu- lous who, after reading the narrative, can come to any other conclusion than this, that Jesus rose from the dead in the majesty of Godhead, and ascended to our Father and his Father, and there lives a Prince and an Intercessor, to give repentance and remission of sins. Jesus then appeared, we are told, to the eleven disciples, and gave them the commission — "All power, jurisdiction, 394 SCRIPTURE READINGS. authority, is given to me in heaven and in earth. On the basis of this, go and teach all nations ; 1 have risen from the dead, not to enjoy the inactivity of celestial bliss, but prac- tically and personally to be with you, even to the end of this present age." CHAPTER XXVIII. 19,20. THE master's presence. The promise is not the first thing, and then teaching them to observe all things the consequence ; but teaching them to observe all things is first, and then " I am with you " is the consequence of that. A certain class of divines quote the promise, " I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world ; " and then they draw the inference, " Therefore we must always necessarily speak truth, and are infallible." Now it is just the reverse. It is, " If you teach them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, then I will be with you alway, even unto the end of the world ; but if you do not teach what I have commanded, then you forfeit your right to the promise, Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Now it is for want of noticing the connection of clauses that errors are made. For instance, there is here plainly taught baptism first, teaching after it ; then there is plainly taught us here teaching first, and Christ's promise contingent upon it. But what is meant by the promise, " Lo, I am with you ? " I have already remarked that it was not an essential pres- ence, because Christ is everywhere ; that it was not a bodily presence, because the heavens must contain him till the times of the restitution of all things ; that it was therefore a special, gracious presence, peculiar to the people of God, and inseparably connected with his Mediatorial work at 396 SCRIPTUllE READINGS. God's righthand. Now this special presence, contingent upon our teaching all things that he commanded, is not simply with God's ministers, but with all God's people in all places whatever. It is not simply within the four walls of a building consecrated to his service, but it is promised and pledged wheresoever two or three meet together in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. When Jesus assumed humanity, arrayed himself in the dust of our globe, he took a first- fruits of it, and consecrated the whole. Every place, there- fore, is suitable for spiritual worship; and wheresoever, therefore — in church, in chapel, on the sea-shore, on the hill-side, on the deck — believers pray in the name of the believers' Lord, there He has promised to be with them, even unto the end of the world, only it must be somewhere. In discrowning Zion we must not despise ordinances. It is implied also that he will be with them at all times — by night, by day, in sunshine and under cloud, when their success seems very little, and when it is of the most en- couraging description. Paul and Stephen realized the ful- filment of the promise when they stood before the judges of the earth, accused of crime, weak in themselves, but strong in the strength, and glorified by the presence, of their Blessed Lord and Master Christ Jesus. While this promise is specially made to the ministers of the Gospel, it is, " Go and teach them all things whatsoever I have commanded you ; and, lo, I am with you " — the " you " made up of the previous " them " and " you," that is, the teacher and the taught — not the ministry only, but the people — " alway, even unto the end of the world." If the preacher needs the special presence of Christ, that he may preach successfully, the hearer needs it as much, that he may hear successfully. There is as much need of a Divine power and presence in the pew as in the pulpit ; and if Christ's presence were given to the pulpit, and withheld from the pew, there would be no blessing; but he has MATTHEW XXVIII. 397 promised to be with pulpit and pew, with preacher and hearer, with teacher and taught, alway, even unto the end of the world. Now for what purpose is Christ with the ministers of the Gospel, who are half of those with whom he has promised to be present? For what object is his presence required? I answer, his presence is with the ministry to fix it in its proper place. A minister of the Gospel is not simply made so as a Christian is made by the Holy Spirit of God, twice consecrated, but he needs also to have his sphere ap- pointed by Him who made him. Ministers are likened in the Apocalypse to stars in Christ's righthand. They are stars to shine, not in their own light, but in the light of that Sun from whom it is borrowed. And they^ are in Christ's righthand to be placed in their orbits, where he pleases to provide them, and to be removed from them as soon as he has no further necessity for them. And therefore, Christ is with the ministers of the Gospel to assign each his sphere, his parish, his diocese, call it what you please — in which he is to serve him. He is with them also to support and encourage them. Moses shrunk from his embassy; Paul asked in amaze- ment, " Who is sufficient for these things ? " and both ex- pressions implied that Moses and Paul, who were competent to judge of the difficulties and perils of the ministry that was committed to them, felt it an onerous, responsible, and laborious work. But in order to encourage ministers in prosecuting their inission, Christ says, " I will be with you ; my grace is sufficient for you ; my strength is made perfect in weakness." And if this be true as applied to the minis- try, it is no less applicable to the audience, or the hearers. You need his presence as truly as the minister needs it. You have responsibility, duty, privilege; and these unsanc- tified, must prove curses ; for only wiien privilege is sancti- fied, does it become happiness, joy, and progress Christ, 3J: 398 SCRIPTURE READINGS. therefore, has promised to be with minister and people, to render effective and successful whatsoever is said that he himself has commanded. The most able preacher can only speak to the outward ear ; he cannot reach the heart, he cannot touch its springs, he cannot influence its nature ; he can only speak to the outward ear what ought to convince, and what, if properly received, must impress. But w^e see, as a matter-of-fact, that all who hear are not converted ; that all who are addressed are not sanctified ; that there is a special presence that we need, and for which we pray, that makes the words addressed to the outward ear to strike on the inward heart, and to awaken therein com'ictions that shall not perish till they ripen into thorough and lasting conversion. Christ's presence, therefore, is promised to be with his ministering servants, and with his people to the end of, the world, to impress upon the heart what is ad- dressed to the outward ear* provided it be what he himself has commanded. In the next place, Christ has promised to be with his ministers and people to the end of the world, in order to constitute by his presence a true Church, of which the presence of Christ is the essential element. There may be all that is impressive, splendid, magnificent, costly ; ^nd yet it may not be a church of Christ. There may be in the pews the great, the wealthy, and the celebrated, and yet there is not a Church. The minister may collect an audi- ence, but the minister's Lord alone can make that audience a Church. An architect can build a meeting-house, but the Lord Jesus alone can make that meeting-house a sanctuary, a church, a true temple for his service, and for his worship. And wherever Christ is, there is the Ploly of Holies, there is the chancel. It is therefore absolutely unscriptural to allege, as do some, that there is one place in every church, the chancel, where what is called most unscripturally the altar, or what is called commonly the communion table is, MATTHEW XXVI IT. 390 that is more holy than the rest. That is absokite nonsense; .there is no such distinction recognized in the house of God. Whatever hohness is in the sanctuary is from Christ's pres- ence, who is the AUar, the High-Priest, and the Sacrifice, in the midst of the people ; and there is no one place that has any holiness or any consecration that does not come from that presence, and that is not dependent on that pres- ence. And therefore, to allege that Christ is more present at the east end of a church than in the west, more present on the communion table than in*the pews, is to assert what is not matter of proof, what is scripturally unwarranted. The sacredness of the place is derived from the presence of Jesus Christ, and yo-u, if Christians at all, are priests ; for you are " a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people." The most sacred place, there- fore, is simply the sanctuary ; and the difference between us and those who assert the extravagant notion to which I have alluded, is this, — they say that the chancel, the place where the communion table is, is more holy than the rest of the sanctuary ; therefore, they have a profane place and a holy place ; but we have no profane place at all ; we are all chancel, we are all holy place ; because where two or three meet in Christ's name, there he is present in the midst of them. In the next place, Christ is present with us to constitute us a church, and to show by that presence, therefore, that Christianity is not merely an individual thing, but that it is also a social thing. Quite true, our religion is first personal, but it is not always so. It is first personal, next social. The first tie knits us to our Lord, but the next, and the necessarily next, knits each to hi-s brother. And therefore, he says, " Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you ; and, lo, I am with you " — in the plural number — " alway, even to the end of the world." Where an individual prays, there is a prayer hearing God; 400 SCRIPTURE READINGS. but where two or three meet in Christ's name to pray, there is promised the special presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, the Church below is like the Church above ; it is not a hermitage for a solitary to live in, but it is a house for children to meet together in. " In my Father's house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you." By all means let there be individual Christianity, but do not stop there : extend it, until a Fatherhood in heaven inculcates upon you the beautiful and blessed truth of a brotherhood in the Church on earth. How truly has this promise of Christ's been fulfilled! "What changes have taken place since Christ uttered these words ; and yet these words seem as fully realized and felt at the present moment, as ever they were in the his- tory of the Church. Systems of philosophy have with- ered ; theories, schemes, and notions have been scattered before the winds ; great nations have passed away, and left scarcely a memorial behind ; great cities have per- ished, and the wild beast, the owl, and the serpent are amid their ruins ; seas and rivers have changed their channels and their shores ; all things have altered ; but this promise has not changed ; the truth embodied in it is believed, felt, and realized at the present moment just as fully, and more so, than it ever was realized in the annals of the Christian Church. We see, therefore, a promise made to a few fishermen by Jesus, the Man of sorrows, without strength, without patronage, without eloquence, without wis- dom ; and all things have changed or perished, but that promise rings as clear in Christendom as ever it did since it was uttered ; and the truth and reality of it is felt as pro- foundly and as widely as it ever was felt ; nay, more widely and more profoundly than ever it was felt before. What a testimony, therefore, to the inspiration of Jesus, to the great- ness of his mission, to the glory of his person, to the reality and truth of his Gospel ! If you take the history of the MATTHEW XXVIII. 401 Church, by which I mean the company of the people of God, from the very time that he first uttered this promise, you will see how it has been reahzed. The whole history of the Church is a comment upon this single promise, " Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." There is not a martyr's shroud, nor a missionary's grave, that does not bear testimony from the tenant of the one, and the wearer of the other, that Christ was with them when their need was sorest. The very existence of a Church is proof that this promise has been made actual in its history. All forces conspired to put it down. Fraud, philosophy, persecution, patronage, power, all attempted to put down that weak thing, that unpatronized thing, the Church of Christ ; but the flames that consumed the martyrs only re- vealed the splendor of the principles for which they suffered ; and the axe that was lifted up against the branches of that vine that came out of Israel, lies now in splinters at the root of that glorious and indestructible tree. The whole history of Christ's Church throughout all its chapters, and in all its phases, bears striking testimony of the fulfilment of Christ's promise, " Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." The bush, like that of Horeb, has been wrapped in the flame, but the flame has only made it beautiful ; it has not consumed a single twig of it. The Ark of the Lord has been tossed, like Noah's, upon the waves, and exposed to destruction a thousand times ; but the* waves that rose highest only carried it nearest to heaven, not one was permitted to enter, still less to overwhelm it. This Church of the Lord Jesus Christ remains at the pres- ent day, increasing in numbers, and, we believe, with all the drawbacks that have attended it, in purity, faithfulness, and force ; and we are just as certain that during the years to come Christ will be with it, as we are that during the eigh- teen centuries that are past he has engraven H upon the 34* 402 SCRTPTTJIIE READINGS. palms of his hands, kept it in everlasting remembrance, never at any time forsaken it, never anywliere forgotten it. Now, believing in this promise, let us see what is the true strength and safety of Christ's Church. It is not eloquence, learning, patronage, power, establishment by the state or otherwise, or endowments. These things may be of use, and they may be of disservice ; but whether good or bad, whether lawful or unlawful, it is needless now to discuss ; this is quite certain, that the strength, safety, and progress of the Church is not contingent upon any one of these things. There is only one thing that is essential, Christ's presence. Then, should we not look more to that? Should we not think less about the mischief that statesmen may do, or the good that they may attempt, and think far more about this, — If Christ be for us, what does it matter who is against us ? If Christ be present in the ship, no wind nor wave shall overwhelm it ; and if Christ be not in the Church, then the sooner those who are far from him are brought near to him the better. And if there be a section of the Church in the present day where Christ is not, it does not deserve sup- port, and the less support it gets the better. And if there be a portion of the Church where we know Christ is, then let it not lean upon an arm of ilesh or upon any earthly thing whatever, but feel that its anchors are within the veil, that its strength is the Rock of ages, that its safety is the presence of its Lord ; and feeling this, let us pray that his presence may be ever with us : for if he go with us, we know that nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God that is in him. Christ must be God. I cannot read the New Testament without discovering that. Take away that one truth from Christianity, and you alter the whole complexion and char- acter of it. It is then not what I want. If Christ be not God, Calvary is simply a complement MATTHEW XXVIII. 403 to Mount Sinai ; the 5th chapter of St. Matthew, which is so beautiful, is simply a clearer exposition of the 20th chap- ter of Exodus. But if I cannot obey the 20th chapter of Exodus, how shall I obey the 5th chapter of St. Matthew ? If I cannot obey the outer Law, how shall I obey that Law when it touches the inmost thoughts of the heart ? If this religion be only a directory, and not a remedy, it is a reason for despair, and no reason for hope at all. But Christ is God, and being God, in our nature, he made an atonement ; and the Gospel, the record of that atonement, is therefore a pharmacoposia, or collection of prescriptions, for a soul dis- eased, by which I am reinstated in my lost prerogatives, and made higher, and happier, and holier, than Adam ever was. But, you say, how do you know that Christ is God ? I need only the promise of my text to prove it : for he who uttered the clause on which I am commenting either was a fanatic, or God. " I am with you alway," he says, " even unto the end of the Christian dispensation." That dispen- sation lasts, and is destined to overflow the whole earth. Either that speech was fanaticism or imposture, or a truth spoken by the God of truth ; for how can Christ be present everywhere, at all times, by night and by day, east, west, north, south, wheresoever two or three meet in his name, in one and the same moment, unless he is, what we know he is. omnipresent? We know in whom we have believed, and we are certain that wheresoever two or three meet in his name, be they ten thousand times ten thousand groups, next Sunday, east, west, north, south, in the old world, and in the new world, Christ is present in the midst of every group. But who can this be but God ? And we rejoice to know that he is so, and that he is able, as well as willing to fulfil the promise he has made, and which we pray that we may feel in all its preciousness and sweetness, " Lo^ I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." CHAPTER XXVIII. 20. THE minister's DUTY. First of all, there is announced by our Lord his investi- ture with all the prerogatives of infinite power in heaven and in earth. This investiture is*frequently alluded to in the New Testament. We read in the Epistle to the Ephe- sians, i. 20-23 : " Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come : and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all." The same great prerogative is announced by the same apostle in his Epistle to the Philippians, ii. 9-11, where he says, "God hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name : that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth ; and that every tongue should con- fess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Now it seems here to be distinctly asserted that a portion of our humanity is elevated to a height of dignity and glory that it would be impossible for me to delineate ; and that because that first portion, that earnest, that first-fruits of MATTHEW XXVIII. 405 our humanity is there, therefore the apostles were to go and proclaim the glorious tidings to all the children of men, par- takers of the same flesh and blood, that none might despair, but that all who heard the message might hope for an in- heritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away. Jesus bases the commission to preach upon the fact that he is at the right hand of God. What an interesting thought, that one like you and me has entered into glory ! Then the way is open. One having passed through it, and suc(53ssfully attained the end, were there no other ground, is to me an encouragement to pursue the same bright and blessed course, and to hope for the same glorious and happy success. " I am at the right hand of God ; all power is given unto your Elder Brother in heaven and in earth. Tell the rest of my brethren, that a Brother is at God's right hand; tell sorrow stricken humanity that a Man is before the Throne ; tell them that none need despair, that few need despond ; that there is a welcome, as there is a way. I am at the right hand of God, and have all power in heaven and in earth." And if Joseph at the right hand of Pharaoh was encouragement to his father and his breth- ren to come and share in his dignity and his privileges, Jesus-, better than Joseph, at the right hand of God is an earnest and a pledge to us that we too may share in his blessings and inherit his joy. Well, upon the footing of this he says, " Go teach all nations." Now I sometimes find fault with our translation ; I always lament to do so ; but as a fair and impartial inter- preter of Scripture, one must recollect that the original is the inspired Book, that the translation is an approximation to it. I think translators are justified by the practice of our Lord and the apostles ; because they quote much oftener from the Greek Septuagint, than from the original Hebrew. Some excessively fastidious critics have complained of that, and said,." What a pity it is that the apostles did not quote 406 SCRIPTURE READINGS. verbatim from the original Hebrew ! " I say, it would have been a pity if they had invariably done so : for what is the lesson taught by the fact that they quote from the Septua- gint ? Surely this blessed one, that God meant the Bible to be translated into every tongue, and to give us a sanction for translations of the Scripture by apostolic usage in quot- ing from a translation, and not from the original. But in the original Greek of my text it is, " Go ye therefore," (and I find it is so in the margin) " and make disciples, or Chris- tians, of all nations." It is literally translated, " Go ye therefore, and discipleize," if you will allow that expres- sion, " all nations," or, " Christianize all nations ; " or, if I were to use a university term, it would be, " matriculate all nations " — receive into your school all nations as scholars — admit them to the first form, that they may rise and reach the last, the noblest, and the highest. There is nothing in the first clause of this commission about teaching, but sim- ply a charge to go and discipleize all nations — enter their names, enroll them, admit them into your school, bring them under your tuition. It is, in the first instance, give them admission. Now it is not fair for some to quote this text, and say, first teach, and then baptize. I am not quarrelling with that process where it is proper ; I am only quarrelling with ingrafting that process upon a text that does not sustain it. The language of my text is. First, discipleize ; and if you will read on, you will find it is, next, baptize them, and next, teach them all things whatsoever I have commanded you. The meaning of this text is, " Go and discipleize all nations " (I am not rash when I so translate it) — " by baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ; and then teaching them to observe all things what- soever I have commanded you." Secondly, I would refer to the process of disci pleization, if I may use the word. What was the process to be em- ' MATTHEW XXVIII. 407 ployed by the apostles in making disciples of all nations? The answer is given in the text. Go and discipleize all nations, that is, make them outward disciples and scholars upon the first form, by baptizing them, — through that pro- cess introducing them into the school of Christ as learners of the lesson of Christianity. Now, what is meant by the word " baptism ? " I think I explained before that this word is used in four senses in the Bible : — first, in the sense of suffering. — " With the baptism that I am baptized withal shall ye be baptized " (Mark x. 39) ; secondly, in the sense of miraculous endowments, — " baptized with the Holy Ghost;" thirdly, in the sense of regeneration of heart, where the apostle speaks of being buried with Christ in bap- tism ; and fourthly, in the sense of sprinkling, or, if you prefer it, immersion in water, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. These then are the four senses of the word " baptism." And I think I men- tioned on a former occasion, that when persons say to you, " Baptism is regeneration," you must not say, " It is not," for that would be wrong ; but you must ask, " In what sense do you employ the word ' baptism ? ' Do you mean bap- tism with miraculous power ? or, do you mean baptism with the Holy Ghost in the sense of renewal of heart and soul ? or, cte you mean baptism simply with outward water, as a badge of the Christian character ? " If they answer, " We mean baptism with water," then, of course, you will say, " That is not regeneration, and the Qld Bailey and Bridewell are my ready proofs ; " but if they say that they mean by baptism the influence of the Holy Spirit on the heart, then you will answer as distinctly as the great Bishop in the West could answer, " Baptism is regeneration ; " because this is not baptism with water by a priestly hand, but baptism with the Holy Spirit, by the hand of Jesus Christ the High-Priest of our profession. Now then, you will notice here, that baptism is assumed 408 SCRIPTURE READINGS. to be, not the inner baptism of the Holy Spirit of God, but plainly, I think, from the context and from the peculiar usage of the passage, that baptism with water in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, which is admission into the outward and visible Church and nothing more. And here it is most interesting to observe the large liberality of the Gospel of Christ in all that is extrinsic, whilst it is dutiful to notice its unswerving and uncompro- mising statement of all that is essential to the safety of the soul, and the glory of God. Outward rites the Bible has left wide as a latitudinarian could demand; but essential and eternal doctrines it has hedged round with uncompro- mising precautions. It is not stated whether you ought to be immersed in water, or the water sprinkled upon you. It simply demands that you shall be baptized with water in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. It seems to me that the mode of administration depends upon the latitude ; the duty of the administration depends upon the authority of God. If I were in India, I should fancy immersion the most gratifying mode of the adminis- tration of baptism. ; but if 1 were in Iceland, I should fancy immersion the least desirable mode that could be adopted. It seems to me, therefore, that immersion or sprinkling are matters of detail to be arranged according to the latitude in which you live ; but that baptism with water in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is a duty that devolves upon every Christian in every longitude and latitude throughout the world. And you can see the reason of this. The Jew was admitted into his outward church by an outward rite ; the Christian is to be admitted into his outward Church by an outward and visible rite ; the differ- ence being, that all nations are to be admitted into the Chris- tian Church, that almost exclusively the Jew was to be ad- mitted into the Jewish or Hebrew temple. The emphasis of our Lord in this commission is, " Go, and discipleize, not the MATTHEW XXVIII. 409 Jew by an outward rite to which he is accustomed, but all nations, that is, all mankind, Jew and Gentile, by a new, beautiful, simple, and expressive ceremony, that of baptism with water in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." It seems to me, therefore, that to get up a dispute about the quantity of water to be used in baptism is a side fight that Satan will rejoice in, because it will draw you aside from the more vital one, whether baptism with water, or baptism with the Holy Ghost, be the essential requirement. It seems to me that the quantity of water to be used in baptism is on a par with the quantity of bread to be eaten at the communion table, and the quantity of wine to be sipped from the cup. The quantity of bread and wine is not the substance or the meaning of the Communion. True bap- tism does not depend upon the quantity of water you are immersed in, or that is sprinkled upon you. The outward dedication is the substance of it ; the mode, except as far as defined by Christ, is left to latitude, to convenience, to the taste, fancy, and preference of all. I have not the least doubt that in the primitive Church immersion was often used, but I have not any doubt that sprinkling was also used. I have not the least doubt that the Greek verb BaTrri^o), or BuTTTO), in its origin, means " to dip ; " but I have not any doubt that it means as often " to sprinkle." And therefore, to institute an acrimonious discussion as to whether you should be dipped, or sprinkled, seems to me to be an inex- pedient and unhappy dispute, and the sooner it is suppressed the better. I say to the Baptist, " If you prefer to be plunged in the water, by all means go and be so ; " but then I ask the Baptist to say to me, " If you desire that your disciples should be sprinkled, let them be sprinkled." It would be bigotry and exclusiveness, were I to say that immersion is wrong, or if our Baptist friends were to say that sprinkling is wrong. Let each, in a matter extrinsic to the main thing, be fully persuaded in his own mind. 35 410 SCKIPTUUE READINGS. But notice now what is very vital in this. Whilst the form or the mode of administration may be left to the taste or discretion of the Church according to the latitude or lon- gitude in which it lives, there is an essential, vital, insepara- ble accompaniment of the right and due administration of the sacrament, and that is, it must be in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Now, is it straining the passage I have read to assert that this is, not the proof, but a collateral proof, of the doctrine of a Triune Jehovah ? Would it strike a fair, impartial, and un- prejudiced reader that this means, " Baptize in the name of the Father, a Divine Person, and of the Son, a mere human being, and of the Holy Ghost, a mere figure of speech ? " Would not the impression of every reader on first opening his Bible, and reading the commission of his Lord, be that if the Father be a Person, the Son is a Person ; and if the Son be a Person, the Holy Ghost is a Person ; and that if the first be God, the second must be God, and the third must be God also ? The ancient Jews were baptized into Moses, that is, a person. Modern Christians are baptized into Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, that is, a Person. And what will strike you more forcibly still is, that it is not, " Baptize in the ?i«me5 " — it is not in the plural number, but in the singular number — eIc to ovofia — " in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Now, does not that look very much like three Persons — Father, Son, and Holy Ghost — but one God ? Now, when we baptize, as we do in this church, a child, "we do not give it, as some ill-informed persons sometimes say, a name. A parent has sometimes said to me, " Will you name my child ? " whereupon I have replied gently and courteously, " That is your business, not mine : my privi- lege and my commission is to baptize your child," or, if you like the expression, though it is not a scriptural one, " to christen your child." Then what is the use of having the MATTHEAV XXVIII. 411 name pronounced ? I answer, it is a very important accom- paniment ; and, as often as you sign your name to any doc- ument, deed, or bill, if ever you should be so unfortunate as to sign it to this last, you should recollect that that name was consecrated by communion with Christ, that it was first named when you were devoted to him ; and thus, we should regard the name, and the man who wears it, not as a profane, but as a consecrated, solemn, and Christian thing. Notice, in the next place, the extent of this commission : '" Go and discipleize," it is said, " all nations " — navra to, e^rj — " all the Gentile nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Now, mark the limit of the Christian mission. It is only to ter- minate with the unveiling of the Crown of our blessed Lord. We are to cease to teach, or to cease to be mission- aries, only when the last prodigal has been reclaimed to his home, when the last stray sheep has again been restored to the fold, and when the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our God and of his Christ. The commis- sion of our blessed Master is not to go and discipleize the congregation, the neighborhood, the nation, the continent, but all the nations of the earth. Go where the cannibal feasts, and where the savage adores he knows" not what. Go where the soil is wet with the tears of the slave, and the soul is weary with its oppression. Go where the wind wafts the sigh of the weeper, and the turf i« broken for the dead. Go where no Sabbath shines, and no Christian praises, and no God is worshipped. Go to the Brahmin, the Buddhist, the worshipper of Juggernaut, the widow prepar- ing to die upon the funeral pile of her husband, the mother about to plunge her babe into the Ganges. Go to the Ma- hometan in his mosque, to the Mufti on his carpet, to the Dervish in his infuriated dance ; and tell them that a God has suffered, that the nations might be redeemed. Go and tell them of a Cross tliat outshines the crescent, and of a 412 SCRIPTURE READINGS. temple that is more magnificent than all the minarets of Constantinople. Go to the Jew the wanderer, to the Be- douin of the desert, to the Ishmaelite whose hand is against every man, to the Cossack in his steppes, to the Arab in the desert. Go to the whole world, and preach the un- searchable riches of the Lord Jesus Christ. What a mag- nificent commission ! What a splendid diocese ! What a glorious field ! What an encouragement to all to go ! And this commission is not addressed to the minister only, but to the people ; and is obligatory upon you as much as upon bishop, or presbyter, or any minister whatever ; and you have not discharged or fulfilled this duty, or exhausted this commission, as long as there is a heathen to be con- verted, or a sinner throughout the world to be saved. You say perhaps, what has often been remarked. Better wait till we have converted all at home before we attempt abroad. But it is a singular thing that the people who give for the conversion of sinners abroad are just the persons who give for the conversion of sinners at home ; and in almost every instance I have found that the objector to foreign missions is practically the recusant to giving any thing to home mis- sions tit all. The fact is, when the heart has been touched with Divine grace, and the whole soul has been opened to the Gospel, there is a readiness to give to all the claims of Christianity at home, and to all the demands of heathendom abroad; and a deep and ineradicable impression that, as over the cross our Lord's title was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin, so his Gospel is meant to be preached to every nation upon earth ; and that as his garments were divided into four parts, so his message is meant for the four quarters of the globe, and only to cease in its circulation when he himself shall come and restore all things to more than their first and hoHest purity and bliss. And besides, the command alone is the encouragement to obey it. What- ever Christ commands I know he means to accomplish. MATTHEW XXVIII. 413 "We are very often prone to look^it the command alone, and hesitate, as if it were impracticable ; but never forget, my dear friends, that whoever starts to obey a command of Jesus carries with him the elements of success. He who gives the command guarantees success in him who attempts to obey it. And if he has told you to preach the Gospel to every creature, do it in person, or do it by proxy, but do it ; and he who has given the command will crown the attempt to fulfil it with an abundant and increasing benediction. But notice in the next place, that whilst we are thus to discipleize all nations by baptizing them, we are to teach them to observe all things whatsoever Christ has com- manded. First, then, there is here preaching or proclama- tion of the glorious tidings of the finished Sacrifice, the perfect atonement of Jesus Christ. The very first truth that a Christian minister is to tell his people is, not " Do this," nor " Thou shalt do that," but that Jesus died an Atonement for our sins. And instead of this being a doc- trine of reserve only to be taught the initiated, it seems to me, judging from the usage of the sacred penmen, to be a doctrine placed in the very fore-front of all Christianity, and that we are, first of all, to announce to all the world that Jesus died for our sins according to the Scriptures. But it is not simply teaching in the sense of preaching, but it is teaching in the sense of instructing. What used to be called by the old Scottish Reformers " the catechetical oflUce of the Church," is a very precious one. We ought not only to preach an eloquent homily, but to teach cate- chetically word upon word, and precept upon precept. And hence, I regard the Exposition of the chapter as the teaching part, and the Sermon as the preaching part of our service ; and I have understood that more have been bene- fited within these walls by the superficial, but yet important Exposition of the chapter read, than by the best sermons I have preached, constructed on the most suggestive and 35* 414 scriptukf: readings. impressive texts ever selected. In the old Scotch Church there was a doctor, whose duty was to teach catechetically^ and the pastor, whose duty was to preach ; and I am not sure that our Church would not be right, if it were so con- stituted again. It seems to me that the minister, instead of spending his time on Committees in hearing the reports of Sick Visiting Societies, does much better for the cause of Christ and for the instruction of his people by sitting in his study, and pondering the truths of the Gospel, and coming forth upon the Sunday prepared to teach them things new and old. The pulpit is the throne of power ; preaching is the element of success ; and as no miracles are vouchsafed now, except Dr. Newman's, which are not worth having, our only course is to use the means which God in his providence has given us, and by studying and prayer and painstaking to come forth and show our people that when they come to the house of God there is something worth listening to, when the minister proclaims to them the Gos- pel of Christ Jesus. But again, in this passage there seems to be also the office of the ministry explained. The ministry is, " Teach- ing them to observe all things whatsoever I have com- manded you." Then the minister of the Gospel is not to be an exalted dignitary, or the possessor of a splendid sine- cure ; but, he is to be a working man. One man works with his hand, as the carpenter does ; the postman works with his feet; the Christian student is to work with his brain ; but in all three cases we are working men. No such thing as a sinecure in the Church of Christ is recognized in the Bible ; and I am quite sure that were the highest digni- taries, so called, to come down and be the humblest City Missionaries, they would gain a splendor and an effect not less in the very least degree. The Christian minister is to. go and teach. If I were to borrow the allusion of a splen- did speech by a great orator, it would be, translating it into MATTHEW XXVIII. 415 spiritual things, a minister's escutcheon is to be his Bible only. His instructions are to be there ; his dignity, his honor, and his greatness are to be borrowed from his theme, and not to be communicated by extrinsic circumstances of any sort whatever. Not only is the ministry to be a working office, but it is not to be a priesthood at all. When Jesus instituted the Christian ministry, there is not a single word about sacri- fice, not a syllable about priesthood. In other words, min- isters are to go and preach a Sacrifice completed, not to make one ; they are to go and proclaim the virtues of an Atonement finished, not to go and attempt an atonement not yet begun. If you will open the Pontificale Romanum, and read the form of Ordination of a Romish priest, you will see that there is not one word about preaching the Gos- pel. There is put in his hand a paten for holding the Com- munion bread, and a cup to hold the Communion wine, and he is ordained — to do what ? Not to go and teach all nations, but to go and ofier up the body and blood of Christ a propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the living and the dead. Now it does seem to me that to accept without reor- dination a Roman Catholic priest, however conscientious his renunciation of his errors may be, as a minister of any branch of the Protestant Church, is altogether an erroneous practice ; and I am told by^the most competent scholars of the Church of England, that the practice of receiving con- verted priests to be ministers without reordaining them is inconsistent with the laws of that Church. I am glad that it is so ; I am only sorry that the practice is not so. A priest of the Church of Rome may be personally a saint, he may be in his practice a true Christian, but in his ordination and his office, he has no more to do with preaching the Gospel than a soldier, a sailor, a tradesman, or a member of Parliament has. He is not appointed for that office at all, but for something totally different. The grand commis- 416 SCRIPTURE READINGS. sion in this passage is, " Go and discipleize all nations by baptizing them, and teaching them to observe all thingsf whatsoever I have commanded you." But mark also the limit of a minister's teaching. — What is he to teach ? Not the traditions of the church, not the politics of Coesar, not questions of equivocal importance; but to teach, according to his charter, commission, and au- thority, "all things whatsoever I have commanded you." Then, if this be so, there must be some record of it : for how can I preach what Christ commanded, unless I know it ? That record, the Romanist will tell me, is in the Church. Very well, I do not mind where I find it, pro- vided I do find it. But if the Church come forward, and say, " This is it," and does not condescend to demonstrate that it is it, I must hesitate before I accept so important a charge from so suspicious a source. But if she should say, " What a council defines is truth," I ask, how can that be ? A priest, they say, is as fallible as a layman, as also is a bishop ; but a council, they tell us, is infallible. Then, will any person acquainted with arithmetic and mathematics tell me how three hundred fallibles welded together can be one infallible ? If all the elements of a council be falHble, surely, the conjunction of all those elements must be a falli- bility also. If there be cause and effect, if there be pre- mises and sequence, if there be any truth in logic, if there be any laws in nature, a combination of fallibles must certainly result in a fallible conclusion ; and therefore, I will not go to the Synod, nor to the General Council. Then, if I ask, " Is the Pope infallible ? Am I to go to him to ascertain what Christ commanded ? " the gaoler of the Madiais in Florence will answer, •' He is infallible ; " but if I go across the Channel to France, and ask the Archbishop of Paris the same question, he will tell me that the Pope is fallible. Then, how am I to tell where infallibility rests, since they have not yet decided whether it be in Council or Pope ? MATTHEW XXVIII. 417 Popes have infallibly decided that councils are fallible, and councils have infallibly decided that popes are fallible. Where, I ask, is the unity in this discordia discors, which has not yet settled where the oracle of infallibility at this moment is lodged ? But if I cannot have recourse to either . Council or Pope to ascertain what Christ commanded, shall I have recourse to tradition ? It is a grievous mistake to say we are opposed to tradition. I say, prove to me that the least or the weightiest tradition was spoken by the lips of our Lord, or was preached by, or proceeded from the pen of, an apostle, and I accept it just as I accept God's infalli- ble Word. I do not object to tradition ; I only object to a sham tradition. Prove to me that what you say is tradition is the inspiration of God, and I accept; but should you quarrel with me if I refuse to accept as the truth of God that which has no other foundation than the authority or the imagination of man ? We have evidence that tradition is a very questionable process for the instruction of man- kind. The antediluvians for 2,000 years before the Flood had nothing but tradition ; but what was the effect of it ? Remember, this was in the most favorable circumstances ; for Adam spoke to Methuselah, and Methuselah conversed with Noah, so that there were only three links from Adam in Paradise to Noah in the Ark ; therefore, if ever tradition had a chance of being vindicated as a vehicle of perfect truth, it was in the days before the Flood ; but what was the result ? That all flesh had corrupted its w^ay, and that a mere handful had retained the truth, and practised the prescriptions of the Gospel. And a very striking evidence of the small value of tradition is given at the close of the Gospel of St. John : " Peter seeing John saith to Jesus, Lord, what shall this man do ? Jesus saith unto him, If I will" — not, "I will," but "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me." Now that is the original truth, but mark the reverberation of it in the 418 SCRIPTURE READINGS. shape of tradition : " Then went this saying " — that is, tradition — " abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die." Now observe, in the course of a single year the remark of Jesus, " If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee ? " became so distorted that " the tradition went abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die." But mark how holy Scripture comes in to correct such tradition : " Yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die ; but. If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee ? " Here then you have a truth distorted, and Scripture coming in to correct and put right that distor- tion. The fact is, traditions that have originated with man have been adverse to the truth in every instance. The word of man alone is scepticism ; the word of God and man mingled is superstition; the word of God alone is truth. A tradition starts in the shape of a beautiful truth. It begins like the snow on the mountain top in its virgin purity and whiteness; it rolls down the mountain, and gathers as it goes all sorts of heterogeneous materials — wood, hay, straw, and stubble — till the huge mass in the valley below is as unlike the snow that started from the mountain top as darkness is to light, or as any thing is to its greatest opposite. But we have a record ; the Bible is it. All things what- soever Christ has commanded are in his holy Word ; and if an angel, or any other person, preach what is not contained therein, let him be anathema. But notice that this command was addressed to the univer- sal Church — not to the apostles only, but to all the brethren who were there assembled. One of the best proofs that it was so addressed to all is the resulting fact. We read in the Acts of the Apostles that when the brethren were persecuted, those Christians who were scattered abroad, went everywhere preaching the Gospel. Now, whilst the office of the min- istry is most proper, and the maintenance of an order of MATTHEW XXVIIT. 419 men who shall give their whole time to study and preaching the truth is most constitutional and Scriptural, yet I can prove that in the primitive Church the laity and the minis- ters together went preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ. Many of our Tractarian friends would be aston- ished, if they should happen to hear it, that in the first three centuries of the Christian Church nothing was more common than for the bishop, as he was then called — for all ministers then were called bishops — when he ascended into the pul- pit, and saw in the congregation a pious and a gifted layman, to beckon to him, and bid him come up into the pulpit, and address the people. Now this is Patristic precedent ; this was the practice of the ante-Nicene Church. Those there- fore who refer to the first three centuries of the Christian era for their rites, I hope, will not forget that important one ; and I shall believe that the Tractarian minister has become truly Patristic and Apostolical, when I find him coming down from his pulpit, and asking a Christian layman to preach the sermon, which, I venture to say, would be more likely to be instructive than any that he could preach in his present state of mind from the same place. But again, I notice that this applies to the pupil as well as the teacher ; for it is, " Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you ; " and then He adds, " I am with you to the end of the world." 'The teach- ing them transfers and elevates " them " into " you ; " and then the promise of his presence is with the " them " mixed with the " you " to the end of the world. " Teaching them whatsoever I have commanded," not them, but " you ; " and then He says, " I am with the combined party, the pupil who has been taught, and the preacher who teaches him, even unto the end of the world." Again, you will notice here that the mode of appointing a ministry is not at all specified, whilst the existence of a teaching ministry is clearly enough indicated. Go, disciple- 420 SCRIPTURE READINGS. izing, baptizing, teaching. But just as baptism is left with- out a single hint whether it should be immersion or sprink- ling, whether it relates to young or old, but the indication that it is not teaching in order to baptism, but baptism in order to teaching ; so here the mode of appointing a Chris- tian ministry, whether by the patron, the people, the pres- bytery, or the bishop, is latitudinarian, but the existence of a ministry of some sort is clearly indicated. But, on the other hand, there is not the least warrant for the notion of what is called the Apostolical succession. Jesus does not say, " Go and transfer to others your virtues and prerogatives ; " but he says, " Go and teach all nations ; and I am with you to the end of the w^orld ; " contemplating a succession of teachers, but not demanding that they shall have the very same powers and prerogatives that the apostles had. I hold that apostolical succession is historically untrue, is scrip- turally absurd, and is experimentally a sham ; for what were the prerogatives of an apostle ? To heal the sick, to raise the dead, and to speak in tongues. If you have that suc- cession, show that you have it by doing the miracles that they did ; and then I will believe in apostolical succession. But if you claim to have an apostolical succession without apostolical powers ; if you claim to have an apostle's mantle without an apostle's virtues ; if you claim an apostle's name, but are incompetent to do an apostle's deeds; then your assumption is a pretence, and your apostolical succession is a delusion and a deceit. Jesus then promisesj his presence to the end of the world. What am I to understand by that presende? It cannot mean that Jesus is bodily present with his Church till the end of the world. The Scripture clearly asserts that the heavens must contain him till the restitution of all things. The Scripture clearly commands us to look for him. He himself has said, " Me ye have not always." How mon- strous, therefore, it is in the Romish Cardinal in this city to BIATTHEW XXVIII. 421 be preaching in one of the chapels of his pretended diocese, that Christ is present on the altar, and that only where tran- substantiation is believed is Christ personally present ! How can be bodily here, if he be bodily yonder ? What did he the angel say in the very chapter from which my text is taken ? " He is not here, for he is risen." That very state- ment implied that Jesus had a true body, and that he could not be here bodily and there bodily at the same moment. Again, the promise cannot denote that he will be present in the sense of his essential Deity; for in that sense he fills all the palaces of God ; in that sense he orders the angels, and ministers to believers ; in that sense he is in the smallest molecule of matter, and in the largest star that moves obe- dient to his touch. Therefore, it must indicate a special presence, which is alluded to by Moses when he says, " If thy presence carry us not up thither, let us not go hence." God's Omnipresence must have been with Moses, as well as with Pharoah ; it must mean, therefore, his special presence, which presence is also alluded to by our Lord, when he says, " Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." But he promises here, not only to be with the teachers, but with all the Christian people. The life of the vine is the sap in its branches ; and wherever there is a heart quickened by the power of the Holy Spirit of God, there there is a monument of the presence, and a proof of the nearness of the Lord Jesus Christ in the midst of his own believing people. Notice again, that the first thing is, " Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you ; " and the next thing is, Christ's promise of his perpetual presence. Now, just open any book that discusses the apostolical suc- cession, or treats largely upon the presence of Christ with the ministry, and you will find that this passage is constantly quoted thus : " I am with you always ; therefore, priests 30 422 SCRIPTURE READINGS. cannot err." But Christ's presence is conditional. He says, " I will be with you, if you teach whatsoever I have com- manded you." It is not, " I am with you ; therefore, if you open your mouth, truth will be enunciated ; " but, " Preach truth, and you will have a divine presence, which is power. I am with you, if you preach my Gospel ; but if you do not, then I am not with you." To lay hold upon the promise without teaching the truth, which is the condition of it, is for the workman to seize the wages without doing the work, for the racer to seize the prize without running the race, for the husbandman to gather the sheaves without sowing the seed. It is an absurdity — an impossibility. And then he says, " I am with you all days " — it is not " always," but it is, literally translated, " I am with you all the days unto the conclusion of the age " — awreMag tov aObvog. Thus, the ministers of the Gospel are to preach all days, in cold and in sunshine, in days that may be few, or days that may be many. The number of the days rests not with us ; the nature of the days we have nothing to do with ; it is our duty in all weathers and in all times and circumstances to preach the glorious Gospel. In the fires of martyrdom, or amid the sunshine of royal patronage — wherever you are, preach all things, says the Saviour, whatsoever I have com- manded you ; and, lo, I am with you always. And you are to do this, not till the end of the world — the earth is not to be annihilated — but till "the end of the dispensation," that is, till the Millennium comes ; and when it comes, then all tears shall be wiped away, all ministry shall cease, all sacraments shall be ended. Faith shall be lost in fruition ; hope shall be merged in having ; promise shall brighten into performance ; the earth shall cease its groans, and creation shall cease its travail. In conclusion, I would say, first, Christ is God, or how can he be present with his Church till the end of the world ? Secondly, the true Church never is in danger ; it shall last MATTHEW XXVIII. 423 till the end, because it is sustained by a Divine presence. And thirdly, let us trust in that presence, and pray for its enjoyment. Let us not trust in imaginary succession, or in the privileges or prerogatives, real or imaginary, of a Church ; but feel that as long as we preach the things that Jesus commanded, so long he will be with us ; and longer than that it is not desirable that he should be with us. Let the ministry of the Gospel cease to speak about itself; let it but look more to the blessing of its Lord, and to the fulfil- ment of its commission ; and Christ will bless it, and all the ends of the earth will praise him. Note. —It will be observed that in the Lord's words, as in the Church, the progress of ordinary discipleship is from baptism to instruction, — that is, is admission in infancy to the covenant, and growing up into TTjpelv ndvTa k. r. ?i. — the exception being, what circumstances ren- dered so frequent in tbe early Church, instruction before baptism, in the case of adults. On this Ave may also remark, that baptism as known to the Jews included, just as it does in the Acts (ch. xvi. 15, 33), whole households, — wives and children. As regards the com- mand itself, no unprejudiced reader can doubt that it regards the out- ward rite of baptism, so well known in this Gospel as having been practised by John and received by the Lord himself. In these words, inasmuch as the then living disciples could not teach all nations, does the Lord found the office as preachers in His Church, with all that belongs to it, — the duties of the minister, the school teacher, the scripture reader. " The teaching " is not merely the Kf/pvyfia of the Gospel, — not mere proclamation of the good news, but the whole catechetical office of the Church upon and in the baptized. The command is to the universal Church, to be performed in the nature of things by her ministers and teachers, the manner of appoint- ing which is not here prescribed, but to be learnt in the unfoldings of Providence, recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, who, by his special ordinance, were the founders and first builders of that church, but whose office on that very account precluded the idea of succession, or renewal. — Alford. DATE DUE ]V[q»^&^ CAYLORD PRINTED INU.S. A. ^ A