Srom f 0e fetfirftrg of (pvoftBBOt tOURm (differ (pdtfon, ©.©., ££. $reeenfeo fig (JJtre. (Jtarfon fo f0e fetfimrg of (prtncefon ^eofogtcdf ^eminorg SABBATH EVENING READINGS. ST. MARK SABBATH EVENING READINGS ON THE NEW TESTAMENT REY. JOHN GUMMING, D.D., F.R.S.E., OP TIIE SCOTTISU NATIONAL CHURCH, CROWN COURT, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON. ST. MAE K BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY JOHN P. JEWETT AND COMPANY. CLEVELAND, OHIO: JEWETT, PIIOCTOR, AND TVOUTIIiNGTON. NEW YORK : SHELDON, LAMPORT AND BLAKEMAN. 1855. cam bridge: ALLEN AND FARNHAM, STEREOTYPERS AND PRINTERS. CONTENTS, CHAPTER I. Page Author of Gospel — Difference between Matthew and Mark's Narratives — Christ's Deity — The Baptist's Place — The Bap- tism of Jesus — Call of Apostles — Jesus in the Synagogue — Demoniacs — Peter's Wife — Jesus is God CHAPTER II. Popularity of the Preaching of Jesus — The Crowd in the Area — The Palsied Cured — The only Sin-Forgiver — Pulpits of the Great Preacher — Consecrated Ground — Call of Matthew — Dining, when and with whom — Fasting — Old Wine and New Bottles — The Sabbath 14 CHAPTER II. (Continued.) The Sabbath — Man's Mistakes 25 CHAPTER III. Influence of the Heart on the Head — Sabbath clay Duties — Anger — Coalition against Jesus — The Great Physician — The Twelve — Earnestness — Blasphemy — The Unpardon- able Sin — The truly Blessed 41 VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV Popularity of Teaching of Jesus — Parable — Fable — Allegory — Different Words for same Truths — The Sower — Difference in Matthew and Mark — The Mustard-tree — Jesus in a Storm 51 CHAPTER IV. (Continued.) The Kingdom of God — The Sower — The Seed — The Growth — The Harvest 61 CHAPTER V. Demoniac Possession — Satan in the Herd of Swine — The Con- duct of the Delivered Demoniac — Showing forth the Truth — The Woman touching the Hem of his Garment — The Ruler and his Daughter 78 CHAPTER VI. Labors of Jesus — Objections to Him — Reason of Rejection — Importance of Faith — Missionary Preparation and Apostolic Commission — Martyrdom of John — Reason of it — Female Depravity — Miracle of Loaves and Fishes — The Storm . . 88 CHAPTER VII. Ceremony and Morality — Concession and Compromise — The Surplice — Baptisms — Corban — What it is that defiles the Soul — Seal of Character — The Woman's Possessed Daughter — Ephphatha — All Things done well 112 CHAPTER VII. (Continued.) Praise of Jesus — Excellency of Working — Creation — Provi- dence — Grace . . ' 123 CHAPTER VIII. Jesus ministers to Bodily Wants — Physical and Spiritual Bless- ings connected — Miracle of Loaves — Great Facts and Simple CONTENTS. Vll Descriptions — Pharisees not satisfied — Leaven — Blind Man cured — Redemptive Nature of Christ's Miracles — Christ's Prediction of his Death — A Cross first — Peter, Satan, and Eock— Our Cross — The Soul 129 CHAPTER VIII. {Continued.) Ashamed of Christ — Who are so 1 — Reasons alleged for being so — Not sound Reasons — Christ ashamed of such . . . 140 CHAPTER IX. Transfiguration — Moses and Elijah — Peter's Proposal — Promise of Elijah's Coming — Demoniac cured — Prayer, Easting, and Faith — Interpretation — Endless Misery — Affliction . . .153 CHAPTER X. Crowds of Hearers — Pharisees and Divorce — Glory of the Bible — God suffers Evil — Reasons why He does so — Children brought to Jesus — Heaven full of — Their Character — Bap- tism — The Young Inquirer — Riches — Proverb — Promise 165 CHAPTER XI. Literal Fulfilment of Prophecy — The Children's Shout — The Fruitless Fig-tree — Curse on the Tree a Lesson to the Jews — Desecration of the House of God — Jesus rebukes it — John Knox — Prayer — Captious Questions 175 CHAPTER XL (Continued.) Prayer — Assurance 185 CHAPTER XII. A Parable — Pharisees see its Drift — The Erastians and the High Ecclesiastics — A Snare — The Attack of the Sadducees — The Millennium and its Features — The Common People heard gladly — Only Test of Truth — A Widow's Offer . .192 Vlll CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIII. Watch — Jewish Economy — A Foreshadow — Temple — Stones — End of the Age — Cautions — Joscplms — Signs in the Sky significant of Results on Earth — Fig-tree Budding — Jews — The Coming Struggle — Watch 204 CHAPTER XIII. [Continued.) Forms of Evil — Seductive Systems — False Teachers — Miracles — The Elect 215 €HAPTER XIV. Enmity of the Priests — Woman and precious Perfume — Judas — Last Passover — Prophecy of Betrayal — Lord's Supper — Transubstantiation — Peter's Self-confidence — Gcthsemane — Betrayal by Judas — Peter's Denial 223 CHAPTER XV. Last Sufferings of Jesus — Pilate — Silence of Jesus — Barabbas preferred to the Son of God — Ecclesiastical Succession — Pilate's miserable Conduct — Jesus Crucified — Darkness — Hour of Crucifixion — The Cry on the Cross 233 CHAPTER XV. (Continued.) Centurion's Testimony impartial — What implied in it — Evan- gelists sketched from a Living Original 243 CHAPTER XVI. The Resurrection of Jesus — The Stone at the Sepulchre — Tho Scene within — Message to Peter — Miracles 261 CHAPTER XVI. {Continued.) The Great Commission — The Extent of the Gospel — Effects of — Baptisms — Christianity a Universal Religion 269 SCRIPTURE READINGS. EXPOSITION OF MARK I. A.UTHOR OF GOSPEL — DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MATTHEW AND MARK'S NARRATIVES — CHRIST'S DEITY — THE BAPTIST'S PLACE — THE BAPTISM OF JESUS — CALL OF APOSTLES — JESUS IN THE SYNA- GOGUE — demoniacs — peter's wife — jesus is god. It is clearly gathered from other portions of the New Testament Scriptures that the author of this Gospel was called sometimes John — not John the Evangelist — and afterwards surnamed Mark, and was sister's son to Barnabas, and the son of Mary, a pious woman who lived in the midst of Jerusalem. He is alluded to by the Apostle Paul, whom he accompanied in many of his travels, as we find recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. He was also the very intimate companion of the Apostle Peter, who frequently makes mention of him ; and it is universally believed, as it is recorded by most of the ancient Patristic authorities, that this Gospel was not only inspired by God, like the rest of the four, but that it was also composed under the surveillance and superintendence of the Apostle Peter himself. 1 2 SCRIPTURE READINGS. We shall trace a distinction between this Gospel and that according to St. Matthew. St. Matthew's Gospel was plainly written for the Jews, and there- fore it traces the genealogy of Christ through all the Jewish families upwards to Adam; and you will notice that in it there are allusions to Jewish cus- toms, rites, and ceremonies, without the least explan- atory remark appended to them, which plainly indi- cates that Matthew wrote for a people who under- stood the rites, ceremonies, and customs to which he refers. I do not know whether I mentioned, in my introductory remarks on St. Matthew's Gospel, that the universal statement of the early Fathers is, that he wrote his Gospel in the Hebrew, or rather in the Syro-Chaldaic language, which was a dialect of the Hebrew spoken by the Jews in the days of our blessed Lord. It is said by some of the Fathers, that it was translated subsequently into Greek by Matthew himself; by others it is said that it was translated by some other writer. St. Mark's Gospel was written, plainly, originally in Greek, being a Gospel meant peculiarly for the Gentiles ; and in it we have less of the personal history of Jesus, and more of his official character. Thus, whilst Matthew begins with the genealogy of Christ the Son of David, the Gospel of Mark begins with the herald of Jesus, and his temptation, and miracles. We shall find, by a careful comparison of the four Gospels, that whatever was their common origin, — and I believe the writers of them were independent wit- nesses to the facts which they recorded, and that they have recorded these facts each in his own Ian- MARK I. 3 guage and phraseology, but guided, governed, and directed by the Holy Spirit, — we have Christ in four different lights, portrayed, if I may so speak, in four different aspects, described by four different narrators ; one a profile, another a full face, the other three quarters of the face, and another almost entirely relating to the official character and functions of Jesus. So that we have Christ set forth in all lights, and seen at all angles, and exhibited in all his glory by four competent witnesses, describing in their own way, but inspired by the common Spirit, the wonder- ful things of the Son of God. This Gospel begins at once by the statement, " The beginning of the Gospel," that is plainly, the beginning of the narrative of the good news, "of Jesus Christ;" not, as Matthew says, "the Son of David," for it was not St. Mark's purpose to delineate him in that character, but " the Son of God." Now this expression means, in the New Testament, invari- ably a divine person. To call one "the Son of God," was equivalent in Jewish hearing to calling him " God over all blessed for evermore." It is therefore very beautiful that the Gospel which delineates his sorrows as a man, should have for its preface his glory as the Son of God. It is very interesting that that Gospel which tells us how deep he sunk in the miry clay, when the weight and pressure of our iniquities was upon him, should begin with a decla- ration of his majesty and glory, that we might never lose sight of the God in his deepest sorrows, or forget that he was the Equal of the Father, when he endured the cross for us and our salvation. 4 SCRIPTURE READINGS. St. Mark refers to the ministry of John, as that ministry was predicted in the prophet Malachi, ch. iii., and again in Isaiah xl., and both fulfilled in John baptizing in the wilderness, and preaching the bap- tism of repentance as a preparation for Christ, in whom alone there was remission of sins. We read that " there went out unto him all the land of Judsea." That expression " all," I may state, is used in Scripture not in that rigid sense in which theologians would sometimes interpret it. You recol- lect that, in the book of Exodus, we read that the hail smote all the herbs in the land of Egypt ; but we find afterwards some herbs, plants, and trees that were spared. The word " all," therefore, was used in the sense of all sorts of plants, trees, and herbs. So, again, we have in one of the Epistles the apostle exhorting that prayers should be made for all men, for all in authority, for kings, since God will have " all men " to be saved. If it were God's absolute fiat that the whole of the world should be saved, Universalism would be true ; but, plainly, the word " all " is used in the sense of all sorts of men : for he exhorts that prayers be made for all in authority, that is, for kings as well as subjects. And here it cannot be supposed that the whole population of Juda?a, numbering somewhere about three, four, or five mil- lions, went out to John, but that all sorts of the inhabitants — Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes, rich, poor, great, and lowly — went out to hear John the Baptist. We read next a description of John's rai- ment. To show that he was the preacher of a stern testimony, he was clothed in the severest and the MARK I. O simplest habits, — clothed with camel's hair; and it is said that he ate, — not to indicate his taste, but the place of his habitation, — locusts and wild honey. He did not eat locusts and wild honey as a monk eats black bread, as an expiatory duty, but because he could find nothing else in the place in which he was constrained to live. He preached, not himself, but, like a faithful min- ister, his Master. He detached the people's thoughts from the herald, and tried to teach them of One who came after him, — " There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose." When a traveller came to an eastern house, his shoes or san- dals were unloosed and removed by the servant, that the dusty feet might be washed, and the weary traveller thus refreshed. "Well, John says, The gap between me, the pioneer, and my great Master is so great, that I am not worthy to do the humblest office for him — so great is his glory, and so lowly is my function. Then we read that " Jesus was baptized of John in Jordan." Now some say that he was immersed, others that he was sprinkled, and others that water was poured upon his head. If we take ancient pictures, which are in this matter apocryphal, we shall come to the conclusion that the water was poured upon his head. It does not seem probable that he was immersed; and at all events there is a magnificent latitude in the language of Scripture, which never so describes a ceremony, that rigid con- formity in jots and tittles shall be our duty. On the 1* 6 SCRIPTURE READINGS. contrary, it leaves the ceremony so largely and widely delineated, that this custom may prevail in the north, and that custom in the south, provided the substance be observed. The special ritual pecu- liarities are left to the habits and customs, the taste and convenience of the people. Certainly, if immer- sion were universal (and I am not finding fault with it ; I am only finding fault with those who abso- lutely insist upon it), it would be a very awkward custom in Greenland; it would be very unsuitable in the severe frosts of winter ; and surely that religion which is not meat nor drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, never would have enforced a rigid ceremony impracticable in Green- land, and practicable only where there is a warm sun and a balmy climate, in English Junes, or in eastern or equatorial lands. It therefore seems not worth disputing whether it was immersion or sprinkling : there is something better than either — righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. I do not wish to make severe and controversial criticisms upon any section of the Christian Church, still less when in that section there was an Andrew Fuller, a Robert Hall, and many others eminent for their learning and their talents ; but I must add, it is not sufficient to quote this passage to prove that adult baptism is alone lawful. Our Lord's baptism was not our baptism at all. Christian baptism was not yet insti- tuted ; it was not instituted till after our Lord's resur- rection from the dead, and therefore cannot have been practised before it was ill existence. The only baptism that existed was John's ; and so unsatisfac- MARK I. 7 tory was this baptism, that we read in the Acts of the Apostles that they who had received John's baptism had to receive Christian baptism, showing that the two were not identical at all. Therefore, it is evident that the baptism of Jesus was not what we call Christian baptism, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Then, what was it? It was the commencement of his official ministry ; it was his initiation as the Great Teacher of the glad tidings of everlasting life ; and when He was thus baptized, we read that the Holy Spirit descended upon him, not to sanctify him — for the Holy Spirit was in him in all fulness from his birth — but to qualify him for his office, proving that this baptism was introductory to an official function. The Spirit descended like a dove — some say in the shape of a dove; certainly in one passage it looks very like that, for there it is said, oofiariKug, in the bodily form of a dove. Yet one does not like to admit, without some very clear evidence, that He took any visible form, or revealed himself in the form of any animal or bird whatever. It seems not directly contradicted that the Spirit descended with the speed of a dove, and lighted on his head ; " and there came a voice from heaven," the voice of the Father, " saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Now, here we have the whole Trinity. We have Christ the Subject, the Spirit the Anointer, and the Father uttering from heaven, " Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." We find next the record of the temptation of 8 SCRIPTURE READINGS. Jesus. The word " driven " is too severe a transla- tion of the original. It ought to be, "was carried away " — was led away, not by his own choice, nor yet by external force, but in the providence and by the direction of God. He was led into the wilder- ness, there to be tempted. Is there not here a singu- lar contrast? The world was lost in a beautiful garden, amid a balmy air, amid all created things — birds and beasts in accord with man, who was in sweet accord with God ; and the world was regained, and Paradise restored, in a desert, the opposite to a garden, amid savage wild beasts that were at war with man, because man was at war with God, and by the solitary Second Adam strong in the strength of Him on whose mission and embassy he came. We read that angels there ministered to him ; and at last Jesus came forth, when John was put into prison. As soon as the morning-star had set, and this grand Sun had risen, we hear that he preached in Galilee the very first thing, not the law, not repentance, but "the Gospel of the kingdom." First, the kingdom of God is at hand, that is, the good tidings, salva- tion: therefore, because of this, repent, John's preaching was, " Repent, in order to reach the Gospel," a preparatory process. The preaching of Jesus was, " Here is the Gospel, the glad tidings : therefore, and subsequent to this, repent, and be saved." We have then his choice of some of his followers to be ministers. " He saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea, for they were fishers. And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after MARK 9 me, and I will make you to become fishers of men." Under a divine impulse they resigned their nets, left off their profits, and followed Jesus. We then find him calling James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who appears to have been a person of more affluent circumstances, from the hint in the 20th verse, that the ship was left with the hired servants, that James and John might undertake the ministry of the Gospel. Jesus went into the synagogue and taught, regard- ing every place as sacred that would open a door to receive him. The scribes and Pharisees, with all their forms, were much more liberal than many Christians are in the present day. When they saw in the synagogue a gifted man, who was known to be able to address the assembly, it was common to ask him to address the people, and tell them some- thing that would comfort them, and do them good. And I may state for the special information of our Tractarian friends, that in the first three centuries of the Christian Church, nothing was more common than for the presiding minister, or bishop if you like, when he happened to espy in his congregation a pious and gifted layman, to invite him into the pul- pit to preach the Gospel to the people. Now, how far the Tractarians may approve of this practice their own writings will determine. At all events, if they will be ante-Nicene, and primitive in all things, it is a pity that they should take so many husks, and leave so many of the useful kernels that they might find, if they would be at the trouble to search for them. 10 SCRIPTURE READINGS. Jesus was addressed by a man who was possessed by an unclean spirit. I stated before that demoniac possessions were realities in the days of our Lord. I do not believe there are any instances of such now. Satan adapts himself to the phase in which God's kingdom appears. When God became incarnate, Satan became incarnate also. When Moses did miracles in Egypt, the devil, by the magicians, did his pranks or miracles also. So when God was incarnate, Satan appeared also in his way incarnate. And now that we have the dispensation of the Spirit, we have Satan seducing, tempting, beguiling, deceiv- ing, but not in the shape of demoniac literal posses- sions. That this was a literal and personal demon in the man is perfectly obvious from the language. The devil said to Jesus, " Art thou come to destroy us ? What have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God." That creed is too clear for a poor Jew to have given utterance to. It was the utter- ance of one who was orthodox, for Satan knows vastly more than we know ; but also of one who was hateful and malignant, and therefore dreading the approach of the Holy One of God. Then Jesus rebuked, not the man, but the unclean spirit, saying, " Hold thy peace, and come out of him. And when the unclean spirit had torn him, and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him." The devil will not let go a victim without a struggle. Satan will not be driven out of this world without great opposi- tion. The great Western apostasy, which is the nearest approximation to Satan manifest in the flesh, MARK I. 11 will not resign its foothold without a desperate struggle that will rend the world, out of which it must be ultimately driven. But what an evidence of awful malignity it is, that when the devil could no longer hold the ground he had occupied, he would damage that ground before he would resign it! " And they were all amazed," and his fame, as you might expect, spread everywhere. And in the 30th verse, we find what must be very startling tidings to Pio Nono and the members of his communion ; for there we read that " Simon's wife's mother lay sick of a fever." If Peter were to present himself to the Pope in 1853, he would be excluded by force from the Vatican, and be regarded as an apostate and schismatic, unworthy of holding the keys, or wearing the tiara of Rome : for plainly Peter was married ; and his wife so far from being disapproved by our Lord, was, on the contrary, highly approved, for He cured her mother of a fever. So little did Jesus disapprove of Peter's mother-in- law suffering her daughter to marry Peter, that she ministered to Jesus, and Jesus accepted it. It is thus matter-of-fact that Peter, the first alleged Pope, was married, and it is also plain that Jesus did not disap- prove it. There is no evidence that Peter sent her into a convent, an institution which, by the way, did not exist, or that she was separated from him by divorce ; for she had done nothing wrong, except in the traditions of the popes, and the blind opinions of misguided men. We then read (and what a beautiful thought it is ! ) that Jesus went early in the morning to a soli- 12 SCRIPTURE READINGS. tary place, and there prayed for strength and refresh- ment for all the labors and the trials that were before him ; and after he had so prayed, and gained strength from communion with his Father, he preached. The next incident of which we read, is the cure of a leper. Now leprosy was the great type of sin ; and such was its nature, that it was incurable by human power. The office of the priest in the ancient economy was, not to cure the leper, but to pronounce upon the leper whether he was cured or not. No one was allowed to touch a leper; no one would have attempted to do so ; and he who pretended to cure leprosy would have been accused of blasphemy by the Jews, because they held that leprosy could be cured by God himself only. Well, Jesus touched the leper, which was sin according to Jewish super- stition, if Christ was not God ; and he said, " I will ; be thou clean " — that was blasphemy, if Jesus was not God : and he ordered the leper to go and show himself to the priest, not to please the priest, but that he might receive the certificate that he was cured, and mingle again with the people. Now, the cure of that leper was clearly the act of One who was God. There is no medium between the awful con- clusion that Jesus was a blasphemer, and the glorious and blessed conviction that He was very God mani- fest in the flesh. Note. — [8.] Matt. iii. 1-12 ; Luke iii. 1-18. The object of Mark being to relate the official life and ministry of the Lord, he begins MARK I. 13 with His baptism, and, as a necessary introduction to it, with the preaching of John the Baptist. His account of John's baptism has much in common with both Matthew and Luke ; but, from the addi- tional prophecy quoted in verse 2, is certainly independent and dis- tinct. Kvfac TJvgol .... the expression is common to Mark, Luke, and John. It amounts to the same as bearing the shoes — for he who did the last, would necessarily be also employed in loosing and taking off the sandal. But the variety is itself indicative of the independence of Matthew and Mark of one another. The additional intensity of temptation at the end of that period is expressed in Matthew by the tempter coming to Him, — becoming visible and audible. Perhaps the being with the beasts may point to one form of temptation, viz. that of terror, which was practised on Him ; but of the inward trials who may speak 1 CHAPTER II. POPULARITY OF THE PREACHING OF JESUS — THE CROWD IN THE AREA — THE PALSIED CURED — THE ONLY SIN-FORGIVER — PUL- PITS OF THE GREAT PREACHER — CONSECRATED GROUND — CALL OF MATTHEW — DINING, WHEN AND WITH WHOM — FASTING — OLD WINE AND NEW BOTTES — THE SABBATH. Whatever was the nature of the close of the ministry of our Lord, it is certain, from this chapter and other passages that are parallel with it, that the early days of his ministry were most bright, and that the popular mind responded to it most enthusiasti- cally wherever he went. It is a singular fact, that whilst the priests represented by the Pharisees cavilled, whilst the lawyers tried to entrap him, the common people, the mass of the community, heard him gladly, and were profited by his lessons. It seems that on this occasion, as he left the desert and entered into Capernaum, the rumor went abroad that he was in the house. An eastern residence was sometimes three houses joined together, and a court in the middle ; and the probability from the descrip- tion of what followed is, that Jesus was in the court, or open area, in the centre of the three buildings, there speaking to the crowd that had assembled together, if peradventure they could hear him. And when the crowd came in such great numbers, that there was no more room to receive them, he did not MARK II. 15 repel them, afraid of the heat, the pressure, or the tumult, but " he preached the word unto them." What word ? The word that was in the Old Testa- ment Scripture, written, and by him and through him illustrated, unfolded, and applied in all those beautiful and instructive lessons which are scattered throughout the Scriptures, like pearls on the floor of the deep, like precious stones in the bosom of the earth. When they saw him thus engaged, they brought to him one palsied ; and when they could not come nigh to him for the press, they uncovered the roof; that is, probably, the curtain or awning that was stretched over the court or area to intercept the heat of the sun. They untied the fastenings of this, and they let down the bed, a sort of chair or couch, on which the sick man lay, into the midst of the place. And when Jesus saw their faith, instead of saying they were uncourteous or rude, or had violated the usages of civilized society, which certainly they had, he was rejoiced to find in the friends of the sick of the palsy, that faith which purifieth the heart, and overcometh all the difficulties of the world; and without rebuke, or a remonstrance, or the expression of a single word of disapproval, he said, in accents the most glorious that ever were pronounced on earth, " Son, thy sins be forgiven thee." Now, this absolution was not a declaration of what was, or a wish for what might be, but a judicial sentence of what took effect the moment the words were uttered. Then certain of the scribes, who were sitting there 16 SCRIPTURE READINGS. always watching, not for a word that would do them good, but for a ground on which they might cavil or object to Jesus, reasoned in themselves, and on this occasion most justly, because on the supposition that Jesus was a mere man the language that he used was absolute blasphemy, and they said, " Who can forgive sins but God only ? " It is plain that bad as the Pharisees were, they were no Romanists ; they did not believe that a priest could forgive sins ; they did not believe that it was the function or the office of the most exalted in their land to pronounce a judicial sentence upon the state of any man. ' When Jesus knew their reasoning, what did he say to them ? He did not say, " I am only a man, and I have merely wished for absolution, or predicted absolution ; " but he showed evidently that he had power to forgive sins ; not that their reasoning was false, but that it was true, and that he forgave sin because he was more than man, the Son of God, the brightness of His glory, the image of His person. And therefore he said to them, " Now, I will put the matter to a test — whether is it easier to heal the disorders of the soul, or to heal the infirmities of the body ? " He did not imply that the one was easier than the other ; but he taught them that One who could do the one, they might fairly presume was God, and could, therefore, do the other also ; and therefore he asked them which they would wish to be done. He knew that the forgiveness of sin had no visible effect. No man by gazing on a man's face could tell whether the judicial sentence of absolution MARK II. 17 had taken effect or not; but any one seeing the heal- ing of the sick could see whether the command of our Lord had taken effect. And therefore he says, " By an expression of power that your outward senses can judge of, I will show that 1 can heal the body with a word, and leave you by a reasonable inference to conclude that I can restore the soul to its pristine relationship to God." And therefore, to show that the inner work had taken place, he showed them the outer man restored to strength and vigor ; and they were constrained to say, " We never saw it on this fashion." After this, " he went forth again by the seaside ; and all the multitude resorted unto him, and he taught them." He did not say, " I will teach only in the temple, for it is holy ground," which it was peculiarly ; but he evidently held the publican's table, the home of Capernaum, the sea-shore of Galilee, fit pulpits from which to proclaim the words of everlast- ing life, and to convey instruction to the minds and hearts of . the people. It is holy work that makes holy ground. A builder may raise an edifice, but religion alone can make it a sanctuary. An orator may collect an audience, but living religion alone can make it a church. It is the work that consecrates the place ; it is not the place that consecrates the work. It is right that there should be places set apart and sequestered from the din of this world, and from the traffic of the exchange, and devoted to holy lessons and holy services ; but we must never think for one moment that there is any spot of ground so holy, that there we must think right 18 SCRIPTURE READINGS. thoughts, and speak right words, and do good deeds, but that the moment we are outside, the rest of the ground is so profane that we may live just as we like. The whole earth was consecrated for the fruits of Christianity when Jesus the Son of God allied himself to our humanity, was born of a virgin, took into union with himself a part of the dust of the world, and consecrated all space for his temple, all time for his worship. As Jesus passed by he saw Levi, that is, the writer of the first Gospel, or Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom — the custom-house, or place appointed for receiving the tribute that belonged to Caesar ; and he said unto him, " Follow me." One must suppose that he and Matthew had met before, and that Matthew had heard Jesus teaching on previous occasions ; because one can scarcely think that the publican would have resigned his lucrative office, and followed the homeless Nazarene, unless his mind had been enlightened by the lessons of Jesus. The moment he heard the words, u Follow me," he followed him. This was not a sudden con- version, but the result of a long previous process. I have not much faith in what are called sudden con- versions. I believe that what we call so are only the results of a long previous process, just as the harvest- home is the result of the sowing of the seed in spring. Impressions have been made, and forces have accumulated in the sanctuary of the soul, that on the appropriate occasion, fixed in the purposes of God, produce that apparently, but not really instantane- ous effect, that ends in conversion to God and obedi- MARK II. 19 euce to Christ. But you will notice that when Jesus said to Matthew, " Follow me," Matthew did not say, " Lord, I am not sure that I am elect." If he had said so, our Lord would have probably replied, « What is that to thee ? Follow thou me." It is remarkable, if you will notice the simplicity of the cases all throughout the New Testament, that in every instance those metaphysical questions that Christians perplex their minds about, were never thought of. Instant obedience to what Christ says is duty ; and wherever he says " Do," there he gives strength and grace adequate to performance. If a parent were to hold oui? to his child an orange, the child would never say, " I wonder if I may calculate upon really getting it, or whether it is meant for me ; " but it instantly holds out its hand, and takes the orange. So we are children, and God is our Father; and except we become as little children, we are told, we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. God says, " Believe — live — do." Do not discuss the metaphysics of the question, but just believe as God says, and do as God prescribes, and in the effort you will find the strength that is adequate to the occasion. We read next that Jesus went, and sat down, and dined with publicans and sinners. But is this a precedent for us to go and dine with those to whom we entertain the strongest religious objection? I answer, when Jesus dined with these, he went not as a companion to share in their mere conviviality, but as an instructor of the ignorant, a physician for the sick, a Saviour to the sinful ; and if we go with 20 SCRIPTURE READINGS. the same motive, and with the same design, we are warranted in going also : that is to say, if we go deliberately to do good, designedly to benefit those who are about us, and with whom we are associated, then we are warranted in doing so ; but if we go where we have no call in providence to be, but only to gratify our own passions, or our own mere carnal appetites and desires, it is a question that will be very soon settled when looked at in the light of the sanctuary, whether we have any right to be there. The scribes and the Pharisees, startled by what seemed to be an inexplicable contradiction to the rest of his teaching, said, " How is if that he eateth with publi- cans and sinners ? " Not that they themselves were better ; they added to the sins of the publicans and sinners the sin of hypocrisy, and, compared with publicans and sinners, were the guiltier of the two. But when Jesus saw it, he gave them an explana- tion of his conduct, which is to us a precedent to explain ours when any one finds fault with it: — " They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick. "Well, by your own showing, you scribes and Pharisees admit that these men are publicans and sinners. The worse they are, the more need they have of curative treatment. The more sick they are, the more need they have of a physi- cian. I am not come to call the righteous, as you vainly suppose yourselves to be, but those who feel themselves to be sinners, unto repentance." How beautiful is this reply ! How rich in the most 'exalted common sense! How consolatory to us, that because we are sinners, therefore Christ invites MARK II. 21 us to be saved ! If you are satisfied that you are righteous enough already, you have no lot or part in this ; but if you feel that you are sinners, here is the Saviour. Well, when this objection was disposed of, their prolific minds (the imagination fruitful, because the heart was depraved) suggested another objection — " Why do the disciples of John and the Pharisees fast, but thy disciples fast not ? And Jesus said unto them, Can the children of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days." That is, fasting is not forbid- den : it is proper enough. At one time it would be sin to fast ; at another time it would be obedience to what seems the mind and purpose of God. In other words, fasting is not simply abstaining from food ; and during the season of Lent, as it is often practised : to abstain from food is but a part of the fasting that is. prescribed in the Word of God. Those who would be ceremonially scriptural ought to clothe themselves in sackcloth, and put ashes on their heads, and abstain from food — the three always go together in Scripture. It will not do to choose the most convenient of the three. If you will be literal interpreters, you must take all, or you must observe the spirit of the prescription, and not the mere dead and uninstructive letter. Besides, it is always noticed that the greatest advocates of fast- ing do it because they think it is merit, or that it is 22 SCRIPTURE READINGS. an expiation, and blots out so much sin. But it has no merit ; and if it had, we do not need it. If we are Christians, we are clothed in the spotless right- eousness of the Son of God, complete in him. And, secondly, if proposed as an expiation, we answer, " The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." But a more enlightened person says, " I fast, because I think it is a means of helping my communion with God, of assisting my study of his holy Word, and of enabling me to master the sins that beset me." I answer, if your fasting contributes to these, by all means fast. Either abstain from food, or clothe yourself with sackcloth, or heap dust and ashes on your head, provided it be not only not sinful, but beneficial ; but if I should find that it does not in my case contribute to such good results, you should not say that I am gnilty of sin because I do not do as you do. In one case fasting may be use- ful, because subservient to an ulterior result ; in another case it may not be duty, because it is not conducive to the end we have in view. Let us neither feast as in the Carnival, nor fast as in Lent, but remember that the kingdom of God is not meat, nor drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. And we are told, in a very beauti- ful passage that is worth recollecting, what is the nature of the fast that God, after all, prefers. He says (Isaiah lviii. 5-7), " Is it such a fast that I have chosen ? a day for a man to afflict his soul ? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sack- cloth and ashes under him ? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord ? Is not this MARK II. 23 the fast that I have chosen ? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke ? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house ? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him ; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?" It seems to me, therefore, that the best fasting in Lent would not be an attack upon the stomach, but an attack on the pocket; that the most acceptable fast in Lent would be to contribute more munifi- cently to the claims of charity, beneficence, and truth : for the fast that God has chosen is not abstinence from food, or punishment of self, but richer liberality in clothing the naked and feeding the hungry ; and then " thy light shall break forth like brightness, and thy righteousness like the noon- day." Our Lord then shows the reasonableness of his counsels on fasting. • He says, " This is not the time : the Bridegroom is present at this moment : soon he will be taken away, and then your sorrow will sug- gest your fasting; but, in the mean time, I would show you the inexpediency of fasting now. No man seweth a piece of new cloth on an old gar- ment ; " that is, if the old garment by long wearing has become thin, if you sew a new piece on it, the old garment will give way, and the new carry with it a part of the old, and the rent will be positively made worse, by being made wider. And so in reference to new wine, it should not be put into old bottles. And here I may notice, what I have 24 SCRIPTURE READINGS. called attention to before, that the wine of the Jews was indisputably alcoholic and fermented. The bottle was made of skin, and the wine was put in it before the process of fermentation had begun; and in a very few hours, in that climate, the carbonic acid gas was evolved, and distended the skin ; and therefore, if you were to take new wine, and put it into an already expanded bottle, the skin, having previously reached its greatest dis- tension, would burst. And this teaches us that there is an appropriateness in every thing ; and that only when things are done in the best way, and at the best time, are they most conducive to really and ultimately beneficent and good results. I notice here the allusion to Abiathar the high- priest. It is found that Abiathar was not the high- priest at this time. Abimelech was the high-priest : Abiathar was his son ; and Mark calls him the high- priest by anticipation. Napoleon was called the first consul once, but our historians would speak of him as the emperor. Thus, Abiathar is called the high-priest by one of those anticipatory expressions which are common to all historians. It is not, therefore, a contradiction of fact, but one of the indirect and latent proofs of the genuineness of the narrative. CHAPTER II. 27. THE SABBATH — MAN'S MISTAKES. " The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath," is one of the popular and prev- alent aphorisms of the day. It is a text, in my mind, beautiful, instructive, comforting ; but as inter- preted by many, one must suppose, not fairly, but with an object in view, the Sabbath would be dis- placed from its pure and lofty position, and degraded to be the slave of the passions, and to pander to the prejudices of mankind. I do not at present enter on the question about the transfer of the Lord's day, whether it should be the seventh or the first ; I will turn your attention on a subsequent occasion to that. I assume at present that the first day of the week is the Chris- tian Sabbath; and on that supposition, — which you must grant me at present, because I do not stop to prove it, as I could easily do, — I proceed to show in what respect we must suppose that the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Man requires for his- body, as every one feels, periodical seasons of repose. The body is exhausted with the toils and continuous fatigue of the week, and it needs a season of respite, restoration, and repose, without which its machinery will soon be 3 26 SCRIPTURE READINGS. worn out, and its great purposes arrested long before their proper meridian. The night is repose, and every one feels that to be essential at the close of the day ; but a season besides the night seems, not only from the institution of God, but from the expe- rience of man, to be necessary also. It has been actually ascertained as a matter-of-fact, that a horse worked seven days without intermission, will neither live so long nor do so much work as a horse that is worked six days, and left to rest one in every seven. I think the horse, as a brute, may have the first, second, third, or any other day of the week for his holiday, but it is essential to him for his greatest efficiency that he should have a seventh portion of his time for rest. Our time for rest is that portion that is expressly assigned by God, and our position is connected with our moral elevation and improve- ment ; but if a horse rests the seventh portion of his' time, that would seem just — less will not do, more is not required. Every one has found that a respite is" necessary to the full strength of his bodily organi- zation. In fact, every organ in the body requires rest ; or if not absolute cessation, at least change of posture. For instance, if the arm were held in one position for an hour the fatigue would be insupport- able ; but the same muscles will hold out all day long without being exhausted, if there is variety of action and of movement. The objection has been made, that there are some organs in the human body that have no repose — the heart and lungs for instance. But the fact is, the heart has sixty working days and sixty Sabbaths in the course of MARK II. 27 a minute. The heart stops and starts, and stops and starts — its weekday and its Sabbath, its work and its repose, in alternate and uninterrupted suc- cession ; and so with the lungs ; as if God would teach us by the law of our physical organization, that there must be alternate rest and exertion, repose and action, in order that the full measure of health and vigor may be realized by man. And the rest that our physical economy seems to require, is not so much in these periodical seasons absolute cessation from acting, as a change and variety in that action. The night is the absolute suspension of almost all the powers, physical, intellectual, and moral ; but the Sabbath is not prostration of all the powers, but a change in their action, a variety, if I may so speak, in their development. The Sabbath upon earth is something like the everlasting Sab- bath in heaven. It is said of the saints in one passage, " They rest ; " and in another, " They rest not day and night ; " as if rest and resting not, that is, rest and joy from variety of action, were the great repose that is enjoyed by the people of God hereafter. And I believe it has been proved — indeed, I read it in the calculation of a very cele- brated statist — that not only is it the case with the horse, but that if the human frame be employed chiefly at the same occupation, it will not last as long as it otherwise would. The law is struck into our constitution, that after days of labor there shall be days of rest. The divine obligation is, " Work six days ; " the divine obligation is, " Repose one." It is as much a divine duty to work as to 28 SCRIPTURE READINGS. rest. He who will not work should not eat, and he who will not work cannot enjoy the Sabbath. But I have assumed, in these introductory remarks, that man has a body only, and that repose, consist- ing in variety of action, is all that he requires ; but you must remember, in the next place, that man is an intellectual' being. Every one who earns his bread in any shape, or does his duty in that sphere in which God has placed him, is a working man. It is a great mistake to think that the ploughman, the weaver, or the carpenter, are the only working men. They work with their hands; the postman works with his feet; the lawyer works with his head, as does also the minister; but every one of us, in some shape or other, is a working man. Well, we have not only hands to employ, and a body to be fatigued, but we have an intellect to employ, and an intellect also to be fatigued, and capable of an exhaustion far more painful, and far more perilous, than that of the mere animal material. Now, then, in the case of those who work with the intellect all the week, there is needed a day of repose. The intellect, exhausted with its pursuits, whether they be reading, writing, thinking, or study, needs repose. But what is repose to the intel- lect? I dare say many of you can bear out my own experience, that if all employment of the intel- lect be withdrawn, the excitement of an absolute vacancy is the greatest of all. If I have been working hard with my intellect for eleven months in the year, and if just for the twelfth month I let it lie perfectly fallow, it is the most exhausting MARK II. 29 experiment I can make. I find that I must not let the mind have absolute inaction, but that, during the holiday, I must turn the intellect to other thoughts and other subjects. Rest is secured for the intellect, not by apathy, but by variety of action, of thought, and of application. Now it seems to me, that in this respect the Sabbath fits most beau- tifully the literary man. Exhausted by the intellec- tual toils of the week, he comes into the sanctuary ; and the voice of psalms, the supplications at the footstool, the exposition of the chapter, and the unfolding of the glorious gospel in the sermon, direct all his thoughts out of the beaten thorough- fare into new, beautiful, and fragrant by-ways and side paths ; and he is refreshed and invigorated, not by repose or stagnation, which is impossible, but by that variety and change of thought, which con- tributes efficiently to the health and vigor of the faculties of the mind. Hence, the person who is engaged in writing for the press, he who is engaged in parliamentary debates, the individual who is involved in political or legal disputes, will always find upon the Sabbath day, not the same subject continued, but a totally different subject taken up, the greatest refreshment for his mind, and the com- pletest repose after the exhaustion and fatigue of the week. And in the case of those people who have no intellectual exertion during the week — those who work with the feet, the hand, or the body — then to them it would be the greatest calamity to allow the intellect to become dormant. If the work- ing man is to do nothing but hew wood, and dig, or 3* 30 SCRIPTURE READINGS. perform any other manual labor, his intellect will become dormant. Let your hand never be used, and the muscles will die. Let any one limb or member of the body never be put in action, and it will lose all its power, vitality, and vigor. And so, let the intellect never be exerted, — the hand doing all, and the intellect passive, — and the result will be, that you will degrade our nation into a mass of serfs, by preventing the development and exercise of its intellectual powers ; but, on the other hand, by bringing them to the house of God, and enabling them to think, not upon the current topics of a day, but upon the solemn subjects of eternity, you keep the intellect in healthy, vigorous, and useful exercise. The intellect, that during six days has been very much in apathy, on the seventh day is drilled and exercised in the most important and awakening topics that can engage the human soul. But I have looked at man, first, as merely an animal, secondly, as merely intellectual ; but I have to look at him in a third capacity, as having a soul and a conscience. Man is surely not merely a beast of burden ; surely he is not a mere hack for the liter- ary press ; surely it is not God's mind that he should merely lay down rails, and sink shafts, and ran errands, and then die. He has a soul ; the business of eternity is in his hands. He has a Saviour to believe on, a God to serve, and an eternity to aspire to. And if so, it is surely necessary that the wheels of Mammon should stand still, that the business of the week should be left in the counting-house, and that the soul at least once a week, should breathe MARK II. 31 the air, and bask in the sunshine of that better and brighter land, in the expectation of which we are strangers and pilgrims here, looking for a city that hath foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God. And therefore, in all the threefold aspects of man, a period of some sort of repose seems essential ; and in the last capacity the Sabbath is the time for learning the way to heaven, and how to overcome the difficulties and obstructions that are in the way ; a day for leaving the tent and reposing in the taber- nacle ; for shutting the ledger, and opening the Bible ; for leaving behind us the dust and the excite- ment of the world, and having, not a holiday, but a holy day of communion and fellowship with God, with eternity, with Jesus, with the Bible, with all that can benefit and bless us as immortal and responsible creatures. Thus, the Sabbath is made for man. If he be a mere animal for eating and drinking, and no more, then let him eat, and drink, and sleep on the Sabbath. If he be a mere intel- lectual creature, then let him go to the Museum, or the Crystal Palace, or read the newspaper. That will gratify and satisfy his intellect. But if he be, in addition to all this, a spiritual, responsible, and immortal being, then the bread that perisheth will not feed his soul, the splendid contents of the Crys- tal Palace will not satisfy the heart. He needs to come into contact with a higher, a better, and more glorious element, — the truth as it is revealed in the Scriptures, — means of salvation as they are preached from the pulpit on every Sabbath, in every sanc- tuary in the land. If, then, the Sabbath is thus 32 SCRIPTURE READINGS. made for man, in the very highest and noblest sense of that expression ; if it is made, not for a section of man, but for the whole man ; if it is meant and made to furnish him with the means of his progress, not as an animal only, nor as an intellectual being only, but as an immortal and responsible being, before whom an eternity of joy, or an eternity of sorrow, stretch their everlasting ages, it seems to me that the Sabbath is not adequately appreciated, nor properly spent, unless the chief por- tion of it be used and employed in thinking about the things that belong to our everlasting peace, and in communion with those truths that elevate, sanc- tify, and ennoble the hearts, habits, and lives of man- kind. Believing that the Sabbath is thus made for man, no one can calculate the amount of benefit which it bestows upon the human family. The registers of eternity alone will show what a benefactress to man- kind, what an ambassadress from heaven, the holy Christian Sabbath has been. Singular enough, one from whose lips you would not expect theology, (I mean Sir Walter Scott), has said : " If we believe the divine commandment, the Sabbath was insti- tuted for the express purposes of religion alone ; the time set apart as the Sabbath of the Lord, a day on which not to work our own works, nor to think our own thoughts. The precept is positive, the purpose is clear. For our eternal benefit a certain space of every week is appointed, which is sacred from all other avocations, save those imposed by necessity and mercy, and is to be employed in religious duties and privileges alone." We do not see the connec- MARK II. tion of the good with the Sabbath, but because unseen it is no less real. I have not the least doubt that an influence goes forth from every Sabbath, that tells upon the tone of our parliamentary debates, that influences our judicial decisions, and that imparts to all ranks and classes of men — the exchange, the counting-house, the transactions of the world — a sublimer, holier, and loftier tone. I am sure that our national prosperity, with all its fruits, has a con- nection with the Sabbath. The great tree seems to stand alone, but its roots below the ground stretch within the jurisdiction of the Sabbath, and are refreshed and invigorated there. There is a public conscience as well as public opinion; and how much of all that is purest, and holiest, and best in public opinion, may be traced to the influence of the Sab- bath, and the exercises of the sanctuary, eternity, not time, will be able to unfold. Apart from this, there is one beautiful feature in the Sabbath that ought never to be let go, and of all men the poor man ought to hold it fast for this feature only : it is this, — that on that day, in the house of prayer, the rich and the poor meet together, and in the enjoyment of a common peerage recollect their magnificent birthright, " The Lord is the Maker of us all." It seems to me, that the Sabbath's sanc- tuary is the weekly republic, the purest and holiest democracy, where the highest of the land are in nothing depressed, and where the lowliest and the humblest are elevated and ennobled. The Sabbath is not made for the noble, nor for the commoner, — not for the ruler, nor for the subject, — but for that 34 SCRIPTURE READINGS. primeval nature, that manhood, which underlies all the distinctions of our world, and on which, as the only foundation, these distinctions can grow and make progress. In the house of prayer our gracious Queen is simply the woman, — the highest noble is simply the man; and the poorest and most forlorn orphan is nothing less. There they meet, and realize the thought, " God is the Maker of us all." And I have often thought, that in the house of prayer there should be all the dead-level, if I may call it so, of the grave. I never like to see in the sanctuary a mag- nificent pew for a great man, and a very inferior pew for the poor man. I like the pews to have all one dead-level, and all to appear in the sanctuary unno- ticed, undistinguished, unknown, as they shall appear at the judgment-seat of Christ, with nothing but the awful responsibility of saints or sinners in the sight of God. There, every valley should be exalted, and every hill should be made low ; and the man with the gold ring, and the man that has none, should be equally welcome, and occupy, not a place low and levelling, but a platform of equal dignity. But it would be altogether exaggerating the Sab- bath, and lifting it from its own beautiful and proper position, if I were to say that it is the cause of all the social, national, 'mercantile, and commercial morality, that prevails in and characterizes our land. It is not the cause of it, but it is unquestionably the condition of it. Christianity is the nurse, the foun- tain, and the root of all ; but the Sabbath seems to be the necessary condition of Christianity putting forth its benign and beneficent influences. Let me MARK II. 35 explain this. It is the wind that moves the ship ; the wind is the cause, progress is the effect, but the ocean on which it is afloat is the condition of the one and the other. Archimedes said he could move the world, if he had a place to plant the ful- crum. His strength would be the cause, the moving of the world would be the effect ; but the place on which the lever rested would be the condition of it, which he could not have. So Christianity is the cause and source of all that is beautiful, holy, and beneficent in the land; these fruits are the magni- ficent results ; but the condition of Christianity, exerting its widest, best, and mightiest effect, is the Sabbath, the sanctuary, and their solemn and holy observances. And surely you would not like to do away with this beautiful thought, that once a week this holy missionary from the skies should knock at your door ; that on one day in the seven its beautiful light should shine into your casement ; that once a week the chimes of its bells from ten thousand belfries should be heard ringing sweet music throughout the land, — "Let us go into the house of the Lord; our feet shall stand within Jerusalem." " Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk, without money and without price." Man as an animal, an intellectual being, as a moral, immortal, responsible, and conscious being, must have a Sabbath ; not of absolute stagnation, which would only be misery, but of such alteration of thought, of such variety of employment, that he 36 SCRIPTURE READINGS. shall be refreshed while he is enlightened, strength- ened while he rests, and helped on by bread that dieth not, till he reach the rest that remaineth for the people of God. And now let me notice, for this is only touching some of the more prefatory and extrinsic features of the Christian Sabbath, that in every institution upon earth, appointed and organized by the ablest and wisest legislators of all times, periods of rest and repose, or, if yon like, Sabbaths, have been devised for man. The Jewish economy, which it is the fashion to deride as an old and obsolete thing, to be consigned to Aaron's wardrobe, and to be worn no more by the world, not only gave the Jew every seventh day, but every seventh year, and every seventh seventh year, that is, every fiftieth year, which was a year of jubilee, when all that had gone wrong in the world's machinery might be readjusted, and put again in its proper place. Solon and Numa, the most celebrated legislators of ancient heathen- dom, appointed regular festivals for repose, and sequestration from the employments of the world, and for consecration to intellectual, moral, and other enjoyments. Egypt, Persia, and Chaldea, had also their festi- vals. And I may add, what is still more striking, that the experiment once was made by the fanatics of 1793, — first, to expunge God from the world, and next, and most logically, to expunge his shadow, the Sabbath, from the earth ; but Robespierre, after he had made the desperate experiment, was con- strained to say, " The world will go to pieces if we MARK II. 37 cannot find a God." And so strongly did they feel that without a Sabbath the world could not go on, that they said, " We will not have the Christian Sabbath, one day in seven ; but, in order to uproot all its recollections and associations, and yet provide for man, we will have one day in ten." They there- fore voted " No God," instead of the God of Abra- ham ; and they voted " No Sabbath," but substituted for the Sabbath what they called the Decades, or every tenth day. But what was the result ? In the course of a few years, as if the Sabbath was made for man, the world fell back into the olden ruts ; it seized the Sabbath again as too precious to be let go ; and all the infidelity of France has passed away, like a deluge that covered the earth for a sea- son with wrecks; and the Sabbath, badly as it is observed, much as it is desecrated, still remains for France. We have, in these facts, the strongest corroborative proofs that a day of rest is needed, that nations have found that they cannot do without it, and that it was found, when the experiment was made, that a tenth day was not enough, but that a seventh must be had recourse to. And now, what is the result at the present moment? That the first day of the week — be it right or wrong I do not stop to discuss — has so rooted itself upon the history of the world, has so interwoven its very fibres and roots with the human mind, the human conscience, and the human heart, that there is no question that that day will be observed as a holiday, if it be not observed as a holy day, for generations yet to come. I do not believe 4 33 SCRIPTURE READINGS. that the working classes, however much some of tli cm may be mistaken in connection with these sub- jects, will ever give up their Sabbath to the service of man. I do not believe that the shops will all be open upon the Sunday. I do not think that human nature could make so gigantic a sacrifice at any shrine, as the awful and perilous sacrifice of its Sabbaths. Well then, if this be so, if all are let loose upon that day, if the shops are shut, business suspended, work given over, and the working-dress laid aside, as the day will be, and now is, it will be either employed as a holiday, or as a holy day ; it will either be (and mark my words, for they are drawn from knowing what human nature is) a day for the Sabbath of the Lord, or a day for the satur- nalia of Rome ; it will either be a day for a gigantic blessing, or a day for a national curse. The Sab- bath will be employed for some purpose. A man cannot lie down and sleep all the Sabbath, he cannot spend all the day in the public-house, bad as that would be. He must have something to do on that day ; and it will either be a curse or a blessing to him — a day for pandemonium, or a day preparatory for Paradise. Let us, who profess to have that which can sanctify and sweeten it, so commend the Sabbath to those that are about us, that they shall call it what it was called by Isaiah, and what it should be called by us, a day on which we do not our own pleasure, but a delight, honorable, the day holy to the Lord. And how shall we do so ? First, let us not spend our Sabbaths as if they were Jewish ones. It is MARK II. 39 the Christian Sabbath, not a pharisaic sabattism. Secondly, let us show that our Sabbaths make us more cheerful, more beneficent, more improved in all that ennobles, dignifies, benefits, and blesses man- kind. And next, let us, as preachers — as ministers — try in the Christian congregation to bring forth upon the Sabbaths, in our sermons and expositions, that which will so interest people's minds, and so impress men's hearts, that they will come to the sanctuary, and say, " We rejoiced when it was said unto us, Let us go into the courts of the Lord." Addressing, as one must, an extremely mixed congre- gation, I do not think that men will long come to hear long theological discussions. You come here weary, wanting to be refreshed ; weak, seeking to be made strong ; downcast, seeking to be cheered ; drooping, seeking to be encouraged ; and our great object in preaching the everlasting gospel ought to be so to preach it, that you can say, " I find in these walls food as sweet, and far more delicious -and nutritive, than I can find within the pale of the Crystal Palace; and if you find your enjoyment there, I find mine here." You may depend upon it, that however valuable legislation may be, we must make the service attractive, not by gewgaws and Popish decorations, but by speaking to men's hearts, minds, and consciences, and then they will say, " We have here all the attractions of the Crystal Palace, and we have, besides, all that is requisite to make us wiser, holier, happier, and fitter for heaven and ever- lasting joy." 40 SCRIPTURE READINGS. Note. — The Sabbath is an ordinance for man's rest, both actually and typically, as setting forth the rest that remains for God's people. (Heb. iv. 9.) But He who is now speaking has taken on himself man- hood, — tbe whole nature of man, — and is rightful Lord over crea- tion, as granted to man, and of all that is made for man, and there- fore of the Sabbath. The whole dispensation of time is created for man, — for Christ, as He is man, — and is in His absolute power. — Alford. CHAPTER III. INFLUENCE OF THE HEART ON THE HEAD — SABBATH DAY DUTIES — ANGER COALITION AGAINST JESUS — THE GREAT PHYSICIAN — THE TWELVE — EARNESTNESS — BLASPHEMY — THE UNPARDON- ABLE SIN — THE TRULY BLESSED. Again, it appears, Jesus violated what were phari- saically held to be the obligations and the sanctities of the Sabbath day. A man came to him with a withered hand, and the scribes and Pharisees, not anxious to know whether he was the Messiah, but far more anxious to ensnare, and, if possible, destroy him, watched him, to see whether he would be guilty of what they in their popular and perverted theology held to be a breach of the Sabbath. How sad it is that the heart very often leads the head, and that what one wishes to be true, the intellect, too subser- vient, attempts at least to prove, and to the heart satisfactorily succeeds in proving to be true ! The scribes and Pharisees must have seen enough to demonstrate the Messiahship of Jesus ; but their hearts were so pervaded by malice, and avarice, and ecclesiastical pride, and national glory, that they would not, and therefore they could not yield their homage to Him who came " despised and rejected of men, a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." May our hearts be holy, that thus we may 42 SCRIPTURE READINGS. see clearly. But we read that Jesus, with that calm- ness and majesty which were the characteristics of a present God, regardless of the prejudices of some, of the passions of others, and of the hostility and cruelty of more, said instantly to the man who had the withered hand, " Stand forth ; " and then, in order that they might be convinced by their own judg- ments, he said, " Is it lawful to do good on the Sab- bath day ? Is this lawful ? The law of nature, and the law of Moses, certainly indicate that it is always and everywhere lawful to do good. If a thing be wrong, it is not lawful to do it upon any day ; if it be right, it is lawful to do it on the Sabbath day. Is it lawful to save life ? or to kill ? " If they had said, "It is not lawful," then they would have said that philanthropy, beneficence, and goodness, on the Sabbath were sins. If they had said, " It is law- ful," then their own admission would have proved their erroneous notions of the Sabbath day, and would have justified Him. They, therefore, held their peace. Then Jesus "looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts." I alluded to this passage in the morning, when we read an almost parallel one in the 11th chapter of the book of Exodus, where we are told that Moses was angry at the hardness of Pharaoh's heart. So here we read that the cause of the anger of Jesus was the hardness of these people's hearts. I argued in the morning that there is no sin in anger. Man was made as truly to be angry, as he was made to laugh, to fear, to sympathize, to feel. The sin con- MARK III. 43 sists in its excess, not in its existence. But, in the case of Jesus, that anger was modified by another feeling — grief, at the hardness of their hearts; that is to say, his anger was less with the men, and more with the passions of which they were the unhappy victims. It is always a right state of mind, when we can so love the man, that we are less angry with him, and more grieved at the sin by which he is branded. Jesus so loved the sinner, that he died for him : he so detested the sin, that he shed his blood that it might be cancelled. Anger in the bosom of Jesus was not antipathy to a person, but sorrow at a predominant and unhappy sin. " The Pharisees went forth, and straightway took counsel with the Herodians," an infidel sect, " against him, how they might destroy him." The Pharisee, who was the great traditionist of the age, and the Herodian, the great sceptic of the age, coalesced, when the Lord of glory was to be put down. How sad is it that scepticism does not so hate superstition, nor superstition so hate scepticism, as they both hate the simple truth as it is in Christ Jesus ! "When truth is to be extinguished, the infidel and the Roman- ist will coalesce and combine together, merging their internal antipathy in a common hatred to that which condemns them both. We, read then, that Jesus withdrew himself with his disciples to the sea of Galilee, and a great multi- tude followed him. We still find that whilst the scribes and Pharisees, the ecclesiastical rulers of the land, hated him, the common people heard him gladly. Here "a great multitude from Galilee fol- 44 SCRIPTURE READINGS. lowed him, and from Judaea, and from Jerusalem, and from Idumaea, and from beyond Jordan ; and they about Tyre and Sidon, a great multitude, when they had heard what great things he did, came unto him." We read, then, that " he healed many ; inso- much that they pressed upon him for to touch him, as many as had plagues." The word " plague " does not convey the strict meaning. Hterfi means prop- erly, " a blow," or " stroke." The word fiaan^ here employed denotes a scourge. Hence, the plagues in Egypt were literally strokes, or blows, inflicted by God. But the word " plague," in its popular and modern sense, means properly a pestilence or epi- demic. The verse here ought to be rendered, " as many as had diseases or afflictions from the hand of God," these Jesus healed ; " and unclean spirits, when they saw him, fell down before him, and cried, saying, Thou art the Son of God." To say so was equiva- lent to saying, " Thou art very God, the brightness of God's glory, and the express image of his person." Now, how could the mere multitude, unacquainted with his divine character, but deeply impressed by the miracles he wrought, have said, " Thou art the Son of God," unless they were divinely taught? These unclean spirits recognized the presence of a loftier than man, and saw, in Jesus, the bruiser of the serpent's head ; through whom judgment should be inflicted upon him, and by whom " the old serpent " should be bound in chains for a thousand years, and afterwards cast into Gehenna, and no more suffered to come forth to tempt the nations ; and therefore, perfectly orthodox in creed, but malignant in charac- MARK III. 45 ter ; they said, by constraint, not as an offering of devotion, " Thou art the Son of God." It is a very solemn thought, that all the ends of the earth shall yet acknowledge Jesus in this character, that all the lost in misery, and the saved in glory, shall equally admit that he is Lord of all. The one class shall admit it is a freewill offering joyously given ; the other shall express it as a great and awful sacrifice irresistibly exacted. Heaven shall praise him joy- fully, and with delight; hell shall praise him reluc- tantly, but really. From height and depth, from east and west, from north and south, God shall be glori- fied, either in the joyful songs of the saved, or in the reluctant acknowledgments of those who would not be saved, and who have perished entirely because they rejected him the only Saviour. We then read, in the 14th verse, that " He ordained twelve." The word "ordained" is not the usual word so translated in the Epistles ; it means that he " selected," " elected," or " constituted " twelve, that he might send them forth to preach the Gospel, the great function of the minister of Christ, Why he chose twelve it is difficult to say. Perhaps, if he had taken fewer, it would have been too limited a testimony. By taking twelve he took a competent number who could be witnesses of the facts they saw, and of the truths they heard; and thus go forth as eye-witnesses and ear-witnesses, to proclaim the unsearchable riches of Christ. Or, perhaps, he selected twelve, because that was the number of the tribes of Israel. Their names are given here, " Simon, surnamed Peter ; and James the son of 46 SCRIPTURE READINGS. Zebedee, and John the brother of James; and he sur- named them Boanerges, which is, The sons of thun- der: and Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot," to whom is attached still the ignominious feature, " which also betrayed him." We then read, that when "they went into a house, the multitude cometh together again, so that they could not so much as eat bread. And when his friends heard of it " — that evidently is his relatives according to the flesh — " they went out to lay hold on him: for they said, He is beside himself." He had lived long in obscurity ; he had made no preten- sions, when under thirty years of age, to teach, or to preach, in all probability; but now he goes forth preaching and teaching, and doing many wonderful works ; and therefore, they said, " He is beside him- self." But are these not the types of the world still ? Let a man show as much zeal in the service of God, as one shows in the service of an earthly master, and thousands will say, " Much religion has made him mad." Let a man show that he is in earnest about his soul, that he is in earnest in teaching others the way to heaven, that he is in earnest in spreading that blessed Gospel, that is the savor of life unto life in all that believe it, and his friends will propose that he be restrained ; they will say he is beside himself. How strange it is, that the world will bear with the most exalted enthusiasm in a patriot, with the most devoted enthusiasm in a statesman, with great enthusiasm in a philanthropist ; but the moment that MARK III. 47 the enthusiasm which is so beautiful and so appre- ciated in the things of time is transferred to a subject worthy of its noblest fervor, then the world says that much religion has made you mad. But surely, if a barrister speaks with enthusiasm for his client, if a physician studies enthusiastically the disease of his patient, if a statesman pleads enthusiastically in the House of Commons, how much more should a Chris- tian minister, a Christian teacher, a district visitor, a Sabbath school teacher, speak, and plead, and act enthusiastically on behalf of Christ Jesus! We then read, that the scribes who came from Jerusalem, not so charitable as his friends, did not ascribe his conduct to enthusiasm or excess of feel- ing, but they ascribed it wickedly to the inspiration of Satan; and asserted that the Son of God cast out devils — not denying the supernatural and miraculous facts, but ascribing the energy by which they were done to Beelzebub, that is, a name given by them to Satan, the prince of the devils. This was a very awful and most flagrantly wicked charge, and so utterly inapplicable to the Son of God, that it is spoken of as one of those sins that are in danger of eternal damnation. But Jesus, not in the least angry, as he was with the hardness of their hearts, but rather pitying the misguided men who had made the charge, reasons with them quietly and calmly as rational men; thus teaching us, that however extrav- agant the charge may be that is made against us, yet, if we speak calmly and sensibly, there is some- thing in human nature that will lead it to listen the moment we do so. Some one has said, " Speak 48 SCRIPTURE READINGS. common sense to a mob, and the mob will be quiet" Speak what is rational to those who are infuriated against you, and they will listen for a little to what you have got to say. On this occasion Jesus spoke to these scribes and Pharisees with intense common sense. " How is it possible ? How can Satan cast out Satan ? Would he commit suicide ? Would he rise up against himself? Has such a phenome- non any counterpart in your experience ? You know that if a house be divided against itself — if one half rise up against the other half of the family — the house will very soon be destroyed. If Satan were to cast out Satan, he would commit suicide. There- fore, how can you suppose that he will help me to depress and put down that very kingdom which is the strength, the glory, and the stronghold of Satan himself?" And then, rising from reasoning with them, from the lowliness of an arguer to the dignity and sacredness of a judge, he says, " Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme : but he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation: because they said, He hath an unclean spirit." Very many excellent Christians have been perplexed by the fear that they may have committed what is called the sin against the Holy Ghost. Well, as far as this passage gives us infor- mation concerning it, it is obvious that the sin against the Holy Ghost could have been committed only in the days of our Saviour's pilgrimage upon earth ; and, that the development in which it showed MARK III. 49 itself was ascribing his miracles to the inspiration of the devil, instead of the inspiration of God. The only other form in which the sin can possibly exist now is, in final resistance to the offers of the Gospel. There is no human being for whom there is not instant pardon the instant that he turns to God, and seeks forgiveness in the name of Jesus. There is no man upon earth, whilst he lives and is within the reach of the Gospel, who can be said to have com- mitted an unpardonable sin, and for whom there is not instant, complete, and everlasting forgiveness in Jesus. Be you sure that you are resting on the Saviour's sacrifice, that you trust in the Saviour's righteousness, and that you are living as members, disciples, and followers of the Lamb ; and you need not be afraid that you have committed an unpardon- able sin, of that which is here called the sin against the Holy Ghost. We have, at the close of the chapter, a very inter- esting incident. " The multitude sat about him, and they said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee." That was the Virgin Mary, and some of the relatives of Jesus, who were standing without, seeking him. These he answered in very striking language, which showed that the place Mary once had in reference to him had now ceased. The moment that he entered on his ministry his language to Mary was deferential, but faithful : " Mary," or " Woman, what have I to do with thee ? " This was when she thrust in her own officious services ; and when others pleaded the claims of Mary, as much as to say, " You must not 5 50 SCRIPTURE HEADINGS. be so engaged with the outer works of the world, as to forget your mother and your brethren." Jesus said, " Who is my mother, or my brethren ? And he looked round about on them which sat about him, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren ! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother." Jesus here teaches us that every true Christian is, in reference to Christ, just as blessed as was the Virgin Mary. She was blessed in being the mother of our Lord according to the flesh, and truly did she sing, " All generations shall call me blessed;" but more blessed, I believe, are they who hear the word of God, and do it. They who hear God's word, and do his will, and walk in his ways, are elevated to a dignity which is not possessed by Mary and his brethren according to the flesh : for " the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother." Note. — The unclean spirits are here spoken of in the person of those possessed by them, and the two fused together ; for as it was impossible that any but the spirits could have known that He was the Son of God, so it was the material body of the possessed which fell down before Him, and their voice which uttered the cry. See note on Matt. viii. 32. The notion of the semi-rationalists, that the sick identified with the demons (Meyer), is at once refuted by the universal agreement of the testimony given on such occasions, that Jesus was the Son of God. — Afford. CHAPTER IV. POPULARITY OF TEACHING OP JESUS — PARABLE — PABLE — ALLE- GORY — DIFFERENT WORDS FOR SAME TRUTHS — THE SOWER DIFFERENCE IN MATTHEW AND MARK THE MUSTARD-TREE — JESUS IN A STORM. "We see here another proof of the great popularity of the teaching of our blessed Lord ; for it is said, that when " he began to teach by the seaside," as the only tesselated floor, and on a rock, probably, as the only pulpit, " there was gathered unto him a great multitude ; " that is, the common people, who are said to have heard him gladly ; and " he entered into a ship," in order that he might be disentangled from the maze of an over crowding people ; " and the whole multitude was by the sea on the land." And then, it is said, " he taught them many things by parables." What is a parable ? A fable is an imaginary thing, improbable in its foundation, but probable enough in its structure, and designed to teach a great truth. The fables of Phaedrus, of ZEsop, and others, all suppose things that we know never occur — birds and beasts speaking and decid- ing. The fable, therefore, is more of a human and a worldly vehicle, of great practical good sense. But the parable is historically most probable, though literally not true, and made, because historically 52 SCRIPTURE READINGS. probable, the vehicle of some precious, spiritual, and instructive truth. The allegory is a thing totally dis- tinct from both. For instance, Bunyan's " Pilgrim's Progress " is an allegory ; that is, certain virtues and vices, and abstract moral things, are personated, or represented as incarnate, and regarded as speaking to each other, and thereby inculcating in the reader great moral and instructive truths. We have from the lips of Jesus, not allegories, except in the slightest degree, not fables at all, but frequently those beautiful parables that are the pedestals of grand truths, and which, the more they are pondered by us, seem more and more to indicate the wisdom of Him who taught them, and to unfold their appli- cability to man in every age, country, and century in the world's history. The parable of the sower, which we had in Matthew, is here repeated with some variety. One does not know well how to settle the slight differ- ences, and at the same time admit the substantial concord between the conversations of Jesus, as recorded by different evangelists. It seems that he spoke probably in Syriac, the language of the country, and that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, gave as their memories recollected, guided and taught by the Holy Spirit, not always the ipsissima verba, the very words, but always and everywhere the great and substantial truths which He taught. You know that the same truth may be clothed in different language, and the illustrations of it may be varied, and yet its consistency with itself, and with another narrative given of it, may remain unim- MARK IV. 53 peached and unimpaired throughout. The Spirit inspired equally the several expressions of the same truth. This version of the parable slightly differs, in some of the details, from Matthew's ; but those deviations teach us that the evangelists did not copy from each other. "We know, that if four persons witness a transaction, each will be struck most forcibly by a different part of it, and in giving a narration of it, each will unfold most fully that part of it which most impressed itself upon his mind. And you will find also that people's education, business, station in life, and habits of thought, will all very much give tone, shape, peculiarity, and distinctness, to their respective narratives of any particular event. Mat- thew was a publican, Luke was a learned physician, John was an illiterate Hebrew, and Mark is sup- posed to have been a more learned man. Each, therefore, gives a varied verbal narrative of the same great transaction ; but all were guided and inspired by the overruling Spirit to record, in all their fulness, the wonderful words of Him who spake as never man spake. In this parable we are told that a sower — in this case the Lord of glory — went out to sow. He has under seedsmen, but He himself is the great primary Sower. He sows in his providence, by his grace, from his Word, and in the preaching of the Gospel. And it came to pass, apparently, as the world would say, accidentally, but as the necessary and natural result, that " as he sowed, some fell by the way-side, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up." 5* 54 SCRIPTURE READINGS. The German Rationalists, who consist of a class of men who read the Bible as Zoilus of old read Homer, not to be benefited by its lessons, but to find out flaws in it, — and when a person sets to work to find faults where there are none, his oblique eye will make them for itself, — have said, that no sower upon earth would have been so foolish as to sow seeds by the way-side, or amongst thorns, and that therefore we cannot suppose this to be a just parable. My answer is, that the parable is that of a sower, not of an economist, — the idea of economy has nothing to do with it — that idea is .illustrated with great truth in other parts of the sacred volume. The parable here is that of a sower, who flings the seed upon an earth that once was made to bear it, but that now, not by the sower's fault, but by the people's sin, has barren as well as prolific parts ; and going forth in his capacity purely as a sower — in no respect as an economist — going forth to sow with- out thinking of the different soils in which he was to sow — the result was, that some of the seed fell by the way-side, and of course, the way-side being hard, the seed lay upon the surface, and the fowls ate it. " And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth ; " and the consequence was, that a great deal of moisture, and a very little soil, gave a rapid and precocious growth, which was destructive to its ultimate usefulness. " And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it ; " for in this fallen world weeds grow faster than wheat, and wicked things prosper more, unfortunately we may say, than holy, pure, and just things ; and the result MARK IV. 55 was, that the nettles, thorns, and thistles, over- shadowed and choked the good seed. But " other fell on good ground," and yielded much fruit. Then we have the explanation of it by our blessed Lord; but he says that he gave it not then to all. It seems strange to you that he should say, " Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but unto them that are without all these things are done in parables." But the word "mystery," as used in the Bible, does not mean an incomprehensible truth, but something that was once hid, and now is made known. For instance, " Great is the mystery of godliness ; God manifest in the flesh." To the ancient Jew it was a dark and impenetrable mystery, but to us it is now clearly and plainly revealed. Again, it is called a mystery that the Gentiles should be admitted into brotherhood with the Jews. That was to the Jew an unimagin- able thing — he could not conceive it possible — but now, we are told, it is manifest, and Gentile and Jew are in fellowship, and this "mystery is therefore revealed. Now, says our Lord, these parables are mysteries ; these truths that I am now teaching you were once unintelligible to you as to the multitude without; but they are now intelligible to you, the inner circle I am at present instructing, whilst they are unintelligible to the outer circle, or the scribes and Pharisees, and the multitudes about them. You say, Why should this be ? I answer, that on the supposition that the facts of the life of Jesus were to be what they actually have been, it was necessary that some of the greatest truths that he taught 56 SCRIPTURE READINGS. should be temporarily sealed to the rulers of the earth, else they would have precipitated to a crisis, that which it needed otherwise years to mature. Christ did not reveal to all who heard him the truths of his kingdom ; but when Pentecost came they were fully made known. If He was to be spared, except by a special manifestation of Omnipotence, in Judea for three years, teaching and preparing his apostles to preach and suffer, it was necessary that all should not know what he taught, but that to a chosen band the great doctrines of his gospel should be clearly indicated, and to the rest whenever those doctrines should be committed to paper, or placed in a permanent shape for all. And this quotation from Isaiah, " That seeing they may see, and not perceive ; that hearing they may hear, and not understand ; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them ; " does not mean that it is done in order to harden men, but that this will be the result of it. And here we notice a distinction between Matthew and Mark, showing that the former wrote for the Jews, and the latter for the Gentiles. Matthew always, in quoting a prophecy, says, " That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet ; " but Mark, except in the very beginning of his Gospel, frequently merely gives the result that took place, without alluding to it as the fulfilment of a prophecy. Our Lord then explains the beautiful parable. It needs no explanation to us. It was a mystery to the Pharisee, but it is now no mystery to the hum- blest and most illiterate Christian. First, we have MARK IV. 57 in every congregation a class who may be called way-side hearers. Their hearts are so hard, that truths scattered upon them rebound. We have next a class that may be called the stony-ground hearers. They are delighted with the sermon they have heard ; they think it very beautiful, very eloquent, very instructive ; they are charmed with it, and determine to come and hear that preacher again ; but the seed has no real hold of the soil of the heart ; the impres- sion made wastes away, or is worn down by the thought of this present world, and they come again no more. The third class are they who hear the Word, rejoice in it, and take a step further ; but they are so overwhelmed with the cares, thoughts, and anxieties of this present world, and they are so misled and deceived by the treacherous sophisms called " the deceitfulness of riches," and the love of other things — ambition, vainglory, power — and these things occupy so large a space in their hearts, that there is no time left for the seed to ripen and mature itself unto the harvest. And then, lastly, there are the good-ground hearers, — good, not by nature, for if there be any difference between the soils, the difference is not the creature's doing, but the Regenerator's grace. And then, the good soil first hears the Word. It is necessary to hear ; and how shall they hear without a preacher ? But secondly, they receive it, that is, hold it fast, cordially embrace it. And thirdly, they bring forth much fruit — different degrees of it — but in every case fruit. Thus we have four classes, — the second better than the first, the third better than the second, 58 SCRIPTURE READINGS. but the last the best of all — the soil that we should pray for, the blessing that we should covet. Our Lord then gives them another parable, which is drawn very much from the same figure ; and also he illustrates " the kingdom of God," that is, the dis- pensation of the gospel, by a grain of mustard-seed, which, I believe, in Eastern countries, though in itself a small seed, grows to a greater size than other herbs of the same species or genus, and becomes a shelter for the birds of the air. In the parable of the sower, you have the inner develop- ment of the gospel ; in the parable of the imustard- seed, you have its outer development and expan- sion ; in the one life; in the other, the forming of a shelter and a shadow for all that seek to it. And then he explained all things to the disciples when he found them alone. We then read at the close of the chapter of his going into a ship, and being weary, for he was the Man of sorrows. It is said, that he slept on a pil- low at the hinder part of the ship, and a great storm arose. Down the mountain gorges around the Sea of Galilee, as you know is the case with our English lakes, or Scottish lochs, an unexpected gale will come, and cause a storm, in which the small boat on the lake or loch is liable to be lost. Well, an unexpected storm came, and Jesus was asleep. Jonah once slept in a ship, but that was the opiate of crime ; Jesus slept in the ship, but that was the calm of perfect and unbroken innocence. And the disciples came to him alarmed, distrustful, fearing, and they said, " Master, carest thou not MARK IV. 59 that we perish? " If they had said, "Lord, lull the wind," that woujd not have been such a breach of the evidence of faith ; but the expression was, " Lord, we fear that thou art not what we thought, for it seems as if thou caredst not that we perish." Then Jesus arose ; and what majesty is here ! He rebuked the wind and sea. Creation's Sealord, and creation's Landlord, was there ; and the winds and waves recognized the voice that said, " Let them be ; " and they that became being at his bidding, now became calm when he so willed it. And this He did, not as a mere fact, but as an earnest of that day when nature shall be restored to her pristine peace, order, and harmony; when the groans and travails of creation shall cease, and that which is nature's normal condition — a condition of quiet and calm — shall be nature's enjoyment again; and we shall not only recognize Him as One who rebukes the winds and waves, and both obeying him, but we shall recognize Him who has made and remade the sea and the dry land, and restored all nature by a regenesis more glorious than its first genesis, to that order, beauty, and harmony which it lost by sin. I believe that this earth is not to be given up to Satan. It is a deranged world ; it is grievously disturbed ; there is fever in its organization, because sin has smitten it; but the great Lord who made it will come to it again, and he will expunge from it all its ills, its poison, and its fever, and make this orb, which has so many magnificent traces of its primeval gran- deur, one of the brightest and most beautiful in the whole celestial firmament, reflecting, not only as 60 SCRIPTURE READINGS. other orbs do, the God who made it, but the Christ that also redeemed it. * Of these outer acts they that saw said, " "What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him ? " We may exclaim of an inner work, " What manner of man is this, that the winds of human prejudice and the waves of human pas- sion obey him ? " CHAPTER IV. 26-29. THE KINGDOM OF GOD — THE SOWER — THE SEED — THE GROWTH — THE HARVEST. Let me explain what appears to be conveyed by the phrase, " the kingdom of God," as applied in this and other passages to the dispensation of the Gospel. It is evidently used by our Lord to designate the outward and visible church ; that is, the church composed of tares and of wheat, of good seed that ripens and seed that is decayed, of good fishes and of bad. It is the company of the baptized, the visible church, as it is called, of the Lord Jesus Christ. In all ages it has been a mingled body ; there is no such fact upon earth as a pure, perfect, and holy church. There are saints of God in the worst ; there are sinners and wicked ones in the best ; and every attempt that has been made — such is the instructive lesson of history — to create a new church, on the supposition that it would be a pure one, has issued only in the creation of another and frequently a worse. The truth is, that zealous men that separate from a partially corrupt church, in the hope that they will 6 62 SCRIPTURE READINGS. be able to constitute a pure one, have found that they have simply changed their place from an acre that brought forth tares and wheat, to another that brought forth tares and wheat still. The way to get the whole church of Christ made purer, the way to raise the temperature of the whole body, is for each individual to get his own heart under the sanctifying influence of the Spirit of God ; and thus, and by this process only, will the church of Christ be made purer. Do not expect on earth a pure visible church till the Lord come. I do not think that it is God's ordi- nation that there should be in this dispensation a pure one. The tares and the wheat remain mingled together even to the end ; and when some good but indiscreet men asked leave to root up the tares, what do we find was the answer of our blessed Lord ? — " Do not do so, lest you root up the wheat also." Better that twenty tares should grow in the field ecclesiastical, than that one precious wheat stalk should be injured by their removal. What we need is not change of place, but change of individual character. The old machinery is good enough if we can only get good men to use it. We do not want to break up the machinery that we happen in God's providence to be associated with, but to improve and elevate it by improving, elevating, and sanctifying, by the grace of God, our own individual hearts. If we more and more prayed that the Holy Spirit of God would change the hearts of them that are in the church, whatever section of the church it may MARK IV. 63 be ; and became less and less menders of churches, or church tinkers ; I am quite sure we should more substantially and rapidly contribute to that blessed and glorious result, when the church will attain its highest possible purity on earth prior to the advent of Him whose prerogative alone it is to separate the tares from the wheat, and take the wheat into his own barns. But whilst the phrase, " the kingdom of God," is thus applied to the visible church, it is also denned by certain moral characteristics; it is not only a company of subjects baptized, but it is also a power or an influence in the individual heart. The apostle defines it when he says, " The kingdom of God is not meat nor drink," that is, it is not a question of ecclesiastical, or sectarian, or sacramental, or any other ceremony ; but it is " righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." While, therefore, the company of the baptized is a mixed body, the king- dom of God, as an influence on the individual heart, is an inspiration of the Holy Spirit moulding every thought, affection, and feeling to the likeness of Christ, till the individual believer, upon earth, reflects upon the world the image and perfection of Him who translated him from darkness into his own mar- vellous light. Now, in this parable we have a view, I think, of the progress in individual hearts, such as is not given in the parable of the sower that immediately precedes it. In studying this parable, let us notice that the soil in which the seed is cast is the human heart. 64 SCRIPTURE READINGS. In some cases the soil, or that heart, is so hard that when the sower drops a handful of seeds upon it the seeds rebound and are scattered in the air, or they remain upon the hard surface of the heart — hardened by the traffic of Mammon and the feet of this world's cares — and remain till picked up by the birds of heaven ; and so the seed does not germi- nate nor grow up into a golden harvest. But this is not the only phase of the human heart; it is not only hardened, and so passively rejects the seed, but it puts forth also active resist- ance to it. The human heart is not a dead material, but an active and vital power; and as such it is denned by an apostle himself to be " enmity to God." It is a very awful thing that the heart should hate whatsoever things are pure, and just, and honest, and lovely, and of good report. If your heart and my heart do not hate all that is holy, you have not Adam the First to thank, but Adam the Second, who has made you to differ. But not only is the heart thus actively opposed to the entry in of what is good, but it has a worse peculiarity — it is actively receptive of what is posi- tively evil. Let the good seeds be sown in the natural heart, and it not only is hardened that it will not receive them, but it wilfully repels them ; and on the other hand, let the seed consist of that of weeds or tares, and it enthusiastically receives them. Your heart and my heart give by nature hospitality to evil; a cold and freezing admission to the good. Not only have we enmity within us to what is good, but we are so debased and MARK IV. 65 fallen by nature that we welcome what is evil as that which is congenial to ourselves and dearest to the passions and prejudices of our hearts. Having looked, then, at the soil, let me observe next the sower. The sower, in the first parable, is the Lord himself. The sower, it would seem, in this parable is the under seedsman, or sower sent forth by the Lord Jesus Christ. In looking at the minister of the Gospel as the sower of the good seed, I single out him, not as if he alone sowed ; for there is not a conversation that you hold in a railway carriage, nor a word that you utter in the streets, nor a criticism that you pass upon a friend, that is not a seed of some sort ; and a seed that will germinate somewhere and meet you again at the great harvest, when the angels are the reapers and the tares are burned. All persons are, therefore, sowers; but primarily and chiefly and officially, the ministers of the Gos- pel. Now, notice what they are to sow. It is seed, and that seed the minister does not create, he only collects. The sower that would sow what he himself had formed by his own mechanical or chemical inge- nuity, would find very little result in the harvest; but the sower sent forth by the great Master of all gathers from the granary of Scripture the seeds that are laid there, and spreads them over all souls, seek- ing for a blessing upon the work of his hands, and hoping by the grace of God for a bounteous harvest- home ; which will be more than a recompense for all 6* 66 SCRIPTURE READINGS. his toils. The minister must sow seeds ; the seeds of the word. If a farmer were to sow his field with the most precious pearls from the depths of the sea, or with the most beautiful gems from the East or from the West, they would sparlde in setting and in rising suns, but they would never grow into a harvest that would feed mankind; and if the minister of the Gospel should speak to you in figures so beautiful that you will be charmed, or in strains of rhetoric so impressive that you shall go away like Ezekiel's hearers, having listened to him as to one who plays beautifully upon an instrument, yet no good will be done. Figures of speech, elegant metaphors, pretty conceits, preached from the pulpit, are just as objec- tionable as chaff sown by the farmer in spring, with the foolish hope that it will grow up into a great and blessed harvest. If the minister sow his sparkling figures over all the souls subjected to his influence, the result will be, that thousands will admire, but none will be profited ; on the contrary, many will pine and perish for want of bread. Again, when the minister receives the seed, it must not only be true seed, but it must be sown. We have no evidence that the seed sows itself. There are certainly some seeds — the seeds, I believe, of some kinds of thistles — that have got small wings of down, and are wafted by the winds, and thus sown, if I may so call it, by themselves ; but the law of most seeds is that they must be taken from the granary, scattered by the industrious hand, and MARK IV. 67 committed to the prolific soil, in order to grow up into a harvest. Left in the granary the seed will decay ; but cast into the congenial soil it will bear much fruit. The minister, therefore, must sow it. The Gospel, in like manner, must be preached. The winds do not chant it : the stars do not write it: the waves of the sea do not chime. it. God has appointed men to preach, in order that the people may hear; he has sent forth seedsmen to sow, in order that the seed may bring forth fruit; in some thirty, in some sixty, and in some one hundred-fold. The ministry is thus not a sinecure, but a work: they are laborers with Christ, fellow-workmen with him ; they have seeds to sow, and of all laborers they ought to be the most diligent; because upon their toils depend results that are measured only by immensity, and limited only by eternity. When the farmer sows, there are some seasons that are more suitable for sowing than others; we all know that the seed sown at one month in the year will grow up only a stunted or worthless prod- uct; whereas, sown at the time indicated by its nature, in the providence of God, it will grow up a mature and ripe fruit. There are seasons in every man's individual life, seasons in national life, sea- sons in the world's life, when the seed dropped is like a word spoken in season ; behold, how good and precious it is ! Miss the season that is best for sowing, and it is like the husbandman having lost the spring, like the sailor having missed the tide, like an apprentice having played when he should have toiled, like a soldier having studied politics instead of the articles of war. 68 SCRIPTURE READINGS. What are some of these seasons ? One season is, that of severe and sorrowful bereavement. It is always found that the human heart is most receptive of the seeds of everlasting truth, when it has been saturated by sorrow, and softened by its influence, as if by the dews of heaven. And when the good seed — the word of everlasting truth — can be cast into the heart over which the wave of affliction has swept, that heart, like the earth left by the receding waters of the Nile, receives the good seed and becomes prolific of blessed and of more than rewarding harvests. Another season, too, when the seed may be sown with the greatest hope, is the season of youth. In youth the heart is most soft, most susceptible ; the seed cast into it strikes deepest, remains longest, and grows most luxuriantly to the harvest. Let me, therefore, say to the young, " Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth." Let me ask the young to place themselves, whenever they have the opportunity, under the influence of divine truth. The lessons you have received in youth will grow up your comfort and your joy in the wintry days of old age, and be to you the seeds of a harvest glo- rious as that described by our blessed Lord, when the tares are cast out from the field, and the ripened wheat is gathered by himself into his own great barns. I do not say that, if these seasons are lost, there will never be another opportunity equally good ; but I do say that these seasons are so precious, that you cannot too earnestly or too prayerfully avail your- MARK IV. 69 selves of them. Wherever there is a heart that beats, I must however add, there is a soil in which the seed may be cast ; and as long as there is life, so long there may be prayer, and so long there is hope. Let me notice again, that when the sower has cast the seed into the soil, in the beautiful language of the parable I have selected as my text, he can do nothing more. All that he does is to rise in the morning, and retire to rest at night ; — "he may sleep and rise night and day, but the seed springeth up he knoweth not how." In other words, the hus- bandman casts his seed into the soil in spring: he may watch it out of curiosity, or because he has an interest in it; but he is not the cause of the sun- shine and of the fertilizing dew; he cannot com- mand the clouds to pour down their treasures; he cannot give to the earth the fertility it has not. It is in this case, as in the higher and the holier one, — " the wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou near- est the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." We see from this, too, that we must expect, in sowing the seed, the celestial blessing, in order that our terrestrial toils may be crowned with success. In vain does the husbandman sow if there be no sunshine and no rains, and in vain are there sunshine and rains if the husbandman does not sow. God has so knit together the terrestrial toil, or use of means, and the celestial blessing that makes those means efficacious, that it is ours patiently to use 70 SCRIPTURE READINGS. the means, that is, to sow the seeds, and prayerfully to look for mist and clouds and sunshine to Him that commands a blessing and makes the reaper to tread upon the skirts of the sower. And again, although the sower does not give virtue to the seed, or fertility to the soil, yet he is nevertheless not an unconcerned spectator. The language of the passage is, that he " rises up and watches," that is, that he feels a deep interest in it; and that minister of the Gospel who can scatter over those living pulsating hearts that are around him those great truths that will either be their ruin or their restoration, and feels no anxiety that the effect should be the best and noblest and the most blessed, has no sympathy with the great Master. But whilst we may sympathize with the progress of the work, whilst we may feel anxious that every section of the field should prosper, we can make no contribution to it, we are helpless in the higher processes : we can only wait and watch and pray that the Lord of the harvest will command a bless- ing that will make the seed grow up and bear fruit, some thirty, some sixty, and some one hundred-fold. It has been carefully calculated, that of all the seed that is sown on the earth, two fifths are used, partly to feed the worms of the earth, partly to feed the birds of the air, and some parts of it decay and fail to germinate at all. But so beautifully has God arranged it, that if man were to say — " Since two fifths of the seed that I scatter in my field are dissi- pated, I will in future only sow the remaining three fifths," the result of the harvest would be that he MARK IV. 71 would not starve the dumb creation, but very soon be starved himself. It is God's great law that man shall be the almoner of the creation, as it was God's great law at first that man should be the priest of all living happy things. And we find the same truth in the ministry of the Gospel. The minister preaches truths that are fitted to electrify the world ; he scatters seed that may benefit the nations ; and the result is only that one here and one there is the good soil that receives the seed and brings forth fruit accordingly. But is the rest of the seed lost ? No ; alas ! it proves to some the savor of death : it is going forth in its message of greatness, or of good- ness, to others; and though he cannot trace the effects of all that he says, if he speak God's truth in God's name, and with God's Holy Spirit, it is as certain as that suns shall set and rise, that never a word shall return to God void. And again, we are often prone to estimate the effects of preaching by instantaneous or non-instan- taneous results. I believe we ought not to do so. It is not the law in nature that the reaper follows the sower, and that the autumn bursts upon the spring. "We find the interval of the ripening summer between the seed that is sown and the fruits that are gathered. And if this be so in God's natural world, we may depend upon it there is some analogy between this and God's spiritual world. I am not strongly disposed to believe in instantaneous conver- sions. What are called so are really the results of long hidden processes. The seed germinates, and we think it is instantaneous, whilst it is really a 72 SCRIPTURE READINGS. harvest very remote from the spring in which the seed was sown. We are therefore not to suppose that no good is done by a sermon, because its echo does not come from every pew. The seed may lie hidden, may be choked, may be buried, but it has life, and it will spring up one day, and bear fruit abundantly. In the next place, we see in this very beautiful and suggestive parable the idea of progress. " He should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself ; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear." This is not instantaneous result, but gradual and progressive development. It is not like the mountain torrents, that are very soon swollen, and very soon dry up ; but it is a gradual expansion, the seeds of spring issue in the golden ears of autumn. There is, first of all, says our Lord, the blade. And this reminds me of a very important truth. The blade is at first extremely small. You will see it sometimes in March peeping up amid the cold and freezing snow, and so much like a weed, that if you are not an experienced farmer, you would denounce it at once as such. And yet the hopes of a nation's bread all rest upon the maturing and ripening of that green leaf that grows out from the snow, and seems itself so little to promise the harvests that are to follow. Now, my dear friends, how suggestive to us is that beautiful analogy of that charity which beareth all things, and hopeth all MARK IV. 73 things. The man who has just been brought to feel an interest in the Gospel, may be so little advanced, that he looks more like a weed than wheat, that he seems more of the world than out of it, that it seems as if his Christianity were so weak and fragile, that the first influence of frost, or the first touch of the cold March north-east wind, would blight and blast it for ever. But, my dear friends, be careful : do not condemn as a weed him or her who may be a blade of true wheat, scarcely distinguishable by you, but watched and tended by Him who hears the cry of the wild raven, clothes the lily of the field, and brings the blade of March into the full ears of August and September. Do not, brethren, set down as a worldling one who may just be emerging from the snow in a cold and uncongenial climate, and needing, not the north-east wind of a cold rebuke of yours, but the warm atmosphere of affectionate nurture. Take care, lest in your attempt to discrimi- nate you injure the planting of the Lord. The blade, however feeble, however unpromising to you, is wheat ; and if watched, tended, and cared for, it will overcome all the obstructions that resist it, and unfold itself into a harvest that will make the heart of the widow to sing for joy, and the world to be blessed by its presence. There is indicated in this passage progress. The blade, however weak, grows into wheat. In other words, if you are a true Chris- tian, I do not believe that you ever can be trans- formed into the reverse. I do not believe, because the Bible does not seem to me to teach it, that the Christian of to-day may become the unconverted 7 74 SCRIPTURE READINGS. sceptic of to-morrow. The loudest professor of to-day may be the loudest blasphemer to-morrow ; but wheat cannot be changed into tares. The living seed from the granary of God is from Him, and it grows to Him. If a man be born, he is a man ; if he be born again, he is a Christian ; and if he be the shining light, (to vary the figure employed in this passage,) it will shine more and more unto the perfect day. The blade will reach the ear, and the ear the full corn in the ear. We have again here the harvest that follows alluded to. That harvest is sometimes reaped partly on earth, but it is sure to be reaped in all its fulness at the close of this present dispensation. And how beautiful is harvest! It is only exceeded by spring. It is then that nature sits on her golden sheaves, like a mother amidst her rejoicing offspring, and all nature seems to lift up its glad anthem of praise unto Him who is the Lord of the spring and the Lord of the harvest. But all the harvests of the earth, when ripest, will be nothing in grandeur and magnificence to that last harvest, where angels are the reapers, and Jesus watches over all. But some- times we see the harvest even in this world. In this dispensation you come to a death-bed — a Christian departs, like a sheaf ripe and fit for transference into the kingdom of heaven. You sometimes see a harvest as a foretaste of the ultimate one, in a con- gregation, when after long lying fallow, scorched and parched by the sun, it comes under a new birth, and basks in a bright sunshine, and its very solitary places blossom as the rose. And sometimes it MARK IV. 75 appears in a nation. Do you think that the living seeds that Latimer, Ridley, Knox, and Luther sowed, ever can be extinguished ? They are beneath the green grass ; they may be deeply buried beneath the everlasting hills ; but the time comes when the breath of spring shall come over them, and the seeds that were watered by the tears of weeping eyes, and softened by the blood of warm hearts, shall feel the breath and influence of Him whose they are and from whom they come, and a great nation shall burst in a glorious harvest, till the language of the 65th Psalm becomes literal, — " The pastures are clothed with flocks ; the valleys also are covered over with corn ; they shout for joy, they also sing." But the great and the ultimate harvest is at the end, not of the world, as we call it, for I do not believe that the world will have any, but at the end of the age, the present dispensation. Let us never forget, in looking at the whole of this parable, that the sower is not always the reaper. In the language of Scripture, " one soweth, and another reapeth." I have often taken comfort from this. One preaches faithfully from year to year the everlasting Gospel. You do not see (for that is all one can say) that practical response to it which you have been led to expect, or that you have earnestly prayed for. It may be so. Then what is your conclusion ? That God has placed you simply as a sower; another comes in your place when your work is done, and sees whole harvests spring up in all their mellowness and ripeness, and God has given him the position of a reaper. The sower's duties may be as laborious, 76 SCRIPTURE READINGS. though his dignities are not as great. Because one sows he is not to despair, and the reaper is not to boast; but both are to wait for that blessed day when they shall meet, and sower and reaper shall rejoice together. Let us, again, recollect that we know certainly that the present is our seed-time. I think one of the most awful experiences expressed in God's holy Word is this, — " The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." This is our seed- time. Are our hearts receiving trustfully the living seed ? Do we open our ears to the truth ? Is the sanctuary becoming dearer to us ? Is the preaching of the Gospel more appreciated by us? Can we say that a day in God's courts is better than a thou- sand that we spend elsewhere? Do we rejoice when it is said to us, " Let us go up into the house of the Lord ? " We are under influences that are harden- ing us for ruin, or ripening us for glory : which are ye? I speak as unto reasonable men: judge ye what I say. Let us, again, never forget that there are two vitalities upon earth. Evil has life: good has life. The seeds of evil grow up into tares: the seeds of the good grow up into wheat. A sinful word spoken at random may prove in some innocent heart a seed that grows up into a tare ; and the awful truth of the parable is, not that the tare is something separate from the man, but that the tare and the man are inseparably one. MARK IV. 77 Note. — [26-29.] Peculiar to Mark. By commentators of the Straussian school, it is supposed to be the same as the parable of the tares, with the tares left out. (! !) If so, a wonderful and most instruc- tive parable has arisen out of the fragments of the other, in which the idea is a totally different one. It is the growth of the once deposited seed by the combination of its own development with the genial power of the earth ; all, of course, under the creative hand of God, but inde- pendent of human care and anxiety during this time of growth. [28.] No trouble of ours can accelerate the growth or shorten the stages which each seed must pass through. It is the mistake of mod- ern Methodism, for instance, to be always working at the seed, — tak- ing it up to see whether it is growing, instead of leaving it to God's own good time, and meanwhile diligently doing God's work elsewhere. See Stier, vol. iii. p. 16. — Alford. CHAPTER V. DEMONIAC POSSESSION — SATAN IN THE HERD OF SWINE — THE CONDUCT OF THE DELIVERED DEMONIAC SHOWING FORTH THE TRUTH — THE WOMAN TOUCHING THE HEM OF HIS GARMENT — THE RULER AND HIS DAUGHTER. Every touch of the pen of the sacred historian is evidence here of the presence of Him whom in the previous chapter the winds and the sea obeyed, and whom in this chapter all the diseases of fallen humanity, the worst and most inveterate, recognized as the great, the only, and the infallible Physician. The first sketch or tableau is exceedingly impressive and awfully striking, giving on the one side a picture of the depth to which poor humanity may be drag- ged, and presenting on the obverse a picture of the power, mercy, and sovereignty of Him whom all things in heaven and earth and under the earth obey. I have often had occasion to remark upon the fact that demoniac possessions seem now altogether to have ceased — that, at least, we have no evidence upon which we can depend of any thing anywhere approaching to actual demoniac possession having recently occurred or at present existing upon earth. It may be, that just before Jesus came Satan had outstepped his boundaries, and had intruded beyond MARK V. 79 his former province, and lodged himself in the very recesses of the human soul ; so that if Jesus had not come at the time when he actually came, all human- ity would have been made the prisonhouse, the thrall, the bondslave of Satan himself. After our Lord's ascension, no such instances occur, and this relief may have occurred at the time when he said, " I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning." God mani- fest in the flesh seems to have put an end to that peculiar type of Satan's power called demoniac pos- sessions. Satan still touches the human soul at every point; he still intrudes into the sanctuary of the heart. Satan stole into Paradise, and he still finds unbidden access to the regenerate heart : only of such a heart it is true, " Satan hath desired to have thee, that he may sift thee as wheat ; but " — blessed preparation and only defence — the Saviour says, " I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not." There is something very remarkable in this man possessed with the devil. It seems as if there were two antag- onistic wills — there is the will of the man when he runs to and worships Jesus ; and there appears again the dominant and more powerful will of the devil that possessed him, when he spoke through the organs of the man, and said, " My name is Legion ; for we are many." There is something, too, very awful in the idea that the devil within the man adjures Jesus not to come and torment him before his time. What a chapter does this reveal ! Satan finds his happiness in tormenting souls, and his own torment is his expulsion from the dominion of the human soul. What an awful thought is it that 80 SCRIPTURE READINGS. there should be a being in God's universe whose happiness consists in being and doing evil, whose enjoyment is proportionate to his success in destroy- ing, who was a murderer from the beginning, who is beyond all hope of restoration, recovery, or regener- ation, — a doomed, lost, and ruined spirit for ever ! The demoniac was asked by Jesus, " What is thy name?" but he was silent; and the evil spirit spake for him, and thinking to frighten Jesus, whom he recognized, nevertheless, as the Lord of heaven, said in accents of thunder, " My name is Legion : for we are many," — as if he would imply that they were more than a match for Jesus ; that they were not one solitary spirit, whom he might cast out as he had done in other cases, but a multitude whom to resist would be peril, and whom to overcome would be wholly impossible. Then the evil spirit prayed that they might be sent, if sent out at all, — as if feeling that their presence where Christ wished it not to be was not possible — into a herd of swine that were feeding on the hills, to the number of two thousand, close by. The strange thing is that they should make such a petition. No less strange is it that brutes should be so inhabited. But the brute creation, we know, is under the domination of evil already. There is evidence in our own expe- rience that dumb brutes around us are receptive of human influence ; and there is evidence in the 8th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, that all creation, the dumb brutes as well as the material creation, groaneth and travaileth in pain, waiting to be delivered. There is nothing more strange in MARK V. 81 the swine being taken possession of by the devil — nay, I think much less so — than in human beings being taken possession of; for Satan has not only a foothold in the heart of man, but in the whole of creation, during this present economy. But it may be said, Does it not seem strange that Jesus should permit the demons to go into the swine ? and that the swine should be taken away and destroyed, and thus be the loss of very great property to their owners ? I answer, these very swine belonged to Jews, who were forbidden by their law 4 to keep them, but who procured Gentiles to tend them for them, and who thought tjiat they, the masters, were excused for their crime because their servants immediately committed it : and thus, when the demons went into the swine, it was a just retri- bution upon the proprietors for doing that which they knew in their own hearts and consciences was forbidden by their own law. When the whole herd went into the sea, and perished in the waters, the Gadarenes "began to pray him to depart out of their coasts." What an awful thing is this ! They preferred their swine to the presence of the Son of God. And yet, has not that strange and revolting fact its shadow, projected forward into every age* ? The Jews preferred Barabbas to Jesus ; the Gadarenes preferred their swine to his presence ; and are there not many in every age who prefer their own pleasure, profit, aggrandizement, to the presence, glory, and claims of the Son of God ? Reader, do you ? We read next, that when the demoniac was 82 SCRIPTURE READINGS. delivered of the legion of evil spirits, he came to Jesus, and prayed that he might be with him. How natural is that trait ! He felt that there was safety only under the shadow of his great Deliverer. He feared the return of the evil spirits, and he felt that He alone who exorcised them was able to repel them and keep them at a distance. But Jesus " suffered him not, but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee." What a token was here of the grandeur of the character of Jesus ! If Jesus had been what sceptics and infidels assert he was, a mere pretender, he would have car- ried with him into every province of Judea this wonder- ful monument or token of his power. He would have taken him as an attesting witness wherever he went, and have let the multitude thus see what his power was, that seeing such a monument of it, they might recognize, serve, obey, and adore him. But instead of that, with a quiet majesty that felt the day would come when this testimony would have its proper effect, he says to him, " No, you are not to remain with me. Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee ; that is to say, You have got a great blessing; now go and make it known. Whatever a man has that has benefited him, and that is fitted to benefit others, by the laws of his nature he feels disposed to circulate. A person never long keeps a monopoly of good news. He feels an instinct within him, originally from God, and that when sanctified still sustains the missionary, to tell others where they may taste MARK V. 83 the blessings which he has so richly received. And Jesus does not say, " Go and stand upon a mountain top, and proclaim it; go forth as a preacher or a missionary ; but he says, " Go and tell it at home, and see how you succeed in that little congregation ; and then will be the time to go forth and speak it to the larger congregation of the world." Sometimes excellent Christian young men come to me, and say, " We wish to be ministers or missionaries of Chris- tianity." My first statement is this : You must not suppose that when a man becomes a true Christian, he must become a preacher ; else, were all preachers, where would be the people to hear ? Besides, when you have tasted the power and influence of the Gospel, it is not necessary that you should preach in order to do good. You may speak by the quiet and unobtrusive purity of your walk, by the word dropped in season — behold, how good it is ! and you may speak that most eloquent of all sermons, a holy and consistent life ; and those who are about you, seeing a mighty change for the better, will inquire what is the secret spring of such a transformation ; and then you will tell them the good things the Lord has done for you. And again, I would say to such who express such a feeling, Go first and see what you can do in our schools, or in your own home. Can you speak to those who are about you, your servants, sisters, brothers, or parents ? Can you say a good word to them? Can you acquit yourself well as a private missionary ? If so, then you may be accepted as a public one. There is great common sense in the apostolic 84 SCRIPTURE READINGS. requirement that St. Paul lays down, that he who assumes to be a minister of the Gospel must be one who rules well in his own house; as if he should try what he can do at home, before he enters the great field of missionary enterprise. We then read that the demoniac was seen by his friends sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. What a beautiful change was here ! Sitting at the feet of Jesus, the place of safety, the place of a pupil, the place of endearing reminis- cences ; — sitting at his feet, in order to learn more of that wondrous messago which he came to seal with his precious blood. And clothed — no longer in torn and tattered garments, amid the tombs, an outcast and an exile from society, but clothed and in his right mind. What the Gospel makes an indi- vidual, it can make a nation. If we wish to see the demoniac amid the tombs, we can call to recollec- tion the shattered thrones, the exploded dynasties of the past, the tumults of the people, the precarious- ness of power, the fearful elements that are seething and surging beneath many parts of the continent of Europe. Take Italy, or Rome alone, and there you have the nearest type of the demoniac amid the tombs, outcast, torn, miserable, wretched. And then come to our own land, with all its faults and its defects, and think what it is that has made it so great, and comparatively so good. What is it that has made Britain the scene of peace, of temperate power in those who rule, and of loyalty, love, and allegiance in those who obey ? What has made it the place of comparatively happy homes, open Bibles, MARK V. 85 and altars free ? "What has made it clothed and in its right mind, and sitting at the feet of Jesus ? The glorious Gospel preached in the midst of it; the open Bible, and the noble freedom of understanding what it means, and saying what it means, with no power on earth to repress or put us down. We have, after this, another picture. One of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, came and asked Jesus for his daughter at the point of death. But between this application of Jairus, and the answer to it, there is an interesting episode, which relates to a woman who had an issue of blood twelve years, and who had applied to many physi- cians, but, as many people find still, she got worse instead of better. But at last she went to the right one. My dear friends, what is often true of physical diseases is most true of spiritual ones. Try the priest, your own attainments, or any human source whatever, and you will get rather worse than better ; but touch the hem of Jesus' garment, make applica- tion to him, and he will heal you. The question of Jesus, " Who touched my clothes ? " was simply to bring the woman to a sense of himself as the great source of healing virtue, and to make her truly thankful, as well as obedient to him. It did not imply that he knew not who had touched him, or that he was not aware that healing had gone forth from him, but that he wished her clearly to compre- hend the Author of the cure, to feel the gratitude that was due -for it, and to go forth and live accord- ingly. We then read of the ruler who came and asked 8 86 SCRIPTURE READINGS. for the recovery of his daughter. Here is an instance of prayer for a temporal benefit; and that prayer which the ruler offered for his daughter twelve years of age, you may offer for your relatives. I have often said that in prayer we are to express to God every want that we feel, temporal, spiritual, or eternal. It is not your part to discriminate, and say, " I will not pray for this blessing, lest it be not for my good." It is the prerogative of Him who gives the blessing to determine what is for your good, and what is not. You pray for the blessing that you feel you most need, and leave God to give when, where, and how he pleases. Jesus immediately came to the ruler's house with certain friends and witnesses, and when he was come, he remonstrated with him, and said, " Be not afraid, only believe." He had asked him to come, and he ought to have rejoiced, and to have cherished a hope that Jesus would not forsake him till he had granted all his desire. Then our Lord said, in words truly instructive, " The damsel is not dead, but sleepeth." Here is the Scripture portrait of death. It is a sleep ; and what is sleep ? A momentary refreshment of the physical powers preparatory to the morn, when you go forth again to toil. And what is death? A momentary repose preparatory to the everlasting morn, when you go forth again to enjoy. The last sleep of a believer is everlasting and joyous refreshment. Milton very beautifully describes Adam as fancying that he was about to die when he first slept; and many of you may recollect how, when young, you have fought with sleep, and shrunk from it, as if unwilling to MARK V. 87 surrender yourselves to the power of another. And what is that but just a foreshadow of the last sleep, which is not extinction or annihilation, but a momentary repose and refreshment preparatory to everlasting joys at God's right hand, and pleasures that are for evermore ? Our sleep at night is each day's death; our life is, as it were, taken from us every night, and restored every morning. When you fall asleep, literally and truly you give up yourself. As long as I am awake, I feel that I have a hold of life ; but when I sleep, I have lost my grasp of it — I have surrendered myself into the keeping of the great Watchman of Israel. And why so ? Just to give me a foreshadow and presentiment of that death, which is only the sleep of a moment preparatory to everlasting joy. And what is old age, when all the limbs become stiff, the hair becomes grey, and the walk becomes slow and staggering ? It is just the same to life as the late evening is to the weary work- man. Towards ten or eleven at night he becomes sleepy, and at last he slumbers. The old man is beginning to get sleepy; the evening of life has come, and at last, softly, like a babe, he lays his head upon the last pillow, and falls asleep in the bosom of his Lord, and wakes in the morning into everlasting life. May our last sleep be this, for Christ's sake. Amen. Note. — Talitha, in the ordinary dialect of the people, is a word of endearment addressed to a young maiden. — Afford. CHAPTER VI. LABORS OF JESTTS — OBJECTIONS TO HIM — REASON OP REJECTION IMPORTANCE OP FAITH MISSIONARY PREPARATION AND APOSTOLIC COMMISSION — MARTYRDOM OF JOHN — REASON OF IT — FEMALE DEPRAVITY — MIRACLE OF LOAVES AND FISHES — THE STORM. In the chapter we have now read, it is first of all stated, that He came over into his own native place, and was followed there by the disciples, who were attached to him, partly because of the lessons that he taught, and partly because of the benefits which he had bestowed upon them. It appears, that on the Sabbath day, as if resolved not to lose a single opportunity of usefulness, he began to teach the great lessons that he came to seal by his blood, in the synagogue, where the Jews permitted a stranger Jew to address them, and to unfold, as he might be able, any lessons that he might desire to teach them. When they heard Jesus preach, they were so struck with the simplicity of his words, the sub- limity of his doctrine, and the love and affection that shone in every sentence, as well as the unwea- ried assiduity with which he taught, and the solemn emphasis with which he spoke, that they said, igno- rant who he was, and of the great object of his mission, or the glory of his character as God mani- MARK VI. 89 fest in the flesh, " From whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands ? " And then they said, " Is not this the carpenter?" Perhaps this is not the correct rendering of the original. The Greek word is tektuv, " one who builds, or constructs, or arranges," from which comes our word " technical," and when con- nected with fire, our word " pyrotechnist," a person who works in fire. Hence, the word tektuv would seem to imply a person who does some works, without specifying what they are. They said, " Is not this one whom we know to have labored with his own hands? Is not this the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon ? and are not his sisters here with us ? And they were offended at him." "What is this man, that he should make such pretensions? Who has given him this supernatural wisdom? How is he better than we? They tried to weaken the effects of the message by tracing the genealogy of the man ; but it is not who says it, but what he says, that we ought to regard. It is not the genealogy of the minister ecclesiastical or otherwise, but the faith- fulness with which he speaks, the fulness of the truths that he utters, and the fact that he can sub- stantiate the lowest and loftiest lessons that he impresses by a reference to that Word which decides all controversies without appeal, the law and the testimony, that we should regard. Jesus did not recriminate, — this would not have been like him — but instead, he made a remark which has passed 90 SCRIPTURE READINGS. into an aphorism, " A prophet is not without honor, but in his own country." There is a great truth here. The more closely that we know the greatest man, in many respects the less he will appear. " ' Tis distance lends enchantment to the view ; " and when the greatest come down from the loftiest eminence, and are scrutinized and seen at every angle, and beheld in every light, it is seen that there is upon the whole but a very broad dead level of humanity; and that, whatever be the extrinsic dis- tinctions of our nature, its leading and substantial characteristics are everywhere and always the same. It is only unprecedented and unparalleled greatness that will bear the microscope of a near inspection ; it is the few and the far between that will stand the minutest and closest examination. "We all seem much less to ourselves than we do to each other; and such a feeling, whilst it should not degrade us in our own estimate, ought to humble us. in the sight of a holy and heart-searching God. Jesus then called his disciples, and left the place where he was, because, he said, " he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them." This seems strange ; Omnipotence is omnipotent everywhere — why could he not do miracles here just as he had done them elsewhere ? The answer is, that He made it the law of his procedure on earth, that he would only give to faith the fulness of power, — that he would only put forth power where there was trust and confidence in his willingness and power to do the miracle, This is plain from the 6th verse, MARK VI. 91 where it is said, " he marvelled because of their unbelief." Evidently that was the secret of his ina- bility to do many mighty works there. It is just to be explained in the same way as that God will not save a soul without faith ; God will not bless, unless there be true repentance ; that is, he treats man as a rational and responsible being, and not as an autom- aton or machine ; and expects that if he gives, there shall be in man the receptive disposition to welcome in conscious love what God so freely bestows. He then sent forth his apostles; and in the cor- responding passage in Matthew, it is said, that he sent them two by two. Here it says, that they were to take " nothing for their journey, save a staff only ; no scrip, no bread, no money in their purse : but be shod with sandals ; and not put on two coats ; " that is, they were not to load themselves with super- fluities, but to go just as they were. The danger of the perishing is imminent ; your duties to them are instant; let the dead bury the dead; go in God's strength, and in obedience to his word ; and He who gives the command will give the blessing that will more than sustain, and strengthen, and provide for you. I know this has been quoted as a prece- dent for modern missionary enterprise, but it seems to me that it is quoted in violation of common sense and plain Scriptural intimations. These men who were here commanded to go forth without two coats, and without money in their purse, or provis- ion for their journey, were able to do miracles, to speak in tongues, and had the special promise of the special presence of the Lord Jesus Christ him- 92 SCRIPTURE READINGS. self. If we can speak tongues without learning, if we can heal the sick and raise the dead, then we may go forth with exactly the same accoutrements, without provision, or preparation : but if it be the law of the economy under which we live, which none can doubt, since it is felt by all, that unless there be means, there will be no end; that if a man will not work neither should he eat ; that study is requisite for excellence, and preparation for effect, — then we must believe that God will give the best 'blessing to the best means used most diligently and prayerfully in reliance on his presence. The words addressed by Jesus to the apostles are very solemn. — " And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye depart thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city." Judged by the analogy of all their proceedings, the apostles asked submission, not to themselves, but to their blessed Master; or credence, not to the opinions of John, Peter, or Paul, but to the inspired truths of the Holy Spirit that actuated them. Some will receive the truth when it is preached to them, and some will reject that truth. The words of Jesus to his apostles assume a class that receive it and a class that reject it. This was illustrated in the soil receptive of the good seed, and productive of corresponding harvests ; and we saw the rejection of the truth illustrated in the soil in which nettles MARK VI. 93 and thorns grow up and choke the seed, where the deceitfulness of riches and the cares of this world prevent the seed from growing up ; not because the word has lost its power, but because the heart of the hearer has parted with its sus- ceptibility of saving and of sanctifying impressions. We also gather from these worcls that varied opportunities of improvement are given to different men. On one soil the sunbeams and the shower perpetually fall; upon another soil there seems to rest a blighting and perpetual shadow. Some men, wherever they go, come into contact with the truth ; other men seem never to have an opportunity of hearing that truth in its purity, or pressed home upon their conscience with anything like effective power. Why it is so, it is not for us to explain. The same difference that appears in the natural world is exhibited in the spiritual, and all that we can say is, that if Jerusalem was raised above Gomorrah, and if England has been raised above Jerusalem, it has been, not from any excellence in the first, or demerit in the last, but because that " so, Father, it seemed good in thy sight." God takes account of the amount of opportuni- ties of spiritual improvement that we have. We think that he sees not, or that the privileges that we enjoy are too trivial for him to take notice of; but it is no more difficult for Deity to take notice of an atom, than it is of an archangel. The mightiest things are not beyond his control, the minutest things are not beneath his inspection: and these are not minute, but very mighty things. Our responsi- 94 SCRIPTURE READINGS. bility God takes exact notice of: he unweariedly sees ; he patiently waits : the only comfort that we have is, that God will not bring us to account for what we never had, but only for what we have. God makes us answerable for what he gives, not for the misuse or the ignorance of what he gives not. We gather from the passage that a day arrives, either at each individual's departure, or when the great white throne shall be set, and all shall gather round it, — some with the pale face of dismay, others with faces gleaming in the sunshine of everlasting happiness, on which we shall give in our account to God. At that great day Sodom, shall answer for what it had, Gomorrah for what it had, Jerusalem for what it had, and England for the privileges it has ; and each individual in each shall render an account to God, not merely for deeds done, but for opportunities enjoyed, the knowledge possessed, and the blessings that we received. Not only shall we reap what we have sown, but we shall be answer- able for what God has given us ; not only shall we be called to account for what we have done, but for what we have tied up and laid aside in a napkin, as if God were a hard taskmaster, reaping where he had not strewed. The greatness of our present privileges is the measure of our future responsibility. Blessings that are now tasted at the footstool God will summon up to witness for or against us at the throne, and we shall answer for their use or their abuse as our state may be. " I was in prison," (there was an opportunity of sympathy,) " and you MARK VI. 95 did not visit me;" " I was naked," (there was an opportunity of beneficence,) " and you did not clothe me : " whereas, it is said to the righteous, " I was in prison, and you came to me ; " "I was sick, and ye visited me : " showing that an opportunity of know- ing the truth is a responsibility, an opportunity of doing good is a responsibility, just as inseparable from us as our own immortality. Every appeal that was made to you for aid, every appeal that was made to your hearts for sympathy, every opportunity that was given you for doing good, and that you put off or treated with indifference, if the day of retribu- tion overtakes you, will rise and track you with its footsteps on the same floor on which you stand waiting for an everlasting sentence ; and God will show that if we of the nineteenth century have had more opportunities, it is that we may more deeply feel the corresponding weight and pressure of the responsibility that attaches thereto. Let us ask, then, when we think of it again, com- paring ourselves with the cities of the plain, whose smouldering and sulphureous ruins are all that attest that they once were ; and with the churches of Asia, whose candlesticks are broken or utterly removed; or with Jerusalem, once the joy of the earth and the beauty of every land ; what we have in this land of ours, what privileges, what mercies we so richly enjoy, and then reflect what responsibility before God lies on us. When we look at the defects of our own land, — at the abuses unremoved that ought to be removed, — at the things undone that ought to be done, — we are sometimes disposed to think unjustly 96 SCRIPTURE READINGS. of it ; but when we feel so disposed, oh ! think of its beautiful Sabbaths, with comparatively few and thin shadows cast upon them — of its open Bibles, with- out a pope to shut them, or a grand duke to imprison for reading them, or a priest to burn them — of the Gospel so faithfully, so fully preached in so many pulpits and in so many parishes — not so many as we could wish, but in more than the Gospel was ever preached in since the days of the apostles themselves, - — think, I say, of all these the inesti- mable privileges of our land, and you will not only be more thankful for what you have, but you will feel how responsible we are in the sight of God for the use or the abuse of them. Verily, it will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than for us, if we receive not the things that belong to our eternal peace. At the last reckoning, you will notice, God looks more at the opportunities of improvement we have lost, at the privileges we have misused, than at the actual sins we have perpetrated. It ought never to be forgotten that the condemning sin in our case will not be so much the wickedness we have done, but the rejection of the remedy that was offered ; and so our condemnation will not be the past sins we have committed, but the present rejection of the only remedy provided for the pardon of those sins. What does our blessed Lord say ? " This is the condem- nation, that light is come into the world, but that men have loved darkness rather than light." " He that believeth not is condemned already." Why? " Because he hath not believed in the only begotten Son of God." The sins you have committed are MARK VI. 97 heinous enough, — if indeed they are to be com- pared in heinousness, — without this superadded sin, namely, the rejection of the only Saviour, whose blood can wash them all away ; and therefore, he says, the responsibility of Sodom and Gomorrah and Jerusalem will be that they had privileges and opportunities and blessings which they did not use, or in the use of which they did not accept the only remedy provided for their restoration and recovery. Now if this be so, that our great and condemning sin, wherever a condemning sin is found cleaving to us, will be, not what we have said, thought, or done, but that we have rejected the only atonement, sacri- fice, and Saviour ; then let us remember that every day that shuts down on us as strangers to the power of living religion, adds to the weight of our guilt, and deepens our responsibility in the sight of God. A day slips past us, and we think nothing of it ; but that day has left upon us an influence that the waters of death will not wash out, that will appear fixed, permanent, indelible at the judgment bar of God himself. It is one of the most solemn truths in all God's providential or inspired records, that one day gives its coloring it may be to eternity, that a deed may be done in a single hour that will rise in echoing crashes, and reverberate throughout everlast- ing ages. It is one of the most solemn thoughts, that the acts of the present life have inexhaustible retribu- tion when this present life shall have passed away. What solemnity does this give to the seed-time; what emphasis does this give to that word now ; 9 98 SCRIPTURE READINGS. and of what importance is to us the consciousness that our present character will be reflected for ever : that he that is unjust at death is unjust for ever ; that he that is unholy, is unholy for ever! What an emphasis does this give to every address ; wha* worth to every moment as it slips past ; what a solemn call to lay hold upon every opening and avenue for instruction, usefulness, and good, and to consecrate all to that best and noblest of ends, the glory of God and the safety of the never-dying soul ! There is no excuse whatever for neglecting or misusing the opportunities of salvation that you have. If there be a valid excuse in any man's case for not being a Christian, then that man will never be condemned at the judgment-seat of God. I say, if there be in your case a valid excuse for not being a Christian, then there is no guilt in your not being a Christian. It is rather odd for one to speak of an excuse for not being a Christian — an excuse for not being happy — an excuse for not wishing to be happy: it seems an absurdity; when it is weighed and examined, it almost confutes itself: and yet men do make excuses ; " I have married a wife, and I cannot come." All sorts of excuses have been made ; and if they be valid excuses, then there is no sin in stopping away. But there is no excuse in the universe for not being a child of God and an heir of the kingdom of heaven. If God does not offer the blessing to you, then you are justified in not being a Christian ; or if God lays upon you some overwhelming pressure, or reprobative decree that MARK VI. 99 sinks you to hell against your own will, then you are to be pitied ; but if it be true, that to every soul under heaven there is offered instant peace with God, just on condition that that soul will take God at his word, believe and act accordingly, then there is no excuse for not being a Christian, and all pre- tence is dissipated : it is not that you can not be, it is that you will not be saved ; and if it be true that Jerusalem had these truths stated more clearly than Sodom ever had ; if it be true that our country has these truths more fully and frequently reiterated than former countries had, then our responsibility is just the exact shadow and measure of our opportunities of spiritual instruction. We have what they had not, — the complete Bible, the risen and interceding Lord, the Holy Spirit waiting to convert and to sanctify. Sodom and Gomorrah and Jerusalem lived in the gray and misty dawn ; and if they perished in their sins, because they saw not Christ, then how shall we escape if we neglect the Saviour who has risen like the sun above the horizon, with healing under his wings? And if it be true, that our opportunities are every day and every year becoming fewer; if it be true, as thinking minds and grave minds seem to conclude, that all Europe is more or less sinking into superstition and despotism, and inclosing this isle of ours like a terrible girdle of thick night; if it be true that this is to be the only Goshen in the midst of European Egypt; if it be true that this is to be the only spot where freedom will have its footing, — where there shall be pure religion and holy altars, and men with the noble pre- 100 SCRIPTURE READINGS. rogative of worshipping God in the way that they think best ; if it be true that even this isle will come ■under judgments for its past unfaithfulness, and, it may be, be cast down, but not cast off, for the sins it has committed against God, — then the very shortness of the day, the very nearing of the night, ought to make us " now, while it is called to-day," do what we can do, " for the night cometh when no man can work." And if even this should not be so, — and we have not a certain knowledge of it, but only a vague, it may be, or probable, conjecture, — we know this, that if Christ do not come to us, if we do not live to the day when he shall come to the earth to make it and us happy, that we shall be taken to him. If it be true that beyond the grave there are no means of instruction, — that character exists externally as it has been formed in time, — that man continues ever what man is now, — that just as a man now sows, he will for ever and for ever reap, — that eternity is only the endless retri- bution of what is done in time, — then seize the moments as they sweep past ; be sure that you are found in Christ, resting on him, trusting in him, loving him, sacrificing in his service, and having hearts beating responsive to his bidding always ; and then come life, come death, it will be well with you. Can you conceive a more awful recollection than this in eternity, that you have lost opportunities you might have seized, — that you were within an inch of heaven, and missed it, — that you might have been saved, and would not be saved? If it be most awful to a noble mind to be conscious MARK VI. 101 that we have been ungrateful to one who deserved gratitude, how painful must be the ceaseless and tearing recollection, that we have been ungrateful to God, disobedient to his law, and destructive to our noblest interests ! And let me notice, in the next place, what is no less important, — that, if you do not now decide for Christ, if you be not now converted, every day that elapses without a saving impression upon you, only renders more hopeless the prospect of your everlast- ing happiness. We become habituated to the calls of the Gospel ; solemn calls lose their point, because our hearts have lost their susceptibility. The arrow that pierced the heart falls by and by blunted and broken from it, and the voice that stirred our feelings like a trumpet, ceases at last to have any effect at all. God gives up the barren ground, just as you would give up a tree that you have watered and manured and labored on, when it brings forth no fruit. You would say, " Cut it down, it only cum- bers the ground ; it not only takes the place that a fruitful tree might have taken, but it distributes around it a baneful shadow that prevents other trees bearing fruit." I think it a very solemn thought, that no man can live for himself: there is no such thing as pushing through the world with- out making men better or worse ; there is no such thing in this wide world of ours as a blank ; every man is either a blot that stains it, or a blessing that does it good : a blank he cannot be. What a solemn thought, then : if we are not bearing fruit, if we are not distributing around us good influences, if we are 9 * 102 SCRIPTURE READINGS. not making the world better for having been in it, we are in some shape, in some sphere, to some extent, doing mischief and evil to mankind. If such opportunities as those I have stated be ours, if the abuse of them shall thus be exacted at the judgment- day, if the continuance of them is dependent upon our right use of them, then believe in the Saviour, receive the words of the apostles, rest upon him ; say, " Blessed Jesus, to whom can we go but unto thee ? Thou hast the words of eternal life ; " say, " Where thou goest I will go ; thy God shall be my God, and thy people shall be my people." Decide that you will look at every thing in the light of the Bible, — that y6u will determine your conduct everywhere by what God says, — that you will live, in the language of the Shorter Catechism, "in dis- charging the main duty of man, which is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever." What prevents you, what prevents every man and woman in this assem- bly from being a decided Christian ? Is it, let me ask, the fear of man which brings a snare ? Are you afraid some one will scoff at you or despise you ? "What does that matter ? Fear not him who, at his worst, can only kill the body, but fear Him who can cast soul and body into hell. Is it the love of the world ? Is it that you wish a little more of its smiles, a little more of its wealth, a little more enjoy- ment of its prospects ? The world's smiles will not be less beautiful, and the good things of the world will not be less so, because you look at them in the right light : you will moderately use the good, you will be thankful for the blessing, and you will be carefully MARK VI. 103 kept from the evil that is in the world. Or, are you afraid now to decide, because you fear the responsi- bility of a profession of the Gospel ? It is a respon- sibility: he who says he is a Christian before God is bound to justify his assertion ; but remember that when you take the duties of the Christian religion, you do not go forth upon a warfare on your own account, in your own strength, but you receive with its duties and its dignities its strength. Decide, therefore, to confess the Saviour, — to love his name, — to glory ki his cross, — to trust in his sacrifice, — to observe his will, — to do his commandments, — to commemorate his death, — and, wheresoever you are, not to be ashamed of that blessed Gospel which is the wisdom of God and the power of God, and you will find the earlier you decide the fewer difficulties you will have to encounter in the future, and the happier you will be-in the present; for God himself hath said, " Them that honor me I will honor." " Seek me early, and you shall find me." " Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteous- ness, and all other things shall be added unto you." We have after this the remarkable history of the martyrdom of John, and of the iniquitous conduct of Herod, and of those who were associated with him, which we read in the previous Gospel of Mat- thew. This is, perhaps, more explicit and minute in its details than the account given there. Herod heard what Jesus was doing. He did not know it was Jesus, but said it was John risen from the dead. I do not know in the whole compass of Scripture a more remarkable proof of the power of conscience 104 SCRIPTURE READINGS. than the exclamation of Herod on this occasion. Just recollect that Herod was a Sadducee. He dis- believed in the separate existence of the soul, and rejected the doctrine of the resurrection from the dead ; but his conscience was mightier than logic, and the recollection of his crimes called up truths that he was willing and determined to deny; and he said, though he disbelieved theoretically in the resurrection from the dead, " This is John risen from the grave, in retribution of my cruel treat- ment of him, and no doubt he is come to punish me, as a messenger from God, for the cruel murder of which I made him the victim." This shows us how one single flash of conscience will destroy a whole creed, when that creed is founded on false- hood. Then the account of the murder is given. " Herod had sent forth and laid hold upon John, and bound him in prison for Herodias' sake, his brother Philip's wife : for he had married her." Now all that John said to the tetrarch was, " It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife." This was only what it was John's duty to do. If he had done less, he would have come short of his obligations ; if he had said more, it might have bordered on recrimination. But having stated faithfully and fully, in the lan- guage of courtesy and affectionate rebuke, what he felt to be the duty that he owed to the tetrarch, the governor of the land ; not Herod, it is said, the man rebuked, but Herodias, who felt that that rebuke that touched her assumed husband really rebounded and smote herself, " had a quarrel against John." Why MARK VI. 105 with John ? If John said what was right, she ought to have regarded him ; if he said what was wrong she ought to have confuted him ; if he said what was worthless, she ought to have despised him ; but on no ground was she warranted in having a quarrel with a man who dared to utter what he felt to be the language of faithfulness and truth, not to gratify himself, but to do her good. We read that Herod, so far from hating him, seems to have had — shall I say, the grace ? no ; but the courtesy, and the sub- duedness of nature, to take quietly what he said. You have here the bad man Herod, and you have here the depraved woman Herodias ; but it is always the law that the corruption of the most excellent is always the worst. The angel falling stops not in his descent till he becomes a fiend. A woman degraded becomes more terrible in her degradation even than man. Herod took the rebuke because he felt it was true ; Herodias repelled the rebuke, and worked it into an element of spite and revenge against John. We read that Herod went so far in this matter, that he feared John. Why ? " Knowing that he was a just man and an holy." There is sublimity in goodness ; there is grandeur in moral greatness ; there is a nobleness that the world cannot bestow. Herod so felt the moral power of the lonely Baptist, that he observed him — watched him ; and when he heard him, he did many things — obeyed much that he said ; and not only so, but he heard him gladly. It is possible for a preacher to be popular with his people, and yet they may exhibit none of the practi- 106 SCRIPTURE READINGS. cal fruits that his preaching tends to produce. It is possible to admire the minister's eloquence, and yet to detest the minister's message. It is possible to be so charmed with the manner in which he says a thing, that you may yet afford to hate the matter, that smites the conscience, rebukes the life, and tells you that all is not right in the sight of God. And it is a great law that wherever the Gospel is truly and faithfully preached, making allowance for the failings of the best, and the defects of the holiest, a Jiearer "Who listens to it a certain time will either close with an offered Saviour, become converted and Christian, or he will become hardened, and go away, and, not behead the preacher, for that he cannot do, but desert him as one who has changed, when really and truly it is the hearer who has determined to perse- vere in ways that his conscience knows to be wrong. So Herod here was very sorry when the alternative was put before him, that his own rashness obliged him to adopt ; but still he entered into it. The daughter of Herodias danced beautifully before him, and amid the strains of music and the splendors of the spectacle and the beauty of the danseuse, he was so charmed, that he " said unto the damsel, Ask of me whatsoever thou wilt, and I will give it thee," — a very rash offer, one that he ought not to have made, and one that she, if actuated by a proper sense of what was due to herself and him, would not have accepted. But she went forth, and said to her mother, " What shall I ask ? " That was very proper. She went and asked her mother, the best guide that a MARK VI. 107 daughter could possibly have, to what she should do. There was a trait of goodness in that. But the mother said, with infamous wickedness and cruelty, unworthy of the woman, disgraceful to the mother, " Ask the head of John the Baptist." Her own spite revived ; the wickedness of her heart was renewed ; and having power, she resolved to turn that power to the worst and most wicked account. " And she came in straightway with haste unto the king." One wonders that a daughter would have done so; and yet it shows that a daughter may dance with grace and be a perfect beauty, and yet have a heart worthy of a fiend. She may have all the accomplishments that the world can admire, but be destitute of that inner beauty, that holy character, which God sees, and applauds, and registers in heaven. Here was the daughter of Herodias the admiration of a court on earth, but the execration of a court in heaven. Here was one who had all the accomplishments of this world, but had never learned the nobler accomplishment of loving the holy, giving deference to the good, doing justly, lov- ing mercy, and walking humbly with her God. One can scarcely conceive any person having the horrid and revolting depravity — not to say of heart, but — of taste to ask, not only for the death of the Baptist, which one can understand, but to ask, in order to gratify the infuriate vengeance that was in her heart, that she might have his head presented before her, that she might look with joy on the silent and pale lips from which once came forth the burning words of solemn and faithful rebuke. This was done. 108 SCRIPTURE READINGS. Herod paid deference to his oath, and therefore he did it. Perhaps there was a latent feeling that as he wo aid not get rid of his wickedness, it was well to get rid of the prophet who spake evil concerning him ; and therefore, his deference to his oath was simply a pretext to cover the atrocious deed that he did. But you say, if he had made such an oath, was it his duty to break it? I answer, it is no one's duty to break an oath ; but the sin here was in tak- ing it, not in breaking it. The sin was in taking the oath to do wickedness, not in breaking that oath, when brought to a better mind. And this exculpates many who have been blamed. Luther, for instance, took an oath to remain a celibate for life ; he chose to marry a nun. His sin was in talc- ing the oath, if it was his sin, for it was in his ignorance ; but he did no sin in violating what he saw to be wrong in the sight of God, and in doing, however late, what was just and right before him. The great offence is swearing to do what is wrong ; it is a step in the. right direction when you refuse to do the thing that is unequivocally wrong, not- withstanding the oath that you have taken to do it. We read of the miracle Jesus wrought to satisfy the temporal wants of the people. The 34th verse is extremely expressive. One can almost see in the language of it, as has been remarked by Alford, that Mark was the companion of Peter; and it would seem as if Peter had been almost the penman of these words, — " And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having MARK VI. 109 a shepherd : and he began to teach them many- things." You recollect what Peter says, " Ye were as sheep going astray ; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls." Now this miracle of the loaves and fishes was unquestionably a true one ; but yet it was not a greater miracle than a beautiful harvest. We think that the creation of a hundred loaves out of two was a miracle ; and so it was, because it was an interruption of the continu- ous laws under which the world is governed ; but it is not one whit less a miracle that a seed cast into the soil should germinate, and bud, and grow up into a stalk, and then into an ear, and then into the full corn in the ear, and finally the glad and benefi- cent harvest. But we are so accustomed to the spring and the harvest, the sowing and the reaping, that we call that the natural thing ; and we are so unaccustomed to one loaf being transformed or mul- tiplied into a hundred, that we call that the miracu- lous thing. The fact is, miracles are suspensions or interruptions of the existing order of things ; but the existing order of things might have been different; and all that a miracle proves is, that the God who made the machinery has chosen to suspend or alter its action. But you will notice that all the miracles of Jesus had a prospective feature or character in them. In other words, they were not the putting nature out, but always the bringing nature up. The whole of nature is in an abnormal condition. It was never meant that people should be ill, or have wrinkles, or blind eyes, or deaf ears, or gray hairs, or old age; it was never meant that there should be 10 110 SCRIPTURE READINGS. biting frosts, and wintry snows. All these things are the results of sin. They are most unnatural ; they have been superinduced by sin. But all the miracles of Jesus were in the direction of retuning creation's strings, bringing them back to their lost harmony — restoring the sick, which is the abnormal state, to health, which is the normal state — bringing the sea into calm, the winds into quiet; and proving that nature had gone wrong, and that nature's Lord alone could put her right, and that he alone would do so. And lastly, we have in this most interesting chap- ter the miracle of allaying the storm. Notice that Jesus went into a mountain to pray, whilst his dis- ciples went on the ocean to toil. This teaches us that while we labor Christ intercedes ; while we are on the sea, buffeting with the waves, he is on the mountain side pleading for us. They remained till about three o'clock in the morning without any help, and were giving up all for lost; but about the fourth watch Jesus came. You may be in trials, afflic- tions, sickness, for three watches ; but at the fourth Christ, who never leaves nor forsakes you, will come. But very often the Redeemer gives relief in a way that we expect it not ; and we think that instead of being Christ the Redeemer, it is an evil spirit come to torment us ; and we are surprised and delighted when we find it is He whom the winds and the waves obey. What proofs have we here of a present God! What beneficence is there in all these strokes of power! What evidence that the Redeemer came MARK VI. Ill forth into the world, who was once its Creator ; and what ground for the blessed hope that He who gave these instalments of what shall be, these earnests of what is predicted to be, will one day come in the clouds with power and great glory, and restore all things, and let the world close, as the world began, with Paradise! Note. — [5.] ovk qdvvaro. The want of ability spoken of is not absolute, but relative. The same voice which could still the tempests, could anywhere and under any circumstances have commanded diseases to obey ; but in most cases of human infirmity, it was the Lord's practice to require faith in the recipient of aid ; and that being wanting, the help could not be given. However, from what follows, we find that in a few instances it did exist, and the help was given accordingly. [6.] £$av/j,a&. This need not surprise us, nor be con- strued otherwise than as a literal description of the Lord's mind : in the mystery of his humanity, as he was compassed by humanity — grew in wisdom — learned obedience — knew not the day nor the hour (ch. xiii. 32), — so he might wonder at the unbelief of his countrymen. Kal TxepLTjye, see Matt. ix. 35. — Alford. CHAPTER VII. CEREMONY AND MORALITY — CONCESSION AND COMPROMISE — THE SURPLICE BAPTISMS CORBAN — WHAT IT IS THAT DEFILES THE SOUL SEAL OF CHARACTER THE WOMAN'S POSSESSED DAUGHTER — EPHPHATHA — ALL THINGS DONE WELL. You will here notice a fact that occurs so often in the intercourse of Christ with the Pharisees, that their greatest objections to the conduct of the apostles arose, not from a real or supposed breach of a moral law, but from a supposed or real breach of a ceremonial observance. They illustrate in this respect a great fact in the history of mankind, that whenever tradition and Scripture, man's word and God's Word, are placed upon the same level, it is only for a day that they can remain upon that level. The great result comes out, that no man can serve two such masters as these ; either the tradition of man, or the truth of God, will gain the ascendency. If man be corrupt, it is easy to see that he will prefer the master that pleases and propitiates his own depraved appetites, and hate the master who rebukes the wrong doing with the voice of a prophet, and pronounces it to be evil. And hence, whenever in the history of our world man's tradition and God's "Word have been placed upon the same level, the MARK VII. 113 issue, in the lapse of a very few years, has been what our blessed Lord says was the case with the Pharisees, " Full well " — most consistently — " ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition." There is no objection to obey- ing the commandment of man in its own place : it is only when that commandment is made an essen- tial thing, though it have not its foundation in Scrip- ture, or when it is raised to supremacy over God's Word, that it ought to be resisted, repudiated, and rejected. In things indifferent, do any thing that will please the most ; in matters ecclesiastical, submit to much you dislike, if only it will secure peace ; but in matters of essential moment, involving the glory of God, the safety of the soul, the ascendency of vital truth, you may concede the largest husk of prejudice, but you must not give up the least living seed of eternal truth. The great complaint of the Pharisees on this occa- sion was, that the disciples ate with unwashen hands. The Pharisees, it seems, were in the habit of " oft washing," or, — as it might be translated, — strictly, rigidly, and minutely washing their hands, and doing it, not as a matter of comfort, but as a matter of ecclesiastical tradition. They might have washed their hands twenty times a day, as a matter of personal comfort, — there could be no harm in that ; but when they said that because they washed their hands, everybody else ought to do it as often, — and when they alleged that this washing of hands, was as essential a matter as keeping the weightier matters of the law, — then a thing in itself most 10* 114 SCRIPTURE READINGS. indifferent became the just ground of a righteous protest on the part of our blessed Lord, and his immediate apostles. So in the present day, one should bear many things so long as they are kept in their own place ; but the instant they are raised to a prominence that does not belong to them, then silence is connivance, just as acquiescence would be treachery to God. For instance, when it was held by certain ministers of religion that they ought to preach in a surplice, and not in a black gown, as long as it was a matter of taste and convenience, nobody would have paid the least attention to it, but every one would have left them to wear what seemed to them consistent with the usage of a church, a nation, or an age, it mattering very little to the doctrine that one teaches what may be the color of the robe that one wears ; but when the robe was put forward as symbolical, and when it was alleged that sacraments could not be rightly administered, nor could a minister preach efficiently, except in a particular robe, — when it was urged, not as a piece of personal and ecclesiastical etiquette, but as a matter of vital moment, — then the people of that church did most correctly when they protested against it, and insisted that the usage to which they had been accustomed for many years should, if changed, be changed for a right reason, and not for a Papal and Tractarian one. So in other matters — one prefers a liturgy, another prefers extemporane- ous prayer: it is quite right that in these matters each should gratify his preference ; but when the one who uses a liturgy says you cannot pray without it, MARK VII. 115 — or when the one who uses extemporaneous prayer says that a liturgy is necessarily Popery, — then you are elevating matters of detail into matters of vita 1 , importance ; you are thinking that washen or unwashen hands have something to do with real religion; you are forgetting that the kingdom of God is not meat, nor drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. Now, our blessed Lord, evidently in the spirit of the remarks I have given, tells the Pharisees what was the logical issue of the course that they had pursued — that the result was, that they fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah : " This people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups" — outwardly, in form and ceremony, whilst the main requisite in all acts of worship was wanting, — the homage and adoration of the heart. Then our Lord says, " Full well ye reject the commandment of God," that is, most consistently, most naturally, just as it ever will be and ever has been, "teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." One other thought upon this passage, and it is on the words translated here, " washing of pots and cups," and again, " washing of brazen vessels, and of tables." It is remarkable that the Greek word translated "washing" is Bannafiovg. Therefore, I allege, without entering at length into a matter of mere ecclesiastical controversy, we have in this 116 SCRIPTURE READINGS. passage proof that if our Baptist brethren be right in immersing the whole body, — and I do not quar- rel with them upon that subject at all, — we are not wrong in asserting and insisting that baptism is rightly administered by sprinkling. We have here tables mentioned, or, as it should be translated, couches, on which they reclined when they partook of their meals. It is quite absurd to suppose that these large pieces of furniture, twelve feet in length, were immersed deeply in water. We know, as a matter of fact, that hyssop was dipped into water, and that these couches were sprinkled ceremonially with it. Therefore, the inference is to me irresisti- ble, that if BaiTTUjfiovs does sometimes mean " immer- sion," which it most certainly does, it means also sometimes "sprinkling." And if so, it really is a discussion not worthy of being protracted, whether one should be immersed or sprinkled, as long as we hold this vital and inner requirement, " Except a man be born of the Spirit of God, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven." Our Lord then rebukes another part of the eccle- siastical tradition which prevailed among the scribes and Pharisees, that a man who had quarrelled with his parents might take the property which he ought to give to them in their old age to keep them from beggary, and consecrate it as "corban," that is, some- thing devoted to God ; and then, when his poor aged parents asked him for bread, his answer would be, " I have devoted it," as the Roman Catholic would say, " to pious uses, and therefore cannot give it to so profane a purpose as giving bread to my father MARK VII. 117 and mother." It is scarcely possible to conceive that ecclesiastical depravity could rise to such a pitch as to make such a devotion to pious uses an apology for withholding what was due to those connected with us. No man is warranted in giving to pious uses of any sort, if he has a parent who wants bread, or a relative who needs shelter. Charity ought to begin at home ; only, it should not stop there. No pretext of the claims of the Church or the ministry will avail in the sight of God as an excuse for refus- ing to your children, parents, or relatives, bread when they stand in need of it. Our Lord then explained to his disciples what it was that was really polluting in the sight of God. He said, it is not that which a man eats that pollutes him, but that which a man thinks, says, and does. It is not fasting or feasting that affects a man's moral character; because, if you should fast from Easter to Easter, you punish the organ that is not at fault, and do not touch the organ that is really at fault, that is, the heart. " For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders." These are the things that nestle in the human heart, and that really corrupt it by their presence ; and any process which does not mortify these does not really purify the man. But the fact is, we have all a great deal of the Papal leaven, — we are all most ready to visit the body for the sins and transgressions of the soul. It is so much easier to mortify the flesh, than it is to mortify the lust of the flesh. It is so much easier to fast for a day, than to deny oneself a darling sinful indul- 118 SCRIPTURE READINGS. gence. It is so much easier to do penance by climb- ing with bare feet a rugged hill, or walking with pebbles in the shoes, than it is to repent of sin in the sight of God. For one that you can prevail upon to renounce the evil that nestles in the heart, you may prevail with great success upon thousands to sub- mit to any bodily inconvenience. And hence the masterly conception of the Romish religion, that ever keeps you thinking of the body and its suffering as atonement and expiation for the sins of the soul; and that leads you to think that when you have died with what are called venial sins unforgiven, a turn in purgatory for a year or two, a little suffering in the body, will burn out all the sins of the soul, and all will be right, and pure, and happy, just as if you had never sinned. Let us never forget that the way to eradicate sin is to begin at the centre. It is the heart that is wrong — God alone can change it ; but he waits ready to do so, as soon as he is fer- vently, honestly, and from the heart, entreated to do it. We then read that a certain woman came to Jesus who had a daughter possessed of a devil. Plainly that was not a bodily disease, for we notice at the close of the chapter a bodily ailment as a thing totally distinct from a demoniacal possession. There is no doubt that Satan has innumerable legions of fallen fiends ; and Scripture tells us that he and his are ever busy contaminating, corrupting, and misleading. And there is nothing at all con- trary to what we should expect in the fact that one of these — a devil, not Satan the prince of the MARK VII. 119 devils — should enter into the human mind, and take up his abode there. They do so now, not in this shape, but in other shapes; and nothing seems to me more awful than that a fallen spirit should have direct contact with the human mind, suggesting the evil, suppressing the associations of the good, and tempting to sin against God and against mankind. When this Gentile woman, — for the Jews called all people Greeks, who were not of Moses, — "a Syrophenician by nation," besought him, Jesus said to her, evidently not to grieve or tantalize her, but to elicit her faith in him, " Let the children," that is, the Jews, " first be filled : for it is not meet to take the bread that belongs to the nation to whom I have primarily come, and to give it to those that that nation rightly or wrongly calls dogs." The Jews called themselves the clean nation, and all the* rest of the world unclean ; and as the dog, strangely enough, is referred to in Scripture seldom otherwise than as an unclean or impure animal, the Jews called all nations other than themselves " dogs." That explains what the apostle says, " Beware of dogs." He does not there mean Gentiles, but, beware of those that are evil, because " evil com- munications corrupt good manners," or morals. When He had told her this, which was apparently a severe way of saying, " I must feed Israel before the Gentiles," she was not repulsed ; but, having a faith that overcame mountains and dissolved obstructions, she pressed closer to him, and said, " This is very true ; but I do not ask you, blessed Lord, to withhold a morsel from the Jew, in order 120 SCRIPTURE READINGS. to give me something: for if the dogs that are below the table are not permitted to eat of the food on the table, they are yet allowed to pick up the crumbs that are under it. Therefore, blessed Lord, give me, not the bread — that would be too much to ask — but give me the crumbs that fall under the tab]e ; these, dog as 1 am, I may be entitled to accept." And Jesus, seeing that his first words only drew out the stronger faith of the applicant, said, " For this saying" — because you have shown such unflinch- ing, unwavering faith — " go thy way: the devil is gone out of thy daughter. And when she was come to her house, she found the devil gone out." We then read of the cure of a deaf man by Jesus putting his fingers into his ears, spitting, and touch- ing his tongue ; " and looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened." I noticed on reading the chapter in the morning (Exodus xv.), containing the account of the tree that was cast into the bitter waters of Marah, that Moses might, in obedience to God's command, have healed the waters simply by a word, but God made him take a branch, and cast it into them. So here, Jesus might have unstopped the deaf ears, and unstrung the dumb tongue, simply by a word ; but instead of doing so, he used a sacramental sign, an outward and visible pledge, that it was his power transferred from himself into the deaf ear, and into the dumb mouth, that enabled the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak. The words, " He hath done all things well," are the attestation of the crowd assembled together on MARK VII. 121 the streets of Jerusalem, and witnessing the deeds of power, the miracles of mercy and beneficence, which Jesus did. It is remarkable to notice, in the history of him who lived as never man lived, and spoke as never man spoke, and did what never man did, that sometimes his bitterest enemies were the first to acknowledge the magnificence of his doings, and sometimes his friends were backward in pro- claiming the excellence of Him who ever did, and now ever does, all things well. It was the Scribes and Pharisees who said, " He saved others," though the inference that they drew was most unjust, because they had not light to see its meaning, or its mystery, " Himself he cannot save." And Pilate, when he had washed his hands, was constrained to say of him who was placed at his bar as a criminal, " I find no fault in him." But in the instance that is now before us, it was those who shared the riches of his beneficence who proclaimed the beautiful announcement, " He hath done all things well ; " and they gave the grounds of that judgment, when they added to the proclamation of it, " He maketh the blind to see, and the deaf to hear." These facts are still on the page of history ; the monuments of this mercy are amid the shining crowds of the sky ; and thus, time with its thousand tongues, and eternity with its own emphatic one, conspire in proclaiming a truth that ever has been, and ever will be actual, " He doeth, and hath done, all things well." It is also worthy of notice that the recipients of the distinguishing mercy of Jesus did not say, as 11 122 SCRIPTURE READINGS. the more educated, but far more depraved Pharisees alleged, " He casteth out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils." They did not say, as modern Christians are too prone to say, " It was the medi- cine that healed ; " but they traced the links along the chain of beneficence, and saw that they all were held in the hand of Him who then did, and now does, all things well. When we are healed of a disease, it is as much a miracle as it was when Jesus touched the deaf ear, and said, " Ephphatha," Be opened. Why is there virtue in the medicine ? who gave it its mysterious power ? The difference is only this, that now God works with means, then he worked without them ; but whether healed with or without them, we should look above the medi- cine, and beyond the physician, to the Lord Jehovah, who healeth all our diseases. But if no human voice in that crowd had been raised to acknowledge Jesus as the healer of diseases, the blind, who saw the stars of the sky and the flowers of the earth for the first time ; the deaf, who heard the sweet sounds of an affectionate voice they never heard before ; the withered limbs, that were restored to more than their pristine vigor ; the empty graves ; the dead, who mingled again with the com- pany of the living; could have all stood forth, and proclaimed, " We are witnesses that He hath done all things well." CHAPTER VII. 37. PKAISE OF JESUS — EXCELLENCY OF WORKING — CREATION — PROVIDENCE — GRACE. The exclamation, " He hath done all things well," was the language of adoring gratitude and praise. It was a leaf from the Psalms of David. It was a text from the 103d Psalm, " Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his mercies." And if we feel that God heals us; if we believe that any blessing that we have is a leaf from the tree of life, let not the crowd rival us in the expression of gratitude and praise to the right Author, but let us also praise him for his goodness, saying, " He only hath done all things well." Blessings will not be long possessed that are not deeply appreciated ; he will not be a long possessor, or a happy possessor, who is not a thankful possessor. Unacknowledged mercies are always the sharpest judgments. By way of illustrating these words, " He hath done all things well," let "me notice, first, Jesus as the Maker of all. One sometimes does not realize this. The hands stretched upon the cross created the vast universe. All things, says John, were made by Christ, and without Christ was not any thing made that was made. I have often thought this one of 124 SCRIPTURE READINGS. the most touching pleas that a Christian can make. If you cannot say, " Blessed Jesus, thou hast redeemed me, therefore bless me," the worst may say in the darkest shadow of his life, and when he drinks its bitterest cup, " Blessed Lord, thou hast made me ; thou hatest nothing that thou hast made ; remake me, restamp the image I have lost, retune the instru- ment thou madest at the first, restore me, O thou by whom all things were made." It is a beautiful thought, that Jesus is the Maker of all. There is not a star that shines from the depth of the firma- ment above us, that received not its brilliancy from the Bright and the Morning Star; there is not a flower that beautifies the earth, from the first prim- rose of spring to the last rose of summer, that His breath did not give fragrance to, and His touch all its exquisite beauty and its lasting tints. There is not a stone or a pebble, or a creature, from the angel that is before the throne to the emmet that the micro- scope can scarcely detect, that Jesus did not make. He made all things ; and more than that, He made all things well. His own attestation is my proof, -"And God saw that it was very good." When the earth came from his hands, it was like a brilliant diamond, on which the name of the maker was deeply and beautifully engraven, and from which the image of God was brilliantly reflected ; and wherever in the earth you detect a flaw, — wherever in creation you find an imperfection, never forget that God did not make that. Sere leaves were not made by God ; gray hairs, wrinkles, old age, headaches, heart-aches, all the ills that flesh is heir to, God never made. MARK VII. 125 You ask whence they came. That has perplexed many in every age : there is but one solution : sin entered, and death by sin ; and all these accom- paniments of it shall be excluded when Christ shall create all things anew, and pronounce the new world better than the old ; and when angels and men shall sing in one grand anthem, " He hath made all things well." But Jesus is not only the Maker of all, he is also the Ruler of all. While such elements as I have alluded to have entered into the world he will not allow them to go beyond his control. I do not think it is always right to speak of God as sending disease or calamity; I would like rather, and I think it is not less scriptural, to view the bounding heart, not the broken one, as sent by God. I would rather see Him in all that is bright, beautiful, and beneficent, than in all that is dark, sombre, and unhappy. But while God may not send calamities, it is no less true that he controls them. Does your health waste away, and your beauty, in the language of the Psalmist, consume as a moth ? It is that you may lift up your hearts to something more glorious and endur- ing, and see in the worst that betides you something done well, and working well for you. Does a bereavement take away those that you love ? Does death darken the sunshine that irradiated your threshold, and brightened your happy home ? It is well ; it is God taking the element of evil your sins introduced, and making that element of evil the cup that overflows with beneficence, mercy, and love. If He has broken the cistern from which you drank too 11* 126 SCRIPTURE READINGS. passionately, it is that you may appeal to the foun- tain. If He has removed the sun that shed down his splendor upon your life, it is that as the night comes in and conceals the one sun that is above, and the earth that is beneath, it may unveil to you 10,000 suns in the sky of yet richer splendor. Is the gourd that you almost adored cut down ? It is that you may leave the gourd, and seek a shadow beneath the tree of righteousness, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations. There is not a Chris- tian that on his last bed will not be constrained, if he take an impartial retrospect of all the past, to bless God as much for his dark days as for his bright ones, — as heartily for his bitter cups as for his sweet ones ; and he will learn that when God dried up the streams on the hill, it was only that he might go to the richer valleys below, and find unseen a fountain so deep, that it cannot be frozen by winter's frosts, and so overshadowed by the everlasting hills, that it never can be evaporated by the heat of the summer sun. Of all we shall be constrained to say, " He hath done all things well." And what happens to us as individuals is no less true in the government of nations and the world. We sometimes think, when we hear of convulsions in states, that the world is going to pieces, — that God has let go the reins, and that the mirror of creation will be dashed to fragments. It is not so. God is doing all well; and when the earthquake shall have ceased its vibrations, we shall be con- strained to see what we could not see in the process, but what we find in the result, that God our Saviour hath done all things well. MARK VII. 127 But, let me look at Christ as acting in redemp- tion; and here it is almost supererogation to say, He hath done all things well. Has he made an atonement ? This he did perfectly, and once for all, when he made an end of sin, and brought in ever- lasting righteousness. He has conquered death and the grave so completely, that the dying saint can sing, " O death, where is thy sting ? O grave, where is thy victory ? " He sends the Spirit truly to all that seek him, to make them fit for heaven. Is it, again, the institution of a Christian ministry, or Christian sacraments? This Christ hath also done well. They both are guides to Him ; and should lead you to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. And his presence with his Church; is that real? That also is done well. Why has the bush blazed on every hill, and yet never been consumed ? It is because Christ has ful- filled the promise that he made, " Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." How often do we fail to realize all this ! And why so ? Because we judge of things often without God. Exclude God from all providential history, and it is the extinction of the sun from the firma- ment, — the exhaustion of gravitation from the uni- verse itself. Again, we judge too much from sense. We say, what tastes bitter must prove in its effects bitter. But the most bitter draught may be the most precious medicine. And again, we often misjudge God's doings by judging too prematurely. We see but the beginning of God's great plan ; we do not see the whole before us ; and would it be rational to 128 SCRIPTURE READINGS. judge of the beauty of a palace upon the inspection of a single brick ? Let us rest in the Lord, and be patient ; and we shall see that what feels most pain- ful is but another proof that He hath done all things well. But again, we often judge selfishly. Instead of regarding the whole universe as God's province, we think each himself to be the great centre, and look at every thing in the light of our own well- being. Let us never do this ; let us not rashly pro- nounce verdicts on the doings of God, but conclude, in the language of my text, what all creation will evolve as the result of all his dispensations in indi- vidual cases, in social, national, and universal govern- ment, " He hath done all things well." Note. — These Bairnc/iot, as applied to k1iv£>v, — meaning proba- bly here conches (triclinia) used at meals, — were certainly not immer- sions, but sprinklings or effusions of water. [36.] See ch. i. 4, 5. [37.] KakCog -kLv. ttett. So "Kiivra, oca inoirjoe, nalaXiav, Gen. i. 31. This work was properly and worthily compared with that first one of creation, — it was the same beneficence which prompted and the same power that wrought it. — Alford. CHAPTER VIII. jesus ministers to bodily wants — physical and spiritual blessings connected — miracle of loaves — great pacts and simple descriptions — pharisees not satisfied — leaven — blind man cured — redemptive nature of Christ's miracles — Christ's prediction of his death — a cross first — peter, satan, and rock — our cross the SOUL. We have, first of all, in the chapter I have read, the record of a miracle, also given in the Gospel according to St. Matthew, perhaps at greater length. Jesus feeds a multitude, disproportionately to sight and sense, with a few loaves and fishes. He had compassion on the multitude because of their natural and bodily wants. To these bodily wants, as well as to spiritual necessities, he ministered on every occasion that occurred in the providence of God, during the whole course of his ministrations through- out the land of Palestine. And it is a very interest- ing and blessed thought, that whilst the safety of the soul is not too high for Jesus to secure, the lowest pang of the poor perishing body is not beneath his blessed notice, sympathy, and inspection. You must also have noticed, in the course of our Lord's minis- try, that whilst he was always and everywhere alive to the spiritual necessities of the soul, he never failed 130 SCRIPTURE READINGS. to make a ministration to the wants of the body a stronger reason for the opening of the mind to the les- sons that he taught, and the heart to the impressions that he desired to make upon it. Jesus, throughout all his ministry, accompanied spiritual with physical benefits and blessings. And I am quite sure of this, that at the present day, if the Church of Christ would also look more extensively after the physical well-being of those that are around it, its efforts to compass their spiritual well-being would not be the less successful. There are certain physical things that are positive obstructions to the reception of the truth. Let any one zealous for the salvation of souls go into some of the districts directly east of this church ; let him go into places where the light of heaven can scarcely penetrate — where no warmth is given from the hearth — where there is no home, nor any of its decencies and comforts — where there is nothing but squalid misery, wretchedness, want, and famine, — and I think he would then discover what I am convinced of, that the first thing there to be done is, not merely to say, " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ," but accept a blanket to keep out the cold, food for the hungry, and some of the decencies of life for those who are utterly destitute of them. It has been very much overlooked, but it cannot be overlooked long, that the physical well-being of the poor is a preliminary and Baptist-like step to their spiritual instruction and knowledge in the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. These two, in the case of our blessed Lord, always went together, the one the pioneer to the other — nay, it was when he had done MARK VIII. 131 the greatest good to the bodies of men that he seized the beneficence th'ey had just tasted, and made that the pedestal of a spiritual and everlasting truth that their sonls greatly needed. Here he first fed the hungry, and he then enlightened and instructed the soul. When he spoke of giving food to such a multitude in the desert, his disciples, — judging, as man is ever prone to judge, only by what they could see, touch, and handle, — asked, "From whence can a man satisfy these men with bread here in the wilder- ness?" not recollecting the power that Jesus had shown, or the instances of Almighty beneficence that he had repeatedly exhibited. The Redeemer, with all the quiet that is the evidence of power, — with nothing of the excitement which indicates perplexity, — asked them, " How many loaves have ye ? And they said, Seven." He then commanded the people to sit down on the ground, simply for convenience, and he took the seven loaves, and gave thanks, and brake, and set them before them ; and all the people that were assembled there found in these loaves enough, and the disciples afterwards a surplus in his beneficence, for they gathered up seven baskets of the fragments that remained. Now, here we have one of those stupendous miracles that are so simply told, that we are apt to lose sight of some portion of their sublimity; and it has always struck me as one of the indirect, but not least cogent, proofs of the inspiration of the sacred penmen, that they tell grand feats so simply. If a mere human historian had been recording such 132 SCRIPTURE READINGS. a prodigy as this, he would have exhausted, if his taste had not been very good, language of its bom- bast ; he would have called into aid expressions of admiration and wonder; and he would have been exuberant in poetical and grand descriptions of a miracle which would have overwhelmed him with its magnitude and greatness. But the sacred histo- rian, as if he had dipped his pen in the light of Him who did the miracle, — as if he were writing under the inspiration, as he was, of Him whose deeds of beneficence he was recording, — tells the story with that artless simplicity which proves how true it is, and which shows indirectly how the penman was guided and inspired by the Holy Spirit of God. We then read that the Pharisees came forth, and began to question him, seeking a sign from heaven. You naturally say, What sign could they want additional to this? If ever there were the creden- tials of a present God, surely such a miracle as this was not the least. What could they want to prove that Omnipotent power was here, beyond the crea- tion of food for thousands out of loaves that were adequate only for a handful ? But they wanted a sign from heaven, not because they desired to be convinced, but, we are told, because they wanted to tempt, grieve, ensnare, or provoke Jesus. The fact is, when men have onee made up their minds not to be persuaded, they are unconvinceable. It is a very lamentable fact, and one that reflects very little credit upon our kind — but how often do you see in places where debates are carried on, whether in the General Assembly of the Church, or in the Par- MARK VIII. 133 liament of the land, that where certain numbers of persons have made up their minds upon any given subject, you may speak with almost Demosthenic eloquence, and yet you will fail to move them ! You affect their judgments, not their votes. These Pharisees had made up their minds as to a conclu- sion, arising more from their own passions and interest than from sober conviction; and all the miracles that Jesus could do were utterly ineffective to convince them. If he had made the heavens blaze with unearthly splendor, and the earth glow with the reflection of the skies, and shown them ten thousand signs, — in fact, if they believed not Moses and the prophets, neither would they have believed if one were to rise from the dead. Our blessed Lord warned his disciples of what he here called the leaven of the scribes, the Pharisees, and the Herodians ; but it seems that the disciples, who had heard so much, and ought to have been more enlightened, misunderstood him, and thought, as we gather from a parallel passage, that he spoke of literal leaven. Jesus then argues with them: " Why reason ye, because ye have no bread ? per- ceive ye not yet, neither understand ? have ye your heart yet hardened ? " It was the language, not of passion, but of quiet, gentle, yet faithful rebuke. They ought to have known the formulas of his speech, and the frequent figures that he employed, in order to convey spiritual and instructive lessons. But, strange enough, when man has been taught, he needs to be taught again ; and thanks be to God that he does teach us, line upon line, and precept 12 134 SCRIPTURE READINGS. upon precept ; here a little, and there a little, — the Teacher never wearied, though the pupil so often fails to improve the lessons that he hears from him. Next follows another miracle, that of the blind man having his eyes opened. It may be asked, Why did Jesus touch and anoint the eye in the way that he did ? might he not have simply spoken the word, and the blind eyes would have been acces- sible to light ? I answer, in every miracle that Jesus did, there was always a link visibly connecting the Doer of the miracle with the subject of the miracle ; so that, whether it was a word, or a touch, or any thing else, it might always be seen that the miracle was done directly and unmistakably by the imme- diate power and agency of our blessed Lord. And when He had thus opened the eyes of the blind man, the blind man said that he saw men like trees, that is, misty — the human figure undefined — rather in masses than sharply and clearly developed, — just like trees, only with the peculiarity that they seemed trees walking. Jesus then touched his eyes again, and he saw every man clearly. He then told him not to tell any one in the town ; for what rea- son I do not know, except probably not to excite the feelings of the people at that time, for purposes and from a foresight peculiar to himself. This, however, we may notice, that an ordinary man doing wonders, actuated by false motives, would have been too glad to spread what he did every- where; but you will notice often that when Jesus did the greatest miracles, attested by competent wit- nesses and of sufficient number, he was content to MARK VIII. 135 have it done in silence and retirement. The time, he knew, would soon come when what was done in secret would be proclaimed upon the housetop. You will notice in all the miracles of Jesus, what I think is deserving of special study, their redemp- tive character. Every miracle that Jesus did was not a mere freak, if I might use the expression, of power; it was not a mere proof that God had power, or simply a proof that God had beneficence ; but in almost every instance it was elevating man, the subject of the miracle, out of the abnormal state in which sin had placed him, into the original and happy state in which he was first created. All these acts of Jesus were in their place foresigns of that day when all blind eyes shall opened, and all deaf ears shall be unstopped, and when the lame shall leap like the hart and the roe, and there shall be no more sickness, nor sorrow, nor sighing. Every miracle that Jesus did was an earnest, a pledge, and a token of that day when he shall wave his hand over all creation, and all things shall be made new, and a better genesis shall dawn upon the earth than originally passed upon it when God pronounced all very good. Jesus then predicted his own approaching death and resurrection ; and this was a very important pre- diction, because it showed that his death did not come upon him unawares, that he clearly foresaw it, that he was not surprised into Calvary, but that he anticipated a cross as the conclusion of his painful and sorrowing pilgrimage upon earth. But when he thus preached the great cardinal truth of Chris- 136 SCRIPTURE READINGS. tianity, we find that Peter, ever rash to speak and often to do what was wrong, took him, and began to rebuke him, as if it were not meet that he should die — as if there could be a crown without a cross. But what Peter did to Jesus, we are prone to do still. It is what that Church that assumes Peter as its foundation does too sadly : for what is the Romish Church ? It is an attempt to anticipate the Millen- nial Church, — an attempt to forestall the Church that will be. At present the Church is made up of tares and wheat, and is subject to privation, sorrow, and trial. She is a widow waiting for her husband ; she is a bride waiting for the coming of the bride- groom. But in the Church of Rome, one sits as if he were seated on his Millennial throne, and the Church is raised to an extrinsic pomp and splendor as if she were not a widow. Indeed, she says, " I am not a widow ; I sit as a queen, and shall see no sorrow." and thus she has tried to anticipate the Millennial Church, and thought that she could reach the crown without going through the sufferings of the cross at all. And we ourselves all sympathize too much with Peter: we would rather avoid the cross, and snatch prematurely at the crown; we should like to get to heaven without tribulation, to reach the goal without trouble, to arrive at the end of the journey without the travel that is requisite before it ; and we would rebuke those who should say, " Through much tribulation ye must enter into the kingdom of heaven." Jesus said to Peter, after rebuking him, " Get thee behind me, Satan." Once he was called — as you recollect when I explained MARK VIII. 137 Matthew — the Rock, or the Stone. His succession in that particular is claimed ; but when he is called Satan, his succession in that particular — which really is far more deserved by the body that claims him as a rock — is altogether repudiated. But if you take Peter as your founder because he was called the Rock, you may take Peter as your founder because he was called Satan. The fact is, he is not our founder in either respect: he is one of the stones laid upon the Rock, with many flaws and many excellences, saved not by his faith, but by the cross and passion of his Lord. Then it is added, that " whosoever will come after me," — that is, obey me, be my disciple, — let him deny himself much that he would like, much that he would prefer, and take up his cross. Whatever cross God may assign us in his providence, we are to take up, and seek that it may be sanctified by his grace ; and, thus bearing our cross, we are to follow him. And then that solemn exclamation is uttered, " What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ? " What a consider- ation is this ! What a solemn problem is this for us to solve ! What will it profit you at the judg- ment-day, if you have become renowned, rich, pros- perous, great, but have lost your soul? And just notice, it does not say that everybody who loses his soul is sure to gain the whole world. The gain of the whole world is problematical — it is, "if" he gain it ; but the pursuit of that gain to the neglect of the soul ends in the certain destruction of the latter. And therefore, instead of making the world, 12* 138 SCRIPTURE READINGS. and the world's gain, our main thing, it ought to be subordinate ; and the soul, and the soul's salvation, ought to be the object of our prayers, our fondest aspirations, and our noblest efforts. Suppose, in the pursuit of what is eternal and enduring, you lose all, you may again retrieve all ; but if you lose the soul, that can never be recovered. If I lose my property, I may by industry recover it ; if I lose my health, I may by care and skill regain it ; but if I lose my soul, I never can recover it — it is hopelessly lost. God has made a beautiful law : you will find that those who have been born blind, or who have become so, have an exquisite sensibility of ear and touch that almost compensates for their misfortune; and so with the loss of hearing : as if God in this world would not allow any one to lose any blessing, with- out some compensation that will nearly equal it. But in the world to come, if we lose the soul, there is not only no restoration, but there is no compen- sation ; it is endless, irretrievable, total loss. Oh, may we learn what the greatness of the soul is, not by its loss, but by its everlasting gain ! Because so few feel the immensity of its value, we are not to infer that it is little. Sin deadens and destroys every true and pure and holy feeling, and makes man keenly alive to what is transient as a winter sunbeam, and totally insensible to what is infinite, eternal, vital. What is the thing of greatest price, The whole creation round 1 That which was lost in Paradiso, That which in Christ is found. MARK VIII. 139 The soul of man, Jehovah's breath, That keeps two worlds at strife ; Hell moves beneath to work it death, Heaven stoops to give it life. And is this treasure here below, In earthly vessels frail ? Can none its utmost value know, Till flesh and spirit fail ? Then let us gather round the cross, That knowledge to obtain, Not by the soul's eternal loss, But everlasting gain. CHAPTER VIII. 38. ASHAMED OP CHRIST — WHO ARE SO?— REASONS ALLEGED FOR BEING SO — NOT SOUND REASONS — CHRIST ASHAMED OF SUCH. It looks as if the reflection in the text had very much arisen from the fact, that Peter deprecated the atonement, suffering, and death of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; as if Peter felt that to die was too humbling a thing for so great and illustri- ous a leader; and that if Christ died, whatever might be the value of his death, it would be a rea- son why they would be ashamed in preaching him among the Jews, and proclaiming his glory to the Gentiles, — a stumblingblock to the Jew, and fool- ishness to the Greek. Our blessed Lord, in order to anticipate such a feeling as this, wherever it should arise, gives them this warning, that "whosoever" — be he the chiefest of the apostles, or the least of saints — "whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this sinful and adulterous generation, of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed at that day, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels." I will here offer some explanations of the grounds that are sometimes felt, if not openly alleged, why men are, if they do not admit that they are, ashamed MARK VIII. 141 of the Gospel of Christ; and, secondly, I will endeavor to show what constitutes being ashamed of Christ, and of his words. What are some of the reasons why persons are ashamed, in this and in every generation, of Christ the Saviour, and of his Gospel? It sometimes occurs, because it is not a popular cause. Most men like to be on the winning side, and deprecate what seems apparently to be the losing one ; and very many would follow a mul- titude to do what is evil, rather than cling by a forlorn cause, and follow the few that are right in principle. Now it must be admitted that the mere name of Christianity is popular enough ; the mere forms, and ceremonies, and rites of it are scarcely stumblingblocks to the masses of mankind ; but let any one assert that he feels all that he professes in the Creed; that his profession has its counterpart in the secret and silent depths of his heart ; let his religion no more be shell, but kernel, — no more form, but reality, — no more a pretence, but a life; let him be in earnest what the masses of mankind profess to be in form, — and he will be one of a small minority ; for it is still true that Christ's flock, the real, living, and converted company of them that believe in Jesus, is limited and little indeed. One reason, therefore, why some would be ashamed of real religion is, because it is not, in proportion as it grows vital, a popular cause. But, my dear friends, this ought not to be a reason for being ashamed of what is right. It is an honor to cling to the true, the holy, and the just, when all men denounce it. When we want to know what is duty, we must not count heads, but read texts. 142 SCRIPTURE READINGS. Men are sometimes ashamed of Christ and his Gospel, because it is not always a profitable cause. To gain the world is an experiment that is often made, even when it involves the loss of the immor- tal soul ; and very often persons in accepting a relig- ion first feel the pulse at the wrist of Mammon, before they listen to the prescriptions from the mouth of God. They first ask, " Will this profit me ? " and they accept" the side that gives promise of the greatest gain, though it have the least of truth ; and they reject the cause that has nothing to commend it, except what to a carnal soul is so paltry a thing, God for its author, truth for its mat- ter, and eternal joy for its happy issue. But instead of being ashamed of the cause of Christ because it is not always profitable, you ought to recollect, " What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ? " You are never to compare the profits of earth with the prospects of eternity, — the gain of so much trash, with the loss of an exceeding weight of glory. At the same time, it ought to be stated, that adhesion to the truth is not always the loss of advancement in this world. I' believe, that the man who seeks first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, will, according to the promise, have all other things added unto him. The shortest route from one point to another is a straight line ; and the shortest path from poverty to prosperity, you may depend upon it, is, in nine cases out of ten, the path of principle, allegiance to God, and truth. The least that is gained as a homage to your adherence to principle is most sweet. A whole MARK VIII. 143 fortune realized by the sacrifice of conscience, will only be a corroding curse. Let us not be ashamed of the Gospel, when the loss of all is the sacrifice we must make. Let us not be ashamed of the Gos- pel, whatever be the issue of our adherence to it. Let us never forget God's own promise. "Them that honor me, I will honor." If you should quote the fact, that you know some one who has been a decided Christian, and has been launched into poverty, you are to recollect that if made rich, it might have been the ruin of his soul for ever. God will not always give us what looks to us best, but he will always add to his own, whether it looks so or not, what is most expedient for them. Another reason why men are sometimes ashamed of the Gospel of Christ is, that 'not many mighty, wise, or noble of this world are called. I admit, that in the Epistle to the Corinthians, where this expression occurs, it relates chiefly to the ministry of the Gos- pel ; but it is no less true, that the great of this world are surrounded by so much to fascinate the eye, to ensnare the heart, to beguile the time, and to exclude from their thoughts, heaven, hell, God, the soul, eternity, that it is more strikingly the minority in the highest than in the lowest classes who embrace, not nominal religion, for that is popular and fashion- able enough, but vital, personal piety, the love of God, devotion to his cause, and identity with all its sacrifices and sufferings in the midst of the world. But you are not to judge of a cause by the pageantry and pomp in its train. Truth remains true, when its advocates are inarched to martyrdom ; 144 SCRIPTURE READINGS. and a lie is still a lie, when the splendor of the world is heaped upon its shrine, and the kings and nobles of the world constitute the chorus that shout hosannas in its praise. We are not to judge of a cause by the multitude of them that adopt it, nor by the rank or greatness of them that profess it. It is true if God has said it, though only fishermen and mechanics embrace it ; and it is a falsehood if God has so denounced it, though kings and princes should all gather round it. God has instituted a new order of nobility, in comparison of which the patent of the most illustrious is poor. The Bereans were more noble, because they searched the Scrip- tures whether these things were so or not. Some are ashamed of the Gospel, because of the afflictions that not only accompany its pro- fession as a matter-of-fact, but that are predicted by our blessed Lord as part and parcel of the cross that we must carry. "We are not deceived by our Master : He has told us, " In the world ye shall have tribulation ; " but he has added, " Be of good cheer ; I have overcome the world." An apostle has told us, that through much tribulation we must enter into the kingdom of heaven. Now, flesh and blood does not like to suffer ; but suffering to a Christian is purely paternal ; suffering to an unbeliever is entirely penal. When a Christian suffers, it is always because there is a needs be. Jesus would give you a cup all sweetness to drink, if it were best for you; and when he puts the bitter element into it, it is the prescription of the Good Physician, — it is the tempering of the cup with what is expedient for MARK VIII. 145 you. I pity from the heart the man who lives in perpetual sunshine. We cannot endure it ; we need shadow ; and if it do not come, we shall soon suffer the painful effects of its absence. If, then, suffering be a part of the profession of Christ, let us not be ashamed of it ; but if any man suffer, as says St. Peter, let him suffer as a Christian. Another reason why some are ashamed of the Gospel is, that those who are consistent enough to stand by its principles, and assert its claims, always and everywhere, are sure to be charged with bigotry. One of the most common and telling attacks that mere worldly men make upon a man who has the honesty to do what he has the grace to believe is, " You are a bigot. You want liberality and enlight- enment." There is a difference between liberality and latitudinarianism. Liberality is to forgive a difference in details, but never to forget that principle is one and the same always and everywhere, and cannot be sacrificed or compromised. It is liberality when you surrender the largest shell of prejudice, if it will conciliate a brother ; but it would be latitudi- narianism if you were to compromise the least vital seed of eternal truth, if it were to conciliate all mankind. It is bigotry, I admit, to assert, for instance, that you can only be saved in the English or the Scottish Church. It is bigotry to assert, that you cannot pray without a liturgy, or that you can- not pray with one. It is bigotry to say, that you must believe in episcopacy or in presbytery ; but it is not bigotry to assert that there is but one name under heaven given among men whereby we can be 13 146 SCRIPTURE READINGS. saved, the name of Jesus. It is not bigotry to assert, that the blood of Christ alone clcanseth from all sin. Compromise here is being ashamed of Christ and the gospel of his salvation. Another cause why some persons are ashamed, not only of vital religion, but of Christianity itself, is — what have been attacked by the sceptic in every age — the crimes that have been perpetrated, and the wicked- ness that has been done in the injured name of Christianity. Open the pages of the sceptic, and he will remind you of the Inquisition, and of the per- secutions that were carried on by professing Chris- tians from the 10th to the 15th century in Piedmont, and in the valleys of the Cottian Alps. All this, they say, was done by men who professed Chris- tianity. It was done by men who seized Christianity as a consecration for deeds that originated from beneath, and dishonored God and the cause they espoused. For these things be not ashamed of Christ, but Antichrist; be not ashamed of Chris- tianity, but of the apostasy. Do not condemn the holy, merciful, beautiful, and true religion, because it has been seized by men inspired by Satan, and made before the world to consecrate a cause it reprobates, repudiates, and has no sympathy with at all. The light of the noonday sun has been used to guide the murderer to his victim ; but you do not blame the sun in the firmament for that. The pale light of the chaste moon has been used to guide the depraved to the gratification of their appetites, but you do not blame the moon for that. Blame not religion, but man ; and blame not the Bible, but the perversion, MARK VIII. 147 abuse, and corruption of it. Be not ashamed of this glorious tree, because the spider has woven its web amongst its twigs, and the caterpillar has wasted its bright leaves by its presence ; but assert the majesty and Divine origin of the truth ; for it is from God, and it tends to him, and is responsible only for whatsoever things are pure, and just, and lovely, and of good report. But it will be said, even Protestants have perse- cuted. That is most true ; but it was not their Protestantism that made them do so, but their own internal depravity, and nothing else. It is quite true that in England and Scotland, and on the continent of Europe, most of the Reformers held the idea that a man ought to be punished personally for his relig- ious and solemn convictions ; but when they did so, we ask, where did they learn these lessons ? It was in the school of Rome ; and my amazement is, not that they had these stains of the apostasy out of which they came clinging to them, but that they had so few. God used the Reformers, not because they were sinless, but in spite of their sins ; and, at all events, if God would not have used such men as Knox, and Luther, and Cranmer, and Ridley, to reform the Church, I do not think he ever could have used such men as the Hildebrands, the Bor- gias, and Leo X. to perpetuate the Church. The fact is, persecution is more or less indigenous to the human heart ; but the real question is, in which rule of faith is it incorporated ? In the Bible it is repu- diated. The Bible, and the Bible alone, is the religion of Protestants ; and it tells us emphatically 148 SCRIPTURE READINGS. that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty : and if the fagots are to blaze, let them be kindled by the foes, not by the friends of Jesus. If the sword is to be unsheathed in the cause of religion, let it not be by the friends, but by the foes of the Gospel of Christ. Again, it has been made a ground of being ashamed of the Gospel, because loud Christian professors have very often acted most unworthily of it. But, my dear friends, honesty is not to be blamed, because thieves introduce themselves to your warehouses as honest men ; and truth is not the worse, because a liar solemnly asserts that he is governed by it, when he is seeking only to com- pass his own objects ; and Christianity is not to be renounced, because a loud professor, who never felt its power, falls, like a star from its orbit, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever. But let me notice, now, some respects in which true Chris- tians may practically, though not, probably, inten- tionally, be ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. One way in which this sin is perpetrated, or at least proximately so, is silence when Christ's name is dis- honored, or Christ's kingdom denounced or assailed. It is not enough, my dear friends, that you should say nothing against Christ. You are ashamed of the Gospel if, on the proper occasion, in the proper place, and in the proper spirit, you do not speak for him, when all speak against him, and avow your adhesion to his cause, when great and powerful men denounce it. What would you say of that soldier who would hear patiently his Queen calumniated, MARK VIII. 149 and conceal the symbols and the uniform that show he is in her service ? What would you say of that patriot who should hear his native land caricatured and reproached, and be silent as he listened? and what respect would you have for that parent who would hear his hearth and his fireside spoken of in language of hatred and contempt, and not breathe one whisper of remonstrance ? and what can you say of that Christian who, in the railway carriage, tfre steamboat, or in the houses of Parliament, can hear Christ's cause derided or despised, and not stand up, and say, " I am not ashamed of the Gos- pel of Christ ? " I do not believe that a man is only to be a Christian in the church, and only a tradesman in the shop ; that a man is to be a Chris- tian personally, but that the instant he enters the Parliament, he is to leave his Christianity, like his cloak, behind him. It seems to me, that wherever a Christian is, there he ought to be the advocate of the ascendency, not of a sect, or a party, or a crotchet, but of vital and true religion. Christians seems to me to approach being ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, when they forsake the assem- bling of themselves together. I admit that coming to the house of God is a very equivocal way of showing that we are Christians. Many come regu- larly to the sanctuary who are not Christians at all. But then, very few absent themselves from it who are Christians ; and it seems to me that if coming -to the house of prayer be not evidence of Christianity, the forsaking of it is very strong presumptive proof that there is no Christianity at all ; and, at all events, 13* 150 SCRIPTURE READINGS. the least that we can do to show that we are not ashamed of the Gospel is to join in the prayers and praises of the sanctuary, and to listen to those les- sons that will give us strong motives and sustaining hopes to be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. Another way of at least seeming to be ashamed of the Gospel of Christ is, refusing to come to the Lord's table. I think that a communion table is the place where a Christian by a very special act declares, " I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ." It seems to me, that when a man seats himself there, he declares to the world, " Be ashamed of religion who will, I am persuaded that it is the wisdom of God, and the power of God." Another way in which Christians seem to be ashamed of the Gospel is, by cherishing an excess of Christian modesty. They are frightened lest they should express more than they feel, or seem to parade what ought to be the sacred resident of the sanc- tuary. You fear lest you should embarrass rather than aid Christ's cause by taking a part in it. Now, it does seem to me that every man who has an atom of power is solemnly bound, if he would not be ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, to consecrate that power to his glory. I believe, that very many are almost blanks in the world, though they escape being blots, because they will not take the opportunity of being blessings to the world. Often and again, words of comfort that would cheer a sad heart mount to your lips, but from excessive reserve they are arrested before they are expressed. Many a time MARK VIII. 151 deeds of beneficence that would make the widow's heart sing for joy are not done by you, lest you should seem to be too forward, or to assume a place that does not belong to you. My dear friends, while we do not parade our religion, while we do not make a display of our principles, we ought not to be silent when they are assailed, or to connive when they are sacrificed, but everywhere and always not to be ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. The very awful language that will be pronounced upon those who are ashamed of him is, that he will be ashamed of them when the glory and the king- dom are visibly his, because they have been ashamed of him when reproach and contumely were his only inheritance. He says himself, " Whoso shall confess me before men, him will I confess before my Father in heaven; but whoso shall deny me, him will I deny before my Father in heaven." And, at that day, when he shall come in the glory of his Father, there will be but two classes, — they that have not been ashamed of him, and they who have. A day comes when all the outer distinctions of this life shall be levelled, and only two grand distinctions shall last and live for ever. On whose side are we? Be Christians, and you will not be ashamed of saying so ; seek your heart to be renewed ; and lip, and hand, and foot, will all give token that it is so. What we need is a deeper and richer inspiration of God's grace in the heart, and then never and nowhere shall we be ashamed of what is our greatest orna- ment and glory, — Christ, and him crucified. 152 SCRIPTURE READINGS. Note. — [27-30.] Matt. xvi. 13-20; Luke ix. 18-21. With the exception of the introduction in Luke, which describes the Lord to have been alone, praying, and joined by his disciples, and the omission of the praise of, and promise to Peter, by both Mark and Luke, the three are in exact accordance. On this latter omission no stress must, therefore, be laid as to the character of Mark's Gospel, as has been done. (Theophylact, cited by De Wette.) —AJ/ord. CHAPTER IX. transfiguration — moses and elijah — peter's proposal — promise op Elijah's coming — demoniac cured — prayer, fasting, and faith — interpretation — endless misery affliction. It will not be necessary that I should dwell very long in my expository remarks on the transfiguration, recorded in this chapter, since the very same histori- cal event came before us, and was the subject of protracted exposition, in a chapter of the previous Gospel according to St. Matthew. 1 Our Lord says, " There be some of them that stand here which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power," that is, a gleam of that kingdom, a vision of that descending glory, a sight of its splendor and magnifi- cence, as it were, in the dawn, that shall convince them of the greatness and glory of the noonday, and be to them an earnest of their blessed entrance into that kingdom, when this dispensation shall be merged in it. We read, that in fulfilment of this promise, and after six days, James, and Peter, and John, were taken with him into a high mountain, and insulated from the din, uproar, and confusion of 1 See " Sabbath Evening Readings on St. Matthew's Gospel." 154 SCRIPTURE READINGS. this world, lonely or apart, with none to disturb, intrude, or interfere, and He was there, in the lan- guage of the passage, "transfigured," or invested with a portion of his shining raiment, or appeared in that splendor, magnificence, and glory in which he will appear when He cometh in the clouds with power and great glory, and every eye shall see him, and they that pierced him shall mourn because of him. In this vision of the millennial kingdom in brief, in this epitome, or, to use a common expression, this birdseye view of the kingdom that is to be, it is said that " His raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller on earth can white them." So will his people be when it shall be asked, " Who are these that are arrayed in white robes ? These are they that came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." We read also, that upon this Mount of Transfig- uration there appeared Moses, the representative of the Law, and Elijah, the representative of the Proph- ets, talking with Jesus, and not only talking with him, but Moses evidently saying, " This is the Prophet of whom I spake ;" and Elijah, " This is the Messiah of whom I prophesied." There these two were not sharers in his glory, but witnesses to him as the Lamb of God, the King of Zion, the only Saviour of sinners. Peter, ever first to speak, ever first to flee ; his rash- ness sometimes a virtue, sometimes a fault, — prob- ably and strictly viewed constitutionally neither, — said to Jesus, " Master, it is good for us to be here," MARK IX. 155 — no doubt of that ; " and let us make three taber- nacles ; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias," evidently desiring to pay to Christ the primary, but to Elijah and Moses a secondary honor ; and he evidently thought that now the kingdom of glory had dawned, and that no kingdom of pilgrimage and trial had to be gone through. Peter was like most of us, — he would willingly build the tabernacle upon Tabor, forgetting that it could not be built there till the great suffering on Calvary was finished. We would all anticipate the millennium ; we would snatch the crown without the cross ; we would fore- stall God's time, and take premature possession of the approaching glory, instead of placing ourselves in God's hand, and drinking first of the bitter cup, that we may drink it sweet and full in our Father's kingdom. The only explanation of Peter's rash expression is, that he wist not what to say. He was so overwhelmed by the splendor of the scene, that he lost his self-possession ; and what he said was not what he maturely thought, but what came uppermost and found expression, before, perhaps, he was able to control, modify, or repress it. . Then we read that a cloud came, and over- shadowed them ; and a voice came from the cloud, evidently rebuking Peter by implication, " This is my beloved Son; hear him," — not Moses, nor Elijah; that is, turn away from all reverence, worship, or homage, even to the most exalted of created intelli- gences, and concentrate all your homage and adora- tion upon Him who alone is entitled to it, the Lamb of God, the beloved Son, the only Saviour. " And 156 SCRIPTURE READINGS. suddenly, when they had looked round about, they saw no man any more, save " Him who was first and last, and all and in all, " Jesus only." We then read, that when he came down from the mountain, he charged them to tell no man — for reasons that he himself knew — probably because the time and place of telling these tidings were not yet come. They did not understand what He meant by his rising from the dead ; and this fact, that the apostles were so unenlightened, that they did not expect Jesus to rise from the dead, makes them the more competent witnesses of that fact. They asked him, however, " Why say the scribes that Elias must first come ? " The scribes said it because the prophets had predicted it. "Jesus answered, and told them, Elias verily cometh first, and restoreth all things." The scribes said this, not from tradition, but from Scripture ; and he says, " It is perfectly true that Elijah will first come, and restore all things ; and how it is written of the Son of Man, that he must suffer many things, and be set at nought. But I say unto you, That Elias is indeed come, and they have done unto him whatsoever they listed, as it is written of him." Now, this seems at first to imply that John the Baptist was Elijah ; but you will find from very carefnl inquiry that he was not so. He came, in the language of another Gospel, in the spirit of Elijah, and he received the treatment that was pre- dicted ; but he was not Elijah. The plain evidence of this is, that when they asked John, " Art thou that prophet ? " he answered, " No." Again, " Art thou MARK IX. 157 Elijah?" and he answered, "No." Of course John knew what he was ; and his answering, " I am not Elijah," is plain evidence that he was not. But, you say, what then is the meaning of the expression, " Elias is indeed come," which, undoubtedly, refers to John the Baptist? I answer, it is explained by the parallel passage, which tells us that John came in the spirit of Elijah. He came to herald Christ to suffer, just as Elijah will come to herald Christ to reign. Our Lord says, that Elijah "will restore all things ; " but John the Baptist restored nothing. I believe that before the second personal advent of our blessed Lord in glory and majesty, Elijah will literally come and restore all things. There is noth- ing strange in supposing, that as John the Baptist came to precede Christ to suffer, so Elijah will come to precede Christ to reign in glory. That Elijah lives, is plain from the fact that he appeared on the Mount of Transfiguration ; and that he will come to restore all things, is not only the promise of our blessed Lord, but the reiterated prophecy of the Old Testament Scriptures. In the book of the prophet Malachi, this is evidently alluded to, when he says, at the 5th verse of the 4th chapter, " Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet, before the great and dreadful day of the Lord ; " not before Christ's day of suffering, but before the day that will burn as an oven, and the day when the heavens shall be on fire, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. And what shall he do ? He shall turn the heart of the fathers — that is, the Jews — to the children — that is, the Gentiles ; and Jew and Gentile, knit together 14 158 SCRIPTURE READINGS. in the bonds of a new communion, shall constitute one holy and happy ransomed family. It is utterly impossible to explain the various passages that relate to the coming of Elijah on any other supposition than this, that before the last day that looms in the distant horizon, and comes nearer every day that we live, and is almost at our doors, Elijah will come, restore all things, and, according to the promise, turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to the fathers ; and then shall be seen the Son of Man, preceded by his sign, coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. In this ninth chapter we find a miracle wrought by our blessed Lord, in the cure of one who was possessed by a demon, and not the victim merely of a painful disease. It is impossible to conclude that the son of this father was simply an invalid, from the language that Jesus exnploys. When he cures him, he does not touch him, as he did in cases of disease, but Jesus speaks to the spirit that was within him — to the demon that had taken possession of him — and says, " I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him." Now, if language has any mean- ing, that implies that there was a personality in the soul of this man totally distinct from his own ; that there was an occupant of his soul, and that he was the victim of a despotism within him ; and, therefore, Jesus spoke to the demon, and said, " Come out of him." I do not think there is such a thing, or has been such a thing, as demoniacal possession for the last 1800 years. It seems as if Satan had always tried to outmanoeuvre God by mimicking the steps MARK IX. 159 He has taken in his march to ultimate victory. "When God spake by his prophets, Satan had his prophets too. When Jesus was incarnate in the flesh, the devil took possession of human bosoms and human souls, and became to that extent incar- nate also. Now, since the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit saves by acting directly upon the human mind; Satan, in mimicry of God's work, corrupts by acting on the human mind also. Thus, wherever the true coin appears, the forged one is seen also. Wherever the true sovereignty is felt, the usurpation is seen also. Satan is always trying, and sometimes with success, to bruise the Saviour's heel, but with the deep consciousness that his own head will be bruised, and his kingdom utterly overthrown. The apostles asked Jesus why they could not cast the demon out ; and he says, " This kind," not as if he spoke of a special kind, but demoniacal possession, " can come forth by nothing but by prayer and fasting;" that is, prayer is the instru- ment. But fasting does not mean abstaining from food merely; it denotes insulation from the world, separation from its vanities, its duties, its pleasures and enjoyments, and the occupation of the whole heart with the things that belong to our eternal peace. And Jesus has been pleased to show throughout the whole of the Gospel, that the great- est effects are always to be achieved by the greatest faith. Why he has made faith necessary to reward or pardon, it is not for us to ascertain ; it is enough that it is his arrangement, and that he does it wisely and well. 160 SCRIPTURE READINGS. We then read of the conduct of the apostles, who seeing one casting out demons in Christ's name, were so unenlightened, and so actuated by a secta- rian spirit, that they forbad him because he followed not them. This is the dissenter saying, " I do not think the churchman can do any good, because he is a churchman ; " and the churchman saying, " I do not think the dissenter can do any good, because he is a dissenter, — because such a one follows not with us, pronounces not our shibboleth, worships not in our form, we think he can do no good; and instead of letting him do what he is trying to do, casting out wickedness, and prejudice, and passion, in the name of Jesus, let us persecute him in any ancient possible canonical way. We do not care what good he does, for we do not get the credit of it." How early do we see this proscriptive, exclu- sive, and bigoted spirit manifest itself among the apostles themselves! Do not blame the Church of Rome, as having a monopoly of bigotry, persecu- tion, and malignant feeling towards those whom she calls heretics. The fact is, every unconverted man would be a pope, if he could ; and every collec- tion of unconverted men would be a persecuting synod, if they had only power to be so. It is human nature that seeks to put down what does not glorify itself; and the difference between it and the Church of Rome is, that human nature is there consecrated and canonized, and that which we reprobate in the light of the Gospel is recognized as part and parcel of Christian duty. We then read that our Lord rebuked those who MARK IX. 161 would not resign a favorite indulgence in order to escape permanent spiritual injury. He says that whosoever, whatever be his name, or whatever be the amount of his light, gives even the least that he has — a cup of cold water — in Christ's name, believ- ing on him, to one who belongs to Christ, he shall not lose his reward. What encouragement is this to give, and to feel the blessedness of him who delights in giving! for it is more blessed to give than to receive. And how delightful is it to know that those who have not much to give, but who give what they can really spare for Christ's sake — are accepted of him ! But are we to understand those passages literally in this chapter, " If thy hand offend thee, cut it off? " No, certainly not. This would be just that sort of interpretation which leads people to find in the 3d chapter of John baptismal regen- eration, and in the 6th chapter of John transubstan- tiation. We are evidently to interpret such passages as these in the spirit in which they were spoken, and in the obvious light in which they were written. " Labor not for the bread that perisheth," does not mean that we are not to labor for our daily bread : on the contrary, we are taught that he who will not work, neither should he eat ; but it teaches us that we are to labor rather and more earnestly for the enduring bread than for the bread that perisheth. So here, if an object, dear as a right eye and useful as a righthand, stand between you and your progress to heaven and your complete surrender to Christ Jesus, that object, however dear, and the sacrifice of it, however painful, you are to part with, 14* 162 SCRIPTURE READINGS. renounce, and resign, counting all but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus your Lord. As to the expressions that are here repeated, " Their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched," I do not think that these necessarily prove a mate- rial and literal description of the sufferings of the lost. There is no literal worm that gnaws ; and I do not discover from the Bible that there is a literal fire that burns ; but these symbols are employed by the Holy Spirit to denote the intense wretchedness of that state wherein God has forgotten to be gracious. But nobody, I think, on reading these expressions, can doubt that the misery of the lost is perpetual and ever enduring. I think that those people called Universalists, instead of preaching down hell, would do much better if they would preach up Christ and heaven. If you show that whatever be the intensity of the misery of the lost, there is no reason why one sinner on earth should perish, you do better than by encouraging them in the path of ruin to plunge into the place of misery, in the wretched and vain anticipation that hell is only a sort of purgatory that has a happy and pros- perous end. As far as I can gather from the whole word of God, it is a place of perpetual sorrow. If man cannot be saved now, surely he cannot be saved then. You ask, what is meant by that expression, h Every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacri- fice shall be salted with salt." I do not think that that passage has the least reference whatever to the MARK IX. 163 state of the lost. Our Lord is there alluding rather to the expressions, " If thy hand offend thee, cut it off; if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out:" for, he says, " every one shall be salted with fire." Fire is used in Scripture to denote suffering, persecution, trial, or distress of any kind. Salt is used in Scripture to denote permanence, or perpetuity. Salt was put upon the sacrifices : sacrificial language is employed ; and the passage means that every one shall go through suffering in this present world ; every one shall be salted, or sprinkled — for that is the meaning of it — with affliction. If that affliction, like the fire, purify the soul it saturates and touches, happy will it be ; but if that affliction fail to have this its legitimate and just effect, then " the salt has lost its saltness," and there is nothing wherewith you can be seasoned. It means, translated from the allusive language of Levi into the simple language of the Gospel, " Through much tribulation of some sort — cares within, or losses without — every one must enter into the kingdom of heaven." If these afflictions have a purifying effect, then you will find that " though no tribulation for the present seemeth joyous, yet it worketh out the peaceable fruits of righteousness." But if these afflictions fail to have a purifying effect, then they will have the opposite ; the salt will have lost its savor — you have lost the effect of God's dispensations — and you will be hardened for everlasting misery, not sanctified and prepared for eternal joy. 164 SCRIPTURE READINGS. Note. — The Lord answers it, by telling them that it is even so ; and returns the question by another : And how it is (also) written of the Son of Man, that he, &c. ? Then comes the conclusion in verse 13, with ukla teyu vfilv, stating that Elias has come, and leaving it therefore to be inferred that the sufferings of the Son of Man were close at hand. Notice how the yiy. en' avrbv binds both together. Just as the first coming of the Son of Man is to suffer and to die, so has the first coming of Elias been as it was written of him ; but there is a future coming of Elias, aizoKa&io-avEiv Travra, and of the Son of Man in his glory. [38.] The connection of this remark with what goes before is — If the receiving any one, even a little child, in thy name, be receiving thee, were we doing right when we forbad one who used thy name, but did not follow us 1 " Observent hoc," says Bengel, " qui charis- mata alligant successioni canonica3." This man actually did what the very apostles themselves were specially appointed to do ; and the Lord, so far from prohibiting, encourages him. See Numbers xi. 26-29. [39.] See 1 Cor. xii. 3. The very success of the miracle will awe him, and prevent him from scorn or lightly speaking. "We must beware of supposing that the application of this saying is to be con- fined to the working of a miracle. Verse 40 shows that it is general, — a weighty maxim of Christian toleration and charity, and a caution to men how they presume to limit the work of the Spirit of God to any sect, or succession, or outward form of Church. See Phil. i. 16-18.— Alford. CHAPTER X. CROWDS OP HEARERS — PHARISEES AND DIVORCE — GLORY OP THE BIBLE — GOD SUFFERS EVIL — REASONS WHY HE DOES SO — CHILDREN BROUGHT TO JESUS — HEAVEN PULL OP — THEIR CHARACTER — BAPTISM — THE YOUNG INQUIRER — RICHES PROVERB — PROMISE. We find here, as on former occasions, that great crowds followed the Redeemer, anxious to hear the wonderful words that proceeded from his mouth; and on this occasion, as on previous ones, he showed that wherever there was an audience willing to hear, there was a Teacher willing to speak to them the words of everlasting life. But amongst those who followed him, were some who came not to hear what would do them good, but to suggest what possibly might ensnare and injure him. The Pharisees, with that carping and cavilling disposition which they show whenever they make their appearance in the sacred narrative, put to him this question, — " Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife ? " Not that they really wished for information, but that they thought they might get him to make some remark upon that subject that would involve him in dif- ficulty with the ruling powers, or give them the opportunity of exciting the populace against him. 166 SCRIPTURE READINGS. The evidence streams from their whole conduct, that intense enmity to Jesus was their absorbing and actuating motive. Mark how our Lord replies : " What did Moses command you ? " See what honor he everywhere sets upon the Scriptures! A question is asked, and he answers it, not from the depths of his own inexhaustible wisdom, as he might have done, but by a simple reference to God's holy Word. I do not know a greater proof of the glory of the Scripture than this, that the Author of the Scriptures thus appeals to them for the solution of every difficulty. The Pharisees, who could quote Scripture too, quoted one part of it, where it appeared that Moses suffered them to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away. If then, why not now ? they asked. In reply, our Lord unfolds a very governing princi- ple, when he says, " For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept." This shows us that God suffers practices to exist in different stages of the history of the world, which he does not approve, but which he is pleased to tolerate for a time, and eventually to overrule for great, good, and beneficent purposes. How far we can reconcile this with the government of God, it is not for us to show very clearly; but that it is consistent with that govern- ment we are sure, because he himself has distinctly told us so. If it should be said that this seems strange, I answer, Why does God suffer many other things to exist in the world, and not put an end to them at once ? Why does he suffer sin or oppres- sion to continue and increase among mankind? MARK X. 167 Why does he allow ten thousand sources of evil that he might silence and stop for ever ? The answer is, He suffers it, partly because he will not coerce by force those whose judgments he will carry by convic- tion ; and partly because this is a mixed dispensa- tion, in which sin and holiness, error and truth, are struggling for supremacy ; and if all that happens in it we cannot now reconcile, we rejoice to believe that what we know not, and cannot explain now, we shall know, and be able to explain hereafter. However, here was a positive practice permitted, not because applauded, but because the infancy of the race required that it should be tolerated. And the very same explanation applies to an institution that unquestionably existed in the days of the apostles — slavery. God tolerated that amongst the Jews ; and the apostles clearly tolerated it as an existing institu- tion, while they did not applaud it. The hardness of the human heart required it to be suffered then ; but no one who reads and understands the Bible will be able to deny that the whole spirit of Christianity is opposed to the existence of slavery. The history of that institution is written in tears and blood ; and in proportion as this blessed religion of ours gains supremacy in the hearts of mankind, in the same proportion will that and all other institutions and relationships not sanctioned in the Bible be dis- solved, and disappear from the face of the whole earth. After this reply of our Lord to the Pharisees on the subject of marriage, and his reference to the pri- meval institution, some of the mothers in the midst 168 SCRIPTURE READINGS. of Jerusalem, and on the further side of the Jordan, brought to him children, that he might touch them ; but the disciples, far less kind and tender than the Great Master, forbad the mothers, and tried to keep them away from Jesus. They were not the advo- cates of early Christian education ; they thought the young too contemptible for so great and blessed a Teacher, and they thought it would be better to let them grow to maturity, and then to decide for them- selves. If children were born in innocence, you might safely trust them to such an experiment ; but the fact is, that if left to themselves, they have within them the instinctive tendency to depart from God, and it is lamentably certain that they will not only grow up without God, but hostile to all that bears his image, and is obedient to his will. Jesus, therefore, rebuked the disciples, and "was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me" — it is the translation of the Greek word that means "an infant" — "Suffer the little infants to come unto me, and forbid them not," — it is the strongest possible language — " for of such is the kingdom of heaven." ( This language is some- times misconstrued. Some persons think it is an expression exactly parallel to that employed in a previous passage, where Jesus set a child in the midst of them, and said that unless they became as little children, they could not enter into the kingdom of heaven. It has been thought that " of such is the kingdom of heaven," means, that of persons of a childlike disposition is the kingdom of heaven ; but it really means, of such very children is the kingdom MARK X. 169 of heaven chiefly made up : and I feel that this unfolds the precious thought, that the majority of the inhabitants of heaven are glorified infants. We know, as matter of fact, that half the human race die in infancy ; and what an awful thought would it be, were we persuaded that this half is lost! I am amazed that any one should entertain so uncon- genial a notion, or should have a moment's comfort in doing so. Were Scripture silent, we might be sad; but it is not so. It seems to me therein revealed, that all infants dying before years of responsibility, — and half the human race die in that condition, — whether their fathers be Jews or Mahometans, Christians or heathens, and whether they be baptized or unbaptized, without exception, are admitted into everlasting joy, and are now in the presence of God. Of course I cannot prove it now, because space will not permit me ; but I think it can be demonstrated from the sacred page, that infants dying before years of responsibility are admitted into glory. If, therefore, you join with that the other fact, that increasing portions of the adult population of every age are believers, and that one day all will be righteous, you can see that a majority of the human family will ultimately be saved, and that the kingdom of heaven, when it shall be unfolded in all its majesty and glory, will contain, not a handful, but a great multitude that no man can number. He adds the instruction, " Whoever shall not re- ceive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein." This indicates, first, that children enter into the kingdom of heaven ; and, secondly, 15 170 SCRIPTURE READINGS. that in the case of adults there is required childlike character as a prerequisite to entry into the kingdom of heaven. Now, what is that character? It is teachable, confiding, trustful. Hold out an orange to an infant, and it will take it at once ; it never in- quires, " I wonder whether my parent intends to give it me ? " The fact that the orange is offered is to it the proof that the orange is to be received. And so, instead of quibbling, carping, and cavilling about " I wonder whether I am one of the elect ? " you ought, childlike, to feel that what God offers he means to give, and that you honor him more by saying " Yea, Lord, I believe," than by thinking that this is too good for you. Sermons should be childlike, just as our trust should be. But there is a distinction that preacher and people would do well to remember. It is possible to have a childlike disposition, and to preach childlike sermons, without having a childish disposition, or preaching childish sermons. A child- like sermon is compatible with the highest intellect ; a childish sermon is only evidence of want of study or want of mind. He then "took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them." Now, these babes were capable of a blessing : is it a very violent infer- ence to draw, that babes may be brought to Jesus in baptism ? You say very justly that a babe cannot exercise faith. That is quite true ; but if a babe can be saved, why may not a babe be baptized ? If a babe be fit for heaven through the blood of Christ, why may it not be united to the outward and visible Church by the sacrament of baptism ? It seems to MARK X. 171 me that we should not inquire so much whether we ought, as whether we may, bring our child to Christ in baptism ? The privilege is so precious, that the inquiry should be, " May I ? " and not, " Ought I ? " I am not denying the propriety of adult baptism. If a man has not been baptized, and comes to believe the Gospel, he ought to be baptized. Therefore, I assert that our Baptist brethren are perfectly right in baptizing adults ; but I hold that we, too, are per- fectly right in baptizing infants ; and as we do not object to their practice in baptizing adults, I do not think they are warranted in objecting to our practice in baptizing infants. True, some men say, baptism is regeneration ; but we do not think it — this is dis- proved by all history. If all the baptized were regen- erated, there would be no tares in the field, — all would be wheat. I know also that some parents have the erroneous idea that if their child die unbap- tized, it cannot be saved. Were I asked to baptize a child about to die, my answer would be, " It may be comfort to you ; it is privilege for the child ; and I will come and do so : but let me explain to you that baptism always presupposes that the child is in health, and going to live." Baptism is for the Church militant, and not for the Church in glory. If the child is going to heaven, it has the baptism that the Good and Great Father only can give, and needs not the baptism which belongs to time. After this, a young man came to Jesus, to whose history I referred when reading the Gospel of St. Matthew. He was rich, but yet he felt the want of something still, and asked, " Good Master, what shall 172 SCRIPTURE READINGS. I do that I may inherit eternal life?" Jesus ob- jected to his words. You ask, Why did Jesus object to the epithet " good ? " I answer, the young man had an idea, as the subsequent sketches show, that such goodness as we can attain was a sufficient title to heaven ; and Jesus, in order to correct his idea of goodness, said, " Why do you call me good ? You know that that word is an absolute word ; it denotes absolute perfection. You need to have your idea of it corrected before you can find your way to heaven. There is none good but one, that is, God. If, there- fore, I be not God, the epithet