L I B n ^ R Y Theological Seminary. PRINCETON, N. J. Ca, BR A5. .H84 1856 Goodwin, Harvey, 1818-1891. '^'''" The glory of the only T>, . begotten of te Father seen THE GLORY OF THE ONLY BEGOTTEN OF THE FATHER SEEN IN THE MANHOOD OF CHRIST. ^^. FOR THE YEAR M.DCCC.LVL THE EEV. HAEVEY GOODWIN, MA. lATK FELLOW OF GONVIIXE AND CAIUS COLLEGE, AUD MINISTEB OF ST EDWABD's, CAMBRIDGE. For Man He seems In all His lineaments, though in His face The glimpses of His Father's glory shine. Paradise Regaiiud. CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON, BELL AND CO. LONDON: BELL AND DALDY. 1856. THE REVEREN^D WILLIAM WHEWELL, D.D. MASTER OF TRINITY COLLEGE, LATE VICE-CHANCELLOR, TO THE REVEREND RALPH TATHAM, D.D. MASTER OF ST JOHN'S COLLEGE, THE REV. WILLIAM HEPWORTH THOMPSON, M.A. REGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK: THESE LECTURES DELIVERED BY THEIR APPOINTMENT ARE RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED. The Rev. John Hulse, M.A., by his will bearing date July 21, 1777, founded a Lectureship in the University of Cambridge, to be held by a Clergyman in the University of the degree of Master of Arts, and under the age of forty years: the Lecturer to be elected annually on Christmas-day, or within seven days after, by the Vice- Chancellor, the Master of Trinity College, and the Master of St John's College, or any two of them'"': the subject of the Lectures to be as follows: "The Evidence of Revealed Religion; the Truth and Excellence of Christianity; the Pro- phecies and Miracles; direct or collateral proofs of the Christian Religion, especially the collateral argu- ments; the more difficult texts, or obscure parts of Holy Scripture;" or any one or more of these topics, at the discretion of the Lecturer. * In case of the Master of Trinity College, or the Master of St John's College, being Vice-Chancellor, his place is supplied by the Regius Pro- fessor of Greek. PREFACE. It is unnecessary to assure the simple-minded Christian, that the human Life of his Lord is the subject upon which, beyond all others, it is good for him that his mind should rest. The imitation of Christ is felt to be the surest guide to holiness ; and although certain writers have ventured to speak of this imitation as impossible, and the notion of spiritual growth founded upon it as unpractical, the hearts of the humble are not to be so deceived. It may not however be superfluous to call attention to the value of the study of the Lord's Life, regarded in its bearing upon Christian Evidences ; and this is what I have attempted to do in the following Lectures. I feel convinced that there are some who have been tossed about on the great German ocean of speculation, and have run risk of shipwreck, whose wisest course would have been to shut up for a time all books except the New Testament, and see how the Lord Jesus Christ appears, when contemplated in the divine portraits, which have been preserved for us in the authentic tales of His Life. It has been said, that in human things it is necessary to know first in order to love ; but that in divine we must first love in viii Preface. order to know ; and certainly a man will never know Christ to any good purpose, unless his heart be first filled with a sense of the complete- ness of His character, and the incompleteness of human life without Him. "He who will not believe in Christ," says Tholuck, " must consider how he can do without Him, You and I cannot do so. We need some one, who Avill keep and support us while living, and put His hand under our head when dying; and, if that which is written of Him be true, He can do this, and we know of no one else who can. He is to the weary pilgrim as a star in the night; and He satisfies our innermost needs, our deepest wants and cravings'"'." These Lectures are to be regarded by the reader, rather as suggestive of a mode of viewing the humanity of our Lord, than as exhausting or even attempting to exhaust the subject. The choice of materials, and the manner of using them, have of course been, to a considerable extent, influenced by the necessity of adapting them to the tone of pulpit discourses ; and this necessity, while it brings with it certain advantages, intro- duces also some difliculties in the treatment of almost any subject. H. G. Cambridge, December, i8=.6. * Lehrc von dcr Siinde. CONTENTS. LECTUEE I. INTRODUCTORY. S, JOHN I. 14. PAGE And the Word ivas made flesh, and diuelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the leather,) full of grace and truth ...... 1 LECTURE II. CHRIST A CHILD AND A BOY. S. LUKE II. 52. Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man .... 23 LECTUEE in. CHRIST PRAYING. S. JOHN XVII. 24. Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me ivhei'e I am; that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me: for Thou lovedst Me before the founda- tion of the u'orld ..... 45 X Contents. LECTURE IV. CHRIST IN HIS HUMAN SYMPATHY, S. JOHN XL 35. PAGE Jesus ivept ....... 67 LECTUEE V. CHRIST WITH HIS HUMAN FRIENDS. S. JOHN Xni. 23. Now there ivas leaning on Jesus' bosom one of His disciples, ivhom Jesus loved ... 89 LECTURE VI. CHRIST TEACHING. S. MATTHEW VII. 28, 29. And it came to pass, ivlien Jesus had ended these sayings, the people ivere astonished at His doctrine : for He taught them as one having authoritg, and not as the Scribes . . .112 LECTURE VII. CHRIST DYING, AND PREPARING FOR HIS DEATH. S. JOHN XIX. 32—35. Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first, and of the other ivhich was crucified ivith Him. But when theg came to Jesus, and saiv that He luas dead already, they brake Contents. not His legs: hut one of the soldiers with a spear jnerced His side, and forthwith came there out blood and ivater. And he that saiu it hare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye miglu helieve ..... XI 135 LECTURE VIIL Christ's eternal imanhood, and our completeness IN II IM. COLOSSIANS II. 10. Ami ye are complete in Him . . , .159 ^«TEs ...... 183—218 LECTURE I. INTRODUCTOKY. Preached on Sunday April 6, 1856. S. JOHN I. 14. Atid the Word was made fleshy and dwelt among us, (and ice beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) fall of grace _and truth. nPHEUE is a difficulty in the construction of lect. -^ this passage, which our EngUsh Version en- '. — deavours to clear up by putting the middle portion in^on" ^^ of the verse in a parenthesis. Some of the best the'teS"*^^ commentators give their sanction to the course See Note r. which our translators have adopted; and we may therefore, perhaps, safely regard the Evangelist as in the text announcing the doctrine, that Tlie Word was made flesh, and divelt amorig us, full of grace and truth, and throwing in at the same time the parenthetical remark. We heheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father. Now supposing that the verse has come into s. John's a T 1 • 1 1 j^ 1 • meaning in our hands as S. John wrote it, and that the View the text. of its construction taken by the English translation he tLs' is the true one, these questions become worthy of ^^£3? consideration, — With what special view was the verse written ? what thoughts were those, which, passing through the mind of S. John, led him to / 2 Introductory Lecture. LECT. interrupt the orderly course of his exposition of '- — the doctrine of the Word made flesh f is it possi- ble for us so to put ourselves in the place of the Evangelist, as to enter into the feelings, with which, at the risk of obscurity, he thus stepped aside to testify to the glory of the only begotten Son ? And further, may we not hope, that, if we succeed in doing this, we shall gain our reward, by participating with S. John in the vision of that divine glory ? God made Of coursc it may be said in general, that the theincar- Incamation of the Eternal Word made the un- nation. ^^^^ q^j visible to mortal eyes, and so enabled mankind to see, as they had never seen before, the glory of God. So it is that S. Paul speaks 2 Cor. iv. of the light, or rather the lighting up, of the wpbs (pu)- knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus yZeJJ!' Christ. So also we read of Christ as the image ^lhA.% ^f ^^^^ invisible God, the express image of His Seeiiote2. person. So likewise S. Chrysostom in comment- ing upon the text, observes, " If men could not bear to look upon the glorified face of Moses, how should we who are made of the dust of the earth endure the unveiled Godhead, and the light which is unapproachable even to the inhabitants of Hea- ven?" And S. Augustine has a fine passage in which ho exclaims, ''The birth of Christ was an eye-salve to purge our eyes, and enable us to see His majesty in His humility. The Word ^cas made flesh and dwelt amongst lis: He purged our eyes; and what was the consequence? We beheld Bis glory." Doubtless this is all true: indeed there is no truth which lies more thoroughly at the foundation of the Christian rclip'ion, none Introductory Lecture. 3 which it is more necessary to apprehend, in order lect. to obtain an intelligible view of our relation to God \ and our true position as His redeemed creatures, than that which teaches us, that He who dwells in light inaccessible came near to us in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, that the invisible God be- «■ Joim came visible to us in human form, that He 'whom to know is life eternal taught us by human lips s. Joim those things which concern our peace. Neverthe- ' less you will perceive, that this interpretation of the text does not quite answer the questions which I just now projDOunded; it does not tell us why S. John expressed himself as he did; it does not account for that peculiar structure of the passage, which we may well regard as expressing the thoughts that were passing in the mind of the Evangelist at the moment when he penned the words. It seems to me, that the answer to those ques- The lan- ' _ ^ giiage ot tions will not be hard to find, if we remember that the text , -, T . such JlS S. John was an eye-witness, — indeed the most m- might be timate and highly favoured of all eye-witnesses, — fronT**" of the life of Christ; and if we consider how the ^- J'^^^"- great truth of the sojourn of the Eternal Word upon earth in human flesh was likely to affect his mind, in connexion with the equally great truth of the Godhead of the same Eternal Word, with which his Gospel opens. S. John, differing in this as in other respects from the first three Evan- gelists, begins the history of the Hfe of Christ, not with His manifestation in human flesh, but with high doctrine concerning His divine nature, with the assertion of His creative power, of His relation s. John i, to the human race as the life and the light of them B 2 4 Introductory Lecture. LECT. all : then he tells us of the mission of this divine ' person into the world, — how He came to His own, V. ir. and how His own rejected Him: and lastly, he sums up the doctrine concerning the Word, with V. 14- the distinct but mysterious sentence, The Word tvas made flesh: and as the Evangelist wrote the sentence, containing in four words the essential mystery of Godliness, the whole history of the life of Christ would flash upon his mind : he would remember how in a hundred ways He whom he had known in the flesh, and of whose actual humanity he could not doubt, had shewn Himself to be more glorious than other sons of men ; he would feel impelled to testify, that a doctrine,, which might appear startling to others, did not appear startling to him ; he would be anxious to make men perceive, that this doctrine concerning the being of Jesus Christ had in it nothing of the nature of an apotheosis, but that contrariwise he who had known Jesus Christ more intimately than any other man was able to declare, that in the days of His flesh His disciples had seen the gleams of that glory, which was now published as the foundation of the faith of the Church. And thus it seems intelligible, liow that in giving the plainest expression possible to tlie greatest of mysteries, and defining by human language the stupendous doctrine of divine condescension, S. John might be anxious, in the remembrance of all he had seen and heard, to throw in without delay his own per- sonal testimony, we beheld His glory. Several And if tliis bc correct as a general view of the Lord'Tiife^ Spirit of tlic passagc, we shall probabl}^ not be specially -^y^Qj^g jj^ supposing that there would be several Introductory Lecture. 5 facts, which would stand out with pecuhar pronii- lect. iience before S. John's mind, when he thouo-ht of ^' the glory of the divine Word, as manifested in the off hetext human life of Jesus Christ. He might probably have in mind (for exam- The Trans- pie) that vision which was granted to S. Peter, fi^"''-^*'""- S. James^ and himself, when the Lord was trans- figured on the Mount. He who had been taken apart by Christ, and had seen the fashion of hiss. Luke ix. Lord's visage changed, so as to shine bright as the ^^' light, and His raiment to become white and glis- tering, — that visage, which ivas so marred more isaiah lii. than any man, made for the while fairer than the '■*' fairest, and those poor garments changed for the vesture of angels, — he who had witnessed (whether in the body, or out of the body,) such a trans- figuration as this, might well say, that even in the midst of His humiliation the glory of the Incar- nate Word had been seen by him. Or again, the Evangelist might have in hisxheMira- thoughts those works of wonder, and at the same ^^'^^' time of mercy, whereby the Lord had given evi- dence from time to time of the advent of a new l^ower into the world. He might remember, how the blind had received their sight, how the deaf had been made to hear, how the sick had been healed, and the lepers cleansed, nay, how the dead had risen up as if from sleep when bid to do so by the voice of Christ; he who had witnessed for the space of three years and more such works as these must have been blind indeed, if the veil of human flesh had quite prevented him from recognising the glory, which was ever manifesting itself forth in acts of divine goodness and power. 6 Introductory Lecture. LECT. Or still further, it may be that in using such ^' language as that of the text, S. John had reference The Resur- ^^ thosc two Qfroat eveuts, to which the mind of rection and _ *-' Ascension, any disciplo who was taunted with worshipping a crucified Lord would instinctively turn, namely, the Kesurrection and the Ascension. We can easily understand how the patent fact of the cruci- fixion should have appeared to those, who knew no more of Christ, to have reduced His claims to an absurdity, how the cross should have proved a I Cor. i. stumblingblock to one class of minds and folly to ^^' another, — there is nothing to surprise us in this, — but the death of their Master would imj^ly to His disciples no destruction of the faith, because they knew that He who was dead and buried rose again from the dead, and ascended into Heaven. And how could S. John above all, who had been first of S.John XX. the disciples at the empty sepulchre, and had been one of the company from whose presence the Lord was taken up, — liow^ could he fail to testify, that however much the weakness of human flesh, the acknowledged truth that Jesus Christ had died, might seem to Jews and Greeks a fatal obstacle to the faith, it was very different with those who had beheld the glory of Christ, declared to be the only begotten Son by the Kesurrection from the dead and the Ascension to the right-hand of God ? The gen- I couclude therefore, that, if we consider some the Lords ^w ouly of the events of our Saviour's life, wdiich sut"rs\ivr ^^^^^^ within the circle of S. John's personal know- of the text ledffc, W'C shall be able to crive a very probable than these , . ,. , . ^^ , i • i special explanation of the tram of thought, which was passing through his mind when he indited the words of the text. But I think also, that, inde- Introductory Lecture. 7 pendently of any special outcomings of divine lect. power and majesty, such as those to which I have ' aUuded, a disciple who knew as much of the Lord as did S. John would feel himself justified in say- ing, that in the retrospect he perceived a revelation of the glory of the only begotten Son in the whole tone and tenour of the Saviour's life. He might say, — I have myself witnessed such things as declare to me beyond all doubt the divine majesty of Christ ; to me this evidence is beyond all ques- tion ; but there is a kind of evidence, w^hich I value even beyond that of the reminiscences of the more marvellous features of the Lord's sojourn amongst us, — which I value more, just because it is not peculiar to myself, but is the common property of all believers in all ages, — and this evidence is that w^hich arises from the general review of His whole life, from observing His ordinary quite as much as His extraordinary works, from watching His deal- ings with His fellow men, and from noting how that, when He chiefly exhibited proof of human love and human feehng, there was ever the indica- tion of something more. Now if indeed daily and familiar intercourse with the Lord during the time of His ministry did leave this impression strongly imprinted upon S. John's mind, that a glory as of the only begotten of the Father belonged of divine right to Him, — if it was neither false nor blasphemous for the Evangelist to say of the Jewish Carpenter, that he and his fellows who had consorted wdth Him upon earth had seen the divine glory ever shewing itself in His words and deeds, — then we may w^ell ask ourselves, whether the contemplation of the Lord's life in the pages of the 8 Introductory Lecture. LECT. Gospels may not do for humble souls in these days ' the same thing which the society of Christ did in the da3^s of His flesh, — whether it may not be possible for those, who are wilhng to walk with Christ and to watch Him reverently, and to sit at His feet and hear His words, to echo the language of S. John, and say: Truly this is human flesh, and yet w^e can behold His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, Tiie sub- Such a question leads me to explain the special Lectures^ purposc, wliicli I havo had in view in pointing out a"nl°ex^.''°' how it appears to me conceivable, that S. John plained, jj^iglit havo bocn led, by reflection upon tlie general tone and tenour of the Lord's life, to perceive in it the effulgence of the divine glory. My purpose has been to exhibit the mode of viewing the Lord's life, wdiich has been attributed to S. John, as the See remark central principle of the Course of Lectures, or Ser- my^form^er mons, wliich it is my duty to commence to-day. If ourse. J should describc the subject, which I propose for the Course, by a single title, I should speak of it as The glory of the only begotten of the Father seen in the Manhood of Christ. What has been already said may supply a hint as to the manner, in which it will be my effort to develope the subject. I shall bear in mind the effect pro- duced upon S. John by the knowledge which he had of the Lord's life ; and I shall bear in mind also, that for all practical purposes we are in as favour- able a situation as S. John. The pages of the four Gospels are open before us ; there we have the picture of a life; the general features of it are clear and unmistakeable ; and conclusions drawn from these general features are as safe for us, as Introductory Lecture. 9 they were for the Apostles themselves. For by lect. the nature of the case our conclusions will not ^' depend upon any minute criticism; we can even afford to give up much of the history without in any way affecting the strength of the argument; See Note 3. and there will in reality be many portions of our Lord's life which I shall not bring under review ; not, however, because I think that their truth has been shaken by attacks either ancient or modern, but because it is the most obviously historical por- tions, the most manifestly unmythical, the most human of His actions, the simplest tales of His ordinary life, the most homely scenes in which we can find Him present, that will bring out most clearly those points upon w^hich the argument depends. I wish to shew, that in contemplating a true picture of the Word made flesh, we shall ever behold a glory which no mere flesh can have ; and I am sure, that he who thus regards the life of Christ will have laid the best foundation possible for the right reception of those portions of the history, which are in the most ineffable degree mysterious; he, who has beheld the glory of God shining forth from the manhood of Christ, will perceive, that Christ is still consistently human, even when He most appears to be divine. For certainly, in the present age, the history of import the Lord's life upon earth is the real battle-field of skkring""" the Christian faith. If a Christian preacher is bid S'h^i''"'^ to do what he can to strengthen his brethren, who ^'^^^'^ li^^- may be ready to fall under temptations to unbelief, he can hardly fail to direct attention to the reality SeeNote4. and to the meaning of the recorded life of Christ : other sources of religious difficulty there will be. 10 Introductory Lecture. LECT. both subjective and objective, but by far tlie most '. important will (as I believe) be found at the pre- sent epoch in the character of the Gospel narra- tives: this it is, which has been assailed with various weapons by successive schools of opponents ; and although the emptiness of the methods adopted by some of these schools is now universally ad- mitted, and the failure of the most recent is consi- dered by many to be at length established, still there can be no doubt concerning the fact that the antichristian effect of the attacks is by no means at an end. The mythical theory of our Lord's life may be acknowledged by scholars to be untenable, but the acknowledgment by no means wipes out all the mischief produced by the fact of that life having been treated as mythical : to bring the foundations of the flxith into question, and to sup- port the movement with a great show of philo- sophy and learning and scholarship, will of neces- sity do something for the cause of unbelief, even if the ultimate result be the raising up of Christian champions and the firmer establishment of the truth. It is easier to sow tares, than when once sown to root them up : but this we are bound to remember, that trials of faith have belongfed to all ages of the Church Militant, and that if we have now to contend for the reality of the facts of the Lord's life, we are only brought back after 1800 years to the position of the apologists of Apostolic times; the causes of unbelief were different then from now, and the mode of proof, namely, that of martyrdom sealed with blood, was different too; but in both cases the point asserted is this, that the glory of God can be adequately seen in the Intivductory Lecture. 11 manhood of Christ, and that they have truth and lect. reason on their side, who accord to their crucified ' Master the worship due to the Supreme God. Now, of course it may be said, that criticism How ob- ought to be met by criticism, that if arguments the tmth be given for supposing the Gospels unauthentic, fj^y^ w^ arguments should be produced in order to prove ^^^^^^° ^"^ the contrary. And this in a certain sense is true ; and not only true^ but the course indicated is that which has been abundantly acted upon. "We are See Note 5. told, for example, that when Strauss had written his now well-known Life of Jesus, and the question was raised whether such a book should be allowed to see the light, Neander advised that no attempt should be made to counteract the work by violence, and he wrote another life himself; thus opposing criticism to criticism, and learning to learning, and shewing in how very different a manner the same documents may present themselves to different minds in many resj)ects circumstanced alike. The pulpit, however, is no place for this method of dealing with the subject, even if the preacher have the necessary qualifications for the work : he must look for a more suitable method, and will have no difficulty in finding one : for I am persuaded, that whatever may be the estimate formed of the pre- ponderance of scholarship and critical acumen and philosophical insight for or against the truth of the Gospels, the great practical question with the enormous majority of thinking men will be this — What picture after all do these Gospels give me of the character of Jesus Christ ? is the person whom they represent to me one, whom I can love as a brother, and yet can loyally worship ? is the Christ 12 Introductory Lecture. LECT, of my childhood, at the mention of whose human \ Name I was taught to bow my head, one before whom as a man I can reverently bend my knees? is the Christ of the Gospels adequate to sustain the place, which the Church has ever assigned to Him? In fact can I say, when I have studied the record of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, and traced the footsteps which He has left upon the earth, — Verily this is bone of my bone and flesh of my ■ flesh, nevertheless I can heliold His glory, and it is the glory as of the only begotten of the Father? This I propose then to give in this present Course of Lectures a Lccturcs a scrics of contemplations or studies of '''''' ""^ the Lord's life. Our standing point mil be His studies of the life. the Lord's ^q^ ^j^j csseutial humanity; the point, to which our attention w^ill be chiefly directed, will be the constant shining forth from the very heart of this humanity of a glory which we recognise as divine. Connexion And, as it may help to illustrate the subject, I will thisTnd observe, that a certain continuity of purpose will cours™ ^® found to connect this Course of Lectures with that delivered by me last year. Then I dwelt chiefly upon the divine nature of our Lord, that fulness of His Godhead which constitutes the corner-stone of the Catholic Church; I considered various doctrines and their ever accompanying difficulties in the light of this great central truth ; and we found (as I conceive) that the assumption of this truth did so illuminate the whole cycle of Christian facts and doctrines and mysteries, as to recommend the truth itself, and all the corollaries which follow from it, in a very striking manner to our earnest adoption. Thus we began (so to speak) ^vith the contemplation of Christ in His majesty ; Introductory Lecture. 13 we attempted in the light of that Word, who ivas lect. in the heginning with God, and wlio icas God, in - whom is light, and who is Himself the Light of the Yiii. V:?! world, — we attempted in the light of His glory to examine some points which seemed dark and mys- terious: now contrariwise we begin with Christ in His weakness, Christ in His true and perfect manhood ; we pass over the opening verses of S. John's Gospel, in which the Evangelist utters such wondrous things of the divine majesty of the Word, and we start from the text, which tells us that the same Word ivas made flesh and dwelt among us. Christ the Light of the ivorld, as the only begotten Son, in all the majesty of the Nicene definition of His Godhead, was the guiding prin- ciple of my former course; in the present, Christ the Light of the ivorld will be no less our guide, but it will be Christ in His weakness and weariness, Christ in human relations and human submission and human friendships, Christ praying, Christ in agony, Christ dying upon the cross; and my aim will be to produce this result, that having thus contemplated Christ in His essential humanity we may feel constrained to say, Nevertheless we can behold His glory, and it is a glory which shines forth from none save the only begotten of the Father. I believe, Christian brethren, that such a re- The tme suit as this is not only possible, but the natural "mating conclusion from the premises, when the Gospel ^VJ"^ history is contemplated in a spirit of humility and reverence. I do not deny it to be necessary that the history of our Saviour's life should be treated as a matter for critical investigation ; but I am 14 Introductory Lecture. LECT. sure, that a Life of Christ, whether written for the '. purpose of proving that the Gospels are a bundle of fables, or for the purpose of refuting such a view of their character, can have little value as an in- strument for producing the great practical result of moulding the life of the reader upon the model of SeeNote6, that diviuc life. It is not '' The Life of Jesus, critically handled," which will produce a great moral influence upon a world dead in trespasses and sins, or which will convert the heart, and sanc- tify the conduct; but ''The Life of our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ," the Great Exemplar, treated (as Jeremy Taylor treated it,) as the cyclo- paedia of divine knowledge, the pattern of human holiness, the universal lesson-book for those whom God Avould educate for Heaven. So it was that Jeremy Taylor found in the life of Christ texts for sermons upon all human duties, suggestions of prayers for all graces and virtues, warnings for all temptations and against all sins ; with him each word is a lesson, each act a homily, every accident a suggestion, and all turned to profit by supplica- tions for the divine blessing. Thus in the Cir- jeremy cumcisiou tlicro is a warning "to be strict in our Works,^ duties, and sparing in the rights of privilege and p "(j'^. ' disj^ensation ;" in the disputation wdth the doctors ^^"^J'J^ ^ the consignation of this truth, " that they who mean to be doctors and teach others, must, in their first accesses and degrees of discipline, learn of those, whom God and public order hath set over !'• 147- us, in the mysteries of religion;" in the conduct of Joseph towards Mary, " a rule for our deportment towards erring and lapsed persons, that we entreat 1- i=- them with meekness, and pity, and fear;" in the ex- Introdiictory Lecture. 15 ample of the Blessed Virgin Mother, a condemna- lect. tion of 'Hhose softnesses and unnatural rejections '. of children, which are popular up to a custom and fashion, even where no necessities of nature or just reason can make excuse;" in Herod's misappre- p- 31. hension of the character of the king born in Beth- lehem, an occasion of giving a warning to the Church, " against being sedulous in acquiring great temporalities and putting princes in jealousy, and states into cares for securities, lest all the temporal should run into ecclesiastical possession;" and sop. 136- on indefinitely. I speak of such things as these being found in the life of Christ by Jeremy Taylor, not because it requires genius such as his to arrive at the treasures of wisdom which that life contains, but because he has left us a glorious specimen of the manner, in which Gospel history should be studied by those, who desire by the study of it to grow in grace as well as in the knowledge of Jesus 2 Pet. iu Christ. No, Christian brethren, far be it from me to represent it as a work for high genius to study aright the human history of our blessed Lord; rather is this its great excellence, and a mark of its divine reality, that simple men can listen to His words and &iij, Never man spake like this man, s. Joim even when Chief Priests and Rulers and Doctors of the Law cannot be brought to believe. Hence, therefore, I have thought, that I shall be able to discharge the duties laid upon me, as at the same time a Lecturer concerning the truth of our holy religion, and a Preacher to a congregation, with the large majority of whom the practical ques- tions, raised by the world the flesh and the devil, are of more urgent moment tlian any speculative 16 Introductory Lecture. LECT. difficulties regarding tlie certainty of the Catiiolic ■ faith, by making my sermons to consist of a series of contemplations of the life of the Lord upon earth. I shall endeavour to choose for the most part those portions of His life, which (if I may so speak) are the most human, those in which His blood-relationship to ourselves shines forth the most conspicuously, those which are the most niani- festly free from all suspicion of having been my- thicized by admiring followers, anxious to sink the human in the divine ; and if it be found, as I trust it may, that such a method of proceeding tends to manifest in a striking manner the glory of the only begotten of the Father, it is no more than ought to be expected by those who observe the spirit of the Christian dispensation : God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the ivise; and God hath chosen the iveak things of the ivorld to confound the things ivhich are mighty; and. base things of the ivorld, and things ivhich are de- spised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are 7iot, to bring to nought things that are. And so, when God would declare to mankind in the clearest manner the greatness and glory of His divine being, He declared it by the birth of J esus Christ ; when He would shew how much nearer He is to us than philosophers have dreamed, how thoroughly the cares and labours of men are regarded by Him who is about our paths and spies out our ways, how utterly unworthy and untrue are all Stoical or Epicurean conceptions of His character in old times and all Deistical or Pantheistical views in modern. He did so by walking in Palestine, as a poor man compassed by infirmity, and sympathising with the Cor. i. 7, 28. Introductory Lecture. 17 sorrows of His brethren ; and when He would de- lect. monstrate His tender love towards mankind, and '. make men believe that He willetli not the death of a sinner, but rather that all should be converted and live, the proof which He gave was the death of Christ upon the cross. In conduct such as this, admitted to be very different from what the wisdom of man might have devised, but declared by Scrip- ture to be in actual fact the conduct of God to- wards mankind, and acknowledged by the Church to be the most glorious exhibition of the divine character, is to be seen the spirit of the Christian dispensation; and therefore it is in the details of this conduct, in the life and deeds of Jesus Christ, that the manifestation of God's glory must be sought; he who believes in Jesus Christ will not think of seeking it elsewhere, and even he who doubts and wavers may take this for a certain truth, that if the glory of God is to be found any- where in the form of a distinct revelation, here and nowhere else is it to be found. Nor is the subject, which is thus brought under Connexion our notice, without a suitable connexion with the ject with present season of our ecclesiastical year. This is the season of the mysterious forty days, — that in- terval between the Resurrection and the Ascension, of which we know little, but of which we do know this, that the Lord took occasion in such interviews as He then had with His disciples, to enlighten their minds, and open to them the mysteries of the kinofdom of God, You will remember that inter- view which the Lord had with two of the disciples whom He joined in their walk to Emmaus, and to s. Luke whom He became known in the breaking of bread ; c 18 Introductory Lecture. LECT. and you will remember that the subject of His • discourse with them was, that Christ ought to have s. Luke sujfh^ed and to have eritered into His glory: stunned xxiv. 26. ^g ^j^gy were by the blow which extinguished all their hopes, even they who had conversed with Him in the days of His flesh, and had heard His words, and seen His miracles, could not keep up their courage, when they saw their Master expire upon the cross, — anything short of that might have been supportable, any humiliation and shame and weakness might have formed only the more striking preface to the ultimate manifestation of His power, — but death seemed beyond their calcu- lation, and the bright expectations of the redemp- tion of Israel and the coming of the kingdom of Heaven, were all lost in the darkness which came upon the earth when Jesus Christ died. In those Acts i. 3. forty days, however, the disciples were led in a wonderful manner to review their experience and their conclusions ; in fact, the great stumbling- block of the death upon the cross, was at once re- moved by His appearance among them in the flesh s. Luke again, — so undeniably Himself too, the hands and XXIV. 39. ^j j^ marked w^ith the wounds, Himself in His very personal identity; — it was time indeed to review their conclusions; and the review, He Himself being the teacher, soon changed their despon- dency into confidence, their sorrow into joy, them- selves from trembling disciples and broken-hearted mourners of a Master who was dead, into Apostles and Martyrs of a crucified and risen Lord. I need not say in how new and bright a light all the facts s L k ^^ Christ's life would appear to the disciples, when xxiv. 27. contemplated during those forty days, and com- Introductory Lecture. 19 mented upon by the Lord Himself; how emphati- lect. cally it may be asserted of this portion of the 1 sojourn of the Word made flesh, that the disciples beheld His glory, the glory of the only hegotten of the Father; but I wish to remark, that the review of the Lord's life, which in the nature of things occu- pied the minds of the first disciples, may very well occupy our own, and that we may believe that He, who enlightened their minds by His j)ersonal pre- sence, will be no less really present in these days with humble souls who desire to behold His glory. That Christ is thus really present in His Trials of Church it would be impiety to doubt ; that He does really manifest His glory to the hearts of His disciples, causing men in these days to en- dorse all that the Apostles have said concerning the revelation of the wisdom and goodness and love of God, we can only question by question- ing the most solemn confessions of honest and good men ; but on the other hand it is to be fully admitted, that the confession of Christ is not now, any more than it was in primitive times, so nearly universal, as to take away all trial of faith. The immediate disciples of the Lord went forth into the world and preached Christ cruci- fied ; and when they did so, they found that that which seemed to them the power and wisdom of God struck upon the outward ears of men as the extreme of folly : and when men became more acquainted with the preaching, and had time to examine the facts and the arguments, still there were abundance of persons, and those not the merely ignorant nor the merely depraved, but thoughtful men and philosophers, who were c 2 20 Introductory Lecture. LECT. ready to taunt the Christians with their Creed, L__and to speak of that, which was to them the sacred symbol of redemption, as the most incredi- ble of all absurdities : the offense of the cross in fact had not ceased, it has not ceased now, pro- bably it never will cease until Christ comes again. Therefore if we find that there are those, who in the history of the Word made flesh are unable to see the glory of the only begotten Son, — if we find that it is possible for learned men to devote their energies to theolog}^, and to conclude by reducing to emptiness all the sub- stantial verities, which the creeds proclaim and which simple Christians hold most dear, — we must be content to regard such phenomena as trials of our own faith ; we may not be able to account for them precisely by any theory ; we may think some theories propounded upon the subject to be hard and cruel ; we may fear lest the notion See Note 7. of faith being a peculiar gift flashed into the soul by the power of God should seem to destroy human responsibility, and yet we may feel bound to confess the operation of the Spirit of Him who 8. Luke X. hides from the wise and prudent that which He 21. reveals to babes, and to acknowledge that if we ourselves know anything of Christ as we ought to know, it is not flesh and blood that has revealed it s. Matt, to us, but our Father who is in heaven : we must be content then, to regard such phenomena as trials of our faith, and must be thankful if in the midst of such trials we are able to testify, that the eyes of our own inmost hearts have beheld the glory of the only begotten Son. Yea, Christian brethren, the trial of our faith is this, in the midst of all XVI. r Introductory Lecture. 21 strifes and divisions and cries of Lo, here is lect. Christ, or Lo, He is there, — all objection to the ! teaching of the Gospel arising from mere worldli- ness, — all oppositions of science falsely so called, Deism, Rationalism, Pantheism, Mythicism, or what not, — all wild speculations tending to make the objective truths of divine revelation subser- vient to the guesses of those who would pass for philosophers, — all attempts to substitute for the faith once delivered to the saints an absolute reli- See Notes. gion, or in reality a religion formed by each man for himself out of that which he troweth to be true, — the trial of our faith is, I say, in the midst of all such causes tending to confuse our vision, to keep our eyes so steadily fixed and so purged from the mist of this lower world, that we may be indeed able to see the glory of God in the man- hood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Lastly, let me be permitted to remind you, Conciu- that the way chosen by the wisdom of God for the manifestation of His glory to the world may teach us, that speculative difficulties which may lie in the way of Christians cannot wholly be removed by speculation or reasoning or contemplation. The glory of God has been chiefly manifested to man- kind in a human life, in the earnest practical self- denying character of Him, who could say — for Christ did say so, — / came not to do My ot(;/i s. John vi. tuilL And as it is by the examination of this Hfei that we can chiefly hope to understand divine mysteries, so it is by the imitation of it that we can chiefly hope to make the knowledge of such mysteries penetrate below the surface of our minds. For indeed a man may read about Christ, and may 22 Introductory Lecture. LECT. admit in all honesty the marvellous revoluti ion — which His Gospel has brought about in the world, — nay, he may even construct a philosophy of religion, and may make Jesus Christ the centre of it, — and yet after all he may know nothing as he ought to know; it was not by such a process as this that S. John learned to wTite the words of the text; S. John followed his Master in His daily walk, watched with Him, prayed with Him, went about with Him doing good, caught something of His character, learned from Him perhaps more thoroughly than any other disciple the great lesson of love, and so it was that he was able to under- Theroad stand doctriue and to penetrate mysteries. The knowledge Same path of practical holiness, and love, and duty ^ *^ ■ is open to us all ; it is the king's highway, which is free alike to majesty and beggary, to the maturity of age and the simplicity of childhood, to those whose life is spent in the constant effort to increase knowledge and those who know little beside the great truth that God does not wish them to perish — it is in fact the one road by which men can follow Christ, and can reach Heaven, and can see God. May God, of His infinite mercy, grant us all grace to walk in it ! LECTURE 11, CHRIST A CHILD AND A BOY. Preached Sunday, April 13, 1856. S. LUKE IL 52. Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man. I PROPOSE in this Lecture to contemplate the l^ot. childhood and boyhood of our blessed Lord. "• I wish to examine such peeps as the Evangelical childhood history gives us into the period of His life preced- hood of ing His public ministry, and to consider how far suiject of the effect of the examination may be the strength- ture.^*"^' ening of the impression, that, while in Jesus Christ we cannot fail in virtue of our human in- stincts to recognise true human flesh, we cannot fail at the same time to behold a glory as of the only begotten of the Father. There is, perhaps, no portion of the history in The history which we are more likely to find proofs of genuine chikihood human nature, because there is none in which cj^garf^^the there are (from the necessity of the case) such }^°^'<^'^ ^ ^ ^ ... human opportunities for the exhibition of human weak- nature, ness : indeed we might possibly have imagined, that it would have been more conducive to the illustration of the glory of Christ to have intro- duced Him to us at once in full manhood as does 24 Christ a Child and a Boy. LECT. S. Mark, or to have inauo-urated His advent with II. . . . . '- — the enunciation of high doctrine concerning the divine Word as does S. John, — to have made the second Adam in this respect a j^arallel to the first, Heb. vii. 3. stepping forth upon the earth (as it were) without father, without mother, ivithout descent, a new image of God, a new head of the human race. Never- theless, it will probably be seen on closer examina- tion to have been in reality more suitable to the Gen.iii. IS. character of Him, who was emphatically the seed of the ivoman, whose claim to our love was not so much His essential Majesty as His willingness to be made like unto us His brethren in all things except sin, that we should know something of His human birth and His early daj^s, and the preface Divine to His pubHc ministry. To know something, I say ; Sexhi° for indeed, the more we consider the point, the i.itu.n. i^^ore surely we shall be led to the conclusion, that the kind of insicvht which S. Luke has given us into the childhood of Christ, — telling us (as he does) something, but not all, — preserving a few cardinal facts, but not satisfying unlimited curi- osity, — permitting us to take a glance now and then, but neither pretending to give a continuous history, nor apologising as an historian for the omission, — is far better, than a more detailed narra- tive would have been, for all the great purposes of Christ's Church. Of course, as humble Christians we may safely conclude, that the manner in which the tale is told is better than any other manner would have been, because it is that which God has in fact chosen for the purpose of revealing the Gospel to us ; but, independently of such consider- ations, I believe that any one, who thinks upon the Christ a Child and a Boy. 25 great ends of the Gospel history, who remembers lect. that the ministry of Christ is the portion of His life in which we are most vitally concerned, and yet that it is necessary for us to be able to regard Him as truly one of our race, not only in the strength of manhood, but in the weakness of infancy and the growth of boyhood, — any one who thus thinks will be led to appreciate that divine wisdom, which, without gratifying any mischievous curiosit}^, has enabled us through the record of S. Luke to see the manger in which the holy child was laid, to note His obedience to the Law, His presentation in the Temple as a child, His obedi- ence to His parents as a boy. Hence we may look upon the narratives con- The ma- tained in the second chapter of S. Luke's Gospel, the Lec- as amongst the most precious contributions made from'^''^"^" by that Evangelist to the spiritual edification of Jj^^^^""'^ Christ's Church : and in the remarks which I am o°iy- about to make, I shall confine myself exclusively to that chapter. By so doing I shall leave out of sight the one contribution which S. Matthew has made to the Gospel of the Lord's infancy ; but I have considered that there is a certain unity and completeness of character in S. Luke's narrative, which for our special purpose would be injured, rather than otherwise, by an addition from any other source ; moreover the history of the adora- tion of the Magi, though highly instructive when see Note 9. seen from its own point of view, does not bring into prominence the doctrine of the Lord's perfect humanity, which in S. Luke's Gospel is so obvious, and, for our present purpose, so important a feature. lO. 2G Christ a Child and a Boy. LECT. I am of course aware, that by a certain school '. of critics, the history of the Lord's infancy and boy- fcTOunt of liood is regarded as belonging to the region of the *!'•', n "'"'^.^ mythical. I am also aware, that arguments have childhood -^ ^ . . nut my- bccn adduccd in favour of the historical character See Note, of the uarrativo, the force of which it would seem hard to evade, except for those with whom the mythical character of the Gospels is a foregone conclusion. I shall not, however, further enter into the question here than to remark, that to my own mind nothing is more striking than the con- trast in which the childhood according to S. Luke stands wdth those tales which we know to be merely legendary, — that the whole narrative seems to me full of internal evidence of having come direct from her, who alone knew the whole truth, and who with genuine mother's feelings treasured up, and pondered in her heart, all the actions and words of her child, and the accidents of His early life, — and that it is difficult to imagine a tale much more different than the second chapter of S. Luke, from anything which could have been devised by Christians after the mother of our Lord had gone to her rest. Moreover it may be right to remind you, that The higl: character of s! Luke in dealing with any history which comes from the rian should pcu of S. Lukc WO are dealing with the work of "otten ^°' ^ writer, whose profession of careful accuracy we happen to have singular means of testing. I take it to be admitted on all hands, that the author of S. Luke's Gospel is also the author of the Acts of the Apostles ; and therefore any argument which establishes the fact, that this latter book is what it pretends to be, namely, the work of a man Christ a Child and a Boy. 27 thoroughly cognisant of the events which he re- lect. cords, does in reality at the same time sustain ; the character of the former. Now with regard to See Note the Acts of the Apostles, we have two very re- markable sources of internal evidence ; one, which has been developed so skilfully by Paley, depend- ing upon the undesigned coincidences with the Epistles of S. Paul, and with which I may fairly assume that the greater part of this congregation are familiar ; the other, which has been developed no less skilfully by a more recent hand, depending upon the fact of our being able to detect in one particular portion of the history a degree of accu- racy so very striking, as to stamp upon the whole a high character for truth. The ground of this latter argument is the narrative of that voyage and ship- wreck of S. Paul, in which it would appear that S. Luke himself shared: all the circumstances of this voyage are given, the winds that blew, the lands that w^ere passed by or touched, the manner of working the ship, the character of the gale to which the catastrophe was due, the minutest details of the wreck ; and if at this distance of time there had been a difficulty in demonstrating the consis- tency of the history, and in shewing how all its parts agree with the localities, in which certain changes might in the lapse of eighteen centuries very possibly have taken place, it is manifest that it would have been rash to have thrown discredit upon the writer solely on this ground ; moreover, a gale and a shipwreck might very well be taken as an apo- logy, if a writer, accurate under ordinary circum- stances, should under conditions so full of pertur- bation and terror fall somewhat short of his usual 28 Chrid a Child and a Boy. LECT. exactness in the observation of facts ; but if we -! find on the other hand, that even in this critical case the writer can never once be caught tripping, his whole narrative susceptible in the present day of the most precise verification, then we have remarkable and unexceptionable evidence, that the author is not only a truthful man, but a very keen and observant too, — a man upon whose assu- rance we may very confidently rely, if upon any other occasion he gives us a recital of facts, of the truth of which he is himself tlioroughly assured. It is thus that the case stands with regard to S. Luke, regarded simply in tlie light of an historian ; and therefore, when I find him prefacing his Gospel s. Luke i. with the declaration, that he had had perfect under- standing of all things from the ve,ry first, and im- plying that he had taken pains to ascertain his materials from eyewitnesses, I feel that we are dealing with one, who, on merely human grounds, has a right to be believed; and that we are not concerned with a shadowy collection of early Chris- tian traditions, gathered we know not how nor by Coioss. iv. whom, but with the historical testimony of LxiJce '■*■ the beloved physician, who stands out before us in distinct personality as the friend and companion of S. Paul. The cha- Tlius mucli I have thought it right to premise finned T)y — aud I trust my remarks will not be misunder- l"vid™w. ytood — concerning the character of S. Luke's Gospel ; very striking evidence of a purely internal See Note kind might be added, if such addition were re- quired ; but what has been already advanced will be abundantly sufficient for the purpose which I have had in view. I think that we are in dansfer Christ a Child and a Boy. 29 in these days of losing sight, under the names lect. of first, second, and third Gospels, of the indivi- J. duality of S. Matthew, S. Mark, and S. Luke ; this is mischievous under all circumstances, and in the case with which I am now more immediately concerned it is quite destructive of the desired effect. Hence I have suggested an argument well calculated as I conceive to impress upon ^^I'actical English minds a sense of S. Luke's personality as an historian, and of his singular historical accuracy ; and, under the influence of this impression, I now proceed to the examination of those details of our Lord's infancy, which the second chapter of his Gospel contains. (i) The circumstances of our Lord's birth will (OCircum- claim our first attention. We find Joseph and tii'e Lo'rd's Mary brought from Nazareth to Bethlehem by the s.'Lukeii, action of an imperial decree. There is no hint that ^~~^' they went there because Christ was to be born in Bethlehem, or that any prophecy was fulfilled when Christ was born there ; it is what we call in com- mon language an accident, but in reality like many other accidents a link in the chain of God's pro- vidence, that Mary is compelled to journey to a distant village at a time, when, under oi'dinary circumstances, she Avould have been least likely to have left her home. While in Bethlehem the days are accomplished that she should be delivered, ^v. 6, 7. and she brings forth a Son: and the inn is filled with richer guests, Joseph and Mary can find no room in it, and therefore the child is laid in a manger. It would be hard to find a simpler tale of a birth, one bearing more thoroughly the mark of having come from the mother herself, and one less 30 Christ a Child and a Boy. LECT. likely to have resulted by any process of gradual ! — invention from a theory of what Christ's birth ought to have been. It is the plainest string of historical facts, in which the great announcement of S. John, The Word was made flesh, could conceivably have been embodied: and yet even here we have occasion to add with S. John, TT^c beheld His glory; ordinary as the events of the Nativity were, yet there was something extraordi- nary : human as Avere its circumstances, yet the divine made itself visible: shepherds came into s. Luke ii. Bethlehem from the hills to seek the child, and to ^' tell wondrous things as to what they had heard and seen concerning Him; I do not enter into any discussion of their vision, because I wish to make my remarks independent of any particular view of See Note its character : doubtless a vision of angels is a thing not capable of description in the same way in which a merely mundane event is capable of being described ; doubtless any attempt of a painter to realise upon canvass the picture which S. Luke has drawn would only result in a con- ventional representation ; but it may be asserted beyond all doubt, that shepherds came to seek the young child, that they described themselves as divinely guided to seek Him, and that they uttered some very mysterious things concerning Him which His Mother laid up in her heart. It would be idle to attempt to analyse accurately the manner in which the divine intimations were given to the shepherds, — whether in the body or out of the body, possibly (like S. Paul) they might not know themselves, and therefore little knowledsfe is attain- able by us, — it is enough for us that S. Luke has Christ a Child and a Boy. 31 given us a description of the vision at once striking lect. distinct and beautiful, and doubtless as exact as '— human language will allow. But that the infant Jesus was adored by shepherds from the hills, and great things spoken concerning Him while there was nothing in His outward circumstances to mark His royal blood, this is a point which cannot be questioned, without questioning the truthfulness of the witness upon w^iose authority S. Luke has given us the history. Thus, while in the manger- cradle we see the type of the humiliation of Christ, we recognise in the adoration of the shepherds a hint of the glory of the only begotten Son. (2) The history of the birth and the adoration (2)TheCir- cunicisioD, of the shepherds is followed by that of the Cir- s. Luke h. cumcision, and the giving to our Saviour of His human Name. An event this, which has been rightly seized upon by the Church as occupying a See Note larger space in the history of human redemption than might have been concluded from the few lines devoted to it by S. Luke; indeed it required only a few lines to inform us of a circumstance, which, even if it had not been mentioned at all, we might have assumed to be true of our Lord as being a Jewish child ; and if S. Luke had not received this portion of his Gospel from the Virgin Mother her- self, one can easily imagine that he might have told his tale more after the manner of S. Matthew, who simply records that the child was called s. Matt. i. Jesus. But, when we remember that circumcision was the sign of a covenant, that it was a mark of belonging to a people to whom God had specially revealed Himself, and that the very existence of such a pledge of election was a testimony to the -:>• 32 Christ a Child and a Boy. LECT. otherwise rejDrobate condition of the race^ we sh. see in His submission to the rite a strong hnk in the chain of evidence borne to the perfect humanity of the Lord. The same view would naturally occur to any one having a due perception of the greatness of Christ, which occurred to s. ]\ratt. S. John Baptist when the Lord presented Himself as a candidate for the baptism of repentance ; there seems to be a contradiction involved in the very terms of the application; so S. John thought ; how could He, the Great one wdio was to come, need a washing of repentance ? and how could He, who was the Great Revealer of God, consistently submit to the outward and visible sign of a cove- nant, which proclaimed the truth that God had re- vealed Himself to the seed of Abraham? The ver. 15. Lord's answer to S. John, — Suffer it to he so note, — must be deemed a sufficient answer in both cases; and, while it fails to clear up all the difficulty, it cannot but impress upon us the strong character of the testimony thus borne to the thorough humanity of the Lord. I wish to observe however, as especially connected with our present subject, that although S, Luke records so simply and briefly the circumcision of Christ, relating the event precisely as it would be related by a mother speaking of the infancy of an only child, in which events ordinary to other persons are not ordinary to her, still even here the divine glory flashes upon us. S. Luke cannot tell us of the human name being given to Christ, without throwing in the re- mark, that the Name was in this case no merely human Name, but one given by God Himself: 21. "'*'"' His Name was called Jesus, which was so named Christ a Child and a Boy. 33 of the Angel before He was conceived in the ivomh, lect. — and so we may say, that in the story of the Cir- '- cumcision we see the shadowing forth of those two opposite truths of the Gospel, that the Name of Jesus should be one of reproach and scorn, and yet that it should be above every human name, so that at it alone the knees of things in Heaven, and Phii. li. lo. things in earth, and things under the earth, should be permitted and commanded to hoiv. (3) Next comes the presentation in the Tem- (3) The pie. The Virgin mother must purify herself ac- tion in the cording to the law, as any other Jewish woman : s.Tukeii. the immaculate conception of her child gives no -—'^^• exemption from this. The poor man's sacrifice too, the pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons, Levit. xii. must be offered for the redemption of the first- s'ee Note born, although that firstborn be He by whom all ^^■ others are to be redeemed. In this case, as in that of the Circumcision, we might probably have taken for granted that the requirements of the Law would be satisfied ; but in this case there were special reasons for recording the circumstances, which had no existence in the other. For indeed there were some special circumstances to be re- corded : Joseph and Mary took the infant to the Temple without form, or ostentation of presenting a child different from ordinary ; there was no crowd to receive them, no unusual respect paid to them : but there was an old man there, who, taking the s. Luke ii. babe in his arms, blessed God that he had been ■5"~2'- permitted to see that day, and uttered a hymn which has been chanted daily by the Church for centuries, as one of the best expressions she can find of her thankfulness for the gift of a Saviour. D II. 34 Christ a Child and a Boy. LECT. This old man however did not speak as one elated beyond measure with the thought of a deliverer raised up for his country; he spoke indeed of tlie s. Luke ii. glory of God's peojole Israel, but he spoke of the ^''" child as a ligJd to lighten the Gentiles as well. His words moreover were a strange mixture of exul- tation and sorrow; and, while blessing God that his eyes had been permitted to see His salvation, he did not hesitate to describe the child as a sign to he ver. 34. spoken against, and to sadden the mother's heart by ver. 35. telling her of a sword which should pierce through her 01V71 sold. S. Luke further tells us, that an aged woman who was in the Temple joined the company, v.v. 36— and spoke concerning the inflmt in the same strain. ^^" This was the ceremony of the presentation of Christ in the Temple, and when all was performed that ver. 39. religion required, the Holy Family went do^m again to Nazareth and lived there in obscurity as See Note before. Now the full grandeur of this scene is then ^^- only perceived, when we regard it in the light thrown back by it upon ancient prophecy. One of the portions of Scripture appointed to be read upon the Feast of the Purification suggests to us, — and indeed we might very well have come to the con- clusion for ourselves, ^that the history of which I have been speaking contains the event which a 2:)ropliet foretold, when he declared, that the Lord Miiiaciii should suddenly come to Bis Temple. If we keep this promise in mind, and put ourselves in the position of those who were waiting for such a manifestation of the majesty of God, as should cause the second Temple, though outwardly Haggai ii. so inferior in richness and beauty, to eclipse in essen- ^' tial glory that Temple which Solomon raised, and Christ a Child and a Boy. 85 upon which all earthly treasures were lavished, we lect. shall be struck with the majestic simplicity of the ' event in which the expectations were fulfilled ; the outward fact being the presentation of an infant, the inward truth being the advent to His own Temple of the Lord God Himself. But the point upon which my subject chiefly requires me to lay stress is this, that the story of the Presen- tation illustrates in the most striking manner that great principle, in virtue of which the glory of the Eternal Son ever made itself visible through the human nature which He had assumed : the circumstances of it so thoroughly human, the tale (if I may so speak) so natural and homely and unadorned, so completely bearing the marks of having come from the memory of her, who, treasuring up (as we are told she did) all indi- cations of the real character of her Son, was not likely to forget the occasion when she heard Him spoken of in the Temple as the Light of the Gen- tiles and the glory of Israel, — still less likely to forget the darker intimations of trouble, coming both upon Him and upon herself But by what- ever agency the story has been j^reserved, there it stands in homely simplicity upon the page of S. Luke's Gospel, and it illustrates in a very emi- nent degree the manner in which, even during the infancy of Christ, the glory of God gUm- mered for the eyes of a few chosen witnessies through the tabernacle of His human flesh. (4) A blank of twelve years, according to(4\The \ ' ' ^ . . going up S, Luke's history, follows the Presentation in the to Jeru- salem at Temple. One single incident is then given, — an twei yea) age. incident beautiful and instructive in itself, and ^^^'^''' " D2 36 Christ a Child and a Boy. LECT. very applicable to the subject which we have in !—hand. The parents of Jesus, as the Evangelist s. Luke ii. here calls them, — and on good authority, seeing '*^' '^'' that the Lord upon this occasion recognised them ver. 49. both in that relation, — the parents of Jesus, when He was twelve years old, took Him up with them to Jerusalem to the Feast of the Passover. There is nothing extraordinary in this, for the Passover See Note was the great Feast of the Jews, and Jesus Christ ''■ was a Jew; indeed, there is no conclusive reason for asserting, that this was the first Passover which the Lord had attended ; possibly it may be mentioned to the exclusion of others, on account of the fore- shadowing of His public Ministry of which it sup- plied the occasion. Nor is there anything extra- ver. 43. ordinary in the circumstance of our Lord's delay in Jerusalem ; it might have been true of another child ; had He afterwards appeared as a great teacher and nothing more, this incident of His childhood might very well have been remembered, and brought to light, and exhibited as an indica- tion that even in those early days He gave promise of His future eminence. In fact, omitting one circumstance, the tale in no respects transcends ordinary experience : the child missed, the parents' alarm, the return to Jerusalem, the search for Him in the city, the discovery of Him in the Temple with the doctors, the reproach of the Mother, the submission and return of the Son, — all these cir- cumstances, constituting as they do a tale of deep interest and one which could in no wise have passed from the Mother's mind, do yet contain no single feature which is not purely human, and which does not commend itself to the mind of Christ a Child and a Boy. 87 the reader as such. Indeed the lesson of filial lect. obedience which the story conveys, the honour "' done by Christ to the great sacred bond of hu- man society, is of itself sufficient to declare the completeness of the testimony which is given to the human character and human feelings of the Lord. But there is one sentence which flashes a new light upon the history : one sentence which diflerences it from anything that could have been reported of the life of any other man : it is that sentence which our Lord spoke to His Mother, and which not understanding at the time she laid up and kept in her heart : How is it that ye s. Luke ii. sought Me f wist ye not that I must he about My '^^' Fathers business? Perhaps the words are more striking, if translated, as some think that they ought to be. Wist ye not that I must be in My see Note Fathers house? But either way, the mysterious ^^' reference to His Father, which His parents could not understand, and which we can, at once lifts the subject into a higher region, — a light flashes upon the darkness, — and we are left to reflect upon the apparent impossibility of a peep being afforded into even the childhood of Christ, with- out some ray of the divine glory breaking through the veil behind which His majesty for the most part lay concealed. (5) What was the condition of our Saviour's (5) The life, in the interval between His return to Nazareth fu wisdom after the disputation with the doctors, and His stature. public appearance when He began to be about %\^^^ thirty years of age f Eighteen years of very deep mystery these : it is obvious to ask questions con- cerning them, but the authentic record of Scripture 38 Chrid a Child and a Boij. LECT. affords little help towards an answer : one passage '. — in S. Mark's Gospel, in which the people of the Lord's own country are represented as asking con- s. Mark tcmptuously, Is uot tkis the Carpenter ? seems to See' Note favour the tradition that He w^as employed in S. Luk 52. ^4- Joseph's trade, — a tradition which the general pro- babilities of the case not a little confirm. So far however as S, Luke is concerned, the veil which covers these years is not once lifted, and the only verse referring to the period is that which I have already quoted for a text, and which contains lan- guage very remarkable. The interval between boyhood and manhood is bridged over by the as- • sertion of S. Luke, that Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour ivith God and man. These words express, so far as the Evangelist has attempted to express it, the law of growth or de- velopment, according to which Jesus grew to be a man : they may easily be passed over by a care- less reader, as simply equivalent to the assertion, that after a youth of purity and holiness and cha- rity the Lord attained to man's estate : but it is obvious to any one who considers the matter, that there is more in the words than this ; and we can- not feel surprise, if language which treats of the law of Christ's human development should be seen to involve difficulties, as soon as we endeavour to discuss what it really means. For the Evangelist speaks not only of a growth in stature, but of a growth in luisdom ; and it is clear, that for those, who, holding the Catholic doctrine of the being of our Lord, believe Him to have been Him- Cor. i. self the very power and wisdom of God incar- nate, the notion of a growth in wisdom involves a Christ a Child and a Boy. 39 difficulty for the intellect of no ordinary magnitude ; lect. and we cannot wonder, that this passage should L_ have been seized upon as of first-rate importance in the great Arian controversy, — the Arians main- See Note taining, that He could not be very God who was said to grow in wisdom, the Catholics explaining S. Luke's lano^uao^e as seemed to them best, and perhaps not always in a manner quite satisfactory, I do not propose to criticise the explanations which have been given, but rather to remark upon the fact, that S. Luke should not have hesitated to conclude such a chapter with such a verse, that he should have brought the Gospel of the Infancy to a close with words, which, whatever be the riorht mode of dealing with the difficulty suggested by them, certainly declare in the most marvellous manner the human nature of Christ. In whatever way we may think it possible to explain the co- existence of divine perfection and human growth, certainly there are before us words of Scripture predicating in some sense mental growth of the Incarnate Son. The force of the lauOTiao-e cannot o o be evaded ; and for myself I would say, that I feel no desire or temptation to evade it ; on the other hand, I cling to it as conveying a precious truth; I acknowledge the mystery which it con- tains, but it seems to me that while it acts as a dark shadow to throw out the lights of the pic- ture, causing the glimmerings of a divine glory which we have observed to sparkle forth with a new brightness, it is at the same time one of the most blessed assurances that Holy Scripture contains of the perfect humanity of the Wo7'd made flesh. General conclu- sion, from the notices preserved 40 Christ a Child and a Boy. LECT. Thus we arrive at the end of the notices, which \l S. Luke has preserved, of our Lord's childhood and boyhood and youth ; and the general review of those notices seems to be well calculated to sug- gest answers to certain questions, which I now pro- bysyLuke. ceed to propound. In the first place, does not the history bear very clear marks of having come from one who, beyond all others, was able to testify to the truth of the facts w^iich she had witnessed and which she had laid up in her heart, — the clearest marks of containing the genuine reminiscences of one, who knowing the truth desired to record it, — the mother seen in almost every verse ? In the next place, whatever may be the right answer to this first question, taking the story simply as it stands, admitting it as its own evidence, is there any appearance of our having before us a tale invented for the purpose of making the early history of the Lord agree with the character after- wards assigned to Him, — would such a tale have been as simple, as human, — would the one anecdote of boyhood have been an example of obedience, — in fact, are the tales of the Apocryphal Gospels any- thing like this ? But in the third place and chiefly, while the predominating character of the history is purely human, — while the instinct of our own human hearts tells us as we read, that we are perusing the tale of the childhood of one who was of the same nature and blood with ourselves, — is there not at the same time a constant scintillation of a divine element, so mingled with the human that it cannot be separated, manifestly not a mere addition but a part of the original picture ? Of course it is possi- ble that men should have the history before them. Christ a Child and a Boy. 41 and yet not come to the conclusions which I desire lect. to suggest ; it is possible, because men have done '- — so ; and it is no business of mine just now to exa- mine the conditions under which such erroneous conclusions are possible, nor to speculate as to the degree of moral blame which may attach to those w^ho go wrong ; but I w^ould have you to consider the almost inconceivable difficulty of making a portrait of the Lord in His infancy, which shall be able for one moment to bear examination, without drawing from the life ; compare in fact S. Luke's portrait with others, even with those which have been drawn with the advantage of having S. Luke to copy from ; you will remember, for example, what Milton says of the boyhood of the Saviour, how he represents the Lord speaking of His young days, and saying, Victorious deeds J^f V^*^^' Bk. I. V. Flamed in my heart, heroic acts ; one while i^g. To rescue Israel from the Roman yoke ; Then to subdue and quell, o'er all the earth, Brute violence and proud tyrannick power, Till truth were freed and equity restored — — high resolves no doubt, — worthy of a hero, but only of a hero, — it is ourselves magnified, but only magnified,— the peculiar element of S. Luke's pic- ture is gone ; the Lord Jesus has ceased in this representation to be the Son of God, and therefore, in the emphatic sense of the phrase, He has ceased to be the Son of Man too. But look at S. Luke's portrait ; see how in it are preserved the perfect lines of a human countenance, and at the same time the indications of a divine glory ; see how thoroughly it realises the idea of the stooping to human infirmity of one, who thought it no rohhery to Pho. ii. o. 42 Christ a Child and a Boy. LECT. l,e equcd ivith God; and remember that it has sup- '- — plied the marvellous conception of the Creator of the Universe in the person of a child in His mother's arms, and that the holiest and most thoughtful have dwelt upon the conception with delight, and have found nothing in it revolting to their moral nature, nothing unworthy of their hiMiest thouofhts of God. Apoiogeti- Thus, Christian brethren, it appears to me, ance°S'°'^ that the history of our Lord's infancy, as we find it history ^of ^^^ S. Luko, has no unimportant place in the body hto?^^'^ of Christian evidences. As Christians we claim for our Lord a really divine character, while at the same time the truth of His humanity is equally precious and equally asserted ; in the Nicene Creed we profess in the fullest and most unflinching man- ner the two sides of the great mystery ; and when we look from the Creed to the Gospels, we expect to see our faith realised in the words and deeds of a living man. Had we known the Creed first, and then had received the Gospels afterwards as a s. Luke i. means of certifying those things wherein we had '*' been instructed, we should (I think) have won- dered not a little how a human life could possibly have represented such a Creed ; if we had tried to imagine the life, we should probably, or rather surely, have failed grievously ; we should have devised for ourselves either a magician or a hero, not one wdiom we can love as a brother, and yet reverence as the express image of the unseen God : but if there be one portion of the life more than another, in which we should certainly have failed to imagine a series of actions wortliy of Him whom we profess in tlie Creed, it would (I Christ a Child and a Boy. 43 think) have been the infancy ; in the manhood lect. we might possibly have mistaken the heroic for the ' divine, but to represent the Redeemer in the weak- ness and helplessness of childhood is a task which we could scarcely have looked upon without de- spair : hence, therefore, if the Gospel according to S. Luke gives a solution of the problem, — if we see in the notices which that Evangelist has re- corded nothing unworthy of the character of the Lord, — if we see the consistent assertion of a per- fect humanity, with just those sparkHngs forth of a divine glory which we might expect from our knowledge of His higher nature, — am I not right in assigning to S. Luke's history of the infancy an important place in the body of Christian evi- dences ? To exhibit the history of the infancy from this Poetical p • 1 ' • ^ n r~i^ • • lesson sug- pomt 01 view, that is, with reference to Christian gested. evidences, has been the main purpose of this Sermon : but I will not take leave of the sub- ject without observing, that even this early por- tion of our Lord's life cannot be contemplated without the suggestion of important practical lessons. For it may be truly said, that we do not properly and fully see the glory of Christ shining forth from the tale of His childhood, un- less we gain from it the lesson of youthful purity and gentleness and submission, which it is mani- festly adapted in the most divine manner to teach. Christ was our example in this as in all other por- tions of His life : in all His patience and charity, and going about doing good. His Ministry to the souls and bodies of men. His wondrous self-sacri- fice, His humbling of Himself even to death upon 44 Christ a Child and a Boy. LECT. the cross, He shewed us how we also ought to -Jil walk and to please God : but it is to be noted, that He did not wait until He arrived at manhood, thus to set a pattern of piety ; He sanctified childhood too ; even then He humbled Himself ; even then He magnified God's Law and made it honourable, and submitted to religious ordinances, and was found in the company of those eminent for learning and piety, and did not disdain parental control : and so doing He has taught children and boys and young men, how they all ought to commence that solemn business of life, which their Heavenly Fa- ther has given them to do — how they must min- ister unto God in their youth, and devote to Him the firstfruits of their faculties, and attend to com- mon duties, and hold their parents in honour, — and so lay the foundation of a faith which shall not be shaken, and of a life, which Christ in His mercy wall be pleased to recognise, as at least a faint resemblance of His own, when He comes in the fulness of His glory to judge the living and the dead. LECTURE 111. CHRIST PEAYING. Preached on Sunday, April lo, 1856. S. JOHN XVII. 24. Father^ I tcUl that they also, whom Thou hast given Me^ he icith Me where I am, ; that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me: for Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world. I F it were required that we should name the i^^ct, thing which beyond all others differences God's III. human creatures from the rest of His creation, we of prayen^ might perhaps rightly refer to that instinct ^vhich leads us to pray to Him, and the deep-rooted feel- ing that we have of the acceptable character of prayer in His sight. In a condition of refined civilisation, men — possibly philosophers — may en- deavour to reason away the utility and the duty of prayer ; they may apply the admitted truth of God's knowledge of all our wants before we express them, not for the purpose of teaching us to avoid much babbling when we pray, as did our blessed s. Matt. vi. Lord, but for the purpose of rooting up the principle \\ ^arro- of prayer altogether. Men have done this and will ^'^''^'^^''^• probably continue to do it ; and the simple man may be puzzled by their arguments; and yet the words of Christ, Ask, and it shall he given you ; s. i\iatt. seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall ^e^" '" on prayer Works, Vol. III. p. 69. 46 Christ praying. LECT. opened unto you, will ever commend themselves so '. thoroughly to the instinct, or to that which is according to the true force of the terms the common sense, of mankind, that the logic which forbids them to pray would be ineffectual in practice, even if it were more difficult, than in fact it is, to answer the arguments in theory. Jeremy *'The soul of a Christian," says Jeremy Taylor, "is the house of God : ye are God's huilding, saith S. Paul ; but the house of God is the house of prayer : and, therefore, prayer is the work of the soul, whose organs are intended for instruments of the divine praises ; and when every stop and pause of those instruments is but the conclusion of a col- lect, and every breathing is a prayer, then the body becomes a temple, and the soul is the sanctuary, and more private recess, and place of intercourse. Prayer is the great duty, and the great privilege of a Christian ; it is his intercourse with God, his sanctuary in trouble, his remedy for sins, his cure for griefs . . . ; and those things which God intends for us, we bring to ourselves by the mediation of holy prayers. Prayer is the 'ascent of the mind to God, and a petitioning for such things as we need for our support and duty.' It is an abstract and summary of Christian religion. Prayer is an act of religion and divine worship, confessing His power and His mercy ; it celebrates His attributes, and confesses His glories, and reveres His person, and implores His aid, and gives thanks for His blessings : it is an act of humility, condescension, and dependence, expressed in the prostration of our bodies, and humiliation of our spirits : it is an act of charity, when we pray for others ; it is an act of Christ iwaying. 47 repentance, when it confesses and begs pardon for lect. our sins, and exercises every grace according to the '- design of the man, and the matter of the prayer. So that there will be less need to amass arguments to invite us to this duty ; every part is an excel- lence, and every end of it is a blessing, and every design is a motive, and every need is an impulsive to this holy office. Let us but remember how many needs we have, at how cheap a rate we may obtain their remedies, and yet how honourable the employment is, to go to God with confidence, and to fetch our supplies with easiness and joy ; and then, without further preface, w^e may address our- selves to the understanding of that duty, by which we imitate the employment of angels and beatified spirits, by which we ascend to God in spirit while we remain on earth, and God descends on earth while He yet resides in Heaven." This noble passage is an eloquent commentary The exer- upon the assertion with which I opened this Ser- p,!^^^^ j^. mon, namely, that the exercise of prayer forms a ^"gf^iJJJf^^^ principal distinction between man and the rest of a spiritual . T-v T being. God's creation. Regarding prayer as synonymous with worship, it may be said to raise man indefi- nitely above all other material inhabitants of this world, and to establish his kindred with those blessed spirits, whose privilege it is to worship unceasingly before the throne of God : but it is to be remarked, that taking prayer in its more re- stricted sense as the offering up of petitions, the expression of wants and seeking for their supply, this holy exercise differences man at once from the brute creation below him, and from angels and ^^ , .. the spirits of just men made loerfect above him. bo 23. 48 Christ lyraying. LECT. far as our own reason, or the hints scattered in ni. ^ . , ,, , , n T , , ,1 own Scripture, or the more concentrated light thr Eev. vii. upou the subjcct in the book of Revelation, enable ^^' us to peep into that world of which angels and saints are the inhabitants, we recognise the worship of God as the one unceasing occupation ; and the worship of God upon earth, worship in which the inhabitants of Heaven though unseen by us may perhaps be permitted to join, may rightly be re- garded as the great hnk between ourselv^es and those who see the face of God more nearly, or be- tween ourselves now and ourselves as we hope one day by the grace of God to be. But still the ^vor- ship of Heaven is different from our own in this, that it involves no expression of weakness and need, it has no petition for protection bodily or spiritual, it is rather the outpouring of those feelings of love and wonder and gratitude, which are called forth by the fuller apprehension there granted of the goodness and wisdom and power of God. Hence, taking prayer not as sjaionymous with worship, but rather as expounded by our Lord's words, — s.Matt. Ask, and ye shall have; seek, and ye shall Jiml; ""'' '' knock, and it shall he opened unto you, — the conclu- sion which I have enunciated is true, namely, that the privilege of prayer marks man's spiritual posi- tion in God's universe ; it differences him from the creatures below, and from the creatures above ; it is the symbol of the fact, that on the one hand he is infinitely higher than all other mundane works Ps. viii. 5. of God, and that he has been made on the other a little lower than the angels. Import- Now I have dwelt thus upon the nature of attHbutcd prayer, and upon the relation which it implies as Christ praying. 49 subsistino- between man and God, in order that we lect. O _ ' TTT may be led to attribute a proper value to that which ought to be reckoned amongst the most 5j|.,\^christ wonderful facts of which this earth has been the piaye-i- scene, namely, the fact of Jesus Christ praying. If the prayers of Christ had been entirely of that kind which belong to Heaven, that is to say, if they had consisted entirely of ascriptions of glory to God and sacrifices of praise and eucharistic acknowledgments, they would still have been most wonderful, when regarded in the light of the divine • nature of the Lord. But I would have you to note, that the wonder goes far beyond this; the prayers of Jesus Christ were frequently in the truest sense petitions, — petitions too sometimes made with strong crying and tears, offered up in an agony of emotion, wdth every sign of human weakness. Give to prayer however broad or how- ever narrow a meaning you will, and still it will be found to contravene the very essence of the Gospel history to deny that Jesus Christ prayed. And hence, if prayer be, as I have endeavoured to represent it, one of the chief and most distinctive marks of humanity, then it must be right to con- clude that the prayers of Christ are an infallible proof of His human nature ; if Christ truly prayed, then was He truly man; the weakness of infancy, the submission of boyhood, the growth in wisdom and stature, of which I spoke last Sunday, do not more clearly certify the humanity of Christ than the prayers of His riper years ; indeed if any one, in a Docetic spirit, should endeavour to explain away the appearances of human nature in our Lord's history into mere appearances, he would be 50 Christ praying. LECT. able to deal much more plausibly with the pheno- mena of the childhood than with that which I am exhibiting to-day. However contrary it might be to the plain letter and spirit of the narrative, still one can imagine a person to suppose that the difference must have been, and therefore ivas, one of outward manifestation only between the child- hood and manhood of Him, with whom the strength of manhood is mere weakness and the wisdom of manhood mere folly ; but it would be to insult the truthfulness of Christ, to maintain that He bent His knees in prayer before His Father, and uttered the most earnest and pathetic supplica- tions, and that He was but acting a part, and that His prayers were not real prayers after all. The pray- While therefore it is impossible to deny the extreme mystery involved in the fact, and the con- sequent extreme difficulty involved in the concep- tion, of a human prayer being offered up by Him Phil. ii. 6. who thought it no rohbery to he equal irith God, — while it is readily acknowledged, that the prayers of Christ bring out into fullest prominence that difficulty, which is presented to the human under- standing whenever it dwells upon His twofold nature, — I would yet seize upon the fact of these prayers as one of the clearest demonstrations, that, whatever else may be true concerning the Lord, it may be without doubt affirmed of Him, that He was very Man. But not only so ; the purpose of these Lectures is not merely to insist ujion the genuine humanity, but rather to note how through all that was human in His life the glory of the only-hegotten Son may be seen to shine. The Word was made flesh — true human flesh, — and ers of Christ de- clare His manhood. Christ 2^Taying. 51 dwelt amongst us, and yet we may see His glory, lect. the glory as of the only-hegotten of the Father this is the truth which I desire to ilkistrate, and J|jg^^^f^*j.^]^ which (if I am not mistaken) is illustrated by ^^^ s^°''y- Christ contemplated as praying, almost more than by any other view that can be taken of His manner of life upon earth. And forasmuch as the due effect of such con- This to be templation depends to a great extent upon the by ex- examination of the particular instances, which have '''™^' ^^' been recorded in the Gospels, I propose to call attention to some of these, and to endeavour to shew how thoroughly they bear out the character which I desire to attribute to them, and how well they support the conclusions which I desire to found upon them. Now in reviewing the examples of our Lord's These habit of prayer, which occur in the Gospels, it is to divide be observed, that, with reference to our present intTtwo purpose, they divide themselves into two classes. In the first place, there are instances in which (0 Ttere the human element of our Lord's nature appears stances in (if T may so speak) to be exhibited in unmingled iTumanity purity, — instances, in which He would seem to ^^g^'JiJ have bent His knees before the throne of His Father in Heaven precisely as we ourselves are commanded and encouraged to do the same, the incitement being the sense of need, the result grace from Heaven suited to the occasion. If it should appear to any one that so to speak of Christ is to derogate from His character as the Son of God, I would suQ^o-est, that, while we eschew all pretence of being able to fathom the mystery according to which such supplications became E 2 are in stances in which the divine 52 Christ praying. LECT. possible, we are equally bound to refrain from all L_ attempts to exj^lain away recorded facts, instigated by the fear of those facts coming into collision with a doctrine; if it be quite clear that the facts are recorded, let them be accepted in all their integrity; and if we find ourselves compelled thus to confess truths apparently in conflict, let us remember that truths may be in harmony although we cannot demonstrate them' to be so, and that many facts would i^robably be seen to be at one, if we pos- sessed the right point from which to view them, which at present we do not. (2) There But lu the sccond place there are examples of Christ praying, in which, although the humanity appears in the very fact of the prayer, still another fmiaiiy element makes itself quite as clearly perceived. visible. And it is by taking these examples in conjunction with those of the former class, that we obtain the complete view, which the prayers of Christ ought to present to our minds. It would not have been well for us to have had these instances only, for then we might perhaps have concluded, that prayer in the case of Christ was something different from what it is in the case of ourselves; but when we have thoroughly filled our minds with the thought, that Christ prayed because He like ourselves was com- passed by infirmity, then we may with advantage contemplate the indications which are visible in His prayers of the glory of the only-hegotten of the Father. First class Now pcrhaps the simplest exhibition of our stances. Lord's habit of prayer is that, which S. Luke re- K.. u exi. ^Qj.jg j^g ^Yie occasion of His giving His own prayer to His disciples. S. Luke tells us, that as He Christ 2waying. 53 ivas praying in a certain jylace, ivhen He ceased, lect. one of His disciples said unto Him, Lord, teach us '— to pray, and that, in compliance with the request, the Lord gave that form of prayer which His disciples have ever since used. Moreover Christ followed up the subject by a general homily upon prayer, in which He urges the benefit of earnest- ness and constancy by reference to the results of importunity amongst ourselves, in which also He declares most emphatically that they who ask shall have, and in which lastly He appeals to our own conduct towards our children as the foundation of an argument d fortiori in favour of the bounty of our Father who is in Heaven. All this, observe, is grounded upon the fact of Christ having been found by the disciples in the act of prayer Him- self ; His own practice is avowedly the basis of His teaching ; the disciples said, Lord, teach us to pray, because they had His own example to back their request ; and it would clearly be unreasonable to suppose, that the spiritual exercise in which He was Himself engaged was different in kind from that, which He solemnly enjoined upon them. Again, the same Evangelist tells us, that s. Luke upon a certain occasion Jesus ivent out into a mou7itain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God : and this night of supplication is connected in the most pointed manner with the w^ork that followed it: When it was day. He called unto v^t. i^. Him His disciples ; and of them He chose tivelve, ivliom also He named Apostles. So then it may be reasonably concluded, that it was this great work of choosing and ordaining those, who were "to serve in the sacred Ministry of His Church," that 54 Christ praying. LECT. required the preface of a night of solitude and true xxii. 31, 32. '. Ember prayers. s. Mark i. Or again, S. Mark gives us an example, which appears to represent the Lord's ordinary practice, when he tells us that on the occasion of the visit to Simon's house in the opening of the ministry, rising up a great ivJiile before day, He ivent out, and departed into a solitary 2^l<:('(^e, and there prayed : a practice which we see once more exem- s. Matt, plified in. the circumstance which both S. Matthew s. M!a5k ^^^ ^- M^^rk relate, namely, that after feeding the Yi.46. fiye thousand in the wilderness, Christ sent the multitudes away and then went up into a mountain to pray : and lohen the evening ivas come, He ivas there alone. s. Luke But there are more remarkable instances than these, and I will direct attention especially to two. The first is the prayer of intercession for S. Peter in the prospect of his being tempted to deny the Lord. Christ saw, as you will remember, the danger which threatened all the Apostles in conse- quence of His own approaching capture and trial : He expressed it in those remarkable words ad- dressed to Peter, but appHcable to them all, Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as ivheat : but. He added, / have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not. I have prayed for thee; — Peter was in great spiritual danger, perhaps in as great danger as ever man was, for a man can scarcely be nearer perdition than when, having consorted with Christ for years, he declares with cursing and swearing that he knows Him not ; and Christ knew this his danger, and we might have fancied that He who knew it Christ praying. 55 would certainly have guarded against it, and that lect. to have promised His own protection would have 1_ been easy for Himself and enough for Peter : in- deed we might easily fancy many things in a case so entirely beyond human cognisance ; but we shall readily own that what our Lord thought it right to do was right ; and what He actually did in this case of extreme urgency was to pray to His Father in Heaven, that S. Peter's faith might not alto- gether fail. The other instance of human supplication to S- Matt. xxvi. 39. which I desire to refer, is that which took place in s. MaVk the Garden of Gethsemane on the eve of the Pas- s^Luk'e sion. This is the most wonderful of all ; partly ''''"■ '^'^' because it was accompanied by such outward visi- ble signs of human weakness and agony ; partly because the boon which the Saviour demanded was not, and could not be, granted. Three of the Evangelists give us the history of this awful jDass- age of the Lord's life, as though it were one of its cardinal facts ; they agree in telling us, that in the prospect of the passion He besought that the bitter cup might pass from Him, adding the condition, Not My will, hut Thine he done ; they all tell us of the horror which came upon Him ; and one records the siveat as it ivere great chvj^s of hlood, which was the evidence of the intensity of the conflict within, and of the mental agony in which the prayer was made. Now it is impossible in reading this narrative not to feel, that we are reading of the conflict and agony of a man ; Christ could not have prayed as He did, that is, with an earnestness of entreaty without parallel, for a boon which He knew could not be granted, but for which He felt 56 Christ ■prayi7ig. LECT. Himself nevertheless constrained to pray, unless '- the supplication had been the genuine utterance of a human heart : it may require much theological ingenuity to bring the conclusion into ob\dous har- mony with other conclusions no less certainly true ; but it would be to insult our Saviour in His agony, if we should read the recorded evidence of His weakness, and then say, that His solemn utter- ances were prayers only in semblance, and not in deed and in truth. Nor need we fear to press to the uttermost our belief in the human character of these prayers of Christ, when we are able to quote from Scripture a passage which speaks of Christ as Hub. V. 7. one, ivlio in the days of His flesh offered up prmjers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, unto Him that was able to save Him from death. Second These then are examples of prayer offered up iistonces. ^J Christ, iu wliich (according to the expression already used) the human element of the Lord's nature appears to be exhibited in unmingled purity. It might perhaps be remarked, with regard to the example last cited, that S. Luke tells us of an angel from Heaven strengthening Him ; and it might be thought that this circumstance in- troduces into the story something of a superhuman element; a different conclusion will however be drawn by those wdio remember, that the angels are Heb. i. 14. ministeriiig spirits, sent forth to minister to the heirs of salvation. But there are, as I have said, instances in which the prayers of Christ indicate something beyond and different from His hu- manity, — not casting a doubt upon His humanity, for prayers in their very nature cannot do this, but making visible nevertheless to those who have eyes Christ praying. 57 to see the glory of the only-begotten Son. And lect. perhaps the first prayer which Christ is recorded to L_ have uttered may be taken as our first illustration. It might be worthy of remark, but does not fall within the scope of our present subject, that although it is recorded of the Lord's childhood that He was found in the Temple, that He was obedient to His parents, and that He grew in wis- dom, yet we know nothing whatever of His habits of devotion; but in the very beginning of His Ministry we read that Jesus prayed. S. Luke tells us, that Jesus being baptized and praying, s.Lukeiii the Heaveii was opened, and the Holy Ghost de- scended in a bodily shape like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from Heaven, which said. Thou art My beloved Son; in Thee I am well pleased. It is unnecessary to discuss the circumstances of this heavenly vision : however difficult, or even im- possible, it may be for us to realise precisely the character of the occurrence, certainly some out- ward sign was given to S. John of the greatness of Him who had come to be baptized ; and it was upon the evidence of what he then saw, that John s. John i. thenceforth bare record, that Jesus was the Son of ^^' God. The point however which it chiefly concerns me to press is, that this heavenly testimony fol- lowed upon a prayer of Clirist ; and we may per- haps say, that we see in this case the normal effect of such prayers ; they had power to open Heaven, and to bring down the Spirit from on high, and to obtain a recognition of Himself as the well-beloved Son, the only begotten of the Father. As S. Luke has recorded the first instance in s. Luke Gospel history of a prayer ofiered by Christy so it ' 44. Acts viii 60. 68 Clirid praying. LECT. is he, who has also recorded for us the last prayer ' which our Lord offered up on earth. The prayer was uttered while He was hanging upon the cross, and the burden of it was that God would pardon those who had been engaged in putting Him to death ; manifestly a remarkable prayer, regarded merely with reference to the spirit of heavenly charity which it breathed ; it was the most won- derful of all comments upon His own precept to s. Matt. V. His disciples to love their enemies and to pray for those who persecuted them; it taught the first martyr, when he was dying by the hands of a mob, to pray that the sin might not be laid to their charge ; and it has impressed the duty of forgive- ness upon all who call themselves by Christ's name, so as all homilies written upon that duty could never have impressed it. But, with reference to our present subject, the remarkable feature of the prayer is the argument by which it was enforced ; Christ prayed that His murderers might be for- given, not simply as doing an act of cruelty and injustice of which they were likely to be ashamed when it was done, but as men eno-aged in a work of which they did not know the real character and bearings, — men, who were doing more than they intended, — men, who imagined that they were crucifying one like themselves, and who were in fact crucifying the Son of God and putting Him to an open shame, — men, who, if they had been able for a moment to look through the veil of flesh, which hid the divinity of Christ, would have won- dered that the deed which they had done could be possible, and would have been horrified that they should have been the men to do it. This I con- Christ praying. 69 ceive to have been the force of the prayer, lect. Father, forgive them, for they knoio not ivhat they L_ do; at worst they had but sinned against the Son of Man, and therefore as ignorant of the full reach and scope of their offense Christ prayed that they might be forgiven ; and the prayer was human, as all prayers must be, but it was backed by an argu- ment, which takes us up into the region of the divine and gives us a hint of the hidden glory of Him, who was able before commending His spirit to God to offer up such a prayer. Thus the first and the last recorded prayer of s. John Christ, equally, though in very different ways, illus- '''^"' "^' trate the point with which I am now engaged ; but perhaps the most remarkable instance of the manner, in which the glory of Christ shines through His humanity in the act of prayer, is that which is contained in the chapter from which I have taken my text. The chapter may be re- garded as the prayer made by the Lord, in the character of High Priest of His Church, on approaching that dreadful altar upon wdiicli He was about to offer Himself up a sacrifice for the sins of the world. It is manifest that a prayer uttered upon such an occasion is likely to give us glimpses more than ordinary of His divine being; it is difiScult indeed to conceive of Christ opening His heart (if I may venture so to speak) to His Father in heaven, and not exhibiting something of the mystery of His godhead; and probably we should have seen this abundantly illustrated, if we had been permitted to know more of the spiritual exercises of Christ's solitary hours of prayer; but certainly an occasion such as that just now CO Christ 'praying. LECT. indicated, the close of the Ministry, the eve of the Passion, would be one above others, upon which we might expect the utterances of the Lord to exhibit something of His essential glory. I need hardly say that the expectation is realised; the prayer is that of a man, otherwise (as I have observed before) it would not be a prayer; it s. John speaks of a work having been finished which was "■ '^' assigned by God to be done ; it testifies that the ver. 6. great end of the Lord's life has been to manifest to His discij^les the Name of God; it makes petition ver. 9, for those disciples, as for men who are about to lose a friend and a guide, that they may be kept ver. 15. from the evil of the world, though not taken out of it; it makes further petition for all those who ver. 20. should believo in Him through their preaching, that ver. 21. they all may he one, and that their unity may be a testimony to the world of the truth of His Mission; ver. 24. finally it makes petition, that where He Himself is, there His disciples also may be permitted to be. Now this account of Christ's sacerdotal prayer, though obviously incomplete, is true as far as it goes: Christ did make the petitions of which I have spoken ; and they were petitions, which a man might well make on leaving His friends and dis- ciples, and which it would be very affecting to those disciples to hear as they listened to them coming forth (as they did) with deep emotion from a full heart. But I wish you to observe, that this account of the prayer is not merely incomplete; taken by itself it gives not merely an incomplete, but a totally false view of the prayer, because it misses out those very features upon which its character chiefly depends; those human threads Christ praying. 61 which I have described doubtless run throuo^h it lect. Ill from end to end; but there are others, which cross ^ them, and are intertwined with them, and are no less part of the fabric, and which are not human but something very different: the warp may be human, the woof is divine : and no ingenuity can draw out the one, without altogether damaging the other, and destroying the texture of the whole. Thus, when Christ speaks of the knowledge of the true God being life eternal, He couples with the knowledge of God the knowledge of Jesus Christ s. Johr whom He has sent; when He speaks of having ''^"" ^' finished His work on earth, He anticipates the return to a glory which He asserts that He had ver. 5. with the Father before the world was; when He speaks of the disciples being chosen by God out of the world, He thinks it no robbery to add, all ver. 10. Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine; when He prays that the disciples may be one. He illustrates the unity for whicli He makes petition, by refer- ence to that which subsists between the Father vv. 21, : and Himself ; and, as if to answer the theological question which might arise from the comparison, He speaks of the members of the Church being one i7i us — the Father and Himself thus spoken of ver. 21. as at least co-ordinate persons. But above all, when we come to the text, we find Christ praying for this as the prime blessing for His disciples, that they may be with Him where He is, that they may ver. -4. behold His glory, that they may be able in fact to see with open face that of which the most favoured saints have only an imperfect vision here. These portions of the prayer are, as I have said, consti- tuents of its very substance, and tliey point to 62 Christ irraying. LECT. a superhuman glory, as belonging to Him who "^' offered it, quite as distinctly as the other portions of the prayer testified, that it was the genuine utterance of a human heart. The question which must strike every careful reader of S. John's Gospel is this, What, upon any other principles than those of the Catholic faith, am I to do with such a prayer? Conclusion I apprehend that few persons in our own day drawn would veuturo even to hint, that the utterances of eTampkT Josus Clirist had anything in them of the nature of imposture. The only view, likely to be supported by intelligent persons, would be that, which repre- sents the writer of the Gospel as having embodied in his own phrases, that which according to the views entertained of Christ in after years it would seem probable that under the circumstances Christ would have spoken ; and it must be admitted, that this is the best of heretical solutions, and probably indeed the only one which is at all capable of being- made to look plausible. Of course if it can be shewn that the chapter in question is a genuine chapter of the book in which it is found, and the book itself the work of S. John the Apostle and companion of our Lord, the view of which I have spoken fades away and vanishes : it is not however in this manner that I wish to treat the subject; what I desire to do rather is to suggest the impos- sibility of any one, who was not recording what he had seen and heard of the AVord of Life, producing a result so strange and mysterious, and yet so con- sistent and from the Catholic point of view so intelligible, as that which I have been endeavour- ing to exhibit. Let any one try to paint from his Christ praying. 63 imasfination that which is not man, and he will lect. • • III infallibly paint a monster ; let a writer, how inge- '_. nious soever, deviate one jot from the human nature which he sees around him, and he may pro- duce a fairy tale, but his creations are of necessity beyond the circle of human sympathy; and the marvellous thing, the thing to be pondered by any whose faith is wavering, is this, that the Gospels give us the life and deeds of one, whom beyond doubt we can love and with whom we can sym- pathise, human if ever there was humanity, giving (as I have endeavoured to shew to-day) the most convincing proof of His humanity possible by offering up His prayers to the Father of us all, and yet that there should be a glory shining through, which no other man ever exhibited, — a glory which does not eclipse His humanity, does not take away from us the sense of brotherhood, but rather makes us feel that our own nature is glorified in the divine manhood of the Word made flesh. It is easy to multiply miracles, and invent prodigies such as those with which the Apocryphal Gospels are filled, all tending in a certain way to set forth the superhuman character of Jesus Christ ; but to draw the picture of Him as a man of prayer, to represent Him in solemn communion with God, and especially to portray Him upon an occasion such as that on which I have been chiefly com- menting, to give us the words He uttered, and not to violate in any way the harmony of Catholic doctrine, not to hide His humanity, and yet not to insert anything unworthy of His divinity, — this I venture to think is so far from easy, that it is quite inconceivable that the picture could have been 64 Christ praying. LECT. drawn, except by one who had actually witnessed that which he professes to record. The vision I havc spokcH of the seventeenth chapter of of the glory of the S. Jolui's Gospcl, as Containing the most remark- rewid'of able of all the exhibitions of the divinity of the saints. Lord shining through His humanity in the act of prayer: and out of that chapter I have selected for a text that verse, in which He prays that those given to Him by God may be with Him where He is, that they may behold His glory. I have chosen these words before others, because they seem so wonderfully to echo, while at the same time they intensify, the text of my first Lecture, in which S. John testifies that during the sojourn of the Incarnate Word upon earth those whom God had then given to Him did see His glory ; no doubt this vision constituted the joy and strength of S. John's own life ; his whole Gospel, his first Epistle, and the history which we have of him, shew how thoroughly the sense of the wonderful nature of what his eyes had seen had penetrated and saturated his inmost soul ; and now I would have you to observe, that the Lord makes it the subject of His most solemn petition, that the op- portunity of seeing completely what can at best be here seen only in part, of gazing with eyes un- veiled and in light perpetual upon that which it was permitted to the disciples in the days of His flesh to see flashing forth occasionally through the Tabernacle in which He dwelt, of being with Him so as to be enabled to enjoy His society more com- pletely and uninterruptedly than was ever granted to Saints upon earth, — that this privilege of being with Him and seeing His glory may be the reward Christ 'praying. 65 of His faithful disciples. There must be some ut- lect. terly unspeakable joy in this beatific vision, which ' occupied such a place in the prayer of our great high-priest : and a sorry change we should make, if we should be persuaded to put in the place of one, who could thus speak of the future companion- ship of His disciples with Himself, any of those heretical inventions, which men have endeavoured either in ancient or modern times to substitute in the place of the Jesus Christ of the Gospels : but what I chiefly desire to remark concerning the pro- spect of being with Christ is this, that if ever those other words of S. John should seem to lose their force, if intellectual mists should threaten at any time to hide the glory of which the Evangelist speaks as visible in the human history of our Lord, then it may be well for us to remember, that the vision is here confessedly imperfect, and that He Himself once offered up a solemn prayer to God, that His disciples may be permitted to be with Him where He is, and to see the perfection of that glory, of which in this world they have re- ceived at best but a few scattered rays. And, as 1 have been speaking in this Lecture Connexion of Christ manifesting forth His glory in the act ofmanifesta- prayer, let me add one word in conclusion concern- Si^f-s ing the connexion of the act of prayer on our own gJ°Y J^j^^^' part with the manifestation in this world of the prayer. glory of Christ. I am bound (as I conceive) by the nature of my office to consider the case of those, to whose minds the light of Christ may have been threatened with an eclipse : and, indeed, I cannot on the one hand hold all fears of an eclipse of faith to be chimerical, nor dare I on the other treat all Q6 Christ iwaying. LECT. religious difficulties as simply culpable : he who has ' once witnessed the case of a man pure in life and orthodox in faith, unsettled after all by speculative difficulties and robbed of the creed of his childhood by ingenious men, cannot in honesty or in charity adopt either the one course or the other. Hence, I feel constrained to acknowledge, and have ac- See Note knowlcdgod as some may think too frankly, the ^^' possibility of intellectual difficulties obscuring the vision of the glory of Christ ; I sincerely believe that such acknowledgment is a necessary pre-requi- site for affording any real assistance. Can any real assistance be found in the subject wdiich we have been considering to-day — in the contemplation of Christ as a man of prayer ? I do not pretend to prescribe an infallible cure for all cases of religious disease ; but is it not true, that sometimes the phantoms which haunt a man in a book disappear when he falls upon his knees ? are there not at least some idols, which break to pieces, when set ujD in the presence of the true God ? and may not eyes, to which the vision of Christ's glory has been dimmed, be sometimes most speedily purged and restored by earnest application to Him, whose gracious will it is, that His disciples should enjoy His presence, and should behold His glory ? In fact, may not a mind, which has been confused by speculation and harassed by doubts, sometimes Kev. i. 5. recover its tone, by crying out to Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, — " O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, grant us Thy peace " ? I Sam .3, 4- N LECTURE IV. CHRIST IN HIS HUMAN SYMPATHY. Preached on Sunday, April a;, 1856. S. JOHN XI. 35. Jesus wept. O one can have read the Gospel according to lect. S. John without noticing, and being much '- struck by, the contrast which it presents to those between* of S. Matthew, S. Mark, and S. Luke. Whatever ^\%^fl^^ ' ' 01 o. John may be the true theory of the mutual relation of-'^^^^^he the first three Gospels, every one readily admits synoptical that there is a relation : and whatever may be the °^^^ cause of the distinction, every one as readily admits that there is a distinction between the first three Gospels and the fourth. These two theological facts have been brought into great prominence by the labours of modern scholars, and have been made more current than formerly by the use of that phraseology, which describes the works of the three earlier Evangelists as the three Synoptical Gospels. Concerning the distinct character of S. John's The Gospel however, modern scholars have made no nised in discovery, for indeed there was no discovery to be JfjJ^'jg made. The story, which we have from Eusebius, to the effect that S. John at the request of his See Not- disciples, and under divine influence, undertook to F 2 con- trast recog- 68 Clirist in His human Symixithy. LECT. write a Gospel, which, as distinguished from those ' already existing and to which he gave his sanction, should be emphatically spiritual, sufficiently de- clares (whether the story be trae or not) the appreciation in early times of the peculiar cha- racter of S. John's work ; and the opinions given by the early fathers with regard to the special heresies which it was written to refute, whatever may be their value as opinions, at least prove as much as this, that it was recognised as possessing a character, and indicating a purpose, and mani- festing a spirit, peculiarly its own. That character, and purpose, and spirit, may be sufficiently seen from the opening of the book; whether S. John had in his mind the heresy of Cerinthus, or the errors of the Nicolaitans, or was led by the Holy Spirit to put upon record a protest against the heresies of all times, which should impugn the great foundation of the ftiith, the essential godhead of the Lord Jesus Christ, certainly no one can very easily question what doctrine was uppermost in the mind of him, who opens his Gospel not with the human tones of S. Matthew, S. Mark, and S. Luke, but with the oracular announcement, s. John i. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word ivas with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by Him. In Him was life. Hence if we require weapons, wherewith to fight the battle of God's truth against those who would deny the divinity of Christ, it is to S. John's Gospel that we should most readily look : if we wished to name a portion of the New Testament, of which it could bo asserted, not merely that passages here and there implied or declared this weighty doctrine. Christ 171 His human Sympathy. 69 but that the whole substance and meaning of the ^fi^'^- book depended upon it, we should almost certainly refer to this same Gospel : clear as it may be from the writings of the other Evangelists and Apostles, that the divine being of their Master was the foundation of their faith and hopes, still if there be a writing more thoroughly proof than others against Gnostic confusions and Arian diminutions of the full proportions of the Catholic faith, that writing would perhaps be allowed to be the Gospel according to S. John. And yet, S. John w^as hardly in a position, (if Fitness of T 1^\ ^ 1 • X .S.John to i may so express myself,) to compose a history oi testify to his Master, which should exhibit exclusively, orfeehngTo? anything like exclusively, the divine side of His ^^"^*" being. S. John himself was one of the most signal proofs of the true human nature of the Lord : he who could describe himself as that disciple idiom Jesus loved, and who could thus testify from his personal knowledge and experience to the fact that the heart of Jesus was susceptible of the feeling of human friendship, — that, divine though He was. He yet had so thoroughly stooped to humanity as to be able to love one rather than another, and to be sensible of the impression made upon the heart by gentle behaviour and considerate kindness, and whatever chiefly endears a man to his fellows, — he who could do this could scarcely undertake to write a history of Christ's sojourn upon earth without making it very manifest from his narrative that Christ had genuine human feelings ; the doctrine that the Word ivas made flesh, would be to him no mere dogma of orthodox divinity ; it would be a truth in witness of which a thousand bright 70 Chist in His human Sympathy. ^^^- personal reminiscences would start up in his mind ; he could as easily doubt his own identity, as allow his belief in the godhead of the eternal Word to rob him of the conviction, that He whom he had loved as a friend, by whom he had been loved in return, and in death adopted as a brother, was truly man, having not only a human voice and form, but a human heart ; how could he, to whom was assigned the privilege of being nearest to Jesus at the last supper, listen to those false prophets and I John iv. spirits of antichrist, who would not confess that ^' ^' Jesus Christ ivas come in the flesh f It is to be Hence it will not be deemed matter for astonish- expected ^ n • ^ • ^ that ment, but rather a mark oi consistency and mhe- Gospei°^ rent propriety, if in that Gospel, w^hich, according tSy to the ^^ ^^® emblem by which S. John is known, soars humanity ^pou the wiugs of au eagle above the level of the Lord. earth, and ever looks up to the bright light of hea- ven with open eye, we find some of the most striking indications of the genuine character of that human flesh which the Word of God assumed. It may per- haps be said with truth, that S. John's Gospel is not mote remarkable for the emphasis with which it sets forth the truth of the Lord's Godhead, than the dis- tinctness with which it sets forth the truth of His Manhood ; nor in the early times of the Church was it at all more necessary to lay stress upon the one, than upon the other. In fact, no one of the other three Evangelists, except perhaps S. Luke, can in this respect be at all put in competition with See Note g_ John : undoubtedly S. Luke's Gospel has a claim to such competition : the claim would be established by the mere fact of that Gospel alone containing a history of the infancy, and when dwelHng upon the Christ in His human Sympathy. 71 mysteries of our Saviour's early days I drew my lect. materials entirely from S. Luke : moreover there _ _J is througliout the whole of the book an almost feminine gentleness, to be attributed, as I imagine, to the fact of the substance having been to some ex- tent supplied by her, who almost certainly supplied the history of the childhood : the story of the peni- tent thief, for example, which brightens the pages of S. Luke's Gospel and his only, might well have come from her who was almost alone at the foot of S; Jo^n the cross, and therefore one of the few upon whose ears the confession of faith and the answer of mercy fell. Be this however as it may, certain it is that the human character of Christ is very conspicuous in S. Luke's Gospel ; and in any attempt to ex- hibit completely the indications of humanity which the Gospels supply, it would be impossible to pass over without notice those contributions which might be gathered from S. Luke. It is not from neces- sity therefore, but from choice, grounded upon con- Materials sideration of the peculiar footing upon which the Lecture Gospel of S. John stands, that I have determined s. John. to draw the materials of this Lecture exclusively from that Gospel : I wish to exhibit Christ in His human feelings, Christ sympathising; and I find upon examination, that those stories of the Lord's life, which are peculiar to S. John, those, which it may be supposed that upon a review of the facts recorded by the earlier evangelists he deemed it desirable to add to the history, do almost without exception bring prominently into notice the hu- man sympathies of Christ. I propose then to bring under your notice those indications of our Lord's humanity, of which S. John's Gospel is the 72 Christ in His human Sympathy. LECT. exclusive record, and amongst which, perhaps, the '. verse which I have quoted for a text contains the most striking ; and I shall endeavour to shew, that while we see in such indications a witness to S. John's great assertion that The Word was made flesh, we shall find cause for adopting as our own the confession of the same Evangelist, We beheld His glory, the glory as of the only he- gotten of the Father. s. johnii. (i) Notice as the first example the story of riageat the marriage in Cana of Galilee. This is the earliest occasion upon which S. John represents our Lord as appearing in what may be called public life : and very remarkable it is that the appearance should be at a marriage, and that the Evangelist should take (as it were) the first opportunity of exhibiting the contrast which Christ Himself pointed out as existing between His own life and that of His forerunner; — John the Baptist shun- ning the ordinary ways of human life, preaching repentance in the wilderness, clad in camel's hair, denying himself innocent comforts, setting an ex- ample of (though not indeed recommending to others) a life of extreme asceticism ; — Christ on the other hand finding the most natural field for His labours in the thickest thoroughfares of the world, joining in feasts, sanctifying society by His pre- sence, willing to receive hospitality ; — so that they who could not or would not sec in His mode of life the wisdom of God, and recognise in the freedom with w^hich He mixed with His fellows the truest marks of brotherhood, and learn from His example that to sympathise with men is the best way to in- fluence them and (it may be) to save them, were Christ in His human Sympathy. 73 able to find an excuse for their neglect of Christ in lect. caricaturing Him as a gluttonous man and a luine- hihher, a friend of puhlicans and sinners. If, as a s. Matt. tradition tells us, S. John was himself the bride- ^^' ^^' groom at this marriage, there is little reason for wonder at the prominent place assigned to it in his Gospel ; but the tradition is far more than see Note doubtful, and it remains for us as a point well ^ ' worthy of deepest consideration, that the Evange- list, who has in the first chapter of his Gospel so thoroughly justified the title sometimes ap^^lied to him of S, John the Divine, should in the second See Note have commenced the series of memoirs, which he ^ ' desired to record that they who read them might s. John believe, and believing might have life through His ^^' Name, with the account of Jesus afid His Mother and His disciples being invited to a marriage- feast. Who would have thought, as he read the opening of the first chapter of S. John, that the opening of the second w^ould have furnished the Church with the substance of a prayer, to be used See Note when she consecrates by a religious service the most purely human of all human ties ? (2) I pass over the history of our Lord's nightly s. John iv. • . • -ii TVT- 1 1-1 11 i Themtei- mterview with JNicodemus, which would to a cer- view with tain extent illustrate the view of His character n'^iTof which I am endeavouring to give, in order that I ^^"""'"=''- may remark upon the much more striking illustra- tion which is contained in the next fact of S. John's history, namely, the interview of our Lord Avith a woman of Samaria at the well of Sychar. If we had been permitted to choose for ourselves an opportunity of observing the character of our Lord's life when most free and unfettered, we could S. John iv. 6. 74 Christ in His human Symimthy. LECT. perhaps hardly have desired anything more to our ' purpose than a report of a conversation with one, whom in human lano^uaofe we should call a chance companion by the road-side. There were flashes of the divine nature visible in the course of this inter- view, as I shall have occasion to observe after- wards : but, putting these for a moment out of sight, it is hardly possible to conceive of anything more distinctly testifying to the manhood of Christ. On a long journey from Judaea to Galilee, He is weary, as any one of us would have been weary, and so He sits down to rest upon a well : the dis- ciples are sent into the city to buy food, because He like them is hungry : and when the woman comes to draw water. He asks her to give Him to drink, partly (it may well be believed) for the sake of leading to the conversation concerning living water, but partly also and perhaps primarily be- cause He is oppressed with thirst. Here therefore we have a record of three characteristic weaknesses of human flesh, weariness, hunger, and thirst ; and it is difficult to say how the Lord's manhood could have been more clearly testified, or what beside such testimony could have been the design of S. John in recording such infirmities. But this does not seem to me to be after all the most remarkable feature of the narrative, regarded as a record of the Lord's humanity, however it may be the most prominent and obvious : there is a certain tone of human kindness in the conversation, perceptible by ourselves, and which manifested its power by at once breaking down for the woman the barriers which separated Samaritan from Jew, which gained her confidence, enabled her to speak to a Christ in His humaii Sympathy. 75 stranger without misgiving, and which, is in perfect lect. keejDing with the Lord's willingness to accept the hospitality of the Samaritans as frankly as the hos- . pitality was offered. I feel the difficulty of describ- ing intelligibly the impression made, not by par- ticular words and particular deeds, but by the generally pervading tone of a story ; but I am sure that the conduct of our Lord at Sychar indicates quite as distinctly, that His mind sympathised with human minds, as the weariness and hunger and thirst prove that His body sympathised with human bodies : the real question is, — what effect was produced by our Lord's manner and conversation upon the actual witnesses? philosophers and here- tics may spin theories at a distance, but I am con- fident that the Samaritan woman could never doubt for one single moment, that she had been speaking with one, who was not merely human in form, but (which is much more important) human in mind and feelings too. (3) Allow me next to refer to the narrative s. Johu which S. John gives us, and he only, of the attempt Thewoman made by the Scribes and Pharisees to obtain from aduhery. our Lord a sentence of condemnation upon a woman taken in adultery. A question has been raised as to the manner in which this application could afford, f^^ "^°*'^ as S. John tells us it was intended to afford, matter of accusation against Christ : to me it appears to have shewn much of the serpent's wisdom in its fitness to involve the Lord at least in a difficulty of conduct : for it would have seemed, that in de- clining to take upon Himself the office of Judge, which it was almost certain that He would do, He might probably be put in the position of at once 76 Clwist in His human Sympathy. LECT. setting aside what was represented as the Law of '. — Moses, and apj^earing to look w^ith indifference upon a palpable case of sin. But be the explanation of this point what it may, the moral of the tale so far as I am concerned with it is the same : for I wish to remark in it, not the wisdom by which the Lord avoided the difficulty and covered His temp- ters with shame, but the steadiness with which under these trying circumstances He preserved inviolate that principle which He afterwards expressly enun- s. John ciated, — / judge no man, — and how the fear of misunderstanding and misrepresentation did not hold Him back from speaking to a sinful sister those truly brotherly words of comfort and warn- ver. II. ing, / do not condemn thee: go, and sin no more. s. John ix. (4) The chapter following that which contains blind from this hlstory gives us the account of a miracle pecu- hisbiith. j-^j. ^Q g_ John, wdth the investigation into its reality by the Pharisees. The miracle itself is per- haps in no very important circumstances different from many others ; but there is one pai'ticular which gives the story an especial interest with re- ference to my present purpose. We find that the man who had received his sight, being put upon his trial, very shrewdly and manfully defended the v>'- ^5- character of his healer, arguing that whether a sinner or no certainly He was one who could give sight to the blind, and suggesting further that the VV.30-33- performance of such a work might be taken as suf- ficient evidence of the source from which His power came : we find also that the boldness of the man ver. 34. Qjj behalf of his benefactor led to his excommuni- cation : and this persecution for righteousness' sake introduces that feature of the story w^hich I desire Christ in His human SynqKithy. 77 to quote. Jesus went to seek for this simple-hearted lect. martyr, would not allow him to be persecuted with- out an assurance of sympathy, did in fact precisely s. John ix. what the kindness of a human heart would dictate, ■^'" and precisely that which, regarded only as a man, we feel that it was most fitting for the Lord to do. Let any one read the history, and say whether this was not so. (5) I come now to that wonderful chapter from «• John xi. which I have taken my text, — the shortest but weeping at perhaps the most emphatic verse of Scripture, — tfLfz'aras. Jesus ivept. The people who stood by j^robably did not give a full explanation of His tears, when they said. Behold hoiv He loved him: the tears ofver. 36. Christ are not to be so simply explained : neverthe- see Note less there can be no doubt of the explanation given ^°' by the people being true as far as it goes ; the tears were the real fruit of human feelings, and the weeping of Christ at the grave of His friend La- zarus has always been rightly regarded as one of the most convincing proofs of the reality of His manhood. For these tears cannot be contemplated (so to speak) by themselves : they form only a portion, — the most touching it may be, but still only a portion, — of the story of our Lord's friend- ship with the family at Bethany : they connect themselves with the fact which S. John plainly as- serts, that the Lord loved that family, loved them ver. 5. (that is) with a human preference beyond others, enjoyed their society, made their house rather than other houses His home. And the chapter from which the text is taken gives us not only the most wonderful passage in the history of this inti- macy, but also that which most exhibits the human 78 Clirist in His human Sy7nj)athy. LECT, character of our Lord's share in it. For we read that IV the weeping of Mary and of those who were with s. John xi. her touched the Lord's heart : He groaned in the spirit, and ivas trouhled, — He repressed the feehngs which strove to find utterance, restrained the vio- lence of His emotions, for such appears to be the meaning of the language used, — and as He walked with the mourners to the grave, He gave vent to His feelings, and wept. It is very easy to ask, why the Lord should weep, when He was about to restore Lazarus to life, and if there be a difficulty in giving a complete explanation, there is no reason why we should be surprised ; but a sufficient answer seems to be this, that however bright might be the prospect of the future, the present was sad as sad could be ; and the company of mourners and the solemnity of bereavement and the weeping of friends — all those things which make death sorrow- ful — had the same effect upon the Lord Jesus, as they would have had upon ourselves : Jesus wept : and His tears are the best proof possible, that in His sympathy with sorrow He was altogether like unto His brethren. s. John (6) But perhaps the most striking toucli of 77.' ^' ' true human feeling, to be met with in S. John's mother'ieft rccords of our Lord's life, is that which is found in of s^ John, tlie history of the crucifixion. S. John tells us that theo^e stood hy the cross of Jesus His mother and His mother s sister, Mary the wife of Cleoj)has, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple standing hy, whom He loved. He saith unto His mother, Woman, behold thy Son ! Then saith He to the disciple. Behold thy mother ! and from that hour that discijile took Christ in His human Sympathy. 79 he7' unto his own home. Now here we have at once lect. the feeling of friendship to the disciple, and the — — '— feeling of love to the mother : and it is very strik- ing to observe that this performance of filial duty immediately precedes the words, After this, Jesus s. john knoiving that all things were now accomplished, — as ^^^' '^^' though the work of making provision for her, who according to the flesh stood in such near relation to Himself, were a work which must first be ac- complished before the end could come. (7) Once more : I cannot but notice, that the s. John . xxi. particulars which S. John has recorded of the post- The inter- resurrectional life of our Lord are highly valuable Loi^°with for my present purpose. If there be any portion aftl'^HL of our Lord's sojourn upon earth, upon which a Jg^^^jj Docetic view of His humanity could be founded, it is certainly that which intervened between the Re- surrection and Ascension : and it must be at once admitted that there hangs over that part of the life of Christ a mystery peculiar to itself, and that although it is manifest that there was a difierence between the manner of our Lord's existence before and after the resurrection, it is difficult or impossi- ble to say precisely what the difference was. But it is also to be carefully borne in mind, that, what- ever the difference might be, certainly the Lord who rose again was in human identity He who died and was buried, and that when He rose again He brought back His human feelings with Him. And it is in illustration of this truth that S. John's narrative is so peculiarly valuable : it was no spirit who spoke to the disciples as did Christ : a sj^irit would not have flesh and bones, as they were com- s. Luke pelled to acknowledge both by sight and touch XXIV. 80 Christ in His human Sympathy. LECT. that He had ; a spirit would not eat and drink '- with them, as did Christ ; but above all, a spirit would not appeal to their human feelings, and shew such rare skill in awakening the conscience and touching the heart : certainly S. Peter, who s. John writhed under the thrice repeated question, Lovest ^6,"' 1 7!' i^i'OU me? and who was compelled to exclaim. Lord; Thou hnoivest all tilings: Thou hnowest that I love Thee, — certainly S. Peter, who had had such experience as this, would never be induced in after- times to question the genuine humanity of his risen Lord. All but one Here then we have a series of passages from iiiustrl- the life of Christ, taken exclusively from S. John's Lord's '^ history of the same, which serve to bring out into *'"'"'"' remarkable prominence the great truth that the Word ivas made flesh. Kemarkable prominence, I say ; because the evidence of humanity which they afford goes, not only to the proof of human form and bodily infirmities, but also to that of a human heart cind mind, and human weakness and human sympathies : and in exhibiting these pas- sages I have carefully confined attention to the human side of them, in order that the contrast may be more striking, when I proceed (as I now do) to the illustration of the fact, that in all the cases, ex- cept one, the glory of the only begotten of the Father shines forth conspicuously from the human flesh which He assumed. Thus in the instance of the marriage at Cana of Galilee, strikingly as it exhibits the reality of those bonds of fellowship which united Christ to those whom He was not ashamed to call His brethren, it exhibits no less strikingly His divine power : it nature have a di- vine side. (i)The marriage at Cana. Christ in His human Sympathy. 81 constituted indeed the first great epoch of His lect. pubHc life, was the occasion of that miracle which ' _ S. John marks emphatically as the beginning of^- J"^!'" "• miracles to the exclusion of all spurious tales of See Note the wonders of His infancy, and is marked by the ^^' peculiar expression. He manifested forth His glory, as though to bring the history into immediate con- nexion with that assertion in the former chai3ter, to which I have so often adverted, namely, that although the Word was made flesh, yet the glory of the only begotten of the Father might be clearly seen. So again, in the interview with the woman of (2) The Samaria, we have (as I have endeavoured to shew) samaria. the tale of one compassed with infirmity and full of human feeling : and yet it is remarkable, that in this interview our Lord should have unveiled His character more distinctly than on many other occasions apparently more solemn and more suit- able ; the mystery of His being first hinted at in the words. If thou hnewest the gift of God, and ivho s. John iv. it is that saith to thee. Give Me to drink, — then the ^°* promise of the living water of which he who drinks shall not thirst again, the ivell of ivater springing ver. 14. up into everlasting life, — then the opening of the secrets of the woman's history, — and lastly, the plain declaration that He Himself is the Messiah, ver. -.6. who was to come to men and to tell them all things : it is remarkable that these indications of the true being of Christ — the clearest I believe which up to this time had been given, — should have been afforded upon an occasion such as this, in which the externals of the scene were a travel- worn man from Judaea, resting Himself upon a G 82 Christ in His human Syinpathy. LECT. well, hungry, and thirsty, and conversing with a '- — Samaritan woman. VUl. II, <3)Thewo- The story of the woman taken in adultery is man taken n -n • r- i • ^ c ^ t inadui- equally illustrative oi the point belore us, though ^^^' in a very different way. The remarkable thing here is the transition from such a history to one of the most transcendent of those mysterious dis- courses, which belong exclusively to the Gospel of S. John. Observe the transition. Jesus said unto John her, neither do I co7idemn thee ; go and sin no more. Then sjKike Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the luorld: and with this great announce- ment of His true character, the Lord enters upon that discussion or dialogue, which terminates with ver. 58. the words. Before Abraham uxis, I am. No doubt See Note the qucstioii may be raised, whether S. John is here relating events in historic sequence ; to me there seems to be strong internal evidence, that the story at the commencement of the chapter is in organic connexion with the discourse which fol- lows it, and I find this evidence in the fact of our Lord laying so much stress upon the assertion, / ver. 15. judge no man, — as though He could appeal in this respect to His refusal to judge in the case of a manifest sin : but whether the historic sequence be preserved or not, the connexion in which S. John has placed the two views of our Lord's life is unde- niable, and abundantly answers the purpose for which I have cited them. S. John saw no incon- gruity in putting side by side the picture of Christ refusing to pass judgment upon sin, and the picture ver. 12. of Christ declaring Himself to be the light of the ver. 56, world, asserting that Abraham saiv His day and was glad, and then again hiding Himself from the Christ in His human Sympathy. 88 stones taken up by the Jews^, who deemed His lect. language blasphemous. ' Nor need we say less of the history of the blind (4) The man, who washed in the pool of Siloam and re- wind. ceived his sight. This history is of course at once lifted beyond ordinary history by the miracle which it contains ; but besides the actual miracle, which is neither less nor greater than many others, there is something in our Lord's behaviour towards the man, which deserves to be noticed in connexion with that part of His conduct, which has already been pointed out as exhibiting such gentle and con- siderate kindness. Jesus not only searched for the man who had suffered persecution for His sake, and found him, but when He had found him He addressed him with the words. Dost thou believe in s. Joimix. the Son of God ? And when the man demanded who this Son of God might be, the Lord revealed Himself in that wondrous character, which when Peter confessed, Christ declared that flesh and blood could not have revealed it, but only God Himself He permitted the man also to declare his faith in Him as the Son of God, and to worship Him as such without rebuke. So that the act, which exhibited brotherly kindness and charity, was also made the occasion of revealing the very deepest mysteries of God. And what shall we say of those tears of Christ (5) The '' . „ tears of at the grave of Lazarus ? true human tears, 11 ever Christ at such were shed, — it would be heresy and treason to of ISams the majesty of Christ to harbour a thought to the contrary, — and yet in what near connexion with a miracle, which shines forth almost beyond all other miracles in the character of the work performed, G 2 84 Christ in His human Sympathy. LECT, the solemnity and deliberation with which it was ' accomplished, the minuteness with which it has been recorded, and the historical importance of its results ! The sisters of Lazarus weep because they have lost their brother, the Jews weep with them, and Jesus cannot refrain from weeping too ; and yet immediately afterwards the manhood of Christ seems for the moment absolutely lost in the words, s. John xi. Lazarus, come forth ! — those words spoken to a 43 corpse, which had been a corpse for four days, given over to corruption, shut up (as was thought) ver. 24. in its gloomy home until the resurrection at the last day, — the words too proving their living power by not returning to the speaker void, but performing their mission, bringing back the spirit to him who was dead, restoring him again to the society of living men, — and this history related by one, who s.Joimxii. was cognisant of the flicts himself, who sat at meat afterwards with this returned inhabitant of the other world, and related by him with a simplicity and soberness which prove that from the point of view familiar to him such a history required no auxiliary evidence to back it, because it would de- monstrate its truth by its consistent propriety. The eye-witness of such an event would need nothing else to justify the declaration, that having seen with his eyes, and heard with his ears, and handled with his hands, the Word of life, and con- vinced himself that the Word was made very flesh, he had nevertheless not seen more distinct marks of His human infirmity than of His divine glory. (6) Tiio jje too, who had witnessed the scene between interview ' oftiie Lord the Lord and Simon Peter after the resurrection, s. Peter, and who had thus had the most distinct proof, that S. Johu Christ in His human Sympathy. 85 even in that peculiar portion of Plis sojourn upon lect. earth no Docetic view of His being would consist ' with the facts, that even then whatever else He might be He was identical in heart and feeling with His former human self, and that He could claim the love of His disciples as formerly and re- turn love for love as He had ever done, — he, I say, who like S. John had this evidence of the endur- ing character of the Lord's humanity, could yet never think of this portion of His sojourn on earth without bearing in mind the mysterious character which belonged to it, and its glorious consumma- tion when He was taken up into Heaven. So that referring to this portion of the history we may almost say that the veil is removed, the tabernacle of flesh gone, the glory of the only begotten of the Father manifested in cloudless splendour ; yet, as I have shewn, even here the humanity is not for- gotten, and it is S. John who has recorded the most striking incident, which can be quoted from the great forty days, to prove how real that huma- nity was. And thus I have traced, — in a way which will (7) The ex- .,.,.,-■, ceptional perhaps appear more striking when considered at case. leisure, than it possibly can when merely indicated by the hints of a sermon, — the shining forth of the divine glory from all except one of those exhibi- tions of the human nature of Christ, which I have selected from the Gospel of S. John. From all except one, — and the exception is precisely of that kind which tends to strengthen the value of the rule, which in the other cases is so manifestly ful- filled. I have noted that when the Lord hung upon the cross, He entrusted His mother to the 86 Christ in His human Sympathy. LECT. care of that disciple whom He loved : it was em- '- — phatically the hour of Christ's weakness^ — crucified 1 Cor. xiii. through weakness, says an Apostle, — and in this act '^' of filial love, the very essence of which consists in its humanity, I am unable to perceive a trace of any other than the human element of the Lord's being. If one may venture so to speak with re- verence, it may perhaps be said with truth, that it could not have been otherwise, that the significance of the act would have been marred, if there had been anything which could interfere with the con- clusion, that the bequest of His Mother to the beloved disciple was that which it purported to be, — the genuine act and deed of a man and a son. Taking therefore this as a rule, that the human works of Christ do if examined manifest forth His divine glory, this history presents us with an ex- ception : I readily admit it : nay I have dwelt upon it, just because this is so ; for it seems to me, that the manifest singularity of this case, regarded in the hght of its manifest propriety, tends more than anything else to throw out in strong colours those other and much more numerous passages of the Saviour's life, in which the verity of His human flesh is not more conspicuous than the verity of His divine glory. Here then I complete the picture of the life be drawn of our Lord Jcsus Clirist, which it has been my considera- purposo to Set bcforo you to-day. The question is, — what conclusion may be drawn from it ? Of course it may be said, if persons think themselves justified in saying so, that S. John, or whoever was the author of the fourth Gospel, had a certain conception of Christ and drew His life accordingly : What con elusion to tions ? Christ in His human Sympailiy. 87 it is very hard to support such a view upon critical lect, grounds, because the Gospel of S. John, can be L traced to too early a period to make the process upon which this view depends at all probable, not to mention the internal evidence which the Gospel bears of having come from the hand of one who had witnessed the scenes which he describes : but this is a department with which (as I have said on on other occasions) I have no intention of dealing. I desire rather to suggest to you the difficulty, and I might almost say the impossibility, of any one painting such a picture, as that of which I have been describing some of the features, unless he painted from the life. How difficult it is to pro- duce upon canvass a visage of the Saviour, upon which we can look without dissatisfaction and with- out disappointment ! knowing as he does know the character of the person to be represented, how hard for the painter to represent Him ! or rather, how hard the task, just because so much is known of the mysterious elevation of character, which it is necessary to concentrate in a human face ! But what is such a task as this, compared with that of representing the Saviour in the plain words of his- tory, of introducing us into His social life. His behaviour at weddings and at funerals. His conver- sations by the wayside. His controversies with the men of His time, His habits of friendship. His love to His Mother, His conduct before death and after it too, — who can at all estimate the difficulty of such a task as this ? And if we find the history ever consistent with itself, — mysterious and transcend- ent, as it must be, but still consistent with itself, — ever exhibiting the perfect feelings of a man whom 88 Christ in His liuman Sympathy. LECT. we can love, and the glory of one whom we can '. venture to worship, may we not rest in the conclu- sion announced by S. John himself, that he re- corded things which he knew to be true, in order S.John that we who read might believe that Jesus is the XX. 31, Christ, the Son of God; and that believing we might have life through His Name f LECTURE V. CHRIST WITH HIS HUMAN FRIENDS. Preached on Sunday, October 5, 1856. S. JOHN XIII. 23. Noic there was leaning on Jesus hosom^ one of His disciples^ whom Jesus loved. T HE fact recorded in the text exhibits to us lect. one of the smaller manifestations of the Lord's ^' peculiar feeling of friendship towards S. John. It ^ur tells us of a trifling priority accorded to him, feeling which would probably not have been mentioned, s. John. if it had not afforded the opportunity of asking a question in a whisper concerning the treachery of Judas. The trifling character of the precedence, however, makes it all the more valuable as an indication of our Lord's feeling: the mother of Jesus might possibly have been entrusted to S. John because he was the disciple most capable of maintaining her; the same Apostle might have been chosen for some of the special services of which we read, not so much because he was the beloved disciple as because he was one of the Sons g Mark of Thunder; but when the question concerns "^- ''• merely the post of honour at a feast, and we find that Jesus' bosom, the place next to Himself, is allotted to S. John, we can have no hesitation in attributing this precedence to that personal love and regard which he beyond the others enjoyed. 90 Christ ivith His human Friends. LECT. The picture of S. John recHiiing on the bosom of Jesus at the last Supper may therefore suggest ti?Let-°^ a few thouglits concerning a subject of great inte- deTort*''^ rest, namely, the deportment of our Lord with ment of regard to His human friends. It will be remem- withre- bered that the plan of this course of Lectures His human luvolves tho examination of the manner, in which Fnends. ^j^^ diviue being of our Lord ever shines through His humanity; the words which I have taken as the motto of the whole course are those of S. John, s. John i. The Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us, and we beheld His glory; the glory of tJie only begotten of the Father making itself visible through the curtain of human flesh, — the constant spark- ling forth of a heavenly light from those features of His character, and those portions of His life, and those habits of thought and conduct, which are most obviously and incontestably human, — this is what I have wished to bring into clear vision by an examination of Gospel history. It is manifest that every portion of the Lord's life which exhibits human sympathies ought to be to my purpose in carrying out this design; if that life be what we believe it to have been, it ought to exhibit at once the most infallible marks of what is human and equally infalhble indications of what is divine; and the thing which I have attempted to do is this, to fix. attention upon a certain num- ber of points, which may be described as foci of the general illumination that lights up the whole earthly history of God made Man. Import- Now it is obvious, that if in the Life of our oWvLf' Saviour upon earth we can discover anything our Lord wliicli cau propcrly be described by the name of Christ with His human Friends. 91 friendship, it ought not to be omitted from the lect. argument with wliich I am dealing. It ought not '- — to be omitted, because not only is friendship pecu- -JJ^J^^sst liarly and emphatically human, but the intercourse f"*^^^^- of friendship, more perhaps than anything else, reveals the thoughts and intents of the heart; a man's character is generally known by his friends, and is frequently not thoroughly known by any others; a great and notable person is often a very different man within the charmed circle of familiar intercourse from what he seems to be in public and official life ; and a writer of fiction proposes to himself a difficult task, when he undertakes to describe appropriately the deportment in the com- pany of his friends of some one who is chiefly known as a public character ; or, to speak of the for- mation of myths rather than of writers of fiction, I should think that the contrast between the mythical and the historical would be most easily detected by observing what manner of myths are those, which have grown up round the hero of the mythology in his intercourse with his chosen friends. For friendship, as I have said, is peculiarly and emphatically human; only men require it, only men can enjoy it. '^ Those that want friends to Essay on open themselves unto," says Bacon, ''are cannibals shq^, of their own hearts." And there is this of special interest in friendship, that it is one of the fruits which seem, if I may so speak, to have grown wild in the world before Christ came ; for though that is in a certain sense true which has been remarked, namely, that friendship can then only See Note be real when Christ is the foundation of it, and ^^" See Note 34- -r 92 Christ ivith His human Friends. LECT. though it would be impious to deny that Christ '- — has thrown Hght upon this as upon all the other relations of humanity, and though we are bound to bear in mind in forming friendships that those only are worth forming which will last for evermore in the Communion of Saints, still it must not be denied that the ancients who had not the Gospel of Christ had yet much light in this particular. It is admirable to observe, for example, how much truth Cicero has collected in his treatise upon the subject; telling us, as he does, that there can be no friendship except amongst the good, that virtue is its necessary condition, and that its root is not in the selfish desire of advantao^e but in lovino^- kindness and regard. Christ May we then — perhaps, I ought to say, dare regLded WO thcu — Contemplate the Saviour of the world *^"^' as one, to whom, in the completeness of His humanity, the feeling of friendship was not want- ing? The whole tenour of the Gospel history teaches us that we may : reverence of course espe- cially becomes us in such a task : the rebuke which s. Matt. Peter received, when he presumed upon the inti- XVI. 22,23. jQ^^jy ^Q which Christ had admitted him to tender advice which was not required, and w^hicli savoured of an earthly view of the Lord's work and mission, may teach all disciples to be careful of their con- duct when permitted to approach very near their Lord : but with this precaution we may not only safely take the view of which I speak, but may confidently hope that the view will j^roduce the same effect upon our minds that it produced upon the mind of S. John — of him, who, having had nearer communication with Christ as a friend than ^ Christ ivith His human Friends. 93 any other, was penetrated beyond others with that lect. truth to which his writings especially testify, namely, ' that Jesus Christ was the Word, and that the Word was God. Now it is not unworthy of observation, that The the authentic documents of our faith tell us nothing mcntii.u of the companions or friends of Christ in His early f,"ends'^of years. That beautiful dream of art, which asso- ^'"■'^*- ciates the Lord in His childhood with S. John Baptist, and which, from the frequency and the skill with which the tale has been told, seems almost to persuade us that it must have some root in fact, is nevertheless a dream and nothing more. We read indeed of a visit paid by the mother of f^- Luke i. the one child to the mother of the other before the birth of either; and it is possible that such visits may have been repeated during the childhood of the two; but the hapj^y companionship of early boyhood, suggested by the representations to which I have referred, stands out in striking contrast with the few facts recorded in the sacred history, which tells us, that the one child ivas in the deserts ^- Luke i. till the day of his shewing unto Israel, and that the other was carried down into Egypt to avoid the persecution of Herod. That there is a natural tendency to peep into the early years of the Lord, and a natural temptation to supply by fiction the silence of the inspired documents, I have already remarked, when speaking of the events of the Lord's boyhood ; the Apocr^^^hal Gospels do in See Note fact supply tales of the Lord's conduct with His boyish companions, albeit very unworthy tales; and hence the silence of the Gospels is the more marked; all reference to youthful companionship ^ 94 Christ with His human Friends. LECT. is omitted ; S. John the Baptist is represented as '- — a stranger to the divine character of Christ until 22 ° '° '■ the era of the baptism, and their acquaintance is founded upon their relation to each other in the economy of the kingdom of God, not upon their tie of blood or early family intercourse ; and indeed it is to be noted, that almost all those persons Avhom the Lord adopted as His friends, appear to have become first acquainted with Him after He K. Luke hegan to he about thirty years of age, and had fully entered upon His ministry. Christ As then the Lord had, according to the general upoTiais belief of the Church, no actual brethren according ohoosc7' to the flesh, so had He no friends of infancy or fneuds. childhood, — none, at least, whose history is so bound up with His ministry as to make their early .intimacy a necessary part of the Gospel narrative. When, however, the fulness of time is come, a remarkable change takes place : Christ did not s. Matt, merely begin to j)reach, saying, The kingdom of Heaven is at hand, nor did He merely commission those who heard the tidings and believed them to go and publish the same throughout Juda?a and Galilee, but He chose certain out of those who s. Mark gave heed to His words, emphatically, that they should he with Him; they were not to be merely s. John messengers but companions, — not servants hut friends, — not merely agents for multij^tying His ; power, and doing work which He could not do Himself, but witnesses of His human weakness, sym^^athisers with Him in His sorrow, comforts and supports to Him in the hour of darkness and Our LonVs trial. And it is useful to remark the simple, in- quaihtance formal, apparently accidental manner, in which the Christ ivith His human Friends. 95 Lord appears to have commenced His acquaintance lect. with some of the disciples, who afterwards acted the most prominent parts in the foundation of the discipks! Church, and whose names we now reverence as those of Apostles and Martyrs. Thus, for example, S. John tells us how the Lord introduced to Him- s. joim i. self Andrew and another, who from the tone of ■'^' the narration may almost certainly be concluded to have been the Evangelist himself These two v/ere disciples of S. John Baptist, and were led by his preaching to look for the greater One who was to come, and who was to take away the sins of the world. They were standing with their master when Jesus passed by, and as He passed, S. John looked upon Him and exclaimed. Behold the Lamb ver. 36. of God! The two disciples followed Jesus, went with Him to His home, accepted His offer of hospitality, and remained with Him that day. ver. 39. Andrew finds his own brother Simon, tells him that they have found Messiah, and introduces him ver. 41. also to Christ. This is the manner in which such Apostles as Peter and John became personally known to the Lord. And as a comj^anion to this picture which S. John has given us, drawn with such admirable simplicity, we may turn to another which we find in S. Mark, and which relates to a period somewhat later in the history, when they with whom the Lord had thus become (if I may so speak) casually acquainted, had been solemnly called to be disciples. S. Mark tells us how that s. Mark i. in coming out of the synagogue, in the early part of His ministry, Jesus retired to the house of Simon and Andrew, how He made this house His home See Note for the time, permitted Andrew to return the 96 Christ with His human Friends. LECT. hospitality which he had received, and blessed the '- house which sheltered Him by healing one of the ver. 31. family of a fever. Very slight and incidental notices these, but quite sufficient, or rather admir- ably well adapted, to illustrate the simple informal character of which I have spoken as belonging to the origin of that wonderful companionship, upon which the Church of Christ has been built : using merely human language we might say, that the strong ties of duty and reverence on the one side, and of affectionate love and care on the other, which bound together such A^DOstles as Andrew and Peter and John with their Lord, arose out of a casual meeting and a casual acquaintance and the gentle offices of hospitality. Of course it is s. John most true, that Jesus knew throughout whom He '" ' ' ^ was choosing, even when he chose Judas the traitor, and that as there is nothing casual in the fall of a sparrow, so much more was there nothing casual in the meeting of these disciples with Christ; but it is also true, that as the Lord made prepara- tion for His public ministry by choosing certain who should be His companions and friends, so the outward chain" of events, by means of which He became acquainted with those chosen ones, was so thoroughly natural, as to be, what in common Other language we should call, accidental. Nor in ^dewing the connexion of our Lord with His companions from its natural side need we be disquieted by the remark, that Christ was but following the example IS Christ, of otlicr tcachers in collecting around Him a body of favourite disciples : S. John the Baptist did so ; so did the Jewish Rabbis; so did the Philosoj^hers of Greece; rather would it seem to be a truer view have chosen disciples in like manner Christ loith His human Friends. 97 of the case to regard the analogy as intentional lect. and real, and to recognise in it one of the marks ' of the Lord's humanity, while at the same time we bear in mind that there is much which differences the relation of Christ to His disciples in the most absolute manner possible from all human analogues. This difference it will be my business to exhibit Friends of more distinctly hereafter ; at jiresent let me remind side thr' you of a fact, which is indeed patent upon the sur- ^ j'^J^j. face of the Gospel history, namely, that our Lord p'*^'^- stood in a relation, which may be described as one of personal friendship, to some who were not com- jDanions or disciples in the stricter sense of the term, and the record of whose friendship appears most important when regarded as testifying to the genuine humanity of Christ. I think, for example, that we can hardly fail to accord the title of a personal friend of the Lord to Nicodemus : the acquaintance between them did not, as we certainly know, terminate with that first visit by nio^ht : thouo^h shrinkincr, as it would seem, from confessing Christ openly, and in God's wise Pro- vidence not called upon to give this test of his sincerity, he still made use of his jolace in the Sanhedrim to screen his Master from persecution, breaking up (as you will remember that upon one. s. John occasion he did) a meeting, held to concert means ^"' ^^' of effectual suppression of the new teacher, by a pertinent question concerning the first principles of law and right. Nor was this all : for we find him s. John coming forward more boldly afterwards with Joseph '''''■ of Arimathsea, a disciple apparently very much of his own stamp, to pay the last debt of affectionate regard to the crucified body of Christ. We seem H 98 Cli)ist with His human Friends. LECT, to perceive in these incidental notices, the evidence '. of a friendship extending over the whole of the Lord's public ministry ; for it is extremely improb- able, that one, who took such an intense and grow- ing interest in Christ as is indicated by the three notices of Nicoderaus, should not have taken more : he, who visited Christ so early in His ministry, and was so kindly received, and entertained with such weighty discourse, was likely to visit Him again : he, who befriended Christ in the Sanhedrim, was likely to befriend Him in many other ways : and he, who was not ashamed to anoint with most precious ointment the body of one Avho had died a death of shame, gave the best evidence possible of the strength to which his love had attained. Tin; example, however, is of value, more as an indication of the feelings which were called forth towards Christ from the hearts of others, than as shewing the human feelings of love with which Christ regarded His friends : still it shews, that there were persons beyond the limits of His own family, and beyond the circle of His chosen disciples, who were related to Him by the tie of acquaintance, and who, by being brought into personal contact with Him, were constrained to love Him. The same thing may be said of those s. Luke women, of whom we read that they ministered unto ^"" ^' Ilim of their suhstance; the same especially of her, who, having been set free from the sevenfold power s. Luke Qf Satan, loved her Saviour with the intense love vu. 47. of one, to whom much has been forgiven. But the same thing must not be said of the family at Bethany, concerning whom it is recorded, not merely that they loved Jesus, but that Jesus loved Christ ivith Ills human Friends. 99 them; Lazarus He describes emphatically as the lect. friend of Himself and His disciples; — our friend ' ^ Lazarus ; — and the Lord demonstrated His feel- s. John ings towards the family, not only by choosing '''■ "' Lazarus as one of the few monuments of His power over the grave, but much more by making the house at Bethany His home (as it would seem See Note that He did) during the most trying portion of ^^'' His sojourn upon earth. I have, on a former occasion, touched upon this most remarkable inti- macy of Christ, when speaking generally of His human sympathy ; at present I desire to call attention to it, as bringing out in the fullest and most undeniable manner the genuineness of the feeling of friendship, as one of those which our Lord shared with ourselves : it is not, as I remarked just now, merely that Lazarus and his sisters loved Christ, but that Christ loved them, that He sought and enjoyed their society, that after the , strife and noise of the city, and the spiritual labours and combat in which His Father's work involved Him, and the weariness of body and distress of mind which were His daily portion. He found in the retirement of their home the solace which His human nature required. Of course, one such in- stance as this is as good as a thousand ; or rather it is much better, for friendship can hardly be very manifold, and love is the more intense the fewer the objects upon which it is concentrated : possibly there were not many beyond the circle of His own immediate disciples, to whom the title of intimate friends can be applied as it can to Mary and Martha and Lazarus ; but if there were none, the existence of these would manifestly suffice to establish the H 2 100 Christ with His human Friends. LECT. fact, that the feeling of friendship in its fullest and '. most tender form, that feeling which leads to the ( communion of heart with heart, and teaches the V mind oppressed w4th grief to seek solace in the company of the holy and pure and good, was not wanting to the heart of Him, who took human nature upon Him. The Lord Ycs ! woudcrful and almost overwhelming as aSain"' the thought appears, yet the Gospel history seems hlTe *"" to warrant us in saying, that the tie which bound l!'pon*His Christ to His friends was so human and so true friends. that both partics leaned upon it. I have already remarked that Jesus chose twelve expressly that they might he with Him, — a phrase shewing the value which He put upon human society, and which is strengthened by the words which our Lord afterwards used when He described His dis- s. Luke V ciples as those who had continued with Him in His temjytations: I have also alluded to the hints which we have of the real solace which the Lord found in the company of His chosen friends at Bethany ; but by far the most wonderful illustration of the point is that, which is afforded by the conduct of the Lord in Gethsemane : in that awful hour of agony we find Him not quite in solitude; He took the favoured three, who had seen Him in His glory, to watch with Him in this moment of trial ; I shrink from the thought of prying into the mysteries of that wondrous scene ; I know that isai. ixiii. in the most awful sense, Christ trod the icinepress alone; I know also that human sympathy would have been impotent to lighten the burden, with which His soul was pressed down : nevertheless xxvi. 38. we have His own words, My soul is exceeding Christ ivitli His human Friends. 101 sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and lect. watch with Me ; and is it wrong to conclude, — nay^ '__ does not the gentle reproach to Peter, Could ye ver. 40. not ivatch with Me one hourf press us towards the conclusion, — that the thought of His three dearest friends being at hand w\as a support to the soul of Him, who did not disdain the offices of a s. Luke ministering spirit in His agony and bloody sweat ? ^''"' '^^' I am persuaded that no one can examine such This view hints of our Lord's manner of life, as those which Lrcrs I have been exhibiting, without perceiving the ha™ts'''"^ genuine humanity of His nature, — without perceiv- 'divine side. ing delicate but decisive admissions of genuine brotherhood with our race on the part of the Lord Himself : admissions all the more decisive because they are delicate, and which have a great subsi- diary value, when regarded in connexion with the broader proofs of His humanity. I wish, however, now to proceed to shew that this view of the Lord's manhood, as all others, has its divine side. I wish to examine in what manner the divine peeped through, what there is in the intercourse of Jesus Christ with His human friends, which shall compel us to say, Here also we behold a glory, which does not belong to man. And in doing so I remark first of all, that in Contact hardly any instance were men allowed to come into Lorcr'^" near contact with our Lord, without the contact marked by being marked by some outcoming of His divine of^^yinu^ being. Observe for instance the case of Nathaniel, as recorded by S. John : it is a simple introduction s. John i. by Philip of a friend, prejudiced indeed against ^^' anything coming from Nazareth, and yet free from guile ; a simple introduction, I say, and yet it led s. 102 Christ with Ills human Friends. LECT. to a revealing of secrets which exploded all Natha- '. niel's prejudices, and to a very mysterious declara- tion concerning the opening of Heaven and the '■r. 51- ascent and descent of angels upon the Son of Man. Again : observe how the special favour accorded to Peter and James and John led to special mani- Mark festatious of glory; theij, the only comjDanions of the Lord, when He raised the daughter of Jairus Matt, from death ; thei/, the only witnesses of the trans- figuration ; so that if these three were permitted to know more than others of their Lord's infirmity, they had also such testimony as none others had of His surpassing majesty. Or again : let it be remembered, that the close friendship with the John xi. family at Bethany issued in the resurrection of Lazarus, and therefore that the history of the Lord's intimacy with that family, if recorded apart from all other portions of His life, would contain at once, in the most concentrated form, the human and the divine, — evidence of the heart which could love, and of the mouth which could speak witli creative power. Or once more : let it be remem- bered, that the whole of the i^ost-resurrectional appearances of the Lord were granted to friends, that the witnesses of His resurrection were those ots i. 2 1. who had companied with Him in the days of His flesh, and that one of the earliest appearances was made to two of His disciples who walked into the S.Luke country, whom the Lord joined in friendly wise upon the road, entering into conversation with them, accepting their hospitality in the evening, and finally making Himself known to them as they sat at meat. In fact, the ground (so far as human evidence is concerned) upon which we bc- XXIV, ver. -29. Christ with His human Friends. 103 lieve the Gospel, and upon which it ever has been lect. beheved, is the testimony of the friends of Christ ; ^' that intimacy, which He graciously permitted to some few of His brethren in the days of His flesh, is the means, by which His divine being has become known ; the argument by which S. John pressed the truth of His testimony was this, that he had seen and heard and handled the incarnate i johni.r. Word of life ; the pillars of the Church are they, who, having been admitted into the sacred heart of Christ, have been able to give evidence of His A- thorough humanity, and yet to testify to His divine glory. Thus, looking to particular cases, it is easy to Certain see how the divine side of our Lord's being has ITtures of been exhibited by means of His human friendships. SXrcoJi^se But I am much more desirous of making it appear, ^I^Jj^^'^ that there are to be observed in His intercourse which . -. f, . ^ ^ ^• • 1 • If shew forth With friends and disciples certain general features. His divine which difference that intercourse altogether from '' °'"^' what might have been expected in the case of a merely human teacher of high endowments, dealing with those who are consciously inferior to him in knowledge and jiower, but not different in kind. I am desirous of doing this, because this seems to me to belong to the truest and most lasting species of Christian evidence : it may be said that miracles have been invented, or gradually came to be be- lieved in the case of Christian as of other history ; it may be said that additions have been made to the original tale ; it may be questioned wdiether the Gospels were written by eye-witnesses or credible witnesses, or whether they were current in the first century ; but no such questions can attach 104 CJwist with Ills human Friends. LECT. to evidences arising out of the general tone and '. character of the Lord's hfe and conversation, and if that general tone and character, as represented in the Gospels, be an adequate exponent of the Catholic Creed concerning Him, then it is manifest that we have here a strong ground upon which believers may rest, and one which even simple people may understand. The nature Obscrve, thcu, iu the intercourse of our Lord Lordl sii- with His disciples, the air of conscious superiority, penority. ^^iQ mauucr iu which it is made manifest that the disciples ever felt that suj)eriority, and what kind s. John of superiority it was. Ye call Me Master and sl^Matt. Lord, and ye say ivell, for so I am. Call no man xMii. 9, lo. ^^^^,^. ji'^i^j^Q^ upon earth; for one is your Father, which is in heaven. Neither he ye called masters ; for one is your Master, even Chinst. You may remark, for instance, that on no occasion but one did our Lord ask advice of His disciples : and the manner in which that occasion is recorded, proves how thoroughly exceptional the Evangelist felt it to be. When our Lord saw the multitude in the s. John wilderness, He said to Philip, Whence shall ive buy bread that these may eatf but adds the Evangelist, this Jesus said to pi^ove him, for lie Himself knew ivhat He woidd do. He Himself knew what He would do ; this sentence appears to express the profound conviction of the disciples in all their dealings with Christ ; and so they served (as it were) standing and waiting, ready to do what they were bid to do, but not presuming to advise ; or if they felt tempted to advise, the answer which Peter received, when he transgressed in this sort, would probably serve to restrain them ; Christ 5. S. Matt xvi. 22, Christ with His human Friends. 105 commanded and warned and comforted and re- lect. buked, but He never consulted ; in the most ^' critical portions of His life, especially in the days j)receding His death, we find His bearing pre- cisely that which it was when He thought it sufficient to say to His disciples upon the lake of Gennesaret, It is I; he not afraid. s. Joim vi. But again : although it may not go to the full The detei- length of evincing the divine being of our Lord, ciusefof still it is worthy of remark, that while in His ["0^",^*'^ dealings with His friends He ever shewed a thoroughly human appreciation of kindness mani- fested towards Him, yet there was something beside, or rather beyond this, which determined the direction of His own love. The relation, in which the hearts of men stood to His Father in Heaven, was a matter of deeper importance than any personal attention to Plimself. Thus the s. Luke x. anxiety of Martha to treat her guest with due "^'' "^'* honour and respect, was not estimated so highly as the willingness of Mary to sit at His feet and hear His words — those words being, as no doubt they were, words concerning the kingdom of heaven. And though He loved His disciples as those who had been with Him in His temptations, who had given up all to follow Him, and so had afforded a proof of aifection such as the world had hardly seen before, yet when He Himself spoke of the bonds of union between Himself and them, as He so often did in those final discourses recorded by S. John, He dwelt upon the manner in which s. John they had believed that He came from God, their ^"' "''■ love to Him arguing that they loved God, their faith in Him indicating- faith in the Father. 106 Christ icith His human Friends. LECT. PerhajDS, however, the feature to which I now — — '- — refer is exhibited in the strongest hght by the manner in which Christ twice spoke of blood relationship to Himself, as compared with that deeper relationship which depends upon obedi- ence to God : when a woman in the crowd on one occasion, carried away by the excitement of her s. Luke feelings, cried out, Blessed is the ivomh that hare XI. 2/, 1 . rpj^^^^ ^^^^^ fj^^ 2^<^*'Ps ivhich Thou hast sucked, she drew forth the reply, Yea, 7xUher blessed are they that hear the ivord of God and keep it ; and w^hen on another occasion His mother and brethren desired to come at Him and could not for the s. Mark press, He declared that ichosoever ivould do the will of His Father in heaven the same should be accounted by Him as brother and sister and mother. Character But still further it may be urged, that the Lord's con- convcrsations of our Lord with His disciples and witrHis'' friends exhibit certain characteristics, which lift friends. ^Y\q disciplesliip and friendship above anything merely human, — certain characteristics which are quite consistent and intelligible, and indeed such as we should expect to find, upon the supposition of Christ being such as we believe Him to be, but equally difficult to understand upon any low^er hypothesis. Of course the full proof of this would require an examination in detail of the discourses which our Lord held with His disciples ; but it will be sufficient f(jr my purpose to remark, that the Evangelists themselves testify to the fact which I wish to put in evidence : they tell us, for ex- ample, that when the Lord charged them not to tell any man what thev had seen on the mount of Christ ivith His human Friends. 107 Transfiguration, till the Son of man ivere risen from lect. the dead, they questioned one ivith another ivhat the ^' rising from the dead shoidd mean ; so again, when s. Mark the Lord spoke of his sufferings before the last ''^' '°' journey to Jerusalem, we read that they under- s. Luke stood none of these things ; and on a similar occa- '^'^"'- 3+- sion S. Luke tells us, not only that they did not understand, but that they feared to ask for an s. Luke explanation. The disciples appear in fact to have ^^' '^^' learned that lesson, which the Virgin Mother illus- trated long before, namely, that the relation in which they were permitted to stand to Jesus Christ, would render it necessary for them fre- quently to listen in faith and patience, and lay up what they heard in their hearts. But it will be observed, that whatever difficulty might be experienced in understanding our Lord's words, did not arise from obscurity of diction or from the abstruseness of the topic discussed ; it arose from this, that the mind of Clirist expatiated in regions in which they who were merely human could not follow Him, that the law of His intuition was different from theirs, that He measured the pre- sent by a standard which tliey could not appreciate, and spoke of the future as familiarly as though it were already past. His future sufferings, His rising from the dead. His ascent to glory and the descent of the Spirit upon the Church required to be realised as events, before the disciples could un- derstand them. And if He, ivho calleth those things Rom. iv. ivhich he not as though they tvere, condescend to '''■ be made flesh and dwell amongst us, and He M'ho could speak as familiarly of the mansions of His Father's house as of the streets and lanes of 108 Christ with His human Friends. LECT. Jerusalem, permit men to walk with Him as '. companions and friends, how should it be other- wise than that He should sj^eak, and theij should be accustomed to hear, words, which, at the time of utterance at least, involved riddles and mys- teries ? The disci- Ycs : riddlcs and m3^steries there must needs thSViOTy have been, even if the wisest of mankind had been ?nS^e"re- chosen to listcu to the words of Him who spake as trospect, never man spake ; how much more to the minds of those, who were taken from their fishing-boats to be His companions and friends ! And yet I would have you to remark, — for the case is very incom- plete unless this be done, — that those Galilean fishermen did afterwards arrive at such a state of mind, that they were able to look back upon their communion with Christ, and upon all that they had heard and seen in His society, as being entirely in keeping with tlieir creed concerning Him, who, having been crucified dead and buried, had ascended to the right hand of God, — to regard His mysterious conversations as the vehicles of the most sober truth, — to perceive that the difli- culties which once beset His words were the im- mediate results of the reality of that character, which under the teaching of the Holy Spirit they had been led to ascribe to Him. That they did arrive at this state of mind is certain, for tlieir conduct proves it ; the Acts of the Apostles are the true commentary upon the Gospels ; and taking what we find recorded in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, and regarding it as a specimen of much more of the same kind which undoubtedly took place, and remembering the relation in which Christ ivitli His human Friends. 109 the chief actors stood to the Lord Jesus Christ in lect. the days of His flesh, we can perhaps hardly put ' together a plainer and more forcible argument for the reality of our faith, than that which arises from a consideration of the conduct of our Lord towards His chosen friends and their conduct with regard to Him. Twelve men, it may be argued, were intimate friends of Christ ; they saw Him in public and in private ; they heard His words, and con- fessed that they heard much which they did not understand ; one of these betrayed Him to death and went and hanged himself; the others went through the world preaching Him as the Way the Truth and the Life, declaring that they had seen Him after His resurrection from the dead, that He had been taken up from them into Heaven, and that they were ready to lay down their lives in attestation of the assertion, that they had seen His glory. One word more. The conduct of Christ to- Conciu- wards His friends is an important subject of^^""' thought, not only as a branch of evidence and as illustrative of the deeper doctrines of Christian theology, but as bearing upon the practical con- cerns of our own spiritual life. We who believe that Christ being raised from the dead dieth ?io Rom. vi.9. more, but lives as the representative of the human race in the courts of heaven, a Highpriest who can Heb. iv, still be touched luith the feeling of our infirmities, ^^' may well look upon His conduct towards His friends while on earth as the type of His conduct towards His friends now. Be it observed, therefore, for the comfort of those who may feel that it con- cerns them, that the Gospel history represents the 110 Christ ivith His human Friends. LECT. intercourse of Christ with His friends as beino^ full V. , ^ — of forbearance on one side, and full of slowness of heart and misapprehension on the other. Christ was ever gentle and patient towards those, who in spite of human infirmities did yet in their hearts love Him, and who loved the Father that sent s. John iii. Him, Thus Nicodemus asked IIoiv can these things ^' he ? And Mary and Martha reproached Him because their brother was dead ; and Joseph of Arimathsea would not confess Him for fear of the Jews; and Peter under the influence of fear denied three times that he knew Him; and Thomas stoutly declared that he would not believe the resurrection; and those two disciples who went to Emmaus hung down their heads in despair, when they ought to have kept the Easter Feast. But in all these and the like cases we find the Saviour full of forbear- ance, ready to make allowance for human infirmity, very tolerant of doubts, praying for His friends under temptation, revealing Himself to them witli greater clearness than before. There is but one exception to the rule, and that exception is Judas Iscariot. This man in the mysterious providence of God had the privilege of being one of the chosen friends of Christ ; he sustained the character to the last ; the faithful disciples seem never to have sus- pected, that he was a less faithful disciple than themselves ; and, of all the friends of Christ on earth, he alone seems to have fallen away to be numbered amongst Christ's friends no more. But he fell away, not because he doubted concerning See Note Christ ; as I once said in this place before, the ^ ■ damning feature of his case was, that he had no doubts ; he fell because he loved money, and be- Christ ivith His human Friends. Ill cause he chose to sacrifice to selfisl) gain the high lect, principle of honour and the bonds of gratitude and 1_ love. And the moral which I draw is this : — that in all ages the friends of Christ may feel assured, that darkness arising from human infirmity will be gently regarded and finally taken away from their eyes, if only they do those things which Christ has commanded with earnestness of purpose and in purity of heart. LECTURE VI. CHRIST TEACHING. Preached on Sunday, October 12, 1856. S. MATTHEW VII. 28, 29. And it came to pass^ tc/ien Jesus had ended these sai/in(/s, the people were astonished at His doctrine : For He taught them as one having authority, and not as the Scribes. LECT. mHESE words of S. Matthew contain a record L of the effect produced upon the minds of His of theTex". hearers by the earUer teaching of Christ. S. Mark s. Mark i. gives the same account, using in fact the same words ; and S. Luke varies very httle when he s. Luke iv. tells us, that they were astonished at His doctrine, 2" for His ivord ivas ivith ijoiver. The coincidence of the three Gospels is not to be accounted for upon the supposition that the statement made by one Evangelist was adopted by the others, for indeed the occasion to which the words are referred by S. Matthew is not the same as that to which they are assigned by S. Mark and S. Luke; but more probably upon this other supposition, that each Evangelist recorded a remark made by the people not once but frequently, not in one place but in many. Be this however as it may, the comparison drawn in the text between the teaching of our Lord and that of the Scribes, can by no means surprise us : the contrast, in which the Sermon on the Mount would stand with the sermons to which Christ Teaching. 113 tliey were accustomed, would probably be one of lect. the chief things by which the minds of the simple '. — folks of Galilee would be struck : so far as we can form any judgment of the teaching of these Scribes, it was the very emptiest conceivable; poor hair- splitting discussions of the letter of the law, while the spirit was allowed to evaporate ; straining at gnats and swallowing camels; the application of learned ingenuity in some cases to shew men how they might safely evade God's commands instead of conscientiously keeping them, and in others to bind upon their brethren heavy burdens which God had not ordained, and which they were un- willing to lift themselves ; the whole teaching moreover, even when orthodox, rendered nugatory by manifest hypocrisy, the life of the teacher fail- ing to supply a life to his teaching, and producing no conviction deeper than this, that the teacher did not believe the lessons which he taught; and the burden of proof concerning doctrine being ever an appeal to tradition, and not to conscience and to the Word of God. When the authorised teachers of a people have fallen into this condition, it is no wonder if the people themselves, on hear- ing such teaching as that which our Lord gave them, on the Mount according to S. Matthew, or in the synagogue according to S. Mark, should say at once. This is something different from that which we are accustomed to hear, the Scribes give us no such teaching as this. But even had this been otherwise, that is, had J^^^^^""^' the condition of the Jewish Church not been as J^^^^'^^^g^ effete as it seems to have been, still the natural to excite postscript to the Sermon on the Mount would have ment. I 114 Christ Teaching. LECT. been a notice, such as that appended by S. Matthew, ' — to the effect, that the people were astonished at His doctrine. Supposing us to have as httle know- ledge of Christ as those j^eople had, to be as httle fettered by theories concerning His person, as Httle prejudiced by the creeds of childhood, it would still be impossible for us to conceive of men as listening to the teaching of our Lord and not being aston- ished. Such characteristics as the following would be sufficient to ensure the result; its extreme sim- plicity and yet its extreme weigh tiness; the high standard of its requirements, going as it does to the thoughts and the words and the looks ; its treatment of the love of God ; the breadth and the freshness of its views concerning love towards each other; the universality of its cliaracter, adapting its lessons to all persons and all times ; still more its practical tendency, the manner in which it brings everything to the test of the human life, and of which the concluding parable of the wise and foolish builder is so eminent an illustration : these and the like features of the Sermon on the Mount must have produced their effect upon the minds of those who listened to it, and have en- sured that remarkable sensation of which S. Mat- thew speaks. The tone Nor could the tone of authority assumed by of autho- ^j^^ preacher have failed to produce a deep impres- T'chriL ^^^^ "P^^ -^^^ Galilsean hearers, however imper- fectly they might appreciate the limits to which that authority reached. He who could review the sayings of those of old time, and either correct them or else bring them back to primitive purity upon the authority of His own word, who could Christ Teaching. 115 dispense with all reference to tradition^ and esteem lect. His own, / say unto you, as sufficient ground for '. — a lesson or a precept, and who could close His dis- course, and fasten it upon the consciences of His congregation, by drawing out in the strongest man- ner possible the contrast between those who heard His sayings, — these sayings of Mine, — between s. Matt. those who heard His sayings and did them, and ^"' ^'^' ^ ' those who heard the same and did them not — He who could assume and support the character, which this kind of teaching implies, could scarcely be listened to carelessly. It would probably be this feature in the Lord's style of address, to which the people would refer, when they spoke of Him as one who taught with authority; there was no appeal to E-abbis or elders, no balancing of one probable opinion against another, and a resultant of utter confusion and doubt left behind ; on the other hand, all confusion and doubt seemed to vanish before the Ipse dico of Christ. And yet it was no beating down of the dictates of reason by autho- rity; the truth of Christ's words made itself ^eZ^; they appealed to human reason, because they were the very utterances of the A070?, the offspring of the supreme Reason itself; they were as a light which shined into men's hearts, and which proved that they were hght because they made the dark- ness to flee away. Now I have given this comment upon S. Mat- Subject thew's report of the effect produced by our Lord's Lecture, teaching, because it will serve to introduce some Teaching. reflections upon the general character of that teaching, which I shall offer as the substance of my Lecture to-day. I wish to view Christ teaching, I 2 116 Christ Teaching. LECT. as I have already viewed Him under several '. other aspects, with reference to the outcoming of the Divine nature from His human life, which His teaching may be found to exhibit. That we shall find in Him a hiiman teacher, and a very wise human teacher, I suppose there are few who would care to deny : they, who in these days oppose His highest pretensions, are yet for the most part earnest in their admiration of many of the truths and maxims, which, whether He first promulgated them or not. He at least has made current in the world. That we shall find in Him incomparably the best of human teachers, would, I suppose, be also very widely granted ; the tone of His teaching has been so completely recognised as that to which the conscience of the civilized world assents, all that is opposed to it is so thoroughly scouted by the good, that it w^ould be considered outrageous to attempt to put any other moral teaching in competition with that which the Gospels contain. But the question is, whether we do not find much more than this ; whether it be not to refuse to the Lord the very essence of that which belongs to Him, if we grant the wisdom of His human teaching and grant no more ; whether there be not visible in that human teaching something which is inseparable from it, which seems naturally to cohere with it, and which yet is not human but Divine ; whether in fact it is possible to study the teaching of our Lord and not come to the conclusion, that in this utterance of the Word made jiesh and dwelling amongst us, we can behold the glory of the only begotten Son. I shall endeavour then, in the first place, to call attention to some features of our Lord's teach- Christ Teaching. 117 ing, wliicli seem especially to bring before us its lect. human character, and afterwards to shew in what ^ manner the Divine character makes itself visible. Now^, in speaking of the specially human aspect The con- of our Lord's teaching, it is obvious to remark, tweenhe that He Himself seems to have taken pains to ouTloSi^^ make His teachino^ harmonise in form with that ^^^^ t^a-* o 01 other to which the people were accustomed. It is, in- teachers. deed, very striking to observe, that as our Lord had been anticipated by S. John Baptist in collect- ing round Himself a body of disciples and admi- nistering a baptism, so did the Lord exjjressly take up S. John's preaching. When Jesus had s. Matt. heard, as S. Matthew^ tells us, that John was^^' cast into prison, He departed into Galilee, and from that time He began to loreach, and to say, ver. 17, Repe7it: for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand. So also when the Apostles asked the Lord to teach them to pray, they did so expressly uj^on the ground that John also taught his disciples. It s. Luke is not, however, S. John only with whose teaching that of our Lord stands in connection. It has been sometimes said, with a view to its deprecia- tion, that it was in fact formed of the teaching of His time, that His most striking sayings were taken from others, that He did but reproduce the most precious stores of those who preceded Him. The statement, having in it (as it has) a certain element of truth, may easily be made to assume the form of a falsehood; so far as the tone and the general effect of our Lord's teaching w^ere concerned, the conclusion of those who would argue against its originality stands in singular contrast to that which is given in the text as the 39 118 Christ Teaching. LECT. experience of ear-witnesses : the very thing which '- — seems to have chiefly astonished the hearers was the bold contrast, in which the new teaching stood with that to which they were accustomed: Christ taught not as the Scribes, and therefore the people were astonished. Nevertheless it is a fact, which has been observed and fully admitted by Christian students, that there is a connection, which cannot be regarded as accidental, between some of our Lord's teaching and that of certain human teachers. Take the form of prayer which He gave to His See Note disciplcs as an example. Lightfoot tells us, with reference to this prayer, such particulars as these. In the first place, the practice of giving a form of pra3^er was usual amongst Jewish teachers. I have already remarked that S. John Baptist was quoted as an example of the practice by the Apostles, and it would seem that he only followed an exam- ple which had been set by others. Again, the form of address, Our Father, which art in Hea- ven, was not a new phrase, but one familiar to Jewish Rabbis. Again, the plural number we, — give us this day our daily bread, forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them ivho trespass against us, — which cannot but strike tliose who examine the structure of the Lord's Prayer, was admitted to be the true form of offering petitions to God before Christ marked it as His own. And once more, it would seem that no prayer was deemed complete, which did not contain within it some allusion to, and prayer for, the coming of the kingdom of God. Now, it is very true that the custom of giving to disciples a form of prayer is a different thing from dictating a form, which shall Christ Teaching. 119 become, as the Lord's Prayer actually has become, lect. the property of the whole human race, the form of '— words which beyond all possibility of contradiction has been the vehicle of prayer more generally than any other whatever. It is very true also that this universality of the prayer has given to the opening words. Our Father which art in Heaven, an emphasis and meaning which they never had in the schools of Jewish E-abbis, not to mention the totally new light which has been thrown upon tliem by the redemption of mankind through Christ, and the admission of all nations and lan- guages by baptism into the family of God. It is true, moreover, that the plural we, regarded as the keyword of a prayer, has received an interpretation which it could not have before Christ had gathered all the units of mankind into one. And lastly, it is true that the Kingdom of God in the mouths of Jewish teachers was at best but the mere shadow of that kingdom which Christ joreached, for the privilege of founding which He shed His most precious blood, and for the advent of which He commanded us daily to pray. And in the deep and comprehensive character, thus seen to belong to the prayer, we may justly recognise the divine glory of Him, to whom emphatically the prayer belongs. Nevertheless it would be wrong either to deny the coincidences with contemporary teaching, or to deny their significance: doubtless Christ shaped His teaching as He did, with the full knowledge that it was the best way ; and this impression at least must be made upon our minds, that the Lord was desirous of marking the con- tinuity between other teaching and His own, of 120 Chrid Teaching. LECT. taking up what was good and true, and iDreserving '- — it and adapting it to higher purposes, of shewing that in this as in so many other cases He was not s. Matt, come to destroy hut to fulfil. The form Again ; in looking at the teaching of our of teaching Lqj.(J jgg^g Christ WO are struck by the fact, that irequently «/ ' suggested much of the form and o^arniture of His lessons was by nature, , „ . . or by taken from passing circumstances, or from natural events. objccts wliicli presented themselves at the moment; that His mind was in fact influenced, as to the garb which His divine thoughts assumed, by the scenes in which He found Himself when teaching. It is unnecessary to consume time in enlarging upon a phenomenon which we must all have noticed: the lilies of the field, and the fowls of the air, referred to in the Sermon on the Mount, See Note ^^i^J t)e takcu as familiar examples. I will, how- '^°- ever, venture so far to dwell upon the point as to refer to a striking illustration, which is supplied by one of the most recent travellers in the Holy Land. He tells us that upon one occasion, as he rode near the sea of Galilee, and was meditating con- cerning our Lord's great parable of the sower, and wondering whether it were possible that its imagery could be taken from an3^thing there, and concluding against the supj)osition, he suddenly came to a spot from which he seemed to see the whole of the parable spread out before him, and that in a manner which he had observed nowhere else in Palestine. There was the rich soil with its waving corn, the good ground which brought forth fifty or an hun- dred fold; the protruding rocks, or stony places with no great depth of earth ; the joathway through, hardened by human feet, where the seed would Christ Teaching. 121 not be able to penetrate and would be devoured lect. by the birds; and the bushes of thorns thrusting L_ themselves up here and there, and choking the good crop. Some persons, observing the feature of our Lord's teaching of which I now speak, have See Note rashly described Him as one who had a sense of ■*^' the beauties of nature, and applied to His conduct other like phrases from which the Christian mind must needs revolt; to speak of Christ thus is manifestly to derogate from the high character of the Word of God, hij ivhom cdl things were wiac/e'; s. John i. at the same time we may well believe, that as the ^' Son of God in becoming the Son of Man assumed a body susceptible of human pain, and a heart susceptible of human love and human sorrow, so His mind would be capable of impression from external things, and, above all, capable of impres- sion from what we call Nature, but what He Himself would have called the handiwork of His Father in Heaven. The only conclusion, however, which I wish to draw is the thoroughly human character of our Lord's teaching when contemplated thus: those who listened to Him would feel sure that they were listening to one of their own kind : the texts of His sermons were such thoroughly human texts, — the flowers under their feet, the ravens flying over their heads, the shepherd and his sheep, the fishermen and their nets, the hus- bandman and the vine, the leaven, the mustard- seed, the marriage- feast ; they would feel that the preacher and themselves had the same eyes, the same sources of impression, that He was able to teach them better than others, not because He was altogether different from them and above them, 122 Christ Teaching. LECT. but because he was influenced by those very things ^ — which influenced them, and had a heart in fullest sympathy both with nature and with themselves. Tiiewant There is one other remark which I wish to whicrcha- offer concerning the human character of our Lord's thf LOTdt teaching, premising that it is of quite a different teaching, kind from those which have been already made. I think it worthy of observation in the account given by the Evangelists of our Lord's teaching, that there is attributed to it a very small amount of success. We meet, it is true, with such com- ments as that in the text, and with the similar one made by those officers, who were sent to take Jesus, and who returned without their prisoner, s. John declaring that never man spake as He ; we find ^"' '^''' also crowds following Him, yet even these some- times attracted by the bread which He gave them to eat, rather than by His teaching or His mira- cles ; and we find the common people hearing Him gladly, as men were likely to do, who had no reli- gious theory in their way and no self-righteousness to hinder their repentance : but still we do 7iot find attributed to His Avords, even backed as they sometimes were by miracles, anything like that power of conviction and conversion which our view of His divine nature would have tempted us to claim for them, and as I cannot but believe would have been claimed for them in any mythical tale of His life. In fact, the effectiveness attributed to the words of the Divine Master stands out in marked contrast with that assigned to those of His servants — of Peter, for example, on the day of Pentecost; then the historian tells us how the words of Peter went like fire into men's hearts, Christ Teaching. 123 touched their consciences, brought them to their lect. senses, made them ask with earnest suppHcation, Men and brethren, tvhat shall ive do ? At that Acts u. 37. period too of Gospel history S. Luke thought it no vain boast to throw in such an interjection as this, So mightily greiv the Woixl of God, a7id prevailed! Actsxix. he felt that it was no vain boast, — the growth and triumph of the Word of God amazed himself, — it was amazing to perceive how, under the influence of the Spirit of God come fresh from Heaven, prejudices gave way, and sin assumed a new aspect, and they who had put Christ to death with shame and spitting were now ready to build His sepulchre, and to water it with their tears. But no such triumphant tone is ever adopted as concerns the teaching of Christ ; and His condescension to our nature is proved by this, that He taught men with human lips and human language, but still more perhaps by the fact, that He condescended to teach in vain. Now the teaching of our Lord, upon which my The divine remarks concerning its human character have been of the hitherto founded, is chiefly contained in the first J^aching. three Gospels. Indeed it is worthy of observation that S. John's Gospel is almost entirely free from that kind of public but familiar teaching, which abounds in the first three, especially in those of S. Matthew and S. Luke : we have, for example, nothing in S. John corresponding to the Sermon on the Mount, nor has he recorded one of the parables, which form so striking a feature of the earlier Gospels, nor added a new one to the list. It would be beyond my purpose to enter upon any consideration of the probable reasons for this 124 Christ Teaching. LECT. difference ; but the difference itself is patent, and it ' enables me to effect the end which I have in view, namely, that of shewing how that the thoroughly- human character of the Lord's teachino- coexists with, and is inseparable from, another character which we cannot so describe. And in order to throw the light which I desire upon the subject, I will endeavour to compare like with like : I will not compare public teaching with confidential in- tercourse in the circle of disciples, nor simple precejDts to Galilsean peasants with polemical dis- cussions against doctors of the law; but I will point attention to that which is perhaps the only specimen of instruction to simjDle folks recorded for us by S. John. And I may say at once that it is remarkable, that this instruction, delivered to such hearers, constitutes the substance of one of the most mysterious chapters of this mysterious s. John vi. Grospel. We find that after our Lord had fed a multitude with bread in the wilderness, and had withdrawn Himself from their importunity by first retiring to a mountain alone, and then walking upon the sea to His disciples. He came to Caper- ver. •24. naum, and thither the people followed Him. There, ver. 59. too, He went into the synagogue, and preached to them a discourse founded upon recent experience. They were no profound doctors of Jerusalem to w^honi He spoke, but men in a sufficiently childish condition of religious growth to need warning, that ver. 27. they ought to have some better reason for following Him than the remembrance of the loaves with which they had been fed ; and yet to a congrega- tion such as this, the circumstances being in the judgment of His supreme wisdom such as were Christ Teaching. 125 suitable, the Lord delivered that wonderful dis- lect. course, in which He speaks of the bread which !_ cometli down from heaven, and which was none other than Himself Starting, as was His wont, from the figure which the circumstances of the case suggested, in this instance from the figure of bread, which had been the cause of the multitude follow- ing Him, He rises at once to the revelation of the ver. 32. true bread from heaven, and declares that the bread ver. 33. of God is He which cometh clown fi-om heaven, and giveth life unto theivorld; and in alike strain, lamyer. 35. the bread of life; he that cometh unto me shall yiever hunger; and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst: and that is perhaps a liigher strain still, in which He tells the people how that He came down from heaven to do His Father's will, and how that His Father's will is this, that every one ver. 40. which seeth the Son, amd believeth on Him, should have everlasting life and be raised up by Him at the last day. They who heard these declarations felt the mystery of them : they stumbled, too, at the ver. 42. old difficulty, that one, whose father and mother they knew, should lay claim to having come down from heaven ; and when He repeated and enforced His assertions, adding what was more mysterious and unintelligible than all the rest, namely, that they who would have life in them must eat His ver. 53. flesh and drink His blood, then even some of His professed disciples were staggered, and went back ver. 66. and walked with Him no more. The efiect pro- duced by this discourse may possibly explain to us why we have no others of the same kind: the people were as babes requiring milk and not strong meat ; and we may see from this one instance, how 126 Christ Teaching. LECT. that Christ, as Moses, was compelled to put a veil '. — upon His face, lest the extreme glory of His countenance should blind those whom He wished to illuminate. Putting, however, out of question the reasons for our Lord's conduct, and assuming the wisdom of it, we have, in the instance just adduced, an example of the glory of the only be- gotten of the Father shining through the manhood of the incarnate Son : He who could teach the simplest duties of men in the simplest language, who could direct their practice in daily life by the surest principles, who could take His lessons from " the meanest flower that blows" and find '' sermons in stones and good in everything," could also on occasions soar to the seventh heaven of mystery, and not hesitate to put forward Himself, not merely as a teacher and guide, but as an object of faith, a source of life, a repository of spiritual food. The pic- I am of courso aware, tliat persons, wishing to Lord's overthrow the Catholic faith concerning our Lord teaching given by S. John not at variance age. It fomis no part of my plan (as I have often given by remarked before) to deal with such objections; but Evange- I wisli to obscrvc, that, in drawing the contrast '^*'^' between the human features of our Lord's teach- ing, and those superhuman features which occa- sionally made themselves conspicuous, I have ex- hibited the latter in the discourse which S. John has preserved, not because there is nothing of the like kind in the first three Gospels, but because that discourse brings out in a more concentrated form than usual the divine elements which are Jesus Christ, would represent the picture which S. John's Gospel gives us as the product of a later Clivist Teaching. 127 frequently observed elsewhere. For instance, that lect. unflinching exhibition of Himself in a light which L. is hardly conceivable as being assumed by a person not speaking the truth, that reference to Himself as the end of His own teaching, and to His own word as the sufficient self-asserting guarantee of His doctrine, which may be observed in the dis- course that I have quoted from S. John, is also to be found in S. Matthew. Even in the Sermon on the Mount, which exhibits perhaps the most simple and practical form, and which some might possibly feel disposed to regard as the normal form, of our Lord's teaching, it cannot fail to be noticed, how the authority of the / say unto you is put forward, without qualification, as the sufficient basis upon which the moral law may stand. In fact, where- ever we see Christ in Scripture, He stands forth as something different from the mere teacher ; He makes demand upon the faith of those who listen to Him, which Confucius and Socrates never made and never thought of making : appealing as He does to the hearts and consciences of men, as sure to testify for Him if only they be unfettered and allowed to speak. He nevertheless holds up His own word as an ultimate authority, and Himself as an ultimate end. So it is, that in inviting the weary and heavy laden to take rest. He invites them to come to Him — He the terminus ad quern — He promises not merely to advise them where they may find rest but to give them rest Himself, and He invites them to take His yoke upon them and learn of Him, declaring that His yohe is easy and s. Matt. His hurden light. And it is worth while to ob- serve, in connection with what has just now been 128 Christ Teaching. LECT. said, that this ^fentle invitation of the Saviour to VI. ^ the weary and heavy laden, recorded by S. Mat- thew, is immediately preceded by a verse which breathes the very spirit of the deepest discourses of S. John; it is the verse in which the Lord s. Matt, declares, that all things are delivered to Him by ^' ^ ' His Father, that no 7nan knoiveth the Son hut the Father, and that no man knoweth the Father save the Son and he to ivhomsoever the Son ivill reveal Him. But again, mark in this same Evangelist S. Matthew, and in illustration of the same point, how he represents the Lord as having asserted s. Matt. Himself to be one greater than the TemiDle and to ver. 8. be Lord even of the Sahhath day. Or again, note the emphasis with which He compares Himself with the greatest of the men of past times, and how to a Jewish audience, whose highest concep- tion of wisdom and splendour and greatness was bound M^ with the traditions of the days of Solomon, He does not hesitate to declare that a ver. 42. greater than Solomon is with them. Or again, observe how, in speaking to Jerusalem and pro- phesying her destruction. He refers to Himself as the arbiter of her fate, and declares that if she s. Matt, had known the things which belonried to her peace, xxiii. '^7 JL ^ He would often have gathered her children together as a hen gather eth her chickens under her iving. Or once more, call to mind that picture which S. Matthew has preserved of the great judgment, and remember how he represents the Lord as asserting for Himself the office of supreme judge, s. Matt, and as making conduct towards Himself — Ye did ■■^ ' ''■ it vnto Me, or Ye did it not unto Me, — the great test of discrimination between the o-ood and the Christ Teaching. 129 bad. Now with instances such as these before us lect. — instances which I have taken almost at random '— from S. Matthew, and to which I could, if neces- saiy, add many more from S. Luke — it is quite out of the question to say, that S. John gives us an essentially different picture of Christ's teaching from that preserved b}^ the other Evangelists : whatever difference in style, and whatever differ- ence in the principle of narration there may be, yet we have in S. Matthew, equally \vith. S. John, the record of One, whose words sometimes transcend the bounds of human speech, — One, who, using simple language and simple figures and sj^eaking to simple people, does yet sometimes exhibit Him- self, not as the inculcator of practical lessons, but as the assertor of transcendent truths concerning His own essence: still standing upon earth His voice seems to come from heaven : still possessing the form and features and the essential character- istics of humanity, His mouth seems to speak such words as never man spake, and such words as by the mouth of a man it would be fearful to hear uttered. And when He is pleased thus to speak, the mysteries of the kingdom of God seem to lie unfolded before us ; He speaks as One who is lord in His own house, who gives out of His own trea- sure, and who rests upon His own authority; and the past and the future seem but as one to Him ; ^^® ^^^ and the life present and the life to come are min- gled in one continuous stream, which to us is like confusion, but which is no confusion in the mind of Him to whom all men live. Oh ! blessed revela- tions from Him who came to be the revealerl oh! blessed peeps into the light of heaven, given by K 130 Christ Teaching. LECT. Him who is Lis^ht itself, and who came to be the VI. . ° '- — Light of the world I Conclusion 111 short, the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, the tr™h^ as we find it in the Gospels, is consistent with the Gospel belief, that He was the Son of God made the Son of man; and it may well be questioned, whether the consistency of all His utterances with this belief, and their inconsistency with any other, be not sufiScient to satisfy the minds of the faithful, that they have not followed any cunningly devised ^0^"*' ^' fohle. For who could the cunning devisers be ? I can understand how miraculous tales may be added to the life of a wonderful man, and can give instances of the thing having been done: I can understand also how a disciple may invent dialogues for his master when deceased, dressing up the reminiscences of old conversations, as they have been moulded and coloured by the idiosyn- cracies of his own brain, in words put into his master's mouth ; but if the teaching of our Lord be something standing entirely by itself, con- sistently human and consistently divine, so pure in its tone as to compel good men to call it good, and yet manifestly assuming a character, which, if proceeding from a merely human author, could only be described as false and blasphemous — then who can the cunning devisers be ? Are not the devisers very much more mythical than anything that we find in the history itself? Above all, can we suppose that there were any Galilrean Jews, who were capable of conceiving so w^onderful a teaching as til at which the Gospels contain, and of supporting it consistently through the whole course of sermons and parables, of public admonitions and private Christ Teaching. 131 conversations, which are recorded as having come lect. from the mouth of Christ ? L_ Questions such as these are worthy of deep Import- ance of the attention, because they direct our minds to a subject large and most important branch of internal in this evidence. They teach us to seek a foundation for our faith in that deep and sure ground, which is supplied by the life-giving words of Him, who is emphatically the Word of Life. " If," says ^^e Note S. Cyprian, " it was the will of God that many things should be heard from the lips of projohets, how much greater are those which are spoken by the Son, those which the Word of God, who w^as in the prophets, declares by His own mouth, not now commanding to prepare the way of the Lord, but coming amongst us Himself, and Him- self shewing us the way," They draw our minds away from detached difficulties, which are ever the stronghold of unbelief, to the contemplation of the broad features of the testimony borne to His own claims by Him, who declared that He came into s. John the ivorld to hear ivitness to the truth. To the study of the words of Christ therefore, with prayer for the illumination of the coequal and coeternal Spirit, those disciples may be hopefully com- mended, whose minds require confirmation in the faith. To such study I heartily commend them : Two con- meanwhile I desire to add two remarks, one con- remarks. corning the effect of the Lord's words upon the minds of the Apostles, and the other more directly concerning ourselves. As for the Apostles, I cannot but observe, that ^g^Lord's the ara^ument derived in my last Lecture from the teaching . /-^l • 1 • ^ipon the constant loyalty of the friends of Christ has its Apostles. 132 Christ Teaching. LECT. application here also. The disciples who had '- — listened to His teaching had heard from His mouth many wonderful things ; they had listened to very glowing promises ; He had spoken of the coming of His kingdom, and had promised that they should sit upon thrones, that they should s. Matt. ix. have houses and lands and children, in fact, s. Mark X. manifold more even in this present world than ^°' they had given up for Him ; He sjDoke indeed of persecution as being their lot at the same time, and it may be thought that the promise was on this account inconsistent, but with that I am not now concerned : all that I wish to lay stress upon is this, that we have accounts of promises made to the disciples, which seem perfectly consistent with the supposition of their having been uttered by our Lord before His crucifixion, and perfectly in- consistent with that of their having been invented afterwards : and with these promises of thrones and houses and lands as their portion in this world, — promises, which in the literal sense of the words were never realised, while that concerning persecu- tion was, — the disciples to a man remained faith- ful after their Master's death ; no one can point to a follower of Christ who turned traitor, except him only who met with no persecution but who did meet with a bag of money ; the Apostles felt, like See Note the agod martyr Polycarp, that their Master had never done them wrong, and that they could not reproach or desert Him; the tale of a single one, who, after the day of Pentecost, for a moment looked back, is what the enemies of the Gospel have never dared to invent. What can we say therefore but this, that the teaching of Christ, Christ Teaching. 133 however much removed from the common routine lect. VI. of teaching, and whatever might be thought of it '- — by those without, did somehow approve itself to those, who knew it best, and who were vitally interested in the reality of His promises, as being genuine and true ? The other remark which I have to make con- Effect of cerns the manner, in which we may expect the teaching teaching of Christ to approve itself to our own "eives!'''^' minds. We know Christ no more after the flesh; we cannot witness His miracles; he who doubts concerning His resurrection, can no longer, like doubting Thomas, jDut his finger into the Lord's sacred wounds ; but we have still in the books of the Evangelists many of the Lord's words ; and of those books that may be affirmed in its fullest sense, which has been so eloquently spoken con- See Note cerning books in general, namely, that " they do '^^' contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was, whose progeny they are ; nay, that they do preserve, as in a phial, the j^urest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them." And hence we can still sit at Jesus' feet and hear His own words; we can hear them and we can do them too, like that wise builder whom our Lord held up as an examj)le, because he digged deep and laid his foundation upon a rock ; and if w^e believe that those w^ords are the utterance of the incarnate Word of God, who promised that He would send the Holy Spirit to guide us into all s. John truth, shall we doubt that His promise will be ful- filled, and that He will manifest Himself to those who love Him and keej) His tvords, as Tie does not s. John unto the world? manifest Himself, I mean, so as 134 Clirist Teaching. LECT. He never does to those who treat His claims as a mere matter of historical investigation, or as removed from the practical conduct of the life? manifest Himself, in fact, in such a manner, that even simple men who have witnessed His glory s. Johniv. may be able to say. We have heard Him ourselves ■*^' and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the ivorldf LECTURE VII. CHRIST DYING AND PREPAEING FOR HIS DEATH. Preached on Sunday, October 19, 1S56. S. JOHN XIX. 32-35. Then came the soldiers, and Irake the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with Him. But when they came to Jesus, and saw that He was dead already, they brake not His legs : But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced His side, and forthwith came thereout Hood and water. And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe. THE general design of this passage is sufficiently ^-^?j^^' manifest. S. John was anxious to bear his testimony against those misbelievers, who, main- tiiTtext. taining that Jesus Christ had not co^ne in the flesh, of Christ's^ were bound to maintain that He had not died in jj^iettjoned the flesh. Strang-e as it may appear to modern iv ®=^''^y •^ ./ i i ^ times. thought, yet it would seem to be a fact, that in the early period of the history of the Church it •was as necessary to assert the full humanity of Christ as to defend His Divinity ; and that there were many, wlio, while they found a difficulty in receiving doctrines which modern unbelievers regard as axiomatic, were prepared to accept with- out difficulty other doctrines, which modern un- believers would stigmatize as supernatural, and therefore in the nature of things incredible. S. John therefore, under the influence of the 13G Christ dying ^^^7- Holy Sj^irit, placed upon record facts, to which the faithful might appeal in proof of the great 46? ° ^ truth of their Saviour's humanity : not ashamed of the Cross of Christ, nor of the weakness and the shame which that cross implied, he gave special prominence to those accidents of the cruci- fixion, which were most conclusive of the humanity of Him who was crucified: thus he has told us how the Lord con^.plained of thirst, and how, having received the vinegar. He bowed His head and gave up the ghost; and not content with this, he has added the history of the Koman soldiers who came to break the legs of those crucified, and who, sparing the limbs of Christ because they perceived Him to be dead already, did yet thrust a spear into His side, in order to make sure that He was in very deed no more. These circum- stances, also, the Evangelist asserts upon his own authority as an eye-witness: he knew the value attaching to such evidence : and therefore he closes his tale with the declaration, that he icho saiv it hare record, and that he hiew the recoixl to he true. The death Now, I suppose, that iu thcsc days few facts iilw^jli? would be less questioned than the death of our jiiittcdby Lord Jesus Christ, Some indeed have been found all. to go to the almost incredible length in absurdity of questioning whether He ever lived ; but amongst those who do not doubt this, there would be no difference of opinion as to the fact of His death. The believer in Christ holds this fact as one of the anchors of his soul; he pro- claims it in his most solemn worship ; he asserts it in his creed; he feeds upon it in the holy Sacra- and ijreparing for His Death. 137 ment; he regards it as the most profound of lect. divine mysteries ; he devotes his children to God, '- — signing them with the sign of the Passion ; he values the wisdom of the Church in setting aside a Passion-week for special meditation upon this most wondrous truth. The unbeliever, on the other hand, holds the same fact to be true, because to doubt it would be to admit the supernatural : the death of Christ is to him a truth, but it is one of the most commonplace of truths, one that is asserted implicitly in the general formula of human mortality, and which is potentially affirmed as soon as it is asserted, that there once was such a person as Jesus of Nazareth. Thus believer and unbeliever come in this matter to the same point ; the cross of Christ is to the one the ivisdom and poiver of God, to the other foolish- 1 Cor. i. ness, but to both it is a fact: and as genuine death is, and has ever been felt to be, both by those within the Church and those without it, the most undeniable proof of humanity, I wish to regard our Lord in His death, as I have already regarded Him in several of the relations and cir- cumstances of His human life, and to consider in what way the glory of the only begotten of the Father made itself to shine forth from a portion of His history, which would seem at first sight to be chiefly a jDroclamation of weakness. Of course it will occur to our minds at once, TheResur- that the glorious Resurrection and Ascension are Ascension, the true divine counterpoises to the Death and * "" *^°""' Burial of Christ. The Apostles felt from the first the Death that they were not the ambassadors of a dead Lord, that they were emphatically witnesses to terpoises to the Death and Burial. 188 Christ dying LECT. His Resurrection not to His Death, or to His VII . • . . '. Death only so far as it was held in vital connexion Acts 1. 22. ^,-^j_^ ^YiQ truth that He had broken death's bonds, because it was not possible that He should be held by them. Hence, if the objection were made to an Apostle, that he was preaching foolishness in holding up the crucified one as the Saviour of the world, he had the answer ready; namely, that he preached salvation through one, who, though cruci- fied dead and buried, had risen again from the dead and had sat down on the right hand of God : and they who had seen the Lord Jesus after His Hesurrection, had conversed with Him and sat at meat with Him, and afterwards had beheld Him when He was taken up, could have no more doubt of their Lord's victory over death, than they had of the fact that death had once for a season triumphed over Him. And hence it is manifest, I Tim. vi. that any one who has been led by oppositions of science falsely so called, or by any other means, to feel a difficulty concerning the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, — to doubt the possibility of the glory of God having been made to shine forth to mankind from a human death of extreme shame, — must look (as every Christian is taught to look) to the Kght thrown upon the death by the subse- quent rising again. He who examines the history of the Resurrection, discusses its evidences if he think fit to do so, and (which is much more impor- tant) reflects upon its fitness as a part of the history of the Divine Word made flesh, will be prepared to understand how God's Name was infinitely glorified by the death of Jesus Christ. But a course such as that here indicated would not and 2^'>'epa7mig fo7- His Death. 139 be suitable to the spirit of these Lectures. I wish lect. ... VII to regard the Death of our Lord, not as it is hght- '~ ed up by the OTeat facts of the Resurrection and ^^o^e of ■'•_•' ^ . treating Ascension, which unbelievers of these days would the Lord's of course deny to be facts, but as it is illustrated propriate by lights thrown upon it — accidental lights I Lectures. might almost venture to call some of them — from preceding portions of the Gospel history. And there will be some advantao^e in thus rei^ardino^ the subject : it might be urged that they who could not deny their Lord's Death were driven to invent the story of His Resurrection ; or it might be urged by another school that the Death and Resur- rection are equally mythical, and produced by the same agency, because felt to be necessary counter- parts of each other: but it may be possible to shew, — indeed I have no doubt it caii be shewn, whether / succeed in doing so or not, — that the Death of our Lord occupies such a place in the history, that it is luminous with divine glory apart from the Resurrection and Ascension : such a place, that the Apostles would be able to look back ujDon the time when they consorted with the Lord in the flesh, and to say, — We might have seen in those days (if our eyes had not been holden) the glory of our Master's Death; we might have seen that He Himself looked forward to it, spoke of it, made preparations for it, as connected in some mysterious way with the glorious side of His being: such a place, that w^e, looking upon the Death in the light of His recorded words and actions, may without difficulty subscribe the verdict of the Apostles, and declare, that in this last crowning testimony to the truth of His 140 Christ dying LECT. manhood we can behold the glory of the only begotten Son. Important I. Now in the fivst place I would have you to signeefin remark, that the importance assigned by the Evan- histOT^ to gehsts to the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, the our Lord's auiouut of space which they devote to that part of their story, and the minuteness with which they give the details, are circumstances which cannot be put out of view in considering the place to be assigned to the death in any answer to the ques- tion. What think ye of Christ f The Evangelists do not all record the Lord's Birth, they do not all record His Ascension, but not one of them has failed to record His Death, and to record it also with a minuteness of detail which is bestowed upon hardly any other portion of the histor}^. We know the treachery by which the Death was brought about, the name of the traitor, the price paid to him, and his miserable end; we know the spot at which the capture took place, the method of judi- cial proceeding, the way in which it came about that the sentence was that of the cross ; we know the conduct of Pilate, even to the effect produced by his wife's dreams; we know the place and cir- cumstances of the Crucifixion, the name of him who carried the cross when the Lord fainted under the load, the manner and place of burial, and who the disciple was that buried Him. I call attention to the preservation of these details, as you will observe, not as an evidence of truthfulness and accuracy, though of course it is this also, but as an evidence of the prominent place held by the Death of our Lord in the view which the Evange- lists have given of His history. The Crucifixion and i^'i^eparing for His Death. 141 stands out in fact from the history, as the Cross lect. . VII itself stood out from the teaching and the practice L of the early Church ; the Cross was the very sym- bol by which Christians were known ; that sacred See Note sign was revered with a reverence, and loved with a love, which seemed to Heathen the very extreme of madness; even if Christians were right in fol- lowing the teaching of a Master who had lost His life in preaching the truth, still to glory in the very implement of His destruction, to hold the material means of His execution not in loathing as other men but in the highest honour, — this seemed to those who did not believe the conduct of mere insanity. But in reality this glorying in the cross did declare in the surest manner the truth of Christ's Death, which the Gospels con- tained ; it was clear that the Death of the Lord oc- cupied a place, which the death of the hero of other stories never does occuj^y; it was the central fact of the history, that round which all the rest were clustered and upon which they hung; and when Christians adopted the sign of the cross as empha- tically signaculum Christi, the sign of Christ, they See Note declared in a manner, which might be ridiculed but which could not be unnoticed, the extraordinary prominence assigned in the Gospels to the Death of Him in whom they believed. And this prominence is the more remarkable. Holy when it is observed how very slightly Holy Scrip- does^nor ture usually dwells upon the deaths of those whose j^^^j ^ history it records. The importance attached in "leath."^'''' many modern biographies to deaths and deathbed scenes may or may not be justifiable, but certainly it is not scriptural. The principle of Scripture 142 Christ dying LECT. biography seems to be that of recording a man's ' life and deeds so far as they have tended to the furtherance of the kingdom of God, to tell us what he thought and what he did w^iile the scene See Note of Hfo was bcfore him, and w^hile his thinking and ^^' doing could forward the work which he was sent to do, and to leave almost or quite unnoticed the manner of his departure hence. I think there is no exception to this rule in the New Testament but that of S. Stephen, which, after all, is no exception but a confirmation of the rule; for the death of the protomartyr of the faith was precisely his contribution towards the great cause ; nothing which he did in the living discharge of his diaconate can be compared in importance with the testimony which he gave to the truth and power of the Gospel, when he, the first of the noble army of martyrs, died in the vision of Christ and in charity Avith those who stoned him. We have the history of the death of one Apostle and only one, and it well illustrates what I am now saying: James the brother of John, one of the Sons of Thunder, known as James the Great, perished by the sword : Acts xii. 1. and his martyrdom occupies a single verse, and seems to have been introduced only because it led to an attempt upon the life of Peter, which did not succeed. We know nothing from Scripture of the death of S. Peter, or of S. John, or of S. PauL No : the book which we have concerning them is properly called, ''The Book of the Acts of the Apostles," — the book w^hich registers their deeds, does not sing their requiem, — the record of the noble eftbrts which they made to preach the Gospel of Christ, while they could travel from one country and iweiKiring for His Death. 143 to another, and could endure hardness as a^ood lect. . . VII. soldiers, and could offer themselves up a living — - — ^ — sacrifice: and the book does not contain, as we might perhaps have fancied that it would, any account of the manner in which they left this world, or of the hopes, or fears, or degree of assur- ance with which they passed from hence to be for ever with the Lord. Bearing then in mind this The mie of (^ n • T 1 1 • 1 'Scripture general character of Scripture, I say that the signal broken in manner in which the rule is broken through in the oS Lord! case of our Lord is all the more noticeable : here we have the last acts and words, a death scene indeed, — a desiihhed scene, we might have said, if the bed had not been the Cross, — the feelings of the sujBferer laid bare, — His mental contest when He saw death approaching, — His last conversations with His friends, — His farewell to His mother, — His last praj^er, — His expiring words : surely there must be some reason for the record of such a death in such a book; and surely also S. Luke would never have adopted in one of his treatises a method so different from that adopted in the other, if he had not seen, as he "surveyed the wondrous Cross," some of the glory, which, in the very act of death, emanated from Him who was crucified upon it. II. But if the manner in which the disciples The man- dealt with the subject of their Lord's Death be which the remarkable, if in fact it be quite inconceivable that treated they who had honoured Christ during His resi- ^'^Ji^'^ dence amongst them could have afterwards dwelt upon His Death, — and such a death, — in the man- ner in which they seem to have dwelt upon it, unless they had beheld in it a glory which scoffers did not behold, the manner in which the Lord 144 Christ dying LECT. dealt with His own death is not a whit less — remarkable. In fact it may be said, that Christ had during His lifetime been educating the minds of His disciples to that view of His Passion, which they afterwards adopted in its fulness, but which they could not comprehend at the time. Much of the teaching of Christ was thus prospec- tive. Thus, for example, when He spoke as He did from time to time concerning His Resurrection, s. Mark the disciples questioned one ivith another what the rising from the dead should mean. He told them of things which should come to pass, that when the things did come to pass they might believe in Him, and remember what He had said to them. And we know how this teaching answered its purpose, how easily the minds of the disciples were raised from the dejection caused by the Pas- sion to a full appreciation of the truth that Christ Actsxvii. must needs have suffered in order that He might s. Luke enter into His glory. The point, however, to which just now I desire chiefly to call attention, is not so The antici- mucli the fact of the Lord having anticipated His His Death Death, and prei^ared the minds of His disciples for 3 Hi" it, as this other, that the anticipations of His Death gW- were connected, in a manner too striking to be regarded as in any sense accidental, with outcomings of the glorious side of His being. You may note in illustration of this the commencement of the Lord's teaching concerning His Death. It began s. Matt. thus. On a certain occasion Jesus asked His s. Mark disciplcs whoiu the people supposed Him to be ? s.^Luke and when they told Him that there were various ^^' opinions. He asked them concerning their own faith : then it was, as you will remember, that and jyrejoaring for His Death. 145 S. Peter made his famous confession, declaring lect. a faith of which the Lord said that he could not '. have had it except from God Himself : Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. That was S. Peter's confession; and however short his own comprehension of the formula might fall of the fulness of knowledge to which he afterwards at- tained, still the open avowal of such a belief seemed to place the Lord henceforth in a position with regard to His companions, which certainly they did not realise when He first called them, and which probably few of them had realised up to this very time. Now mark the conduct of our Lord consequent upon this unveiling of His person : first. He charged His disciples not to let the won- derful confession get abroad; and secondly, He hegaii from that time foi^th (as we learn from all three Evangelists who have recorded the story), — He hegan from that time forth to shew unto His s. Matt. disciples, how He must go up unto Jerusalem, and s! Mark suffer many things, and he killed, and raised again. g^Lu^'e Thus the declaration of His death dates from the i'^- ^^• first open confession of His glory: the disciples were (so to speak) unfit to receive instruction concerning the wonderful manner, in which the power of death should assert itself over that body which was human flesh, until they had first learned that that same body was more than mere human flesh, even the body assumed by the eternal Son of God. Note again, how that, soon after this beginning The Trans- of teaching concerning the future Passion, occurred a new ^°'^ that most wonderful passage in the Lord's life, po'int ^r which we call the Transfiofuration, and how that ^^'^ J^.'^''*^'^ o ' teachinsr 146 Christ dying LECT. further teaching on the subject is by all three VII Evangelists connected with the same. S. Luke HiTiSath. ^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ QYen the subject of conference with Moses and Elias, the representatives of the Law and the Prophets, who appeared with Him in the s.Lukeix. glory of the Mount, was the decease ivhich He ivas to accom.plish in Jerusalem. And all three Evan- gelists unite in reporting, that after coming do^\Ti from the Mount the Lord spoke to His disciples concerning His rising from the dead, and declared that as S. John Baptist had already suffered, so also He Himself must suffer at the hands of men. And then, after the miracle which immedi- ately followed the Transfiguration, the three Evan- gelists record again with remarkable harmony, how that Jesus began to teach the disciples that the Son of man must be betrayed, and how He must die by violence, and be raised from the dead on the third day. Thus the Transfiguration seems to have been taken (if I may so express myself) as a new starting-point for our Lord's teaching upon this subject: a subject remarkable enough if taken up by any man under any circumstances, but ten times more remarkable when it is pointedly con- nected, not with any check or disappointment or discouragement experienced, but with that passage in the Lord's life, which stands forth conspicuously and exceptionally beyond all others, as a manifes- tation of His superhuman glory. The Lord's Oucc moro ! it is in perfect consistency with during^ what we have already observed, that we find our Sirney Lord making a revelation of His approaching sufferings and death, a feature of His final journey to Jerusalem ; a prominent feature too, for the first and lyreparing for II is Death. 147 three Evangelists all record the circumstance with lect, admirable agreement. It will be remembered that L_ this journey had in it something of a triumphal character, that a crowd accompanied Him, and that when in fulfilment of ancient prophecy He rode into Jerusalem, a very great multitude spread S- Matt. their garments in the ivay; others cut down branches from the trees, and strawed them in the way: and the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David ! Blessed is He that Cometh in the Name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest ! Now all this had far more the appear- ance of triumph than anything that had gone be- fore ; tliose of His disciples, — perhaps all of them, — who looked forward to His throwing oft' the mask of the poor prophet of Galilee, and coming out openly as the leader and commander of the people, would fancy that their expectations were now about to be realised; it seemed as if only one word were wanting to rouse the Jews from Dan to Beersheba, and bring them round the standard of the new King. Bearing in mind then this character of the journey, the manner in which the Lord pre- pared the disciples for it can hardly fail to appear remarkable : Jesus going up to Jerusalem, S. Mat- s. Matt. thew tells us, took the twelve disciples apart in the^^' ''^'^' ivay, and said unto them, Behold, ive go up to Jeru- salem; and the Son of man shall he betrayed unto the Chief Priests a7id unto the Scribes, and they shall condemn Him to death, and shall deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify Him; and the third day He shall rise again. And S. Mark makes the communication still more emphatic, telling us that as they went up to L2 148 Christ dying LECT. Jerusalem, Jesus ivent before them; and they tcere '. amazed; and as they followed, they were afraid; s^Mark X. gQ^^ietliing I presume in the Lord's manner strange and unusual, possibly an appearance of opjoression of mind, somethinc^ of a foreshadowino^ of that agony which overwhelmed His soul when the struggle was nearer at hand than it was now ; any- how there was something, which communicated to His companions an indefinable shuddering and dread; and when He took the twelve aside, and made them partners of the secret thoughts of His soul, He told them that the journey upon which they had entered, and which would have so much more of glory, would be so much more honourable in its circumstances, than any upon which they had accompanied Him before, was a journey towards contempt and shame, and would terminate in a crown of thorns and a cross. Peculiarity \J\ It cau scarcelv be denied, that the manner oftheoc- . , ... casions m wliicli His anticipations of death — and that a our Lord death of shame — lighted up only by intimations ing oThis of ^ rising again, which the disciples did not under- Death. gtaiid, Were connected by our Lord (as I have shewn that they were) with more or less remark- able outcomings of His glory, is worth}^ of careful consideration. I can understand the mind of a great man, who has great ends in view, and who is in general hopeful concerning the result of his labours, being sometimes overwhelmed with the feeling of having too great a weight upon him, and being tempted to despond concerning the s. Matt, future : S. Peter evidently thouo-ht that this was xvi. 22. the case with his Master, when he endeavoured with too great boldness to cheer up His spirit; a?2cZ ^9?'e/;arz?2^ ybr His Death. 149 but certainly we should not expect to find, that lect. occasions would be chosen for preparing His fol- ' lowers for His shameful death, such as those which were chosen by our blessed Lord, unless it were true, as we profess to believe it to be, that His death w^as different from all other deaths, — occupied a place in His history essentially different from the j^lace occupied by death in the history of other men, — was in fact rightly connected with out- comings of glory, because it was itself the path by wdiich, in the councils of the Most High, it was necessary for Him to re-enter that glory which He had with the Father before the ivorld ivas. s. John This point will be further illustrated by noticing our Lord's the nature of the preparation which the Lord the Eve of made for His death on the Eve of His Passion. *|on^^^" Hitherto I have spoken of the intimations given of His death when it could still be called future; now we shall see how such intimations were con- centrated, and fixed upon the minds of the Apostles, and engraved for all ages and for all people, by that which He did when the Passion was impend- ing. On the Eve of the Passion the Lord told the disciples very plainly of the things which were to happen on the morrow ; He told them that one of them would betray Him, and which it was ; He promised that He would not leave them for ever, but would come again; He spoke many things which were of necessity mysteries, and told thenl that He would send the Spirit down to guide them s. John into all truth, and bring all things to their remem- g^ johA brance; but He did something more, and more '''''• "^^ remarkable, than this ; as they sat at the Table of the Passover He took bread, and blessed it, and I Cor 26. 150 Christ dying LECT. said, This is my body which is given for you; and ' He took the Cup and said, This is my hlood which xxk%%o. ^^ ^^^<2cZ for you and for many for the remission of s. Matt, gi^^g^ j^^-^^ jjg j^Q^ Q^ly spoke thus of the bread XXYl. 28. J L 1 • 1 and the wine which He blessed, but He ordained tiie same consecrated elements as a memorial for evermore — o£ lohatf oi His own Death: the}^ who should afterwards join in celebrating the Sacrament wdiich was then instituted would shew forth empha- tically the Lord's Death; and the publication to the world without of the fact that Christ had died, and the brino^inof home to the hearts of believers within, and conveying to their souls all the bene- fits of that unspeakable death, were to be tbe results of the one new ordinance, which the Lord instituted for the worship of His Church. Now I wish to enter into no controversy concerning the mystery of the Holy Eucharist. Alas ! that there See Note should be such controversies, and that the blessed Sacrament should consequently be in danger of being regarded, not so much in the light of a setting forth of the Lord's healing death, as in that of a declaration of the weakness and disease which afflict His Church ! — but I am concerned with no controversy here ; so far as my present purpose is affected, I am content to take the hio^hest view, or the lowest view, or any view, which earnest Chris- tians may have propounded concerning it; I only insist upon the fact, to which the practice of all Christendom from the beginning till now bears witness, and without which the existence of the practice would be inconceivable, namely, that the Lord Jesus Christ left to His followers a memorial of His death only,— of His body broken, His 50' and 2:>re^m'ing for His Death. 151 blood poured out, — and that as He was not ashamed lect. thus to make His own death the most prominent ^^^' fact in the tale which His disciples had to tell, so they on their part were not ashamed to adopt the memorial, and to give to the fact of His death all the prominence that He desired. Observe, that the continued celebration of the Lord's Death is a truth which cannot be gainsaid; the whole his- tory of the Church is bound up with it; we can- not be cheated out of it by any philosophical generalities, or any theory of mythicizing processes; manifestly, beyond all contradiction, the worship of the Church, as distinct from other worships, is the celebration of the death of the founder of the Church; it may be thought a foolish worshijD, but still it is the worship ; and the fact is entirely con- sistent with what the Gospels and the Epistles tell us, namely, that Christ Himself commanded that such should be the worship of His disciples. And the question arises, is such a condition of things conceivable except upon the supposition, that the death of the Lord was connected by Himself and by His immediate followers with the glorious side of His being? would any man, who was about to die and see corruption, to die too by a death of shame, — innocently be it allowed, but still vio- lently and as a criminal, after a life spent in teaching and doing good, — would He wish to sink (as it were) the memory of His teaching in the one fact of His death ? would He dare to leave it in charge to His followers to publish this to the world above all other truths? would He venture thus to attempt to glorify that which was patent as the mark of extremest shame? and above all, self indica tive of a Divine 152 Christ dying LECT. would He have been likely to succeed, if He had ' attempted a course so eccentric, in appearance so utterly wild? would the preaching of the Cross, in fact, robbed of that glory which in the minds of the Apostles ever belonged to it, have been able to triumph over both the wisdom and power of 2 Cor. X. 5. this w^orld, and bring them into caftivity to the obedience of Christ? Thecir- IV. There is one other point upon which I of the' must touch in order to complete the view which I wish to give of the Lord's Death, I have spoken of the preparation made^br the Death, but I must glory. not omit to direct attention to the circumstances ol the Death itself In the nature of things there were many marks of human weakness connected with it: the very death itself was the most em- phatic assertion of weakness; and there w^ere the thirst, and the bitter cry of desertion, and the per- manence of filial affection, and the blood and water coming forth from the wounded side, all testifying that He who was hanging on the Cross was indeed made man. But I would have you to remember, that even in this hour of darkness there were flashes of light, and that they who saw Christ in His weakness were in a position to add, Nevertheless even then we beheld His glory. What shall we say, for instance, of the conversation with the penitent thief? — the promise so solemnly s. Luke given, that he should be with Christ in Paradise xxiii. 43. ^^^^ ^^^^ Surely a promise inconceivable, if He who promised had no power to fulfil. Or again, See page wdiat sliall WO Say of the last prayer, — to which I ^ ' called attention for another purpose in a former Lecture, — that prayer in which He asked pardon and preparing for Ills Death. 153 for His murderers, because they did not know lect. what they were doing? Surely an assertion this of a character, which could scarcely have been xxm.^st claimed against such overwhelming appearances, except by one to whom it actually belonged. Or once more, what shall we say of those words of Christ, It is finished, with which He bowed His s.- Joim head, and gave up the ghost? Surely the very calmness of majesty with which He died, com- mending His spirit to His Father with such words as these upon His lips, would be enough, when taken in conjunction with what He had said con- cerning His Death in times past, to suggest that death had not triumphed over Him completely, and that in due time He would triumph in His turn, as He had Himself declared that He would. At all events S. John, who saw and heard all these things, and connected them with the events which He witnessed afterwards, would have no difficulty in noting in the retrospect, that there were in the Death of Christ such features as would enable him to say, Even then, if my eyes had not been blinded, and my mind slow to perceive all that both He and the prophets had spoken, I must have beheld His glory. The view which I have endeavoured to mve of 9°"''^^" sion. the subject which has come under our notice to day — Christ dying, and preparing for His death, and yet manifesting forth His glory — has been (as I am well aware) of a most imperfect kind. It could hardly have been otherwise, even in much better hands than mine. It would however be more imperfect than I should wish, if I did not Church. 154 Christ dying LECT. add a few words concernina: the manner, in which VII . '— the Death of Jesus Christ has been associated with the glory of the only-begotten Son, both in the history of the Church, and in the experience of Christians. Tjie Death "With regard to the Church at large it may be associated said briefly, that the Cross has triumphed. The glory in death of a man, and the publication of that death, of the^^^^^ have, as a matter of fact, produced an influence upon the world, which has been produced by nothing else. The world indeed has not been wholly subdued: and this may be a mystery, or a grief, or a difficulty, or a subject for a sneer, according to the view taken by the observer of Christ and His Church : still Europe has been moulded into what it is, idols have been abolished, civilization has progressed, and it is the publication of the Death of Christ that has done these things. And more than this, the influence of the same truth is energetic still; and it is a fact, which it might do unbelievers good to contemplate, because this at least is a fact and no myth, namely, that there are persons in this nineteenth century, who think that they can have no higher honour than that of going into the world, — into the worn-out civilizations of Asia, and the wild barbarisms of Africa, — for the purpose of publishing this same truth; and more- over, that never yet was any other truth -^to- pounded, which men thought it worth so much self-denial to declare. When S. Paul said, we preach Christ crucified, the message was so strange, was felt by himself to be so strange, so different in its very essence and principle from anything which the wisdom of man had ever been able to devise, 1 Cor. i. 23- and 'preparing for His Death. 155 that there is little to astonish us in the fact, that lect. men of polish and education regarded the message ^^' as foolishness ; we read the fact with little surprise, and with still less of indignation ; we feel disposed to look gently upon those who did not receive Christ, when the message concerning Him had so many presumjDtions against it, and when the de- mands made upon the strength of it must have appeared so extravagant; we feel confident that much of the early opposition to the Cross will be regarded as sin virtually committed against the Son of Man, and will be pardoned in answer to s. Matt. the prayer of Christ for those, who, in crucifying ^'* ^^' Him, knew not what they did: but just as we feel bound to make allowance for unbelievers in Apos- tolic times, on the ground of the extreme im- probability of the Church being ever able to cut through the hard skin of habit and superstition, which enveloped the heart of mankind, with a weapon such as that which she handled, in the same proportion we are bound to own the evidence of the glory of Christ, which arises from the tri- umph of His Cross, and to warn men that, in this sense as in others, they cannot he as the heathen, Ezek. xx. but must be judged as those who are called upon ^^' to do homage to Jesus Christ manifestly set forth, Gai. lii. i. C7mci/ied and yet glorified among them. Thus, as a fact of history, the glory of Christ The Death has been manifested by the shewing forth of His associated death ; the symbol of His weakness has been the J^ner life source of His power ; and the Cross of Christ has J^ been the most potent sceptre that the world has ever seen. But I wish to add, that, so far as we of Chris- tians. 15G Christ dying LECT. are personally concerned, this truth, to be worth '- — anything, must become a truth for our own hearts and inner life; we as Christians ought to be able to say, as the Apostles said, The Word has been made flesh, and has dwelt among us; and what is more, has died among us ; and we have seen His glory, — seen His glory, I mean, not in spite of His human Death, but in the very Death itself, — we are convinced that never was there so glorious an exhibition of the love of God, never such a seal put upon all that is noble and worthy of regard, such scorn poured out ujDon all that is base and selfish and contemptible, as in the voluntary humi- liation and death of Him who was the Son of God and the Son of Man. We ought to be able to say this ; and it is manifest that the confession, which we so make, mvolves in it a whole cycle of duties, which might be easily expounded as necessary consequences of the confession. This however in- troduces us to an infinite subject, at a time when my sermon ought to be drawing to a close ; and I therefore omit all other things which might with great propriety be said, in order to concentrate An exhort- attention upon one. I have already noticed it as cerabg°° a remarkable fiict, which indeed it is, that the one mmfio!!"'" ordinance of Christ for the worship of His Church should be a memorial of His Death ; I have said, that, so far as my present purpose was concerned, I insisted only upon this, that the Lord did appoint a shewing forth of His death, and that from the beginning of the Church His Death has been so shewn forth: but I desire now to add, that this Holy Sacrament is not merely a shewing forth of and preparing for His Death. 157 a truth to the world; it is also, and much more lect. importantly, a shewing forth of the Lord's Death, '__ and of the Lord's Glory, to those who devoutly obey His command, — not merely a sign to unbe- lievers, but a strengthening of faithful souls, — ^not merely an evidence which scoffers will find it hard to set aside, but an evidence in which humble souls will rejoice with joy unspeakable. I lay stress Doubts moved 1; the vision upon this, because I am bound by my office to deal "'°^^ ^ with evidences, and I think that there are cases °f^^"^^/f^ in which a subiective evidence of this kind may ^oiy Sa- ^ "^ . . *' craments. be the very thing required : sometimes the doubts which harass the minds of young men may be dis- persed by looking at them boldly, and shaking them to tatters with the manly arguments which such men as Butler have bequeathed to us ; some- times they may be the result of an immoral condi- tion of mind and of permitted sin, and may chiefly require purity of life to cause them to vanish; sometimes they may indicate the need of active work to check an overtendency to speculation, where certainty is impossible, and where the mind is therefore led to prey upon itself; but sometimes also they may be of a kind, which will yield most easily to the influence produced upon the thoughts by solemn worship. And when this is the case, what should a man do? Whatever else he ought to do, this above all things he should not leave undone: he should not fail to seek a vision of the glory of Christ in that ordinance, which He appointed Himself for the spiritual refreshment of His disciples' souls: he should go devoutly and habitually and with earnest preparation to the 158 Christ dying and prejjajing for His Death. LECT. Altar of God, there contemplate the Sacrifice of '- — the Death of Christ as He Himself exhibited the same, and see whether the clouds which threatened to hide the Saviour from him will not vanish away, when he contemplates the glory of Christ in the sacred symbols of His Death, LECTURE VIIL CHRIST'S ETEENAL MANHOOD, AND OUR COMPLETENESS IN HIM. Preached on Sunday, October 26, 1856. COLOSSIANS II. 10. And ye are complete in Him. I N the Course of Lectures, which I bring to a lect. VIII. close to-day, my purpose has been to exhibit the glory of the Only-begotten of the Father, as^t'om'*"' shining forth from the humanity of the Word made flesh. I have regarded our Lord Jesus Christ as a Child and a Boy, as engaged in the great human work of Prayer, as giving indubitable evidence of human sympathy, as a Man in the society of His friends, as a Teacher of His brethren, and as sealing the truth of His humanity by a human Death : and I have endeavoured to shew, so far as the nature of a pulpit discourse has permitted, how under all these aspects it was impossible not to recognise a divine element, ever breaking through the veil of human flesh, yet in perfect harmony with it, and together with it forming a consistent historical exhibition of that one Lord Jesus Christ, in whom we profess to believe as Begotten hefore all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, and yet made Man, crucified, dead, and hiiried. In carrying out this design it has been necessary to lay stress upon the true humanity, as IGO Clirist's eternal Manliood, LECT. much as upon the true Divinity of our Lord : and . L- because it may possibly appear to some, that the assertion of our Lord's humanity is in these days unnecessary, therefore I will here remark by the way, that although the Docetic view of our Lord's being is now probably held by none, that is, although none w^ould be found who w'ould accept the Gospels as historical documents, and then en- deavour to explain away such portions of them as the Death of Christ by the supposition of the death having been one in appearance only, thus saving as they would imagine the Divine honour of Christ at the expense of the verity of His Manhood, still the greater part of modern opposition to the truth of the Gospel does resolve itself into something of a similar kind. It may be said that in ancient times the historical Christ was granted, and the task was to explain the history so as to make it suit the character of the Christ whom the Gnostics had imagined for themselves: in our ow^n times the task has been equally that of explaining alleged phenomena, so as to make them suit the character of an imaginary Christ. In either case a phantom has been substituted for the reality; and in both the historical Christ of the Gospel has been set aside, instead of being dutifully and reverenti- Coi. i. 15. ally contemplated as the image of the invisible God, 5. ' ' and the Mediator hetiveen God and men. Reason for This is the rcasou wdiy so great stress has been much stress laid in these Lectures upon the indications of genuine^ geuuinc humau nature, which the history of our J5;;y/^ Lord Jesus Christ affords. And I have hoped human that tlio Hue of argument which has been adopted may be useful, not only as shewing how completely nature. and ovr comjyleteness in Him. 161 and how wonderfully the four Gospels exhibit to lect. . . . VIII. us a self-consistent picture of the divine glory '— shining forth from the Lord's humanity, and sug- gesting the impossibility of such a picture having been drawn in any way except from the life, but also as leading to a point of view for the contem- plation of the Gospels, which may be useful to those whose minds may unhappily have been dis- turbed by the current scepticism of the times. It is necessary however, in order to complete my de- sign, that we should go beyond the limit which closes an ordinary human biography, namely, the limit of death and the grave, and contemplate the Manhood of Christ as still persistent in heaven. It has been well observed, that if we think ofseeNote Christ as of one, who lived for a certain number of •'''■ years upon this earth, who was born at such a time and died at such a time, who did such and such works, and spoke such and such words, how- ever wonderful may be the words, and however miraculous the works, — if we think of Christ thus, and thus only, then the Christ of our thoughts is not the historical Christ of the Gospels. If the Christ whom the Gospels reveal to us be accepted at all, then it must be as one whose flesh could see Acts xiii. no cornqjtion, but who rose in His human identity ^'' from the grave, and held converse after His Kesur- rection with His chosen friends, and went up in the body to the right hand of God. The theological value of the Gospels depends upon their being accepted in their historical integrity : and he who would meditate upon the glory of the only-begot- ten Son, as manifested by the Word made flesh, must think upon that flesh as a flesh which could M LECT. see no corruption, and of the manhood of Christ 162 Christ's eternal Manhood, see no corruption, and of t as still persistent in heaven. The consi- Qf course when we arrive at the contemplation deration of , , ^ the eternal of this portion of our Lord's history, we find our- of Christ selves in a region distinct in kind from that, in into^'the which the narrative of His ordinary human life fafth" ""^ ^^^^ contained. When we speak of the manhood of Christ in heaven, we have no longer any pheno- mena to which to point, as exhibiting traits at once human and divine; we have passed from the sphere of sight to that of faith. It may indeed have been granted to a Stephen in the hour of Acts vii. martyrdom to see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God, or to a Paul to see Jesus Christ, after the other Apostles I Cor. XV. had ceased to see Him, as one horn out of due time; but the period during which disciples could speak of having seen and heard and handled the Incar- nate Word of life is gone by for ever. Hence whatever we know must come to us either from the declarations of the Lord Himself concerning what shotdd he, or from such liints as can be found in the writings of inspired Apostles of what even now is, — these declarations and hints being interpreted not according to any fanciful system of individual men, but according to their general acceptation by the Church of God. But not only is the source of our information different: the truths tliemselves belong to a different class; they are in the nature of things incapable of being- weighed by the human understanding; they tran- scend experience, and partake of the same order of mystery as that which belongs to the conception of heaven and of the unseen world : nay, they involve and our completeness in Him. 1G3 a difficulty for the human mind even greater than lect. that of jmssing from the material to the spiritual; '- the material we can understand by experience, the spiritual (partly at least) by analogy; but when we are engaged with truths which belong in a degree to both, (as is the case when we contem- plate the Manhood of Christ in heaven,) then it must be confessed that we find ourselves in a reofion of thouofht, havino- difficulties of a kind peculiar to itself This however may be said, that the life of our Lord upon earth after His Resurrec- tion was in a manner a transition to His more glo- rious condition of existence; for then He had a human body, which had flesh and bones, and which could eat and drink and be seen and handled; and yet it was in some sense a spiritual body, sud- 1 Cor. xv. denly appearing to the disciples, and as suddenly ^^' ceasing to be seen; and the laws of matter were not outraged, when that glorified and spiritual body rose from the earth and was taken up into heaven. Bearing in mind then the peculiarity of the Several ground upon which we are treading, but treading voived in upon it advisedly because in no other way can the ^^\ l^^^. truth of the text be demonstrated, that we are^^''^- complete in Him, I will remind you of two or three truths asserted in Scripture concerning the manhood in heaven of our Lord Jesus Christ. You will remember, for example, that a strong Christ's ground of consolation to suflering Christians ispHest- found by the Apostle, when writing to the He- ^*'°'^- brews, in the fact of Christ's eternal Priesthood. He speaks of our having a great Highpriest, that Heb. iv. is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God; ^^' il 2 164 Christ's eternal Mcinliood, LECT. and mucli stress is laid, not merely on the divine VTII. . . jDOwer of His priesthood, but also and more em- Heb.iv. 1 5. piratically upon this, that ive have an Highpriest who can he touched ivith the feeling of our infirmi- ties, because He was in all points tempted like as ive are, yet ivithout sin. In this and the like passages it is manifestly the truth of which the Ascension of our Lord was the pledge and indication, namely, that in some unspeakable manner human feel- ings exist in the heart of Christ in glory, as they did in the heart of Christ in humiliation, that human nature has in a very real however inexpres- sible sense a representative before the throne of God, that He who offered Himself up in His true human body as a sacrifice for sins is ever present to plead the merits of that sacrifice, — it is this truth, I say, which, however we may embody it in words, is the foundation of the Apostolic teaching. In I John ii. I. like manner, when S.John declares, ihsit if any man sin, we have an advocate tvith the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, he appears to assert the perpetual advocacy of Jesus Christ; so that as sin has lasted. His advocacy shall also last; S. John's words may in fact be regarded as parallel to those of the Apostle quoted just now, in which he speaks Heb. vii. of Christ being able to save to the uttermost all who come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them. And it is the same truth, but a different application of it, which we find in that remarkable chapter of S. Paul's first Epistle to the Corinthians, in which the Resurrec- tion of Christ is set forth as the pledge of the resurrection of His disciples : Christ is (if I may so express the Apostle's doctrine) not merely a and our comj)leteness in Him. 1G5 risen man but risen humanity, the Jirstfruits of those lect. "ho slept, and who shall all in like manner awake being raised from the dead He dieth no mo7'e; death i^^™- ^i- 9- hath no more dominion over Him ; and because it hath no dominion over Him, therefore the domi- nion over the race is broken. And it is manifest that the truth of all such assertions, and the conso- lation to be derived from them in the contempla- tion of the mortality of our race, and of the havoc made by death in the dearest of human bonds, depend upon the fact, upon which also depend the perpetual Priesthood and Intercession of Christ, namely, His persistent and eternal Manhood. And it may be remarked, that this truth, which The doc- appears m a variety oi forms m bcripture, and stated by whose existence I have deemed it sufficient (as in- Thirty* ^ deed it is only possible for me) slightly to indi- ^J^j^i^g cate, is taken up and stated in a very pointed manner in one of the Articles of the Church of England. Speaking of " the Word or Son of God, which was made very Man," the second Article asserts, that when the Son of God took man's nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin of her substance, then "two whole and perfect Natures, that is to say, the Godhead and the Manhood, were joined together in one Person, never to be divided," — never to be divided — or as the Latin has it, inseparabiliter conjunctce — a phrase which perhaps strikes the ear as strange, and by its very strange- ness is calculated to lead us to think below the surface, and consider whether it does not speak a great truth in a mystery. For indeed it seems to me that there is a tendency to believe in this mat- ter something short of the Catholic truth, — to see IGC Christ's eternal Manhood, LECT. (if I may so express myself) the Son of God in '— heaven, instead of Him whom S. Stephen saw, even tlie Son of 3Ian, — to regard the life of our Lord after His Ascension as merged in the unity of Godhead, instead of considering it as in some way the continuation of that human life, which He lived here upon earth "for us men and for our salva- tion:" and against such imperfect belief, which robs us of much of the theoretical completeness and also of much of the practical comfort of the Christian scheme, we may find a preservative in the phrase, which declares to us the inseparable conjunction of those two natures, that were joined together in the person of Jesus Christ. The doc- It may be further remarked also, that if we as tested by members of the Church of England allow ourselves to fall into any imperfect conception of the human nature of our Lord, we have a testimony borne against us, not only by the Articles which do not come habitually under our notice, but also by the ordinary forms of worship which we do continually use. I would especially refer to the form of ad- dress which we adopt in the earlier portion of the Litany : I do not know that anything could bring home to the mind of an earnest worshipper in a more pointed manner the truth of the inseparable union of the two natures, than the phrases in which he is tliere taught to implore the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ on the ground of His humanity. The mystery of the Holy Incarnation, the Holy Nati- vity and Circumcision, the Baptism, Fasting, and Temptation, the Agony and bloody Sweat, the Cross and Passion, the precious Death and Burial, the glorious Eesurrection and Ascension, are all the pray ers of th Church and our completeness in Him. 1G7 recited in the way of humble memorial to Him, lect, VIII. whose human history contained these events, when we beseech Him to deliver us from evil : we pray thus, because we believe these events to be part, not of the history of Him who once was and is now no more, but of the history of Him who is still the same Jesus Christ, who once dwelt amongst us: the history is continuous: He who now lives in heaven is He who once lived upon earth : He who oifers up the prayers of saints, and makes intercession for transgressors, and is the Head of His Church, and the Mediator between God and Man, and the channel of intercourse between hea- ven and earth, is that same divine person, who knows our infirmities by experience, and who can still be touched with pity for His brethren because He does thus know their weakness. Now I deem it unnecessary to say much con- Umieces- cerning the manner in which the life of our Lord Si upon Jesus Christ in Heaven, though still the life of the gty of"' Word made flesh, does nevertheless exhibit in its S"''l*'^ , ' Manhood fulness, to those eyes which are privileged to be- i" heaven. hold, the glory of the Only-begotten of the Father. As in contemplating the Saviour upon earth, in all His weakness and profundity of self-abasement for our sakes, the chief matter is to observe how the divine glory made itself visible, so contrariwise in contemplating the Saviour in Heaven, the chief thing to be done is to grasp the conception of His continued possession of that nature, which He once for all assumed. If Jesus Christ be really ascended into Heaven and set down on the right hand of God, doubtless His session is glorious and His nature is divine; doubtless also to those beings 168 Christ's eternal Manhood, LECT. who are before the throne of God there is a full VIII. '— manifestation of that glory, which the Son had in the bosom of the Father before all worlds; and though we at present cannot see that glory, as they do now, and as we trust that one day we shall be permitted to see it, yet we can have no difficulty in believing it; indeed we can scarcely believe the contrary; if we believe anything con- cerning Christ, we must infallibly believe this. It is the persistent humanity of Christ, which now, in its turn, becomes the more mysterious side of the subject; it is easier to believe that Christ, in the fulness of His power, will judge the living and the dead, than that He is a Highpriest who can be touched Avith the feeling of our infirmities, — easier to believe in His kingdom and power and glory, than in His sympathy with us, and His in- tercession for us. And doubtless there are peculiar difficulties of conception belonging to the subject, as I have already admitted, and am veiy willing to admit; but at the same time I wish to press upon you, that we find a certain fitness and sym- metry and completeness in the Scriptural view, which seem to commend it to our highest powers of perception, and to make it, if not more intelli- gible, yet in the true sense of the word more rea- ", sonable, than any other view which can be devised. 'I'he com- Coiitemplatino^ iherefore the eternal Manhood of j>l(te.ness of , • /> t the Catho- Christ, if I may so describe the doctrine of the our Lord's inseparable conjunction of the human and divine to'be'°''' natures in His one person, I desire to point out pomte.1 Yio^\ the Scriptural and Catholic doctrine approves its truth by shewing its completeness. Ye arc complete in Him, says my text; and it will be no and our comjitleteness in Him. 1G9 perversion of the words of the Apostle, if I en- lect. deavour to shew how the Catholic idea of Christ, '~ as uniting in Himself the nature of God and Man, supplies the basis of a faith, which is itself com- j)lete, and which they who hold may say with con- fidence, We are comj^lete in Him. Looking on the suLiect from a purely theoreti- (0 with 1 • ? • T 1 1 reference cal pomt of view, I suppose that those who would to a phiio- base religion upon philosophy, and regard it as v'iew'of the identical with the enlightened conclusions of the '^"''J*''°*- human mind, instead of allowing it to depend upon an objective revelation, would acknowledge that the idea of a union of the divine and human in one person is both beautiful and true. They would feel at once the exalted and the debased cha- racter of their o^vn being, the law which impels men to reach out towards something above themselves, and which proves to them the evil which dwells in them by their very impotence to become what they know they ought to be, and to do what they know they ought to do. They would feel the force of that contradiction which Pascal expressed when he See Note said, " If man is not made for God, why is he happy ^^" only in God? And if man is made for God, why is he so much opposed to God ?" And they would feel that such difficulties as these pointed to some union of the human and divine natures as their only possible solution. Hence we find that to many thinkers of modern days, who unhappily have deemed it necessary to shut out the light of Kevelation in order that they may think freely, there is something fascinating in the truth upon which the Christian Church is built : the union of the divine and human, and consequent assertion of 170 Christ's eternal Manhood, LECT. the divine character of humanity, have been per- '— ceived to be pi'ecisely that which the necessities of the case required ; the misfortune is, that frequently the effort has been made to get rid of the external facts of Christianity, to extract the spiritual truth from the historical accidents in which the truth has been embodied, and thus to turn faith in an actual human and divine person into a philosophy con- iTim. 1.19. cerning the human and divine. And so, as con- cerning the faith, there have been many ship- wrecks : we note these shipwrecks, we grieve over them, we take warning by them ; but besides this, we observe that they do in fact pay a tribute to the truth of the Gospel, and we regard modern experience as offering an involuntary testimony, that pliilosophy itself can only be complete in Christ. {2) With And if, passing from the philosophical side, we RomInist° look to the crrors into which some have fallen, Sr^ who nevertheless hold as dogmatically as ourselves the articles of the Christian faith, we shall perceive that much abuse has crept in from the neglect of the truth of which I am now speaking. Christians do not merely believe in Christ, but they are com- plete in Him: He is not only a Mediator, but the Mediator; not merely an Highpriest, but the one only possible Highpriest; and He is so, because He alone unites in one person man and God, the absolutely human and the absolutely divine. If therefore we make any other person, whether an- gel or saint, though that Saint be the blessed Mother of the Lord herself, a mediator between ourselves and God, we do not merely produce an excrescence upon the orthodox faith, but we inno- and our completeness in Him. 171 vate at tlie expense of fandamental Christian lect. . VIII truth. We acknowledge the feehng of the need of a L Mediator — and this is a true feeUng, and one which divine revelation has recognised and satisfied — but by the manner in which we gratify that feeling, we shew" that we do not appreciate the completeness of the divine revelation as it has been made to us in Jesus Christ: if we felt the truth that we are complete in Him, we could not seek the completion of our worship in the aid of one, who, however exalted, differs essentially and infinitely from the true Mediator between God and man. The acute apologist for innovations in the faith upon the principle of '^ development of Christian doctrine" See Note has seen and acknowledged this ; he regards the "^ Nicene declaration of the divine being of the Son as having virtually vacated the mediatorial throne ; he treats the full assertion of deity as an implied denial of persistent manhood; "and thus," he adds, ''there was a wonder in Heaven: a throne was seen, Eev far above all created powers, mediatorial, interces- sory; a title archetypal; a crow^n bright as the morning star; a glory issuing from the Eternal Throne ; robes pure as the Heavens ; and a sceptre over all; and who was the predestined Heir of that Majesty?... The vision is found in the Apoca- lypse, a Woman clothed with the Sun, a7id the Moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." This is the apology made by one who holds the principle of development; he who believes that the faith is complete in Christ would rather say, that because this completeness has been forgotten, therefore men have been tempted to give to the Mother of the Lord that, which of XU. I 172 Christ's eternal Manhood, LECT. reason and riaflit and revelation belong^ to Hi VIII. . ^ . ^ essentially, and to Him alone. (3) The But aofain, if leavino^ that side of the subject doctrine newed on which prescnts questions of theological controversy, cai side!' we tum to the thoroughly practical side, and con- sider how divine truth can be presented to the human mind, in such a way as to penetrate the surface, and take root, and bring forth the fruit of a holy and religious life, then looking to the history of our Lord Jesus Christ, as the Son of God made the Son of man, I believe that we may say we are complete in Him. I speak now not of the eternal Manhood in heaven to the exclusion of the earthly portion of the Incarnation, but rather of the entire cycle of facts which embody the idea of the Incar- nate Word, and of which the Manhood in heaven is the conclusion and seal. The question must press upon every one who has a heart to feel for the miseries, which beyond all doubt sin and evil have produced and are producing in the world, — how can the flood of evil be stopj)ed ? how can mankind be taught? what leaven of truth is there, which can be mixed with the vast lump of error and selfishness, and which will have power to leaven the whole? This is no professional question for the clergy; the practical answer it may depend upon tliem very much to give, but they will never be able to give an answer to any good puq^ose, unless the question be a truly human one, and one which it becomes every man to ponder and consi- der. Human reason has lamentably failed here; philosophy has done something, but not much ; the rehgions of the world have proved little better than idle echoes, indicating a voice somewhere, and our completeness in Him. 173 but themselves mocking the desponding inquiries -^jj"- of the human heart. Only in the great and all- containing truth of the union of two perfect natures in one person, the establishment in the eternal counsels of God of a Mediator between mankind and Himself, and all the cj^cle of doctrines which flow from this one eternal fountain, do we seem to perceive anything like a solution of the question, How are men to receive loower to become s. John i. the sons of God? Coming forward, as we the ministers of Christ Universal do, with the profession that we are able to point of UiTdic^ out to our brethren the true road to heaven, we *""°' feel that standing upon the great truth of the Word made flesh, we are in such sense complete in Him, that we can deal with the extreme conditions of human life. The high and the low, the rich and the poor, may consistently learn their lessons together, because w^e have a truth to tell which applies equally to both: if a man be puffed up by his greatness, whether that greatness be con- nected with pride of family, or pride of intellect, or pride of wealth, we have but to speak of Him, ivho i Cor. viii. heiyig rich, for our sakes became p)Oor, and by so ^' doing w^e put all such pride to shame, and point out by a transcendent example how all powers and advantages must be used ; we have but to hold up the picture of Christ in His self-sacrificing hu- manity, in order to make men recognise, if by any means that be possible, the horrors of selfishness and the nobility of doing good. And if on the other hand a man be pressed down to the lowest depths of this world's misery, the condescension of Him, loho, being in the form of God, tooh upon Him Pi"iip- "• 174 Christ's eternal Manhood, LECT. the form of a servant, will stoop low enough to '— reach even him : there is no darkness which cannot s. joiin i. be illuminated by Him, icho lighteth every man that comes into the world; and there is no home so humble that it will be disdained by Him, who s. Lukeix. Himself while on earth had not ivliere to lay Ills head, itsappiica- Or, if WO take a wider range, and look upon the evTngeiisr- world witli its mauifold errors and idolatries, our world ^*^^ only refuge from despair seems to be the revelation of God in the human nature of our Lord Jesus Christ. I feel the intense weight of the difficulty which presents itself, when we look upon the spiri- tual condition of the world : whatever be the cause, it lies in darkness and wickedness ; it is a darkness which may be felt, and a wickedness which cannot See Note bc denied : facts such as those adduced by Locke ^'^' to prove that there are fundamentally in the human mind no moral distinctions, however false his conclusion, are nevertheless sufficient to shew the condition in which mankind without the Gospel are: and however foolish it may be to boast of what the Gospel can do, and however much we may feel ashamed of what it has done, still we may certainly say that if not complete in Christ we are not complete at all ; if there is any light to lighten the world, it is Jesus Christ ; take away that, and the world seems a hopeless and deplorable blank ; if tliis light be darkness, how great is that dark- ness! And yet we may perhaps venture to say even in this view of the subject, we are complete in Him : there does seem to be in the truth of the assumption of Manhood into God, — in the history of Him, who, being the Son of God, became the and our completeness in Ilim. 175 Son of Man to redeem mankind from tlieir condi- lect. VIII. tion of ruin, and to join in one the discordant 1 tribes of the human race, and open the way for them all into the family of God, — something which is sufficient as the basis of a religion for mankind, and the ground of a truly Catholic Church. Once more, narrowing our view from the wide itsappiica- world to our own individual selves, our aspirations ownhoart". and hopes and fears, I shall be asserting a truth, to which the inmost hearts of us all ought to bear witness, when I say, that, as baptized members of Christ, we feel that we are comi^lete in Ilim. We feel, that is, or we ought to do so, that the cycle of truths which are contained in the Incarnation of the Eternal Son precisely answer to and satisfy those spiritual needs, of which as spiritual beings we have been made sensible. The feeling of weak- ness, the consciousness of sin, the fear of God's wrath, the persuasion of His infinite love, the con- flicting truths of man's greatness and misery, the dreams of immortality, the desire of union with God, — all the conclusions of the mind of a creature like man, clothed in flesh and yet spiritual, seem to be made bright and hopeful by the light thrown upon them from the history of the Lord Jesus Christ. And after all, the persuasion of our com- pleteness in Christ, depending upon such grounds as these, is the deepest and best that we can have ; I by no means disparage external evidences; they are a sign to those without the Church, and may be very precious to those within ; external evidences however may fluctuate; that which has been con- sidered for generations to be a good argument may be proved at length to be unsound, new questions 176 Chrisfs eternal Manhood, LECT. and new difficulties may be opened up by the legi- '— timate j^rogress of scholarship or of science^ and some branches of evidence may have to be aban- doned and others to be revised ; but " no change of time can ever shock" the firm convictions of him, s. Joi.nix. who is able to say, One thing I hioiv, that, luhereas ^^" / ivas hlincl, now I see, or who is able to join in s. John i. the lano^uaofe of S. John, Tlie Word loas made 14. o is ^ flesh, and dwelt amongst us, and ive beheld His glory — yea, we have seen all the mysteries of human life, all the darkness of human misery, and all the terrors of human destiny, lighted up by 2 Cor. iv. 6. that light of the knoidedge of the glory of God, which has shined into our hearts from the face of Jesus Christ. Conclusion Thus then it seems to me, that we may find Course of tcstimouy of the most varied kind, — philosophical, ectures. pj.^(j^j(3^]^ persoual — to the completeness and sym- metry of that faith, which we, as Christians, pro- fess to hold. This Course of Lectures has been devoted to the development of one line of argu- ment, which with many others converge to the cen- tral truth of the text, the Christian's completeness in Christ : but in bringing the course to a close, I w^ould desire to impress upon your minds the words of the text, not only as the corollary to all former lectures, but as containing in one short sentence the very pith and marrow of practical See Note Christian theology. You may remember the lan- ^^' sfuaofe with which Cicero concludes that remark- able essay, which remains to us as a monument of the knowledge which it was possible to obtain of the Divine Being, without the light of Christ: in and our completeness in Him. 177 that essay lie represents two philosophers of differ- lect ent schools disputing before himself and another '- concerning the nature of the Gods; the current views and arguments are produced, the futility of some of them demonstrated, the difficulty of them all made manifest: and the whole concludes with the confession, that whereas the view^s of one phi- losopher appeared to Cicero's friend to be the more true, those of the other appeared to himself to have something more of the semblance of truth. Now this mournful, but most significant confession of the latest period of civilised heathen wisdom, standing as it did upon the shoulders of the giants of former days, I would put in contrast with the declaration of the text: doubt is the final con- dition of the school of philosophers, completeness and symmetry of faith is the blessed portion of the Christian Church; this was her's in her infancy, she had not to labour for it and find it out by searching, but Christ gave it to her ; the manifes- tation of God in human flesh cleared away the clouds and darkness; and no sooner had Christ gone up on high, as the HighjDi'iest and Mediator and Representative of mankind at the right hand of God, than the Apostles were able to say to their converts. And ye are comj)lete m Him. To this completeness, as a well of Christian evidences, ever ready for the support of those whose minds are not unfitted for the reception of truth by any moral impediment, whose hearts are worthy of being described as the good ground in which the seed of the Word of God takes root and bears an hundred- fold — to this completeness I w^ould venture to trust, as the best remedy for feelings of uncertainty N 178 Christ's eternal Manhood, LECT. concernino^ the faith, which may sometimes exer- VIII. . ^ . . "^ '— cise the jDatience, and disturb the peace of young disciples of Christ. I am bound to consider the possibihty of such uncertainty, and the proper na- ture of the remedy; if preaching upon Christian evidences is to be anything more than triumphing over conquered foes, and slaying the slain, the preacher must consider the actual dangers and wants of those to whom he speaks, and treat them See Note as possiblc, and deal with them accordingly. And if any should deem me open to the charge of being too deferential to the popular infidelity of the day, I would suggest this as the truer explanation of the style w^hicli I have adopted, namely, that I am anxious not to reduce to an absurdity my lectures upon the difficulties of the faith and the tendencies of the age to unbelief, by shewing that I do not see the difficulties, and do not estimate the ten- dencies. I have no sympathy with those who doubt and deny the Christian faith from mere pertness of intellect, — nor with those who are infi- dels from perverseness and self-will and want of humility, — nor with those who will not believe Christ because they do not like to follow Him, W'hose unholy lives have darkened their minds, and to whom there is no difficulty in the Gospels comparable with that which arises from their de- nunciation of impurity and selfishness and sin. But have we exhausted the catalogue of those whose minds may be shaken by doubts concerning their Lord, when we have enumerated these and such as these? Are there no honest doubts? if not, what place is left for faith in the minds of Saints? And is there no such thing to be found in Christian and our completeness in Him. 179 experience as a sense of chill cold misery, when lect. some arrow of scepticism has been shot into the ^ heart, piercing through the shield of early religious education, and even through that best of shields, a pure and holy life? Are there none here present w^ho know from experience what I mean? If so, I am convinced that I shall stand blameless before the righteous Judge, if I confess my sympathy with the^yi; and for their sakes I thank God that I have been permitted to testify in this place to the completeness of the faith of Christ. I can see in Him the perfection of humanity and the fulness of Godhead : I can recognise in Him the Divine head of our race : I can believe that in Him the pur- poses of God find their fulfilment and end: I see nothing strange in that amazing declaration which He made, that no man can come to the Father, s. John except through Him: in His assumption of hu- manity. His bearing our griefs and carrying our sorrows, and His ascent in His humanity to the highest Heaven, I see the realisation of the brightest human dreams, and the pledge of the ultimate accomplishment of the most exalted hu- man hopes: His Cross and Passion appear to me an adequate ground for the Redemption of a lost race, and the reconciliation of man with God : yea, in the wondrous history of the Word made flesh, I can perceive an outcoming of glory, which satisfies my deepest longings for a vision of the unseen God: and so when I repeat the words, '^I beheve in Jesus Christ," I am able to add with sincerity and thankfulness — "and I am complete in Him." That you all, young Christian Brethren, — for it is you whose spiritual needs are cliiefly in my N 2 180 Christ's eternal Manhood, LECT. mind — that you all may be led under the guidance '— of God's good Spirit to appreciate more and more your completeness in Jesus Christ, has been the aim of these Lectures, and my own prayer to God on your behalf In taking leave of my office I venture to add one word of warning against the expectation in matters of faith of a certainty which does not belong to them, and against that confu- sion of thought which would make completeness in Christ synonymous with freedom from all re- ligious difficulties. Many difficulties may be re- moved, some may possibly remain; Saints have been tempted even in the hour of death to doubt concerning Him in whom they have believed; human minds are not all cast in the same mould, any more than human bodies ; some are content with walking in the warm atmosphere of practical holiness, others feel themselves impelled ever to creep towards the light at the risk of having their hearts chilled. And the trials and circumstances of men are as different as their temj)eraments ; and Jer.xxxvi. souic appear to be exposed in the day to the heat, and in the niglit to the frost, while others seem to Phil. iv. 7. rest in the shade, and to enjoy continually the jjeace of God, ichich 2^'^(sseth all understanding. But the high Heaven is over us all, and God is Ps. c. 2. in that Heaven; and it is He that hath made us, Ps. xcv. 7. and not we ourselves ; and ive are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand: and if there is mystery belonging to the light which shines from the face of Jesus Christ, there is equal mystery belonging to the light of Heaven, in which, nevertheless, all nature is complete. Doubtless then the light which God has given and our completeness in Him. 181 us is that which it is best for us to walk in; and lect. doubtless also, they who walk in the light will '- find their minds one day illuminated beyond all power of human conception, when, rising with glorified bodies, they appear in the presence of Christ, and are able to say with a fulness of mean- ing which at present does not belong to the words, "Now indeed we are complete in Him!" O Almighty God, whom truly to know is ever- lasting life; Grant us perfectly to know Thy Son Jesus Christ to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life ; that, following the steps of Thine holy Apo- stles, we may stedfastly walk in the way that leadeth to eternal life ; through the same Thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. NOTES. Note 1, Liicke writes thus upon the words of the text : Die Structur hangt von der Leseart 7r\rjpt]<: ab. Da diese hinlanglich beglaubigt ist, so sind die Worte koj edeaa-dfxeOa bis irapd TTarpo"; Parenthese, und ■n-Xtjpri's ■^dpiTo^ KO.) d\t]6eia^ mit e(TKtjvooaetr iv tjfxiv zu verbinden. So construirte schon Origenes. See also Alford, who comes to the same conclusion: "The only legitimate construction is (as xisually done, and in the English Version) to take Ka\...traTpd<; as parenthetical." Note 2. Ei yap TO "Trpocrwrrov JNIwi/crew? ov^ vrrefxeivav o'l xar' eKe7uov TOi/ Kaipov do^acrOeu (Oe?i/, ttw? veoTiiTa jv/jLuip' kcu (pu)<; ciirpoaiTOv KUi avrai's ra?? cti/w cvvafxecriv., tjfxeK o't TnjXivoi kui jiiyeve?^ tjCvvtp 6t]fjiev dv evejKeiv.^ The passage quoted in the Lecture from S. Augustine is from Tract ii. in Joan. Evang., and is, more fully, as follows : "Quia vero Verhum caro factum est, et habitavit in nobis, ipsa nativitate collyrium fecit, unde tergerentur oculi cordis nostri, et possemus videre majestatem ejus per ejus huniilita- tem. Ideo factum est Verbum caro, et habitavit in nobis ; sanavit oculos nostros : et quid sequitur ? Et vidimus gloriam ejus. Gloriam ejus nemo posset videre, nisi carnis humilitate sanaretur. Unde non poteramus videre 1 Intendat ergo Cha- ritas vestra, et videte quod dico. Irruerat homiui quasi pulvis in oculum, irruerat terra, sauciaverat oculum, videre non poterat lucem : oculus iste sauciatus inungitur ; terra sauciatus erat, et terra illuc mittitm- ut sanetur. Omnia enim collyria et medicamenta nihil sunt nisi de terra. De pulvere csecatus es, de pulvere sanaris : ergo caro te caacaverat, caro te 1 S. Chrysostom on S. John i. 14 (quoted in Cramer's Catena). 184 Notes. sanat. Caniulis enim auima facta erat conseutieudo afFectibus carnalibus; inde fuerat oculus cordis csecatus. Verbum caro factum est : medicus iste tibi fecit colly rium. Et quoniam sic veiiit ut de carne vitia camis extingueret, et de morte occi- deret mortem; ideo factum est in te, ut quoniam Verbum caro factum est, tu possis dicere, Et vidimus gloriam ejus. Qualem gloria m 1 Qualis factus est filius hominis 1 Ilia humDitas ipsius est, iion gloria ipsius. Sed quo perducta est acies hominis, csecata per carnem? Vidimus, inquit, yloriam ejus, gloriam quasi Unigeniti a Patre, 2^^enum gratia et veritate.'" Note 3. I shoxild not have thought it necessary to make any remark upon the sentence to which this note refers, if the experience gained by my former Course of Lectures had not taught me how easily such sentences may be misundei^tood. I therefore add tliese few lines as a protection against the charge of being prepared "to give up much" of the Gospel history. Note 4. " The Gospels, as we see, come mainly into consideration now; round them the combatants gather — the battle rages; they are felt to be the key of the position, which, as it is won or lost, will carry with it the issues of the day. And as the Gospels are the point mainly assailed, so are they the citadel in which they must make themselves strong, from which they must issue, who would win in our day any signal victory for the Truth'." Note 5. " The Prussian government was disposed to utter its ban against the book (Strauss' Leben Jesu), and many evangelical theologians deemed this the proper course to jiursue in regard to it. But Dr Neander deprecated such a procedure as calcu- lated to give the work a spurious celebrity, and as wearing at least the aspect of a confession that it was unanswerable. He advised that it should be met, not by authority, but by argu- ment, believing that the truth had nothing to fear in such a ' Trench's Uulscan Lcctnra>, 1845, Lecture V. Notes. 185 conflict. His counsel prevailed ; and the event has shown that he was right. Replies to Strauss poured forth in a torrent ; the Gospel histories were subjected to a closer criticism than ever; and to-day the public mind of Germany is nearer to an orthodox and evangelical view of their contents than it has been for almost a century'." Note 6. The reader will perceive that I am here contrasting the title of Strauss' Lehen Jesu with that of Jeremy Taylor's Life of Christ. The titles are indicative of the spirit in which the two books are respectively written ; the spirit of Jeremy Taylor's is precisely that in which the work should be undertaken, the spirit in which Strau.ss has gone to his work is such as to pre- clude all hope of a profitable performance. Note 7. In a sermon, lately preached before the University of Ox- ford, and entitled, "All faith the gift of God," Dr Pusey says : "But in whatever way, direct or indirect, thi-ough the affections or through the intellect, the soul arrives at faith, whether in God or man, Divine Faith has this over and above, tliat in it there is an immediate action of God upon the soul. Faith, from first to last, is the gift of God to the soul which will receive it. God prepares the soul, with its will and not without it, to receive the Faith. God stills the soul, that it may listen to the Faith ; God flashes conviction into the soul, that it may see the truth of the Faith ; in those who, throvigh His Grace, persevere to the end, God seals up the Faith in the soul, that it may keep the faith which it has received, un- changed, undiminished, unadulterated, the source of life and love and holiness, until faith is swallowed up in the blessed- making sight of Him whom, unseen, it believed." (p. 67). Forcibly as this sermon exliibits one side of the truth, I cannot but fear lest some of the language in it should have a tendency to defeat its end. As when the preacher speaks of " intellect, like every mere natural power, being, unless in so far as Christ subdues it to Himself, in necessary antagonism to 1 Translator's preface to the American edition of Neander's Life of Jesus Christ. 1 86 Notes. the Gospel, both as a whole, and in its parts ; " or again, " the Mysteries of whose nature cannot contradict man's reason, because man has no capacity by which to estimate them ; " or again, "God substituted faith for reasoning;" or again, "Faith, being a Divine gift, is mightier than human reason," Such phrases, though probably susceptible of a true interpretation, appear to exhibit the antithesis of Faith and Reason from a disadvantageous point of view, and to repel rather than attract those, whose spiritual peace is most concerned in the reception of them. Note 8. See the Essay entitled "The Via Media of Deism," iu the Eclipse of Faith. See also Mr Hardwick's Christ and other Masters, Appendix I., in which is given "a complete view of the 'reforms' demanded by the advocates of what they term 'the absolute religion,' or, 'the religion of hxunanity.' " Note 9. To see the kind of instruction which may be di'awn fr(jm the history of the adoration of the Magi, we need only go as far as the Epiphany services of the Church; but it exhibits the difference between our Lord and other chilcben. His infant royalty, His claim to the worship of distant people, more strikingly than the genuineness of His childish natm-e. I might however have fovmd something of value for my argument, if S. Luke's narrative had not seemed so complete in itself It is remarkable, for example, in what bold juxtaposition S. Mat- thew places the adoration of distant sages, or (as tradition says) kings, with the necessity under which the holy family were placed of fleeing into Egypt to avoid the wrath of Herod. Here we have (as it were) the Divine glory suffering an eclipse, in order to allow the human weakness to appear. I need hardly refer the reader to Dean Trench's Star of the Wise Men for a full discussion of this passage of our Lord's life. Note 10. See Neander's Chapter upon the Birth and Cliildhood of Chi'ist, in his Life of Christ, Book i. Chap. iii. But especially Notes. 187 see Dr Mill's publication as Christian Advocate for 184 1, The Historical Character of S. Lukes First Chapter vindicated against some recent mythical Interpreters. The promised de- fense of S. Luke's second chapter never appeared. Note 11. It is impossible to speak too highly of Mr Smith's Voyaije and Shijnvreck of S. Paid : the argument can hardly be deemed to fall short of absolute demonstration; and the result is of importance far beyond settling the question of the modern Malta being the Melita of the Acts, because it manifestly stamps the character of S. Luke as an historian. I am glad to observe, that in the Preface to his Dissertation 0)1 the Origin and Connection of the Gospels, Mr Smith has made this use of the result of his former work : " Having," he writes \ "in my former work shewn by proofs independ- ent of all others, that the wi'itings of S. Luke were those of a contemporary author, personally engaged in some of the most eventful scenes which he has recorded, I can, as Dr Chalmers somewhere says, 'take him from the bar and jDlace him in the witness-box.' Now, nothing but the perfect truth- fulness of his narrative could account for its agreement with facts which could only have been known to him from personal observation; for our knowledge of these facts is only due to recent discoveries and the accurate researches of modern science. Had S. Luke's wiitings been discovered, for the first time, amongst the papyri of Herculanenm, these proofs of their authenticity must have been held conclusive by every one accustomed to investigate the truth or falsehood of sea-voyages of doubtful authority ; but if it can be shewn that the Acts of the Apostles are genuine and authentic, so must also be the Gospel, for not only is it mentioned in that woi'k, but it is obviously by the same hand.' I have spoken in page 29 of the kind of ai-gnment derivable from Mr Smith's researches as suited to "practical English minds," and I will here add, that the acuteness manifested in both works above refei-red to gives singular value to the testi- mony boi'ne, in a note at the foot of the page from which the ^ p. xiii. 188 Notes. above extract is made, to the character of the Leben Jesu. The note is as follows : "Strauss' reasoning is ingenious; but, having necessarily gone over much of the same ground, I have no hesi- tation in asserting that, as a work of original research, his Life of Jesus is utterly worthless. Wherever he meets a critical conclusion wliich suits his views, he assumes that it is esta- blished, and reasons accordingly. Mr Weston, in his late work on the genuineness of the Gospels, observes truly, that ' Nothing more superficial was ever put forth by a wi-iter of any note as the examination of an important subject.'" Note 12. In the works i-eferred to in the preceding note Mr Smith several times quotes with approbation a paper, " On the medical phraseology of S. Luke," contained in the Gentleman s Magazine for June 1841. As the internal evidence of S. Luke's profes- sion afforded by this view of his phraseology is remarkable, and its bearing upon the historical character of his gospel im- portant, and as, moreover, the above-mentioned paper may not be easily obtained, the reader Vill probably be not displeased to find here the following extracts : "The term JS^wttiko? applied to the man who had the dropsy, and was healed by our Saviour, occurs only in S. Luke. There is no mention of it in the other Gospels. The part. pass, perf. TrapaAeXJ/iei/o? is several times used by S. Luke, when speaking of one afilicted with palsy; whereas the other Evange- lists employ the word TrapaAuTiKo?, which is never so used by the Greek writers. When Elymas the sorcerer was miraculously punished by S. Paul with blincbiess, S. Luke says, eTreVeaei/ eV avTov ayXw. The WO I'd a-^m is nowhere used in the four Gospels, and was probably a medical term, as we find Galen, who wrote after the time of S. Luke, stating that a certain disorder of the eye is called nx^v<<^ and those tliat are afilicted with it Sia Tii/o? ayXio^ o'iuvrai (ixtirew, "seem to see through a sort of thick mist or fog." The medical term irapo^va-tJi6a\w(7u(ra, than is iised by S. Mark, who employs the word oa7ravr'](Ta(Ta, properly applicable only to spending in a riotous and luxurious manner, and so S. Luke uses it in the case of the Prodigal Son." Note 13. Neander says, "We agree with Schleiermacher in thinking that this account came indirectly from the shepherds themselves, as it recites, so particularly, what occurred to themselves personally, and makes so little mention of what happened to the child after their arrival. The facts may be supposed to have been as follows. The faithful were anxious to jDreserve the minute features of the life of Jesus. Especially would any one who had the opportunity prosecute such researches in the remarkable place where Christ was born. Perhaps one of these inquirers there found one of the shepherds who had witnessed these events, and whose memory of them was vividly recalled after his conversion to Christianity. We cannot be sure that such a man would give with literal accuracy the words that he had heard ; but taking them as they stand, it is astonishing how free they are from the materialism which always tinged Jewish expression, and in how purely spiritual a 190 Notes. way tliey describe the sublime traDsaction of wliicli they treat." I do not perceive tlie necessity of supposing an account to have been rendered by one of the shepherds long after the event, because the Blessed Virgin would seem to have been a much more probable reporter to S. Luke ; but the principle is the same, namely, that she would report the transaction as the shepherds described it, aud they would describe it "as the Spii-it gave them utterance." I have no wish to say a word for or against any view which may be deemed the orthodox one of the objective fact to which the shepherds referred, when they sj)oke of having seen and heard a nmltitude of the heavenly host; I only desire to prevent an objection being raised to the i-ecep- tion of the story of the shepherds as a plain historical narrative on the ground of its involving a vision of angels. Note 14. The Circumcision is one of three great Feasts between Christmas and Easter; the other two being the Epiphany, and the Purification or Presentation in the Temple. The Collect has laid hold upon the true point of the histoiy when it teaches US to pray to "Almighty God, who made His blessed Son to be circumcised, and obedient to the Laid for man." "Cur circumcidi voluerit," says Maldonatus, "qui, imiocens cum esset, circumcisione non indigebat, quseri solet facileque ab omnibus respondetur, exempli causa fecisse, ut nos doceret divinis parere legibus. Venerat enim, ut ipse jDOstea dixit, non legem solvere sed adimj)lere: aut, ut solveret adimplendo, ut Origenes interpretatur. Et sicut voluit fieri ex muliere, ita voluit spoute sua fieri sub lege. Alii dicunt non in sua, sed totius liumani generis persona circumcidi voluisse. In quem sensum expoiiit Beda: Redemptor, inquit, noster, qui ut peccata mundi tolleret, sine peccato venit in mundum, sicut suo hap)tis- mate nobis remedia 2^fOcuravit, id est, nostris abluendis sceleribus aquarum, quce subiit, lavacra consecravit : ita, etiam circumci- sione, quam suscepit, non sua, quce nulla erant, admissa purgavit, sed nostrce in se naturce vetustatem docuit innovandam, et nunc videlicet earn per se a vitiorum lobe pmrgandam, et in novissima die signijicans ab ipsa midtifarioi mortalitatis ac mortis 2)este penitus esse restaur andam''^." ^ Maklonat. in Luc. ii. 21. Notes. 191 There is another or rather a subsidiary view-, according to which the circumcision is typical of the blood afterwards more profusely shed. So Keble : The year begins with Thee, And Thou beginn'st with woe, To let the world of siuneTS see, That blood for sin must flow. Thomas Aquinas gives seven reasons for the Lord's submis- sion to Circumcision : — (i) Ut ostendat veritatem carnis humana?, contra Mani- chseum qui dixit eum habuisse corpiis phantasticum : et conti-a Apollinarium, qui dixit corpus Christi esse divinitati consub- stantiale : et contra Yalentinum, qui dixit Christum de ccelo corpus attulisse. (2) Ut approbaret circumcisionem, quam olim Deus iu- stituerat. (3) Ut comprobaret se esse de genere Abrahse, qui circum- cisionis mandatum acceperafc in signum fidei, quam de ij^so habuerat. (4) Ut Judjieis excusationem tolleret, ne eum reciperent, si esset incircumcisus. (5) Ut obediendi virtutem nobis suo commendaret exemplo : unde et octava die circumcisus est, sicut in lege erat prssceptum. (6) Ut quia in similitudinem carnis peccati advenerat, remedium, quo caro peccati consueverat emendari, non respueret. (7) Ut legis onus in se sustinens, alios a legis onere liberaret secundum illud Gal. iv. Misit Deus Filium suum factum sub lege, ut eos qiti sub lege erant redimeret'^. Note 15. I have spoken of the pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons being offered for the redemption of the firstborn, which is not st]-ictly correct, the oftering being rather for the purifica- tion of the mother. We find in Exodus xiii. that the firstborn liotli of man and beast were consecrated to God, and were to be redeemed, but the price of redemption of a child is not stated : if however we turn to Leviticus xii. which treats of the purification of women after childbirth, we find that the woman 1 Summ. Theol. Pars III. Qnasst. xxxvii. 192 Notes. is commanded to " bring a lamb of the first year for a bunit- ofFering, and a young pigeon, or a turtle-dove, for a sin-offering, unto the door of the tabernacle of the congi-egation, unto the priest : who shall offer it before the Lord, and make an atone- ment for her." And afterwards it is ordered, that " if she be not able to bring a lamb, then she shall bring two turtles, or two young pigeons ; the one for the burnt-offering, and the other for a sin-offering." " Though," says Campbell, " the uncleanness of the mother, after bearing a male child, lasted only seven days, she remained thirty-three days longer debarred from touching any hallowed thing, or going into the sanctuary. Nor could the fii-stborn male be legally presented to the Lord, and redeemed, till he was a month old at least. But as the time was not, like that of circumcision, fixed to a particular day, it may have been customary, because convenient, for those who lived at a distance from Jerusalem, to allot the same time for the purification and the redemption (as was actually done in this case), and to consider the ceremonies in a complex view, as regarding both mother and child'." Neander also speaks of the parents going uji to Jerusalem " to offer the prescribed sacrifice for the purification of Mary, and to pay the usual ransom for their firstborn." Query, was there any offering for the redemption of the child, besides the turtle-doves or pigeons ? Lightfoot says : " The firstborn was to be redeemed immediately after the thirtieth day from his birth. ' Every one is bound to redeem his firstborn with five shekels, after he is thirty days old ; as it is said, From a month old shalt thou redeem.'' Numb, xviti. i6. Not that the price of that redemption was always paid exactly upon the thirtieth day ; but that then exactly it became due." Note 16. " Consider what the occurrence in question consists in. A little child is brought to the Temple, as all firstborn children were brought. Tliere is nothing here uncommon or striking, so far. His pai'ents are with him, poor people, bringing the offering of pigeons or doves, for the purification of the mother. They are met in the Temple by an old man, who takes the 1 C.-impbell on the Oospds. Note on S. Luko ii. 22. Notes. 193 child in his arms, offex's a thanksgiving to God, and blesses the l)arents ; and next are joined by a woman of a great age, a widow of eight j-four years, who had exceeded the time of useful service, and seemed to be but a fit prey for death. She gives thanks also, and speaks concerning the child to other persons who are present. Then all retire. "Now, there is evidently nothing great or impressive in this ; nothing to excite the feelings, or excite the imagination. We know \vhat the world thinks of such a group as I have described. The weak and helpless, whether from age or in- fancy, it looks upon negligently and passes by. Yet all this that happened was really the solemn fulfilment of an ancient and emphatic prophecy. The infant in arms was the Saviour of the world, the rightful heir, come in disguise of a stranger to visit His own house. The Scripture had said, The Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to His Temple; hut who may abide the day of His comi^ig ? and who may stand when He ajypeareth .? He had now taken possession. And further, the old man, who took the child in his arms, had upon him gifts of the Holy Ghost, had been promised the blessed sight of his Lord before his death, came into the Temple by heavenly guidance, and now had within him thoughts unutterable, of joy, thankfulness and hope, strangely mixed with awe, fear, painfvil wonder, and bitterness of spirit. Anna too, the woman of fourscore and four years, was a prophetess ; and the by- standers, to whom she spoke, were the true Israel, who were looking out in faith for the predicted I'edemption of mankind, those who (in the words of the pi'ojihecy) sought and in prospect delighted in the Messenger of God's covenant of mercy. The glory oj'this latter House shall be greater than of the former^, was the annoimcement of another prophecy. Behold the glory ! a little child and his parents, two aged persons, and a congre- gation without name or memorial. The kingdom of God cometh not with observation'^." Jeremy Taylor speaking of the Presentation in the Temple, says : "there was no public act about this Holy Child, biit it was attended by something miraculous and extraordinary." 1 Haggai ii. 9. ^ Newman's Parochial Sermons, Vol. 11. Secrecy and Suddcnnci^s of Dich, e Visifafions, 194 Notes. Note 17. Neander observes, " His parents, wlio were accustomed to visit Jerusalem togetlier annually at tlie time of the Passover, took Him -with them then for the first time." Stier also says (Reden des Herrn Jesu), " There is latent proof in the twelve years, as indeed in the whole narrative, that this was the first time." But I find Maldonatus remarking, "An ascenderit Christus cum parentibus in Jerusalem per singulos annos^ an 80 tantum anno, quo hsec contigerunt, quia grandiusculus erat, cceperit ascendere, incertum : sed est probabilius per singulos annos ascendisse, idque mihi videtur EvangeUsta obscure licet indicare, cum non dicit, eo anno ascendisse, sed remansisse in Jerusalem, quasi insinuans, aliis annis ascendisse quidem, sed non remansisse : et quia satis esse putaverit dicere, ascendisse parentes, ut et puerum ascendisse intelligeremus. Atque ita Beda sentit, et Juvencus." Lightfoot's " Hebrew and Talmudical" illustrations of S. Luke ii. 42 are as follows : "'Let a man deal gently with his son, till he come to be twelve years old : but from that time, let him descend with him into his way of \vnug :' that is, let him diligently, and with severity (if need be), keep him close to that way, rule, or art, by which he may get his living. At twelve years old they were wont to inure children to fasting .... that they might be accustomed to it, and so be capable of fasting upon the day of atonement. Christ, being now twelve years old, applies Himself to His proper work, to he about His Father's business. ' Solomon, when twelve yeai's old, judged between the two women.' 'E,. Chama saith, that Moses, when he was twelve years old, was taken from his father's house.' " Note 18. Mr Alford says upon the words ei/ to?? toD iraTpd^ fiov, "primarily 'in the house of My Father;' but we must not exclude the wider sense, which embraces all places and eniploy- ments of My Fathers. The best rendering would perhaps be, ' among My Father's matters.' The employment in Avhich He was found, learning the Word of God, would naturally be one Notes. 195 of these." And Makloiiatus observes, " Origines, Ejjijihanius, Augustinus, Eixthymius et Hugo putant ea, quse Patris sui erant, templum apj)ellari, Dei enini non liominum templum erat. At non tarn locum loco, quam negotia negotiis, personas personis opponere videtur, negotia Patris sui ccelestis negotiis omnibus humanis, etiam parentum societati, obedientise, conso- lationi, sicut alibi dicit ; Meus cibus est, ut faciam voluntatem Ejus, qui misit Me." Note 19. Concerning the tradition of our blessed Lord having actually- worked at handicraft, it is usual to refer to Justin Martyr's Dialogue vnth Tryfho, in which he says, Kai e\d6vTo^ tov 'Itja-ov eirt TOV loptavriv, kui vofjuQofievov luxTrjcp tov TeKTOvo^ viov vir- dp'^eiv, K«i dethov<;, ca<; at ypacpai eKrjpva-aov, (paivo/xevov, Koi TeK- Tovo'i vopi^opevov (ravTa yap tu tcktoviku epya elpjd^eTo ev dvdpunroi'i wu, dpoTpa Ka\ (^vyu, 3/'(/)" 069 Karw ra vuo ^nAa, Ka\ eK tov peaov pepov; la-oTroiijaov avTU. Ka\ eTro'itjcrev 'looo-ijif), Kadw<; elirev avTto TO truiXioii. "E<7t>/ oe o 'I>;o-ou9 e'k tov eTCpov pepovc^ Ka\ iKpdTi](T6 TO Ko\oft(aTepov ^vKov, K.ai enTelva'; uvto ktov eivoUia-e TOV dWov. It may be noted that Origen, in reply to a sneer from Celsus concerning our Lord's having been engaged in handi- craft, denies that any such statement is made in the canonical Gospels, complaining of Celsus as ov /SXevwv, on ov^apov twi/ ev Ta?9 eKK\r]^ Kai eu tmv -Traioiuiv tcoi/ Trail^ovTtav fj-eT avTov Treaoi' diro Tov d(o';UaTO](tuv'; dird tu CTTeyou?, Kui ecrrt] Trapa to TTTUiixa tov -TraiOinv, kui eKoa^e (pwi/r] /j.ejd\t], Kcii e'nrev Tii^vov' (uvtu) yccp to ouopa avTov eKaAeiTo') ccua'h difierently in Notes. 213 the two verses ; they probably could hardly have done other- wise, for the word soul would have given an altogether wrong impression of the first verse, and the word life would not, to our minds, have conveyed the full sense of the second. Still, it must be allowed that the passage has lost force by this use of life and soul, as will be seen at once by comparing the transla- tion with the original, in which the vi/u;^*? which a man loses for Christ's sake is connected by closest bonds, and almost iden- tified, with that ^jyvy^f}, which a man may lose though he gain the whole world, and which will be most truly his when the Son of man shall come in the glory of His Father loith His angels, and reward every man according to his works. Note 43. "Multa et per prophetas servos suos dici Deus voluit et audiri ; sed quanto majora quse Filius loquitur, quae Dei Sermo qui in prophetis fuit j^ropria voce testatur, non jam mandans ub paretur venienti via, sed ipse veniens, et viam nobis aperiens et ostendens \" In another part of the treatise, from which the preceding passage is taken, S. Cyprian says, very beautifully : " Cum Dei Sermo Dominus noster Jesus Christus omnibus venerit, et coUigens doctos pariter et indoctos omni sexui atque setati prsecepta salutis ediderit, prseceptorum suorum fecit graude compendium, ut in disciplina ccelesti discentium memoria non laboraret, sed quod esset simplici fidei necessarium velociter disceret. Sic cum doceret quid sit vita seterna, sacramentum vitte magna et divina brevitate complexus est dicens : Hoic est autem vita oiterna, ut cogiioscerent Te solum et verum Deum, et quern misisti Jesum Christum. Item cum de lege et prophetis prsecepta prima et majora decerperet : Audi, inquit, Israel, Domimis Deus tuus Deus unus est. Et diliges Dominum Deum tuum de toto corde tuo, et de tota anima tua, et de tota virtute tua. Hoc est primum mandatum. Et secundum simile est huic : Diliges proximum tibi tanquam te ipsum. In his duohus proiceptis tota lex pendet et profhetce. Et iterum : Qucecunque volueritis ut faciant vobis homines bona, ita et vos facite illis. Hoec est enim lex et prophetcc." ^ 8. Cyp. Be Oral. Domin. 214 Notes. 1 may, pei'haps, also with advantage, quote here the follow- ing scrap from Bacon : — " Scriptum est ' Coeli enarrant gloriam Dei ; ' at nusquam script um invenitur 'Coeli enarrant voluntatem DeL'-.-Neque hoc tenet tantum in grandibus illis mysteriis, de Deitate, crea- tione, redemptione, verum pertinet etiam ad interpretationem perfectiorem legis moralis ; ' Diligite inimicos vestros, bene- facite his, qui oderunt vos,' &c. Quaj certe verba plausum ilium merentur : ' Nee vox hominem sonat *.' " Note 44. " But the Proconsul, insisting and saying, ' Swear, and I will set thee at liberty ; reproach Chi-ist.' Polycarp replied, ' Eighty and six years have I now served Christ, and He has never done me the least wrong; how, then, can I blaspheme my King and my Saviour"?'" Note 45. Milton's Liberty of Unlicensed Printing. Note 46. See Alford's Prolegomena to the Gospels, Chap, v., § iii., in which is contained a svimmary of Lucke's Dissertation on the Design of S. Johns Gospel : " We may evidently see, from the diligence with which S. John accumulates autoptic evidence on the subject of the actual death of Christ, and His resurrection, that he has in this part also some in view who did not receive those gi-eat events as undoubted facts, but required the authority of an Apostle to assure them of their truth." Again : " The stand made in the Gospel is against Gnosticism in the very widest sense : in its Ebionitish form, as denying the divinity and pre-existence of Christ ; and in its Docetic, as denying the reality of His assumption of the human nature." See also Note 31. 1 De A urjm. Sc'i. Lib. ix. caj). i. 2 Circular Epistle concerninfj the Martyrdom of S. Polycarp. Wake's Apostolical Fathers. Notes. 215 Note 47. The feeling of Heathen concerning the cross is singularly- illustrated by an edict against Christianity issued six years ago in China, of which a translation is published in the Colonial Church Chronicle (Vol. iv. p. 356). The whole document is curious, but the passage to my purpose is the following : " Were their tale fact, it would still be quite inexplicable why the worshippers of Jesus should adore the instrument of His punish- ment, and consider it so to represent Him as not to venture to tread upon it. Would it be common sense, if the father or ancestor of a house had been killed by a shot from a fowling- piece, or by a wound from a sword, that his sons or grandsons should adore a fowling-piece, or a sword, as their father or ancestor 1 " Note 48. On the use of the sign of the cross, see Bingham's Antiqui- ties. Catechumens were admitted with the sign of the cross (Book X, Chap. i. § iii.) ; the sign was used in the ceremonies of Baptism (Book xi. Chap. ix. § iv. ; Chap. x. § iii.) ; in Prayer (Book XIII. Chap. viii. § x.) ; in Ordination (Book 11. Chap. xix. § xvii.) ; in the consecration of the Eucharist (Book xv. Chap. III. § vii.) Note 49. This thought is worked out at greater length in my sermon upon the Death of Josiah ; Parish Sermons, Third Sei-ies, Sermon vii. Note 50. It will be remembered, in explanation of the passage to which tliis Note is appended, that these Lectures were delivered during the progress of that most lamentable suit, ' Ditcher versus Deuison.' Note 51. This is the substance, not the verbal translation, of a passage in Hasse's Lehen des Erlosers im ffimmel. 216 Notes. The followiug passage is from this work : Aber auch der bibel- und kirchen-glaiibige Christ kauu sich eben so wenig mit dem historischeu Christus alleiu zufrie- den geben, wenn dieser namlich lediglich iu den beschraukteu Grenzen seiues irdischen Lebens zwischen Geburt und Him- melfahrt wirkend gedacht, wenn der Person des Herrn keine weitere Wirksamkeit zugeschrieben, und wenn alles iiber die genannte Schlussgrenze seinens "Wirkens Hinausgehende niu* als Nachwirkung seiues in der Zeit vollbrachten "VVerkes be- trachtet werden soil. Er verlangt, glaubt und bekennt, auf das Zeuguiss der Schrift und des Christlichen Gemeindebewusst- seins sich stUtzend, einen auch nach seinem Scheiden aus der Sichtbarkeit dennoch in seiner Gemeinde (und in der Welt) fortioirkenclen, fort und fort thdtigen, ja erst nach jenem mit vollem Einfliiss hegahten Lebendigen Christus \ The same author had just befox-e written, very pointedly : Ich lehe ! — So sprach von Sich, die Seinen zu trbsten, im Angesichte des Todes, Jesus Christus der HeiT, ohne Raum zu lassen oder einen TJnterschied zu machen zwischen seinem damals gegenwartigen und seinem damals zuklinftigen Leben'^ Note 52. Si I'homme n'est fait pour Dieu, pourquoi n'est-il heureux qu'en Dieu 1 Si I'homme est fait pour Dieu, pom-quoi est il si contraire a Dieu^*? Note 53. Newman's Essay On Development of Christian Doctrine, page 405. Note oi. Locke's Essay On the Humaii Understanding, Book i. chap, iii. § 9. Note 55. Haec cum essent dicta, ita discessimns, \\i Velleio Cottte disputatio verier, mihi Balbi ad veritatis similittidinem videretur esse propensior. 1 p. 25. 2 p. 24. •'' Grandeur c( Miserc dc Nlummc. (\o\. 11. p. yo, P. Faugure's Ed.) Notes. 217 I observe tliat this conclusion of the De Natura Deorum, and " the entire indecision in which all is left," is noticed by- Dean Trench in a Note to the last of his Hulsean Lectures for 1846. He adds, " More explicit yet is that fifth chapter of the second book of Pliny's Natural History, with its open confession of an utter scepticism in any moral government of the world : Irridendum vero agere curam reriim humanarum illud quic- quid est summum. Anne tarn tristi multiplicique ministerio non pollui credamus dubitemusve ^ '? " Note 56. The Christian Observer of April 1856 said, with reference to my former Course of Lectures, "Whatever might be right and fitting in a ' Treatise,' it is a grave question, whether any tone should be employed in the pulpit, except that of the man having his commission from Christ. That commission runs thus : Thus saith the Lord. He is to bid reason stand silent in the presence of revelation. He is to warn his hearers that tJie natural man receiveth not the things of the Sjnrit of God; for they are foolishness to him. He must tell them faithfully, in our Lord's words — however antiquated those words may seem to a certain class of Theologians — that unless they he converted, and become as little children, they cannot enter into the kingdom of Heaven. Entertaining this view of the solemn duty of a j)reacher, though he be called a ' Hulsean Lecturer,' we regret to see Mr Goodwin appearing in these Lectures rather as the cautious apologist, than the fearless champion, of Christianity." It is with reference to such objections as these that the remarks are made, to which this note is appended. I trust that there are some to whom my explanation will approve itself as sufiicient • at the same time I am quite aware, that "there is," as Mr Robertson forcibly writes in a sermon to which I have already referred^, "an inability to enter into difficulties of thought, which marks the mind to which all things have been presented superficially, and which has never experienced the horror of feeling the ice of doubt crashing beneath the feet." Without laying stress on the superficiality here spoken of, we may say without any hesitation, that certain minds are much more open to sceptical influences than ' p. 167. 2 p. 207. 218 Notes. others; and that those wLo know nothing of such tendencies by experience are apt to be severe towards their brethren, and to assume a tone little likely to restore peace and to bring back a wanderer to the fold. How far it was fi'oni my intention, how- ever, to adopt the line attributed to me by the Christian Observer, may be judged from the fact of the text of my Introductory Lecture being the words of S. Paul, / determined not to Jcnoio anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, and from such language as the following, which I used in my sermon upon those words, " I trust, by God's help, that I may be able to make this course of sermons such as, accoxxling to the expression used in the will of the founder, 'shall shew the evidence for revealed religion, and demonstrate in the most convincing and persuasive manner the truth and excellence of Christianity;' and yet not desert the gi-ound announced in my text, — the only ground upon which any preacher of the Gospel can safely stand, — namely, the determination to know nothing among Christians, save Jesus Christ." 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