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THE GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN.

[Illustration: Publisher's Mark]




  THE
  GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN.


  A Series of Discourses.

  By
  FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE, M.A.,
  PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE.

  "Johannes redet schlecht und einfältig wie ein Kind, und lauten seine
  Worte (wie die Weltweisen sie ansehen) recht kindisch. Es ist aber
  eine solche Majestät drunter verborgen, die kein Mensch, so hoch er
  auch erleuchtet ist, erforschen noch ausreden kann."--LUTHER,
  _Auslegung des Evangel_. _Johannis_, 1, 5.


  NEW EDITION.

  London:
  MACMILLAN AND CO.

  1882.

  [_The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved._]




London: R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR BREAD STREET HILL, E.C.




PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.


A valued friend, to whose judgment on a critical question I shall
always defer, has sent me the following observations upon certain
passages in the 11th and 16th Discourses of this volume. I have made
no alterations in the text.


_John_ v. 3, 4.

It is implied at page 143 that certain "honest and earnest men" are
unwilling to believe that St. John wrote the verse relating to angelic
interposition in the cures wrought by the pool of Bethesda, merely
because they consider the doctrine unworthy of him. It may be so: but
it is at least possible to assent fully to the doctrine, and yet
reject the verse, along with the last clause of the preceding verse,
on purely outward and critical grounds. Of the six most important
Greek MSS. two (and those, perhaps, the best) omit the whole
passage, ἐκδεχομένων--νοσήματι, two the clause,
ἐκδεχομένων--κίνησιν, and two the verse,
ἄγγελος--νοσηματι: not more than one or two
tolerable Greek MSS. support the received reading. Of important early
versions three omit the whole passage (including the recently
discovered "Curetonian" Syriac, probably the earliest and most
important of all), another (and two MSS. of a second) omits the verse,
and two others omit or obelize part of the verse. Of early patristic
evidence there is hardly any either way. Origen's commentary between
iv. 54 and viii. 19 is unfortunately lost. Tertullian in one place
shows an acquaintance with the belief about the angel, and probably
with the whole passage. With this exception, the passage appears to be
known in either form to no Father previous to St. Ambrose, no Greek
Father previous to St. Chrysostom: they and their successors follow
the common text. The only important early authority in its favour is
the Old Latin version, (with which must be taken Tertullian;) and yet
_its_ MSS. differ surprisingly in the details of the verse, presenting
it for the most part in a shorter form than the Greek MSS., which
likewise differ considerably among themselves. In short, all the
familiar phenomena of interpolation are present in the most flagrant
shape. In all probability the passage was added by degrees in the
second century in the Western Church, and passed over to the East in
the fourth century.


_John_ vii. 53-viii. 11.

At page 229 "some of the Fathers" are said to have "disliked the moral
of" the story of the woman taken in adultery, and therefore to have
been "glad to believe it not genuine." It is needless to go into the
overwhelming critical evidence against its genuineness,--a matter
quite distinct from its truth and authority. But surely the charge
here made is founded on an oversight. The earlier Fathers (with the
doubtful exception of Eusebius, who has been reasonably supposed to
allude to the same incident, as recorded by Papias, and in the Gospel
according to the Hebrews) nowhere refer to the narrative, apparently
for the simple reason that it was entirely unknown to them. Origen's
commentary on this part of the chapter is lost; but in a minute
recapitulation, included in his remarks on verse 22, he passes at once
without observation from vii. 52 to viii. 12. St. Chrysostom and St.
Cyril ignore the passage in the same manner. There is really no reason
whatever to suspect fraud here. St. Ambrose warns his readers of the
danger of reading the story carelessly (_otiosis auribus_), but does
not appear to doubt its genuineness. St. Augustine, arguing against an
excessive rigour on the part of injured husbands, rebukes certain
persons (_modicæ fidei vel potius inimicis veræ fidei_), who, as he
fancied, banished it from their MSS. because it seemed to be more
lenient to women than to their guilty selves. St. Jerome states that
it was found in many Greek and Latin MSS., and proceeds to rest an
argument upon it. Surely these three Fathers, if any, would have been
"glad to believe it not genuine."

Both passages are pretty fully discussed by Dr. Tregelles (_Account of
the printed Text of the Greek New Testament_, pp. 236-246), with the
help of some evidence not before accessible.




PREFACE.


I made many attempts to write a commentary on the Gospel of St. John.
All of them proved abortive; though each of them made me more alive to
the duty of endeavouring to impart to others some of the lessons which
I had received from it. At length I was convinced that unless I
studied the Gospel first of all with reference to my own congregation,
and used it as a lesson-book for them, I never should be able to
express what was in my mind to men whom I did not know. Critics, I
doubt not, will know excellent reasons why a book of Scripture cannot
be satisfactorily expounded in pulpit discourses. I certainly shall
not dispute their opinion. No one is more aware than myself that I
have not satisfactorily expounded _this_ book of Scripture. I have not
hoped to do that. But I believe I may have given my hearers and my
readers some encouragement to seek a better Expositor of it than I or
any much wiser teacher can be. If a few have been led by my words to
hope for that guidance, and to place themselves under it, I trust they
will ask for themselves and for me, that we may never desert it for
any other, least of all for our own.




CONTENTS.


  DISCOURSE I.
                                                                    PAGE

  ST. JOHN I. 1.--_In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
  with God, and the Word was God._

  The Ages of the Church--St. John the Theologian--Accounts of him
  in the first Three Evangelists--His Jewish feelings--The opening
  Sentence of the Gospel--What Psalmists and Prophets mean when
  they speak of the Word of God--How Alexandrian Jews spoke of
  the Living Word--Confused opinions at the end of the First Century--
  How the opening of this Gospel meets them                            1


  DISCOURSE II.

  ST. JOHN I. 14.--_And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us_,
  (_and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the
  Father_,) _full of grace and truth._

  The same subject continued--How the Living Word was implied in
  all the teaching of the Old Testament--The Word, the Creator of
  the World--The Word enlightening human beings--The testimony
  of John to Him in this character                                    15


  DISCOURSE III.

  ST. JOHN I. 29.--_The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him,
  and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the
  world._

  John the Baptist an Old Testament teacher--How St. John the Evangelist
  learnt his wisdom from him--His dialogue with the Pharisees--Wherein
  the Jews were wrong in their apprehension of the Christ--How John's
  message concerning Him that was before him met these confusions--His
  testimony to his own disciples concerning the Lamb of God           28


  DISCOURSE IV.

  ST. JOHN I. 46.--_And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any
  good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and
  see._

  The same subject continued--The Scape-Goat and the Lamb--Why
  the last is a more satisfactory image than the first--The Lamb
  identified with the Man--The Spirit and the Dove--John's Disciples
  following Jesus--Nathanael confessing the Man of Nazareth to
  be the Son of God--What was promised him hereafter                  43


  DISCOURSE V.

  ST. JOHN II. 11.-_This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of
  Galilee, and manifested forth His glory; and His disciples believed
  on Him._

  Miracles and Signs--The change from the desert to the feast--The
  dialogue between Mary and her Son--Effects of the Sign upon those
  who had not, and those who had, believed Jesus to be the Christ--
  Christ giving His blessing to Marriage--Christ the spring of Life
  and Joy--The beginning of Signs--Object of St. John in recording
  them--Their message to us                                           57


  DISCOURSE VI.

  ST. JOHN II. 16.-_Take these things hence; make not my Father's
  house an house of merchandise._

  Difference between St. John and the other Evangelists in reference
  to Galilee and Jerusalem--The Two Purifications of the Temple--
  Jewish feelings respecting the Temple, easily understood by
  Englishmen--The Temple-Market--The impression of our Lord's Zeal on
  the minds of the Disciples--The Words '_My Father's House_'--The
  Temple raised in three days--Double senses                          72


  DISCOURSE VII.

  ST. JOHN III. 3.--_Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily,
  I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the
  kingdom of God._

  Effects of the signs at the Passover on the crowd--Their impression
  on Nicodemus the Pharisee--Seeing the Kingdom of God--The New
  Birth--The perplexity of the Pharisee--The Spirit and the Wind--
  Earthly Things and Heavenly Things--The Son of Man from Heaven
  and in Heaven--The Brazen Serpent--Consciousness not the basis
  of God's Kingdom--The Will of God                                   85


  DISCOURSE VIII.

  ST. JOHN III. 30.--_He must increase; I must decrease._

  Return to John the Baptist--What John's Disciples say of the new
  Teacher--John's answer--The Gift from above--The Royal Bridegroom--
  The friend of the Bridegroom--The joy of John in his insignificance--
  The Earthly and the Heavenly Speech--How the Divine Testimony is
  received--The Difficulty of believing in God--The new Revelation
  of the Father and the Son--The Wrath of God                        101


  DISCOURSE IX.

  ST. JOHN IV. 10.--_Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou
  knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give
  me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He would have
  given thee living water._

  Water a Sign of Purification and a Sign of Life--Jesus in Samaria--
  The Gift of God--The Well of Life within--The woman revealed
  to herself--The Place of Worship and the Object of Worship--
  Spiritual and superstitious tendencies of the Samaritans--Christ
  declaring Himself to the woman                                     115


  DISCOURSE X.

  ST. JOHN IV. 48.--_Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs
  and wonders, ye will not believe._

  The woman's Message to her countrymen--'_Is not this the Christ?_'--
  Wonder of the disciples--The Reapers and the Harvest--What
  rewards Christ promises--The Samaritan Faith--The Galilæan
  Faith--How the Nobleman's Faith was affected by the Cure of his
  Son                                                                 128


  DISCOURSE XI.

  ST. JOHN V. 16-18.--_And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus,
  because He had done these things on the sabbath-day. But Jesus
  answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. Therefore
  the Jews sought the more to kill Him, because He had not only broken
  the sabbath, but said also that God was His Father, making Himself
  equal with God._

  Jesus at Jerusalem--The Pool--The Angel--Whether the story interferes
  with Science--Records of Angels in the Old Testament--How
  the cure of the Man concerned the doctrine respecting Angels--The
  Sabbath-day--How the Pharisee regarded all the commandments--Reasons
  of their conflict with Jesus respecting this commandment--'_My
  Father worketh hitherto, and I work_'                              141


  DISCOURSE XII.

  ST. JOHN V. 43.--_I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive
  me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive._

  The charge against Jesus of making Himself equal with God--How
  Jesus refuses to exalt Himself--How He discovers the true Idea of
  Godhead--The Son quickening the dead--All judgment committed
  to the Son--The Light which that Language throws upon our
  Experiences--The Son ruling and judging in the unseen World--The
  Testimony of John--The Testimony of the Father--The Scriptures
  and the Word                                                       156


  DISCOURSE XIII.

  ST. JOHN VI. 35.--_And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life:
  he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me
  shall never thirst._

  Jesus feeding the multitude--The Prophet and the King--Jesus
  walking on the Sea--Use of that Sign--The crowd seeking Jesus--The
  Bread of Life--The Son of Man and the Father--The Manna
  falling from Heaven--'_My Father giveth you the Bread_'--The Will
  of the Father--Christ promised to the Race and to each Man         172


  DISCOURSE XIV.

  ST. JOHN VI. 62.--_What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend
  up where He was before?_

  How to give thanks for a Peace--How the Nation of Israel was taught
  that it did not live by Bread alone--How Jesus interpreted that
  Language--The Teaching of the Father--'_The Bread that I will give
  is my Flesh_'--Whether St. John was speaking of the Lord's Supper--
  Spiritual Eating not metaphorical Eating--How the History of
  the Church explains the Words, '_Except ye eat the Flesh of the
  Son of Man, and drink His Blood, ye have no Life in you_'--How
  the Ascension is connected with these words--The Faith of Peter--The
  Unbelief of Judas--How connected with this subject--Its
  relation to modern events--Christianity and Mahometanism           186


  DISCOURSE XV.

  ST. JOHN VII. 37-39.--_In the last day, that great day of the feast,
  Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto
  me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said,
  out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake
  He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive: for
  the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet
  glorified._)

  Meaning of the Feast of Tabernacles--Why the brethren of our Lord
  wished Him to go to Jerusalem--The Jewish World--Christ teaching
  in the Temple--Doing God's Will and knowing His Doctrine--The
  Sabbath-day and Circumcision--In what Sense Christ's Life was
  mysterious, in what Sense open--'_Ye shall seek me, and not find
  me_'--The Gift of the Holy Ghost                                   209


  DISCOURSE XVI.

  ST. JOHN VIII. 29.--_And He that sent me is with me: the Father
  hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please
  Him._

  Bethlehem and Nazareth--The division in the Sanhedrim--The Story
  of the Woman taken in Adultery--Jesus declaring Himself the Light
  of the World--The Two Witnesses--The Descent and the Ascent--The
  Answer to the Question, '_Who art Thou?_'--The Son of Man
  lifted up--How St. John preaches the Trinity                       226


  DISCOURSE XVII.

  ST. JOHN VIII. 43.--_Why do ye not understand my speech? even
  because ye cannot hear my word._

  The repelling and attracting Power of Christ's Words concerning
  His Father--The Promise of Truth--The Promise of Freedom--The
  Servant in the House and the Son--Abraham's Seed--The Desire to
  murder the Prince of Life--The claim of God as a Father--The
  charge of being children of the Devil--The Speech and the Word--The
  Temporal and the Eternal--'_Before Abraham was, I am_'             240


  DISCOURSE XVIII.

  ST. JOHN IX. 39.--_And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into
  this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which
  see might be made blind._

  How the story of the Blind Man is connected with the previous
  discourse--Final causes of bodily disease--The obligation upon Jesus
  to work--Process of the cure--The debates in the Synagogue--The
  Doctors and the Beggar--His arguments and their answer--What
  his blindness had done for him--The Revelation of the Son of God   259


  DISCOURSE XIX.

  ST. JOHN X. 27-29.--_My sheep hear my voice, and I know them,
  and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they
  shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my
  and. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no
  man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand._

  The Mount of Olives--The sight of the Sheepfold--The Wicket-Gate--
  Why the Pharisees could not understand the symbol--St. John's
  Parables--The robbers and murderers who claimed to be Christs
  in the Old Time--Application to Modern Times--How is it true
  that the Sheep did not hear them--The Good Shepherd and the
  Hirelings--Communion between the Shepherd and the Sheep--Communion
  between Christ and His Father--The other Sheep--Why Jesus did not
  say, 'I am the Christ'--'_My Father is greater than all_'--'_I and
  my Father are one_'--'_I have said, Ye are gods_'                  274


  DISCOURSE XX.

  ST. JOHN XI. 25.--_Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and
  the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall
  he live._

  Jesus and the Disciples again in the Wilderness--The common feeling
  respecting the Resurrection of Lazarus, the true one--The Sisters
  and the Brother--The Message concerning Lazarus--The hours of
  Night and Day--Our Friend sleepeth--How the Two Sisters endure
  their Comforters--The Resurrection in the Last Day--'_I am the
  Resurrection, and the Life_'--The Groaning of Jesus--The Glory of
  God--Lazarus returning to his Home--Resurrection not a Break in
  a Man's History--The Renewal of Family Bonds--Deliverance from
  Unbelief        300


  DISCOURSE XXI.

  ST. JOHN XI. 49, 50.--_And one of them, named Caiaphas, being
  the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing a
  all, nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should
  die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not._

  Why the Sadducees did not wish to stone Jesus--The Prophecy of
  Caiaphas--The Romans and the Cross--The Feast at Bethany--The
  Box of Ointment--Its Effect on Judas--Jerusalem during the
  Passover--When the Disciples learnt the meaning of Christ's
  Entry into the City--The Greeks at the Feast--The Seed falling
  into the Ground and dying--The Moment of Agony--The Son of Man
  drawing all Men to Him--'_Who is this Son of Man?_'--How that
  Question is asked and answered in our day                          321


  DISCOURSE XXII.

  ST. JOHN XII. 44-50, and XIII. 1.--_Jesus cried and said, He that
  believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on Him that sent me. And
  he that seeth me, seeth Him that sent me. I am come a light into the
  world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.
  And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not; for
  I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that
  rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him:
  the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last
  day. For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me,
  He gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should
  speak. And I know that His commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever
  I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak. Now
  before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that His hour was
  come that He should depart out of this world unto the Father, having
  loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end._

  The last Signs to the Jewish people--How Isaiah had explained their
  inefficacy--The Glory of Men and the Glory of God--The Words
  which closed Christ's public Ministry--The Last Supper--The
  Washing of the Feet--What had to be washed away--Why the feet
  only had to be washed--Christ's Example--How one Man can purify
  another--The Disciple not above his Master--'_He that receiveth
  you receiveth Me_'--The trouble of Spirit--The Disciple whom Jesus
  loved--'_That thou doest, do quickly_'--The Son of Man glorified--
  The New Commandment--The prophecy of denial                        341


  DISCOURSE XXIII.

  ST. JOHN XIV. 25, 26.--_These things have I spoken unto you, being
  yet present with you. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost,
  whom the Father will send in my name, He shall teach you all things,
  and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said
  unto you._

  The two causes of Trouble--The double support under them--Why
  Jesus did not speak of dying--The message concerning a Father's
  House--Jesus the Way--To what the Way leads--'_Have I been
  so long time with you, and hast thou not known me?_'--The greater
  Works--Praying in the Name of Jesus--The promise of the Comforter--
  Loving and obeying--How the Disciples learnt their need
  of a Spirit--The gift of the Spirit the gift of Peace--The Prince
  of this World--The love of the Father to the World                 365


  DISCOURSE XXIV.

  ST. JOHN XV. 1.--_I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman._

  Allusions to vines in the old Scripture--The interpretation of them
  here--'_Abide in me_'--Ground of the union of the Disciples to
  Christ--The gift of Joy--Servants and friends--The command to
  love--The world's hatred a hatred of God                           383


  DISCOURSE XXV.

  ST. JOHN XVI. 1.--_These things have I spoken unto you, that ye
  should not be offended._

  Effect of Christ's words upon His Disciples when they met with
  persecutions--Method of His education--The conviction of the world
  by the Spirit--The Spirit not speaking of Himself, but of the Son
  and the Father--'_A little while and ye shall not see me_'--The
  birth of the Man into the world--The Apostles' belief--The world
  overcome                                                           396


  DISCOURSE XXVI.

  ST. JOHN XVII. 1.--_These words spake Jesus, and lifted up His
  eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy
  Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee._

  Words, their power and their weakness--How to connect Christ's
  prayer with other prayers--'_Glorify thy Son, that thy Son may
  glorify thee_'--The gift of eternal life--The order of the
  prayer--The part of it which refers to the Disciples--'_I pray
  not for the world_'--The son of perdition--Truth and sanctity--
  '_That they all may be one_'--The world which has not known
  the Father                                                         411


  DISCOURSE XXVII.

  ST. JOHN XIX. 37.--_And again another scripture saith, They shall
  look on Him whom they have pierced._

  Arrangement of our services in Passion Week--Agreement of St.
  John with the other Evangelists--Why all dwell upon the arraignment
  of Jesus--Peculiarities of St. John--The night-scene with the
  officers--Jesus before the High Priest--The dread of defilement--Jesus
  before Pilate--'_Art thou a king?_'--'_Behold the man!_'--'_Whence
  art thou?_'--'_We have no king but Cæsar_'--The title on the cross--
  Rending the garment--The Son and the Mother--'_A bone shall not
  be broken_'--'_They shall look on Him whom they have pierced_'--
  Nicodemus at the sepulchre                                         424


  DISCOURSE XXVIII.

  ST. JOHN XX. 30, 31.--_And many other signs truly did Jesus in
  the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book:
  but these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the
  Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life
  through His name._

  Reasons why St. John should record the history of the Resurrection
  carefully--How far he or the other Evangelists cared to produce
  evidences--Peter and John at the sepulchre--How John could find
  in the Scripture that Jesus should rise again--Appearance of the
  angels--Differences of the Evangelists--Jesus speaking to Mary--'_I
  am not yet ascended_'--'_Peace be unto you_'--The commission to bind
  and loose--Thomas the Doubter--The conclusion of the narrative--The
  resumption of it--The Apostles returning to their nets--Jesus
  on the shore--The fish and the bread--'_Simon, lovest thou
  me?_'--The two Apostles--John tarrying till Christ came--The
  things which Jesus did, and is doing, and will do                  443




NOTES.


  NOTE I.--On Barn's theory of the Gospels                           469

  NOTE II.--On the construing of the 3d, 4th, and 9th verses of the
  1st chapter                                                        475

  NOTE III.--On Origen's notion of St. John's Gospel in connexion
  with the knowledge attributed to John the Baptist                  477

  NOTE IV.--On the relation of the words, '_The Lamb of God_,' to
  the Passover, and to the passage in the 53d chapter of Isaiah      479

  NOTE V.--On the objections to a revision of the Scriptures         481

  NOTE VI.--Extract from Gregory of Nyssa      484

  NOTE VII.--On the resurrection of the body and the judgment-day      484

  NOTE VIII.--Comparison of the teaching in the Sermon on the Mount
  with that in the 8th chapter of St. John                           488

  NOTE IX.--On the doctrine of Atonement--Scotch and English
  divinity        492

  NOTE X.--On corporate holiness                                     498

  NOTE XI.--A translation of John viii. 2                            501




DISCOURSE I.

THE JEWISH FISHERMAN, THE CHRISTIAN DIVINE.

[Lincoln's Inn, Septuagesima Sunday, January 20, 1856.]

ST. JOHN I. 1.

_In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God._


An eminent man, who died not long since in Germany, was wont to divide
the life of the Church into three periods. That before the Reformation
he called the Petrine; the three centuries since the Reformation, the
Pauline; one he maintained was at hand, which would last to the end of
this dispensation--that he named the Johannine. The classification is
perhaps too ingenious to be true; and there are many reasons why we
ought not to treat all the years before the sixteenth century as
belonging to the same division. Nevertheless, there is something in
the observation concerning St. John which has commended itself to
minds of a very different order from his who put it into this shape.
Some have supposed that St. John is to displace the earlier writers of
the New Testament, because his teaching is more profound, or more
charitable, or more simple than theirs. Some suppose that he was
especially appointed to explain, unfold, bring out into their fullest
light, all that previous Prophets and Apostles had presented under
different aspects, in forms suitable to their own times and
circumstances. Wide as this difference is, both may agree that the
writings of St. John, much as they may have been studied hitherto,
deserve a fresh and a more earnest study. Both may hope that if they
have been intended for the illumination of our days, the meaning of
them may come forth to us with greater clearness than it did to our
forefathers; not because we are wiser than they, but because a larger
experience, perhaps an experience of more intense doubt and ignorance,
may make us more ready to welcome the divine interpreter, and less
eager to anticipate his discoveries by the conclusions which ask to be
corrected by them.

There are three books in our canon which we attribute to St. John,
besides the two short letters to Gaius and the Elect Lady. Of these,
his Gospel appears to me a perfect summary of _Christian Theology_,
his First Epistle of _Christian Ethics_, his Apocalypse of _Christian
Politics_. I do not despair of seeing even this last book come forth,
out of the hands of soothsayers and prognosticators, as a real
lesson-book respecting the dealings of God with the nations,
respecting the method and the issues of His righteous government. The
craving there is in the minds of men for a faithful history of the
past, which shall be also a faithful guide to the future, will surely
be satisfied some day; this book may teach us how it shall be
satisfied. It requires even less faith to expect that when we are
tired of speculations about the maxims and principles of morality,
which do not make our morality better, while yet their very failure
convinces us that there are principles which we did not create and
which must bind us, we may turn to an old and simple document, which
sets forth the commandment that has life--which tells us what the end
of our existence is, what has deranged it, how each man may recover
all that he has lost, and be what he was created to be.

I had thought at first that these Bible ethics might be more suitable
to a congregation of men, busy in the world and valuing higher maxims
only as they can test them by their application to its daily
occasions, than what I have called by the more imposing name of
Theology. I should have acted upon that thought if I had believed that
St. John's theology was of that stamp which has made the word
agreeable to schoolmen, offensive to those who would turn words into
acts. If theology is a collection of dry husks, the granaries which
contain those husks will be set on fire, and nothing will quench the
fire till they be consumed. It is just because I find in St. John the
grain which those husks sometimes conceal, for which they are
sometimes a substitute; it is just because theology in his Gospel
offers itself to us as a living root, out of which all living powers,
living thoughts, living acts may develop themselves; it is just
because there is nothing in him that is abstract, because that which
is deep and eternal proves itself to be deep and eternal by entering
into all the relations of time, by manifesting itself in all the
common doings of men; it is therefore, I believe, that he makes his
appeal, not to the man of technicalities, not to the school doctor,
but to the simple wayfarer, and at the same time to the man of science
who does not forget that he is a man and who expects to ascertain
principles only by the honest method of experiment.

To all such, I am sure, the careful study of the fourth Gospel will
prove of unspeakable worth and interest. A preacher may do much to
hinder such study; he may also do something to promote it. He will
hinder it if he seeks to make texts give out a sense which he has
first put into them. He will hinder it if he seeks to stifle any
doubts which the words themselves may excite; any that are suggested
by the contradictions of the world, and the perplexities of the
reader's own mind. He will hinder it if he breaks the continuity of
the narration by taking a passage here and there to inculcate a
particular moral, without considering how it is related to the
passages that precede and that follow it and to the general scope of
the Evangelist. He may promote it so far as he believes that he is a
fellow-learner with those whom he is teaching; so far as he is
convinced that the words of the Evangelist are clearer and diviner
than any which he, of his own wit or by the help of inferior books,
can put in their place; so far as he desires that his own eyes, and
those of all students, may be purged that they may see what is
actually in the words; so far as he believes that there is One who is
above the words, above the writer of them, to whom they point, and
from whom all the wisdom that is in them comes; so far as he trusts
for himself, and encourages all to trust, that this Teacher wills us
to come to the knowledge of His truth, and will withhold no help that
we need in the pursuit of it. Beseeching the Holy Spirit of God to
keep alive this temper in your minds and in mine, I would begin the
examination of St. John's Gospel to-day, desiring, if God permit, that
we may go through with it to the end.

When I talk of St. John as a Theologian, I adopt the title which was
given to him at a very early time. In our own day that title has
awakened a suspicion about the genuineness of this Gospel. He is
spoken of by the other Evangelists as a fisherman mending his father's
nets; as one of two Apostles whom our Lord called Sons of Thunder; as
giving some warrant for that designation by desiring to call fire from
heaven upon a Samaritan village; as showing signs of a special
ambition by his prayer that he himself and his brother might sit one
on Christ's right hand and one on His left in His kingdom; as
exhibiting the sectarian and exclusive temper of his nation, by
forbidding a man to cast out devils in Christ's name who did not
follow with His Apostles. Was there anything in these early
characteristics to prepare one for expecting that he would be the
divine, not of a Jewish synagogue but of a Christian Church? True, he
is spoken of as being present on the Mount of Transfiguration, and in
the Garden of Gethsemane. On both occasions his eyes were heavy, like
those of the other disciples, with the sight of glory and the sight of
suffering. When others forsook and fled, he did so likewise. In the
Acts of the Apostles he appears, no doubt, in a conspicuous position,
but it is still expressly as a Jewish Apostle. If he is joined with
St. Peter in healing the sick man, it is when they are going up to the
Temple at the hour of prayer. He endures the reproaches and the
scourges of the Sanhedrim. But after the preaching of the Gospel to
the Gentiles, we hear no more of him; he vanishes out of sight. St.
Paul calls him one of the Apostles of the Circumcision, but alludes to
him no further. When we meet with him again, not in the sacred record
but in the mist of ecclesiastical traditions, there are reports of him
as adhering to the Jewish observance of the Passover, as in some sense
representing the dignity of the high-priest. How could we suppose from
such intimations that he would open a Gospel with the words I read to
you in the text, words which seem to intimate an acquaintance with
heathen speculation, even with a high philosophy? Does that language
belong at all to the simplicity of the first century? Is it not much
more in accordance with the spirit of the next age, when plain
narratives were combining themselves with curious speculations, and
Christian teachers were introducing what they had learnt in the porch
or the academy among the doctrines and the exhortations which had been
uttered to fishermen on the lake of Tiberias or to the crowds who were
gathered round the mount?

From what I said of my reasons for selecting this Gospel as a subject
for discourses in the pulpit, you will anticipate part of the answer
which I should give to these suggestions. If the Gospel is what those
who make them, say that it is, they are right. If its theology is of
an abstract, artificial character, compounded of elements drawn from
all heterogeneous sources, let it be attributed to an age--I do not
determine whether the second century was or was not such an age--in
which an artificial habit of mind prevailed, in which system-building
had become a profession. If there are _no_ traces of such a
disposition in the fourth Gospel,--if it is, in its language, in the
construction of its sentences, in the style of its narrative, the
simplest of all the Gospels,--then we may have good cause to think
that it savours more of the fisherman to whom it has been for so many
ages ascribed, than of the learned convert from some Gentile school,
the ingenious blender of Jewish and Gentile dogmas, whom critics of
this age have imagined to be its manufacturer.

I do not, however, desire to avoid a part of the inquiry which these
remarks may not seem at first to meet. All the accounts of St. John
in the New Testament, all that we can guess of him from other sources,
certainly lead us to think of him as one whose mind had been cast in
the Hebrew mould, who had learnt the lore of a child of Abraham, who
had not, in the same sense that St. Paul did, thrown himself among the
inhabitants of the Greek cities, and become as '_one without law, that
he might gain those that are without law_.' St. John's position in the
city of Ephesus, during his latter years, does not affect the opinion
that he was essentially a Jew. Jerusalem had fallen, or was about to
fall; nowhere, perhaps, would he be more likely to find a colony of
men attached to the customs of his forefathers than in that city.
Confessedly, he had no part in founding its Church or converting its
Gentile inhabitants; that had been St. Paul's work. And we may admit
without scruple the evidence, imperfect though it be, that St. John in
that city did preserve some of the characteristics of his childhood
and of his education, even when the world to which those strictly
belonged was passing away.

How do these admissions affect our belief that he was the writer of
the sentences which introduce the Gospel that bears his name? I
believe they strengthen that belief exceedingly. I can conceive
nothing more thoroughly Hebrew than these sentences. I pass over the
resemblance, which will strike you all upon this day,[1] between these
verses and those at the commencement of the Book of Genesis; though
the correspondence between their style and the style of Moses, is one
of those internal correspondences which we feel the more strongly the
more we reflect. But I would beg you to notice the essential
_difference_ between this kind of writing and that of any person who
had been brought up in any school of philosophy whatsoever, whether
one purely Greek, or where Greek and Hebrew elements were mixed as
they were at Alexandria. Would you expect in such a person the broad,
simple, assertive tone, '_In the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God_'? Would not the _true_ philosopher
try to vindicate his name by proving that he was a _seeker_ after
wisdom? Would not the _false_ philosopher, if he were ever so much
inclined to dogmatise, at least produce some plausible arguments in
support of any statements which he advanced? Where, but in the
writings of the Old and New Testament, do you meet with such an
adventurous proclamation as this? Where, even in the Books of the Old
and New Testament, do you meet with one that is quite a parallel to
it?

[1] Septuagesima Sunday, when the first chapter of Genesis is read.
Schleiermacher, who is not likely to exaggerate the resemblance of the
New Testament to the Old, dwells on this point. See "Homilien über das
Evangelium Johannis;" edited after his death by Sydow.

And then look at the contents of the sentence. What have you been
hearing of, all through the Psalms and the Prophets, but of God's
word, which was to give Joshua courage, which David delighted in and
fed upon, which was a fire in the heart of Jeremiah? On the surface of
the Bible this language encounters you. I mean, that your eye cannot
wander over a page without being arrested by expressions of the kind;
you become so familiar with it that you forget the peculiarity of it.
But if you stop for a moment to think, you will perceive that whenever
the word of God is spoken of, something most vital and most inward is
intended. It is a quick, penetrating power, entering into the man,
affecting his heart and his reins, standing out in the sharpest
contrast to the idols which speak to the eye. The 'word of God' is the
favourite expression in the writers of the Old Testament, because they
are testifying of an invisible Lord who speaks to man's spirit;
because they are denouncing all attempts to make the objects of men's
senses into their lords. How frightful, then, to an old Prophet would
have been the thought of confounding the mere letters of a book, which
could be seen, handled, copied out, with the words of the Lord! No
doubt these words might have characters found for them; they might be
handed down in these characters from age to age: it would be a
glorious witness of their enduring quality if they were so. But it
would remain unalterably true, that as words coming forth from the
mouth of God, and not to return to Him void, they addressed themselves
to the wills, hearts, consciences of men; into these only could they
enter.

Whence did they proceed? Solomon, the wise king, had spoken of a
divine Wisdom, from which his was derived. He had spoken of that
Wisdom as brought up with God--as His counsellor--as an object to be
sought for, embraced, loved by men. The Prophets had spoken of the
Word of God coming to them. The Word ruled them, searched them, judged
them. They were not the speakers; the Word was the speaker. Could such
language be uttered continually in the ears of earnest men and be
disregarded? It was not disregarded; it moulded the very heart of all
true Israelites. But soon it was forced upon them in another way.
After the Babylonian captivity, they were brought into contact with
heathens; they were obliged to learn what heathens had been thinking
of. Elsewhere they heard of great mythological conceptions, of the
Lion, the Eagle, the Ox, the Man, which represent different aspects of
the Divinity. But in the city of Alexandria they heard how Greek
sages, in their struggle to get rid of mythological fancies, had
spoken of a Logos or Reason in themselves, which lifted them above
themselves. It was strangely connected with the power of speech; it
pointed to the very source of speech and thought. It was often
described as an eye, blinded in most, and yet of which those in whom
it was open could only say, 'It makes us know what the privilege is of
being men, what the responsibility. Now we are sure that man has
something to do with the Divinity, as all the traditions of our
fathers tell us that he has. But what he has to do with the Divinity,
who can inform us? for the traditions only bewilder us when they try
to explain.' Was it strange that a Jew should say to himself, 'Why, my
oracles have been telling me from the very first of a Word that speaks
to men, a Word of God; a Word that withdraws them from the idolatry of
sense, and the pursuit of sensible things; a Word that has taught them
how to rule themselves; a Word that has taught them how they may seek
after their Creator, and hold converse with Him.' Men of cultivation
as well as of honesty might be easily overwhelmed by this twofold
discovery; they might vacillate between their Gentile lore and their
Jewish; they might mix them sometimes confusedly together; they might
resort to allegories for the sake of explaining the connexion, which
the simpler student of either would reject as unsatisfactory and
frivolous.

These descriptions apply, in some measure, to those commentaries on
the Old Testament which are contained in the Apocryphal books called
'The Wisdom of Solomon,' and 'Ecclesiasticus.' The characteristic of
these books is their recognition of a divine Wisdom, which the
writers sometimes speak of as if it were abstract, quite as often as
if it were personal and substantial. These modes of speech are
confessedly derived from the Scriptures. They speak of no history but
the Hebrew history; probably they were acquainted with no other. Still
it is probable that they were holding intercourse with Gentiles,
perhaps were explaining the Hebrew books to them. But all the
peculiarities I have mentioned became far more marked and definite in
Philo the Alexandrian, who was an old man when he went on an embassy
from the Alexandrian Jews to Caligula. In him the idea of a divine
Word, who unites God and man, and holds converse with the spirit of
man, becomes the ground of all his thoughts. Every book in the Bible
speaks to him of such a Being. The belief in Him alone explains to him
the life of patriarchs, lawgivers, prophets. Yet he admits that such a
Being must also have been the source of all wisdom to Gentile
philosophers. It is his privilege, as a Jew, to explain to them their
own conceptions of such a Being. Moses could declare that that was
which Plato felt must be.

All must see, if we had not positive evidence of the fact, how much
such thoughts, coming forth at such a time, must have affected Jews,
may have affected Gentiles. Yet Philo wrote avowedly for the learned.
He wished to put himself at a distance from all others. It was a
satisfaction to him that he could, by the use of dark allegories, keep
the profane vulgar at a distance. How, then, could his thoughts blend
with those of the men who came preaching that One who was called a
carpenter's son, One who had chosen fishermen as His disciples, was
the King of men and the Son of God? '_To the poor the gospel is_
_preached_,' was the maxim which they were to exhibit in their lessons
and their lives. How could such doctrines as Philo's be addressed to
the poor?

And yet the disciples were obliged to speak of Jesus as the Son of Man
who sowed the word in men's hearts, which sprang up and bore fruit,
thirty and sixty and an hundredfold. They were obliged to speak of
Jesus, the Son of Man, as opening a kingdom of heaven which was within
men. They were obliged to speak of that kingdom as the kingdom of His
Father. They were obliged to say that the Son of Man had opened it to
all, because He was also the Son of God. They were obliged to say that
they could only testify of this kingdom because He had given them the
Spirit of His Father. And when St. Paul learnt that he, the Hebrew of
the Hebrews, was called to be the Apostle of the Gentiles, it was '_by
a revelation of the Son of God in him_' Whom he was '_to preach to the
Gentiles_.' To the Corinthians, among whom he had determined to know
nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified, he still spoke of Jesus
Christ as the '_Wisdom of God_' and the '_Power of God_.' To the
Ephesians he spoke of their having '_been chosen in Him before the
foundation of the world, that they might be holy, and without blame
before Him in love_.'

What was the consequence? Jews said, 'You are exalting a man into the
place of God; you are denying the words which you were taught on your
mother's knee, "_The Lord our God is one Lord_."' Gentiles said, 'You
are robbing us of the belief we have had of friendly beings of another
world, who have sympathised with ours, who have had loving converse
with sages and heroes, who have mixed with us as men among men.'
Philosophers said, 'What has your teaching to do with all those
glimpses of light in the reason which wise men have spoken of, which
they have been sure that they received?' Disciples of Philo asked,
'What has this human Teacher of yours to do with that Word of God whom
our master discovered in all the history of the Old Testament?'
Disciples of John the Baptist (still numerous, and probably much
connected with the Alexandrian teachers, as in the instance of
Apollos) said, 'Our master preached repentance and turning to the
living God. You say he spoke also of a Teacher who was to come after
him. Do you mean that he wished us to turn away from the living God to
this future Teacher?' Christian men began to ask themselves whether
Jesus Christ was not the Son of God, _because_ He was born in a
wonderful manner of the Virgin? They began to dream of Him as a
demigod, or a superior angel, half human, half divine. Other
Christians began to boast that they were sons of God _only_ because
they were baptized men, and that their sonship was a sentence upon all
the world before them and around them. A cloud of opinions--vapours
gathered from all quarters--was floating about in the world; was
nowhere, perhaps, denser than in the great emporium of Ephesus. A
great convulsion was at hand. St. Paul had said a great _apostasy_ was
at hand.

Then, if we may believe the tradition of centuries, spoke out the old
man of Ephesus, the Galilean fisherman, the Son of Thunder,--he whose
brother had been taken by an early death to the right hand of his
Master,--he who was himself to linger till the end of the age,--the
passionate Jew, who had desired fire to come from heaven;--then spake
he who had been on the Mount, and in the Garden, and at the Last
Supper: '_In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All
things were made by Him, and without Him was not any thing made that
was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men; and the
light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. There
was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a
witness, to bear witness of the light. He was not that light, but was
sent to bear witness of that light. That was the true light which
lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world,
and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came
unto His own, and His own received Him not. But as many as received
Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God; which were born
not of flesh, nor of blood, nor of the will of man, but of God._'

Except at the close of the first century, when the Old Testament age
was passing into the New, I conceive these verses could not have been
written. Except by the most earnest of Jews, the most simple of
Christian Apostles, I believe they could not have been written. But if
they are, as they are sometimes supposed to be, merely a doctrinal
proem to an actual Gospel, I admit they must have proceeded from some
one else. I hope to show you hereafter that they explain every
narrative which follows, as every narrative which follows illustrates
them. I hope you will find that the whole Gospel is a Theology just as
much as these verses; because it is a Gospel to mankind, a Gospel to
the conscience of each man, from God and concerning God.




DISCOURSE II.

THE WORD THE LIGHT OF MEN.

[Lincoln's Inn, 1st Sunday in Lent, February 10, 1856.]

ST. JOHN I. 14.

     _And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we
     beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the
     Father, full of grace and truth._


When I spoke to you last, I proposed to examine St. John's Gospel
carefully and in order. It was impossible not to pause earnestly upon
the opening sentence, '_In the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God_.' What does that text say to us?
'It declares,' some will answer eagerly and decisively, 'the divinity
of our Lord Jesus Christ.' Be it so; but the name _Jesus Christ_ is
not introduced till the seventeenth verse of the chapter. If we are
sitting at the feet of an Apostle or Evangelist, we cannot change his
method for a method of our own. The writers of the other Gospels start
from the birth of Jesus, or from the preaching of John the Baptist. We
cannot understand them unless we go with them to Bethlehem or to the
wilderness. St. John leads us back to the beginning of all things. We
cannot understand him, if we assume events that were to take place in
the fulness of the time.

Acting upon this principle, I reminded you that the expression 'word
of God' is one of continual recurrence as well as of most solemn
import in the books of the Old Testament. I could not find that, in
its lowest sense, it ever meant less than a message from the invisible
God to the mind and spirit of man. The assertion that God speaks to
men by His word, and that men are capable of hearing that word, was
the great testimony for the truth which was implied in heathen
superstitions, the great testimony against these superstitions.
Idolaters were not mistaken in thinking that they needed intercourse
with that which was higher than themselves; they _were_ mistaken in
seeking, in the heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the water
under the earth, for Him who was nearer to them than He was to all the
things He had made, who was the Lord of their hearts and reins. The
more you study the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets, the more you
meditate the earliest and simplest book of the Bible--that which tells
of the Voice which spoke to Adam in the garden, of the Voice which
called Abram to go forth whither he knew not--the more, I am
persuaded, you will feel that this is the most characteristic
peculiarity of these records, that which connects them with each
other, that which has given them their power over mankind.

Nevertheless, the life of the men who were said to receive these
communications was eminently practical and manly. They did not pore
over their own thoughts; they went forth and did the work which was
given them to do, feeding flocks, bringing up children, fighting
enemies. It is evident that their belief in the invisible did not in
the least interfere with their business in this visible world. That
they were to till and subdue by the same charter which assured them
that they were God's servants, and that His word was directing them.
While they kept their faith in the unseen Teacher, the firmament over
their heads became a clear daily and nightly witness respecting Him
and themselves. The stars told them what their seed should be; the
sun, going forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber, carried the
message of _their_ God into all lands. It was when the faith in the
invisible grew weak, that they bowed their heads and worshipped the
forms which once testified to them of their greater nobleness and
sublimer origin. And with this came another idolatry, in its essence
grander, in its results baser. The man felt that beings of his own
kind had more power over him than all the hosts of heaven. He did
homage to their goodness, their wisdom, their beneficence, their
strength. He confessed the king, and was raised to a higher sense of
his own freedom and kingship. The king became a giant and a tyrant;
_he_ became a dwarf and a slave. What should raise men out of either
oppression? What should set them free from the yoke which creatures
below their own kind and of their own kind had imposed upon them? The
Jew was taught that the Lord God was his King; that He broke the yoke
of the Pharaoh and of the Pharaoh's gods; that He claimed the most
abject slaves as His servants. The Israelite was brought under an
order which had this foundation. In the strength of it, kings were to
reign and decree judgment; they were to preserve the people from
lapsing into the idolatry which would destroy their obedience and
their freedom. They were to reign by the word of the Lord.

But what was this word of God which held men back who had fierce
inclinations in their hearts, and who had swords to execute them in
their hands? It could not be a statute; that had no such power. It
could not be a set of moral maxims; they had no such power. It could
not be a promise, or a threat, about the world that is, or the world
to come; neither had such power. The Prophet, living amidst the signs
of decay and ruin in his own polity, amidst the earthquakes which were
shaking all nations, under the overwhelming power of empires that
sought to put out the life of nations, began to attach another and
deeper sense to the word of God, not incompatible with the older use,
but involved in it; not a metaphor or allegory deduced from it, but a
higher truth lying behind it. The Word of God came to him, spoke to
him in the very depths of his heart. He spoke to it, sympathised with
it. But dared he say _it_ any longer? No; in some wonderful manner
this Word must be a Friend, a Person; One who could work with him,
reprove him, illuminate him. This Word must be the Teacher, the
Friend, the King of Israel. This Word must one day prove Himself to be
the Lord of the whole earth. Awful discovery! which makes him tremble,
and yet which makes him bold; which sometimes draws forth from him the
cry, '_Woe is me! for I am an unclean man, and I dwell among a people
of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of
Hosts_;' which again gives him all his hope both for himself and for
his people. At every step of his own experience and of his nation's
experience, new visions unfolded themselves out of this vision. It
must be that all those various objects in nature which men were
worshipping, that all the living order of nature in which those things
were comprehended, proceeded from this living Word. It must be that
all the races of men, all their politics, were under His guidance and
government. It must be that all the light that had entered into any
man's heart had come from Him. It must be that the darkness which was
in any man's heart had come from rebellion against Him.

In various ways and in different measures this truth was unveiling
itself to the Prophets of old: I have had other opportunities of
pointing out to you the steps of its manifestation. When I quoted the
first fourteen verses of St. John's Gospel, at the close of my last
sermon, I wished to show you that he had gathered up into one distinct
statement, one full revelation, that which it had taken ages to spell
out. I wished you to feel that there was, in one sense, no novelty in
his proclamation, because he was saying that which was implied in all
the past history and literature of his people; yet that there was, in
another sense, the most important novelty, because that which had been
implied could now for the first time be expressed. I hinted to you
that in this case, as in every case, the expression did not come, till
all the doubts which called for the expression had been awakened, and
had become clamorous. In fact, these doubts were leading Jews,
heathens, disciples of Jesus, very near indeed to the gulf of atheism.
Was there an absolute Being dwelling in His own perfection? Was there
a Word who uttered His mind? How was this duality compatible with the
unity of the divine nature? Here was the first grand difficulty, one
which did not more exercise the Jew, who had lived to proclaim that
unity as the primary truth of the universe, than the Gentile
philosopher who had arrived at it as a final result, as an escape from
the polytheism which the vulgar must still be left to believe in. St.
John uses no such phrases as unity or duality. We have the broad, old,
simple Hebrew language, the language for human beings, not for
speculators. We hear of a living God, not of a notion. And this God
is, as the old record had said, a Creator. Men had been asking in all
countries how is the world related to God? Did He make it as an
artificer makes a dead instrument? Did it flow from Him as a thought
flows from the meditative man? Or is it self-made? Is God Himself a
part of it, merely the spring of its movements? St. John answers,
'_The world was made by Him, and without Him was not any thing made
that was made. In Him was life._' It was no dead instrument turned
forth by a mechanist. It was no part of Himself. It was no order
moving by itself without Him. It was a world of living, productive
forces, governed by a Person. His own life was quickening the
movements of His creatures; His own wisdom was directing them. The
philosophical puzzle is met by words which, I think, you will find are
adapted to the physical science of the nineteenth century, as much as
they were to the theological doubts of the first century; which show
where theology and physical science meet, how they are distinguished,
how they are reconciled. And yet the language is still the child's
language, the fisherman's language. It is Moses, not Plato, who is
revived in the Ephesian teacher.

Then come verses which meet the troubles of the heart and conscience
of man, as those meet the troubles of his intellect,--which speak to
him of himself, as those speak of the world. How simple they are! How
entirely they accord with what I have been showing you were the
thoughts of old Patriarchs and Prophets! And yet what worlds of
speculation they encounter! what theories about the conscience they
come in contact with! what webs of mythology they unravel! Above all,
how they explain the thoughts of those who cannot reason, and yet are
subject to those laws about which all reasoning is conversant! '_In
Him was life, and the life was the light of men: and the light shineth
in darkness, and the darkness does not take it down into itself._'
What have not those words been to men, who have been for years trying
to reconcile the contradictory phenomena of their own spirits! 'Word
of God, thy light has been shining in me, flashing into my heart,
discovering the dark places and passages there! The darkness tries to
comprehend, to hide, to quench thy light! Thanks be to Thee, it
cannot.'

The transition appears great from this sentence--so general, yet so
individual,--concerning the beginning of the world and the latest days
of it--to the words, '_There was a man sent from God, whose name was
John_.' No doubt we are reminded by the change that the writer
belonged to a particular age--to an age in which there were many
disciples of John the Baptist still alive, who were inclined to claim
for him the very highest honour that could belong to a divine
messenger.[2] The Apostle was especially likely to know what followers
of the Baptist would say and feel respecting him, since he had
probably been one of them. But he does not forget the subject with
which he was occupied before, when he turns to his old master and to
those who were paying him an extravagant homage. He introduces John
that he may declare what every man sent from God in the former times
had done,--what every such man in that time, in all time to come, must
do: '_The same came for a witness, that he might bear witness of the
Light, that all men through him might believe_.' 'You who listened to
John, if there are any of you yet on earth, what was the effect of
his speech, his look, his baptism upon you? I will tell you what it
was upon me. As he said "_Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at
hand_," my darkness was revealed to me. That darkness was discovered
by the divine light of which he spoke. He came to bear witness of this
light, that you and I might believe in it.' Here was one mighty,
unspeakable cause of gratitude to him. But, '_He was not that Light,
but was sent that he might witness of the Light_.' So was it with John
preaching by the side of Jordan. Was the saying less true of Jeremiah
preaching beside the temple that was to be desolate, of Ezekiel
preaching by the river Chebar? Was it less true of St. Peter on the
day of Pentecost, of St. Paul at Antioch? Was it less true of Bernard,
of Francis of Assisi, of Luther, of any man who in later days has
awakened men out of a slumber of death? What can be said of each
except this: '_The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the
Light_'? What would each have said of himself but this: '_I am not
that Light, but am come that I may bear witness of that Light_'?

[2] There could be few, if any, such left in the century to which the
Gospel is assigned by those who deny it to St. John.

The Apostle says this; but he has something greater and deeper to say.
He says, '_That was the true Light which lighteth every man that
cometh into the world_.' 'We may have felt, when we heard the preacher
in the wilderness, as if there were some new light shining then for
the first time into our hearts. We may have supposed it was kindled by
the speaker. But no star arose in the firmament at his bidding; that
which struck us with such wonder had been with us from our birth. When
any man comes into this order of ours, he finds the Word there.' '_He
was in the world, and the world was made by Him and the world knew Him
not._' Think of all the strange dreams of immortality that have
visited human beings; their sense of a law of right and wrong; their
acknowledgment of powers which assert the right and avenge the wrong!
Think how these great facts of humanity have affected the condition of
men in every region of the world,--how politics, legislation, civil
society, have been shaped by them! Think of the confusions respecting
immortality, respecting the boundaries of right and wrong, respecting
the justice and injustice of the invisible kings and judges whose
power has been confessed and feared! Think of the superstitions,
oppressions, slaveries, that have grown out of these confusions! And
then read once again this sentence, '_He was in the world_'--He from
whom light came--'_and the world was made by Him, and the world knew
Him not_.' See if you have not there the clear, scientific explanation
of these strange facts; the universal law which tells you how they
could exist together. See if that scientific explanation, that
universal law, is not brought to an experimental test; so that every
man, every child may know, from that which has passed in himself, what
it means. '_He came unto His own, and His own received Him not._' The
light came into men's hearts, as into its proper native
dwelling-place. The Word from whom that light issued asserted His
right over all the feelings, instincts, impulses, determinations of
these hearts, as over His own rightful domestics and subjects. But the
light was repelled; the rightful Ruler was treated as an intruder by
these domestics and subjects. There was anarchy and rebellion, where
there should have been subordination and harmony. A usurper had
reduced those into slavery who would not have the service which is
freedom. '_But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to_
_become sons of God; which were born, not of flesh, nor of blood, nor
of the will of man, but of God._' The last words seemed to speak of an
order subverted, of a creation which had lost its centre. These
declare that the order was preserved; that the centre still proved its
power to attract, and to retain in their orbits, the bodies which were
intended to move around it. There were those that confessed the Light;
there were those that entertained it, that sought to walk in it. There
were those who submitted themselves to the government of their true
Ruler. And they attained the stature of men; they learnt themselves,
they manifested to others whence they had come, what was their
parentage. '_To them gave He power to become sons of God._' They were
sons of men, born to the same condition as others of their kind; but
He made them know that in their inmost being they were not born of
earthly or human seed, but had their life from above, from Him who
liveth and abideth for ever.

Up to this point, I conceive, the Evangelist has not even touched upon
any principle or fact specially belonging to the Christian theology,
to the new dispensation. He has been unfolding the principle of the
old. He has been discoursing of that law and government under which
all had lived, whether they were prophets or people, whether they were
true prophets or false, whether they were Gentiles or Jews. He has
claimed the high prerogative of a Jew, the prerogative of interpreting
the condition of mankind; of declaring in what relation those stood to
God who had been ignorant of their relation, or who had seen it dimly,
or had denied it. Even when he speaks of John, it is as the Prophet of
the old world; as winding up the witness which previous Prophets had
borne to the Word, from which all the light that was in them had
streamed out. He says nothing yet of any future Teacher to whom John
pointed. And, as we shall see hereafter, when he does come, in due
order, to the part of John's teaching in which he spoke of One whose
shoe's latchet he was not worthy to unloose, it is that he may quote
the memorable language, '_He that cometh after me is preferred before
me; for He was before me. And of His fulness have all we received, and
grace answering to grace._' You cannot hear that fragment of a divine
discourse without perceiving that the object of the Evangelist is to
carry us into the past before he speaks of the future; that he regards
the especial grandeur of the new time as this, that it reveals that
which had been of old, that which had been from the beginning. But it
was absolutely necessary to the coherency and continuity of the
Apostle's statement that he should not introduce these words of the
Baptist--wonderfully as they illustrate the account of his mission
which had been given previously--till he had first made that
announcement which is contained in the text: '_And the Word was made
flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of
the only-begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth_.'

This, my brethren, I regard not as the text of my sermon, but of St.
John's Gospel. I conceive that Gospel is nothing more nor less than
the setting forth how Jesus Christ proved Himself in human flesh to be
that Word of God in whom was life, and whose life was the light of
men, who had been in the world, and by whom the world was made, and
whom the world knew not; how in that flesh He manifested forth the
glory as of the only-begotten of the Father; how He manifested the
fulness of grace and truth. It is because the theology of St. John
comes forth in these human facts that I affirmed it to be a theology
not merely different from the systematic school theology, but the
great deliverance from it. I should, therefore, be departing from my
object and belying my professions, if instead of waiting for the
gradual discovery of the meaning of these words in St. John's story, I
began with thrusting my own meaning into them. All I ought to do,--and
this I must do, for the very purpose of showing you how strict and
beautiful the Apostle's method is, and how much wrong we do to
ourselves and him when we forsake it,--is to point out, very shortly,
the connexion which I trace between this verse and the one that
immediately precedes it.

The Evangelist had said of those who received the Word, '_to them,
gave He power to become the sons of God_.' A new expression--to a
certain extent, a new thought--is brought before us here. We had heard
of the Word as One in whom is life; we had heard that His life was the
light of men. All the language concerning Him had been such as
applies--not to an abstraction, not to an essence, but--to a Person.
But now it is said that those who accept His government, who are
penetrated by His light, acquire a _power_ which they had not before.
They discover a _relation_ which had been hidden from them. It was the
greatest of all their earthly blessings that they had fathers
according to the flesh. A higher blessing is conferred upon them now;
they can act as if they had a heavenly Father. _As if_ they had a
heavenly Father! But are they never to know certainly whether they
have or not? Is the power of becoming sons not to be associated with
the clear consciousness that this is their proper and original state?
'_The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us._' He became a man among
men. We beheld Him, and we know that He was--what He told us that He
was--not an independent Being, but a Son. He was not merely a Light of
lights. We are sure that He was the ground of all human sonship; that
He was the only-begotten of a Father. That higher, more blessed, more
perfect name thenceforth mingled itself with all our thoughts of that
God whom no man hath seen or can see; it turned our thoughts into
trust and worship. The Absolute Truth and Goodness shone forth through
Him. The only-Begotten revealed Him who had been from the beginning.
He opened a new dispensation, because He made us know that God who had
been speaking to us in the old.




DISCOURSE III.

THE TEACHING OF JOHN THE BAPTIST.

[Lincoln's Inn, 2d Sunday in Lent, February 17, 1856.]

ST. JOHN I. 29.

_The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the
Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world._


John the Baptist is represented throughout this chapter as speaking of
One who had been before him, though He was coming after him. This is
the burden of his discourse. It has been asked by the bold critics of
another country, whether such language does not presume a belief in
the preexistence of our Lord, which might belong to one of his
apostles, but could scarcely belong to his forerunner. English divines
ordinarily reply, that the question is one which cannot be
entertained. 'How can we dispute the right of the Divine Wisdom to
make a special revelation of this doctrine to one person or to
another?'

This may be the right method of treating such an objection; but if the
remarks which I made in my two last sermons were true, we are not
under any necessity of resorting to it. I endeavoured to show you that
the principle which St. John asserts in the opening verses of his
Gospel, was far from being characteristically a doctrine of the New
Testament. It belongs to the Old. It is involved in the words, acts,
lives of the Jewish Prophets. It could not indeed be enunciated by
them as it is enunciated by the beloved disciple. There is a largeness
in it which could not be fully realized till the barrier between Jews
and Gentiles had been broken down. Still it was as a Jew--as an
interpreter of the Jewish records--that the writer of the fourth
Gospel spoke of the Word of God. He was not using new language, which
would have startled his hearers. He was expressing, in simple and
familiar language, what others of his countrymen had hidden from the
vulgar under learned phrases and dark conceits. Why is it difficult to
believe that, in doing so, he was recording some of the lessons which
he had first received from the preacher in the wilderness? Was it
strange that he, the last of the Prophets, should utter in more
distinct terms that which all the Prophets before him had been
imperfectly uttering? External evidence would be in favour of such a
supposition. The Baptist was a contemporary of teachers who
notoriously spoke of the light in men's hearts and of the Word from
whom it issued. Many of _his_ disciples became, we know, afterwards
blended with _their_ disciples. There was, however, one all-important
distinction between him and them. He spoke to the hearts of the
multitude,--to the publicans and the soldiers; they spoke to students.
He appealed to those who were conscious of folly and sin; they spoke
of the illumination which was granted to the righteous and the wise.
And that is just the difference which we have recognised between the
statements of the Apostle, the disciple of the Baptist, and those
Alexandrian teachers whom some suppose him to have imitated. It is not
only that his style is simple and childlike. Throughout he speaks of
the light as making men aware of the _darkness_ that is in them.
Throughout he speaks of the light as lightening _all_ men.

Are these reports of the Baptist inconsistent with those which we
derive from the other Evangelists? Are we not told that he came to
level the hills, and exalt the valleys? Are we not told that he bade
his countrymen not say within themselves that they had Abraham to
their father, because God was able of the stones to raise up children
to Abraham? What finer commentary can we find on these announcements
than the words, '_He testified of the true Light, which lighteth every
man that cometh into the world_'?

Still the reader of St. John's Gospel will continue to ask himself,
'Is not the lesson which I am taught here, in some sense or other, a
more advanced lesson than that which was imparted even by the first
Evangelists,--_à fortiori_, than that which was imparted before the
day of Pentecost, before the resurrection, the death, even the
preaching, of Jesus Christ?' I think, my brethren, that there is a
confusion latent in this word '_advanced_'--a confusion which besets
other studies as well as theological. We speak of Bacon's discovery of
the true method of physical investigation, as the greatest step in
advance which it was possible for the man of science to take. But in
another sense that discovery involved a retrogression. The schoolman,
who had proceeded with the greatest satisfaction to himself in
building a tower of speculations respecting nature, is stopped in his
work and bidden to look back to his foundations. Classifications and
generalizations, which had appeared convenient and indispensable, are
disallowed, because they hinder direct intercourse with the facts.
And the laborious collector of facts, though he is commended for his
diligence, is told that every one of them must be submitted to tests
before we can know what it is worth. Is it not true, in this and in
all similar instances, that the greatest progress consists in the
assertion and elucidation of first principles; that when they are
asserted and elucidated, all faithful effort is seen to have been
directed to the search for them,--all unfaithful, self-seeking
efforts, to the construction of systems on hypothetical sand?

Applying this remark to the case before us, I conceive we may freely
say, as some of the early Fathers said, that St. John's Gospel is the
most spiritual and divine of all the Gospels. And we may maintain its
claim to that honour, by showing that it leads us to a grand primary
truth, affecting all human beings, capable of being apprehended by
those who have least of what is called culture, capable of making
itself manifest to the consciences of the most guilty. Does not his
Gospel, _for this reason_, establish the truth of the other Gospels
and Epistles, which had been unfolding the ways of God to men? May it
not, for the same reason, have brought a number of false gospels to
the test, and have scattered a number of windy theories and popular
systems, which, under philosophical or theological pretences, were
separating God from His creatures? Nor can I find anything
inconsistent with reason and probability--or with the doctrine of
Scripture that the Spirit of God brings back to the remembrance of
those whom He is teaching the lessons they received, the states of
mind they passed through in days long past--in the supposition that
the Apostle owed his clear perception of this universal truth, in a
great measure, to the vividness with which the experiences of his
youth were revived in him; the sixty or seventy wonderful years which
had passed over his head since he stood by the Jordan, and saw the
shaggy form and awful eye of him who first spoke to him of a kingdom
of heaven, helping him to take in the meaning of the words which
seized and possessed him then, though he was not able to seize and
possess them.

I have been anxious to make these observations, because it seems to me
that the passage of St. John's Gospel of which I am to speak to-day
will be utterly obscure to us--nay, that the whole Gospel will be
obscure--if we forget them. St. John can in nowise separate the idea
of the Baptist from that of a witness concerning the Light, a
messenger to declare the divine Word that in Him all men might
believe. This he considers the fundamental, radical meaning of his
mission, apart from which his baptism of repentance had no sense or
purpose whatever. But to identify _a man_ as connected with this
teaching--as the subject of it--this was the difficulty. To do this
the Baptist needed a special, formal revelation, accompanied by an
outward sign. The baptism of Jesus, and the visible token that the
Spirit was given Him, are said to have been the assurance which was
required. While he was without it, he was a preacher of the Word who
was with God and was God. He was a preacher of a light of men. He was
announcing, as the prophets of old had announced, that a day of the
Lord was at hand; that there would be a manifestation of the light.
Thenceforth he began to mingle his previous message with announcements
concerning _the Word made flesh_. These announcements are not repeated
as if they were parts of a continuous discourse, like his words to the
crowds that had flocked to him from every part of Palestine. They
come forth as if they were the effect of sudden intuitions--lightning
flashes which must often have been followed by periods of dimness and
darkness. John knew that a crisis was at hand which would try the
hearts of all men. He knew that he was sent by God to speak to their
hearts of Him, as being the same now that He had been in the days of
their fathers. He knew that whatever good was awaiting his countrymen
must come from a fuller revelation of God. This was the preparation,
the only possible preparation in his own mind, for the recognition of
Jesus as the Christ,--the only way in which he could prepare his
countrymen for _such_ a Christ.

We are all aware--we dwell upon the assertion--that the Jews were at
this time expecting a Christ, but that their expectations were of a
wrong kind; that they pointed to a deliverer different in most
respects from the One who had been promised them. We cannot, perhaps,
exaggerate this error, but we may make considerable mistakes when we
try to state in what it consisted. We sometimes say that the Jews were
looking for a great _Prince_. Undoubtedly they were. If they read the
Prophets, they must have looked for a king. The other Evangelists say
that Jesus proved Himself to be a King, and so fulfilled the words of
the Prophets. We shall find that St John says the same. 'Yes,' we go
on, 'a King in a certain sense, but not a _temporal_ king' What! is
not our Lord said to have been born in the days of Herod--to have been
baptized when He was about thirty years old--to have been tempted
forty days--to have kept annual feasts--to have risen the third
day--to have tarried forty days among His disciples after the
resurrection? All the acts which are recorded of Him in the Gospels
were acts done in time. 'Yes,' we resume, 'if you define temporal in
this exact manner. But the Jews thought He was to be an "_earthly_"
king.' And were not all the powers by which He showed Himself to be a
king, exercised upon earth for the sons of earth, for the removal of
the plagues and diseases to which earth is liable? We make another
experiment. We say, they supposed that He was to be a _Jewish_ king.
Could they suppose otherwise? Was not David to have an heir to his
throne? Do not the Evangelists take pains to speak of their Master as
the Son of David?

The Jews of that time cannot be fairly condemned on these grounds; and
yet our conviction that they were under some grievous mistake, gains
strength from all we read of them--nay, from our very failures to
define the quality of it. May not St. John himself explain the error
which had caused him such unspeakable sorrow, better than we can? Have
we not the explanation here?

The Jews looked for one who was _coming_ to be a leader and deliverer.
He might come with the manifest tokens of royalty. He might come as
one of the old prophets had come. It was not impossible that he might
be born in some humble station, for David had been a shepherd. It was
probable that he would be born in a lowly _village_, for Bethlehem was
associated with the name of David. He _might_ be this John, for his
coarse food and raiment certainly did not show him not to be an
Elijah, or an Isaiah, or a Daniel. And John had given this proof of
power, that he was drawing multitudes to hear discourses that had no
apparent charm--that were stern and terrible. It was not at all
impossible, nay, it might be presumed, that when the Christ came, He
would introduce some new ordinance, or give a new force to one
already in use. The river of Jordan had a sacred historical
importance; to wash men in that might denote that he was preparing
Israelites for conquests like those of Joshua. No doubt, other signs
might be added to this in due time; there would probably be strange
appearances in the heavens,--some of the tokens which had accompanied
the rare visits of angels that are recorded in the Old Testament. For
who could tell whether the Christ might not _be_ an angel, the
visitant from another region? Who could tell whether He might not be
an old seer returning to the earth again? There were all these
possibilities. One was stronger in this mind, and one in that. Which
was the truest, the scribes hoped in due time to discover, by studying
the letter of the divine oracles, and ascertaining what particulars of
time and place were indicated in them as necessary conditions of the
deliverer.

What was there faulty in such speculations? What was there to complain
of in the test which was applied to ascertain their worth? St. John
suggests _this_ answer to us. They were expecting one that should come
after all prophets, not one that had been before all. They were
looking for a son of David, a prophet, an angel; they were not looking
for One who had been with God, and was God. They were looking for one
whom they should recognise with their eyes; they were not looking for
One whose light had been always shining in their hearts. They were
looking for a king who should reign over men; they did not think that
that King must be One who had from the beginning been the Light of
men. They thought of one who should be born into the world; they did
not think that He who was to be born into the world was One who was
in the world, and by whom the world was made, though the world knew
Him not.

It was precisely to bring this information, in the only way in which
it could be brought to any human being, that we are told the man John
was sent from God. And because the whole mind of the Prophet was
possessed with this conviction, he was able to receive the
communication which told him that a Man, without any signs of royalty,
without any signs of prophetical dignity, One who had apparently been
born and brought up in Galilee, One who had given no proof that He
possessed any power of commanding the services of multitudes or of
individuals,--was that Christ in whom all the characteristics of King
and Prophet were to meet. This Man, he says, this carpenter's son, was
He of whom I spake, '_He that cometh after me is preferred before me;
for He was before me_.' Possibly a better translation of the last
clause might be found, but the one we have is good enough; it conveys
the sense of the original, though it be a little diluted. The next
verse, as I said last Sunday, is naturally connected with this. Both,
I believe, must be taken as part of John's witness. Here is that
divine Word of God, out of whom all grace has issued. Each right and
true man has had some grace, denoting him to be of divine origin. In
Him dwelt that fulness of grace and glory, of which these were the
scattered rays. Then the Evangelist comments upon this witness, and
connects it with what he had said in the fifteenth verse. '_For the
law was given through Moses, but the grace and the truth became
through Jesus Christ._' Outward law, literal commands, tables of
stone, had been given through a mere man, a mere servant or messenger.
But all the grace and the truth, which were the essence of the law,
which could not be expressed in letters, but only in the lives and
acts of human beings,--these became parts of any man's character
through Jesus Christ. For these belonged to the nature of God
Himself,--these constituted His being. In Himself they could not be
seen: '_No man hath seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, which
is in the bosom of the Father_.' He it is who in all ages has brought
forth the divine perfection, in distinct qualities, and has exhibited
them to men, and in men.

So far we have the testimony of John, originally addressed, it would
appear, to his own disciples--now illustrated and expounded by the
matured wisdom of one of them. Next we have the record of John, '_when
the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask Him, Who art
thou_?' They had a right to know. A new pretender had started up.
Slight as his credentials seemed to be, the people were crowding about
him. He was baptizing, not Gentiles, but Jews; he was treating the
most religious and exalted as if they were impure, as if they needed
the same cleansing as those needed who had not been born in the
covenant. What did it all mean? The messengers must get some clear
distinct satisfaction on this point before they returned to their
masters. '_And he confessed, and denied not, but confessed, I am not
the Christ._' The questioners must have been surprised. If he did not
actually claim a title which so many had claimed, they might have
expected a little hesitation. He might have left the point open; he
might have allowed his scholars to assert the dignity for him. There
was another possibility. Malachi had said that an Elijah would come.
John certainly had few marks of grandeur about him; but he dwelt in a
desert; he did not fear the face of kings; he could have denounced
Ahab and Jezebel, as he afterwards denounced Herod and Herodias. He
evidently understood the question literally, for the messengers
intended it literally. They supposed that Elijah had been carried away
into some invisible region, and that from thence he himself would
descend. Seeing, therefore, that John was not one who trafficked with
words in a double sense, or who would convey a falsehood in the terms
of truth, he answered to this demand also, '_I am not_.' But Isaiah,
Jeremiah, all the Jewish seers, had not only spoken of a great
Conqueror,--they had spoken also of a Sufferer. A few might try to
identify the characters. The prevailing opinion among the Jews was of
course then, as it is now, that they were separated,--one description
denoted a King, the other a Prophet. If he was not a King, was he that
Prophet? And again he answered, '_No_.'

The messengers have exhausted their guesses; they begin to be
provoked. It will not do to go back merely with a set of negatives.
'_Then said they, Who art thou? that we may give an answer to them
that sent us: What sayest thou of thyself? He said, I am the voice of
one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as
said the prophet Esaias._' You see how carefully he associates his
message with that of the old prophets; how confident he is that he is
preparing a way just as they were; how sure he is that it is the way
of the Lord--that wonderful road between the unseen Being and the
heart of His creatures, of which they had one and all spoken. So far
he was using language which belongs to every psalmist and every
prophet. In adopting the words in the 40th chapter of Isaiah, as the
description of his calling and his work, he proved more distinctly
that he was '_sent to bear_ _witness of the Light, that all men
through Him might believe_.' For the burden of that chapter is, that
Jerusalem should lift up her voice, and say to the cities of Judah,
'_Behold your God_;' and it is the beginning of a series of
prophetical inspirations, in which the Jew is represented as holding
up the true image of God to all nations, that the images which they
had made of Him might be confounded. John was preparing the way, then,
for a declaration or manifestation of God; he was clearing away the
thorns and briers which blocked up the path between the Word of God
and the conscience of man.

St. John significantly intimates how little language of this kind
could be intelligible to the Jewish emissaries, for he adds, '_They
that were sent were of the Pharisees_.' Very characteristically they
relieved themselves of the embarrassment which the Scripture always
caused them, when it could not be measured by lines and rules, when it
appealed to the hearts of living men, by asking, '_Why baptizest thou,
then, if thou art not the Christ, neither Elias, neither that
Prophet_?' They had an excuse for urging that demand. It was an
audacious thing for a man to practise such a rite, to press it upon
all, to speak of it as a baptism for repentance and the sending away
of sins, if he had not some divine authority for what he was doing.
Yet he had produced none. And now he refused all the titles which
would seem to have been the warrants for such an innovation. Nor does
he tell the Pharisees when or how he received his commission. His
answer is, '_I baptize with water: but in the midst of you there
standeth One whom ye know not; He it is who, coming after me, was
preferred before me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy that I
should unloose_.' More is not said here. The messengers are not told
what this Person who is in the midst of them would do, which John
could not do; that announcement is reserved for another occasion. The
thought which he still dwells upon is, that there is a mysterious
Being in the midst of them, their Lord and his; One who has power to
command, One whom he is bound to obey. By speaking of the latchet of
the sandal, he clearly intimates that this Person is among them in a
visible form. But neither in that form, nor in His own proper nature,
do they know Him. They would know Him as little if they were told His
name, if He stood out before them, even if He exhibited His power to
them, as they did then. I am warranted in believing that _this_ is the
sense of the words; for we shall find how continually our Lord resorts
to the same phrase in His conversations with the Jews, and assures
them that though they saw Him, they _knew_ Him not.

We have now reached the words of the text. They are carefully
separated by the Evangelist from the discourse with the Pharisees.
'_These things_,' he says, '_were done, in Bethabara, beyond Jordan,
where John was baptizing_. _The next day John seeth Jesus coming to
him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of
the world._' But though the sentence formed no part of that discourse,
it is immediately joined to the words which have recurred so often:
'_This is He of whom I said, After me cometh a Man which is preferred
before me; for He was before me._'

It is evident, then, I think, that we shall never enter into the force
of this wonderful sentence, which has exercised more power over
eighteen centuries, than perhaps any which was ever spoken or written,
if we take it apart from the context of John the Baptist's life and of
his preaching. All have felt that the preacher must have meant those
to behold the Taker-away of sin, who had come confessing their sins,
and to whom he had spoken of the remission of sins; that upon others
the words must have fallen as dull, dead words, in which they had no
interest. Is it not equally true that the words, '_sin of the world_,'
must have been connected by them with what they had heard of One who
was in the world, and whom the world knew not? and with what they had
heard of a light which lighteneth every man who came into the world,
and of a darkness that had not comprehended it? I do not mean that
this discovery to each man of his own darkness, this perception of a
light near him which he had resisted, this conviction in each man that
his sin _was_ the sin of the world, were of themselves sufficient to
unfold the infinite mystery which lay in the Baptist's words. I say of
them, what I said of the verse, '_The Word was made flesh, and dwelt
among us, (and we beheld his glory, as of the only-begotten of the
Father) full of grace and truth_;' all this Gospel is written to
expound them. We must decipher them by degrees, as the Apostle and
Evangelist himself deciphered them; he will lead us along with him, if
we are content to follow. And do not let us be chary and timid in the
demands we make upon him. Let us endure no half explanations that rob
us of any portion of the meaning which must be hid in such an
utterance. Let us have no imperfect substitute for any syllable of it.
For the sake of our own inmost being, for the sake of our brethren, we
want the whole meaning in its fullest strength. If we are told that
there is One who takes away _sin_, we must not be content that He
should be shown to take away some accident or consequence of sin. If
He is said to take away the sin of the _world_, we must not be told
that the world is a metaphor for a few individuals. We must ask why
He who takes away sin is called a _Lamb_,--why he is called the Lamb
of _God_? If a lamb is associated in our minds with innocence and
purity, we must learn how that idea is fulfilled in _this_ Lamb. If it
was connected in the mind of every Jew with the sacrifice of the
Paschal feast, we must ask how this Lamb includes whatever is
expressed in that sacrifice and that feast? I do not anticipate St.
John's answers to these demands; but as he has himself excited them, I
am sure he will prove himself to be an honest and a God-inspired man,
by telling us how they were satisfied for him, how they may be for us.

One thing more he must tell us also, and may God open our hearts to
receive his instruction! John the Baptist says, that he had come
baptizing with water, in order that He might be manifested to Israel
who would baptize with the Spirit. Here is evidently the turning-point
of the two dispensations; here the teaching of John melts away into
the teaching of Jesus; here the witness of the servant is changed for
the witness of the Son. Seeing, then, that St. John takes so much
pains to mark this transition; seeing that the office of Christ, as
the Baptizer with the Spirit, is evidently that which he will
especially dwell upon in the after portions of his Gospel,--let us not
doubt, but earnestly believe, that what we have heard respecting the
Word will be a preparation for this more especially Christian lore,
provided we have not only heard with our outward ear, but have
suffered the light which is shining now, as it shone of old, to
penetrate our consciences and hearts, and to turn them from their own
darkness to the God who dwelleth in perfect light, in whom is no
darkness at all.




DISCOURSE IV.

THE LAMB OF GOD AND THE SON OF GOD.

[Lincoln's Inn, 3d Sunday in Lent, February 24, 1856.]

ST. JOHN I. 46.

_And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of
Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see._


I made no attempt to explain the verse which I took for my text last
Sunday. I merely endeavoured to show you how it was connected with
those which preceded it. I was sure that it would receive abundance of
light from those which come after it. A series of ages, I said, had
confessed the force of the words. We must take care that we do not
allow the strength of any one of them to evaporate in our hands.

Some have been surprised that John should speak of a _Lamb_ who
beareth or taketh away the sin of the world. Was there not another
image which would present itself more naturally to a subject and a
student of the law of Moses? Might not the scapegoat, upon whose head
the priest's hands were laid, over whose head the sins of the people
were confessed, be said more strictly to bear away sins than the
Paschal Lamb? Did not the scenery by which John was surrounded far
more naturally recal the animal who went away into a land not
inhabited? Why should the man whose food was locusts and wild honey go
to a feast for his emblem? Why should the preacher in the wilderness
think of the _Paschal_ feast, which belonged to the city and the
family?

A modern preacher would attach great weight to these considerations.
As a rhetorician, he would be careful to choose the topics which are
most likely to impress his immediate audience. There can be little
doubt that among (what he would call) the types of the Old Testament,
the scapegoat would seem to him far the most impressive. I am not
drawing too much upon your reverence for the man who was 'more than a
prophet,' if I ask you to believe that he may have had reasons, almost
as good, for his course. Some of these we may see more clearly
hereafter; one of them, I think, we may divine now. The disciples whom
John was addressing had heard his call to repentance, had received his
baptism of repentance. They had the sense of a sin close to
themselves, _in_ themselves. To men who have this awakened
consciousness, sin presents itself as a present burden; as such, the
most ignorant, the most simple, feel it and speak of it. We often
fancy that the conscience of poor men only responds to palpable
pictures of future torments. Multitudes of religious tracts and books,
Romish and Protestant, are composed upon this calculation; they are
written _for_ the people. There is one English religious book written
_by_ a man of the people, by one who had endured all possible
anticipations of future misery himself, the habits of whose school
would have led him to press them as the most powerful motives upon
others. The genius of the book has been confessed of late years by
scholars; its power has been felt by peasants in this land, and in
all lands into the language of which it has been translated, almost
since it issued from the writer's gaol. To what is the _Pilgrims
Progress_ indebted for this influence? Certainly to the strength with
which the feeling of evil, as an actual load too heavy to be borne, is
brought home to its readers. It is the man groaning with the burden
upon his back, whom rich and poor sympathise with, whom each
recognises as of his own kindred, who is suffering something which is
incommunicable, and yet which every other man is suffering from, or
has suffered from, or should suffer from. So it is with the tinkers
and ploughmen of England, when they are aroused out of their sensual
sleep; so it was with the fishermen and publicans who were gathered
about the Jordan. They knew they had a burden, an actual burden, upon
them. John's baptism had given them a pledge and witness that it might
be taken from them. Already it seemed to be lightened; sometimes they
could think they were free from it. How could they be delivered from
it altogether? To confess themselves to God was an infinite relief;
they rose up happier men. But did the confession really ascend to God?
Was it possible in deed and truth to approach Him? Was there nothing
to intercept the communion? Was there any one who could interpret them
to Him, and Him to them? Was there any one who knew what they were
feeling? Was there any one who could bear the burden that was crushing
them, not into an uninhabited land, but into the very presence of God?
For was not this burden, after all, a sense of separation from a Being
to whom they ought to be united, apart from whom they could not live?
Had not the light which had come from Him into their hearts brought
this discovery with it? The scapegoat contained, no doubt, a deep
lesson to those who pondered it well; but it was not _this_ lesson--it
was not one which those could take in who were feeling sin as an
inward torment pressing upon their hearts. The Paschal _Lamb_ spoke of
a deliverance from bondage; it spoke of a deliverance as coming from
God; it spoke of an offering to God. The thoughts which the name
suggested might not be distinct; they might be hard to reconcile with
each other. But the cravings which it met, though importunate, were
also apparently contradictory. It awakened hopes; the satisfaction of
them might come hereafter.

But if John had merely spoken of an animal, let it have what
associations with Jewish or with human feeling it might--let it be the
aptest symbol in the world--the impression upon disciples who had been
stirred in the inmost depths of their souls as his had been, would
have been a very faint one. It was because he pointed to an actual
Man, and said of Him, '_Behold the Lamb of God_,' that he spoke with
power. Those who were suffering from a burden might desire to cast it
upon God, might doubt if any one but He could sustain it. But who
could understand their grief, who could feel its pressure, except a
Man? All their sympathies and wishes pointed to a Man. Yet hitherto
John had discoursed of a Light and of a Word. To that message their
hearts had replied. It was that which had effected all the change
within them. Was he now altering the tone of his preaching? Was he
beginning to tell them of some one of whom they had not heard before?
He removes that suspicion at once. The old sentence recurs again, but
with a variation: '_This is He of whom I said, After me cometh a_ MAN
_which is preferred before me; for He was before me_.' He goes on:
'_And I knew Him not_.' This assurance jars with some of the
thoughts which pictures that are dear to us have awakened in our
minds. We can hardly separate the infant Christ from the infant
Baptist. We feel as if the reverence expressed in the words, '_His
shoe's latchet I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose_,' had begun
in the earliest years of their sojourn upon earth, and had been
maturing ever since. I rather fancy we weaken the effect which we
might derive from the artist's symbols, by endeavouring to give them
an historical value to which they can certainly make no pretension. It
is not that these pictorial traditions are based upon passages in the
other Evangelists, and that they are only at variance with St. John.
St. Luke speaks of Jesus as being taken by His parents into Galilee
after His circumcision. He speaks of John being in the deserts until
the day of his showing to Israel. St. Matthew interposes the flight
into Egypt between our Lord's nativity and His dwelling at Nazareth.
Both surely favour, rather than contradict, the strictest
interpretation of the saying, '_I knew Him not_.' I do not say that we
are absolutely obliged to adopt that strictest interpretation. But we
are, I conceive, obliged to conclude that no external acquaintance or
relationship had the least effect upon John's knowledge of Jesus, in
that character in which He was revealed to him at His baptism. The
Apostle is evidently very anxious to impress us with _this_
conviction. Few as are the words of his old Master which he reports,
these are emphatically repeated. It belongs, I think, to the very
design of this Gospel, to show us that John came to testify, first, of
the Light of the world, then of that Light as manifested. '_That He
should be manifested to Israel_,' he says in the next verse,
'_therefore am I come baptizing with water_.' That He might be
revealed as what He is; that through His flesh the glory as of the
only-begotten of the Father might shine forth; that the inward eye of
men might be purged to behold Him in His true character and in His
true relation to them,--this has been the end of my preaching, and of
the outward rite that accompanied it.

'_And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from
heaven like a dove, and it abode upon Him. And I knew Him not: but He
that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom
thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, the same
is He which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw, and bare record
that this is the Son of God._' That there should be an outward sign
visible to the eye, a Dove lighting upon the head of a Man,--that
there should be a Voice speaking to Him,--this is a great scandal to
many readers and critics in our day. 'Are not these,' they say, 'the
ordinary tokens of mythical narratives? Are they not what always
awaken our suspicion in the records of the Old World or of the Middle
Ages?' Yes, brethren, in the Old World and in the Middle Ages, men
alike felt the need of outward signs to testify of inward realities.
They felt it because they _were_ men, separated from each other by
place, by customs, by language, by religion,--but alike in being men;
alike in their conviction that there must be an outward world which
they could see, and an inward world which they could not see. It is
equally true that in the Old World and in the Middle Ages, the
sensible thing was confounded with the spiritual, the sign was
substituted for the thing signified; and that hence arose all kinds of
superstition and idolatry. It is true, also, that in those days and in
later days--in _these_ days most especially--people create for
themselves a middle world, neither sensible nor spiritual, in which
there are no signs, because there is nothing to be signified; in which
there are only forms and abstractions of the intellect, some of which
are distinguished as religious forms, some as ethical or
philosophical, pleasant to the vanity of those who have need of
nothing, and can keep themselves alive by talking and disputing, but
vague, unreal, utterly tormenting to men who are seeking a home and a
father. St. John does not dwell in this limbo of vanity. He is _like_
the writers of legends, in so far as he assumes that there are signs,
and that there are realities which correspond to the signs. He tells
us that when God was about to reveal the greatest of all realities to
the spirits of men, He vouchsafed a sign of it which was discernible
by the eye. He is _unlike_ the writers of those legends, in so far
forth as they rested in signs, or forgot in the signs that which they
denoted. The Dove is to him the sign of a Spirit, which would enable
Him in whom it dwelt without measure, to rule his own senses and the
world of sense. The Voice was a witness that a Man who had flesh and
blood was really and actually the Son of God.

John the Baptist has still more to declare concerning signs, and that
which they signify. He had baptized with _water_. The water had spoken
in language clearer than any which can be put into letters, of
cleansing, of purification. Those who had received it had come to it
because they were sure that they needed the blessing of which it
testified. They had come because they believed, more or less clearly,
that God had ordained the rite, and that He alone could bestow the
blessing. But the preaching of repentance for the remission of sins
had made them aware that the evil was in a region which the water
could not reach. Had it, then, been all a delusion? Was this rite, new
at least for Jews, a mere phantasy, less powerful even than the rite
of circumcision which had not prevented them from being treacherous to
each other, and from blaspheming the name of God? Was the stern
speaker of truth a mere mocker, trifling with the consciences which he
had himself aroused? If his baptism was from himself, he was. If it
was bearing witness of One who had come to men in past days, and given
them power to become sons of God, the baptism was good because it was
His sign and instrument. But the sign of what? Surely the sign of some
process that was taking place in the spirits of men. And if so, would
not that process be declared whensoever He was declared? Would not the
baptism thenceforth be the assurance that a power adequate to the
purification of that which was defiled, to the restoration of that
which was decayed--adequate to the renewal of the whole man--was
bestowed by Him who had in all times given those who received Him
power to become sons of God? '_Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit
descending, the same is He which shall baptize with the Holy Ghost._'

'_Again, the next day after, John stood, and two of his disciples, and
looking upon Jesus as He walked, he said, Behold the Lamb of God._'
The words, '_which taketh away the sin of the world_,' are not
repeated, at least not in the best manuscripts. They had been spoken
once. Now the Lamb of God had been connected with a new and higher
name. John had borne record that this was the _Son_ of God. All the
dignity and wonder of the former title were attached to Him still.
There was an awe about _this_ which must have made the disciples
wonder, but yet which attracted them. '_They heard him speak, and
they followed Jesus._' The story of their intercourse is most simple.
There is no mysterious concealment; there are no surprising incidents.
'_Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek
ye? They said unto Him, Rabbi, (which is, being interpreted, Master,)
where dwellest Thou? He saith unto them, Come and see. They came and
saw where He dwelt, and abode with Him that day; for it was about the
tenth hour._' What is there in such a record to detain us for an
instant? Only _this_, brethren; it is the beginning of the history of
Christendom, of the whole new world. This meeting of these two
men--one of whose names we do not know, the other whom we do know to
have been a Galilæan fisherman--with Jesus of Nazareth is the first
step in a movement which has in some way or other changed the life,
polity, relations of mankind. If it is so, we may consider with
ourselves, in some quiet hour, _why_ it is so? Perhaps we may find
some other explanation than that which St. John gives--that the Man to
whom these disciples came was the Light of men, and that He proved, by
contact with those who had least light of their own, that He was
_their_ Light. Or perhaps we may find that interpretation, on the
whole, the best: and then we shall not seek further, but lay that to
heart.

The three next verses bring us a step further in the history; they are
still of the same character. '_One of the two which heard John speak,
and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first findeth
his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messias,
which is, being interpreted, the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus.
And when Jesus beheld him, He said, Thou art Simon, the son of Jona:
thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone._'
We found how hard it was for the Pharisees to make out a conception of
the Christ, though they pored continually over the Scriptures, and had
a series of interpreters to assist in divining the sense of them. And
here this unlettered fisherman--unlettered probably in the strictest
sense--boldly tells his brother that he has found the Christ. He is
sure that he has. He can bid him come and see whether it is a mistake.
'What fanatical confidence!' every scribe would have exclaimed--nay,
did exclaim--as soon as he learnt what these fishermen were believing.
Should not most of us say the same if we spoke our minds? For what had
Andrew to convince him? He had seen none of the miracles upon which we
say the evidence of Christ's mission rests. We may be sure that he had
not heard Jesus say that He was the Christ; for He scarcely ever did
say so. And on what, then, was his faith grounded, that faith which
England has accepted for somewhat more than a thousand years? I do not
know, unless the Light of the world made him feel that He was the
Light of the world--unless the King of men made him feel that He was
his King. But I also do not know, brethren, upon what your faith and
mine is founded--on what the faith of all the men that have believed
during the last eighteen hundred years has been founded--upon what the
order and civilization of all the earth has been founded, except it be
upon that same revelation of a Light and of a King, which made Andrew
say these words to his brother Simon.

And now He who has received this name from a disciple, bestows a name
upon a disciple: '_Thou art Simon; thou shalt be called a Stone_.' The
creatures were brought to the first Adam, that he might say what was
the name of each. If this was the second Adam, He could say to any
one of His human creatures, 'That is thy name; understand by it what
is the work I have given thee to do.' Simon Peter, after many
perplexities and falls, did learn fully the meaning and force of his
new name. He declared to the Jews at Pentecost, he declared to
Cornelius the heathen, that Jesus had been proved to be both Lord and
Christ. A society of Jews and Gentiles grew up which recognised Jesus
as its Corner-stone. Lest they should fancy that he or any mere man
could be a rock or resting-place for them, he wrote an Epistle
specially to show that his Master is the Corner-stone, elect,
precious, on which men are builded together a spiritual house; that
such a spiritual house cannot be overthrown; that any spiritual house
which is built on any weaker foundation, which has any other stone or
rock, must be destroyed.

'_The day following Jesus would go forth into Galilee, and findeth
Philip, and saith unto him, Follow me. Now Philip was of Bethsaida,
the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto
him, We have found Him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets,
did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph._' Philip does not go
in search of the Lamb of God, as those did who heard John speak. Jesus
is said to find him, and to speak the words, 'Follow me,' which he
obeys. The effect is the same as in the former case--only Philip is,
perhaps, a little more courageous: he speaks confidently of this as
the Person to whom all the holy men of old were pointing. He speaks so
even while he makes the offensive announcement, 'He is Jesus of
_Nazareth_, the son of Joseph.' From what place the new teacher came,
was nothing to the young disciple. He had proved Himself to him to be
the King over his heart. Whose son He was called was nothing. In the
most living sense He must be what John had called Him--the Son of God.
Hereafter doubts and questions might arise upon these points; the
Prophet's words respecting the city of David might have to be
reconciled with this apparently Galilæan origin of the new Teacher;
explanations might be given respecting His parentage. For Philip all
this was premature and unnecessary. The deepest knowledge must come
first; the other would follow when it was wanted.

The same truth forces itself upon us still more mightily in the answer
of Nathanael to his friend: '_Nathanael said to Philip, Can there any
good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see_.
_Jesus saw Nathanael coming to Him, and saith of him, Behold an
Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile! Nathanael saith unto Him,
Whence knowest thou me? Jesus saith unto Him, Before that Philip
called thee, when thou wast under the fig-tree, I saw thee. Nathanael
answered and saith unto Him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art
the King of Israel._'

Nathanael, who was apparently a Galilæan, might not have the same
prejudice against Nazareth which would have been natural in an
inhabitant of Judæa. But there is another prejudice, often hinted at
by our Lord, which is quite as hard to overcome. Can a prophet appear
in _our_ neighbourhood, close to us? Must he not come upon us from
some more sacred region? The Galilæans, who were despised by others,
must have learnt to despise themselves. All their habits of mind must
have prepared them to expect that Jerusalem, or some place near it,
would be the seat and birthplace of the great King. There was,
therefore, at least as much ground for doubt and unbelief in this
man's mind as in that of any learned scribe. Nevertheless he comes,
and he is hailed a genuine Israelite, an Israelite without guile. The
first title might seem only to claim the dweller in any part of
Palestine as of the same stock, a true child of Jacob; but that which
is joined to it marks out the man himself as a wrestler with God--one
who had sought to purge his soul from deceptions--one who believed
that God desired truth in his inward parts, and would make him to know
wisdom secretly. It was a wonderful commendation; but what was the
warrant for it? Till then Nathanael supposed that his face had not
been known to the speaker; how much less his heart. _Had_ they met for
the first time? Had he never sat and kneeled beneath the fig-tree, the
favourite place of secret devotion to the pious Israelite? Had he
never wrestled for light to himself, for blessings to his country? for
the scattering of its worst enemies--which were also his
own--covetousness, pride, falsehood? for the revelation of its
promised Deliverer? '_There, before Philip called thee, I saw
thee_;--I had conversed with thee.' Nathanael heard and wondered;
there was no more debating within him about Galilee or Judæa, Nazareth
or Bethlehem. A flood of light was poured into his soul, not through
chinks and apertures in the prophetical oracles, but from the clear
heaven where God dwelt. 'Rabbi, Thou art He whom I have sought after
with cries and tears, that none but Thou hast known of. Thou hast
often been with me before. I behold Thee now. Thou art the Son of God;
thou art the King of Israel.'

And then came a promise and assurance of a mightier blessing, of a
fuller revelation hereafter to him, and to multitudes unborn,
'_Because I said, I saw thee under the fig-tree, believest thou?
Thou shalt see greater things than these. And He saith unto him,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open,
and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man_.'

'Faithful and true Israelite! the vision to thy progenitor who first
bore that name shall be substantiated for thee, and for those who
trust in me in lonely hours, through clouds and darkness, as thou hast
done. The ladder set upon earth and reaching to heaven,--the ladder
upon which the angels of God ascended and descended,--is a ladder for
thee and for all. For the Son of Man, who joins earth to heaven, the
seen to the unseen, God and Man in one, He is with you; through Him
your spirits may arise to God,--through Him God's Spirit shall come
down upon you.'




DISCOURSE V.

THE MARRIAGE FEAST.

[Lincoln's Inn, 4th Sunday in Lent, March 2, 1856.]

JOHN II. 11.

_This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and
manifested forth His glory; and His disciples believed on Him._


The word '_Miracles_,' which our translators have adopted in this
verse, gives little trouble to a reader. He thinks of some singular,
glaring effect, which makes men wonder, and which they can refer to no
known principle. That effect he calls a miracle. To produce
astonishment is the immediate object of him who works it; to convince
those who see it, and those who are told of it afterwards, that he is
not subject to ordinary laws, and has the power of setting laws aside,
is his ultimate object.

Such thoughts, I say, are suggested naturally enough by the word
Miracle. It is otherwise with the word '_Sign_' (Σημεῖον), which St.
John uses himself. That word is simpler in sound than the other, but
it gives rise to a longer and more troublesome inquiry. Outward
display, the excitement of wonder, departure from rule, have no
necessary or natural connexion with it. The name drives us to the
question, 'A sign of what?' And all these qualities--supposing they
were present in the sign--would not help us to answer the question. In
the case before us, the act of turning water into wine--in which the
miracle is supposed to consist--cannot be separated from the other
parts of the narrative: together they constitute the sign. And to find
the signification of the sign, we must have recourse to the first
chapter of the Gospel; we must ask St. John himself to tell us why he
has introduced it, and how it bears upon the subject of the history.

'_On the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the
mother of Jesus was there._' On the third day, no doubt, after the
events which we were speaking of last Sunday. What were those events?
A preacher who had drawn crowds by his word, who had attached to him
some devoted disciples, had spoken of One mightier than he, who was
coming after him, but had been before him. He had pointed to a certain
man. He had said of Him, '_Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away
the sin of the world_.' He had said that he came baptizing with water,
on purpose that this person might be manifested to Israel as the Son
of God, who would baptize with the Holy Ghost. Two of those who heard
these words, we are told, followed Jesus. They invited others, saying
that they had found the Christ. One or two more Jesus Himself called
to come after Him.

What expectations were these men likely to form of their new Master?
All their deepest impressions had been received from John. Would not
He whom John declared to be greater than himself exhibit all His
characteristics in a higher degree? They had first seen Jesus in the
desert. Might not that be His favourite home? Would not He be more of
a solitary, more of an ascetic, than His predecessor? Would not He,
whose origin was said to be heavenly, be more withdrawn from the
things of earth, than the man who said he was not worthy to unloose
the latchet of His sandal? This was a reasonable supposition. There
was another, which would strike many as even more reasonable. The
Christ was associated with thoughts of royalty. He might be the very
reverse of John; not one who could converse familiarly with disciples;
not one who could speak words of friendly admonition to publicans and
soldiers; but one who would walk aloft, asserting the dignity of His
descent, claiming to rule the people, impatient of even seeming to
belong to them.

On the third day came a sign which showed how far either of these
expectations corresponded to the truth. There was a marriage in Cana
of Galilee, and Jesus was sitting there beside His mother. This is the
appearance He made to those disciples who had heard Him described by
such magnificent titles,--to those disciples who had learnt to look
upon the desert life, the life that is withdrawn from all family
relations and sympathies, as the specially holy and prophetical life.
And yet it is clearly no august regal marriage which is taking place
at Cana. A homely, rustic wedding,--one in which there is feasting and
merriment, but no pomp. To this He is bidden; and those fishermen who
had joined Him are bidden too. They are called His disciples. They had
but lately seen Him or known Him, but they are already fast bound to
Him. As His disciples they go with Him, not into a far-off desert, but
to a wedding-feast in a little town.

Here is surely the sign of a change,--a change the very reverse,
perhaps, of what we were looking for. We are coming nearer to the
common earth, to those bonds which connect the inhabitants of earth
with each other, to those which touch all earthly feelings and earthly
interests. The next incident surely does not weaken this impression.
The wine at the feast is said to have failed. We might easily have
formed some vague notion of a festival that was different from all
others, marked by no vulgar events; at least we might have wished that
these should be kept out of sight--that we should not be informed of
them. St. John, the divine, the theologian, does not indulge us in
this wish. He is determined that we should understand it to have been
an ordinary wedding-feast, at which men drank as at others. '_The
mother of Jesus saith unto Him, They have no wine._' Whatever meaning
we may discover in the words when we know who spoke them and to whom
they were spoken, they are plain words, the announcement of the
plainest fact. Some interpreters suppose that Mary only intended to
say, 'Let us withdraw, that the deficiency may not be apparent.' I
like their honesty, their determination to find the simplest sense
they can; but if we consider what _must_ have been the intercourse
between Mary and her Son for so many years; if we remember that a
crisis had come in His life, which must have appeared to her the
fulfilment of all her expectations concerning Him; if we remember that
He was now gathering about Him a set of disciples; it surely is most
reasonable to suppose that these words expressed her desire that He
should, and her belief that He would, put forth some unwonted power
which had been latent in Him hitherto. The old Scriptures told how
Elisha had used his divine powers for the relief of ordinary
necessities,--to heal, for instance, the waters which might have
poisoned the sons of the prophets. Was it strange that a devout reader
of these Scriptures should think that her Son might prove He had
divine endowments in like manner? It belongs to the very nature of a
woman, to the finest part of her nature, to think that power is best
exerted in individual cases, for individual needs. What we are apt to
regard as too mean and minute occasions for a divine might, she
measures by a wiser and more loving rule. The distinctions of little
and large are forgotten, as they ought to be, when the Eternal is in
question. The most blessed of women ought to have exhibited this
tendency in its highest degree. In doing so, she was not degrading Him
whom she loved and reverenced most; she was judging rightly for what
ends His powers on earth would nearly always be put forth.

But yet there _was_ a weakness in this feminine eagerness. There was a
thought that a mere circumstance or necessity could determine the
exercise of an internal energy. And this is what He appears to rebuke
in the next sentence. '_Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour
is not yet come._' A comparison of this passage with one in the
seventh chapter of our Gospel, in which Jesus uses a similar
expression to His brethren when they urged Him to go up to the feast
at Jerusalem that He might make Himself known openly, shows that He
designed to tell His mother that no events or outward motives could
decide when it was right for Him to do a work,--that the Spirit which
He had received without measure was regulating His acts--that He must
be always doing His Father's business. Such an intimation, conveyed to
the one who in all this world knew Him best, who had most inward
sympathy with Him, was no discouragement to her faith,--rather was
certain to awaken it. The power would come forth, not in obedience to
her call, but to a more lofty, more divine, impulse. She could say,
therefore, to the servants, without hesitation or anxiety,
'_Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it_.'

I believe, my brethren, that all these passages in the story just as
much belong to the sign, are quite as essential elements of it, as
anything which follows. Nothing can be more simple or brief than the
passage which comes next. '_There were set there six water-pots of
stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two
or three firkins apiece. Jesus saith unto them, Fill the water-pots
with water. And they filled them up to the brim. And He saith unto
them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they
bare it. When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was
made wine, and knew not whence it was: (but the servants which drew
the water knew:) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom, and
saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine;
and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast
kept the good wine until now._' It cannot have escaped you how
carefully St. John informs us that not even the ruler of the feast,
the taster of the wine himself, knew whence the wine came; he merely
makes an idle, merry observation about it. Most of those who sat round
him were probably just as ignorant and as little concerned about the
matter as he was. The servants may have wondered at what they saw; but
their wonder had so little to do with the intention of the act that
the Apostle does not stop to notice it. Very little, then, of the
notion which we affix--honestly and etymologically affix--to the word
_miracle_ has any application here. There was no effort to produce
surprise; if surprise was produced, it led to no conviction. Not one
of those who tasted the water that was made wine, _simply on that
ground_ believed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God.

What, then, was signified by this act? What force lay in it? I can
only beg St. John to tell us. He says, '_This beginning of signs did
Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth His glory; and His
disciples believed on Him_.' What glory did He manifest? In all
fairness and reason, we must again consult the writer of the words
about the sense which he puts upon them. He had said, '_And the Word
was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the
glory as of the only-begotten of the Father,) full of grace and
truth_.' I said, when we met with this passage in the last chapter,
that it was evidently the text of the whole Gospel. The Gospel would
either show how the Word made flesh manifested His glory to those
among whom He dwelt, and how that glory was as of the only-begotten
Son full of grace and truth, or it would fail of its purpose, it would
belie its name. Of the Word it has been said before, '_that all things
were made by Him: that in Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of
men_.' The manifestation of His glory, we might surely then expect,
would include a manifestation of Him as one who exercised creative
power, as one in whom the Life that quickens all things dwells
inexhaustibly. One might expect that this Life, if it was exhibited
upon _things_, would still be in some very remarkable sense an
illumination of _men_. But one would be certain that that illumination
_could_ not be outward to the eye. As life is internal, as all its
movements and operations are secret, though its effects are so
palpable; so the Light which proceeds from this Life--that which is
emphatically the Light of _men_, as distinguished from mere
animals--must be light penetrating into the inner being, filling the
heart, reason, and conscience, scattering darkness in _them_,
preparing _them_ hereafter,--since the Light is not put into any one
to be hid under a bushel, but to be set upon a candlestick,--to show
forth what had so marvellously affected and changed them, to the
world.

Now, if we consider the sign in Cana of Galilee with these thoughts in
our minds,--which we have not invented for ourselves, but derived
straight from the Evangelist,--I cannot doubt that all its different
aspects will come out very harmoniously before us.

The first aspect of it is that which is brought before us in our own
Marriage Service. Christ is said to have 'adorned and beautified the
holy estate of matrimony with His presence and first miracle that He
wrought in Cana of Galilee.' This has been the conclusion at which the
reason of the most thoughtful men has arrived, and to which the
instinctive feeling in all has responded. If Jesus was the Word made
flesh, if the order of the world was established by Him, then His acts
upon earth would be done for the purpose of vindicating this order. By
them He would claim it as His. By them He would say that it did not
belong to the evil one. Marriage, as one of the fundamental parts of
this order, as one of the earliest institutes of humanity, as one that
had suffered most from abuse, would be one of the first over which He
would assert His dominion. And because the ordinance is one in which
all are interested, we should look for the assertion to come in some
distinct and yet very general way; not, I mean, in a broad
proclamation, or in a maxim which is forgotten speedily or frittered
away in the application to each individual instance; not again in some
case clothed with circumstances that take it out of the common range
of cases, not the wedding of a king or of a saint, but one of which
every peasant as well as every king might say, 'This tells me to whom
_I_ must look to bless my wedlock, because He is the Author of it.'

Then, again, that part of the story which refers to the mother of
Jesus becomes, I think, clearer when we contemplate it in this light.
Romanists are puzzled by it, Protestants exult in it, because it seems
to put a kind of slight upon the Virgin. But Protestants and Romanists
agree that Jesus had a divine Father and a human mother. If this act
was one of the manifestations of Him as the Son of God, can anything
be more natural or consistent than that it should be introduced by
words which declare that He could not be in subjection to any earthly
authority, while yet the act itself was an act of ministry to even the
commonest necessities of the sons of earth? Is not this apparent
contradiction the accomplishment of His work, the exhibition of Him in
His complete character? He will _not_ be the servant of His creatures,
not even of His mother; He obeys the Will, which all are created to
obey. He _will_ be the servant of His creatures: He is come into the
world for that end. He is doing the will of His Father when He is
stooping to the lowest of all.

But if this be our judgment of two parts of the sign, it must, I
think, greatly modify, if not alter altogether, the apprehensions
which we have formed of the third part, that which concerns the
turning of the water into wine. We cannot regard the main
characteristic of the marriage and the marriage-feast as being their
commonness, their similarity to what is going on in every part of the
world--to what is going on among ourselves; and then make the essence
of that which our Lord did at the feast consist in its uncommonness,
in its unlikeness to everything that is done elsewhere--to everything
that is done among ourselves. We must abandon one habit of feeling or
the other. Which we shall abandon depends, it seems to me, upon the
strength or the weakness of our faith in St. John's assertion, that in
Him who sat at that feast was life and that all things were made by
Him. If we take those words literally, if we suppose the Evangelist to
mean what he says, then we must assume that what happened then was but
an instance of the working of a universal law. We shall conclude that
all living processes--be they slow or rapid, be they carried on in the
womb of nature or through the intervention of human art--have their
first power and principle in Him, that without Him nothing could
become that does become. Such a belief undoubtedly carries us into
great depths and heights. It increases the wonder with which we regard
every dynamical discovery. But it does not interfere with any
discovery. It gives solemnity and awfulness to the investigations of
science. It forbids trifling in them. It stimulates courage and hope
in them. It makes all superstitious dread of them sinful. The Word,
who is the Light of men, will Himself teach those who seek humbly and
diligently to enter into those operations of life of which He is the
first Mover.

But there are other thoughts connected with this word _Life_, which it
is impossible to sever from it in any case, and which suggest
themselves more directly than any others when the subject is a
wedding-feast and the turning of water into wine. Life has a relation
to joy, which is as close as the relation of death to sadness. Our
minds become confused upon this point. We talk of the burden of life.
We talk of death as delivering us from this burden. But these are
careless expressions, against which the conscience of man rebels. The
Scripture is in harmony with the conscience. It speaks of our carrying
about with us a burden of _death_ from which we need to be delivered.
If it ever speaks of the moment of departure from the world as a
moment of deliverance, it is because, as the poet says, 'Death itself
there dies.' In creating the wine, then, which is said in the old
Scriptures to make glad the heart of man, which had been a symbol of
joy as well as of life to the heathen--the symbol of high inspirations
even when it was actually acknowledged to be the cause of the lowest
animal degradation--the Son of Man was claiming to be the Giver of all
joy, to be the Redeemer of all joy, even in its humblest earthliest
forms, from that which had made it base and inhuman. In what sense the
Source of Joy was also the Man of Sorrows, St. John will tell us in
due time. There is something which binds this very story of the feast
at Cana to His deepest sorrow. Mary has not appeared before in this
Gospel; she never appears again till we meet her beside the cross. She
knew that a sword was to pierce through her soul, at the very time
when she was asking her Son to prove Himself the Lord of nature and
the Giver of delights to man. One work did not interfere with the
other. He could not be really the Word made flesh unless He fulfilled
both.

And now, then, we may understand why we are told so expressly in the
text that '_He manifested forth His glory, and that His disciples
believed on Him_.' Who were these disciples? One of them must have
been that Andrew who told his own brother Simon, '_We have found the
Christ_.' One would have been that Philip who said to Nathanael, '_We
have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and the Prophets, did
write_.' One would have been that Nathanael who said, '_Rabbi, thou
art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel_.' Not one of these
had received a sign or a miracle to impart to them these convictions.
The witness of John concerning the Light, met by the witness in their
own hearts, the manifestation to those hearts that Jesus was the Light
of whom they had heard,--this was their preparation for the
marriage-feast and for what passed there. Because they _had_
acknowledged Jesus and _had_ become His disciples, with a feeble,
imperfect, confused knowledge of course, but with a desire of the
knowledge which they should receive from continual converse with Him;
_therefore_ the sign of the water being made into wine had a meaning
for them which it had not for others; _therefore_ it was to them a
manifestation of His glory; _therefore_ it gave them a belief in Him,
as answering to John's testimony, which they had not had before. An
outward exercise of power strengthened their belief in a power which
lay entirely beyond the region of their senses. They were sure that a
sign had been given them that He who blesses marriage, He through whom
all things live, He from whom all men derive their light and joy, was
actually dwelling among them.

I have been the more careful in considering this subject, my brethren,
because St. John records it as the _beginning_ of the signs which
Jesus did. It is not recorded in the other Evangelists. It is told
here as if the whole scene had come back to the mind of the old
Apostle; as if he had been at that feast, and felt himself transported
there again from his chamber at Ephesus. I think there must have been
a reason why that day was brought again to his remembrance, why he was
enabled to describe it so briefly yet with such distinctness. People
in that age, as we know from St. Paul's Epistles, as we might have
guessed if we had not this decisive information, were prone to set
great store by the powers which had been bestowed upon the Church to
manifest the presence of the Holy Spirit within it. From magnifying
the powers, they had passed, by a natural process, to magnify the
outward effects of these powers; then, to exult in them because they
were strange and peculiar. St. Paul had urged the Corinthians to
remember that all gifts were bestowed for use, and not for show; that
it was better to speak five words which could be understood and might
be profitable, than to speak a thousand words in an unknown tongue,
unless it were interpreted. In spite of these exhortations, the _sign_
was no doubt gradually losing itself in the _miracle_. The unseen
Presence, which could not be recollected without a sense of awful
responsibility, was far less thought of than the display which could
be made in the eyes of the ignorant. Whenever such a temper begins to
prevail, we may be sure that tricks, impostures, lies in the name of
Christ and of God, will spread rapidly; the spirit of falsehood will
creep into the heart which has confessed its allegiance to the Spirit
of truth. Ephesus, we know from the Acts of the Apostles, had been a
favourite home of the magician and the enchanter. In the first fervour
of their belief in Him who is the way and the truth and the life, the
Christians had burnt their books and abjured their lying trade. But
St. Paul, as he told the elders of the city, dreaded that after his
departure grievous wolves might come in among them. There was no
sheep's clothing these wolves were more likely to wear than this.
Reverence for Christ's miracles might be made an excuse for practising
all old heathen arts and enchantments in His name. How suitable a work
for the aged disciple of Christ to lay his axe to the root of this
deception! How fitting a thing was it for him to say, 'You talk of the
miracles of the Christ. I remember the first of them all. I remember
what it taught me then, what it teaches me still. It was not an
enchantment; it was not a wonderment. It was a sign of His presence in
whom is all grace and truth, who was manifested that He might put down
all falsehoods whatsoever, and who will put them down at the last.'

It was the beginning of signs. I do not say that our examination of it
will save us from the trouble of examining each new sign as it comes
before us. By rigorously adhering to that name, as St. John does, we
assume that each has a signification of its own. We shall find them
all very different from this in their circumstances, in some of their
internal characteristics. But I believe that if we follow out the line
of thought into which I have endeavoured to lead you this afternoon,
and if we make St. John's first chapter the expounder of his object in
every subsequent narrative, we shall be delivered from innumerable
difficulties by which the study of miracles generally, and of each
particular miracle is beset. To those who tell us that a Church which
can work miracles is a true Church--to those who speak of miracles
done with a serious purpose in former days, or of miracles done for
the amusement of men that crave for some new thing in our days--we may
make the same answer. The Scriptures teach us to care for no miracles
except so far as they are signs. Of what are your miracles signs? Do
they signify that the Word who was made flesh is not continually
acting in the affairs of men now? If so, they contradict those signs
which we confess to be true signs, those which have signified to us
and to our forefathers that all life is in Him, that all light is from
Him. Or _do_ they say this? Then they say what every marriage is
saying just as clearly; what our ordinary food and wine, what the
growth of trees and flowers, what the plough of the husbandman and the
laboratory of the chemist are such pledges of as your miracles can
never be. God may perform wonders to break the chains of sense, to
make us aware that He is always at work. We are sure that He will not
enact wonders to rivet the chains of sense upon us, to turn away our
thoughts from Him to some low earthly agent. Only a wicked and
adulterous generation seeks for such wonders, for such signs. The
signs which will be given to it, if it does not repent, are signs of
fire and of blood, the slaughter of the first-born, the cry in the
Temple, 'Let us depart.' But if we receive the beginning of signs
which Christ gave us in Cana of Galilee, all common things will become
sacraments of His presence. The husband and the wife will confess that
He has united them. We shall receive the water and the wine both as
His gifts. He will drink the new wine with those who come at His
bidding to give thanks for the blood which He poured out for the
redemption of the world.




DISCOURSE VI.

THE CLEANSING OF THE TEMPLE.

[Lincoln's Inn, 5th Sunday in Lent, March 9, 1856.]

ST. JOHN II. 16.

_Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of
merchandise._


The first three Gospels have been sometimes called the _Galilæan_
Gospels; the fourth, the _Jerusalem_ Gospel. The distinction would be
a very false one, if it implied that our Lord's relation to Jerusalem
was not present to the minds of the earlier Evangelists, or that St.
John overlooked His relation to Galilee. In the ninth chapter of St.
Luke's Gospel, we are told that Jesus set His face to go to Jerusalem.
All the chapters which follow refer to events which took place in that
journey, and contain discourses relating to the end of it, and to the
city itself. In the thirteenth, we hear of His sending a message to
Herod, that a prophet could not perish out of Jerusalem; in the
nineteenth, of His looking down upon Jerusalem and weeping over it.
The climax of the narrative, not only of St. Luke, but of St. Matthew
and of St. Mark, is the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, to be hailed as
a king, to die as a malefactor. On the other hand, St. John presents
his Master to us in the midst of Galilæan disciples. He carefully
omits any allusion to the birth at Bethlehem; he records the first
manifestation of His power and nature as given at Cana.

But though these observations show how easily the supposed difference
between these narratives may be exaggerated and perverted, they do not
prove it not to exist. We have no hint in the first three Evangelists
of Christ's presence at any of the Jerusalem feasts, between that in
His twelfth year and that which preceded His crucifixion. The scene of
the most memorable acts and discourses recorded in St. John, is laid
at Passover, Tabernacle, Dedication feasts, to which He had come up
from Galilee. The three Evangelists speak of Him continually as
teaching in the synagogues; only at the close of His ministry as
teaching in the Temple. The second manifestation of our Lord spoken of
by St. John is when He drove out of the Temple those who were selling
and buying in it.

This narrative is the most signal instance of discrepancy between St.
John and the other Evangelists which we shall meet with in our whole
course. An act similar, in nearly every particular, to that which our
Gospel appears to connect with the period immediately after Christ's
baptism--before the Baptist's imprisonment--is said in the others to
have been performed when He was about to keep the last passover. 'May
not these reports,' it has been asked, 'refer to the same transaction?
Need we suppose that St. John troubled himself about chronology? May
not his recollections of events at which he was present have been
united by some other thread than one of years or days? Oftentimes we
may have observed how a word evokes a train of slumbering thoughts.
Why may not he who had just been speaking of the first _sign_ which
Jesus did, have been led on by that name to the question of the Jews
in the eighteenth verse, "_What sign shewest Thou that Thou doest
these things?_"'

Such a method of removing a grave difficulty might be reasonable
enough. But is there a grave difficulty--is there any difficulty--to
be removed? There is no internal improbability in the supposition that
our Lord inaugurated His ministry by one act of purification, and
wound it up by another. If we accept the one Evangelist as an
authority for the first, the three for the second, we gain, I think,
what more than compensates us for an apparent repetition. We acquire a
deeper sense of the meaning of the Temple, of the relation in which it
stood to the Jews, to mankind, and to Christ. We understand better
what the three Evangelists mean when they say that the disciples
thought that the destruction of the Temple must be the end of the age,
of their world; what St. John means when he speaks of the temple which
would be destroyed and raised again.

Some commentators upon the Scriptures, who really wish to understand
them, but who feel entangled by the habits and notions of their own
time, lament that they cannot reproduce the state of feeling which
belonged to the Jew when he gazed upon his temple, or entered within
its precincts. 'What help,' they say, 'lies in the descriptions of the
most accurate and lively travellers? What should we gain by beholding
them with our own eyes? We need to annihilate time as well as space.
The mind of the people who gazed eighteen hundred years ago upon these
spots will not come back to us merely because we are able to receive a
tolerably correct impression of the spots themselves.'

I confess, my brethren, that I am quite unable to sympathise with
these complaints. I do not think it requires any effort of
imagination to realize the state of mind of an ordinary Jew, as he
walked through the city of David, or stood upon the holy hill, in the
days of Herod and of Pilate. If we realize the state of mind of an
ordinary citizen of London, walking in our streets, or entering the
Abbey which contains the sepulchres of our kings and poets, we shall
not need any other aid to bridge over the chasm which divides us.
Occupation with everything that is before us, with the news of the
hour, with the private business which we have most in hand,
indifference and torpidity about the past,--these would be our general
characteristics. They may be varied by our greater or less interest in
architecture--our desire to maintain or confute some architectural
theory--by national pride, if we should be making our buildings known
to foreigners--by a certain painful sense that we ought to put our
minds into a sentimental attitude. Do you suppose the case would have
been different with the Jews? Do you suppose there was any charm in
the outside of the Temple, which forced a sensual money-getting race
into a more elevated or more serene habit of feeling than that which
we drop into? Do you suppose that their sacred traditions, their
glorious history, their divine calling, must have broken the charm of
custom for them, or have lifted the incubus of the world from their
hearts? If you do, you adopt a notion which the Scriptures confute in
every line. They never tell us that the gravitation of the Jewish soul
to earth was less strong than that of other men. They never represent
the Jew as wanting one bad and base tendency which belongs to you and
me. The evidence which the Bible has produced of its veracity to
people of all conditions, in all countries, the most unlike outwardly
to those of whom it speaks, is this, that it shows us creatures in all
_inward_ respects like ourselves, as little capable of being moved by
present signs or by records of the past, out of chillness and death,
as we are.

Accordingly, what spectacle is it which the passage I am considering
brings before us? The spectacle of no appalling crime, of none of
those hideous and revolting acts which we know from the Jewish
historian were perpetrated at the time, and in which the religious
sect of the day had its full share. It is a spectacle which had become
familiar to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, which every Pharisee had
continually before his eyes when he went into the Temple to
pray,--most glaringly, it is probable, during the most sacred
festivals. Within, the priests offered the regular sacrifices;
without, in another part of the house, there was a market for sheep
and oxen; there were seats for the money-dealer. The practice was so
regular, so sanctioned by prescription, that no one thought anything
of it. The pious Jew was no more scandalized by it than the pious
Englishman is scandalized by reading an advertisement for the sale of
a living. If we have distinctions which satisfy our consciences
between the disposing of an actual cure of souls and of the right to
endow another with such a cure,--if a line, sometimes invisible to the
naked eye, separates the sin of Simony from deeds which laymen may
lawfully do, and by which clergymen may lawfully benefit,--the people
of Jerusalem had distinctions just as recognised, quite as capable of
being defended in argument. The _holy_ place might not be approached
by any profane feet; that was sacred indeed to the Lord. But the outer
court--why might not that be left for ordinary traffic? Perhaps the
separation of the priests from the mere throng of worshippers--above
all, from the Gentile who might be found among them--was better marked
by the concession of this privilege. At all events, it was a privilege
guaranteed by usage to the trader. If it was disturbed, would he not
probably become disgusted with his country's sanctuary altogether?
Might he not betake himself to some Roman temple,--to a worship which
was more associated with amusement, if not with business?

I do not know that this calculation was altogether a wrong one. I do
not suppose that if the Sanhedrim had chosen or had been permitted by
its masters to prohibit these markets, any moral benefit would have
been gained for the nation. For what had made the Temple holy and dear
to any Jew of that day or of former days? Not its situation, not its
having been built by the wise king, not its having been restored after
the captivity, not the goodly stones with which Herod had adorned it.
No! but the sense of an invisible glory; the belief that God--whom no
man had seen at any time--had been pleased to meet His people there.
Could any Jewish laws restore this conviction when it had departed?
Could regulations to protect a certain enclosure from pollution give
rise to anything, except despicable subterfuges, except the vilest
hypocrisy, when the only ground and warrant for these regulations was
forgotten, when those who would have made them as little confessed the
Divine presence as those whom they would have excluded. For this--this
was the secret of the Jewish desecration of the Temple. The priests
who ministered at the inner shrine did not, for the most part, believe
in the Divine presence more than the people who sold sheep and oxen
without. A trade was going on in both places. There it was a traffic
with God; here it was a traffic among men. The awe of One who dwelt
with them, who revealed Himself to them, whose righteousness was their
strength, had been exchanged for the fear of One who might call them
to account for their treacheries to each other if they withheld their
customary and toilsome services from Him.

The preacher in the wilderness had been taught that, when a nation has
reached such a condition of rottenness as this, it is not enough to
lop off withered branches; the axe must be laid to the root. When the
Scribes and Pharisees came to him, he told them to bring forth fruits
of repentance, fruits which would show themselves in the Temple as
well as the market. But he did not visit either the Temple or the
market. Jesus concerned Himself with both. '_He went into the Temple,
and found them that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of
money sitting. And when He had made a scourge of small cords, He drove
them all out of the Temple, and the sheep and the oxen; and poured out
the changers' money, and overthrew the tables._'

Some who read this story say, that it offends their notion of our
Lord's dignity. Could He, with His own hand, chastise these traders?
Some say, it offends their notion of His benignity. Could the
All-Merciful exhibit such wrath against a tolerated, perhaps an
unconscious, profaneness? Before we consider these opinions, it may be
well to hear what the disciples felt, when they saw Him with the
scourge by whom they had sat at the feast, whom they had hailed as the
Giver of the marriage blessing, as the Inspirer of joy. '_They
remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me
up._' These words came unbidden into their minds. His look, His
voice, expressed all that they had ever heard of the vehement
earnestness with which kings and prophets of old had felt the
pollutions of God's Temple, and had sought to purge it of them. Josiah
and Ezekiel revived in Him. He had forgotten Himself. He was possessed
by the spirit that possessed the men of old. There was a fire burning
in Him that could not be quenched, till it had consumed all the chaff
from the threshing-floor.

Such was their impression at the moment. Looking back upon it after
all later events had interpreted it, St. John felt that this was a
manifestation of grace and truth, as much as the making the water
wine, or the healing the sick. For he had learnt that a gracious Being
must be intolerant of that which is ungracious, that a true Being must
seek to destroy falsehood--that falsehood most which is nearest the
heart of a nation, the altar of God. He felt that this wrath must have
reached its highest point in the most gracious, most true Being, in
Him from whom all had received their portions of grace and truth. He
felt that this wrath must have been least restrained in Him by any
thoughts of what would look well in the eyes of men. What were all the
notions which he had formed about dignity or comeliness? The Word made
flesh was making it manifest that every punishment of every wrong doer
was administered by Him; that whatever agents He may employ to purify
his Church, to inflict vengeance upon those who have defiled it, the
rod is really in His hand,--that it is He who directs and measures
every blow.

But St. John saw more in the act than this. He had said in his former
chapter, not only, '_We beheld Him who was full of grace and truth,
Him of whose fulness we had all received_,' but '_We beheld His
glory, as the glory of the only-begotten of the Father_.' He teaches
us to recognise a manifestation of _this_ glory, also, in the driving
the money-changers out of the Temple. '_Jesus said to them that sold
doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of
merchandise._'

The zeal which devoured Jesus was surely a zeal for the house of that
God to whom Solomon had prayed, '_Lord, wilt thou in very deed dwell
upon earth?_' It was for the house of that God whom kings and prophets
had worshipped between the cherubim. But which of these had dared to
use the language which He used? Which of them had ever said, 'It is
the house of _my Father_'? It was a _new_ name,--a wonderful and awful
name. And yet the whole force of the testimony which Christ bore for
the old building--for the house in which their fathers worshipped--lay
in this name. If that house was not to be a house of merchandise--if
it was ever to be that again which holy men had believed and found it
to be--this new name must remove its debasement, this new revelation
must restore its greatness. No other could suffice to undo the
hypocrisy of the priests, because that hypocrisy came from their
thinking that the house was theirs--from not believing that there was
any relation between themselves and Him to whom they offered their
worship and their sacrifices. If there was a man who could call it 'my
Father's house,' heaven and earth were not at the distance they
thought and hoped,--their Judge was very near. On the other hand, no
revelation but this could have brought the outer court once more into
union with the inner court, could have made both parts of the house of
God. For the reason why the people traded in that court, and felt they
had no business anywhere else, was that they had no belief that God
cared for them, or that there was any fellowship between them and Him,
except through those priests who were the barriers to all fellowship.
If Jesus of Nazareth, the poor man, one of them, could say, 'It is my
Father's house,' the publican might feel then,--even the Gentile might
feel afterwards,--that there was a house for him; not a place for
selling sheep and oxen, and changing money, but a refuge from the
weariness of merchandise, from the haggling and lying of the world, in
the presence and heart of a Friend who giveth to all liberally, of One
who is altogether righteous and true.

In after days we shall find the Jews felt the boldness of this
language, and made it their principal charge against Jesus that He
dared to use it. On this occasion it seems to have fallen dead upon
their ears. Their question is not, '_What sign shewest thou seeing_'
thou sayest this, but '_seeing thou doest these things_?' They meant
nothing more, I suppose, than, 'Why dost thou, a mere Galilæan
stranger, take upon thee to drive out these oxen? A prophet might do
it--perhaps even a zealot, if he was a Levite, and claimed the honours
of his ancestor Phinehas, might do it--but what sign canst thou
produce that such an office belongs to thee?' I do not find more in
_their_ demand than this; but the answer of our Lord refers to His
previous words as well as to theirs. He could not give them a sign
that He had a right to cleanse the Temple, which would not also be a
sign that He had a right, in the strictest sense, to call the Temple
'His Father's house.' You must recollect that this was the claim He
had to make good, if you would understand Him when He says, '_Destroy
this temple, and in three days I will raise it up_.'

The sentence was, of course, enigmatical. The Jews regarded it simply
as the language of a fanatic or a madman. '_Forty and six years_,'
they said, '_was this Temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in
three days?_' St. John evidently indicates that it was not much more
intelligible to him and to his fellow-disciples, when they first heard
it, than to their countrymen. But he says a time came when they did
understand it. '_He spake of the temple of His body. When therefore He
was risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said
this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word that
Jesus had said._'

Are we to suppose that the _third_ day of the resurrection was the key
which unlocked our Lord's meaning? No doubt that was an outward help
in the discovery of it; but it would have been a most imperfect help,
if they had not attached a meaning to the resurrection which had
nothing to do with days or years. By raising Jesus from the dead, God
declared Him to be His Son. This was St. Paul's language to the
Romans,--this was the very substance of his preaching. By raising Him
from the dead, He declared that in Him all the building fitly framed
together grew to be an holy temple in the Lord. This was his language
to those Ephesians among whom the son of Zebedee was now dwelling. It
was the resurrection, then, which taught the disciples that the body
of Christ was that real temple of God, of which all stone temples had
been the symbols,--that in this only the fulness of God dwelt,--that
in this the prayer of Solomon, that God, whom the heaven of heavens
could not contain, would dwell with men upon earth, could be actually
fulfilled. Some critics say there is an awkwardness in supposing that
our Lord pointed to His own body when He spoke of destroying the
Temple; and that if He did not, the Evangelist would seem to charge
Him with using words in a double sense,--so deceiving His hearers. I
do not see why we should imagine Him to have pointed to His body; why
His eyes may not have been fixed on the building which He had called
His 'Father's house.' He did mean, that, if they destroyed _that_
house,--if their money-worship, falsehood, hypocrisy, brought it to
utter ruin, and it was at last given up to Roman soldiers,--there was
a house not made with hands, which was all that Solomon's, in the very
best and noblest conception of it, had tried to be. He meant certainly
more than this. He meant that they might and would try to destroy the
outward fabric of _this_ more glorious temple; but that in three days
the dead body would come back from the tomb, and be proclaimed to the
world as God's own everlasting habitation. You may call this a double
sense of words, if you like; but by _such_ double senses deceptions
are not caused or promoted--they are cleared away. The Jew was
labouring under a terrible deception; he was practising a continual
equivocation. The Temple of the Lord was a sacred place to him,--he
gloried in possessing it; yet he did not in his heart believe that God
was meeting His creatures, holding any intercourse with them, caring
for them. The building itself, therefore, acquired a reverence in his
mind which was apart from reverence to God, nay, fatal to that
reverence. God was absorbed in the Temple. The inward thought of the
priest was, that if it perished God would perish. Hence arose infinite
contradictions in his practice, alternations of scrupulosity and
profaneness. Now the money-changer is permitted to sit within it,--now
a cry is raised that a Stephen speaks evil words against the holy
place, and must be stoned. There was but one way of breaking down
this habit of mind: it was to affirm and prove that the Temple was
not a fiction,--that the belief of the elder men respecting it was not
a fiction,--that God and man were not divided,--that the prophecy of
their complete fellowship was not an idle prophecy leading to
nothing,--that men might draw nigh to God, as to a father, on the holy
hill of Zion; because there was an only-begotten Son, whose body was
filled with that Spirit which would raise it out of the grave.

No; our Lord did not deceive the Jews when He gave them the fullest,
truest sense of their own Scriptures, of their own calling and
history. If any words, any acts could have undeceived them, they would
have been His. Alas! when money-worship has reached the vitals of a
nation, when it has entered into the house of God, the very words and
acts of the Son of God may not purge it of its delusions,--they may
take their shape and colour from these delusions. May God avert the
_omen_ from our land, from our Church! May He enable us to believe
that every building in which He permits us to worship Him, and to
present before Him the finished sacrifice of Christ, is indeed the
house of our Father, because of His Father! May every chastisement He
sends to us, individually or nationally, be viewed by us as a scourge
with which He is cleansing His temple of them that sell and them that
buy in it,--of our corrupt traffickings with our own consciences and
with Him! May He help us to believe in Christ's incarnation and
passion, that we may attain to the full glory of His resurrection, and
may find in it the proof that His body was the temple of the Holy
Ghost, and that ours are to be temples holy and acceptable unto Him!




DISCOURSE VII.

THE NEW BIRTH.

[Lincoln's Inn, Palm Sunday, March 16, 1856.]

ST. JOHN III. 3.

_Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee,
Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God._


It is undoubtedly right to connect the beginning of this chapter with
the latter verses of the preceding one. '_Now when He was in Jerusalem
at the passover, in the feast, many believed in His name, when they
saw the miracles which He did. But Jesus did not commit Himself unto
them, because He knew all men, and needed not that any should testify
of man: for He knew what was in man._' I must ask you here, as
everywhere else in St. John, to substitute the word _signs_ for
_miracles_. Our unfortunate adoption of this last word--which cannot
be referred, as some of our careless translations may be, to the
following of the Vulgate, for it has _signs_--has sadly weakened and
perplexed the Evangelist's statements. _Here_, for instance, he does
not tell us _what_ the acts of Christ were which were done at the
passover. He does not say whether He healed the sick, or cast out
devils. He fixes our attention on this point,--that the acts were
received by many of those who were gathered at the feast as signs.
'_They believed on His name._' The word _name_, in every part of
Scripture, expresses that which is invisible. It is the contrast to an
idol, or that which may be seen. Even idolaters recognised the _name_
of the god as that which was expressed by the outward image, as that
which only the mind could recognise. We cannot, then, give less force
to the phrase, '_They believed on His name_,' than this,--they
confessed a power within Him which put forth these outward
manifestations of itself. We should not try to be more definite when
we are describing the vague feelings of a people. One moment they
might think, '_Some_ divine power is at work in Him; He is _a_
Prophet.' At another, 'He is _the_ Deliverer, the King we are looking
for.' The passover was a time at which such opinions were most likely
to be discussed, when parties were most likely to be formed about any
new leader. The words which follow, '_But Jesus did not commit Himself
to them_,' indicate, I think, that such a party was ready to gather
itself round Him. He did not covet their support. He did not show the
least desire to make use of their services, as one claiming to be the
Christ might have done. But the language was capable of another sense.
It might denote the caution of a chieftain who was waiting till he had
sounded the dispositions of his followers, till he had assurance from
some competent witnesses of their fidelity. The notion of such
prudence in One who came to give His life for the world, of such need
of information in Him whose life was the light of men, was utterly
revolting. St. John adds, that the reason of His not committing
Himself to this party was, '_that He knew all men, and needed not that
any should testify concerning Man: for He knew what was in Man_.' They
were not to discern and choose Him; He was to discern and choose
them. He was not a King that a faction was to set up; He was the
original Lord of men--ruling them not as a stranger, not as one who is
separate from them, but as one possessing the most intimate knowledge
of that which is distinct and peculiar in each man, and of _the_ man
that is in all.

That there should be many in the crowd at the passover--many of the
ignorant expectants of a Christ--who thought that Jesus had given
sufficient signs of His right to the name, is not surprising. They
might be all the more willing to recognise Him, because He seemed to
be of their class. But these signs had affected some to whom the
thought of a Galilæan peasant must have been utterly scandalous.
'_There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the
Jews: the same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we
know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these
signs which thou doest, except God were with him._' The words express
more than an individual opinion. Nicodemus must have been conversing
with other members of the Sanhedrim. A suspicion that a new
_Teacher_--perhaps a Prophet--with some unusual powers, had appeared,
might be diffusing itself through the body. _Whence_ the powers were
derived, whether the prophet was true or false, were still questions
to be asked. It was a further question whether the Prophet had any
claim to be considered the Christ. The people might easily arrive at
that conclusion; a ruler would be disposed to reject it. Yet it might
be the true one. Nicodemus would evidently like to know. He could not
take the rash step of putting himself under the banner of one who
might lead him to rebellion; but he would ascertain the fact
privately, if he could.

The reply meets the thought in the heart of the speaker, not the words
he had uttered. 'You wish to know whether I am about to set up a
kingdom. "_Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born
again, he cannot see the kingdom of God._"' The phrase 'kingdom of
God,' or 'kingdom of heaven,' is one which is continually recurring in
the first three Evangelists; it may be said to be nearly their most
characteristic phrase. It is not characteristic of St. John; he uses
it rarely. But if we want a commentary upon every passage in Matthew,
Mark, and Luke, in which it is to be found; if we want to know why we
hear of it in connexion with the parables,--why the Gospel which the
Apostles were to preach is called the Gospel of this kingdom,--I
should point you to this verse and to the conversation which follows
it. Nicodemus was expecting, in some way or other, to _see_ the
kingdom of God. Signs were to show who the divine King was; He would
present Himself in such wise to His people, that they should have no
doubt of Him and His authority. All this he thought would be granted
by God, if He fulfilled His promises, and raised up the Son of David
to sit upon David's throne. Was the hope a wrong one? Could less than
a clear demonstration be a warrant for accepting any being clothed in
human flesh as the divine Prince and Deliverer? Verily, nothing less.
They must see the kingdom of God. It must reveal itself to them with
an evidence which they could not gainsay. It must lay hold upon them
as its subjects, _de facto_ and _de jure_, with a compulsion not
weaker but mightier than that with which the Roman empire had laid
hold of them. The arguments of the Christ must be as decisive in their
own kind as the arguments of the Cæsar.

But were they of the same kind? Our Lord says, '_Verily, verily, I
say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom
of God_.' This language does not occur for the first time in our
Gospel. We heard before that the divine Word '_came to His own, and
His own received Him not. But as many as received Him, to them gave He
power to become the sons of God; which were born not of flesh, nor of
blood, nor of the will of man, but of God._' Here is the announcement
of another kind of birth from that which we call the natural birth.
And yet it is not a portentous, _un_natural birth. If the doctrine
which is the foundation of this Gospel is true; if the Word that was
with God and was God is Creator of men; if His life is the light of
men; those who entertained His light, those who did not refuse to be
penetrated by His life, became what they were meant to be: they
fulfilled the purpose of Him who called them into existence. The power
which He gave them to become sons of God was a power to become _men_,
in the true sense of that word--to rise above the condition of
animals.

When, therefore, our Lord tells Nicodemus that only those who were
born again, or born from above (there is a justification for each
rendering--ἄνωθεν, perhaps, unites the force of both), can see the
kingdom of God, He tells him that the vision of the true state of
man,--of that order which is intended for men,--is only given to those
who receive the Light which lighteneth all men. Theirs is the nobler,
better birth--the divine birth; and theirs is the power of perceiving
that kingdom which surrounds all men, to which all are subject, but
which, being the kingdom of God, and not the kingdom of the Cæsar,
does not act upon men through material armies, and tax-gatherers at
the receipt of custom,--does not manifest its power and majesty to
the outward eye. This kingdom is over the man himself, not over his
accidents and circumstances; he must be a man, not a creature of these
accidents and circumstances, in order to see it; and that capacity of
being a man he must derive not from flesh and blood, but from the
Father of his spirit.

This conversation by night must have been remembered and recorded by
Nicodemus himself. As he repeated it to St. John,--probably long after
that day when he came with spices to anoint the body of Jesus in the
tomb,--the words which had been spoken to him, and the words which he
had spoken, must have come fresh to his memory; the meaning of the
one, the deep ignorance of the other, seen by the light that fell upon
them from the experiences and the revelations of after years. As he
was an honest man, he did not suppress or soften his own answer to the
'_Verily, verily_,' of Christ. '_How can a man be born when he is old?
Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb, and be born?_' In
truth, he had no cause to be ashamed of himself for having stated his
difficulty in that rough way. To veil it under seemly phrases would
have been no evidence of enlightenment.

The Jewish doctors, it is said, not uncommonly described the Gentile
as one who became a little child, who began his life anew, when he was
received by baptism into the privileges of their outer court. If so,
Nicodemus must have been familiar with the expression; but it must
have been to him, and to most who availed themselves of it, a mere
figure of rhetoric--one of those counters which pass among religious
people, which have a certain value at first, but which become at
length so depreciated that they serve no purpose but to impose on
those who take and those who give them. However little Nicodemus might
know of Jesus, he did know that He was not resorting to figures of
rhetoric--that if He spoke of a birth, He meant a birth; and he must
have perceived that what He said did not apply to sinners of the
Gentiles, but to him, the religious ruler of the Jews. It was,
therefore, a good and healthy sign, a proof of the power of the new
Teacher, that he forgot the conventionalisms of the Sanhedrim, and
spoke out coarsely and naturally, as a peasant might have done. Our
Lord, surely, passed this judgment upon him; for, instead of rebuking
him for his question, He meets it in the most direct manner possible:
'_Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be
born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of
God._' The object of Nicodemus in coming to ask Him about His kingdom,
is still kept prominently forward; but there is a noticeable change in
our Lord's words. He had spoken of _seeing_ the kingdom of God; He now
speaks of _entering_ into it. Each expression may, unquestionably
does, involve the other; still they are distinct. To _see_ a kingdom,
is to have an apprehension of its reality and of its nature; to
_enter_ into a kingdom, is to become a subject of it. And then the
thought forces itself upon us, 'How can any one choose to become a
subject of God's kingdom? _Is_ he not a subject of it necessarily? If
God is the King of kings and Lord of lords, can he escape out of His
kingdom? Is he not bound by the laws of it, whether he likes them or
no?' We cannot state this difficulty to ourselves too frequently; we
cannot meditate upon it too earnestly. Our consciences tell us that we
_are_ the subjects of God's kingdom; that its laws do bind us; that
they avenge themselves upon us when we break them. But our consciences
tell us, also, that there is rebellion in us against that which holds
us so fast, which executes its decrees so certainly. This is the
contradiction, it exists--it is a fact, _the_ fact, of our lives. No
theories can get rid of it. But who shall tell us _how_ to get rid of
it? Before we can understand what could remove it, before we can even
ask with any seriousness to have it removed, we must know and feel how
deep the contradiction is. Suppose the government of God should be a
government over our wills, rebellion in those very wills must be the
most fearful we can conceive of. And the entering into the kingdom of
God must import the return of the spirit of man to its allegiance,--the
claim of a voluntary spiritual being to be under the will with which
it is its misery to be at strife. John had come preaching, '_the
kingdom of God is at hand_,' calling men to repentance, baptizing with
water, proclaiming One who would baptize with the Holy Ghost. When
Jesus says to Nicodemus, '_Except a man be born of water and of the
Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God_,' He takes up the
teaching of his forerunner, He expounds his act, He announces the
fulfilment of his promise. The being baptized with water, He declares
to be the act of submission to the Father of spirits,--the sign which
a man gives that he accepts His government, that he surrenders himself
to it. It is a surrender,--that is the only word we can find,--a
confession by the human will of its impotency. It must be guided,
governed, inspired, or it can do nothing, it can only struggle against
its blessedness. The acceptance, therefore, of this water-sign, by a
creature conscious of his own irregular strivings, of his separation
from God, is the expression of a desire that God would act upon his
will, would raise it to its proper condition, would quicken it to the
acts and impulses which belong to it,--in other words, would baptize
it with the Spirit.

We see, then, how water and the Spirit are connected with the entrance
into the kingdom of God,--the kingdom over the spirit of man. Our Lord
goes on to explain that He had used the word _birth_ in its relation
to both, not carelessly, but strictly. '_That which is born of the
flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit._' One
is as true and actual a birth as the other. The coming forth of the
fleshly creature into light, its beginning to breathe, the voice which
accompanies that breathing, are not more undoubted facts--very
mysterious facts _they_ must appear to all who reflect upon them--than
the coming forth of a spirit out of its darkness, than the sense of
light which startles it, than its breathings, than its cry.

I have introduced this thought concerning breath and the voice of the
new-born child, because it seems to me to connect itself with the
words which follow, and to remove a confusion which our translation of
them has introduced into our minds: '_Marvel not that I said unto
thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and
thou hearest the sound thereof but canst not tell whence it cometh, or
whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit._' The
philological objections to this rendering of the words are very
numerous. In the first place, ἄνεμος, not πνεῦμα, is the
proper word for _wind_. But suppose, by reducing the wind to a faint
low breathing, we escape from that objection, there is the second,
that πνεῦμα is used twice in the same sentence in different senses.
Yet this is a slight fault compared with the next. We actually
attribute _will_ to the wind; it blows where it listeth, ὅπου
θέλει. After this flagrant departure from all scriptural and
spiritual analogy, it is scarcely necessary to mention another, which
is, nevertheless, not unimportant, and is of the same kind. Φωνὴ is
the articulate voice of a living being; it is here changed into a
natural sound. Now, wherever violence is done to the truth of
language, I believe more or less of violence is done to some higher
truth. What need have we to introduce the sighing and soughing of the
wind, in order to make our Lord's explanation more clear and forcible,
if we understand Him to say,--'All the breathings of God's Spirit are
free, not fixed and fettered by material or mechanical conditions. You
hear His voice continually; but whence the Spirit comes, whither it is
going, you know not. And so it is with him that is born of the Spirit.
The process of birth cannot be perceived by you; you hear the voice
which indicates birth, you see the signs and tokens of life; but how
the spiritual being came to be what he is, you know not.' If we take
this to be what our Lord told Nicodemus, and what He is telling us,
are we not to learn that, at every moment of the day, the Spirit of
the eternal God is moving around us, speaking to us, acting upon us;
but that His mightiest operation, that which alone fulfils His purpose
towards us, is when He enables us to become the willing servants and
children of our Father in heaven?

'_How can these things be?_' asked the doctor of the Sanhedrim, in a
bewilderment which many of us can well understand. It was, indeed, a
strange new world into which he was transported; it seemed to him a
world of dreams, because he had been himself so much amidst dreams,
because he had known so little of realities. '_Art thou a master of
Israel_,' was the rejoinder, '_and knowest not these things?_' 'What
hast thou been learning all thy life? what hast thou been teaching thy
countrymen? Hast thou not been reading of an unseen God, who holds
converse with men,--of a God of the spirits of all flesh? Hast thou
not believed that this God is a living God, as He was when He appeared
to Moses in the bush? when He touched the lips of Isaiah with fire in
the Temple? Hast thou not understood that He is thy God, as much as He
was the God of any Israelite to whom the commandments were spoken on
the Mount? Hast thou not bidden the people of Israel of this day to
believe that He is _their_ God?' '_Verily, I say unto you, That which
we have known, we speak; that which we have seen, we testify._' 'This
is the characteristic of every true teacher, of every called prophet.
This has been the characteristic of John; this is mine. We do not
speak things that we have learnt by report--things that have been
transmitted to us; we speak the truths with which we have been brought
face to face.' '_And ye receive not our testimony._' 'These things we
tell you of, because they are about you, because you are created to
know them, and have fellowship with them. And you turn away from them
in search of things that are at a distance from you--of formalities
and trifles which you call by lofty names, which give rise to endless
disputings, but which do not concern you as human beings in the
least.' '_And if I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not,
how shall ye believe if I tell you of the heavenly things?_' 'If these
things which have to do with your daily lives, which bear upon your
ordinary business, which you can test by the experience of your
failures and your sins,--if _these_ seem to you incredible, how will
it be if I speak to you of God Himself, of His purposes, of His
nature?'

His words imply that He has a right to speak of these things also,
that He is _able_ to speak of them. On what ground could a power so
amazing rest? He goes on to declare the ground of it: '_For no man
hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even
the Son of Man which is in heaven_.' Of all paradoxes, this appears to
be the greatest. And yet if the heart of this ruler--if the heart of
any man--has been delivered from the oppressive fears and
superstitions that connect themselves with the thoughts of a distant
heaven in _space_, which looks coldly and drearily down upon earth--of
a distant heaven in _time_, which stands aloof from all human
sympathies; if ever the belief in heaven has been regarded as a spring
of hope and energy to the sons of men; if ever they have learnt not to
think of earth as a place in which they were to cozen and lie for
threescore years and ten, and heaven as a place to which some might
escape, if they made compensations to the Ruler of it for the evils
which they had done in the other region of His government; that
deliverance, those better and nobler thoughts have come from the
paradox which is uttered in this verse. Poor people--utterly
bewildered by all they have heard from divines and masters in Israel
about heaven, and the way in which they are to obtain heaven--have
taken this sentence home to their hearts,--that the Son of Man, He who
suffered for them and with them on earth, is He who has ascended into
heaven, and who is always in heaven. They have entered into the
kingdom of heaven with those spirits which were born of the divine
Spirit, as they entered into the kingdom of earth when they were born
of the flesh; they have seen the kingdom with the spiritual eye which
God has opened, as clearly as they have seen the trees and flowers of
earth with the fleshly eye which He has opened.

How He opens that eye, and what He reveals to it when it is opened,
the next words will tell us. '_And as Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up: that
whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting
life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world;
but that the world through Him might be saved._'

How can I introduce such a passage as this at the close of a sermon?
Because I would not allow my sense of the immense worth and importance
of every clause, of every word, of which it consists, to hinder you
from tracing the method of our Lord's discourse. The question about
the kingdom of God lay at the threshold of the dialogue. Here He
declares how He is to claim His kingdom, to what throne He is to be
raised, that all men might confess Him as their King. Jesus might have
spoken of the exaltation of David or of Solomon as the pattern of His
own. He goes back to an older and sublimer event in Jewish history.
The brazen serpent to which the eyes of those were turned who had been
bitten by the serpents in the wilderness, the common life-giving,
life-restoring object,--this was the sign which He chose of that
dominion which should stretch from sea to sea, which should reach to
the lowest depths, and work the mightiest deliverance. 'You would know
if I am a King. You will see me lifted upon a cross: there you may
learn what I am. Whoso sees the Son of Man, his Lord and King
there,--whoso believes and trusts Him there,--will rise up indeed a
new man, will be saved from the plague which is destroying him, will
awaken to health and freedom. He will not perish in his wretched,
selfish isolation; he will have that life which is the common life of
all.'

And why? He will see there the love of God to him and to the world.
The only-begotten Son upon that cross will declare Him as He has
always declared Him; but the revelation will be immeasurably fuller
and clearer than it has ever been. He from whom men have turned as
their enemy, as plotting _their_ destruction, as pledged to destroy
the world, will be manifested as their Saviour and its Saviour. That
which has been the curse and misery and death of man, his separation
from God, his hatred of God, will cease for those who believe that in
this Son of Man He is making known what He wills, what He is. They
will have that eternal life of trust and love which is His own life.

And therefore He goes on: '_He that believeth on Him is not condemned:
but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not
believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God. And this is the
condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved
darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every
one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light,
lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to
the light, that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought
in God._' The belief that Jesus does by His cross manifest the tender
love of God to mankind, that in Him God's whole will and mind and
purpose are revealed to men,--this takes away the condemnation from
their consciences; this restores them to trust and liberty and hope.
And therefore, conversely, _not_ to believe this, is to have a sense
of alienation and distance from God, to feel that there is an abyss
between us and Him which has never been closed--an abyss into which we
are casting our sacrifices and works of devotion, in the dream that it
may at last be filled up; while all our efforts, being efforts of
discontent and distrust, efforts to conciliate a foe, widen and deepen
it. Our Lord pronounces this unbelief to be its own all-sufficing
punishment. 'The light is there; you do not love it; you fly from it.
What worse state can there be than that? You hug the evil deeds from
which you might be delivered. You choose the evil which is contrary to
the being and nature of the blessed God in whose image you are made.
What torment can there be so great as that?'

I spoke of the new birth, or the birth from above, by which men are
made capable of seeing the kingdom of God, as one of which those may
become conscious who are conscious of a rebellious will, and who would
fain submit to their rightful Ruler. This latter part of the dialogue
confirms and enlarges that statement. He who is bitten with serpents
may turn to the brazen serpent; he who has been alienated from God may
become at peace with Him. But our Lord's words also discover to us
another truth, different from this, nowise inconsistent with it. They
show us that our consciousness is not in any sense the foundation of
God's kingdom, that His love is the foundation of it. They make us
understand that the revelation of that Love is in very deed the
reconciliation and regeneration of the world; that we may claim all as
included in that reconciliation and regeneration; that our baptism of
water and the Spirit, while it gives all warrant for conscious
repentance and faith, must comprehend the unconscious, must declare
upon what their consciousness is to stand. They _are_ sons of God.
God's Spirit is given them, that they may grow into the knowledge of
their sonship, that they may be able to live in conformity with it.

The conclusion of this memorable discourse also takes off all the edge
which has been given to those words, in the earlier part of it, in
which it is said, '_the Spirit breathes where He wills_.' I have
treated that language as expressing the entire freedom of His
operations, His independence on material agents as well as on the will
of the creature. But if any one concludes that the Spirit does not
will that all men should believe and come to the knowledge of the
truth, he must deny that He is the Spirit of that God who sent not His
Son to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be
saved.




DISCOURSE VIII.

THE BRIDEGROOM AND THE BRIDEGROOM'S FRIEND.

[Lincoln's Inn, Easter Sunday, March 23, 1856.]

ST. JOHN III. 30.

_He must increase; I must decrease._


We have seen, in the first chapter of this Gospel, how much the work
and office of John the Baptist are connected with all the deepest
thoughts and announcements of the Apostle. The more we study him, the
more probable, I think, the old tradition of the Church, that he was a
disciple of the Baptist, must appear to us,--the more we shall
understand the cause of his anxiety to point out the exact relation
between his two teachers.

I have endeavoured to show you that it is not the _superiority_ of the
Christ to the forerunner which he chiefly dwells upon. That difference
had been sufficiently brought out by the earlier evangelists. He
insists that the superiority of the Christ rested on His _priority_;
that the later in order of manifestation was the first in order of
being; that of His fulness John and all previous prophets had
received; that of Him, as the Word of God, as the Light of men, they
had all borne witness. Whether Jesus was or was not the Word made
flesh,--whether He did or did not prove that in Him was the Life of
all things, and that He was the Light of men,--are questions which the
Evangelist undertakes to resolve for us in the course of his
narrative. Upon that point the Baptist may at times have had a strong
conviction; at times he might be doubtful. But that there was such a
Word of God, such a Light of men, and that He would make Himself
manifest, this was the groundwork of his prophecy; by this
proclamation he proved himself to be of the same class with Isaiah and
Ezekiel; by this he showed that a kingdom of heaven must be at hand,
in which the least might be greater than he.

How our Lord spoke to a ruler of the Jews concerning that kingdom, and
the qualifications for entering into it and seeing it--how he
connected it with a birth by water and by the Spirit--we have heard in
the first part of this chapter. The narrative which occupies the
remainder of it carries us back to John. Not long after the passover
at which the conversation with Nicodemus took place, Jesus, we are
told, went with His disciples into the country part of Judæa--the land
of Judæa being here set in contrast, not with Galilee, but with the
city of Jerusalem, at which He had been during the feast. '_There He
tarried with them and baptized._' This expression is used loosely; it
is qualified in the next chapter. '_Jesus_,' it is said, '_Himself
baptized not, but His disciples_.' Still it was regarded, to all
intents and purposes, as His baptism. It was naturally compared with
that of John; for he was still at large, and was '_baptizing in Ænon,
near to Salim, where there was much water_.' Perhaps the numbers that
went out to him had diminished; but it is obvious from the context
that he was still an object of attraction to many; '_they came to
him, and were baptized_.'

'_Then there arose a question between some of John's disciples and a
Jew_' (the plural is evidently quite out of place) '_about
purification_.' We need not inquire into the nature of this dispute,
seeing that the Apostle tells us no more of it. Before that time, and
ever since, the subject of purification has given rise to thousands of
questions, all bearing more or less directly upon the relation between
outward acts and the inner man,--what the former can or cannot do to
make the other better. Such questions were certain to be awakened by a
baptism with water, and a preaching of repentance such as John's; any
of them may have suggested to his disciples the thought whether there
was some greater virtue in that of Jesus, or whether He were merely a
rival and imitator of the elder teacher. With surprise and perplexity,
and something of the indignation which was natural in men jealous for
the honour of a beloved teacher, '_they came unto John, and said unto
him, Rabbi, He that was with thee beyond Jordan, and to whom thou
barest witness, behold the same baptizeth, and all men come unto
Him_.'

There was probably a pause before John gave his answer. The news which
he heard may have stirred up strange thoughts and doubts within him,
not in a moment to be quelled. Was his work over? Was he to have no
more power over men? Was he no longer a witness for God? The magician
says, when the fabric of his vision is dissolved--

    'Now my spells are all o'erthrown,
    And what strength I have's my own;
    Which is most faint.'

A mournful conclusion, and yet one to which many a man of high genius
has been brought, and out of which, perhaps, in the end he has derived
very precious lessons. Was this to be the result of the _prophet's_
meditation also? No! it comes forth in quite other words, which were a
reply both to the questionings in his own soul, and the shallower
perplexities and speculations of his disciples. '_A man can receive
nothing, except it be given him from above._' As if he had said: 'You
need not be careful of my fame. If I have ever spoken a word which has
entered into you, and shown you your ownselves, and has made you
truer, better men, that word was given me by the Lord of your spirit
and mine; He enabled you to take it in. Out of the bosom of God, where
that Word is whose life is the light of men, did these quickening,
illuminating words proceed. Just so far as my words have led you to
turn to _that_ Word who is always with you, and who has promised that
He will come and manifest Himself to you,--just so far have they been
wholesome and effectual. "_You yourselves bear me witness, that I said
I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before Him._" As I never
pretended to be that unseen Light, which I told you was struggling
with your darkness, so--you know it well--I never pretended to be the
Christ, the Anointed One, the King of Israel. For my message was that
this Christ must be that Light of the world, that Word made flesh. I
told you that He alone would baptize with the Spirit, because He alone
would be fully baptized with the Spirit. I am sent before Him,--sent,
as I said, to baptize with water, that so He might be made known to
Israel who has the higher baptism.' And then, as if he were caught
away by a new and diviner inspiration, as if the very meaning of that
word, Christ the anointed, were revealed to him,--as if, in the light
of that meaning, a thousand old songs and symbols were interpreting
themselves to him,--he goes on, '_He that hath the bride is the
bridegroom_.' The vision of a king was before him; of a king, the
direct contrast to the tyrants of the earth. In place of a Deioces,
hidden in the recesses of some Median palace--in place of a Tiberius,
governing the world by spies--he sees One '_who is fairer than the
sons of men, upon whose lips grace is poured, whose sword is on His
thigh, and who rides on in truth and righteousness_.' He sees Him
coming to woo and claim His bride, '_whose beauty He greatly desires,
who is all-glorious within, whose clothing is of wrought gold_.' Such
a Bridegroom all the prophets had, in one form of speech or another,
been discoursing of. They had proved that they were dealing in no
metaphors--pouring out no Oriental rhapsodies; for their revelation of
Him had been connected with the homeliest exhortations to domestic
union and purity; they had affirmed the relation of the particular
husband and wife to have its foundation in this higher relation; they
had treated all breaches of the marriage-vow as indications and
results of the adultery of the race to its unseen Husband. And though
the race meant in their minds Israel; though the people whom God had
chosen, and with whom He had made a covenant, were those whom they
taught to regard themselves as united in this eternal bond, of which
covenants were but the outward expression, which existed long before
Abraham or Noah; yet their language was always too large for even
these limitations--was continually breaking through them. The King who
was to reign over the Gentiles must be represented as their Husband;
whensoever He should be revealed as the glory of His people Israel, He
would certainly be revealed as the Light to lighten all the nations;
that is to say, whensoever he appeared as the Christ of God, He would
certainly appear as the Bridegroom of Humanity.

To speak of Him, then, by this name, was not, as some would make out,
to anticipate the discoveries of New Testament Apostles. It was
expressly to endorse and unfold the discoveries that had been made to
Old Testament Prophets. It is only when he speaks of his own office in
relation to this Bridegroom, that John looks at all beyond the
previous teachers of his land; and then, that he may make their office
also more intelligible.

'_The friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him,
rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice: this my joy
therefore is fulfilled._' I know scarcely any words in all the
Scriptures which have a deeper and diviner music in them than these,
or which more express all that a Christian minister and a Christian
man should wish to understand and feel; and should hope that some day
he may understand and feel as he who first spoke them did. That may
seem to us a high ambition; we ought to consider it a poor ambition.
After eighteen hundred years we should be able to understand _better_,
to feel _more_ intensely than John did, that all the joy which is
intended for a human being--nay, in the strict sense, which is
possible for a human being--comes from hearing this Bridegroom's
voice. I do believe, brethren, that by sore experience, shameful
experience, those of us who have had fewest saintly aspirations may
learn that lesson. We have listened for the echoes of our own voices;
we have longed to know what impression they made; we have tried to
feast on the outward praise or the inward consciousness of their power
or sweetness. Has it not been very miserable, unsatisfying food? has
not the day's gluttony brought nausea and disgust on the morrow? Has
not the gratification of that vanity gradually formed in us a craving,
which no indulgence could appease, which every disappointment made
intolerable? How much better has it been, if we have striven to take
delight in the words and deeds of other men, to feel the praises of
them as our own! 'As our own! Then we still are intended to connect
what is outside of us with ourselves; we must, in some sort, refer
them to a standard within us?' Here is the puzzle; one always
recurring; one infinitely more tormenting in the practice of life than
it ever can be in speculation; one that affects all our judgments of
our fellow-men; one that never deserts us when we are alone. It never
can be set at rest till we confess a Lord, from whom all that is good
and dear and worthy to be admired in any human being is derived--a
root of all mutual understanding and genial sympathy--a centre of life
and joy. If we think that there is a Bridegroom who is ever bestowing
His own treasures and loveliness upon the creatures who were formed
after His likeness, whose nature He has taken, who is ever drawing
those creatures out of their own narrow and dark prison-houses, to
come and claim their rights as spirits, and to share with Him the free
air and light in which He dwells, then we may begin to claim the place
of His friends, and in our own hearts, as well as in those who have
been most estranged from us, to hear Him speaking. That speech will
not be monotonous; we shall know why it is said in the Apocalypse to
be as the sound of many waters. In the accents of humiliation and
penitence, in the accents of thanksgiving and praise, in the
confessions upon sick-beds, in the laugh of children, in the stillness
of the churchyard, in the noise of cities, in the cries upon the
cross, in the message, He is risen,--we shall hear the Bridegroom's
voice. It testifies that He has come and is coming to us and to all.
Our joy is fulfilled only if we learn to welcome Him, and to bid our
brethren welcome Him also.

And therefore John proceeds, most consistently and harmoniously: '_He
must increase; I must decrease_.' If the words had been spoken only of
a new teacher who was baptizing more disciples than he, there would be
a sadness and a kind of murmur in them, however they might denote a
necessary submission. But when it is the Bridegroom of his own spirit,
the divine Lord, from whom alone he had received light, in whom alone
he could see light, who was to increase, the '_I must decrease_' is
not a qualification of the joy he had claimed as the Bridegroom's
friend, but a principal part of it. How many a one has felt the misery
of a self; has longed to become absorbed in the universe--to be
nothing! It was a wish which a holy man such as John was did not dare
to cherish, and yet which must have haunted him more than most. To
have a glimpse of _this_ annihilation; to see that it was possible to
become less and less, while He in whom he was bound up, in whom was
the spring of his life and joy, grew greater and greater; to feel that
he might find his own personality in another;--was not this the
consummation to which God had always been leading him? Was not this,
too, the very meaning and explanation of the work in which he had been
engaged? The Word, the Light of men, of whom he had told his
countrymen, needed no longer his witness; for He was coming forth
Himself to witness of that Father with whom He had dwelt eternally, to
tell mankind of Him.

This higher testimony, this newer and grander revelation, is the
subject of the verses which follow: '_He that cometh from above is
above all: he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the
earth: He that cometh from heaven is above all. And what He hath seen
and heard, that He testifieth; and no man receiveth His testimony._'

John had said before, that a man receives nothing but what is given
him from heaven. He does not recal that language, but affirms it anew,
when he says that every man in himself, every child of Adam, though a
living soul, is '_yet of the earth, and speaketh of the earth_.' He is
tied to earthly measures and standards. If he applies even the
faculties which he has derived from heaven to judge of heaven, he
reduces it to the level of earth. But there is One who cometh from
above, One who is above all, One who draws His light from the Fountain
of light, One whose light in us is not a part of our darkness, but a
divine power to scatter it. He testifies of that which He has seen and
heard, of the heavenly things, of the will and nature and purpose of
God. '_And no man receiveth His testimony._' Strange that John should
say that! What he had heard from his disciples was that Jesus was
baptizing, and '_that all men came to Him_.' We are not told that he
doubted their information; we are not told that he had any different
information from more trustworthy sources. And yet he confidently
affirms that His testimony is not received. Why? Because he was not
speaking of what had happened in the few days or weeks since Jesus
came to Jordan to fulfil all righteousness, but of the four thousand
years during which He had come to His own, and His own had received
Him not. That testimony which He had borne as the invisible Word of
God He was bearing still, now that He was made flesh and dwelling
among men. It was mightier in degree; it was not different in kind. It
was still a testimony to the heart, to the inner man, and must be
entertained or rejected there. What, therefore, the Baptist could say
of the past, on the warrant of so long an experience, he could say
surely of the present. The darkness would fight against the light. No
man of himself, without an operation from above, without a higher
baptism than that of water, whether administered by John or by Christ,
would believe that which the Son of God came to tell him.

That this limitation to the expression '_no man_' is involved in the
very nature of the Baptist's discourse, is evident from the next
verse: '_He that hath received His testimony hath set to his seal that
God is true_.' But what need of a limitation? Why should he have made
a large assertion in one sentence, which is to be modified or
contradicted in the next? The answer is contained in the words
themselves: '_He who receives this testimony sets to his seal that God
is true_.' The Christ comes to baptize men with the Spirit, that they
may receive that which of themselves they are both reluctant and
unable to receive. The man who accepts that testimony, confesses his
own reluctance and inability. He believes God to be strong and true,
though he is weak and lying. And his mind becomes stamped with the
impression of God's truth. The Spirit of God raises him above himself
to know Him. It was necessary, then, to make the one assertion in
_its_ breadth and fulness, that the other might not lose any of its
breadth and fulness. It was necessary that no man should suppose
himself capable of entering into the mind and kingdom of God--that all
men might know that God was not deceiving them, when He promised to
bestow that capacity upon them.

'_For_,' John continues, '_He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of
God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto Him_.' He speaks
the words of God. If He proclaimed a doctrine, a theory, a scheme of
the universe--that might be taken in,--if some thought ill of it,
others would embrace it. But He comes speaking the words of
God--revealing the mind of the Eternal Being--showing forth Him who is
truth and who is love. How can we grasp such a manifestation as this?
What have our poor beggarly conceits to do with the idea of a Goodness
without bounds? Let us understand it well, brethren. The Jews rejected
the testimony of Christ, because it was the testimony concerning such
a God as this. The difficulty of all difficulties, whatever we may
fancy, is to believe in _God_, in a _living_ and _true_ God, in a God
who loves His creatures. It is a difficulty which no arguments can
remove; a difficulty which the progress of ages does not diminish in
the least, but makes stronger; a difficulty which is often most
overpowering to the most religious men. The logician says, 'The
understanding is finite; you cannot bring the Infinite within its
range.' The philosopher of advanced civilization says, 'The belief in
God was for little children; science is for us. Physical science does
not reveal God; our worship of humanity dispenses with Him.' Religious
men see evil all about them and within them. They can conceive of a
punisher and avenger of evil; they can conceive that this punisher and
avenger, if he has motive and compensation sufficient, may exempt some
from the destruction which he has decreed for the majority. They
cannot believe in Love.

The logician is right. St. John said, eighteen hundred years ago, that
the Light had shined in the darkness, and the darkness had not
comprehended it. If we think only of our understanding, if we refuse
to believe that there is a Word always illuminating it, we think only
of the darkness, and we may say boldly, 'It can know nothing of God;
we have nothing to do with Him.' The modern philosopher of advanced
civilization is right. We cannot discover God in the world; we cannot
discover in the world anything higher than ourselves. If there is no
Bridegroom of humanity, who witnesses to it of a Father, and binds it
to a Father, we can only worship the world, or worship humanity--that
is to say, worship ourselves. The religious man who exalts evil into
the throne of the universe is right. All the witnesses of the
conscience that there is a God infinitely good,--all the witnesses of
the heart that man is made to be in conformity with that infinite
Good, and can be satisfied with nothing else--are simply mockeries and
delusions, which it is the business of the disciple and minister of
Christ to trample upon, to confute with words taken out of the Bible,
till he has succeeded in making young men profligates and atheists,
old men worldlings and hypocrites,--if there has not been in the world
an only-begotten Son full of grace and truth, who has come forth from
the Father to testify of the Father, and to whom the Father has given
His Spirit without measure, that He might baptize with it all who
receive His testimony, all who believe that God is true, not
false--good, not evil.

To this subject the last and most memorable words of this whole
chapter refer, those in which John the Baptist looks into the promised
land which he was not to enter, in which he winds up the old
dispensation, in which he introduces the new. '_The Father loveth the
Son, and hath given all things into His hand. He that believeth on the
Son of God hath everlasting life: he that believeth not the Son of
God hath not life; but the wrath of God abideth on him._' Henceforth
we shall hear no longer of a prophet discoursing of a Word who has
come to him, and from whom his light and the light of all men has been
derived. We shall find _that_ Word discoursing as a Son concerning a
Father, conversing with a Father, showing forth a Father. We are to
hear how this testimony is received, especially how it is received by
the most religious portion of the Jewish people. We are to learn that,
though their opposition to Jesus took many forms, there was one dark
root of all their hostility and hatred. They could not bear to hear
Christ speak of a Father--of a Father who loved the world. Whenever
they thought of God, a dark image of wrath was present to them; that
wrath abode upon them, settled in them. How was it possible for them,
then, to see in Jesus the perfect image of the Father,--in His wrath
against all baseness and vileness and hypocrisy, the true Divine wrath
which is the expression of the deepest love,--in His sympathy with
publicans and sinners, the self-same love? How was it possible for
them to see in the Son lifted on the cross, the King whom prophets and
holy men had desired, the Son of God in whom dwelt the fulness of the
Father, because the fulness of love, bodily? And, therefore, the wrath
which they had invoked upon all others, and cherished in their own
hearts, came upon them to the uttermost. They rejected their King and
Bridegroom, and all the national and spiritual life which had
proceeded from Him perished inevitably.

I have come back to the subject of which I was speaking last Sunday.
All Christian preaching should return continually to the Cross. It can
never find any other object so central or so glorious. But the death
of Christ and His resurrection are inseparable. I have been preaching
you an Easter sermon to-day. For, if you think of Easter as apostles
and martyrs thought of it, you will think of it as the witness that
the Bridegroom of humanity has presented and justified humanity before
His Father. You will pray for the Spirit of the Father and the Son,
that you, believing in that justification, may rise with Him to
newness of life. And you will join to these prayers another, that each
of us, when the hour comes in which strength and heart fail, may be
able to say with joy, '_I must decrease, that He may increase_.' All
that belongs to my own poor and selfish nature must decay and perish,
that He, my Lord and Saviour, may be exalted,--that I and all His
redeemed may see our own blessedness and glory only and for ever in
Him.




DISCOURSE IX.

THE WATER OF LIFE.

[Lincoln's Inn, Sunday after Easter, March 30, 1856.]

ST. JOHN IV. 10.

     _Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift
     of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink,
     thou wouldst have asked of Him, and He would have given thee
     living water._


The dispute between John's disciples and the Jew, of which I spoke
last Sunday, was about purification. Apparently, John's answer to
them, when they came to tell him that Jesus was baptizing, and that
all men were coming to Him, had little reference to this subject.
_Really_ his words threw the greatest light upon it. He did not say
whether the baptism of Jesus had a more purifying effect upon those
who received it than his baptism. But he spoke of another gift which
Jesus, if He was indeed the Son of God, would confer upon those who
believed in Him. '_He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life;
and he that believeth not the Son of God shall not see life._' It was
a mighty thing for men to be purified, to have corruptions removed
from them. But corruption is the consequence of death. Where
corruption is, death must have entered. He who is the source and
spring of life, He who can restore life, must have in Himself the very
principle and power of purification. All instruments of purification
must derive their virtue from Him. He must be _the_ Purifier.

Accordingly it is to this quality of the divine Word, or Son, that St.
John has from the first directed our thoughts. '_In Him was life, and
the life was the light of men_:' this is the starting-point of his
Gospel. The sign in Cana of Galilee was the sign that Jesus was the
communicator of life. His discourse with Nicodemus turned altogether
upon the life from above which the Spirit of God would confer upon
men, and which would enable them to see the kingdom of God. The
primary announcement of the forerunner, therefore, respecting the Word
made flesh, '_He shall baptize with the Holy Ghost_,' whatever more it
might mean, could mean nothing less than this: 'He shall not merely
cleanse away defilements; He shall impart the life which those
defilements obstruct and seek to extinguish.' John did not say for a
moment that water should not be the sign of entrance into the kingdom
that was at hand--that it should not be Christ's sign, as it had been
his sign;--but he said that it should be the sign, not merely of
repentance and remission of sins, but of a higher and eternal _life_.

Was this an unusual and arbitrary application of the symbol? Surely
not. Water, when it is applied outwardly, suggests only the thought of
purification. Water, when it is taken inwardly, immediately suggests
the thought of life. And this, therefore, is the point of connexion
between the discourse of John with his disciples, which occupied us
last Sunday, and the discourse of Jesus with the woman of Samaria,
which is to occupy us to-day. The Evangelist points out the relation
between the two subjects in his own mind and in the history, by the
first words of the fourth chapter: '_When therefore the Lord knew how
the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples
than John, (though Jesus Himself baptized not, but His disciples,) He
left Judæa, and came again into Galilee_.' What the disciples of the
Baptist had angrily conjectured, the Pharisees would of course take
for granted. They would assume that John and Jesus were rival
teachers, and that one was supplanting the other. The thought of this
might become the thought of Christ's own disciples: if it did, they
would utterly misunderstand the work of their Master, and His relation
to the preacher of repentance. Was not this a reason for leaving
Judæa, and going into Galilee?

'_And He must needs go through Samaria._' That was the most natural
road. He might no doubt have avoided it; there was an inward and moral
necessity why He should not. If He was setting up a kingdom in the
whole land, portions of it which had been most separated from the rest
must be claimed as belonging to it.

'_Then cometh He to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to
the parcel of ground which Jacob gave to his son Joseph._' This
country was connected with the oldest traditions relating to the
commonwealth of Israel,--to the period before the giving of the Law,
when the life of the fathers of the nation was entirely domestic and
pastoral. In these traditions was the link between one part of the
people and the other. The local associations with the events recorded
in the Book of Genesis were witnesses that the rocks had once been
united, however rudely they had in later times been rent asunder.
There, especially, was the simplest and most faithful token of
patriarchal times--a _well_. It was believed to have been dug by
Jacob. It brought the name of the head of all the tribes, and the
likeness of his mode of existence to their own, before those who could
read no letters, and had little in their own thoughts to tell them
that they were members of a chosen race.

'_Jesus therefore, being wearied with His journey, sat thus on the
well: and it was about the sixth hour. There cometh a woman of Samaria
to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. (For His
disciples were gone away into the city to buy meat.)_' Such a request
from a weary and thirsty traveller would not commonly have been
refused by a woman of Palestine; and certainly we have no reason to
think, from the Gospels, that a Samaritan was likely to be less
friendly or courteous than one of the Southern people. It is not
probable that the woman meant to refuse. But she thought she had a
right, on behalf of her country, to trifle a little with the pride of
a Jew, who, in a difficulty, would ask a favour of those whom he
despised, though he would not hold any intercourse with them, or meet
them upon fair terms. '_How is it_,' said she, '_that thou, being a
Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? For the Jews
have no dealings_' (do not traffic) '_with the Samaritans_.'

That word, '_have no traffic or dealing_,' seems to explain the first
part of our Lord's answer. '_If thou knewest the_ GIFT _of God, and
who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldst have
asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water._' She had
come day after day to draw water at that well. Had she never known
that that water was a _gift_ of God? Had no thirst on a hot day, or no
failure of the spring, taught her that? Was water a thing to traffic
in? Did not she recollect that it was a man, and not merely a Jew,
who was saying, '_Give me to drink_'? Did she never think of the gift
of water as something very free and universal? This lesson was
contained in the opening of the sentence; and the look and the voice
of the Stranger had, perhaps, already carried it home in some degree
to the woman's conscience. But the speech suddenly took another turn.
There might be an exchange of gifts here also. '_If thou knewest who
it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of
Him, and He would have given thee living water._'

The words conveyed no immediate sense to her mind as to the nature of
the gift which was spoken of. But her answer shows that the presence
of the Stranger had not been without its effect. She speaks with less
levity than before, with something of doubt, if not of awe,--'_Sir,
thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: whence then hast
thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, who
gave us the well, and drank of it himself, and his children, and his
cattle?_' I am far from supposing that this question indicates any
suspicion in her mind that He _was_ greater than their father, or that
He could know the country and where to find its secret springs as
Jacob did. But that very reference to Jacob showed that the feelings
of the woman were becoming more serious than they had been. The petty
disputes of Jews and Samaritans were giving place to those
remembrances of the past which make all common spots sacred, and
ennoble even the vulgarest minds. Her well, that well at which she had
so often filled her pitcher, was the one out of which, eighteen
hundred years before, the patriarch had drunk, and his children, and
his cattle. It was a step in her education, a preparation for the
words which follow.

'_Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water
shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall
give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him,
shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life._'
I do not say that our version of this passage is in itself an
incorrect one; nothing is harder than to find the most suitable
equivalents for the words which are rendered here '_never_' and
'_everlasting_:' but it would, I conceive, have been most desirable,
by some means or other, to make the reader feel (which scarcely any
reader of our translation does feel) that the two clauses answer to
each other,--that εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα, follows 'shall not thirst,' and
that the adjective, αἰώνιος, is that which qualifies 'life.' I shall
make no further use of this observation,--for there is enough in this
passage to occupy us without any reference to it; but I could not pass
it over because the word 'life,' which is the cardinal one of the
passage, and I might say of the dialogue, must be considerably
affected by that which accompanies it. I am far more anxious, however,
that you should consider how our Lord describes the difference between
the water of Jacob's well and that which He would give. '_The water
which I shall give him shall become in him a fountain of water
springing up into everlasting life._' The woman had wondered where He
would go to discover a fountain deeper and more abundant than that
which Jacob had bequeathed. The answer is, '_He that drinketh of this
water shall thirst again_.' 'He must come, as you do, to fetch water
continually. The supply of to-day will be no supply for to-morrow. But
what if each man should have the spring in himself? What if it should
be a spring ever renewed, kept alive by Him who first opened it?' 'A
strange thought,' you will say, 'to set before an ignorant woman!
What could she understand about springs or fountains within?' Very
little at first, if we believe the Evangelist. Her reply is just what
we might expect it to be. She relapses into the sort of banter with
which she had begun the conversation. The gravity which she had
exhibited for a moment has disappeared: '_Sir, give me this water,
that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw_.' A sufficient proof,
most would say, if they dared, that this kind of mystical discourse
was very little adapted to the comprehension of such a person as she
was. But, my brethren, if we say this, we must say more. We must say
that the whole Gospel of St. John--the simplest, as I have said
already, in language and construction, of all the Gospels, that which
Luther was wont to designate the child's Gospel--is unsuitable to
simple people, and must be reconstructed according to our notions of
simplicity. For that Gospel begins from the principle that Christ, the
living Word of God, is the life and light of men, the life and light
of all men. If that is true, it must have been the work of the Son of
Man, of the Word made flesh, to let all manner of people know that He
was the source and spring of their life,--that apart from Him they had
none. Now, life must be inward; it cannot come to a man from the world
which is about him. That may be full of signs and tokens of the life
he wants. Each well, each drop of rain, may testify of it. But it must
spring up within him. Whatever is enduring, whatever he wants to
satisfy the infinite thirst within him, must be there.

You say, an ignorant woman could not enter into such a mystery as
this. But there were mysteries that she could enter into. '_Jesus said
unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither._' It was a curious
and startling break in the conversation. What had it to do with
Jacob's well, or with the living water which she could not find there?
Very much indeed. '_The woman said, I have no husband. Jesus answered
and said, Thou hast well said, I have no husband: for thou hast had
five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that
saidst thou truly._' Here were facts concerning her past and her
present history; here was a revelation of something that concerned her
own very self. With _this_ there was no trifling. It was not of
Jacob's well, or of another well, that the Stranger was discoursing
now. He was speaking of _her_,--He was telling her what she was. '_In
Him was life, and the life was the light of men._' She confessed it in
her way,--'_Sir, I perceive thou art a prophet_.' All was not quite
right with her;--He knew it, and He made her know it. She had offended
the Power above,--perhaps He could tell her, also, how she might
appease Him. Her fathers might have taught her wrongly. She would like
to know. She would rather like, moreover, to make the discourse more
general, less personal. A wish for truth, and a fear of it, light and
darkness, in her, as in all of us, fought for the mastery. She said,
'_Our fathers worshipped in this mountain_,'--this venerable
Gerizim,--'_and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought
to worship_.' Whether or not she would have been ready at the bidding
of a Jewish prophet to repair her errors, and earn the favour of God
by giving up her Samaritan faith, and becoming a proselyte of the
Temple, she had not perhaps asked herself; how much she would have
gained by the exchange, our Lord's words in another Gospel, about
those who became proselytes from heathenism, may partly tell us. But
He who had sat by the well did not ask this proof of her desire for
reformation. '_Woman_,' He said, '_believe me, the hour cometh when ye
shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the
Father_.' All she had asked--all that most Samaritans or Jews would
have disputed about--was _where_ they ought to worship. The thought
upon which Jesus fixes her mind, is the Being to be worshipped. That
new name, which John said the Son was come to reveal, is now
proclaimed in the ears of a separatist and a sinner. He speaks not of
the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, but of the _Father_. Such a
name the woman might or might not have heard, as one of the names of
Him who dwelt on Gerizim. At all events, it would be but one of
them--one that would be lost amidst the various titles by which He was
invoked--carrying no special significance to the mind of the
worshipper. Still, far down in that mind there was that which
responded to the word Father, which would awake up at the sound when
it came from lips that felt all the power and reality of it. She who
had had five husbands, had had a father. To feel that the God of the
distant hill had anything to do with that human relation, was the dawn
of a new day to her. The sun was rising in her heart, if there were
ever so many clouds concealing it.

I have said that our Lord was drawing the woman's thoughts from the
_place_ of worship to the _object_ of worship. He goes on, in the next
verse, to tell her that ignorance of this object was the special
ignorance of the Samaritan: '_Ye worship ye know not what_.' And then
He introduces words that have startled many, especially in this
connexion: '_We know what we worship; for salvation is of the Jews_.'
'Could He,' it has been asked, 'claim this dignity for His own
nation, at the very moment when He seemed to be breaking down all
distinctions of nations? And _did_ the Jew know what he worshipped?
Did not Jesus Himself say, "_Ye know neither me nor the Father_?"' I
apprehend, brethren, that the assertion of this, as the great calamity
of the Samaritan--that he knew not what he worshipped--is abundantly
borne out by history. It was in all times a country of superstitions,
the early home of Baal-worshippers, the later home of enchanters and
fanatics, and of sects putting forward pretensions to all kinds of
spiritual powers, appealing to great necessities in the human mind,
always leading it astray from its centre. The hard, cold Jew was not
half so much open to _these_ impressions. The sects in his land were
dry and formal, bound together by certain notions about the law.
Becoming more and more selfish, measuring everything by rules of
profit and loss, he grew at last to be a mere worshipper of Mammon.
How was it possible, then, for him to know Christ and the Father? But
in his debasement, he still preserved the shadow of the blessing which
had been conferred upon his race, and which his neighbour, though
freer and more open-minded, had lost. He still clung to a distinct
object of adoration. He was a protestant against the worship of
spiritual phantasies. This poor shadow showed what the substance was
which the Jew had inherited, and which was his distinction among all
nations. Salvation was to go forth from his land. And salvation, so
our Lord teaches us, consists in knowing what we worship; for that
knowledge saves men from slavery to the world's idols, and to the
idols of their own hearts, which is their great curse and misery.

But if this is salvation, it could not be salvation to worship in the
temple of Jerusalem any more than in the temple of Gerizim. If this
salvation was to go forth _from_ the Jews, it could not be limited
_to_ them. Therefore He proceeds--'_The hour cometh, and now is, when
the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth:
for the Father seeketh such to worship Him_.' Here was a proclamation
which, in a wonderful manner, combined the truth that had been
partially revealed to the Samaritan, and the truth which still
subsisted, though commonly hidden, distorted, even inverted, among the
Jews. The confused sense of a spiritual worship, of men being spirits,
was that which gave the magicians among the Samaritans all their
power. They did acknowledge some invisible presence and influence
acting upon them, and capable of producing wonderful effects, though
they did not know what they worshipped. The Jew bowed down before a
Being mightier than himself, who could lay down laws for him, who
would execute those laws upon him. But he turned that Being into a
selfish tyrant. A double transformation! The tyrant is revealed as a
Father. The enchantments are supplanted by a Spirit proceeding from
that Father, a Spirit of truth. Men are not to climb up to that Father
by their offerings on Mount Moriah or Mount Gerizim, by their
sacrifices or by their enchantments. The Father is seeking _them_. He
gives them His true Spirit to make them true worshippers. They must
not wish to draw Him down to them; He would draw them up to Him.

'_For God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in
spirit and in truth._' In those first words there was, as will be
evident from what I have said, much that was in harmony with Samaritan
feeling,--even with the feeling of an ordinary Samaritan like this
woman. She had heard of spirits; she thought more about spirits than a
Jew would have done. She did not speculate about them, but supposed
that they might appear to her, or have some influence over her. But
then came that other part of the sentence, which went to the very root
of the tricks and superstitions with which she and her countrymen were
familiar; '_they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in
truth_.' The Spirit of truth--_that_ must enter into you, _that_ must
govern you, _that_ must reform your life. A message this meant for the
universe,--going to the very root of all religion and all philosophy,
and yet bearing straight upon the conscience of that woman of Sychar
who had come to draw water at Jacob's well.

Perhaps there is nothing that strikes us more in this conversation,
which is so very direct and consistent in its purpose, and yet which
follows all the windings of the human heart, beginning from '_Give me
to drink_,' and ending with a revelation of the nature of God;
perhaps, I say, there is nothing more remarkable in it all than the
result of it. You expect to see the woman bowing before the mysterious
Foreigner, expressing her astonishment at his high doctrine, lamenting
that she had spoken to Him so uncourteously. Not at all. She says, '_I
know that when Messias cometh, He shall tell us all things_.' 'Our
people speak of One who is to be sent from God, of a Messias. I
suppose, if these things are true about God being a Spirit, and about
our having a Spirit of truth, He will tell us. We shall know as much
of these things as we can know.' Evidently this part of the
conversation has not yet taken hold of her. The part about herself
has. 'The Messias will tell us all things; but this Jew has told me of
myself; He has seen what I am.' And therefore, when Jesus answers,
'_I that speak unto thee am He_,'--so making a more direct profession
of His name and dignity to this Samaritan than He had made in
Jerusalem,--He surely meant to fix this impression on her mind: 'Yes,
this is the test of Messiahship. Look for no other. Do not ask for
some outward signs to tell you when He is coming, or what He can do. I
that speak unto _thee_--I that lay bare _thy_ heart--am He. That is
the proof of my kingship over human beings; that is the proof of my
being sent from God. I know what is in thee--the wrong of thy outward
life, the evil of thy inward life. I know thy deepest necessities. I
know thy want of a new spring of life within, of water of which thou
mayest drink, and not thirst again. Thou needest that. All Samaritans,
all Jews, all men and women who shall live, all nations and
generations to come, will need it. I can give it them. For I can give
them that Spirit of truth which the Father desires them to have, that
they may know Him and worship Him.'

Lord, evermore give us this Spirit, that we thirst not, nor seek to
draw the water of life, which is only in Thee, from the wells of
earth!




DISCOURSE X.

THE REWARDS OF LABOUR, AND THE KINDS OF FAITH.

[Lincoln's Inn, 2d Sunday after Easter, April 6, 1856.]

ST. JOHN IV. 48.

_Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will
not believe._


Distance of time is not always unfavourable to accurate recollection.
We often remember a friend's words better, years after they were
spoken, than the next day; because we understand them better, because
we see how one of them rose out of another. So, I imagine, it must
have been with the woman of Sychar. If she had repeated the dialogue
with Jesus to her neighbours, as soon as she returned to her city, she
would probably have misrepresented it. Short as it was, she would have
mistaken words, she would have changed the order of them. A time will
have come when she would be sure of what He had said, and of what she
had said,--when she could say confidently to those who were collecting
His words, 'This is what He told me--this, and nothing else.'

At first she seems to have been too full of one part of the Stranger's
speech to care about the rest. She did not say, 'I have received
strange lessons from this Jewish prophet about God being a Spirit, and
about the water of life;' she expressed far more simply the effect of
this speech upon her: '_He told me all that ever I did_.' Was this
exaggerated language? At first we are inclined to say so; then,
perhaps, to justify her by resorting to some awkward hypothesis of our
Lord having said many things to her which the Evangelist has omitted.
The experience and conscience of human beings justify her far better.
One who repeats to us all the passages of our history ever so
accurately, does not tell us all that ever we did. A single flash of
light may make the whole past visible to us, and show us that it is
_our_ past. Thus was it with her. Her inmost self was revealed to the
Stranger. And, what was wonderful, she did not wish to escape from His
gaze. Awful as it was, she was attracted, not repelled by it. She had
the comfort,--the greatest almost that we can experience,--of feeling
that she had no longer anything to hide,--that there was One who knew
thoroughly all that was wrong and all that was right in her. For Jesus
had given her a sense of there being a right in her which she had
never had before. She could not have explained how it came to pass;
she was an ignorant peasant;--but it was so. The Stranger's speech had
raised her to a new level. She had never seen the evil in herself as
she had seen it now; but she had never so much risen out of the evil.
When do we rise out of our evil but when the truth is told us, and we
like to hear it?

And therefore she said, '_Is not this the Christ?_' 'Can it be any one
else? And must He not be the Christ for you, my fellow-citizens, as He
is for me? Must He not know all that you ever did, as He knows all
that I ever did?' It was the right sermon. They acknowledged at once
that it was such a Christ they wanted; not one who could tell them
about all things in the world, but who could tell them all things that
ever _they_ did. He who had that power might or might not be such a
Christ as scribes and doctors talked of; He might or might not have
the marks by which they discerned the coming King and Deliverer. But
He was the Christ for poor people who hewed wood and drew water, who
were human beings, and who had committed sins. These were the proofs
of His mission to them. He must give these; they asked no others.

The Apostle could have been no ear-witness of the conversation with
the woman. But he describes with such vividness, the impression made
upon the disciples who returned when she was departing, that it is
difficult to suppose he was not one of them. '_And upon this came His
disciples, and marvelled that He talked with the woman: yet no man
said, What seekest Thou? or, Why talkest Thou with her?_' The sense of
astonishment which they all felt,--the look which showed to each how
the other was sharing it with him, and yet the awe which restrained
them from questioning Him,--the confidence that He had some great
purpose, though they knew not what it was; all this came back to the
old man as clearly as if he were then by the well of Sychar, not
amidst the merchandise of Ephesus. And so, by a single instance, he
makes clearer to us than he could by a multitude of explanations, what
must have been continually in the minds of the disciples, when they
stood in that presence, and heard words spoken and saw acts done which
they could not sound with their plummets, and which called forth faith
in Him because they could not.

But though this was so, they had no dread of speaking to Him about
common earthly necessities. They knew that He had sat down weary on
the well; they knew that He hungered and thirsted. He had sent them to
buy food, and they could say, '_Master, eat_,' without any doubt that
He would partake of it just as any of them did. Probably He took what
they offered Him, even while He said, '_I have meat to eat which ye
know not of_.' They had so little suspicion that He would ever work a
miracle for His own support,--they were so inwardly certain that He
would not,--that they said at once to each other, '_Hath any man
brought Him ought to eat?_' No. He had waited for their coming. The
ravens had carried no nourishment to Him; He had not commanded the
stones to become bread. There must have been a special joy, an
unwonted radiance in His face as He answered, '_My meat is to do the
will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work_.' He had that spring
of life within Him, of which He had spoken to the woman, from which
life might flow forth to her and to all. And yet He speaks of it as
not an original fountain, even in Him. There was One from whom He was
sent. The satisfaction of doing His will, of accomplishing his
purpose,--this was His food; this was the sustaining principle within
Him. St. John has taught us already, and will teach us more completely
hereafter, that the relation of the Son to a Father, with all the
trust, obedience, communion which it implies, is the subject of the
new revelation. To be doing the will of Him that sent Him, to be in
perfect sympathy with the will which is at the root of the universe,
to be fulfilling the purposes of this will,--this Christ affirms to be
meat to Him in a double sense; meat, as that which keeps up the
strength of the man--meat, as that which gratifies and satisfies his
desires.

One may feel there is great general force in such a sentiment as
this; but what is its _special_ application to the story we are
reading? Had His interview with the woman supplied Him with what could
be called meat in either of these senses? What was there to sustain
Him, what was there to delight Him, in her way of receiving His words?

The answer is given in the following passage: '_Say ye not, There are
yet four months, and then cometh the harvest? Behold, I say unto you,
Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white already
unto the harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth
fruit unto life eternal; that both he that soweth and he that reapeth
may rejoice together. And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and
another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no
labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours._'

Many who have gathered crowds about them, who have produced a marked
impression upon those crowds, have said, and said truly, that such
success was meat and drink to them. If it did not feed their vanity,
but sustained them because it showed them they were doing God's will
and finishing His work, they may have understood something of Christ's
meaning. But the secret food He partook of certainly came from no
sudden success that followed His words. First, He met with a woman who
had in general answered Him with levity; then a few people of her own
rank came at her call. How little would such honours satisfy the
ambition of some eloquent disciple of Christ, who has the power of
influencing thousands! Could it satisfy Him who came to found a
kingdom of which there was to be no end? Yes; for in these first
sheaves He could see the certain pledges of a nation's, of a world's,
ingathering. The corn-fields which the disciples saw about them would
not be reaped for four months; yet the harvest would appear, because
the seed had been sown. These men whom He saw coming showed Him that
the other harvest was nearer still. The fields were white already for
that harvest; the disciples themselves would be reapers in it. He had
sent them, and they would receive the wages of reapers. What wages? He
had already told them that His own wages were to do the will of God,
and to finish His work. Did they want better? They would gather in
fruit,--the fruit of all His work and travail, of all God's
revelations of Himself from age to age, of all the toil of patriarchs,
kings, prophets. These had laboured,--they were entering into their
labours. They were come in at the end of a period when all things were
hastening to their consummation. They would have the reward which all
these men had longed for,--the reward of seeing God's full revelation
of Himself, of opening the spring of eternal life of which all might
drink together. The divisions of time had nothing to do with an
eternal blessing. The sower and the reaper would rejoice together. Why
might not Jacob, who had given the well, and the newest Samaritan
convert who drank of it, share in those pleasures which are at the
right hand of Him, who is, and was, and is to come?

I have only given you a hint or two which may assist you in tracing
out the sense of these great words. The Apostles did not enter into
them for many years,--not till they had begun to reap the harvest of
which He spoke, not till they had learnt that some of the wages of the
reapers were persecution and disappointment. So they understood by
degrees how unsatisfactory all promises were but those which He had
given them; how miserable a thing it was to hope for any reward but
that which had been and is His reward. I suppose we must be trained to
understand Christ's doctrine in the same school. Till we have been
under His discipline we shall have the temper of hirelings, counting
His work a hardship, expecting to be paid hereafter for consenting to
do it. Or else we shall look for instant harvests,--for mighty effects
to follow at once from the things that we speak,--for those fruits
which least manifest the calm, patient, loving will of God, and
therefore bring no true and inward satisfaction to the spirit of a
man. We must learn to see in the seed that same eternal life which is
in the perfect flower and fruit--to believe that God will bring the
one out of the other; otherwise we shall have much excitement and much
weariness, but no food which can support us, no joy which will connect
us with the ages that are past and the ages to come. That will not be
given to us till we see, in God's revelation of Himself to one sinner,
the token of His love to the world.

The whole doctrine concerning the rewards for obedience, which has
been the subject of so many wearisome folios by philosophers and
divines, is contained, I think, in these eight verses, and may be
drawn out of them for daily use by any who think that the Apostle has
a higher wisdom than can be found in his commentators, or in their own
speculations. The remainder of the chapter contains, in a form as
simple and as available, the solution of another problem which has
exercised the wits of schoolmen and the hearts of wayfarers. Who has
not been tormented with questions and answers about the nature,
conditions, kinds, of belief,--about the force of testimony which
produces it,--about the organ which exercises it,--about the security
or the insecurity of the person who has it or who wants it? On all
these points St. John gives us no dissertations. But he tells us a
short story about certain Samaritans, and then another rather longer
story about a certain Galilæan, which I think may supply the place of
many dissertations.

The first is contained in these verses: '_And many of the Samaritans
of that city believed on Him for the saying of the woman, which
testified, He told me all that ever I did. So when the Samaritans were
come unto Him, they besought Him that He would tarry with them: and He
abode there two days. And many more believed because of His own word,
and said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying,
for we have heard Him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the
Christ, the Saviour of the world._'

Suppose this was translated into school phraseology about implicit and
explicit faith,--suppose each of these terms was laboriously
explained,--all the different opinions of Fathers, Mediæval Doctors,
Reforming Doctors, Modern Doctors respecting each compared, weighed,
adjusted,--how much learning we should possess! how much the Apostle's
doctrine would expand in our hands,--how much we should expand in our
own estimation! But supposing we had actually to find out what belief
is in our own case, to trace the history of its progress, how thankful
we should be to any one who would translate back the learned language
into the language of the Gospel, who would let us hear what these
Samaritans--vulgar people of our own flesh and blood--said about their
belief and its growth!

The first stage of it we have considered already. What the woman told
them had a great effect upon their minds, because she spake of what
she knew, and not of what she did not know. If she had said, 'He
explained the prophecies to me,'--who would have cared? What judge was
she of the prophecies, and what judges would they be? If she had said,
'He wrought a miracle in my sight,'--there had been enchanters enough
among them, who had imposed upon much wiser people than she was. Her
fellow-citizens, if they were not very curious, would not have
deserted their common business for such an announcement as that. But,
'_He told me all that ever I did_;' then she spoke from her
experience. Whether she were wise or silly, a good woman or a bad,
that was worth listening to; there were signs of truth about that.

They came and heard Him themselves. And then He told each of them what
_he_ had done, showed him to himself, made him feel that he was in the
presence of a Light. The Light entered into the separate hearts, and
showed them their dark passages. And yet it was a common Light; it
gave them a sense of fellowship they had never had before; it gave
them a sense of being men, which they had never had before. And,
moreover, it was a Light which scattered confusions, ignorances,
falsehoods, that had been dwelling undisturbed within them, or that
had only been disturbed by what they felt must have been a ray of this
same Light. _And_ therefore, without asking the opinion of any wise
man whatsoever, these bold peasants said out frankly and broadly, '_We
have heard Him ourselves, and_ know _that this is indeed the Christ,
the Saviour of the world_.'

I cannot tell whether this faith of the Samaritans is what one class
of modern divines would call _saving_ faith. I should imagine not. For
these poor men said they knew Jesus to be the Saviour of the _world_;
and it seems to be put forward as the characteristic of saving faith,
that men should believe a Saviour for themselves who is not a Saviour
for the world. And, certainly, their belief had not that groundwork
which another class of divines tells us is the only one upon which the
claims of a Christ can rest. He had done no sign or wonder before
them; He had only discoursed with them. On this topic, that other
story to which I alluded may possibly throw some light.

It is introduced by the words, '_Now after two days He departed
thence, and went into Galilee_.' He was going into Galilee before. A
strange reason is given for His spending so short a time among the
people who had met Him so cordially. '_For Jesus Himself testified,
that a prophet hath no honour in his own country._' He did not count
it good to stay where He had honour. The Galilæans were His kinsfolk
and neighbours, bound to Him by human, and therefore by divine, ties.
_There_ was the token that He was to labour among them. More respect
He might find elsewhere,--that was not what He came into the world to
look for. His followers often judge differently about this matter. It
may be that here, as elsewhere, we should act more safely if we
thought that He had left us an example that we should walk in His
footsteps.

'_Then when He was come into Galilee, the Galilæans received Him,
having seen all the things that He did at Jerusalem at the feast: for
they also went unto the feast._' They had, then, what we are wont to
regard as the right foundation of faith; they had the outward
evidence, while the Samaritans were only receiving Him on the
testimony of their consciences. '_So Jesus came again into Cana of
Galilee, where He made the water wine. And there was a certain
nobleman_,'--(a person, probably, belonging to the household of Herod
Antipas,)--'_whose son was sick at Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus
was come out of Judea into Galilee, he went unto Him, and besought Him
that He would come down, and heal his son. Then said Jesus unto him,
Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe._' Apparently His
judgment of these two kinds of belief was different from ours. That
which we think weak and groundless, caused Him inward joy. It was meat
upon which He could sustain Himself; it showed Him that the Samaritan
fields were white already to the harvest. On the contrary, that stable
belief, which rested upon signs and wonders, gave Him little pleasure;
rather it called forth a rebuke. The nobleman did not answer the
rebuke: '_He saith unto Him, Sir, come down ere my child die_.' This
was not the response of a man's conscience to one who had discovered
his evil. It was not the kind of trust of the Samaritan woman or the
Samaritan man; but it was good honest trust, nevertheless. If the
nobleman had been hitherto a mere observer of signs, he was now
something more. He was a parent seeking help for his boy. He was a man
who, in the sight and under the pressure of death, turns to One who
can give life. Jesus at once confesses the change which His own
discipline has wrought in him. '_He saith unto him, Go thy way; thy
son liveth. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto
him, and he went his way._'

Two steps we have traced in the history of his mind. A third remains.
'_As he was now going down, his servants met him, and told him,
saying, Thy son liveth. Then enquired he of them the time when he
began to amend. And they said unto him, Yesterday at the seventh hour
the fever left him. So the father knew that it was at the same hour
in the which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth: and himself
believed, and his whole house._'

Here we have, no doubt, the account of a sign, and of its effect upon
the persons toward whom it was exhibited. St. John himself connects it
with the sign in Cana of Galilee. He appears to wish that we should
regard both as specimens of Galilæan signs in distinction from
Jerusalem signs. We may, therefore, apply here the principles which we
discovered with reference to the marriage-feast. There it seemed that
the lesson which was taught belonged to all marriage-feasts,--to all
the outward signs of life and joy,--to those mysterious powers by
which, in any country or in any age, physical transformations are
effected. In this one instance Jesus was revealed as giving the
blessing which seals the marriage-vow, wherever it is made,--as
everywhere the Inspirer of gladness,--as ruling all the energies of
nature. The circumstances in the Capernaum story are much changed; it
touches more nearly on the funeral than on the bridal. But in one, as
much as in the other, Christ is revealed as the Word of Life. In one,
as much as in the other, human relationships are beautified and
hallowed by Christ; the relation of the husband there, of the father
here. One, as much as the other, applies to England as well as to
Galilee. And what was said there of the faith that followed the sign,
is even more strikingly developed here. '_He manifested forth His
glory, and His disciples_'--those who had already confessed Him to be
the Christ upon another ground--'_believed in Him_.' It was a
discovery to them of His inward power. It deepened a conviction that
had been imparted to them already. The Capernaum nobleman had already
believed in Christ, with the belief of one who wants help, and thinks
he has found the person who is able and willing to bestow it. The
sign unfolds that faith, and makes it more profound. The man becomes
not more a seeker of marvels, but less. He desires no longer, casual,
flitting exercises of power; he bows to power as inward, continual,
moral. He is always in the presence of Him who spoke the word at the
seventh hour. At every moment, he and his son and all his household
are receiving fresh life from Him. To know Him, to be in fellowship
with Him, to be doing His will--which is the will of Him who sent Him:
this he finds to be eternal life.




DISCOURSE XI.

THE POOL OF BETHESDA.

[Lincoln's Inn, 3d Sunday after Easter, April 13, 1856.]

ST. JOHN V. 16-18.

     _And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, because He had
     done these things on the sabbath-day. But Jesus answered
     them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. Therefore the
     Jews sought the more to kill Him, because He had not only
     broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father,
     making Himself equal with God._


The scene changes again at the opening of this chapter. '_After these
things there was a feast of the Jews; and Jesus went up to
Jerusalem._' What feast it was, the harmonists may settle; as St. John
has not told us, I am content to dwell upon the fact, which he
evidently thought of great importance, that Jesus did go up to the
feasts, and that His acts had a special reference to the state of mind
which He found among the inhabitants of the capital; above all, among
its religious teachers.

'_Now there is at Jerusalem, by the sheep-market, a pool which is
called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches._' Jerusalem
might or might not have been compassed with Roman armies when St. John
wrote. I do not know that its independence or its capture would affect
the position of the pool or the sheep-market; they might be still
just what they had been when the Apostle knew them. Perhaps the pool
was no longer visited as in former days; perhaps the tradition of its
virtues still drew to it people from the country round. At all events,
the sight which had been before his eyes thirty or forty years before,
was not one which he would forget. It is not one which we need much
effort of imagination to bring before ourselves.

'_In these_' porches '_lay a multitude of sick folk, of blind, halt,
withered, waiting for the moving of the waters_.' If we look at the
separate figures in the picture, they belong as much to the West as to
the East--to the nineteenth century as to the first. Nor can any
frequenters of an English or German spa consider the motive which
brought together so many of different ages and with different
ailments, a strange or an obsolete one. Even the notion that at
certain times the water would possess a virtue which at other times it
would want, may be justified by modern experience, perhaps may be
explained by modern science.

But experience and science, it will be said, are both set at nought by
the announcement in the next verse: '_For an angel went down at a
certain season, and troubled the water: whosoever, therefore, first
after the troubling of the water stepped in, was made whole of
whatsoever disease he had_.' Here a reason is given for the virtues of
the pool;--not, it will be said, a medical reason; not one which can
connect the waters of this pool with those which intelligent people
frequent for qualities which are, on fair evidence, known or believed
to be in them;--but rather one which connects them with the holy wells
which in the villages of England, Wales, and Ireland, are supposed to
have received a blessing from some local saint. To find St. John
adopting or endorsing such legends, causes no pain to those who assume
him and his brother Apostles to be the propagators of superstition;
ignorant Jews, who were steeped in all the prejudices of their
countrymen, and who added to them some of their own invention. There
are some who, with a general respect for him and them, can yet give
him credit for following the traditions of his country when they were
ever so vulgar and false; excusing him on the plea that he knew
nothing of physics, and that his business was not with them. There are
men of a better and nobler stamp, who, though they do not claim for
him any acquaintance with natural science, yet are sure that he lived
to scatter delusions, not to foster them; and that he would not have
been permitted by the Spirit of truth to claim for lies the name of
Him who came to bear witness of the truth. I do not wonder that some
of these honest and earnest men should have been able to persuade
themselves that the verse I have just quoted has nothing to do with
the general narrative of the cure at Bethesda; but has crept into the
text from the gloss of some writer who understood Jewish opinions, not
the mind of St. John.

I respect the motives of these interpreters, but I think their
conclusion is a rash and a wrong one. I am convinced that the words
which they would omit are a vital part of the narrative, and that our
Lord's act loses very much of its meaning if we overlook them. I am
equally convinced that these words contradict no truth of science;
that, if taken by themselves, they do not meddle with it, and are only
supposed to meddle with it through a logical confusion, from which,
for the sake of science and of our own intellectual clearness, it is
well that we should be delivered; that, if taken in conjunction with
the whole story, they help to scatter a superstition which was very
injurious to the Jewish people, and is equally injurious to people in
this day.

What St. John affirms is, that a certain invisible angel or
minister--an intelligence, as we are wont to speak--was the instrument
of making the water of the Pool of Bethesda beneficial to the persons
who went down into it. He accounts, in this way, for its operation
being more useful at one time than another. That assertion, you say,
interferes with the doctrine that there were certain properties in the
water itself which affected the condition of human beings. How does it
interfere? You hold that the vaccine matter has in itself the property
of counteracting the virus of the small-pox. But you hold also that
the intelligence of Jenner had something to do with making this
vaccine matter available for the actual cure of patients afflicted by
the small-pox; you hold that the intelligence of different medical men
has something to do with bringing the preventive power to bear on
particular cases. You know this for a fact; but physical science tells
you nothing of the way in which the intelligence cooperates with the
natural agent. The notion that it does is an excusable fallacy; yet it
is a fallacy. _In no instance whatever can the mere study of physics
help you to determine anything respecting moral or intellectual
forces; though at every turn the study of physics compels you to the
acknowledgment of such forces._ It will save us from innumerable
confusions, if we take this proposition in the length and breadth of
it. Through neglect of it, the physician and the metaphysician are
perpetually stumbling against each other, when they might be the
greatest helpers to each other.

But, it will be said, that notion of an angel which connects it with
the intelligence in a man, is a modern one, not the one which we
should naturally derive from the Old Testament. I think, if we study
those passages in the Old Testament which refer to angels, we shall
find that it is exactly _this_ notion which is the result of them, and
that any other is a modern one, either derived directly from heathen
sources, or from a mixture of heathen feelings with the lore of the
New Testament. In the patriarchal times, we hear of angels appearing
to Abraham to tell him of blessings which were coming upon his
descendants; of angels seen by Jacob in a vision, of one who wrestled
with him till the break of day. The stories leave upon us the
impression that there are beings who minister to the unseen Lord of
the whole earth; who are interested in the well-doing of men; who are
different from men, but not so different as to be incapable of
converse with them--not so different that they may not present
themselves even to the human senses. The effect of those visions and
revelations was to take away from the old shepherds the feeling that
they were merely surrounded by natural forms or by animal existences
which were beneath them; that there was a world near them, though not
visible to them, which might have fellowship with them, and which
elevated them above their flocks and herds. In the next age,--the age
of legal and national life,--there are intimations of an angel going
with the people through the wilderness; angels admonish warriors that
they should be courageous in fighting the battles of the Lord; angels
remind the people of their departures from the law of God; angels
arouse humble men to deliver their people from idolatry and from
slavery. Here the lessons respecting the nature and work of angels are
not changed, but expanded. These messengers communicate more with the
spirit of men, present themselves more rarely to the eye. They are
witnesses of a permanent divine order, belonging not to the
individuals to whom they come, but to their race; of an order from
which they have departed, and into which it is the Divine will that
they should be brought back. In the regal period, the war or the
pestilence,--the direction of natural agencies to the punishment of
human crime,--is referred to angels. The effect of _this_ teaching
upon the thoughtful Jew was, that he could never suppose himself the
mere sport of outward influences of earth, or of air, or of fire. All
these had a purpose; all were directed by the wisdom of Him who had
entered into covenant with the nation. In the Book of Psalms, which
illustrates this period, He is said to '_make His angels spirits, His
ministers a flame of fire_.' All natural powers are felt to be angels
of God, because they are under the direction of an intelligent and
righteous Ruler. In the Books of the Prophets, before the captivity,
the angel is not lost sight of; but the Word of God who comes to the
Prophet, more and more gathers up all powers and ministries into
Himself, while the human teacher to whom he speaks is himself treated
as a messenger of the Most High,--as no less His angel than any
creature who has not the weeds of mortality. In the Prophets, after
the captivity, new functions are assigned to angels. They watch over
different lands; provinces of the earth are committed to them by the
Lord of all;--it is hinted that some of them may have failed in their
trust, as human sovereigns fail in theirs. These lessons seem
especially appropriate to the time when the Jew was to feel his
connexion with other nations, and to find that each of them supposed
itself to be governed by some divine king or demigod.

Is not the doctrine of this chapter entirely consistent with the
lessons which St. John had learnt from his fathers? Those lessons, I
have urged, can neither be confuted nor confirmed by physical science.
But the analogy which we derive from our ordinary experience is all in
favour of them. It is a shock to the conscience and reason of man to
feel that he is indebted to moral agents,--to spiritual agents,--in a
very great degree, for the health and comfort which he enjoys here;
but that the whole world which lies beyond his ken is only peopled
with physical forces which act upon him blindly and care nothing for
him. Men never have been able to persuade themselves of this. The
_people_ have always held the opposite faith. Surely it is time to ask
ourselves whether that faith must be merely set at nought,--whether
its manifest falsehoods and mistakes do not conceal precious
truths,--whether those truths can be at variance with any
others,--whether we are not bound to bring them into light, as the
only means of dislodging the errors to which they have given
countenance, and also of overthrowing some of those idols of the cave
which the student worships no less ignominiously than the multitude
worships the idols of the market-place? I believe St. John tells us
how his Master did this work at the Pool of Bethesda: '_A certain man
was there which had had an infirmity thirty and eight years. When
Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that
case, He saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole? The impotent man
answered Him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put
me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before
me. Jesus saith to him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk. And
immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed and walked._'

This was a sign indeed,--a sign addressed to a man who had been
waiting day after day, perhaps year after year, for some outward
accident to make him well,--that health and disease are dependent upon
no accidents; that the power of life is an inward power; that there is
One in whom it dwells; that He in whom it dwells is near to the
weakest, the most helpless, even the most sinful. It would seem, from
the words which our Lord spoke to this man afterwards, '_Go, and sin
no more, lest a worse thing come upon thee_,' as if He had selected a
man in whom all these conditions met, who was the oldest and most
powerless of all the sufferers there, and had brought the sufferings
upon himself by his misdoings. The demonstration, therefore, was
complete. Men--the very lowest men--are not the dependants upon
outward things, no, nor upon the visitations of angels. Such
visitations may be appointed; but there is One who has a right to call
Himself a Son--One in whom the mind and purpose of the Lord of angels
is expressed--One who fulfils, not occasionally but continually, His
purposes of health and restoration to men--One who is the Son of
Man--who has sympathy with men, and can take away their infirmities,
because He knows them, enters into them, suffers them.

Thus this cure is bringing us to the point to which St. John has been
bringing us in all the previous passages of his Gospel. This sign at
the Pool of Bethesda, like all the other signs we have been
considering, reveals to us the Word who is the Source of life and
health to all creatures. We are led from the messenger, visible or
invisible, to Him who was with God and was God. We are led from the
mere friends or helpers of man to that Word made flesh, the Son of
Man. We are led finally to a Son who has come to reveal a Father.

I have chosen my text from the latter part of the chapter, because it
brings _this_ subject so directly before us, and because I believe
that in doing so it gives us the real moral and explanation of the
narrative of which I have just been speaking. Two cures are recorded
by St. John as done by our Lord in the city of Jerusalem: one is that
at the Pool of Bethesda; the other, that of the blind man at the Pool
of Siloam. They are very different in their incidents and their
object: the latter we shall have to consider attentively hereafter.
But they have this in common,--both were wrought on the Sabbath-day.
In both cases, St. John fixes our thoughts upon this point; in both,
this circumstance is the cause of the bitterest indignation against
Jesus; here it is said to be the motive of a conspiracy against him.
'_Immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked:
and on the same day was the sabbath. The Jews therefore said unto him
that was cured, It is the sabbath-day: it is not lawful for thee to
carry thy bed. He answered them, He that made me whole, the same said
unto me, Take up thy bed, and walk. Then asked they him, What man is
that which said unto thee, Take up thy bed, and walk? And he that was
healed wist not who it was: for Jesus had conveyed Himself away, a
multitude being in that place. Afterward Jesus findeth him in the
temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more,
lest a worse thing come unto thee. The man departed, and told the Jews
that it was Jesus which had made him whole. And therefore did the Jews
persecute Jesus, and sought to slay Him, because He had done these
things on the sabbath-day. But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh
hitherto, and I work. Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill Him
because He not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God
was His Father, making Himself equal with God._'

Two points present themselves to us here, and demand some earnest
consideration. The first is, Why should the Sabbath-day have been
especially chosen by our Lord for these acts of healing? The second
is, What connexion was there in the Jewish mind, or in our Lord's own
words, between the charge of breaking the Sabbath and the charge of
calling God His Father?

The belief in angels had a good effect upon the people of the Jews, in
so far as it led them to believe that the Most High cared for them
individually as well as nationally,--that He Himself, and not some
outward thing, was the Author of their blessings, the Restorer of
their health. It was perverted to a bad use by the people, in so far
as it led them to depend upon accidental interferences, not upon a
continual living Helper. How Christ's sign brought out the good,
counteracted the evil, of this faith, I have endeavoured to show you.
But the belief of angels and spirits, which distinguished the
Pharisees from the opposing sect, had most of the mischief, little of
the truth, which clung to it among the crowd whom they despised. The
tenet, that angels had interfered and might interfere, did not make
them think that God was concerned for His creatures,--that He loved
them. It only suggested the thought that there were certain persons
and certain places that might receive favours which were withheld from
others. It did not bring them to believe that any union between God
and man existed or was possible. Rather angels were the dispensers of
those laws, and the executors of those punishments, which marked the
separation between God and His creatures, and the wrath of God against
them. God was the Author of statutes which had been written in tables
of stone, and could not be changed. God was the Judge and Condemner of
those who broke these statutes. God might dispense with the punctual
fulfilment of them, or accept sacrifices as a compensation for the
breach of them, in the case of His favourites. But one claim to be
such favourites would be the rigorous enforcement of them, as His
commandments, against the nation generally, and the ignorant,
miserable, sinful portion of it particularly.

Was not this zeal for the laws and ordinances of the Most High a good
zeal? Did not Christ come to fulfil the law?--did He wish to set it
aside? Consider, my brethren, what the law was. I do not speak of any
spiritual interpretation of it; I refer merely to the letter of the
Ten Commandments. They begin with these words, '_I am the Lord thy
God, which brought thee out of the house of bondage_.' The zeal of the
Pharisees for the law of God forgot this foundation of the law
altogether. They did not tell the Israelite that the Lord was _his_
God; they did not proclaim the Lord as a Deliverer from bondage, but
as the Author of bondage. Therefore, _every_ commandment was denied in
its very essence. The first said, '_Thou shalt worship the
Lord_,'--that is, the Lord the Deliverer, the Lord _thy_ God,--'_and
Him only shalt thou serve_.' But the Pharisee worshipped any god
rather than this only God; worshipped a god who was directly the
reverse of this only God. Everything in heaven or earth or under the
earth--money, the meanest thing of all--was more an object of worship
to him than this only God. He could not help taking His name in vain.
Every time he pronounced it he took it in vain; he substituted another
name for that of the only God; he cherished another name in his
heart.

But then came the command to keep the Sabbath-day. Here, at all
events, he could be strict to the letter; that he could keep as God
had wished it to be kept. What! when that commandment says, 'Man shall
rest because God rests; man shall work because God works?' What! when
the commandment announced the Sabbath-day as a blessing to the
man-servant, and the maid-servant, and the cattle? A Pharisee construe
this commandment literally? A Pharisee keep this commandment strictly?
Impossible. There was none which he must distort more, in which he
must suppress more vital words, which he must more habitually disobey.
The denial of the sentence which introduces the commandments--the
determination to regard the Lord as a forger of chains, when He
declares Himself to be the breaker of them--necessarily led to a
greater and grosser violation of this statute and ordinance of the
Lord than of all the rest.

And yet there were obvious reasons why the Pharisee should take his
stand on the fourth commandment rather than on any other. As our Lord
tells him elsewhere, he made it part of his religion to set aside the
honour of fathers and mothers. To bear false witness against a
neighbour, if he was not a religious man, not one of their sect, was a
merit rather than a crime. Covetousness is spoken of in the Gospels as
the very principle of their acts towards men and towards God.
And--without inquiring how far they were guilty of secret treasons
against life, against marriage, against property--since the enforcing
of punishments on open crimes, which disturbed the peace of society,
was taken out of their hands, there was no way left them of
signalizing their care for what they called God's law and God's
honour, but by a pitiless rigour in enforcing the customs and
traditions which had connected themselves with the Sabbath-day, the
reason and the purpose of the day having been forgotten.

Here was the ground which the Jewish teachers had chosen for the
exhibition of their morality and religion; it was on this ground that
Jesus encountered them. To the first question, then, I answer, that He
selected the Sabbath-day above other days for healing the sick,
because He came to vindicate the law and make it honourable; because
it had been made dishonourable, and the whole sense of it destroyed,
by the notion of the Pharisees that it proceeded from an arbitrary
Being, who had made it to coerce His creatures, and not from a loving
Being who had formed them in His image, and desired that they should
be sharers of His blessedness; because, unless the day of the rest
could be reclaimed from their perversions, and restored to its right
place and dignity in God's gracious economy, the law never could be a
schoolmaster to bring men to Christ the Son of Man, but must always be
a hard taskmaster to keep them from Him. It was not a single point of
truth which was involved in this controversy--least of all the
question, whether a commandment might be relaxed in one particular.
The whole truth of the old covenant was involved in it; the whole life
and work of the Son of Man was involved in it; the purpose for which
the Son of God had taken flesh was involved in it.

The other Evangelists make these assertions sufficiently clear. They
tell us how Christ claimed to be the Lord of the Sabbath, because
'_the sabbath was made for man_;' and, because He was the '_Son of
Man_;' how He was more angered at the hardness of heart which
displayed itself in the apparent zeal of the Pharisees for the
Sabbath, than at all their other exhibitions of the same hardness;
how the Jewish rulers met His divine anger with theirs, and decided
that the only adequate answer to the demand, '_Is it right to do good
on the sabbath-day, or to do evil?_' must be a conspiracy to put Him
to death. St. John could not say more on these points. But there was a
subject which it was his especial office to handle. He shows us how
Jesus made the defence of the fourth commandment, in its letter and
its spirit, a means of asserting His own relation to God. '_My Father
worketh hitherto, and I work._' Man was bidden to work because God
worked. Had GOD ceased to work, then, on the day of rest? Was He not
nourishing the earth, and causing it to bring forth and bud on that
day? Was He suspending His labours for His creatures on that day? The
argument, like those about the ox and the ass falling into the pit,
was broad, simple, direct; one of those which men who have lost their
life, their humanity, their godliness, in their books, are tormented
by hearing; one which opens the deepest abysses of thought and
consolation to those who are seeking for a living God, for a Father of
their spirits. But such seekers cannot be content with a command to
work because God works, to rest because God rests,--they must know how
the command can be obeyed. They must know on what foundation the
command stands. If there is a Son of Man who can say, 'I work because
He works; I do as my Father does;' He may give the sons of men power
to work and power to rest. His union to them and to God is the
foundation of both.

I have replied, then, to our second question as well as to the first.
I have showed you how the act by which Christ, in the judgment of the
Jews, broke the Sabbath-day, naturally led to what was in their
judgment an act of blasphemy. It was not that He dispensed with a law
of God because He was the Son of God. It was not that He put a new
sense into the law of God because He was the Son of God. It was that
He could interpret the law of God fully. It was that He could
accomplish the law fully. It was that He could unfold the Gospel which
was hidden in the law. It was that He could show in what God's rest
consists, by showing in what His own rest consisted; what God's work
was, by the works which He did Himself in the might of God's Spirit.
And thus, by one sign, He declared that men are not the servants of
angels, and that they are the children of a Father.

O brethren, may those to whom God has given a better and a nobler
Sabbath, which commemorates God's rest in the risen Son of Man and Son
of God, never forget the truth which He taught the Jewish people
respecting their Sabbath, or repeat the Jewish sin by making it a mere
legal day instead of His day!




DISCOURSE XII.

THE SON DOING THE FATHER'S WORK.

[Lincoln's Inn, 4th Sunday after Easter, April 20, 1856.]

ST. JOHN V. 43.

_I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another
shall come in his own name, him ye will receive._


I spoke to you last week upon these words,--'_Therefore the Jews
sought to kill Jesus, because He not only had broken the sabbath, but
said also that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God_.' I
tried to ascertain what connexion there was in their minds between
these two offences; I tried also to show you how their feelings
respecting the Sabbath-day were involved in their general feelings
respecting the Law and respecting the dominion of angels. If there was
a Son who was higher than angels, who could express the very mind of
God--if that Son was actually in the nature of man--all their thoughts
of God and of man must be changed; they must regard Him whom they
worshipped as something else than a mere lawgiver, removed to an
immeasurable distance from His creatures, only holding occasional
intercourse with them through beings of a different order from their
own. They must look upon human beings,--that is to say, not only upon
themselves, but upon publicans and heathens, upon those whom they
regarded as utterly cut off from God,--as standing in a very near and
close relation with Him. This, therefore, was the most horrible of all
conceptions to them, one which struck at the root of their pride, of
that which they called their faith. They might suspect Jesus before,
they might despise Him; but the moment He called God His Father,
suspicion and contempt gave way to hatred. It was clear enough why He
was setting institutions at nought; it was clear enough why He claimed
to heal sick men, whom the ministrations of angels could not heal. By
His words and His acts He was bringing God and man into the most
dangerous proximity. He, '_being a man, was making Himself equal with
God_.'

This last charge I did not dwell upon; I reserved it for our
consideration to-day. The discourse of our Lord which follows in this
chapter has reference to it. No words throw more light upon it than
those which I have taken as my text from one of the latest verses. The
answer to the charge begins in the nineteenth verse. '_Then answered
Jesus, and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can
do nothing of Himself but what He seeth the Father do: for what things
soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise._' You will feel at
once that this sentence is the expansion of that plea which Jesus put
forth for the cure which He had wrought on the day of rest,--'_My
Father worketh hitherto, and I work_.' But, I think, you will feel
also how wonderfully it meets the other more awful accusation, that He
was raising Himself to a level with God. If it had been true, it would
not have been a new charge. '_Ye shall be as gods_,' was the first
temptation presented to human beings,--the temptation to which they
yielded. The ambition had never ceased in any age or in any man.
Jesus would have been but the Person who exhibited it in its highest
power, who expressed it with the greatest boldness. But if the
doctrine which St. John asserts at the beginning of his Gospel, which
he has been working out in every passage of it since, is a sound one;
if there is a Word who was with God and was God; if that Word was made
flesh, and the glory of the Only-begotten of the Father shone forth in
Him; then Jesus was the one Person in the world to whom this charge
did not apply; the one Person in whom there was no ambition of making
Himself equal with God. And this is what He declares here: 'You think
I am exalting myself; on the contrary, this proclamation which I am
making of a Father, this claim which I am putting forth to be His Son,
is the abdication of all independent greatness, the denial that I am
anything in myself. I can do _nothing of myself but what I see the
Father do_.'

Here is the new revelation, the discovery of the real ground upon
which all things stand,--the will of a Father commanding, the will of
a Son submitting. Here is that idea of Godhead which men had been
seeking for,--if haply they might feel after it and find it,--in which
they had been living and moving and having their being, yet which they
had always been rebelling against and contradicting, and which every
thought and act of self-will and pride had been putting at a distance
from them. The lowliest of all, He who was called the '_carpenter's
son_,' was able to speak it out, to translate it into language, as His
whole life translated it into act. And this union of wills, this
inward substantial Unity, He declares to have its basis in love, the
underground of Deity,--'_For the Father_ LOVETH _the Son, and sheweth
Him all things that Himself doeth_.'

We must not forget that all this bears reference to the primary
subject of the discourse. He had been working on the Sabbath-day. That
work He justifies as His Father's work, because it was a work of love,
done to fulfil that mind of the Father which He knew, with which He
was in sympathy. Now He goes on, '_And He will shew Him greater works
than these, that ye may marvel_.' The work of healing was His Father's
work. In quickening the sick man beside the Pool of Bethesda, He had
manifested a part of His will and power towards His creatures. There
would be a more august display of that will and power; '_For as the
Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son
quickeneth whom He will_.' Since the whole passage refers to one of
the signs which Jesus did, it is surely most natural to take this also
as referring to another of those signs. Jesus would not only cure a
sick man, He would raise a dead man. As the cure of the sick man was
an exhibition in a single instance of all the restoring,
health-giving, life-giving influences which were at work through the
universe; as its intent was to lead men to trace all these, not to
chance, not to a dead law, not to their own merits, but to a Father
who directs the operations which look most accidental, from whose mind
law has issued, who alone enables men to work in harmony with His law;
so, by raising a man from the dead, He would show what was continually
going on in the unseen world; what the Father was doing there with
those who were lost to the sight of their fellows, and who seemed to
perish. '_The Son would quicken whom He would._' He would take an
instance here and there to illustrate the general course of His
Father's government. He would break the bonds of the grave for the
widow's son, or the brother of Martha and Mary, that man might
understand how little these chains could bind the whole universe of
human beings, if the Father pleased to set them free.

But the thought of resurrection was associated in the Jewish mind, as
it was in the heathen mind and as it is in ours, with the thought of
Judgment. How could He speak of raising the dead, without speaking of
a judgment through which the dead would have to pass? He anticipates
the objection, and does much more than answer it. '_For the Father_,'
He says, '_judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the
Son; that all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the
Father. He that honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father which
hath sent Him._' These words have been much used in theological
argumentation. I am far from saying that they have not been used
fairly. But I have warned you already, that if we wish to understand
St. John, we must follow his course of thought, not eagerly snatch at
sentences which may serve a temporary purpose. On this ground I
refused to take the first words of his Gospel as a dogmatical
assertion of the divinity of Jesus. I said we must begin, as he began,
at the beginning. We must wait till he spoke to us of Jesus of
Nazareth, and declared His nature to us. Then we should learn much
more of His divinity than if we were in haste to get proofs of it. For
are we not learners, who want to be told what divinity is and what
humanity is? Have we not need to sit at the Apostle's feet, that he
may instruct us in those things which it is most needful for us to
know? Is there not a danger of our fancying that we know all
already--of our taking his divine words merely to confirm propositions
of ours, into the sense and power of which we have never entered?

I would apply this rule in the present case. St. John has told us that
in the Word who was with God was life, and that His life was the light
of men. We have found him illustrating this language in various
ways,--beginning from John the Baptist, as the witness of the light,
afterwards telling us how Jesus spoke to Nicodemus of this being the
condemnation, '_that light was come into the world, and men loved
darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil_.' In both
these passages, in the last especially, and in those which I have not
recalled to your memory, the Word or Son of God is described as a
Judge; as One who discovers the thoughts and intents of the heart; as
One whom the man confesses to be His Lord and King, whether he shrinks
back from His clear light, or asks that he may be penetrated by it. In
strict consistency with this teaching, our Lord here declares the
office of a Judge to be implied in the relation of the divine Son to
men. In doing so, He clears away confusions that have darkened the
conscience and disturbed the practice of all men. We think of the
judgment of God. It is sometimes a terrible thought; it is more
commonly a vague, misty thought. It never has been an effectual one in
making men inwardly or even outwardly better, till they could connect
it with some human judgment,--till they could attribute to some being
of their own race, even though he were a frail being liable to error,
the function of pronouncing upon their deeds and upon their
characters. Why has it been so? Because '_the Father judgeth no man,
but hath committed all judgment unto the Son_.' Because by an eternal,
irreversible law, involved in the very nature of God and the nature of
man, we cannot bring ourselves face to face with the absolute Being.
Our consciences tremble at His name; they do not, they cannot, bring
their secrets directly into His light. Until they acknowledge One
close to themselves, One who knows what is going on within them; until
they acknowledge a Word, a Christ, who is nigh to them and not afar
off; there is no distinction in their minds. Good thoughts and evil
thoughts lie huddled together. Good deeds and bad deeds are only
known, apart from each other, by some results which they may happen to
produce. It is when the man has started like a guilty thing surprised,
at the presence of One who brings back to him past passages of his
existence; who tells him all that ever he did; who shows him that his
acts, his petty words, are not lost in the sum of all the acts that
have been done and the words that have been spoken since the
creation-day, but have all been recorded; it is when the man
understands that He who keeps the record is the dearest Friend he has,
the One who has been guiding him, watching over him, restraining him
from evil, urging him to good from his birth onward; it is when he
understands that the Reprover can give him remission of his sins, can
endue him with a new life;--it is then that he can believe, and
rejoice in the belief, that there is a judgment of God--a judgment for
the whole universe. For it is then that he honours the Son even as he
honours the Father. It is then that he confesses these testimonies in
his own heart to be the echoes of the Voice which gave commandment to
the sea, and fixed its bounds that it should not pass, and ordained
laws for all the generations of men. It is then that the Will which
governs him is felt to be the Will of a Father. He honours it, and
bows to it, and delights in it, because he honours and bows to and
delights in the will of the Son whom He hath sent.

In the words which follow, our translators have exhibited an instance
of the timidity which I have had occasion sometimes to notice before.
'_Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and
believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not
come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life._' There
can be no good reason why the word κρίσις should be rendered
_judgment_ in the 22d verse, and _condemnation_ in the 24th. But from
a fear, I suppose, lest the one should seem to contradict the
other,--lest the Son should be thought not to execute the judgment
that had been committed to Him,--they were unfaithful to the letter,
perhaps even more unfaithful to the spirit, of the passage. To make
the language fit their notion of the sense, they were forced to change
the tense of '_come_,'--to make it '_shall not come_,' instead of
'_doth not come_.' Those who cannot venture these outrages upon the
text, must be content to accept the statement of it simply; that there
is an eternal life in the Son of God,--that eternal life which was
spoken of in the dialogue with the woman of Sychar; that those who
hear His voice speaking to them in their hearts, and receive Him as
the Witness and Manifestation of the eternal God, enter into that
life; that they _do_ not come into judgment. The light does not scare
them, but invites them. They fly to it as a deliverance, not from it
lest it should consume them.

Then the next passage becomes far more intelligible. It is not a mere
repetition of what has gone before; it enlarges and expands the
doctrine we have heard, and applies it to the future as well as to the
present. '_Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now
is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they
that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in Himself; so hath
He given to the Son to have life in Himself; and hath given Him
authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of Man.
Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are
in their graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that
have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done
evil, unto the resurrection of judgment._' There can be no doubt that
when the Jews spoke either of resurrection or of judgment, they meant
merely a resurrection and a judgment after death. Jesus teaches us
that we can know nothing of a resurrection or a judgment after death,
unless we connect it with the Son of God, in whom men may believe and
rise to newness of life here,--with the Son of God who speaks to us
and judges us here. When we acknowledge Him as the Word in whom is
life,--when we confess that His life is our light,--then we shall go
on to acknowledge how both His life-giving power and His judging power
extend over the whole universe, over the dead as well as the quick;
then we shall understand that those who are in their graves are as
little beyond the reach of His voice, as little without the sphere of
His light, as those who are walking upon the earth. So much is
involved in the very idea of a Son who is one with the Father. If we
believe that the Father hath life in Himself, we must believe that
there is a life in the Son which corresponds with that. If we believe
that all thoughts, and acts, past and present, are open to the Father,
we must believe that they are open to the Son. And, as I said before,
the scrutiny of our own hearts and spirits must be in the Son of Man.
We can know nothing of God's scrutiny, except through Him who is in
contact with us, and knows all the throbs and pulses of our spirits.
How dark are all our thoughts of the tomb, till we believe this! How
horrible its abysses seem, when we think of them as out of the circle
of all the laws and relations which exist among us upon earth! What a
sunlight there is upon it--what flowers spring from the sods about
it--when we believe that the Son of God and the Son of Man rules there
as here; that those who have tried to catch the sound of His voice
here, recognise it more clearly and fully in the unseen world; that
those who have done evil, because they have refused to listen to it,
have still Him, and no other than Him, for their Judge!

It is perilling the sense of the whole chapter, to separate this
passage concerning life and judgment from that concerning the Father
and the Son, which introduced it. Our Lord points out, still more
clearly than He has yet done, the relation between the two subjects,
in the next verse. '_I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I
judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but
the will of the Father who hath sent me._' They had said, '_He called
God His Father, making Himself equal unto God._' He answers, 'When I
speak of a Father, I signify that I can of mine own self _do nothing_.
I do not raise myself to the rank of King or Judge over men; I give up
all independent power of judgment. I claim to obey a Will, to be
governed by it. And because that Will is the righteous and perfect
Will, my judgment is right. The moment I boasted that I could judge
according to the hearing of my ears, that moment my judgment would be
wrong. I should be denying my Sonship; I should become false.' And as
He could not judge others except by hearing His Father's judgment, by
following His Will, so neither could He judge Himself. '_If I bear
witness of myself, my witness is not true._' The Jews had asked Him
already--asked Him more emphatically afterwards--to tell them if He
was the Christ. Why could He not give the answer? Because it would not
have been an answer. It would not have shown Him to be a Son; it would
have led them to think of Him as another person altogether than that
which He was. He therefore refers to the words which had been spoken
by the preacher in the wilderness. '_There is another that beareth
witness of me; and I know that the witness which he beareth of me is
true. Ye sent unto John, and he bare witness of the truth._' John had
borne witness of a Word who was with God, of a Son of God, of a Lamb
of God. John had borne witness of a light shining in the darkness,
which the darkness did not comprehend. This was the true witness of
Christ; to this He could appeal, because it was a witness not to the
ear, but to the heart,--because it was the witness of one who did not
claim honour for himself,--and therefore was the fit herald of a
Christ who should come in the name of His Father, not in His own name.

John's testimony being of this character was not the testimony of man,
though it came through a man. Jesus, therefore, does not contradict
his former words when He adds, '_I receive not testimony from man: but
these things I say, that ye might be saved. He was a burning and a
shining lamp_;' (our translators have lost the distinction between the
vessel containing the light, and the light itself,--a distinction
which St. John has carefully preserved;) '_and ye were willing for a
season to rejoice in his light. But I have a greater witness than
that of John; for the works which the Father hath given me to finish,
the same works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father hath
sent me._' John's lamp was one which God had kindled and filled with
his light, that they might be saved from their darkness; for a while
it had played about them, and they had felt a kind of joy in the
thought that God had not forgotten them. But Christ's works,--that
latest work, especially, which He had done on the Sabbath-day, to show
how and for what end His Father worked on that day,--these contained
witnesses of a filial power, a filial obedience, a filial
communion,--a witness to the hearts of suffering men,--which the words
of the Baptist, quick and penetrating as they were, did not contain.

He goes on: '_And the Father Himself which hath sent me, He beareth
witness of me. Ye have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen
His shape._' 'In these acts of mine--these wonderful acts--as well as
in my ordinary discourse, in my daily deeds and works, a Father is
speaking to you, a Father is testifying of Himself to you. He is an
invisible Being. It is not by visible appearances, by sounds and by
shapes, that He communicates with you; it is by His Word.' Could it be
necessary to say this to a people who were called out of all nations
to know the unseen God, to protest against idols; to a people who had
the law and the Prophets; to a people who were proud of their calling,
proud of their law; who detested idols; who wrote out the Scriptures
continually, reverenced them, declared them to be the very words of
God?

Yes, brethren! it was necessary for this people. Jesus declares why it
was necessary. '_And ye have not His Word abiding in you: for whom He
hath sent, Him ye believe not. Search the Scriptures; for in them
ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
And ye will not come unto me, that ye may have life._' I think that
the late learned Bishop of Limerick and others, who have maintained
that the verb ἐρευνᾶτε, in the 39th verse, would better be translated
by the present tense of the indicative than by the imperative, have
produced sound arguments for their opinion, and that the context is
all in favour of it. But if the previous verse and those which follow
be heeded, I am quite willing to adopt our version; the sense will be
radically the same; and any who think that they cannot enforce the
duty of studying the Bible, if they are deprived of this precept, may
retain it as a motto for their sermons. What the Word of God is in St.
John's Gospel, we have not now to learn; he has been teaching us from
the first verse of it onwards. How that Word must abide in men, if
they are to have any light; how the rejection of it is the choice of
darkness, he has also been telling us, not once, but continually.
Those who will not have the Word of God abiding in them, must shut out
the invisible world, must become the slaves of the visible world. They
may not have idols of wood and stone; but they must have idols.
Besides the grosser idolatry of money,--to which, as a nation, they
will be driven by the want of any spiritual object,--their religious
men will fall into the worship of _letters_. The letters of the book
which testify of a living God, will receive the homage which the only
God claims in this book for Himself. This was the condition of the
Jewish people,--especially of the Jewish teachers,--when our Lord came
among them in the flesh. '_They searched the Scriptures; for in them
they thought they had life._' And those Scriptures they made the
excuses for rejecting Him in whom life dwelt,--the living Word of God.
This charge our Lord brings against them here and elsewhere. That he
wished them to search the Scriptures which testified of Him, no one, I
suppose, doubts. That He commanded them to do so in this place, I am
not at all anxious to dispute. And oh! how rejoiced should I be if we
English Christians, heirs of Jewish privileges, felt that command as
indeed addressed to ourselves! if we were ready to obey it! if,
instead of talking about the Bible as the only religion of
Protestants, writing its name upon banners, declaring that we are
ready to die for it, we would indeed search into its treasures,
because it testifies of Him in whom alone we can have life!

I do, indeed, desire that we should take the lesson contained in these
awful sentences home to ourselves. For I do feel that the danger of
the Jews in this case, as in that of which I spoke to you last Sunday,
is precisely our danger; that we are likely not to search the
Scriptures, because they bear witness of the Word of God, but to turn
them into idols, because we have not the Word of God abiding in us.
And I feel as if our Lord had laid bare the inmost root of our
disease, as He does of the Jewish disease, in the verses which follow:
'_I receive not honour from men. But I know you, that ye have not the
love of God in you. I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me
not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive. How
can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the
honour that cometh from God only?_'

He begins with asserting this as His distinction, that He seeks His
glory from the only God (παρὰ τοῦ μόνου Θεοῦ), not from
man. He concludes with asking how they can believe Him, when they seek
honour from each other, not from this only God. And who is this only
God of whom He sought glory? He has told us before,--the God who loved
the world, and gave His Son, that through Him it might be saved. That
love He reflected; of that love, in His words and deeds, He testified.
No such love was in them. They did not feel their want of it; they did
not seek it where it was to be found. They flattered each other; they
lived upon each other's praises. And the consequence was, that they
did not believe in One who denied Himself, who abjured all praises,
who said that He could do nothing but what He saw His Father do. Such
a Being was incomprehensible to them. They _could_ not believe in Him.
They must take Him to be a blasphemer and a devil. Let us remember it
and tremble. When religious men open 'a benefit club of mutual
flattery,' and live upon the allowances that are doled out from it,
they must deny the Father and the Son.

There are still some sentences left in this chapter which must not be
passed over. '_Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father:
there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had
ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me; for he wrote of me. But
if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?_'
However little of the _love_ of God there might be in the men to whom
Jesus spoke, there was a conscience which responded to what He said.
Their conscience said there must be a Father,--we _ought_ to be His
children. If so, and if this man were not a blasphemer, but the Son of
God, might He not charge them before His Father for their denial of
Him? The thought was a natural one. How eagerly a teacher who came in
his own name would have profited by the terror it excited! How
continually the ministers of Jesus Christ _have_ said to unbelievers,
'What! dare you question His mission? If He should be what we say He
is, how certainly He will accuse you to the Father for your rejection
of Him.' Jesus Himself declares that this is not His office--that He
is not, and never can be, the accuser. The law in which they gloried,
in which they trusted, that was accusing them,--that was telling them
how they had resisted the God of love,--that was telling them that
they needed a Person to unite them to God; an elder Brother, in whom
they might meet and behold their Father. Moses the lawgiver was
writing of this Advocate and Brother. But if those letters of his were
boasted of and worshipped, not believed, how could they believe the
quickening, life-giving words, which are written not in tables of
stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart, by the Son of Man?




DISCOURSE XIII.

THE BREAD FROM HEAVEN.

[Lincoln's Inn, 5th Sunday after Easter, April 27, 1856.]

ST. JOHN VI. 35.

_And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to
me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never
thirst._


In general, the signs or miracles of Christ which St. John records are
not the same with those which the other Evangelists have recorded. The
exceptions are found in this chapter. Here, as in St. Matthew, St.
Mark, and St. Luke, we have a narrative of the feeding of the five
thousand; here, as in St. Matthew and St. Mark, we have the narrative
of Jesus walking on the sea. There is no doubt that the events
described in all the Gospels are the same. In time, place, numbers,
and in most of the circumstances, they exactly correspond. The
variations in St. John, however, are very instructive as to his own
design. We may learn from them why he repeats his predecessors, as
well as why he so commonly introduces topics which they have not
touched.

'_After these things, Jesus went over the Sea of Galilee, which is the
Sea of Tiberias. And a great multitude followed Him, because they
saw His miracles which He did on them that were diseased. And Jesus
went up into a mountain, and there He sat with His disciples. And the
Passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh._' The addition to the story
is in the last verse. It has puzzled the harmonists. It does occasion
serious difficulties in the chronology of this Gospel. Yet I hesitate
to call it an interpolation. The Jerusalem feasts are continually
present to the mind of St. John. Even when he leads us into Samaria
and Galilee, we are never allowed to forget them. I own, however, that
this notice of the Passover does not prepare us for a visit to the
city; and that it is quite unnecessary as an introduction to the
following discourse, which, as we all know, was suggested by an event
which took place near Capernaum.

'_When Jesus then lifted up His eyes, and saw a great crowd come to
Him, He saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread, that these may
eat? And this He said to prove him: for He Himself knew what He would
do. Philip answered Him, Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not
sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little. One of
His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, saith unto Him, There is
a lad here which hath five barley-loaves, and two small fishes: but
what are they among so many?_' The force of the sign is often, as I
said before, to be discerned in these incidents, quite as much as in
what we call the miraculous part of it. We see how our Lord uses
events as an education of His disciples; how part of an event serves
to bring out the character of one man, part of another. And what was
true then, according to the doctrine that goes through the book, is
true always. As the Teacher does not change--as, in essentials, the
learner of the West is not different from the learner of the
East--the same method of discipline belongs to both. We may
understand, from the specimens of it which St. John gives us, how our
thoughts are awakened--how we are made conscious of doubts, that they
may be satisfied.

St. John follows strictly the former Evangelists till the 14th verse.
There the effect of the sign upon the multitude is given in words
which we have not elsewhere. '_Then those men, when they had seen the
miracle which Jesus did, said, This is of a truth that Prophet which
should come into the world. When Jesus therefore perceived that they
would come and take Him by force to make him a king, He departed again
into a mountain Himself alone._' Two names are brought together which
are quite distinct, but which have mingled with each other in all the
world's history. 'He is a _Prophet_; God has sent Him.' That is the
natural feeling of a crowd which has been conscious of a wonderful
power exerted on its own behalf. Then comes another:--'How shall _we_
exalt this Prophet? How shall we show our sense of His might, and our
gratitude for His benefits? Let us make Him our _King_. None is so
worthy to reign over us. He may not be willing to put Himself at our
head; why should not we take the matter into our own hands?' It was no
new thing. Many a champion had arisen before in Galilee to rid the
people of their oppressors. Each had come in the name of God. The
desert was the ordinary scene of their exploits. Was it not the very
place for an insurrection in favour of this Galilæan Prophet to begin?
If some compulsion were used, the mysterious power which had fed them
would, of course, be ready to support His own claims.

Unless we remember this wild excitement among men who had been hungry
and who had eaten, and the voice of command with which He sent them
away to their houses--the kingly might coming forth in His resolution
that _they_ should not make Him a king--we can scarcely enter into the
stillness and awfulness of that night-scene which is brought before us
in the following verses:--'_And when even was now come, the disciples
went down unto the sea, and entered into a ship, and went over the sea
toward Capernaum. And it was now dark, and Jesus was not come to them.
And the sea arose by reason of a great wind that blew. So when they
had rowed about five-and-twenty or thirty furlongs, they see Jesus
walking on the sea, and drawing nigh unto the ship: and they were
afraid. But He saith unto them, It is I; be not afraid. Then they
willingly received Him into the ship: and immediately the ship was at
the land whither they went._'

I believe the conscience of men has received the right impression from
this story. It has come to them in dark oppressive hours as the
witness of a Presence that had been with them, though they knew it
not,--of a calm power in which they might trust. This might not be
their notion of a miracle. If they had been asked to define its nature
and its purpose, they would carefully limit it to the time in which
Jesus dwelt on earth; they would say it was a departure from the laws
of nature to attest His divine mission. They would explain away the
faith they had expressed unawares; they would say they had only been
making a moral or personal improvement of the incident. No, brethren,
it is not so. They discovered the true meaning of the sign at first.
The other is the cold intellectual _mis_interpretation of it. They
feel in their hearts that it is _not_ a violation of the laws of
nature, for the Son of Man to prove that the elements are not man's
masters. They feel that when He raised up His disciples' hearts to
trust in Him, He was teaching poor, weak, ignorant men the true law of
_their_ being, and thereby teaching them to reverence and not to
despise the laws which He had imposed on the winds and on the waves.
They feel that the whole beautiful narrative is not an argumentative
assertion of a divine mission which can confute disputants, but the
practical manifestation of a divine kinghood to meet the cravings and
necessities of human beings. What does a debater care for '_It is I;
be not afraid_?' What else does a man tossed about in a tempest care
for? The words were not spoken to Scribes and Pharisees, and were not
heard by them. They were spoken to fishermen out in a boat at night;
and by such they have been heard ever since.

St. John tells us this in the next paragraph. If we attach the modern
notion to miracles, we shall, of course, conclude that so singular a
witness of the Messiahship of Jesus must at once have been declared to
those who were hesitating about it, and half ready to believe it. The
occasion for announcing it was given. '_The day following, when the
people which stood on the other side of the sea saw that there was
none other boat there, save that one whereinto His disciples were
entered, and that Jesus went not with His disciples into the boat, but
that His disciples were gone away alone; (howbeit there came other
boats from Tiberias nigh unto the place where they did eat bread,
after that the Lord had given thanks): when the people therefore saw
that Jesus was not there, neither His disciples, they also took
shipping, and came to Capernaum, seeking for Jesus. And when they had
found Him on the other side of the sea, they said unto Him_, _Rabbi,
when camest Thou hither?_' Here were the excitement and astonishment
all ready. These people had said the day before,--'_This is of a truth
that prophet which should come into the world_.' What strength would
that conviction gain, if they heard that He did not cross the lake as
other men crossed it! He says nothing of this. '_Jesus answered them
and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me not because ye
saw signs, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled._'
They did seek Him because they had seen _miracles_ or _wonders_; for
it was a wonder that they had eaten and been filled; it was one which
might be repeated. But they did not seek Him because they saw _signs_.
The signs had not told them who He was; they had not come because they
wanted Him, but because they wanted something which He could give
them. He did not then announce any other sign of His power; it could
have done them no good. But He proceeded to draw out the signification
of the first sign; to show them what there was in it beyond the
satisfaction of their immediate hunger.

Here, even more than in the case of the woman at the well, we may
wonder at the deep mysteries which He revealed to what we should call
ignorant sensual people. That they were a crowd of such people, St.
John tells us plainly. And yet to what Jerusalem doctors had He spoken
of a Bread of Life--of a bread of which a man might eat and not die?
But let us begin where He begins. Each sentence, each clause, even
each word, that He addressed to this rabble at Capernaum, is meant for
the ears and hearts of the wisest among us. '_Labour not for the meat
which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting
life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you: for Him hath God the
Father sealed._'

To the woman of Sychar He spoke of water, for she had come to draw
water. To these Galilæans He spoke of bread, for they had been eating
of the loaves. Neither to one nor the other would He speak of the
spiritual gift without speaking of the sensible gift,--without making
them feel that that also was from God. He addresses the people of
Capernaum as men working for their food ordinarily, though for once
they had received it without working for it: and He bids them believe
that there is another nobler work which is appointed for them,--a
work, however, which does not prevent the fruit of it from being a
gift. They were earning, by the sweat of their brow, a food which
sustained their lives from day to day,--God endowing them with both
the power to toil and the reward of toil. They might toil for a bread
that would sustain another different kind of life in them,--a life not
of hours and instants, but eternal. This bread, He says, the Son of
Man will give. After what I said last Sunday of His use of this
title,--of His assertion that the Son of Man must be the judge of men,
must be the life-giver to men,--I have no need to dwell upon it here.
I would only lead you to notice how exactly this application of it
accords with that in the dialogue at Jerusalem, and yet how suitable
it is to the Galilæans whom He is teaching. In both cases we find men
brought directly into contact with One who knows them, who reads their
hearts, who is the source and the standard of all that is human in
them. In both, this Son of Man leads them to a Father from whom He has
proceeded, from whose life His is derived, who has given Him His
authority, whose will He has come to do. The words, we saw, were most
provoking to the Pharisees of the holy city. Their inhumanity made it
impossible for them to enter into the revelation of a Son of Man;
their sense of distance from God, and their conception of Him as a
mere Lawgiver, made the name of Father monstrous and incredible. With
these ignorant labourers it was otherwise. A Son of Man,--a King who
was yet a Brother,--they secretly longed for; half their wild acts
were done in the struggle to find such a one. The thought of God was
more terrible;--oftentimes they would have wished to hide themselves
from Him under any hills and mountains; oftentimes they might have
been glad to be told that there was no such Being. But there was that
in them which owned Him as the Giver of all that they had; as worthy
of the trust which their fathers put in Him; as associated with the
graves of their parents and the faces of their children. To hear Him
called a Father,--however little they might understand in what sense
He could be a Father,--to hear that there was One whom He had sealed
as a giver of Life to men,--this answered to some of the dreams which
they had dreamed in their happiest hours: to some of the necessities
which had been awakened within them in their saddest hours.

But these were vague, half-realized thoughts. The word 'labour,' or
'work,' was familiar to them. Jesus meant, they thought, that God
would not give them anything which they did not earn. '_What shall we
do_,' said one, who was the spokesman of the rest, '_that we may work
the works of God_?' As often happens, the language was accurate beyond
the conscious intention of the person who used it. He desired to know
what work they should work _for_ God, whereas it was really a work
_of_ God that was demanded. '_Jesus answered, This is the work of God,
that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent._' God was working upon
them; He was calling them to trust their King and their Friend; to
give up their hearts to the Lord of their hearts--to Him who could
alone quicken them to any good and fruitful work.

Of course, they understood by the expression, '_Him whom He hath
sent_,' that Jesus was claiming to be Messiah,--the sent from Heaven.
'_They said therefore unto Him, What sign shewest Thou then, that we
may see, and believe Thee? What dost Thou work? Our fathers did eat
manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven
to eat._'

Jesus had fed them in the desert when they were fainting. That was a
strange and great act, no doubt, worthy of a Prophet, perhaps of a
King. But the manna had actually dropped from heaven out of the
clouds. If He came from Heaven, would He have merely taken the bread
in His hands and blessed it? Would there not have been a sign like
that which showed Moses to be indeed the messenger of God? Would there
be no appearance in the sky? It was the question of people whose minds
were perplexed about Heaven, and who, happily, had not found out
seemly phrases in which to veil their perplexity. A material heaven--a
heaven of sky and clouds--was what they saw and confessed. They had a
dim vision of something beyond this. Their hearts yearned for a Heaven
as calm as that upon which their eyes gazed; as full of light, as
productive of life, but yet altogether different from that. What it
was, where it was, they could not tell. Do you think we should have
helped them if we had talked to them about an intellectual Heaven or a
subjective Heaven? Do you think such nonsense can be of much help to
ourselves?

'_Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses
gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true
bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He which cometh down from
heaven, and giveth life unto the world._' They had a feeling that, in
some way, the manna was a gift from above. They had an equally strong
feeling that, in some way or other, it came to them from Moses. The
impressions were confused; yet each was right in itself. The records
in the Book of Exodus encouraged each. Those records taught them to
regard the water which started from the rock, when it was struck by
the rod, as bestowed by an unseen Giver. If the manna was found upon
the trees, that book would teach them that it was just as much a gift
as if it fell from the clouds. Our Lord brings this sense out of the
old story. '_Moses_,' He said, '_gave you not that bread from
heaven_.' And then He pronounces the higher Name--the new Name, the
Name which He had come to reveal--'_My Father_.' It was He who gave
_that_ bread in the wilderness, and it was He who was giving them,
then and there, '_the true bread from heaven_.' What that Bread is, He
goes on to explain. It is a _Person_ whom they want to connect Heaven
with earth,--themselves with God. The glory they gave to Moses showed
they needed a Man to bring God nearer to them. Their eagerness to
assert that the manna came from Heaven, showed that this was not
enough for them--there must be a direct connexion between them and the
higher world into which Moses ascended; their food must denote it. The
name of Father told them that it was even so. That Name turned the
material heaven into a spiritual Heaven, more real than the material
heaven--a Heaven from which the best good could come, not to lawgivers
or prophets, but to hungry Galilæans; for they could not really enter
into that name of Father without acknowledging a Son who came to them
as their Brother. They could not receive Him in these characters
without believing that He had come to bring life--common life and the
highest life--not to a few select men, but to the world.

'_Then said they unto Him, Lord, evermore give us this bread._' The
parallel words to this, in the dialogue with the woman of Samaria,
were spoken, I thought, with the levity which characterised her till
she discovered that Jesus knew all things that ever she did. I do not
perceive a similar levity in these words. The people may have taken in
very little of His meaning; but I think they were serious and awed.
And surely the words in which our Lord answers them are very different
indeed from those which He spoke to the woman; very different, also,
from those in which He spoke afterwards to people who had none of her
frankness, and who had a crust of intellectual and spiritual pride to
break through. Before I quote His words, I will explain why I think
that they wind up one division of this chapter, and that the remainder
of it, though a continuation of the subject, introduces us to new
topics and new persons.

It is evident that the conversation commences on the border of the
Lake of Tiberias, with the people who had just crossed and found Jesus
there. But it is said in the 59th verse--'_These things said Jesus in
the synagogue, as He taught in Capernaum_.' There must be a break,
therefore, somewhere. I can have no doubt that it occurs at the 41st
verse. In it we are told that the Jews murmured at Him. The word
_Jews_ we have not met with before; the moment it occurs, the
character of the narrative changes. Instead of the simple, confused
observations of a crowd, '_which did eat of the loaves and were
filled_,' we have murmurs and reasonings of such men as were sure to
be found in the synagogues--men who represented the sentiments of the
Scribes and Pharisees of Jerusalem. They are evidently, I conceive,
discussing a strange phrase which had been reported to them as having
proceeded from the lips of the Nazarene teacher. All the controversies
which have been raised about this chapter, arise directly out of the
latter part of it. I shall not enter upon any of them to-day. We shall
be far better qualified to consider them, if we dwell for a few
moments upon that wonderful Gospel to the poor which is contained in
the reply to their half-unconscious prayer--'_Lord, evermore give us
this bread_.'

'You ask me to give it to you: it is given already. The Father has
given _Me_ to His creatures. I spoke of a Son of Man whom the Father
had sealed. _I_, that Son of Man, _am that bread of life_. But how can
such bread be eaten? _He that cometh to Me shall never hunger; and He
that believeth on Me shall never thirst._' If coming to Him was going
to Him on their feet, they had done that already; if believing on Him
was acknowledging Him as the Prophet that should come into the world,
they had already fed on Him in the sense that He intended. Yet it was
clear that their hunger was not satisfied--that it was only beginning
to be excited. He goes on--'_But I have said unto you, That ye also
have seen Me, and believe not_.' If Jesus was merely a Prophet of
Nazareth, who could be shown by visible miracles to be sent from God,
the distinction of seeing and believing is incomprehensible. Let a
sufficient amount of probative evidence be addressed to the eye, the
act of believing must follow. But if He was the Word who had in all
times been the Light of men; if those who judged by the sight of their
eyes had resisted this Light, and become idolaters; if those who
received it, received it into their hearts, and so rose to the stature
of Sons of God;--then it was certain that He would speak to another
organ than the eye, or than any of the senses; as much when He stood
before them in an actual body, and spoke with fleshly lips, as when He
was only their invisible Teacher and Reprover. It must be their faith,
not their sight, which must now, as ever, see Him and answer to Him.
They might touch Him, and yet not come to Him.

But He proceeds:--'_All that the Father giveth to Me shall come to Me;
and him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out_.' The apparent
advantage of being on earth at the time of His appearing--of being in
the streets in which He walked, of sitting with Him, of conversing
with Him--would be nothing. All these privileges might belong to those
who would reject Him, hate Him, betray Him. But all that the Father of
spirits gives to Him--all that yields to the Father's will--shall
confess Him as its true Lord; and him that so cometh, in one place or
another, in one age or another, He will not thrust away. '_For I came
down from heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that
sent Me._' 'I have not come forth to save some choice favourites of
Mine, but to fulfil the will of Him who created the universe--of that
Father to whom I said your spirits are yielding when they turn to Me.'

'_And this is the Father's will which hath sent Me, that of all which
He hath given Me I should lose nothing out of it (ἵνα πᾶν ὃ
δέδωκέν μοι, μὴ ἀπολέσω ἐξ αὐτοῦ), but should
raise it up at the last day._' I dare not paraphrase these words. They
are too large and too deep for any conception I can form of them. The
adjective and the pronoun, you will perceive, are in the neuter, as if
the promise was to include not only humanity, but all that is related
to humanity--the body through which the spirit speaks and acts--the
whole frame of nature, which has shared man's decay and death. The
final day cannot come till all that the Father has redeemed is raised
to its proper life. But yet the neuter could not satisfy the intention
of Jesus. He was speaking to distinct persons; He must add--'_And this
is the will of Him that sent Me, that every one that seeth the Son,
and believeth on Him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him
up at the last day._'

Thus we are brought back to the original proposition; only it has
gained immeasurably in strength and fulness. To each man in that crowd
who had eaten of the loaves and been filled, and had followed Christ
for no better reason than that,--to each man upon whom His light
shined in the days before His incarnation,--to each man who has been
born into the world since,--to each ignorant peasant of this land,--to
every miserable dweller in the streets and alleys of this city,--to
each one of us who may have been tempted by wealth, luxury, false
philosophy, false religion, to seek some food that cannot nourish us,
does He say: 'It is the will of My Father that this man should triumph
over all the enemies that are drawing him down into death, and that he
should be raised up at the last day by the might of Him who died and
rose again; that he should enter into that eternal life of
righteousness and truth, which was with the Father, and which has been
manifested to us in His only-begotten Son.'




DISCOURSE XIV.

THE TRUE LIFE OF NATIONS AND OF MAN.

[Lincoln's Inn, Sunday after Ascension (Thanksgiving-day), May 4,
1856.]

ST. JOHN VI. 62.

_What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where He was
before?_


On this day the order of our Services would lead me to speak of our
Lord's Ascension. On this day the Queen commands us to give thanks for
the restoration of Peace. My text will tell you that I need not break
the order of my discourses on St. John, if I desire to speak on the
Church Festival. I believe there are lessons in the passage which
would naturally come under our notice this afternoon, that belong
equally to the National Festival. As long as we think of the Peace
without any reference to God,--we mean by Peace, the Treaty of Peace;
we question whether such and such articles in it are commensurate with
the cost and success of the war,--whether boundary lines are fairly
and wisely drawn,--whether new concessions might not have been
obtained by a longer struggle? Or perhaps we mean by Peace merely the
cessation of those hostilities by which all the nations that have
taken part in them are more or less exhausted. Or perhaps we identify
it with the material prosperity of the classes which have money,--a
prosperity that seems to some closely connected with social and
intellectual progress, if not the source of it. All these subjects
deserve our most serious consideration. I believe that a
Thanksgiving-day is to increase the earnestness with which we reflect
on them, to take away the looseness and levity of our thoughts
respecting them. But it must do this by opening to us another view of
Peace,--not as based upon treaties and conventions,--not as being
sustained by these; but as deriving its ultimate strength from the
mind and will of Him who rules the universe, its subordinate security
from our conformity to His mind and will. Such a day teaches us to
look upon Peace not merely as the end of a war, but as the normal
state of a Christian and human society; a state which is interrupted
by the lusts that war in our members,--the interruption being most
terrible when it exhibits itself in internal strifes and hatreds. Such
a day calls upon us to reflect that what, in the dialect of the
money-market, is called prosperity, is not one of those symptoms of
Peace which we are to rest in with confidence,--not one which we are
ever to contemplate without trembling. For it does not mean the growth
and vital energy of the whole body, but an unnatural swelling and
bloating of certain portions of the body. It often leads to ignoble
aims, frantic speculations, systematic fraud,--to everything that
destroys the force of a people, and makes it a silly, gambling,
slavish people. It compels wise men frequently to regard war, with all
its horrors, as an inevitable punishment; nay, even as a positive
blessing. Therefore such a day as this obliges us to seek diligently
for the springs of the moral life of societies,--for the secret of
their inward peace and coherency.

The Lawgiver of the Jewish people had told them that all the
discipline they passed through in the wilderness had been to teach
them that '_man does not live by bread alone, but that by every word
which proceedeth out of the mouth of God, doth man live_.' He was
speaking to them as the members of a _nation_. He was telling them
that the endurance of their national polity from age to age would
depend not upon material bread, but upon another kind of nourishment
and strength which it would derive from an unseen Presence. The lesson
was repeated by every prophet, ratified by the darkest and the
brightest passages of Jewish history. They were a wise and
understanding people, strong and united,--however poor in numbers and
physical appliances,--just so far as they believed in a One God, who
watched over them, in whom they might confide. They were a
contemptible people, essentially weak, full of elements of strife and
dissolution,--however numerous they were, however rich,--when numbers
and riches became the objects of their worship, when the righteous and
living King was forgotten. Do you think that this, which is _the_
maxim of the Old Testament, is forgotten in the New? Do you think that
Jesus introduced a new law which set this law aside,--a law that had
reference to individuals merely, and not to societies? I believe that
the great misery and sin of the Jews, in the time when our Lord
appeared among them in the flesh, was that they had lost the feeling
of national unity,--that they had become mere covetous individuals,
herding together in sects, knit to each other by opinions and
antipathies, not by the sense of a common origin, a common country, a
common Lord. Jesus came to gather together the lost sheep of the house
of Israel under their true Shepherd. Jesus claimed publicans and
sinners as part of the same nation, as heirs of the same covenant with
the most devout. Jesus was in continual conflict with the sects,
because they were substituting a self-seeking religion for the faith
of Israelites. It is true that He was unfolding the faith of
Israelites into a human and universal faith; but in doing so, He was
establishing, not undermining, that which sustained the nation, and
must sustain every nation.

When, therefore, He answered those who spoke to Him of the manna which
their fathers ate in the wilderness, by telling them of the true Bread
which came down from Heaven, He was, I conceive, expounding the words
of Moses,--those which He had used in His own temptation. He was
showing that neither the life of Israel nor the life of humanity can
be sustained by earthly bread; that both demand another food; that He
could tell them what that food was, whence it came, how it might be
received. By keeping this thought in our minds through the latter part
of this wonderful discourse, I believe we shall do something to rescue
it from the fangs of systematisers and controversialists, as well as
to deduce needful instruction from it for England on this day.

The 40th verse of this chapter appears, as I observed last Sunday, to
close our Lord's dialogue with the people who had crossed the lake to
see Him, because they had eaten of the loaves on the previous day. An
interval has passed before the 41st verse. Then we hear of certain
Jews who were _murmuring_ at the words, '_I am the bread that came
down from heaven_.' These Jews, I conjectured, were Scribes belonging
to the synagogue of Capernaum,--men who had caught the notions and
habits of the Scribes in the capital, and yet could avail themselves
of the local prejudices of Galilæans. Their temper is clearly
indicated in the 42d verse:--'_And they said, Is not this Jesus the
son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how is it then that He
saith, I came down from heaven?_' The difficulty about Heaven, of
which I spoke last week, was really not less for the Scribe than for
the peasant,--only the one could talk learnedly about a second, or
third, or seventh heaven, while the other, more honestly and more
wisely, did not pretend to know about anything but the actual
firmament which was over his head. Yet the consciousness which man has
of some better heaven than this, was indicated by the confused
experiments of the former to conceive one, and dwelt in the heart of
the latter, awaiting some divine touch to call it forth. The spring
was touched when our Lord spoke of a Father; the new heaven which the
spirit of man in each man craves for, is contained in that name; where
the Father is, it is. If we demand a more accurate definition, we may
try our skill in framing it,--God's revelation will not help us. For
that revelation does not cheat us with formulas when we are in want of
realities; does not give us stones when we ask for bread.

Jesus, therefore, told the cavillers just what He had told the crowd.
'_Murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to me, except the
Father which hath sent Me draw him: and I will raise him up at the
last day._' All their reasonings and debatings would not bring them
nearer to Heaven or to Him, than the feet and the eyes of the people
who had eaten of the loaves had brought them. The Father of spirits
must draw their spirits to Him who was the source of their life and
light, whom He had sent to raise their spirits out of their darkness
and death; when they were drawn, when they did embrace Him as their
deliverer and friend, no death of the body, no darkness of the grave,
should have power over them; He will raise them up to the fulness of
life in the last day.

Was this new doctrine? '_Was it not written in their Prophets, Ye
shall be all taught of God?_' Was it not the very promise,--the
highest promise,--to the people of God's covenant, to those who were
circumcised and withdrawn from fleshly idols, that they should hear
His voice speaking to them? What did that promise imply but that God
was a Father who was educating the creatures who are formed in His
image to know that image? '_Every man therefore that hath heard and
learnt of the Father, cometh unto Me._' 'He comes to Me as that Word
who was in the beginning with the Father,--as that Word who has been,
and is, and will be always, the light of men.'

'_Not_--He goes on--_that any man hath seen the Father, save He which
is of God, He hath seen the Father_.' It is not that any man has had a
vision of Him who, by a thousand mysterious influences, is every hour
acting upon him, and whom he has either obeyed or resisted; only He
who is of God--only the Son, who has come forth from the Father--has
had this vision; only He has entered into that Love which has been
guiding the universe, and penetrating into the hearts of human beings.

This doctrine respecting the Father and the Son, which we have been
tracing through every passage of this Gospel--which we have found to
lie beneath all its other announcements--is the necessary preparation
for the answer which He makes to the murmurers:--'_Verily, verily, I
say unto you, He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life. I am that
bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and
are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man
may eat thereof, and not die. And the bread which I will give is My
flesh, which I will give for the life of the world._'

This contrast between these two kinds of life has gone with us through
this discourse, as well as through all our Lord's previous discourses:
we ought by this time to be sufficiently familiar with it. The eternal
life we have found is the life of the spirit; the life which is
supported by material bread is the life of the flesh. Faith or belief
is here, as elsewhere, described to be the proper act and exercise of
the spirit, as feeding upon bread is the natural act or exercise of
the flesh. That which is presented to the spirit must be as real as
that which is presented to the flesh. The spirit cannot provide its
own nourishment; faith cannot create its own object. Jesus says, '_He
that believeth hath eternal life_.' He adds, '_I am that bread of
life_.' 'I am the Word of Life to man at all times, whether he knows
it or not--whether he desires a heavenly life, or is content with an
earthly life. And as your fathers received manna from God to sustain
the life of that body which was to die at its appointed season, I, the
Word of Life, have come from God to sustain the life of the spirit--to
keep that from perishing, to give it the immortality which He intended
for it. I am the living Bread which came down from Heaven; I am that
Word, in whom is life, made flesh. If any man acknowledge Me as that
Word of Life--if his spirit participates of that life which is in
Me--he shall live for ever; and this flesh which I have taken, which I
have united to My living and eternal substance, I will give for the
life of the world.'

I keep closely to the letter of the Evangelist. I dare not depart from
it; and I dare not seek the interpretation of it anywhere but in
himself. There are a hundred scholastical interpretations of the
reason why the Son of God was made Man--why His death was necessary
for the deliverance of men. Those who think these explanations better
than St. John's may make what use they can of them. I find in St. John
all that I want--infinitely more than I can embrace. I will try, with
God's help, to learn what the Spirit is saying to us by him before I
look elsewhere.

When He says, '_The bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will
give for the life of the world_,' does He speak of His death on the
cross? Does He speak of some mysterious life which He will communicate
to those who truly believe in Him? Does He speak of that Sacrament
which we believe that He has commanded us to receive? You know how
these questions have been debated in all times--how they are debated
now. Perhaps we are on the point of a tremendous conflict on this very
subject--a conflict which, however slight in its beginnings, may in
its issues be more serious and practical than the one from which we
have just escaped. Do not, therefore, let us evade the question, or
any of the great moral difficulties which are involved in it. Do not
let us strive to discover a poor unsatisfactory compromise upon it. Do
not let us treat with contempt or indifference any of the earnest
feelings which are enlisted on one side or another of it. One man or
another may be condemned; there may be shouts of party triumph, or
groans of defeat. What are all these when the question is about the
life of the world, the life of eternity--about that which is to be
when we are all standing together before an all-righteous Judge, to
answer for the idle words we have spoken against each other, and for
our mockeries of His Name? If we are giving thanks to God for peace,
in the Name of God let us be labouring for peace--such peace as He
only can give us!

Let us be sure, then, that when Christ speaks of giving His flesh, He
does mean, as all have supposed Him to mean, that He would give up His
body to die upon the cross. Let us be sure that, when He speaks of
giving His flesh for the life of any, He must speak of a real, hidden,
divine life, such as he has been speaking of throughout. Let us be
sure, lastly, that when He speaks of giving up His flesh for the life
of the world, He must mean that the blessing which He would confer by
giving up His flesh would be one for mankind--for the whole earth--not
for a little portion of mankind,--not for a few inhabitants of the
earth. Whether I can grasp these truths or not, I must acknowledge
them all to be true, if I acknowledge the Gospel to be true; I must
believe that God understands them, if I do not. And this is what I
mean when I come to the Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ. I
do come to give thanks there that in Him is the life of the world, and
that He gave His flesh for the life of the world. I do not want a
separate life either here or hereafter. I come to renounce that
separate life, to disclaim it, to say what a wretch I have been for
pretending to have it, for trying to create it. I come to say that I
find a separate life to be a detestable and damnable life--another
name for death. I come to say, that if God leaves me to that separate
life, I know that I am doomed to the second death,--the eternal death;
but that I understand that the Son of God, by sacrificing Himself, has
given me a share and a property in another life--the common life, the
universal life which is in Him; and that, understanding this, I have
come to give God thanks for it--thanks for myself, thanks for my
brethren, thanks for the universe; and I have come to pray that,
through His Son, He will deliver me, and my brethren, and the universe
from that separate and selfish life which is the cause of all our woes
and miseries, spiritual and fleshly, inward and outward.

In this way, brethren, I reconcile the faith in that sacrifice which
was made once for all--the full sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction
for the sins of the whole world--with that faith in each man to which
Christ promises eternal life. In this way, I believe that the
Sacrament of the Lord's Supper explains and justifies both truths, not
because there is some strange mingling in the elements of a body which
must be received,--whether there is a spiritual organ to receive it or
not,--but because it testifies to man of the eternal Lord of his
spirit--of the Word who is his life, of the Word who was made flesh
for the life of the world. I regard that Sacrament as looking backward
to the beginning, onward to the end of all things--as speaking of Him
from whom all things have proceeded, and in whom all shall be gathered
up, whether things in heaven or things in earth. I do not think St.
John had anything new to tell us respecting the Lord's Supper: it was
already adopted in all the churches. Though he dwells so much on the
last passover, he does not record again the breaking of the bread and
the pouring out of the wine. He had a different task. He had to show
why that act was not a formal religious ceremony, the badge of a
profession; he had to show the eternal law upon which it rested--the
ground there is for it in the relations of God and man. If you ask
me, then, whether he is speaking of the Eucharist here,--I should
say, 'No.' If you ask me where I can learn the meaning of the
Eucharist,--I should say, 'Nowhere so well as here; for here I find
the very signification of the sign. Here I may discover what the
Eucharist has been to Christendom--what it has been to each man who
has desired to be one of the great Christendom family--what it may be
as a means of binding that family together--how it may become a bond
to nations which are as yet lying beyond the circle of that family.'

But, first, we must learn how hard it is to acknowledge either the
sign or its signification. '_The Jews therefore strove among
themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?_' That
strife which began in the synagogue of Capernaum has gone on, in every
nation of the modern world in which the name of Christ has been
proclaimed, even to this day. Some think they can quiet their own
minds, and settle all debate, by saying, 'Of course, the eating is
metaphorical.' But I do not find that the use of that phrase has
brought much contentment to any living soul. I do not think that any
man's _spirit_ can be satisfied with the bare imagination of a feast
any more than his _body_. When vain men feed upon praises,--when angry
men feed upon the acts which provoke them to rage,--when men who have
received kindnesses feed on these kindnesses,--when earnest patriots
feed upon the deeds that have been done by those who have saved their
country,--you may, if you please, call this fantastic, imaginary,
metaphorical feeding. I know that the results are real; that the vain
man does vain acts, and acquires a vain character; that the angry man
does acts of revenge, and becomes in spirit, if not openly, a
murderer; that all gentle acts come from that upon which the grateful
man has nourished himself--all that is most blessed to mankind, from
the courage and self-denial which the lover of his country has
cultivated in himself. These skilful intellectual explanations of
facts--the haughty and self-complacent formula, 'This only means'--may
serve very well the purposes of those who write books; for those who
have to live and die, they are good for nothing. They take for granted
that which the conscience of mankind denies,--that which every
language on the face of the earth denies,--that the words which
represent acts of the senses, needs of the senses, the satisfaction of
the senses, do not also represent acts of the spirit, needs of the
spirit, the satisfaction of the spirit. They introduce an unreal
middle world between the senses and the spirit--a world of shadows,
from which the most absolute materialism is a deliverance; because
that, at least, is honest, and because against that there must be a
re-action.

The mere animal people, who had eaten of the loaves and were filled,
did not strive and fight as these intellectual people of the synagogue
did. They wanted actual food; they had real hunger, if the deeper and
nobler hunger had not yet been awakened in them. To them Christ could
offer Himself as the Bread of Life. He does so also to these; but it
is in sterner and more terrible language. '_Then Jesus said unto them,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of
man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my
flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him
up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink
indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in
me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the
Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is
that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat
manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.
These things said He in the synagogue, as He taught in Capernaum._'

Our Lord does not argue with these men. He makes an assertion,
appealing to the after-history of the world for the confirmation or
refutation of it. I believe the history of Christendom, from beginning
to end, is nothing else than a commentary on these words; that we may
read it by the light of them. Immediately after the age of the
Apostles, if not in the age of the Apostles, there arose sects which
affirmed Christ to be a spiritual being, an emanation from God, but
which utterly denied that He was the Word made flesh,--which were
utterly scandalized at the notion that He actually and literally died
upon the cross. The leaders of these sects were, many of them, very
able men; they had perceived some high principles of the Gospel,--they
had perceived the relation of those principles to the doctrines that
were current both in Jewish and Heathen schools. They were not put
down by the persecutions of their brethren, for they existed before
the Church could persecute,--when it was the object of persecution.
They were not in themselves offensive to the Roman empire, for they
were like the religious or philosophical sects which it always
tolerated; they were not politically dangerous. And yet these sects
came to nothing. They had no cohesion,--they had no relation to
humanity; in our Lord's simpler and higher language, '_they had no
life in them_;' for though they dwelt upon His spiritual nature, they
did not feed upon His flesh and drink His blood.

Look on through all the centuries which follow. You find divisions,
hatreds, secularity, hypocrisy in the Church; you find strifes about
its doctrines,--about the relation of its ministers to each
other,--about its relation to civil governments,--about its
sacraments. What is it that has held this strange divided body
together? What is it that enables us to say there has been such a
thing as Christianity in the world,--that it has had an influence upon
the civilization and order of the world? I can find but one answer. I
do discover through all these ages the recognition of a Son of Man who
actually took human flesh and blood,--who actually offered up that
flesh, and poured out that blood upon the Cross. I do find that there
has been here a common centre of life to all these ages,--something
that has held them together in spite of their divisions and
hatreds,--something that has been stronger than the division of
castes, and classes, and sects, of the lord and the serf, of the
prelate and the beggar. I do find the Cross the source of all that was
noble, chivalrous, self-denying in the Middle Ages,--of all that was
not base, tyrannical, superstitious. I do find the flesh and blood of
Christ the strength of the Reformers, the bond of Protestants, the
spring of all in them that has not been sectarian, disputatious,
selfish, hateful. I cannot explain this in any other way than by
believing that this flesh and blood of the Son of Man has been a
divine food and drink, which has been ministered by God, in ways I
know not, to Christian society, to Christian men, through all these
times. I cannot but believe that there is a spiritual and eternal life
in that flesh and blood which has given them this quickening power. I
cannot account for that quickening power by any faith, or wisdom, or
virtue which I see in Roman Catholics or Protestants,--in the members
of one nation or Church or another. Whatever faith, or wisdom, or
virtue, I do discern in them,--and, thank God, there is no corner of
the earth, no moment of history, in which they may not be seen by
those whose eyes are open,--I must trace to a higher source. I can
find the only interpretation of it in the words,--'_As the living
Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me,
even he shall live by me_.' I must refer the Bread itself which has
come down from heaven, and all the life of faith, and hope, and love
that it has sustained, not to the creature, but to the Creator; not to
the child, but to the living Father. I must suppose that He has been
drawing men into the state for which He created them; that He has been
proving that they were originally formed in His Son; that to be
separated from the Son of Man is an unnatural, inhuman condition: that
every good and blessed fruit which has grown on the soil of human
nature, has been produced from union with Him.

It is the next passage which contains the words that I have chosen for
my text. '_Many therefore of His disciples, when they had heard this,
said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it? When Jesus knew in
Himself that His disciples murmured at it, He said unto them, Doth
this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up
where He was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh
profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit,
and they are life. But there are some of you that believe not. For
Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who
should betray Him. And He said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man
can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father._'

Why does the allusion to the Ascension occur here? What has it to do
with the previous discourse? I think brethren, that here again the
history of Christendom is the interpreter of the words of Christ. It
has been a '_hard saying_,' that we must eat the flesh and drink the
blood of Christ, in order that we may have life in us. To make that
'_hard saying_' easier to the understanding, easier to the flesh,
various devices have been resorted to. One has been that to which I
alluded just now, of representing the saying as only metaphorical.
Another has been that of supposing that we may eat the flesh and drink
the blood of Christ, provided He descends into the bread and wine of
the Eucharist, and transmutes them into His body and blood. I call
this hypothesis an experiment to make the words which were hard,
easier to the carnal understanding. I fully admit that there has been
a Nemesis of that understanding. That which was framed to aid its
conceptions, has become the most intolerable bondage to it. Decrees
must compel it, under awful penalties, to accept the explanation which
its impatience craved for. And what has been the consequence? The
blessed and elevating mystery which this week speaks of, has been
practically lost sight of. The ascended Christ, at the right hand of
the Father, has been thought at a hopeless and incredible distance
from the suppliant upon earth. The glorified Humanity has been
entirely overshadowed by the thought of the cradle at Bethlehem. One
vast section of Christendom has acknowledged the words,--'_Except ye
eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life
in you_.' But it has denied that other sentence which proceeded from
the same lips,--'_It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh
profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you_, _they are
spirit, and they are life_.' The spirit in man is as impatient of
those fetters that bind it to the earth, as the carnal understanding
is of all that is not of the earth, earthy. The message which Christ
brings from the living Father to that spirit is,--'I can raise you
above the earth; I can enable you to share those treasures of wisdom,
and righteousness, and love which are the treasures of the kingdom of
heaven. I can make you partakers of that Divine Humanity which I have
redeemed and exalted to the Father's right hand.' And our gospel to
the spirit of man is; Either you must feed metaphorically upon
Christ's flesh and blood, or you must force yourselves to think that
He is come down again into lower and baser conditions than those which
He took when He 'did not abhor the Virgin's womb!'

But,--as the last words of the passage I have quoted remind us,--no
power of man can awaken in us that faith, however greatly we may want
it, which thus ascends to Christ, and dwells with Him where He is. It
must be given us of the Father. That mighty drawing, which has been
spoken of so often in this chapter, must lift individuals, must lift
nations, out of the death of notions and opinions, into the life and
freedom which the Son of Man came to bring them. Is that a reason for
despondency, brethren? Is it not a reason for all hope? If we had
nothing better to look for, than that the disciples of Christ, of one
Church or another, should discover the meaning of His words, the power
of His life, the last verses of this chapter would cause us the
deepest despondency. '_From that time many of His disciples went back,
and walked no more with Him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye
also go away? Then Simon Peter answered Him, Lord, to whom shall we
go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure
that Thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus answered
them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? He
spake of Judas Iscariot the son of Simon: for he it was that should
betray Him, being one of the twelve._'

Those sentences which declared what is the very life of the Church,
drove back the first disciples from Christ. They could believe in a
prophet,--they could believe in any notions or doctrines; they could
not believe in a Divine Word who would give His flesh for the life of
the world. There is a sadness, a human sadness, in our Lord's question
to His own apostles, which proves that even they might have been
staggered by the thought that they must eat His flesh and drink His
blood, and that even they might desert Him. And though Peter's answer
was a noble one, because it showed that he would cling to his Master,
in spite of all ignorance and confusion,--because it showed that he
trusted in Him as a Person, and that he was sure there was eternal
life in Him, however little he might understand the way in which that
life was to be received,--yet the allusion to Judas, at the close of
all, has in it a depth of sorrow and of meaning which no one can
fathom. It is quite evident, I think, that the sin of Judas is in some
way connected by our Lord with unbelief in that lesson which He had
been teaching in the synagogue of Capernaum. But how could that
unbelief convert him into a devil? I answer with trembling. Judas is
represented elsewhere as a covetous man. In following Christ, he was
seeking not Christ but himself. He could believe in One who would give
_him_ a place in the Church below or the Church above. He could not
believe in a Son of Man who came to give life to the _world_. But a
person who has lived with Christ, and been a minister and an apostle
of Christ, and yet sinks into a separate selfish existence, answers to
the Scripture definition and idea of a devil.

If the early disciples deserted Christ,--if His own apostle betrayed
Him--because He said that He would in very deed prove Himself to be
the Son of Man, by pouring out His blood for men, and by feeding the
spirit of man, why may not His latest disciples forsake Him; why may
not His priests now betray Him because they, too, desire a Christ for
themselves, and not for the universe? But if our trust is not in them,
but in the living Father, we shall see all things working together for
the manifestation of the Son in this His true and proper
character,--for the discovery of Him to all nations as the source of
their highest life. The war which we have just passed through has
brought us, the most exclusive of nations, into strange proximity with
nations with which we have had no previous sympathy. We have fought
side by side with one which was called for ages our natural enemy; we
have fought for one who has been regarded as the enemy of Christendom.
The alliance will have done us harm, if it has made us value our
position as Englishmen less,--if it has made us understand less the
position which our fathers in the seventeenth century occupied, when
they struggled against Louis XIV. for Protestantism and for national
life. It will have done us good, if it has made us feel that our
fathers were fighting against a tyranny which was hostile to
Protestantism and nationality because it was hostile to
humanity,--that there is a Son of Man who is Lord of Frenchmen as
well as Englishmen, whom both in their creeds confess, whom both in
their acts are continually denying, for whom each is disposed to set
up some other Lord. Our struggle in behalf of Turkey will have done us
harm, if it has led us to think less than our fathers did of that
which divides the Crescent from the Cross,--the symbol of mere power,
and the symbol of strength perfected in weakness. It will have done us
good, if it has taught us that we are bound to resist injustice and
wrong as much when it is done to Mahometans as Christians,--if it
leads us to remember that the Son of Man gave His flesh for the life
of the world,--for Mahometans, therefore, as well as for Christians.

A phrase has gone forth, and has become almost proverbial among us,
which was spoken by one who was our enemy--spoken, we thought, with no
honest intention, but one which has been recognised as containing a
reasonable prophecy. It concerned the sickness and coming death of
that empire for which we have been fighting. If sickness has
overtaken, if death is to overtake, that once vigorous kingdom, this,
I believe, is the explanation:--It bore at one time a strong and
terrible witness for a living God, a Ruler of men, a Destroyer of
idols;--God endued it with strength to bear that witness. It bore no
witness for a Son of God and a Son of Man. It put humanity at a
hopeless distance from God. Therefore seeds of weakness were latent in
it when it was mightiest. They were certain to develop themselves in
it more and more. They were certain at last to make its belief in God
ineffectual, because it denied Him to be a Father. To adopt the modes
of European civilization--to tolerate enemies of the prophet--may
delay or may hasten the dissolution which has been foretold Certainly
there is not in any of these things a power to restore life. Would the
acceptance of Christianity restore it? If Christianity is taken up
just as these changes have been taken up, as part of a new system--as
the condition of admission into fellowship with more powerful states,
I can conceive nothing so worthless, so detestable. The old Mahometan
fanaticism is worthy of reverence; for it was real and honest. _This_
profession of Christ would be a pretence and a mockery. The faith in
Jesus which the Moslem does cherish is better than this;--he does
confess Him as a great, though an inferior, Prophet. This would be to
degrade Him into the head of a rival sect, which it is convenient for
state purposes to make supreme.

But how can we teach them to regard Jesus in any other light than
this? The first step to such a consummation is, to see that we do not
degrade Him to this level ourselves. Let our Christianity be something
more than a surface thing--more than an exclusive thing--more than a
particular form of opinion; then those that are without our circle may
feel its power, because then it will be a power. We need not, as some
fancy, reduce the Gospel into a set of moral maxims, that we may meet
the believers in the Koran on a common ground. By taking that course,
we enter into a foolish competition with the Koran; we do set up our
religion against the Mahometan religion, and so insult the prejudices
of those who profess it. We need not bring proofs that Mahomet was an
impostor, or that Jesus was the Messiah. But starting from that which
is the strong and vital truth of Mahometanism--proclaiming mightily an
unseen God and a living God--we may go on to declare that which is the
specially Christian truth,--that this God is united to His creatures
in a Son; that this Son has taken man's flesh, and has given His
flesh for the life of the world. The deepest mystery of our faith is
the most universal; when we are most Christian, we are most human.
Only we must not stop short at the Incarnation; we must go on to the
Ascension;--so we do justice to the Mahometan demand that we should
not exalt manhood above Godhead; so we escape the danger which
Mahometans too justly imputed to Christians, that they turned the
flesh of Christ into an object of idolatry;--when Christ Himself said,
'_It is the spirit which quickeneth_.'

There is a design of establishing an English Church at Constantinople.
If it is accomplished, God grant that the Gospel which is preached
there may be the same which has been preached already by English lips
and English hands in the hospital at Scutari! God grant that we may
not seek there or here to set up an English religion,--for that cannot
be the religion of Jesus Christ; that must be a denial of the Son of
Man! If we fulfil the obligations which our Church lays upon us, we
shall tell all men that there is a life for them in Him who died for
all. We shall show the Turks that we hold the Second Commandment as
sacred as Mahomet held it; that we are Islamites, confessing the will
of God to be the only foundation of all the acts and energies of man.
We shall show the Greeks that we regard the Son of Man as the one
universal Bishop of His Church. We shall show the Latins that we are
members of a one Holy Catholic Church, to which all nations belong,
and which, by its unity, is to testify of the Unity of the Father and
the Son in one blessed Spirit. And so we shall vindicate our own
position as Englishmen; so the Church which we build on a foreign
shore will prove that the countrymen whose bones lie on that shore
have not died in vain. They will have fallen in war that there might
be the sacrament of a true and eternal peace between the nations. And
whensoever the bread is eaten and the wine is drunk which testifies
that the Son of Man has given His body and His blood for the life of
man, their thanksgivings will be joined with those of the Church
militant, for the sacrifice and oblation that was once made for
all,--their prayers will rise with those of their brethren to the
Father of spirits--through Him who has ascended on high, leading
captivity captive--that all tyranny, and oppressions, and wars, may
cease for ever upon that earth which He has redeemed.




DISCOURSE XV.

THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES.

[Lincoln's Inn, Whit-Sunday, May 11, 1856.]

ST. JOHN VII. 37-39.

     _In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood
     and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me
     and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath
     said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
     (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on
     him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given;
     because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)_


If the words in the last chapter--'_the Passover, a feast of the Jews,
was at hand_'--are genuine, it would seem as if Jesus did not go up to
that feast, or to the Pentecost which must have followed it. At all
events, nothing is recorded of any visits to Jerusalem; and the
inference from the opening of this chapter clearly is, that '_He did
not walk in Jewry_' from the time that the Jews had sought to kill Him
at the feast spoken of in the fifth chapter.

I did not think it was necessary to make guesses respecting the name
of that feast. What _this_ was the Apostle has told us. I have no
doubt that he wished us to remember why it was instituted; what it
should have meant to them who were celebrating it; what it did mean to
Him whom they had sought to kill, because He had said, '_God was His
Father_.' It said to the Jews who were living then,--'Your fathers
dwelt in tabernacles in the wilderness; they had no houses which they
could transmit to their children, as you have. But the unseen God went
in a tabernacle before them. That was the secret of their strength;
that bound them together as a nation, before they had conquered a
single walled town of Canaan. Your houses are as little stable as
theirs were. If _your_ national strength and union consist in your
walled cities, the Romans in a year may lay them all waste. But the
living God dwells with you as He did with your fathers. The Romans
cannot take that Presence from you. _You_ may forget it; _you_ may
disbelieve in it: then the tabernacle of God will not cease to be with
men,--but it will cease to be with _you_; _you_ will not be His
stewards or witnesses any longer.'

Even we can feel that there was this significance in the festival;
events which, we know, were soon to happen, reveal it to us, if the
Law and the Prophets do not. How much more than we can divine or dream
of must He have seen in it! But the persons who were about them, His
own kinsfolk, had no such thoughts. To them the feast was an unusual
gathering of men together,--the occasion which one who professed to be
a prophet or leader of the people should take for showing Himself to
them. '_Now the Jews' feast of tabernacles was at hand. His brethren
therefore said unto Him, Depart hence, and go into Judæa, that thy
disciples also may see the works that thou doest._'

Looking at this advice from the point of view which we commonly take,
we should speak of it as most sensible. We suppose that Christ wrought
His signs to convince the unbelieving Jews of His mission; what more
strange than that He should not take pains to display them? Looking
at the advice from his point of view, St. John says, '_For neither did
His brethren believe in Him_.' They expected Him to make a startling
exhibition of His power to the eye. They did not _believe_ in
Him,--for faith rests upon that which is not seen; it confesses an
inward, vital power.

The words, '_show thyself to the world_,' were doubtless used by these
brethren of Christ in a very broad, vulgar sense. Jerusalem was the
great world to them; there all Jews met; there were the learned men
who decided what others were to think and believe; there were the
rulers of the people. But they had used the right word. A Mantuan,
speaking of great Rome, and wondering what he should do there, would
not have been more correct in calling _that_ the world, than these
Galilæans were in giving the name to the city of David. The Italian
metropolis might, in one sense, be the centre of the world's
government and the world's wickedness; the Cæsar might be the world's
god. But a society which was organized on the confession of a living
and true God--which had retained its organization, and believed in
_that_ instead of in Him--is more exactly the world, in the sense in
which the world is opposed to God, than the Roman society, or any
other existing at that time, could possibly be. Jesus, therefore,
adopts the expression of His kinsmen in answering them. '_Then Jesus
said unto them, My time is not yet come: but your time is alway ready.
The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it,
that the works thereof are evil. Go ye up unto this feast: I go not up
yet unto this feast; for my time is not yet full come. When He had
said these words unto them, He abode still in Galilee._'

There is a greater sense of loneliness and oppression in this
language, than in any which we have met with thus far,--the loneliness
which comes from being altogether misunderstood; the oppression which
comes from a work to be fulfilled, which those whom it was meant to
bless would abhor. The Son of Man feels all the difference between
those '_whose time was alway ready_,'--who could go up to the feasts
whenever it pleased them, merely with the expectation of meeting
friends, and mixing in a crowd,--and Him who had the straitening
consciousness of a message which He must bear, of a baptism which He
must be baptized with. And the Son of God feels that He is to bear
witness of a Father to a world which was created by Him, and did not
know Him--which longed to rid itself of the sense of His
Presence--which conceived of Him as a tyrant and an enemy. The world
cannot hate those who fancy that the business of a divine Prophet is
to persuade it to admire him and follow him. The world must hate those
who tell it that the Creator of all good and truth is close to
it,--that it has no good apart from that Creator,--that its works will
always be evil while it is not owning Him. The world must hate Him in
whom the glory of the central and eternal Good and Truth shone forth
as in an '_only-begotten Son, full of grace and truth_.'

'_But when His brethren were gone up, then went He also up unto the
feast, not openly, but as it were in secret. Then the Jews sought Him
at the feast, and said, Where is He? And there was much murmuring
among the people concerning Him: for some said, He is a good man:
others said, Nay; but He deceiveth the people. Howbeit no man spake
openly of Him for fear of the Jews._'

We are carried at once into the bustle of the feast. Two or three
lines give a clearer and livelier impression of the feelings of the
crowds who were assembled at it, than the longest description could
have given. They wonder if the Teacher from Galilee is there, or is
coming. There are various thoughts about Him. 'He has done many kind
acts; surely He is a good man.' So says this man and that, as they
talk in the streets. 'Yes; but the multitude,--the ignorant people,
who are expecting a king,--what strange, dangerous notions He is
filling them with! Can you doubt that He is plotting to be their
chief?' So others whisper, correcting the charitable judgments of
their neighbours. But it is a hum of voices. There is a fear of
something, the people do not well know of what. It is a fear of the
Jews, the Apostle says. Each fears the other. There is a concentrated
Jewish feeling in the Sanhedrim, among the rulers, which all tremble
at. Till that has been pronounced--above all, while there is a
suspicion that it will come forth in condemnation--it is not wise for
any to commit themselves. Brethren, do we not _know_ that this is a
true story? Must it not have happened in Jerusalem then; for would it
not happen in London now?

'_Now about the midst of the feast Jesus went up into the temple, and
taught. And the Jews marvelled, saying, How knoweth this man letters,
having never learned? Jesus answered them, and said, My doctrine is
not mine, but His that sent me._'

He went up to the feast in secret; but He goes into the Temple openly.
He has as little wish to hide His doctrine as He has to display
Himself. His testimony is to the world. It is borne at this time to a
letter-worshipping world,--to a world which believed that certain
letters had come long ago from God, but which utterly disbelieved
that God could hold converse with men in their day. Such people have
lost all sense of the meaning of letters. They are no longer the
blessed media of intercourse between soul and soul, witnesses of
spiritual communication; they are dead things, to be committed to
memory, to be learnt most readily by those to whom they express least.
How natural their wonder was that He who spoke with authority,--He who
uttered living words, and adopted all the living symbols of nature to
illustrate them,--should know letters, when there was no evidence that
He had gone to any school! And though a scribe may have first spoken
of His ignorance, it is quite probable that the crowd will quickly
have caught the phrase, and have manifested the same astonishment that
one of themselves should dare to teach them. The answer is in
accordance with all that He has said before. There is a fountain
within, from which His words flow. They are not His own. He speaks
what He has heard. He is a Messenger from the Unseen; He is a
Messenger to human beings. He can make Himself understood by them; He
can prove His commission to them. And this is the way He will prove
it. '_If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine,
whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself. He that speaketh
of himself seeketh his own glory: but he that seeketh His glory that
sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him. Did not
Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law? Why go ye
about to kill me?_'

I have taken these three verses together. I believe we lose the force
of the first, if we separate it from the other two. Oftentimes we hear
the first clause of the 17th verse quoted without the second. By that
violent proceeding this meaning is extracted from our Lord's
words,--that if a man keeps God's commandments, he arrives at a
correct apprehension of doctrinal propositions: an assertion which is
surely not always borne out by evidence, and which is likely to
produce quite as much self-righteousness as humility. Nay, it leads to
far more doubt than satisfaction. The question is raised, whether A,
or B, or C keeps God's commandments best, and therefore which may be
trusted best as an expositor of doctrine. The unknown is to be
ascertained by the more unknown: for who, except the Judge of all, can
answer this question? Who would attempt to answer it that reverenced
Christ's words,--'_Judge not, that ye be not judged_?'

Our Lord most carefully guarded His sentence against this
construction. Our translators have honestly and righteously preserved
the singular phrase,--'_If any man will_ (or wills to) _do His will_.'
Supposing a man really recognises a will as higher than his own, and
wishes, above all things, to be conformed to that will, then Christ's
words about _His_ coming to do a Father's will,--His whole doctrine,
which is grounded upon His relation to His Father, and His fulfilment
of His will,--must become by degrees intelligible to that man. He may
be confused about phrases, he may blunder in his statements, but he
will enter into the meaning of the teaching; there will be a continual
interpretation of it in his own thoughts and acts. For self-glorying,
self-seeking, self-will is that which he will be continually dreading
in himself, from which he will be continually flying in himself. He
will know that that has been and is the cause of all falsehood in his
words, his deeds, his thoughts; and therefore he will acknowledge
that One in whom there is no such self-seeking, self-glorying,
self-willing, who was entirely seeking the glory of another, and doing
the will of another, must be true altogether, must be right
altogether,--that there can be no falsehood, no wrong in Him.

Here is our Lord's famous test, which has never been
superseded,--which has never failed in the case of any generation or
of any man. Jesus applies it at once to those who were about Him. They
had a law,--they boasted of a law. But did they bow to the law, as
expressing the will of One higher than themselves? No; it was a
document which they could call _theirs_, which belonged to them--not a
power which was to rule them; therefore this law which forbade killing
was to be the very excuse for killing. They went about to kill Jesus,
out of love to the law. A more tremendous illustration of a
principle--tremendous, because its force has not been spent in
eighteen centuries--cannot be conceived. It is possible to make God's
commandments an occasion for boasting over others, for self-glorying;
and so it is possible to make God's law a perpetual barrier between us
and all knowledge of His will--even a reason for resisting it in our
acts.

Perhaps the people at large were not aware that there had been any
plot to kill Jesus at the former feast; for '_the multitude answered,
Thou hast a devil: who goeth about to kill thee_?' Without apparently
heeding the interruption--addressing Himself to those who _did_ know
what had happened at the Pool of Bethesda, and what charge had been
brought against Him for healing on the Sabbath-day--'_Jesus answered
and said unto them, I have done one work, and ye all marvel. Moses
therefore gave unto you circumcision; (not because it is of Moses, but
of the fathers;) and ye on the sabbath-day circumcise a man. If a
man on the sabbath-day receive circumcision, that the law of Moses
should not be broken; are ye angry at me, because I have made a man
every whit whole on the sabbath-day? Judge not according to the
appearance, but judge righteous judgment._'

He was enforcing in these words what He had said at the other feast.
The feeling of the Jews about the Fourth Commandment illustrated their
feeling about the whole law. They were glorying in it as _their_
day,--they were not receiving it as _God's_ day; and, therefore, they
were not perceiving the will of God in reference to that day. Nay,
they were contradicting the very customs which they were themselves
practising. They believed they were obeying Moses when they
circumcised a man on the Sabbath-day; they believed they should be
breaking the law if they failed to do so. Circumcision was the sign of
a covenant which God had made with their fathers before He gave them
the law--a covenant of grace and blessing. And yet so much were they
misled by mere appearances, that they thought it an actual sin to make
a man whole on the Sabbath-day. The act which inflicted pain must
please God; that which gave health must offend Him!

There is more in the contradiction which He thus brought home to their
minds than it is possible to express by any commentary upon His words.
This misunderstanding of the very meaning of all God's dealings with
them--this degradation of the law into a cruel letter--of the covenant
into the mere sign or form of the covenant--was that proof of inward
radical atheism (nay, as we shall find in the next chapter, of
something worse than atheism) which our Lord was convicting them of
in His discourses, which they were hereafter to manifest by the
wickedest deeds that had ever been done upon the earth. But, besides
this witness against them, He was giving a lesson to all ages and to
all teachers respecting the duty and the method of piercing through
the outward shell of an institution into the principle which is
embodied in it--respecting the danger and the sin of omitting to do
this through any affected reverence for the institution itself. In the
two pregnant instances of the Sabbath-day and of circumcision, He
showed that if, in any case whatever, we judge according to
appearances, instead of seeking for the meaning and purport of the
divine signs, we shall be likely to repeat the sin of the Jews, and to
deny God when we fancy we are honouring Him most.

'_Then said some of them of Jerusalem, Is not this He whom they seek
to kill? But, lo, He speaketh boldly, and they say nothing unto Him.
Do the rulers know indeed that this is the very Christ? Howbeit we
know this man whence He is: but when Christ cometh, no man knoweth
whence He is._'

These inhabitants of Jerusalem were likely to know more of the anger
which Jesus had provoked by His cure, than the mere multitude which
was collected from all quarters. They knew that their rulers had
sought to kill Him. Their wonder was, that He should be allowed to go
at large, and should show so little fear of any mischiefs that might
befal Him. They thought that some change must have taken place in the
sentiments of the Sanhedrim. Could they have discovered that He was
not an impostor and blasphemer--that He was the very King they were
looking for? Surely that was impossible. They knew exactly from whence
this Man had sprung, where He dwelt, who were His kindred; but who
could declare the generation of the Christ? When He came, no one would
be able to say from what region He came. There would be a mystery
about Him, which would sever Him from all other beings.

There was a mixture of error and truth in this thought. Jesus
distinguished them in the following words:--'_Then cried Jesus in the
temple as He taught, saying, Ye both know me, and ye know whence I am:
and I am not come of myself, but He that sent me is true, whom ye know
not. But I know Him: for I am from Him, and He hath sent me._' There
was, in one sense, no mystery about Him; all was simple, natural,
open. He affected no reserve; He disclaimed no human relationships. He
walked with fishermen; He did not avoid the company of rulers; He ate
and drank with publicans or with Pharisees. The absence of strangeness
and singularity was what was most characteristic of Him. He was like
all other men; He did nothing to raise Himself above them. Where,
then, was the mystery? He was not come of Himself. That God who had
dwelt in the Tabernacle, who had guided them through the
wilderness--that God who, they said, dwelt in that Temple, whom they
were celebrating in that feast--was with Him, was speaking by Him. Of
Him He was bearing witness. They did not know that Being, because He
was true. Their falsehood kept them from Him; there was no sympathy
between them. But He knew Him; He was from Him; His truth He was come
to show forth.

There was something in these words very like those which had called
forth their first indignation against them--'_My Father worketh, and I
work_.' Perhaps they thought He was again speaking blasphemy; perhaps
they were only indignant at His discovery of their untruth. At all
events, we are told they sought to take Him. Some out of the crowd,
it would appear--not officials, for they are spoken of afterwards--gave
signs of an intention to seize Him; '_but no man laid hands on Him,
because His hour was not yet come_.' The Apostle keeps us in mind that
an hour was to come when they would have their way; and that, when it
did come, the will of the Lord of all would be more fully manifested
than it was now in restraining them.

'_And many of the people believed on Him, and said, When Christ
cometh, will He do more miracles than these which this man hath done?
The Pharisees heard that the people murmured such things concerning
Him; and the Pharisees and the chief priests sent officers to take
Him._'

The desire to treat Jesus with violence seems to have been confined to
a few. But what are we to think of those many who are said to have
believed on Him? What kind of belief was it? I do not know that we can
answer any question of this kind, except as St. John answers it. He
calls the sentiment of these people _belief_. We have a right,
therefore, to assume that a spiritual power was acting on their minds,
and that they confessed it. The visible signs spoke to them of that
which was invisible. On the other hand, we are told that they talked
of the number of signs which the Christ might be expected to work.
This was the gossip of men upon whom His words had taken no mighty or
secure hold. Those who can deliberate how much evidence ought to
convince them, have never yet surrendered themselves to the full force
of a conviction. But the chief priests and Pharisees were not the
least competent to judge what were deep and what were superficial
impressions. All murmurs and questionings sounded dangerous; they
ought to be suppressed, if it were possible We have heard of their
plotting against Jesus; but it is the first time that we have been
told of any messengers being sent formally from the Sanhedrim to take
Him. He appears to have received it as the foretaste of that
apprehension which would take place at another feast; for--'_Then said
Jesus unto them, Yet a little while am I with you, and then I go unto
Him that sent me. Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I
am, thither ye cannot come._' I connect these words with the
appearance of the messengers; I look upon them, therefore, as a
prophecy of His death. But the further we read, the more we shall find
that the language in which He speaks in this Gospel of His departure
out of the world, is at least as applicable to His ascension as to His
passion. His going is always a return. He is here for a little while;
then He must be with Him from whom He came. I beseech you, do not pass
over these expressions as if they were commonplaces, or as if you were
sure you understood them. They are as difficult to us who keep the
festival of the Ascension every year--who say every day, '_I believe
that Jesus ascended on high_'--as they were to those who heard them
first. Nay, unless we seize strongly the first words of this
Gospel--unless we believe that the '_Word was with God, and was God_,'
and that Jesus was the '_Word made flesh_'--I believe they may be
often more difficult; that our familiarity with the mere name and
notion of an ascent into heaven may make us less able to feel than
they were, '_that no man hath ascended into heaven save He which came
down from heaven, even the Son of Man that is in heaven_.'

The guesses of the Jews respecting our Lord's meaning, when He said
they should seek Him but not find Him, were wide of the mark--were as
outward and material as we should expect them to be. Yet there is in
them one of those curious anticipations of the truth--one of those
unconscious prophecies which sometimes occur in the language of the
most thoughtless or evil men.

'_Then said the Jews among themselves, Whither will He go, that we
shall not find Him? will He go unto the dispersed among the Gentiles,
and teach the Gentiles? What manner of saying is this that He said, Ye
shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye
cannot come?_'

He had broken down the barriers between different classes of
Israelites--between Galilæans, Samaritans, and Jews. Why might not He
carry His designs further? Why might He not go to the dispersed tribes
in heathen lands? Why might He not preach to the heathens themselves?
They were right: this would be the effect of His going away. This was
a part, a great part, of what He meant by it. And it is not till we
realize _this_ sense of the words--till we regard the Ascension as the
redemption and glorification of Humanity at the right hand of God, and
therefore as the necessary step to a Gospel which should include the
dispersed among the Gentiles, and the Gentiles themselves--that we
perceive how it bears upon that great passage which I took as the text
of this sermon:--'_In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus
stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and
drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his
belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake He of the
Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive: for the Holy
Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified._)'

The passage through the wilderness was commemorated by the whole of
this festival. This great day of it would seem to have been
especially devoted to the striking of the rock, and perhaps to the
celebration of those wells by which the thirst of the pilgrims was
quenched. That same truth, therefore, which had been taught the woman
of Samaria, as she brought her own single pitcher to Jacob's well,
could here be drawn out of the history of the nation. A whole host had
cried for water. God had told His servant, the shepherd of the people,
where it was to be found. God had shown them that He causes the
springs to flow from the hills; that He cared for the cattle who drank
of them; that He cared more for the wants of the creatures whom He had
made in His image, and redeemed from the oppressor.

Prophets and holy men had discovered--all men had in some measure
discovered--that there are cravings which no fountains on earth can
satisfy. The Jewish nation existed to declare that in God Himself is
the fountain of life; that the spirit can only find its life in Him.
John the Baptist had said that He who had been before Him, and was
coming after Him, would baptize with the Holy Spirit. And now He who
had declared that He was sent from the Father, and was a short time
with them, and would return to Him, declares that whoever believed on
Him should not only be satisfied out of the fulness of God Himself,
but '_that from him should flow rivers of living water_;' that he
should receive only to give; that his blessing should be to
communicate, because that is the blessing of the divine nature, of
which he is admitted to participate.

Had these words stood by themselves, we might interpret them as they
are so often interpreted of the individual believer. We might
say,--'These are the choice gifts, the peculiar treasures, which
Christ bestows upon His most favoured servants,--upon them whose
faith is the most simple and the most full.' There is a true, a most
important, meaning in such language; and we should have no right to
complain of any one who deduced it, and it alone, from our Lord's
discourse at the Tabernacle, if His own beloved disciple had not gone
out of his way to point out another signification of that discourse,
not inconsistent with this, but certainly far wider and deeper, and, I
conceive, most necessary to save this from a perilous abuse. When he
tells us that He spoke this of the Spirit, '_which was not yet given,
because that Jesus was not yet glorified_,' he evidently connects the
fulfilment of the promise with one of the acts which Christ was to do
for mankind. The Spirit had before spoken by the Prophets; when He was
exalted on high, '_the tabernacle of God was indeed to be with men,
and He was to dwell among them, and to be their Father, and they were
to be His children_.' No doubt a man must have faith in Jesus before
rivers of living water can flow from him which shall bless human
beings and make the world fruitful. But it must be faith in Him as the
Head of man, as the Redeemer of the race; it must be faith which
raises the man above self-seeking and self-glorying; it must be faith
that refers its own origin to this very Spirit, which He gives because
He is glorified.

Such a faith, Jesus taught the Jews at the feast of Tabernacles, was
implied in those services and thanksgivings in which they were
engaged. If they understood the dealings of God with their fathers,
this was the blessing to which they must look forward; if they were
content with less, all that had been given them would be taken from
them. Such a faith, brethren, is for us who are keeping another feast
to-day. Call that the Christian Pentecost, if you will; but it
substantiates _this_ promise. Christ ascended on high; Christ poured
out His Spirit upon fishermen and tent-makers. Out of them flowed
rivers of living water that have made the earth glad. A family
gathered out of all kindreds and nations was declared to be the
Tabernacle of God, in which He would dwell. So Whitsuntide testifies.
But, oh! if it should be kept by us as the Tabernacle feast was kept
by the Jews; if there should be the same self-seeking, hardness,
Atheism, in us, as there was in them; what can we expect but that
these words will be spoken to our nation and to the whole
Church?--'_Yet a little while I am with you, and then I go away. And
ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and whither I go, ye cannot
come._'




DISCOURSE XVI.

THE TRUE WITNESS OF CHRIST.

[Lincoln's Inn, Trinity Sunday, May 18, 1856.]

ST. JOHN VIII. 29.

_And He that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone;
for I do always those things that please Him._


The belief which was expressed in the question,--'_When Christ cometh,
will He do more miracles than this man doeth?_' appeared not to be a
very stable belief. The effect of the words which Jesus spoke on the
last day of the feast must have been greater, if not more lasting.
'_Many of the people_ (the crowd) _therefore, when they heard this
saying_ (these words), _said, This is the Prophet; others said, This
is the Christ_.' There was no sign, no outward indication of His
power. There was an appeal to a thirst in men's spirits; there was a
promise that those spirits should drink, and that living waters should
flow from them. Those who discovered _the_ Prophet--the representative
of all prophets--in the one who spoke thus to their hearts, were
confessing a Divine and living Word. Those who discovered the Christ
in the person who made this promise had learnt, by some means or
other, that the Christ is He who is anointed with the Spirit that He
may bestow the Spirit.

'_But some said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee? Hath not the
scripture said, That Christ cometh of the seed of David, and out of
the town of Bethlehem, where David was? So there was a division among
the people because of Him._' As I hinted before, the occurrence of
this schism is no unimportant incident in St. John's Gospel. Much of
the meaning of the narrative turns upon the question which produced
it. Was the Christ to prove His right to the homage of His subjects by
establishing His lineal descent from David, by showing that He was
born in the place from which Micah had intimated that the Shepherd of
Israel would come? Or was He at once to address Himself to the
conscience of human beings? Was He to claim a sovereignty over them by
an elder title? Were Scribes and Pharisees to bow down when they had
satisfied their understandings, by spelling over texts, that Jesus
possessed certain outward marks and tokens which were described in
those texts? Or were publicans and sinners to hear that there was One
who could give them the bread and water of life; that they might own
Him, and eat, and drink, and live? Some will say that the first three
Evangelists maintain the one doctrine, the fourth Gospel the other. To
me it seems that St. Matthew and St. Luke, who give our Lord's
genealogies from Abraham or from Adam, rest as little upon those
genealogies as St. Mark or St. John, in whom they are not found; that
all alike appeal to a different kind of evidence from this,--to that
evidence which Pharisees and Scribes could not understand, '_because
they had not repented at the preaching of John_,'--because they had
not come to that living Lord, of whom the Scriptures testified, but
'_thought they had life in them_.' But I do not doubt that in St.
John's day, Christians had begun to dwell on the evidence of
genealogies and of outward marvels, as the Jews had dwelt upon them;
that this was a time of infinite peril to those Christians, and to the
society of which they were members; that it was an especial function
of the beloved disciple to show, not only that the craving for this
evidence was not healthy, but that it was a principal cause of the
rejection of Jesus by the people of God's ancient covenant.

This truth is strongly brought out in the last verses of the 7th
chapter.

'_And some of them would have taken Him; but no man laid hands on Him.
Then came the officers to the chief priests and Pharisees; and they
said unto them, Why have ye not brought Him? The officers answered,
Never man spake like this man. Then answered them the Pharisees, Are
ye also deceived? Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed
on Him? But this people who knoweth not the law are cursed. Nicodemus
saith unto them, (he that came to Jesus by night, being one of them,)
Doth our law judge any man, before it hear him, and know what he
doeth? They answered and said unto Him, Art thou also of Galilee?
Search, and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet. And every man
went unto his own house._'

All here is wonderfully living and characteristic. The faint effort of
the officers to execute the command of their masters; the awe which
held them back; their simple confession of the power which they found
in the words of Jesus; the surprise of the Sanhedrim that the
infection should have reached even their servants; their terror lest
there might be traitors in the camp,--lest any Pharisee or lawyer
(probably some eyes were turned on Nicodemus) should have been
carried away by the impulse to which the crowd, naturally enough, had
yielded; their scorn of the people, as wretched, 'accursed,' men
utterly ignorant of the law;--who does not feel as if he were present
in that convocation of doctors?--as if he were looking at their
perplexed and angry faces?--as if he were hearing their contemptuous
words? But the debate turns ultimately on the impossibility of a
Galilæan Christ. Nicodemus timidly suggests that those who boast of
the law, and call the people cursed for not knowing it, should adhere
to the law in their treatment of an accused person. He is at once put
down by the demand,--'_Art thou of Galilee?_' All arguments of
conscience, even the formalities of law,--so much more precious than
such arguments,--are nothing, unless, after searching and looking, he
can find that a prophet could come out of Galilee. Whether he did
search and look we are not told; but we are told that he found a
prophet in the tomb of Joseph, if he failed to satisfy himself about
His coming from Nazareth.

Then follows the story of the woman taken in adultery. That story has
approved itself to the conscience of Christendom. I feel it to be most
dear and venerable. Some of the Fathers disliked the moral of it, and
therefore were glad to believe it not genuine. I wish I were as sure
that their conclusion was wrong, as that their reason for wishing the
story away was unsound. But impartial critics seem to be agreed that
there is not sufficient justification for retaining it, at least in
this place. I dare not dispute their authority on a question
respecting the weight and value of MSS. I dare not allow affection for
the passage to interfere when truth is at stake. Thoughtful students
maintain that the story belongs to this Gospel, though they cannot
tell to what part of the book it should be transferred. Were it a
question of internal evidence simply, I should say that it does not
seem to me an interpolated fragment _here_; that it supplies a link
between thoughts which otherwise it is less easy to connect. If the
story is withdrawn, the 8th chapter opens with the words,--'_Then
spake Jesus again, I am the Light of the world: he that followeth me
shall not walk in darkness_.' Perhaps I may be deceived by habit and
old association; but I feel as if these words explained how it was
that, when Christ said, '_Let him that is without sin cast the first
stone_,' the '_accusers went out one by one_.' I see in them also an
answer to the charge that He was tolerating sin when He said, '_Go,
and sin no more_.' They show that the sharpest judgment upon sin is
exercised by Him who delivers from it. And the story appears to unite
that exposure of the law-worshippers--who punished breakers of the
law, but did not keep the law--which we found in the last chapter,
with the revelation of a Will, working in us that we may keep the law
in the fullest sense of it, which we shall find in this. Nevertheless,
I am afraid of using these pleas. If the story is genuine, it will
defend itself; if not, the divine Oracles can do without it. The more
sacred we consider them, the more we must be sure that God would have
us receive them in purity, and that He will take better care of them
than we can.

Whatever be the introduction to the words, '_I am the Light of the
world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness_,' we perceive
at once that they are in harmony with all that we have been reading in
St. John. But we ought also to perceive that they are not mere
repetitions of the sentences in the opening of the Gospel, and in the
third chapter. The Light of the world comes forth here detecting,
indeed, and manifesting the darkness in each man, but with a promise
and assurance that it will prove itself mightier than the darkness.
The Word made flesh says to the man who sees nothing but mists all
around him, 'I can bring you into the clear sunshine.' He says to the
man whose breath is stifled, whose limbs have suffered as much from
the atmosphere he has dwelt in as his eyes, 'I am the Light of
Life'--that which illuminates, quickens. There is certainly a progress
and an order in all our Lord's teachings, whether we can trace it or
not. The words on the last day of the feast, which could not be
fulfilled till Christ was glorified, seem to make the conversation
upon which we are now entering necessary. We want to know how the
Water of Life is connected with the Light of Life; we want to know
whence the Light and the Life are both derived. The answer of the
Pharisees to our Lord's words--'_Thou bearest record of thyself; thy
record is not true_'--leads us on in this path of discovery.

This answer was no doubt suggested by a recollection of that which He
had said Himself at the former feast (John v. 31). They thought they
were confuting Him out of His own mouth; for surely to call Himself
the Light of the world was as great a pretension as to call Himself
the Christ. Could His own testimony be accepted for one assertion more
than for the other? It was an all-important inquiry. The more
earnestly the Pharisees pursued it--the more determined they were not
to be content with any half solution of it--the better. If they had
been in earnest, they would have been compelled to ask themselves--'And
what evidence _can_ we have that will satisfy us whether such a claim
as this is well-founded or not? What _can_ convince us whether one
who says he is our Light, and the Light of the world, is uttering the
most profound truth, or the most portentous falsehood?' They would
then have been driven to plain facts. They must have considered how
the sun proves itself to be a light to any man, or a light to all men;
and what comfort there would be in learning from books that that is
the function which it ought to perform, the blessing which men ought
to receive from it. They were not in earnest; they would not grapple
with facts. Facts were for that cursed people which did not know the
law. What had doctors to do with such common things as the sun? What
had the sun to do with the letters which they copied out? Something,
perhaps, with the letter of that 19th Psalm, which begins with the
light in the firmament, and ends with the law that enlightens the
heart. But that was metaphorical language, poetical language--very
beautiful, and sacred, and divine--but to be treated as if it meant
nothing.

To this test, however, our Lord, who preached a Gospel to men, was
bringing His own assertions, His own character, His own office. He did
not, like those Prophets and Christs who bore witness of themselves,
produce evidence to show how much He was above human beings. He did
not, like the doctors of the law, judge and condemn. But He came
speaking of a Father from whom He had proceeded, and to whom He was
returning. He came speaking to men's consciences, making them judges
of themselves. Either he had come from a Father, or He had not. If He
had, that Father would bear witness of Him; that Father would show
whether He knew Him, and was testifying truly of Him. It was not Jesus
of Nazareth saying, 'I am the Christ;' it was a Father speaking of a
Son, a Son of a Father, to beings who could not live without either. I
have translated, as nearly as my poor language can, His mighty words.
Read them and meditate upon them till you find depths in them of which
I have only caught the faintest glimpse.

'_The Pharisees therefore said unto Him, Thou bearest record of
thyself; thy record is not true. Jesus answered and said unto them,
Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true: for I know
whence I came, and whither I go; but ye cannot tell whence I come, and
whither I go. Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man. And yet if I
judge, my judgment is true: for I am not alone, but I and the Father
that sent me. It is also written in your law, that the testimony of
two men is true. I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father
that sent me beareth witness of me._'

Everything, you will perceive, turns upon this relation of a Son to a
Father--upon their eternal distinctness, upon their eternal unity. The
word '_Father_' was now, as before, that which at once confused the
Jews, and filled them with horror. '_They said therefore to Him, Where
is thy Father?_' 'What dost Thou mean? Dost Thou mean that the God
there in those heavens is Thy Father?' No! Surely the _Jupiter
tonans_, whom they worshipped under the name of the Jehovah the God of
Abraham, was _not_ the Father of whom He spake. He said therefore,
'_Ye neither know me, nor my Father: if ye had known me, ye would have
known my Father also_.' It was a fuller, bolder assertion than was
contained in the words, '_My Father worketh, and I work_.' It affirmed
that they could know the Father of all in a Man; that they could not
know Him except in a man. This was the answer to their '_Where?_' This
overthrew their notion of Godhead--the frightful intellectual idol to
which they were bowing down. But if He had spoken blasphemy before, He
had spoken it more clearly and terribly now. St. John felt this; for
he thinks it necessary to explain why Jesus was not stoned for using
such language:--'_These words spake Jesus in the treasury, as He
taught in the temple: and no man laid hands on Him; for His hour was
not yet come_.'

Then He repeats the words which He spoke before at the feast, but with
an addition which deepens their force. '_Then said Jesus again unto
them, I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins:
whither I go, ye cannot come._'

He would go away from them, and they could not follow Him. But how is
that departure and that incapacity connected with their dying in sin?
I believe the sense will become clearer as we read on in the chapter;
but we shall not understand what follows, if we leave this question
unconsidered. Throughout He has been teaching that the coming to Him
with the feet, that the seeing Him with the eyes, was not that coming
and that seeing which could do them any good, which could make them
truer men. That belief which is not dependent upon sight--that belief
which was in Him as the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever--that
belief which would be in Him when He had gone away from the
world--that, and that only, would raise them above themselves, would
unite them to the Father, would make them partakers of His true and
eternal life. Sin, the separation from God, must be the state of their
spirits,--those spirits must gravitate to earth, and claim their
portion with the flesh,--unless they could look upwards, and assert
their share in their Lord's ascension, in His victory over the grave
and hell.

The next verses will show, I think, that this is the force of the one
upon which I have been commenting.

'_Then said the Jews, Will He kill Himself? because He saith, Whither
I go, ye cannot come. And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am
from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world. I said
therefore unto you, That ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe
not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins._'

The Jews did not now suppose that He was going to the dispersed among
the Gentiles. They perceived that His words pointed to a departure out
of the world. 'But how could He know that He was going to leave it?
Would He take the matter into His own hands? Did He mean that
disappointment and anger at their rejection of Him would drive Him to
self-murder?' The suggestion was not a serious one; merely the mock of
some priest, thrown out for the sake of degrading Him in the minds of
the people. Our Lord's words are not an answer to it, but an
exposition of the sentence which had provoked it, and of the cause
which had made that sentence unintelligible to them. They _could_ only
think of leaving the world as a _descent_, by one means or another,
into the grave. The idea of an _ascent_, of a return of a spirit to
its proper home, was utterly strange to them. This was a proof that
they needed one to come from above, that they might be delivered from
their downward, earthbound nature. This was a proof that they needed
one who was not of this world to come, who might lift them above it;
that they, too, might find their way to their Father's house. If they
would not believe in Him as such a Messenger from the Father, as such
a deliverer from the world, they must become the victims of sin, the
heirs of death.

'_They said therefore to Him, Who art thou?_' 'What kind of being dost
thou claim to be, who pronouncest judgment upon us,--who tellest us
that we are to die in our sins?' There is a mixture, it seems to me,
of indignation and of curiosity in the question. They want Him to tell
them what He is, and what His right is to censure them and prophesy
death to them. The reply, according to our translators, was, '_The
same which I said unto you from the beginning_.' I do not suppose they
were satisfied with this rendering themselves, or that any one ever
has been. Λαλεῖν is more properly to speak than to say. Λαλῶ must
be the present tense, not the past. Yet I do not think we can better
their version by giving, as some have done, a mystical force to the
words τὴν ἀρχὴν; as if that was a name which Christ claimed for
Himself. Some of the Gnostics, and some of the Fathers, no doubt,
supposed that Christ is called The Beginning in the first chapter of
this Gospel, as He is, undoubtedly, in the first chapter of the
Apocalypse. But, were that so, I do not see what room there would be
for this meaning here, or how the sentence could be construed if we
introduced it. If we follow the order of the words, we may perhaps
preserve the grammar of the sentence, and its connexion with the
verses which follow, without deviating very widely from the
signification which it conveyed to the minds of King James's
translators. '_That in the beginning of which I am speaking to you. I
have many things to speak and to judge concerning you. But He that
sent me is true; and the things which I have heard from Him, those I
speak to the world._' The answer may be either a direct one to the
question, '_Who art thou?_' 'I have always been that Light of the
world of which I am speaking now;' or the emphasis may be on the word
'_speak_.' 'I am not speaking to you any different words from those
which I have been always speaking to you. I am not pronouncing any
judgment upon you which you have not heard pronounced in your
consciences long ago. There are many dark spots in those consciences
which I must bring to light; many harder speeches still which you must
hear from me. I am come from a true Being; from Him who is true. I
speak to the world that which I know to be His mind and will.' 'They
did not understand,' says the Apostle, (this was their misery,) 'that
it was the mind and will of a Father He was proclaiming to them; that
it was from Him who loved them they were shrinking and turning away.'

'_They understood not that He spake to them of the Father. Then said
Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of Man, then shall ye
know that I am He, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father
hath taught me, I speak these things._'

As He speaks of _their_ lifting up the Son of Man, it is clear that He
means here what He meant in the conversation with Nicodemus. '_As
Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so was the Son of Man
to be lifted up._' They would be the means of raising Him to that
throne. They would place Him on that cross which should declare in
letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew, 'This is the King!' But as He
adds _then ye shall know_, it is clear also that He must allude to the
events which would succeed the crucifixion, and not to it merely. The
cross would say, 'This is the Son of Man; one with all men.' The
resurrection and ascension would say, 'This is the Son of God; one
with the Father.' The Cross would afterwards be felt to gather the
whole message into itself, to be the witness of the love of the
Father to the world; of the eternal union of the Son with the Father;
of the might of that Spirit which dwells in them, and proceeds from
them, to bind all things into one. But what I said before applies also
here. When Christ speaks of His departure from the world, the idea of
ascension, of a return to the glory which He had with the Father
before the worlds were, is always coming forth through the darkness of
the passion.

And even that idea is not sufficient, unless this be added to
it:--'_And He that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me
alone; for I do always those things that please Him_.'

His going to the Father is not enough without the assurance of His
continual abiding in the Father. No change of place or circumstance,
no progress in the world's history, no development of the Divine
purpose, must interfere with the calm belief of a unity of the Father
and the Son in the Spirit, which was in the beginning, is now, and
ever shall be, world without end.

It is of this unity, brethren, that this day testifies; which is
therefore a more wonderful and glorious day than that which testifies
of the ascension of the Son to the right hand of the Father, or of the
descent of the Spirit to fill the earth and the hearts of men with
rivers of living water. But we can know little of the depth and
sweetness of this day, if we forget how Christ revealed the mystery of
it; how He both said and proved that to know Him is to know the
Father! For that blessed doctrine, upon which Fathers and Reformers
lived and died, we are fast substituting one which seems to put the
Son at an infinite distance from the Father; which seems to make the
will of the Son not the revelation of the Father's will, but the
contrast to it. Nay, our orthodoxy--so strangely like what would have
been called heresy in other days--is even daring to affirm that we may
believe anything dark or malignant respecting the character of the
Father, if only _we_ gather from the Bible that that is its testimony
concerning Him. Frightful contradiction! to set up a book against Him
whom we believe to be its author! to say that a book, which is from
first to last a denunciation of false and cruel gods, may possibly
proclaim to us a false and cruel God, and that we should be bound to
accept its message if it did! Gracious Father, deliver thy Church from
doctrines which teach us that we are not to hallow thy name above all
books and letters which thou in thy mercy hast bestowed upon us!
Deliver us from those who teach us that we can see Thee anywhere
except in thy Only-begotten Son; or that, if Thou art revealed in Him,
Thou canst be anything but Light without darkness, Truth without
falsehood, Love without cruelty. Teach us to hate all counterfeits of
Thee; all notions of Thee which are derived from our darkness, our
falsehood, our cruelty. Teach us to worship the Eternal Trinity, the
One God of perfect charity blessed for ever. AMEN.




DISCOURSE XVII.

THE TWO FATHERS.

[Lincoln's Inn, First Sunday after Trinity, May 25, 1856.]

ST. JOHN VIII. 43.

_Why do ye not understand my speech? Even because ye cannot hear my
word._


Those words of which I spoke to you last Sunday seem to have taken a
sudden hold of some who listened to them. '_While He was speaking
these things, many believed on Him._' When we recollect what those
words were, we may at first wonder at this impression. He spoke of
'_the Father being always with Him; of His doing always those things
which pleased the Father_.' Was not His discourse concerning a Father
that which provoked His hearers most; that which shocked some of them
most? Undoubtedly. And yet, if He spoke truly, if He did come to bear
witness of a Father, if the Father did bear witness of Him, this must
have been the discourse which _attracted_ His hearers most--which had
most power over them. The revelation of a man who was always in the
presence of God, who delighted in Him, in whom He delighted, was the
revelation which the heart and conscience of every man was waiting
for. The heart and conscience might be closed against it by sensual
indulgence, still more by spiritual pride; but it could break through
both; it could prove itself true by overcoming both.

In this case, then, as in like cases which have occurred before, I
should be very loth to explain away St. John's words,--to criticise
the quality of the faith which he attributes to these hearers of our
Lord. If we say, as some people would, that it was mere head faith, I
do not think we shall make our own minds clearer; I am sure we shall
be in great danger of denying the facts which the Apostle reports to
us. Our Lord's words did not appeal to the understanding; they were
not argumentative; we cannot account for their influence by any
processes of logic. So far as one can judge from a very simple
statement, they went straight to the heart; the faith which they
called forth was a faith of the heart.

Does it appear, then, that the men who thus believed in Christ were
satisfactory to Him? Let us follow the narrative. It will tell us all
upon that subject that we need to know.

'_Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on Him, If ye continue
in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the
truth, and the truth shall make you free._'

This expression, '_If ye continue or abide in my word_,' denotes very
clearly, I think, that they had not merely listened to a _saying_
which went forth from His lips, and been affected by it; that they had
confessed the force of a _word_, which entered into them as light
enters into the eye, as heat makes itself felt through the body. And
if they traced this word to its source; if they acknowledged the
living Word from whom it flowed; if they turned to Him as to one who
was near them and with them,--not for a moment, but always; if they
trusted in Him, and not in themselves; then they should be--what?
saints? divines? doctors? No; but what is much better than any of the
three,--what all the three should wish to be raised into,--_disciples_.
They will then be learners, learners sitting continually at the feet of
the true Teacher.

And this shall be the result of that daily, hourly learning, of that
change from the condition of men who know everything to the condition
of men who know nothing. '_They shall know the_ TRUTH.' The Word shall
guide them, counsel them, encourage them, scourge them. He shall
prepare them to see that which is. He shall lead them away from
fleeting shadows to the eternal Substance, to Him who changes not.
Here is a promise, the highest that the highest Being can make to man;
for it is the promise of sharing His own nature, of dwelling with Him
and in Him. And there is another appended to it, which, though not
greater in itself, comes nearer to human experience; commends itself
more directly to our sense of oppression and misery. '_The truth shall
make you free._' Truth and liberty are inseparable companions; neither
can live long apart from the other. The bondage to appearances, the
bondage to death, the bondage to the unseen horrors which haunt the
conscience,--how shall this be broken? Our Lord says, '_The truth
shall make you free_.' 'If you abide in my word,--if you adhere to me
as the Lord of your spirit, you shall come to know Him who is truth,
and He shall break every chain from your neck; He shall give you the
freedom of the sons of God.'

However unintelligible His other words may have been to them, surely
this magnificent promise will have looked most inviting to the Jews;
to those, at least, of them who were not vehemently prepossessed
against the speaker, who did not count Him an impostor. The next
sentence seems to say that it was not so. '_They answered Him, We be
Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou,
Ye shall be made free?_' Who were they who said this? We should
certainly gather from the previous passage,--'_those Jews who had
believed on Him_.' At any rate, St. John takes no pains to distinguish
them from the rest. If they were not the only objectors to our Lord's
words, they must have joined in the objection. There is deep
instruction in the thought that they did. The voice of Jesus had
reached them. It had not merely floated about them, but had penetrated
within them. He stood before them who did always the things that
pleased His Father. The first sense of having discovered the Divine
Man must have been one of delight,--the greatest, keenest delight
which they had ever experienced. Then this Divine Man points upwards
to a truth in which He Himself is believing and resting. He says He
can make them inheritors of that. But at the same moment He looks down
into them. He detects a hollowness within them,--a quailing at the
thought of this truth,--a secret dislike of it--a preference for that
which is hostile to it. They are conscious of a chill. The keen
pleasure has been succeeded by a pain as keen. The hope which He holds
out to them they cannot grasp. The evil which He has laid bare is near
and present. Their pride is awakened; they think of the glory of their
descent; they cannot bear to be spoken of as slaves.

We often treat their words as a mere outrageous contradiction of fact.
They had been in bondage, we say, to Babylonians and Persians; they
_were_ in bondage to the Romans; they complained of the yoke; it was
fretting them continually. How monstrous to say, 'We have never been
in bondage!' I believe that in speaking so we are not doing them
justice, and that we are likely to miss the force of our Lord's answer
to them. A modern Roman, in the sight of French or Austrian bayonets,
might deny indignantly that he was a slave. He might say, 'I belong to
the city which has ruled the world. I am one of those citizens whom it
was a shame and wickedness to beat with rods. How dare you speak to me
as if I were like an American <DW64>, liable to be bought and sold, at
the mercy of an owner or a driver?' We should not be astonished, I
think, at such language. We should understand it, and not feel
ourselves justified in replying to it by referring to a foreign
tyranny, which may be all the more galling to him because he loathes
the name of bondsman. And there was another sense in which a Jew might
affirm that he, being a son of Abraham, had never been in bondage. As
our Lord had spoken of truth, He might think of his privilege not to
be the servant of any false god. Τίνι may serve for this sense as well
as for the other. He would exclaim indignantly, 'The truth shall make
us free? To what abomination,--to what lying idol have we ever yielded
ourselves?'

Our Lord does not complain of them for affixing too strong a meaning
to the word bondage. He does not appeal to the places for the receipt
of custom, as proofs that the seed of Abraham had lost their
independence. But He convicts them of having fallen into a slavery,
domestic, personal, abject. He says that this slavery, though it may
have caused their subjection to the Romans, would not be removed or
abated if that were to cease. And, further, He affirms that slavery
to a false god--that which lies beneath all idolatry--might be more
justly attributed to the seed of Abraham than to any descendants of
Ham.

The first of these allegations is contained in the words which contain
also the justification of His assurance that He can break their
fetters, and give them a higher liberty than they had ever attained or
dreamed of. '_Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin
is the servant of sin. And the servant abideth not in the house for
ever: but the Son abideth ever. If the Son therefore shall make you
free, ye shall be free indeed._' It is common to quote the first of
these verses without the second. Preachers tell their hearers that
they have committed sin, and are therefore the servants of sin. They
say nothing of the Son who abideth in the house into which sin has
intruded itself. I believe, brethren, that by making this separation,
we put the sense of Scripture, as well as the honesty of our minds, in
the utmost peril. I might use stronger language,--I might say we all
but destroy both. We try to conceive of evil apart from good, of
disobedience apart from obedience. We cannot do it. God's eternal law
will not let us do it. If you want me to understand the corruption and
depravity of my nature, you must tell me from what it is drawing me
aside. You do me an infinite injury, if you tell me that sin is close
to me, unless you tell me also that the great Enemy of Sin is close to
me, and that I am violently tearing myself from Him when I give myself
over to it. It is possible, no doubt, to find, in the height or the
depth, another sense for these words than this, as it is possible to
find another sense for any words, if the one which is nearest and most
obvious should for some reason be disagreeable to us. And I am
certain, brethren, that we shall all seek for some new, ingenious, and
elaborate interpretation, or shall embrace it when it is presented to
us--I am certain that we shall call the literal interpretation
mystical, and shall persuade ourselves that the one we have put in the
place of it is literal--unless we perceive that it corresponds both
with the context of the New Testament and with our own necessities. I
call upon you to see whether what I am saying is not true of each one
of us. Let each man ask himself, 'Is not the sin of which Christ
speaks, with me? Is not the Son of whom He speaks, with me? Has not
the usurper of the house separated me from the Lord of the house? Is
not the Lord of the house ready to put down the usurper, and to make
me free indeed?'

The next words have led some to suppose that our Lord cannot have been
speaking to those Jews who believed on Him:--'_I know that ye are
Abraham's seed; yet ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place
in you_.' These, it will be said, were not the men who were seeking to
kill Him; they had confessed His authority; His word, it is admitted,
had made its power felt by them. I will not evade the objection by
saying, that so far as these men took their stand upon their position
as Abraham's children, so far it might fairly be said to them: 'You
see what Abraham's children do; their parentage does not save them
from this crime.' I believe that is _not_ the meaning of the charge,
or at any rate that it is only one very small part of the meaning. I
think our Lord was speaking to the consciences of those whom He
addressed of a sin of which _they_ had been guilty. I think that if
those consciences had been aroused to _confess_ His power--in some
measure to own His goodness--they will have been more ready than any
other to own the charge; and if they did not own it, to be stung by
it. They had not participated, it is probable, in the plots of the
Scribes and Pharisees to put Jesus to death. They might not then, they
might not afterwards, take up a stone to cast at Him. But why were
those plots conceived? why were those stones raised? To get rid of a
Judge and a Reprover; to put out a light which was shining into the
heart, and making its darkness visible; to destroy the Son of Man, the
King of man; that each man might be his own king--might live
undisturbed by any obligations to his fellow-men; to destroy the Son
of God,--the witness of God's truth and God's love; that men might
claim the inheritance as theirs,--that they might take credit to
themselves for all goodness and truth, and give themselves no credit
for their wickedness and lies. Now, did not each one of those to whom
Jesus spoke, know inwardly that he had sought to put out the light
that was shining into him,--to kill his Judge and Reprover? The living
Word was there,--the Son was claiming to be the Lord of the house. But
He was not allowed His place there. A certain sense there was of His
presence. Certain acts of homage were rendered to Him. But He was not
permitted to reign. They would find a divided allegiance more and more
impossible. The good Lord or the evil must be absolute. The one who
was rejected must be slain.

At each turn, this conversation becomes more profound and awful. The
next verse leads us into a depth into which we may well tremble to
look, and yet from which it is most unsafe to turn away:--'_I speak
that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have
seen with your father_.' Jesus had spoken of His Father as the root of
all His loving acts,--of the wisdom, and truth, and love which were
expressed in His words and in Himself. If there is a root to which all
good that appears in a human life can be referred, must there not be a
source to which all evil is referred? Can it be the same? If healing,
restoration, life, are from the Father of Jesus, from what father come
murderous thoughts,--the wish to destroy the Son of Man?

To fly from any thought which presses closely upon the conscience to
some external truism,--even if it is one which has been proved to be
inapplicable,--is the ordinary desire of us all. '_They answered and
said unto Him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye
were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham. But now ye
seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have
heard of God: this did not Abraham._' The question is about the
paternity of certain purposes in their minds. These purposes were near
to them, to their very selves. They determined their acts and their
habits. Did they take _these_ by descent from the father of the
faithful? Were these his progeny? Of course, they would have answered,
as many of us would have answered, 'That is using words in a double
sense. You mean one kind of fatherhood, we mean another.' No! it was
they who were guilty of this duplicity. They were calling Abraham
their father, in the notion that they were deriving some _spiritual_
privileges from him. If they only intended that they could trace up
their pedigree, according to the flesh, to him, let them say that
frankly to themselves. It was just what our Lord was urging them, in
this part of His conversation, to do. But if he was their parent in
any other sense, then let them remember what he was, what he did. The
living and true God spake to him, and called him. He heard the voice;
he yielded to it. That same voice was speaking to them. He was
'_telling them the truth_;' and therefore '_they sought to kill Him_.'

He repeats, then, the former words,--'_Ye do the deeds of your
father_.' And now they ventured what sounds a bold defence:--'_Then
said they to Him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father,
even God_.' Had they not a right to say so? Were they not almost
quoting the words of Malachi? What is more, were they not using the
very words of Jesus? Had He not spoken to publicans and sinners,--to
the very outcasts of the people,--of a Father who was seeking to bring
home the prodigal son, as the shepherd went after the lost sheep?
Would He deny to any Israelite the right to claim God as his Father?
What had He taken flesh for, but that He might assert that claim, not
for Israelites only, but for men? Alas! brethren, we can understand
too well what the Jews understood when they used this language, '_We
have one Father, even God_,' because we are continually using the like
ourselves. How commonly do we say, 'Oh, yes; in a general sense, all
of us are God's children.' That general sense is _no_ sense. The word
'children' is used to signify _creatures_. We say men are His, as we
say the cattle are His. In fact, we attach nearly as little
significance to creation as to fatherhood. How can we, when we think
of God as a mere ultimate explanation of our existence and the
existence of the universe; when the idea of a Father of _spirits_--of
one who has to do first of all with us, because we are spiritual,
voluntary beings--is almost banished from our minds? To say that God
is our Father, or any man's Father, when we conceive of Him as a
distant power,--who ceases to be imaginary only when He puts forth His
wrath,--is to practise a deception upon ourselves. It is a commoner
deception with us than with the Jews, because Jesus has taught us to
say, '_Our Father, which art in heaven_;' and every little Christendom
child learns the words, and, thanks be to God, takes in something of
their inward living sense. But when we become men, that sense which
should have grown brighter and clearer with every day's joy and
sorrow, has become utterly clouded by the world's mists, till the
vision at last fades almost entirely. Then one here and there seizes
the force of the word, discovers that he has really, and not in name,
a Father, to whom he can pour out his whole heart. For a while he
longs to persuade all that they have the same Father,--that they may
cast their burdens upon Him too. He finds a few who understand him.
They associate together; they speak of themselves as believers; they
begin to think that they are God's children, because they believe that
they are. Their ardour to convince men generally that they have a
Father, becomes changed into an ardour to bring men into _their_
society. As that passion increases, other lower and baser passions
increase with it. 'The believer' contracts more and more of those
habits which are of the earth, earthy. He contracts, oftentimes, a
bitterness and a malice which are not of the earth, but come from
beneath. These he gives himself credit for as springing from his zeal
for religion, or he merely pities himself for them as the remains of
indwelling sin. He has not courage to say, 'These spring from another
father, not from the Father in heaven. So far as I identify myself
with them, I become the child of a father in hell.' But he goes on
assuming he is God's child. He tells other men that they are only
children in the secondary signification; that is to say, he cherishes
in them the most dangerous of all falsehoods. He prevents them from
turning to their true Father, and seeking of Him a true and divine
life.

These Jews qualified the assertion, that they were all God's children,
even in the lowest, most unreal, sense of that word. These were so who
'_were not born of fornication_.' Children not born in lawful wedlock
they seem to have thought of as having some dark, infernal parentage.
It must have been most startling to them when the words at last came
forth which appeared to fix that parentage upon themselves.

'_Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for
I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but He
sent me. Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot
hear my word. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your
father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not
in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a
lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not. Which of you
convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe
me? He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not,
because ye are not of God._'

The Jews were proud of not worshipping false gods. The true God, then,
what was He? The moment truth confronted them, they shrunk from it.
They were proud of not worshipping evil gods. The good God, then, what
was He? The moment goodness confronted them, they hated it, and wished
to extinguish it. They shrunk from the Man who did not speak His own
words, but God's. They hated the Man who did not show forth His own
goodness, but God's. Whence came this mind in them, this will, this
spirit? Jesus tells them plainly. 'There is a mind, a will, a spirit,
which from the beginning has been a man-slayer--has compassed the
destruction of the man in each man. There is a mind, a will, a spirit,
who has been from the beginning a liar, who would not stand in the
truth.'

I know well--we all know--what use has been made, and is made, and
will be made, of this expression, '_from the beginning_.' 'So, then,'
the objector exclaims, 'there is a second god, another creator, coming
into existence with the good God. If this is not Manichæism, what is?'
The answer is simply an appeal to the words as they appear on the face
of the book,--'_He stood not in the truth_.' There was, then, a truth
to stand in; there was a truth to revolt from. The name 'murderer'
implies a life to be taken away; the name 'liar' implies a
contradiction of that which IS. Yes; it implies that the evil spirit
is this, and _only_ this; it implies that the murderer is the author
of _no_ life; it implies that the liar has called nothing that _is_
into existence. You ask, 'What is Manichæism _but_ this?' I answer,
'It is exactly the reverse of this. It affirms that the evil power
_does_ produce some life; that some part of creation may be ascribed
to him.' And those who shrink from speaking of '_him_'--those who will
not admit a devil at all--do, unawares, let this Manichæism
continually into their thoughts, into their acts, into their words.
They may talk of universal benevolence, but facts are too strong for
them. They meet evil everywhere; they meet it in themselves. They do
not like to say,--'It is an evil will to which I am yielding up my
will. Because men are obeying this evil will, therefore there is
misery and ugliness in this blessed and beautiful world.' They try to
escape from that confession. They talk of evil in nature, of evil in
themselves. Unawares, they have introduced it among the works of the
good God. They have either made Him answerable for it, or they have
said that there is some creator besides Him. The last alternative is
very dreadful; but the former is, it seems to me, infinitely more
dreadful. In accepting what our Lord said to the Jews in this
discourse, I escape from both. I am able solemnly and habitually to
deny that any insect or blade of grass is the devil's work; I am able
to regard the whole universe as very good, even as it was when it came
forth at the call of the divine Word; I am able to declare that
humanity, standing in that divine Word, is still made in the image of
God, as He declared that it was; and that there is no one faculty of
the human soul, no one sense of the human body, which is not good, and
blessed, and holy in God's sight. I am able, at the same time, to look
facts in the face, and confess that sin has entered into the world,
and death by sin; that there has been from the beginning of man's
existence on this earth, and that there still is, a murderer, who is
seeking to sever him from his proper life: that there has been from
the beginning of man's existence upon earth, and that there still is,
a liar, who is seeking to persuade men that God is not all good; that
He is not all true; that He is not the Father of their spirits; that
it is not His will that they should know Him, and be like Him. I can
admit that this liar has been listened to, and is listened to; and
that men may enter into such communion with him--may become so
penetrated with his false and mendacious spirit, that they shall
become in very deed his children, entirely fashioned into his
likeness, understanding no lessons but his. Our Lord speaks of the
Jewish people--of the most religious part of them especially--as
having passed, or as rapidly passing, into this condition. He
declares, in the words which I have taken as my text--and which
embody, I think, some of the deepest lessons of the chapter--that they
could not '_understand His speech_;' that that sounded strange,
monstrous, deranged to them, because they '_could not hear His
word_'--because their hearts and consciences were closed against that
which was every moment knocking and craving for admission there. They
did '_not hear God's words, because they were not of God_'--because
their whole minds and wills were given up to another God, because they
had become Devil-worshippers.

'_Then answered the Jews, and said unto Him, Say we not well that thou
art a Samaritan, and hast a devil? Jesus answered, I have not a devil;
but I honour my Father, and ye do dishonour me. And I seek not mine
own glory: there is one that seeketh and judgeth._'

It is certainly most unfortunate that our translators--who had just
rendered Διάβολος by Devil, in our Lord's discourse--should take the
same word for δαιμόνιον, in the discourse of the Jews. I need not say
that they did not mean what He meant, or anything like what He meant.
They called Him a Samaritan,--evidently alluding to the Samaritan
passion for enchanters. He was a possessed man, like one of those who
appeared so often among the worshippers on Gerizim, and drew so many
disciples after them. The reply of Jesus is, that He had not a dæmon;
that He was speaking the words of no subordinate spirit or angel; that
He was '_honouring His Father_'--Him whom they called their God, the
Father of spirits. He did not seek His own glory, as those did who
came boasting that they were possessed by a spirit or dæmon, of which
no others could partake. He came seeking His Father's glory, promising
to make all partakers of His Spirit.

The next words are only a part of this promise. '_Verily, verily, I
say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death._' Why
the translators, who have been careful in adhering to the common
rendering of λόγος thus far, should suddenly have forsaken it here,
and dilute it into 'saying,' I cannot conjecture. Certainly they have
done much to make the whole passage unintelligible by that wilfulness.
_He_ has taken pains to distinguish the _speech_ or _saying_ which
enters the ear from the _word_ which is lodged in the heart, and is to
be cherished there. That His word brings life, because in Him the
Divine Word is Life, He has asserted again and again. When the man
loses his hold on that word, death overtakes him; if he hold it fast,
he is united to that which is stronger than death; and he shall not
taste of death. When it comes to his soul and body, he shall defy it.
He shall rise above it, and they shall be raised with him.

'_Then said the Jews unto Him, Now we know that thou hast a devil.
Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a man keep my
saying, he shall never taste of death. Art thou greater than our
father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom makest
thou thyself? Jesus answered, If I honour myself, my honour is
nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me; of whom ye say, that He is
your God: yet ye have not known Him; but I know Him: and if I should
say, I know Him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know Him,
and keep His saying._'

The sense of eternity, of a relation to the eternal God,--to a Father
of spirits, had almost forsaken these Jews. The sense of time,--of a
series or succession of years,--had displaced every other in their
minds; they could contemplate nothing, except under conditions of
time. To the mere trader,--to him who lives in calculating when so
much money will become due--any conditions, except those of time, seem
impossible. He laughs at those who hint at any other. But the
reverence for ancestry,--the affection that binds us to a family and a
nation, does not belong to time. It brings past and present into
closest proximity; it leaps over distinctions of costume and
circumstance, to claim affinity with the inmost heart of those who
lived generations ago. For all family feeling, and all national
feeling, has its root in a living God; therefore it defies death; it
treats death as only belonging to the individual.

The Jews _knew_ that Jesus had a dæmon, because He spoke of men who
believed His word not tasting of death. For Abraham to them was dead;
the prophets were dead. They had no sense of a life which united them
to Abraham and the prophets; they did not really confess a God who was
a God of the living and not of the dead. Jesus probes this state of
mind to the quick. He tells them first, that it is their want of
knowledge of God which makes what He says incredible to them,--the
lying, atheistical temper which they were cultivating under the name
of religion. Because He knows God,--because He keeps His
word,--because He lives in communion with the truth, therefore His
speech seems to them that of a possessed man.

But he was to seem to them worse than a possessed man before the
dialogue ended.

'_Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was
glad. Then said the Jews unto Him, Thou art not yet fifty years old,
and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I
say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am._'

The Jews, I said, were utterly entangled in thoughts of time. It was
necessary to break these bonds at once and violently asunder. The Word
who had been in the beginning with God, who was the Light of men,
declares that He conversed with Abraham; that Abraham heard His voice;
that Abraham saw His light; that this was the source of all his
gladness. This was the reason why men in after days, who had heard the
same voice, who had seen the same light, could rejoice with
Abraham,--could feel that years did not sever those whom God had made
one. The ears that were dull of hearing, the obtuse mammonized hearts,
were proof against this paradox; it excited only a grin. Then came the
other words,--'_Before Abraham was, I am_.' They were too familiar,
too awful, not to arouse even those who were most petrified by
worldliness and pride. The name which had been spoken in the bush had
been spoken to them! The Man who stood before them was calling Himself
the '_I Am_.' A flash of light broke in upon them. He _had_ meant
this. The blasphemy was now open.

'_Then took they up stones to cast at Him: but Jesus hid Himself, and
went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed
by._'

And oh, brethren, may the meaning of those words flash upon us too!
May they come to us not as dull sounds, but as if they proceeded fresh
from Him who spoke them then! They do proceed from Him. Each day and
hour He repeats them to us. When all schemes of human policy crack
and crumble; when we discover the utter weakness of the leaders and
teachers we have trusted most; when we begin to suspect that the world
is given over to the spirit of murder and lies; He says to us, 'The
foundations of the universe are not built on rottenness: whatever
fades away and perishes, I AM.'




DISCOURSE XVIII.

THE LIGHT OF THE EYE, AND THE LIGHT OF THE SPIRIT.

[Lincoln's Inn, 2d Sunday after Trinity, June 1, 1856.]

ST. JOHN IX. 39.

_And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they
which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind._


The reading of the last verse of the 8th chapter, which our version
has adopted, connects it directly with the first verse of the 9th.
'_Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple, going through the
midst of them, and so passed by_ (παρῆγεν οὕτως). _And as He
passed by_ (καὶ παράγων), _He saw a man blind from his birth_.'
Possibly the former verse ought to end at the word '_temple_.' But if
we lose that link between the incidents recorded in the two chapters,
the internal relation between them will remain as strong as ever. The
discourse of Jesus, which we have been considering on the two last
Sundays, began with the sentence, '_I am the light of the world_.'
Every subsequent passage unfolded itself out of this opening one. The
story which forms the subject of this chapter is introduced by the
same announcement. Can we doubt that the words and the act had the
same origin and the same object? Can we safely sever what Christ has
joined together?

I am aware of the motive which induces us to sever them. I have had
occasion to speak of it more than once already, and to acknowledge
that an honest feeling is lurking in it. We are afraid of confounding
what is sensible with what is spiritual. We are afraid of using light
in two senses, and of fancying that they are the same. I complain of
no desire to be religiously accurate in the use of language.
Scrupulosity in this matter is far less dangerous than indifference.
We are in continual peril of falling into confusions and
equivocations; let all our faculties be awake to the risk,--let them
all watch against it. But they will not be awake, they will not watch,
unless they do homage to the fact, that light has been used, is used,
must be used, in every dialect in which men express their thoughts, to
denote that which the eye receives, and that which the mind
receives,--the great energy of the eye, the great energy of the mind.
Instead of repining at this fact, as if it were a hindrance to our
perceptions of truth,--instead of labouring to reconstruct speech
according to some scheme of ours,--instead of fancying that we have
done a good work when we have got a scholastical or technical phrase
substituted for a popular one,--let us earnestly meditate upon the
principle which is latent under these forms of discourse, from which
we cannot emancipate ourselves. Let us thankfully accept them as
proofs that the sensible world and the spiritual, though entirely
distinct, are related; and that the last is not closed any more than
the first against the wayfarer and the child. This, at all events, is
the doctrine which goes through Scripture, and which has made its
words so mighty to those who can understand no others--so full of
relief and discovery to those who do not wish to be separate from
their kind, and who have convinced themselves that the deepest truths
must be the commonest. Such is the doctrine implied in every parable
of our Lord; such, above all, is the doctrine of St. John, who does
not report many parables, but who takes us into the inmost heart of
them, and shows us the divine law which is involved in the use of
them.

I find an unspeakable blessing in following the order of St. John's
narrative. It is the true order of human life. After we have listened
to the divinest discourse, there is a sense of vacancy in the heart.
We feel as if we were out of communion with the business and misery of
the world,--as if the words had not proved themselves till they could
be brought into collision and conflict with these. When we are in the
midst of action, we want to know that it is not merely mechanical
action,--that it is in conformity with some principle, and springs out
of a principle. When Jesus has finished His discourse with the Jews,
by assuming a name which lies beneath all discourse,--when they have
finished their arguments by taking up stones to cast at Him,--He meets
a man blind from his birth. He proceeds at once to do him good. But
before He can enter upon that work, He must encounter a metaphysical
doubt which has occurred to the fishermen who are walking with Him. A
metaphysical doubt to fishermen! Yes; and if you go into the garrets
and cellars of London, you will have metaphysical doubts presented to
you by men immeasurably more ignorant than those fishermen were, even
before Jesus called them; the very doubts which the schools are
occupied with, only taking a living, practical form. Unless you can
cause men not to be metaphysical beings--that is to say, unless you
can take from them all which separates them from the beasts that
perish--they must have these doubts. Thanks be to God, He awakens
them! And thanks be to God, He, and not priests and doctors, must
satisfy them for every creature whom He has made in His image!

The doubt which troubled the disciples is one that has exercised all
generations--none more than our own. '_Master, who did sin, this man,
or his parents, that he was born blind?_' 'He came into the world
under this curse. Was it for some sin he committed in another world,
in some older state of existence? or is this an illustration of the
doctrine, asserted in the second commandment? Are the sins of the
father and mother visited on the child?' The former hypothesis has
always connected itself closely with the sense of immortality in man.
'Am I merely to be hereafter? Does not the future imply a past? Do not
shadows of that past pursue me? Can I interpret the facts of memory if
I deny its existence?' The second doctrine is not more asserted in the
law than it is justified by experience. The facts from which it is
deduced belong to physiology as much at least as to theology. Every
one who thinks of hereditary sickness and insanity confesses them and
trembles.

'_Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but
that the works of God should be made manifest in him._'

A dogmatist who ventured, on the strength of this answer, to say that
the bodily condition of this particular man, or of any man, had not
been affected by the misdoings of his parents,--who should venture
even to pronounce the other opinion respecting a pre-existent state a
false and heretical one,--would speedily find himself at fault. To be
consistent, he must take the sentence according to the letter of it,
and say that the parents of this man had not sinned at all before he
was born. One who really reverences our Lord's words will not trifle
with them after this fashion. He will seek from them actual guidance
for his own life, not an excuse for suppressing evidence or condemning
the conclusions of other men. And if this is his object, he will not
be disappointed. In a single case He gives us the hint of a law which
is applicable to all cases. That law remains true, whatever may be the
truth respecting our own sins or the sins of our parents. That law is
one which reveals the mind of God, and removes all dark surmises
respecting His government of the world. That law is one which we may
use for the regulation of our own conduct.

The disciples were speculating about final causes. They would not have
understood what any one meant who had told them they were doing so;
they were doing it nevertheless. Jesus met them with the _most_ final
cause. 'I can give you a better reason for this man's blindness than
those you have imagined. His blindness will be a means of showing
forth the power and purpose of God. He will learn himself, he will be
a teacher to the world through this blindness, whence light comes, who
is the Father of light.'

It was not the mere announcement of a principle. Every principle He
delivered embodied itself in an act. He added immediately: '_I must
work the works of Him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh,
when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of
the world_.' He declares that what He was going to do He must do. He
did not choose His own way. When He was most exercising power, He was
obeying a power,--'_He was working the works of Him that sent Him._'
And every such work was a revelation. It showed forth the Will and the
Mind that had been creating and ruling all things. That Will was
proving itself to be a Will of absolute goodness,--that Mind, a light
in which is no darkness. But there is a sorrow for Him who is about to
impart joy. His countrymen had taken up stones to cast at Him. He has
a vision of a time when they would have their way. The light for a
while would be quenched. But as long as He was in the world, He must
illuminate it. Here, again, we have the feelings of the Man, the
presentiments of the Sufferer--not drawn out, but just indicated--that
we may have a glimpse into the heart from which they came. They cannot
be divided from the divine truth He is enunciating; they are the media
through which that truth is exhibited to us. The Word is indeed made
flesh; it is in the Son of Man that we know the Son of God.

'_When He had thus spoken, He spat on the ground, and made clay of the
spittle, and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, and
said unto him, Go, wash in the Pool of Siloam (which is by
interpretation, Sent). He went therefore, and washed, and came
seeing._'

Every one has remarked that this cure is distinguished from most
others that are recorded in the Gospels, by the careful use in it of
intermediate agencies. He does not merely speak the word, and the man
is healed. There is a process of healing. And I think you must confess
that the use of these agencies is a part of the sign to which St. John
wishes to draw our attention. If Christ's other signs testified that
there is an invisible power at work in all the springs of our
life,--that there is a Fountain of life from which those springs are
continually refreshed and renewed,--did not this sign testify that
there is a potency and virtue in the very commonest things; that God
has stored all nature with instruments for the blessing and healing of
His creatures? The mere miracle-worker who draws glory to himself
wishes to dispense with these things, lest he should be confounded
with the ordinary physician. The great Physician, who works because
His Father works, who comes to show what He is doing in His world,
puts an honour upon earth and water as well as upon all art which has
true observation and knowledge for its basis. He only distinguishes
Himself from other healers by showing that the source of their wisdom
and renovating power is in Him. We have put our faith and our science
at an immeasurable distance from each other. May not the separation
lead to the ruin of both?

But we are not allowed to lose ourselves amidst these general
characteristics of this cure. The words, '_He came seeing_,' remind us
that one special malady is brought before us; that we have to do, not
with a sick man, but with a blind man; and that it is as the Restorer
of sight that the Lord of man is declaring Himself to us. That object
is kept before us as we proceed in the story. '_The neighbours
therefore, and they that before had seen him that he was blind, said,
Is not this he that sat and begged? Some said, This is he: others
said, He is like him: but he said, I am he. Therefore said they unto
him, How were thine eyes opened? He answered and said, A man that is
called Jesus made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said to me, Go to
the Pool of Siloam, and wash: and I went and washed, and I received
sight. Then said they unto him, Where is He? He answered, I know
not._' I do not introduce this passage for the sake of commenting upon
it (a commentary would be very superfluous and out of place), but that
we may be reminded continually how this theologian--he who has been
supposed to be writing a learned, dogmatical treatise, he who has been
supposed to live in an age in which plain facts had been forgotten in
profound speculations--tells a story. We feel at once that to talk
about its dramatical character is to spoil its effect. It is
dramatical, as every childlike narrative is dramatical. The people who
were alive at the time speak to us because they actually presented
themselves to the writer as living beings, and because he did not want
to thrust himself into their places. I do not say that these qualities
belong only to a divine teacher. They belong, in their measure, to
every simple narrator and poet. But they certainly do not belong to
the builder up of a system; and they are precisely the gifts which we
should expect would be imparted to one who had seen and handled the
Word of life, and was bearing a message concerning Him to his
brethren.

'_They brought to the Pharisees him that aforetime was blind. And it
was the sabbath-day when Jesus made the clay, and opened his eyes.
Then again the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight.
He said unto them, He put clay upon mine eyes, and I washed, and do
see. Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God,
because he keepeth not the sabbath-day. Others said, How can a man
that is a sinner do such miracles? And there was a division among
them._'

I observed before, that the only two acts of healing which are
recorded in this Gospel, as done by our Lord in Jerusalem, were done
on the Sabbath-day. In the story of the man at the Pool of Bethesda,
this was the most prominent circumstance; the subsequent discourse
bore upon it; the strongest, and to the Jews the most offensive,
proclamation by Jesus of God as His Father, arose out of it; the
purpose to kill Him was first suggested by it. Apparently what He said
then, and had said since at the feast of Tabernacles, was not quite
lost even upon the Pharisees. There were some in this particular
synagogue, if not in the Sanhedrim, who thought that to do a good act
on a Saturday might not be a sin against God. The next verses show
that they were a strong enough minority to force their fellows into a
further inquiry respecting the fact of the cure. '_They say unto the
blind man again, What sayest thou of Him, that He hath opened thine
eyes? He said, He is a prophet. But the Jews did not believe
concerning him, that he had been blind, and received his sight, until
they called the parents of him that had received his sight. And they
asked them, saying, Is this your son, who ye say was born blind? How
then doth he now see? His parents answered them and said, We know that
this is our son, and that he was born blind: but by what means he now
seeth, we know not; or who hath opened his eyes, we know not: he is of
age; ask him; he shall speak for himself. These words spake his
parents, because they feared the Jews: for the Jews had agreed
already, that if any man did confess that He was Christ, he should be
put out of the synagogue. Therefore said his parents, He is of age;
ask him._'

The answer of the man, that He who healed him was a prophet, was the
simplest of all forms of expressing his belief that he had been
brought into contact with a Person who was higher than himself, who
was sent from God. This passage would show, if it stood alone, how
little even the commonest Israelite identified the prophet with the
mere predicter of events. Foretelling had surely no direct connexion
with opening the eyes; but one who could do that was naturally felt to
be the bringer of a message and a blessing from another and a better
region. These words, as we have seen before, lay very near to the
others, '_He is the Christ_;' only in the last the king was blended
with the prophet, the Son of David with the successor of Elijah. It is
probable that the rulers of the synagogue would draw a much sharper
distinction between the names than the people did. The belief in Him
as a Prophet might be tolerated; those who owned Him as Christ were
interfering with the authority of the priests or of Rome. Positive
exclusion from worship and fellowship, therefore, might be restricted
to that. The parents of the blind man feared, that he had approached
the borders of offence. If they made a false step, it might be passed;
therefore it was prudent to keep as nearly as possible to the mere
fact of his blindness. Perhaps they had no opinion about the Person
who had healed their son. If they had, is it worth while to run risks
for an _opinion_? A _belief_ is another thing altogether. If a man has
_that_, he must run risks for it. His belief makes this demand upon
him, and perishes if the demand is not complied with.

'_Then again called they the man that was blind, and said unto him,
Give God the praise: we know that this Man is a sinner._' The two
parties had probably come to a compromise. The cure was to be admitted
as good; it was to be ascribed respectfully and devoutly to God; only
the instrument of it must be declared to be evil. It was, of course,
assumed that such an adjustment would be satisfactory to the beggar;
he would not rebel against the authority of his betters. Nor did he.
'_He answered and said, Whether He be a sinner or no, I know not: one
thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see._' Was not his as
fair an adjustment as theirs? He left them all their probable
conclusions, all their traditional wisdom. He vindicated to himself
only his pin-point of personal experience. No! it was not fair; the
doctors demurred to it, as they had a right to do. Theirs was a
fantastical airy possession, which every hour might diminish; he was
standing on solid ground; every day he might add something to that
ground. Nothing frets men like a discovery of this kind. The rulers of
the synagogue showed their irritation by repeating their question.
'_Then said they to him again, What did He to thee? how opened He
thine eyes?_' The beggar became bolder as the doctors became feebler.
'_He answered them, I have told you already, and ye did not hear:
wherefore would ye hear it again? will ye also be his disciples? Then
they reviled him, and said, Thou art his disciple; but we are Moses'
disciples. We know that God spake unto Moses: as for this fellow, we
know not from whence he is._' Their self-complacency has returned. Of
such people as this blind beggar did the disciples of Jesus consist!
_They_ had a law and a history. Moses had been sent to them from God
fourteen hundred years before. About his mission there could be no
doubt; they had it in the book. What help had they to determine the
pretensions of the new Teacher, but His own words? The beggar thought
they must have some means of finding out what He was, if they were
learned men and guides of the people. '_The man answered and said unto
them, Why herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from whence
he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes. Now we know that God
heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth
His will, him He heareth. Since the world began was it not heard that
any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind. If this Man were
not of God, he could do nothing._' It was very simple, childish
logic,--the logic of a man who had convinced himself that God was
living then, and was ruling the world then as in the days of old. He
had done what the synagogue bade him. He had given God the glory. He
had confessed a good God, who cared for him an outcast. Jesus had
brought him to that confession, and therefore he could not, at the
bidding of any synagogue, call Him a sinner. There was only one safe
and conclusive reply to a man who spoke as he did. '_They answered and
said unto him, Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach
us? And they cast him out._'

A strange process had been going on in this man, one worthy of all
study. The world of flowers and trees, of earth and sky, and of human
faces, had burst upon him; a vision too wonderful to take in, which
might have crushed him with its strangeness and its excess of beauty.
But with that had come another vision, for which his hours of darkness
had not been unfitting but perhaps preparing him,--the sense of a
loving Power near him, sympathising with him, caring to restore him;
the assurance that this Power must be His who made the trees and
flowers, the sky and earth, and had stamped on the human face an
expression that was not of the earth. This sense, this confidence,
came to him not suddenly, but gradually, by a discipline scarcely less
hard than that to which he had been subjected hitherto. It came to
him, in part, through that strange conflict with creatures of his own
flesh and blood,--with men of whom he had asked alms and whom he
reverenced as his masters,--into which he was brought almost as soon
as he could look into their countenances. It came through their denial
of facts, of which he felt as sure as he was of the existence of those
things which he had begun to see. It came to him with a feeling of his
own duty, of his own power, to declare that God did not forget
beggars, and that the man who had raised him out of misery must be
from God. But this inner revelation was not overwhelming like the
outward,--it was sustaining. The man who could look upon sun and stars
found that he was more than they. God was nearer to the beggar than to
them. A light was shining into him which did not come from them. Was
it not a light which would go with him and cheer him, whatever
synagogue cast him out; yes, if sun and stars were to disappear for
ever?

He had been under a marvellous education. It was not completed.
'_Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when He had found him,
He said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God? And he said,
Who is He, Lord, that I might believe on Him? And Jesus said unto him,
Thou hast both seen Him, and it is He that talketh with thee. And he
said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped Him._'

An incomprehensible, incredible record, if all that we have been
hearing of a Life-giver and a Light of the world is untrue; if all
communications come to human beings from without; if the Son of God is
only revealed to us in letters; if there is not a conscience in man to
which He manifests Himself. But how consistent and harmonious and
consolatory a story is it, if this Gospel is indeed what it professes
to be, if it does not mock us with idle sounds when it tells us of One
who was with the Father before all worlds, whose light always shined
in the darkness, which did not comprehend it, who came into the world
to show men of this Father, and to restore them to fellowship with
Him! How the narrative concerning this beggar, and the way in which
the Son of God led him to the knowledge of Himself, becomes then a
narrative for each of us! We need not trace any outward sorrow that
has been ordained for us to the sin of our parents or to sins of our
own done in some former state. Accepting in either case the
punishment, we may refer it to the will of a Father, that through it
we may perceive how the blank in our sensible perceptions and in our
hearts may be filled,--that through it we may be led to the Son, the
Life-giver and Light of the world. The like calamities in our brethren
are to be the instruments through which we convey to them a message
concerning the same Son. If we claim them as opportunities for showing
forth God's healing power; if we own the science and the art which are
needful for the exercise of that power as His gifts; if we thus work
His works,--others will find, we shall find more and more, that the
riddle of the world has a solution,--that Christ has solved it.

And what is true of outward sorrows--of the want of sight, the
greatest of all--is true also of moral evils, of the moral blindness
from which they spring and in which they terminate. Our Lord's words,
those I took for my text, lead us into the heart of this mystery also;
they explain some of the greatest contradictions in our own lives, and
in the world's life. '_And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into
this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see
might be made blind._'

How is He come into the world for judgment when He came not to judge
the world, but to save it? He has answered the question before. He
answers it more fully here. What we want to be saved from is our
darkness. We can only be saved from it by His light. That light brings
us into judgment. It distinguishes--it condemns! It distinguishes
between that in us which seeks light, and that in us which flies from
light. It does not condemn us for being dark; it condemns us for not
owning our darkness. It does not condemn us for not having a power and
virtue in us to escape from the darkness; but for refusing to
entertain the light which would raise us out of it. Our eyes are not
formed to create light, but to receive it; if they will close
themselves to that which is always seeking to open them and illuminate
them, _that_ is the sentence--that is the condemnation. The blind
beggar washes in the Pool of Siloam, and comes seeing. He hears of the
Son of God, and says, '_Lord, who is He that I might believe on Him_?'
The Pharisee grudges eyesight to the beggar,--denies that God may work
good on His own Sabbath-day. He is satisfied with his power of seeing;
and the light that would open God's glorious kingdom to him puts out
the eyes that he had.

Dear brethren, may Christ give us honesty and courage to confess our
blindness, that we may turn to Him who can make us see! May He deliver
us from all conceit of our own illumination, lest we should become
hopelessly dark!




DISCOURSE XIX.

THE SHEPHERD AND THE SHEEP.

[Lincoln's Inn, 3d Sunday after Trinity, June 8, 1856.]

ST. JOHN X. 27-29.

     _My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow
     me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never
     perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My
     Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man
     is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand._


A recent traveller in the Holy Land, who has looked on all its
localities with honest and reverent eyes, and has enabled his readers
to see them almost as clearly as himself, has suggested that the Mount
of Olivet was the scene of the conversation, in which Jesus declared
Himself as the Son of God to the man whose eyes He had opened. The man
whom He had healed at the Pool of Bethesda He found in the Temple; but
an excommunicated Israelite would not have been allowed to enter those
precincts. If we suppose our Lord to have met him on that other ground
which He visited so often, the interview may have been secret. And the
words, '_For judgment am I come into the world_,' which are so evident
a commentary upon it, may have been addressed to persons, His
disciples and others, whom He joined afterwards. Then it will appear
how the concluding verses of the 9th chapter may have formed part of
the same dialogue with the opening verses of the 10th,--how much
closer a relation there is between them outwardly and inwardly than we
at first perceive.

'_And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they
which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.
And some of the Pharisees which were with Him heard these words, and
said unto Him, Are we blind also? Jesus said unto them, If ye were
blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your
sin remaineth._'

These Pharisees may have fallen in by chance with Jesus and His
disciples as they walked down the mount, or may have come expressly to
catch Him in His words. They must have heard that He had spoken of
blind leaders of the blind. They knew, at all events, that His
strongest language had been directed against them,--the guides of the
people,--those to whom the humble Israelites turned for light and
teaching. The question, '_Are we blind also_?' may have been asked in
recollection of these former passages between them, or in mere scorn
that a Galilæan who had learnt no letters should presume to judge
them. The answer struck at the principle of the Pharisaic character.
'Alas! if you only felt that you were as blind as any of those whom
you are professing to teach and show the right way, there would be no
complaint to make of you. You would turn to the Source of light; you
would allow the light that lighteth every man to illuminate you. "_But
now ye say, We see._" You are satisfied with the light that is in
yourselves. You think that you have a light that does not belong to
these poor wretches who know not the law. "_Therefore your sin
remaineth._" You stumble, and you cause those whom you guide to
stumble.'

If this conversation took place at eventide, on the <DW72> of the hill,
no spectacle (as the traveller to whom I have referred remarks) would
be more likely to meet the eyes of our Lord and these Pharisees than
that of a flock of sheep, gathered from the different pastures in
which they had been wandering, and entering, one by one, through a
little wicket-gate into their resting-place for the night,--the
shepherd, as was and is the custom in that country, going through it
before them, and leading them in. There may have been a pause after
the words on which I have just commented,--then Jesus may have said,
pointing to the sheepfold: '_Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that
entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some
other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in
by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter openeth;
and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name,
and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he
goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice.
And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they
know not the voice of strangers._' As if He had said, 'Look there; see
how that shepherd is behaving. The sheep are not going through one
door, and he through another. Of any one who took another nearer way
you would say at once, not, "He is doing so because he is a man and is
wiser than the sheep," but simply, "He is not the shepherd; the sheep
do not belong to him; he is come to steal them, and to kill them." The
sign of the shepherd--that which the porter at the gate owns at
once--is, that he goes _with_ the sheep. But it is not only the porter
that makes this distinction. The sheep know their own shepherd as well
as he does. They do not in the least confound his voice with those of
other men. Whether he is, as now, leading them in for the night, or
leading them out in the morning, still it is the same. He knows each
of them; each of them knows him. He leads them because he does not
stand aloof from them.'

'_This parable_,' says St. John, '_Jesus spake to them: but they
understood not what things they were which He spake unto them_.' They
did not feel the application of it; they did not see what shepherds
and sheepfolds had to do with them. They could hardly have given a
greater proof how little they understood the things which were written
in the books they prized most,--how their worship of the divine letter
had destroyed all commerce between their minds and the realities which
it is setting forth. For is not the Old Testament, from first to last,
a book about shepherds? Was not Abraham a shepherd,--Moses a
shepherd,--David a shepherd? Is not the shepherd of sheep, throughout,
connected with the Shepherd of men? That name belongs to Greek poetry
as much as to Hebrew; it is found as often in Homer as in Isaiah; it
is the most universal and human of all emblems. But the Hebrew seers
are the great and consistent expounders of it; they carry it from the
lowest ground to the highest. '_The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not
want_,' is the song of the individual Israelite. '_He shall feed His
flock like a shepherd: He shall gather His lambs in His arms, and
carry them in His bosom; and shall gently lead those that are with
young_,' contains the highest vision which the Prophet could see of
the Divine care over his nation. And no applications of this language
are so numerous as those which are directed against '_the shepherds of
Israel who feed themselves, and will not feed the flock_.'

These passages might have occurred to those who knew them so well as
the Pharisees. But they were divine texts merely,--they never
connected themselves with the sheep and the shepherds that wandered
over the hills in their day. The sheep would sell for so much in the
market; the shepherds were hired for so much by the day or the week.
There was no other measure of their worth. Clever teachers might,
perhaps, resort to them occasionally for rhetorical illustrations.
Secular and vulgar things might be converted, as the phrase is, to the
service of religion. But it would always be felt that they _were_ in
themselves secular and vulgar things. God had nothing to do with them
till they had been reclaimed. Thus the faith that all creation is
divine,--that all occupations are divine,--that God has written His
mind and purpose both upon the natural and the civil order of the
world, had disappeared. Men no longer walked the earth as a holy
place, filled with the presence of their Lord God; it had become
utterly separated from Him,--sold and sacrificed to Mammon. Then came
the Son of Man, interpreting the world which He had made, and which
knew Him not; drawing forth out of it treasures new and old;
deciphering the hieroglyphics which wise men had perceived in every
rock and cave, in every tree, and in every grain of sand; showing that
in Himself was to be found the solution of that sphynx-riddle by which
all ages had been tormented.

But even His parables might be turned to an evil use. It might be
supposed that we can only reach the kingdom of heaven through the
forms of earth; that they are not the likenesses of the invisible
substances, but that the invisible substances are the likenesses of
them. This danger is of such continual recurrence, it belongs so
essentially to the idolatrous nature which is in us all, that it must
have exhibited itself in the Christian Church before St. John wrote.
Long allegories--which seem invented rather to hide the truth from
common eyes than to bring it forth that it might be a possession for
the wayfarer--began to be produced immediately after the apostolical
age, if not within it. Nothing like them is to be found in this
Gospel. Those parts of our Lord's teaching in which the parable was
not used are brought into most prominence. Yet the parable is
justified; all His acts are shown to be signs. And a proverb
(παροιμία) is introduced here and there, which enables us to
understand in what the worth of these natural likenesses consists, and
how much the divine art which draws out the spiritual truth that is
latent in them differs from the elaborate artifice of the allegorizer.

'_Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I
am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me are thieves and
robbers: but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door; by me if any
man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find
pasture. The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to
destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have
it more abundantly._'

The formal interpreter of parables would at once decide, that the most
important object in the picture which is presented to the eye, must
represent Christ the Son of Man. The supposition is a natural one;
perhaps it may ultimately prove to be true. But our Lord's first words
seem to confute it. His conversation with the Pharisees leads Him to
speak of the gate through which both the sheep and the shepherd enter
into the fold, before He speaks of the shepherd. And that gate, He
says, is Himself. All kings, prophets, priests, teachers, had brought
light and life into the minds of men,--had served to bind men into
one,--just so far as they had confessed a light and life from which
theirs was derived, just so far as they had identified themselves with
the people. And all that had come claiming to be the sources of life
and light,--to have an independent authority,--to have a right to
rule, because they were in themselves stronger, or wiser, or better
than others, had been thieves and robbers, the tyrants and destroyers
of the earth. There is no commentary on history, the history of the
whole world, ancient and modern, so grand as this,--so perfectly able
to abide the test of facts. Every prophet, and monarch, and priest of
the Jews brought strength and freedom into his land, while he was the
witness of an invisible Prophet, and Monarch, and Priest higher than
himself, living then, one day to be made manifest. Every prophet,
monarch, and priest was the cause of superstition, idolatry, and
slavery to his land, when he exalted himself,--when he strove to prove
that he had some rights of his own which were not conferred on him for
the sake of his race,--which were not conferred that he might be a
witness of the glory belonging to his race.

If we read Pagan history and literature by the light of Scripture, we
should find abundance of proofs that the maxim is equally true and
satisfactory with reference to them; that every Greek or Roman patriot
and sage, whom we ought to love, and whom only a heartless,
atheistical religion can hinder us from loving, did good and was good,
so far as he did not seek his own glory,--so far as he did not
attribute his wisdom and power to himself,--so far as he was in
communion, amidst whatever confusions, with the Light that lighteneth
every man; and that every oppressor and invader of freedom, whose
character it is our duty to hate, was so because he came in his own
name, claiming to be a king, a Christ, a god. With tenfold momentum do
the words bear upon the ages since the incarnation, and declare to
every priest, pope, emperor, philosopher, and master of a sect or
school,--'In so far as thou hast assumed to be the Son of Man,--in so
far as thou hast set thyself to be something when thou art
nothing,--in so far as thou hast claimed to have light, which has not
come from the Fountain of light,--and power, which is not imparted by
the righteous Power,--so far thou hast been a _thief and a robber,
caring for nothing but to steal, and to kill, and to destroy_.'

But if in this sense it is true now, and has been true always, that
Christ is the only Door through which any man enters, whose designs
towards human beings are good and not murderous; can it be equally
true that '_the sheep did not hear_' the voices of false prophets, of
usurping tyrants, who climbed up some other way? How then have they
prevailed so mightily? Dare we say that no true men have given heed to
them? Dare we judge all that have yielded to impostors,--all that have
welcomed them as deliverers? Shall we not certainly be judged if we
do?

Assuredly we shall. And, therefore, let us proceed to judge ourselves
first, and at once. _We_ have listened to impostors,--have we not?
_We_ have been beguiled by men who we thought were to give us life,
and really took life from us. Well, but was there nothing in us which
refused to hear these teachers,--to follow these guides? Was there no
inward protest against them? Where some strong external evidence, some
evil fruits in ourselves, showed that a pernicious juice had issued
from the tree, did we not feel that we might have known it
before--that if we had been true to the light which was shining into
us, we should have known it? And, even when the enchantment was
strongest upon us, was there no crying for another guide,--no bleating
after a better shepherd? Here, then, is the confirmation of our Lord's
sentence; we need go no further to understand what He means. Something
in us did follow the strange voice, but the _sheep_--the true man in
us--did not. That could make no answer to the counterfeit voice; that
detected the thief in the shepherd's dress; that was certain that
there must be one who had a right to command, and whom it could obey.

I say again, this sheep is the '_true man in us_.' Each of us in
himself knows that it is; we may know it also by the echo which the
history of our race makes to the witness in our consciences. Why have
the oppressors of mankind been so short-lived? How is it that, though
there may be a succession of lies, each lie wears itself out in a
generation,--in much less than a generation? How is it that what seems
for a while the weakest possible testimony against it waxes stronger
and louder, till at last the world gives into it, and the lie and the
liar are indignantly trampled underfoot? How is it, but because the
spirit of humanity does not and cannot hear the voices of those who
break into the fold by the wrong way? How is it, but because all their
temporary power is only derived from the tones of the true Shepherd,
which they are able to mimic? How is it, but because they bear
witness, by their reign and by their downfal, that they do not rule
the earth, and that He does?

Yes, brethren, '_He who comes, that His sheep might have life, and
that they might have it more abundantly_,' does not teach us to talk
of ourselves as His sheep, and of other men as having no part in Him.
This is the teaching of robbers and destroyers,--of those who would
sever us from our kind,--of those who would persuade us that it is a
privilege to have a selfish, separate life,--to have selfish, separate
rewards. This selfish, separate life is what Christ promises to save
us from. The wide, free pastures into which He would lead us, are
those upon which we can only graze, because we are portions of a
flock; the fold into which He would bring us is for those whom He has
redeemed from their separate errings and strayings to rest together in
Him. We cannot, therefore, make a more deadly misapplication of this
discourse, than when we turn it into an excuse for drawing lines of
separation between those for whom Christ has died. While we draw
_these_ lines, we never shall discover the deep line in ourselves
between that which can only follow the Deliverer, and that which can
only follow the destroyer.

'_I am the good Shepherd: the good shepherd giveth His life for the
sheep. But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the
sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and
fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. The
hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the
sheep._'

You will say, 'The image is changed. Christ was the wicket-gate; but
now He has become the person who passes through that gate.' Yes, and
if you have followed the course of the thought; if you have seen why
He is described as the door through which shepherd and sheep must
enter in,--why the shepherds of Israel are reproved when they will not
pass through that door,--you will see the necessity of the double
image. You will feel that He whom all shepherds are bound to
acknowledge, if they would have the sheep hear them, must be Himself,
in the highest sense, _the_ Shepherd. And the test that He is this
Shepherd, explains the perpetual worth and significance of the other
symbol. '_He gives His life for the sheep._' The false shepherds wish
to find out a way for themselves, which is not the way that the sheep
take. They do not like the thought of stooping--beings of another and
higher race as they are--to the conditions of these silly creatures.
_He_ identifies Himself with them. They have to die. _He_ dies. That
is the first and obvious view of the sentence; and it is the one to
which we come back at last, as the deepest and most wonderful of all.
But before we can take it in its full force, we must recal the old
sentence, '_In Him was life_;' and the other which He has just
uttered, '_I am come that they might have life more abundantly_.' The
property of death is, that it is solitary and incommunicable; the
property of life is, that it must be communicated,--that from him in
whom it dwells most it must be poured forth most. He in whom the
source of life is, from whom all the streams of it have issued, comes
into the world to encounter death, which appears to have got the
mastery,--to claim them whom He has created capable of life, for life.
But how can He give life? How can He overcome death? He must _give up_
life. He must die. The highest life is the life that sacrifices
itself. All older shepherds had shown that it was. For their country
and their brethren they had poured out their life; _that_ men had
received as the proof that they were from God,--that they were
quickened by Him. The good Shepherd, the Shepherd of shepherds,
justifies the belief. He shows that they had done what they did by
inspiration from Him. He shows that, in this instance also,--in this
instance especially,--they were receiving of His fulness, and grace
for grace. The Word takes flesh and blood, because the children are
partakers of flesh and blood. The Shepherd dies, because the sheep
die.

Thus, the doctrine which He has been preaching to the Pharisees is
brought out in all its power. They claimed to be shepherds of the
people, because they were above them,--because they did not share
their weakness and blindness. His claim to be the Shepherd of the
people was, that He would not be above them; that He would bear what
they bore, and sink as low as they had sunk. And this not from some
great effort,--in virtue of some arrangement,--but because He had the
most intimate and original sympathy with them, because they had always
been His, and because He had made Himself one with them in all things.
This is the contrast which He draws between the good shepherd and the
hireling. The one shepherd does his work because he looks to be paid
for it. He feels altogether aloof from his sheep. He regards them as
beings of a different nature from his own. He is to be very great and
condescending to them. He is to fold them carefully at night,--to do
all needful services for them by day; not because he cares for them,
but because he has sold his work for so much, and he may lose his
wages if he commits any serious oversight. And this motive serves him
well enough till some great danger threatens the sheep, till the wolf
breaks into the fold. Then the hireling feels rightly that life is
more precious than money; it is wiser to lose his pay than to run the
risk of being devoured.

From whom do these hireling shepherds expect their wages? I do not
think it signifies much whether they expect them from man or from
God,--in this world or in another. The temper is the same; the result
which our Lord prophesies must be the same. For he who does his work
in hope of getting a reward hereafter for what he has done, will, in
general, regard God as an uncertain, capricious Being, whom it is very
hard to please, who may punish as well as reward. Therefore he will
pause before he will risk death for the sake of his work. Death may
bring him into the presence of the Being whom he dreads. Death may
surprise him before he has done all that he ought to have done. If
there is nothing better in us than this expectation, we shall never
throw away ourselves as soldiers do on the battle-field; we shall,
perhaps, give ourselves credit for being better and holier than they
are, because we do not.

But are we not to serve the sheep from a sense of duty to God? Are we
only to serve them from certain feelings of affection for them? Let us
hear what our Lord tells us of Himself, then we shall know better what
we are to be.

'_I am the good Shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As
the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my
life for the sheep._'

There are heights and depths in these verses which no man may look
into; but the principle which is declared in them is needful for the
daily practice of life, profound as it is. Christ declares that He
knows His sheep. He opposes this knowledge to the motives and feelings
of the hireling. Let us think of _these_. _We_ can describe them to
you; for, brethren, which of us may not say,--should not say,--in
dust and ashes: 'They have been mine. I have felt cold and estranged
from those I was seeking to guide; out of communion with their fears,
their sorrows, their doubts, their temptations; ready to reprove the
rich for being rich, and the poor for being poor, the tradesman for
his basenesses, the lawyer for his; ready to condemn all the sins
which I had no mind to commit; but not knowing them individually, not
bearing their burdens, not feeling them as my own. And, therefore,
when the wolf has come, which is always ready to divide the flock,--to
rend them from each other,--to take away the life that should unite
them,--I have not been ready to encounter him. How much less should I
have been ready if he had come in the form of some terrible
persecution, scattering them hither and thither!' We know the
hireling's mind all too well; that we do not learn from report. And
oh! that we might understand something of that other mind which is
opposed to it,--of that which is expressed in the words, '_I know my
sheep, and am known of mine_!' If you would think rightly of the Son
of Man, think of the Person who knows thoroughly everything that each
one of you is feeling, and cannot utter to others or to
himself,--every temptation from riches, from poverty, from solitude,
from society, from gifts of intellect, from the want of them, from the
gladness of the spirit, from the barrenness and dreariness of it, from
the warmth of affection and from the drying up of affection, from the
anguish of doubt and the dulness of indifference, from the whirlwind
of passion and the calm which succeeds it, from the vile thoughts
which spring out of fleshly appetites and indulgences, from the
darker, more terrible, suggestions which are presented to the inner
will. Believe that He knows all these, that He knows _you_. And then
believe this also, that all He knows is through intense, inmost
sympathy, not with the evil that is assaulting you, but with you who
are assaulted by it. Believe that knowledge, in this the Scriptural
sense of it,--the human as well as the divine sense of it,--is
absolutely inseparable from sympathy.

But it is added, and '_am known of mine_.' I am sure we should fix our
minds upon those words which express His knowledge before we come to
these, else they will either drive us to despair, or lead us to great
presumption. When we have done this, we may say that the highest
knowledge of Christ which any, the holiest, man, has attained,--that
which we attribute to an à Kempis or to a Leighton,--is what is meant
for the sheep of Christ,--their proper characteristic. But having said
this, we should also say that every apprehension, which any man
struggling with ever so much of evil, ever so much overcome by it, has
of a higher and better life, of a Divine Teacher and Reprover, is part
of this knowledge,--is in kind like theirs. We should say that to be
absolutely without this knowledge is a dreadful possibility, which is
threatening every one of us,--which those who are most occupied with
divine mysteries must often feel to be near to themselves--but which
is a reprobate condition, one into which we have no right to suppose
that any person has sunk, so long as he has any perception of that
which is good and true,--any, the faintest, desire to lay hold of it.
Truly, the voice of him who was a liar and murderer from the beginning
is speaking to us and in us all,--is tempting us all down into death.
But the voice of the true Shepherd is also speaking to us, inviting
us, claiming us as His sheep. And there is not one who has not at
times heard that voice,--who has not been sure that he had a right to
follow it, and that no man or devil had a right to say, 'Thou art not
His; thou hast not a claim on Him; and He does not desire thee to
follow Him.'

Brethren, if shepherds and sheep made more of an effort to understand
each other,--if the shepherds were more sure that they could enter
into all that is drawing the sheep astray, because the same evil is in
themselves,--if the sheep thought that they might give the shepherds
credit for knowing all that is worst in them, not as judges, but as
fellow-sinners and fellow-sufferers,--we should each and all of us
have more communion with the Chief Shepherd. Those who guide would be
driven, by the sense of their own ignorance and coldness, to seek for
light and warmth from Him; those who are guided would feel that the
pastor on earth did not intercept their communication with the
heavenly Pastor, but existed to show them what He is, and how near He
is to them. All has gone wrong in ourselves from our losing this
fellowship with each other,--from our forgetting that the Highest of
all was the lowest of all,--that He proved His right to rule us by
becoming one of us, and one with us.

And yet there is a deeper error still at the root of our selfishness
and want of sympathy. We do not confess the ground of Christ's own
sympathy, of His own sacrifice. He declares to us here that His
knowledge of the sheep, and the knowledge which the sheep have of Him,
rests upon the Father's knowledge of Him and His knowledge of the
Father. He has been telling us the same thing in previous discourses.
This union of the Father with the Son,--this dependence of the Son
upon the Father,--has been the mystery which the whole Gospel has been
discovering to us. Those words, in which He tells us that this
relation is at the basis of our relation to Him and to each other,--of
all our social and spiritual sympathies,--do but carry us one step
further in the revelation. Those words, in which He tells us that He
lays down His life for the sheep, because He is one with His Father,
do but bring out more fully that love of the Father, of which His life
and death were testimonies; a love to which He yielded Himself in
simple obedience, when He gave the greatest proof He could give of
love to the sheep.

This is the answer to the question which was asked before, whether
duty to God is not as good and powerful a motive as love to man? Yes,
brethren, a more powerful motive, a deeper and safer ground to stand
upon, if we accept what our Lord says here. He boasts of no love to
man as dwelling in Himself,--it is all derived from His Father. He
merely submits to His will, merely fulfils it. And because that will
is a will of absolute love, the mere submission to it,--the mere
consenting that it should be accomplished upon Him and in
Him,--involved the most perfect love to men,--the most entire
communion with them,--the dying for them. He says this expressly in
the 17th and 18th verses, though there is one interposed between them
and that which I last quoted, which it would be shameful indeed to
pass over. '_And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them
also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be
one fold, and one shepherd. Therefore doth my Father love me, because
I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from
me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I
have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my
Father._'

Our translators have carelessly substituted _fold_ for _flock_ in the
last clause of the first of these verses. But most readers, I think,
have of themselves restored the true reading, and perceived that the
Gentiles were not to be brought into the Jewish fold, but to form one
flock with the Jews after the temporary enclosure of their fold had
been broken down. Perhaps they have been more puzzled to understand
why what we describe as the calling in of the Gentiles should be
spoken of in connexion with Christ's laying down His life. The second,
modern theology represents as an event necessary for the salvation of
individual men; the first, as an event connected with the outward
economy of the world. And so, modern theology is out of harmony with
the language of the Scriptures to which it appeals. For that
represents the death of Christ as the uniting power which breaks down
the barrier between man and man,--as the deliverance of each man from
the selfishness which sets him apart from his fellows, and apart from
His Father in heaven. If it is this, it is surely nothing strange to
speak of the union of the two different classes into which the world
was divided as the mighty effect of the death of Christ. If it is
this, the calling in of the Gentiles belongs not to outward history,
but to the most inward and spiritual part of God's dispensation. The
recognition of Christ's other sheep as His sheep,--the acknowledgment
of the heathen as having been always His, no less than those who had
been called out to be a blessing to all the families of the
earth,--was the mightiest witness that the Brother and Lord of man had
met the wolf who was destroying the fold, had redeemed all from death
by sharing their death.

It was the witness, too, of that other profound truth which the 17th
verse announces, that there was a Man in whom the Father was
perfectly satisfied, and that the ground of His satisfaction was that
this Man entirely loved men--entirely gave Himself up for men. He
could be satisfied with nothing less than this; for nothing less than
this was the expression of His own mind and will. In no act of less
love than this could His love declare itself. The thought is so
wonderful, the mystery is so deep, that men have shrunk from it as
incredible, and have invented any reason to account for Christ's death
but that which He gives Himself. That an entirely voluntary act should
be yet the fulfilment of a commandment,--that the highest power of
giving away life and taking it should be realized in the most perfect
obedience; this idea clashes so much with our natural pride and
self-glorification, that we would rather think Christ died because He
was _not_ one with the Father,--that it was not the Father's love that
was satisfied, but His wrath and fury,--than accept a statement which
shows us that His thoughts are not as our thoughts or His ways as our
ways; that He is not made after our image, though He would have us
conformed to His. But seeing that all our morality, all our relations
to one another, depend upon the question, what He is and what He has
made us to be, we must ask for strength to cast away the schemes and
theories of man's devising, and to receive simply, as little children,
the teaching of Him who is the brightness of the Father's glory, our
Brother and our Judge.

'_There was a division therefore again among the Jews for these
sayings. And many of them said, He hath a devil, and is mad; why hear
ye Him? Others said, These are not the words of him that hath a devil.
Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?_'

I do not know whether the Jews who held these different opinions were
the Pharisees to whom He originally spoke, or whether His sayings were
reported to those who were gathered at the feast of Dedication. The
opinions themselves are exactly what one would expect that such
sayings would call forth. 'How can you listen to a madman, a demoniac,
who says that He shall lay down His life and take it again,--who
denounces our teachers, and calls Himself the good Shepherd?' This is
the language of the respectable citizen of Jerusalem, the
representative of the feeling of the Jewish religious world. 'But do
we not want a Shepherd who shall guide us to something better? Are we
satisfied with our present state? May not He who can give sight to the
blind be the Light of men, as He says that He is?' These would be the
cautious suggestions of those in whom some cravings had been awakened,
which the teachers of the day could not stifle.

We may suppose that the former party would press this argument upon
the others; 'But if He is the Christ, why has He not courage to call
Himself by _that_ name? Why does He adopt these phrases, "Shepherd,"
"Light of the world," "Son of Man," which we do not understand,
instead of that with which we are familiar, the purport of which we
know?' Of some such suggestion the question in the following verses
may have been the fruit: '_And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the
dedication, and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the temple in
Solomon's porch. Then came the Jews round about Him, and said unto
Him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell
us plainly._' The demand seemed most reasonable, '_Tell us plainly_.'
What an honest sound there is in those words! What can be better than
plain speaking? Why should He who denounced all lies have shrunk from
it? The question is not a new one. To have said, '_I am the Christ_,'
would have been to deceive them, unless He showed them what the Christ
was, unless He made them understand that He was in nearly all respects
unlike the Christ they had imagined for themselves. 'May we not then,
after His example, avoid direct answers? May we not use expressions
which people call ambiguous?' Yes, if the answers we give are more
perilous to ourselves than those we avoid, as His were; if the
expressions that are _called_ ambiguous bring the hearers more face to
face with facts, than those which are called straight. This is our
Lord's example. Let all who dare follow it.

'_Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that
I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me. But ye believe not,
because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my
voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them
eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck
them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than
all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and
my Father are one._'

He had told them that He had come from the Father; He had testified by
acts what His Father was. He had shown them that the Father was
working for them on common days and Sabbath-days to bless them. This
act had begotten no faith in them; would the words, '_I am the
Christ_,' beget faith in them? Neither words nor acts, so long as they
were not seeking as sheep for the true Shepherd. He had said to them
before, that instead of looking for a shepherd who should point the
way to them and the humblest Israelite,--who should fold them
together,--they were aspiring to be independent shepherds; they were
refusing to enter by the same door as the sheep. Those who were
sheep,--those who needed a shepherd,--would own His voice. They did
not want Him to tell them that He was the Christ. A sure and divine
instinct would tell them, that He who gave up Himself, He who entered
into their death, must be the guide they were created to follow,--that
there could be no other. And He would justify their confidence. They
were longing for life,--for the life of spirits,--for the life of God;
nothing less would satisfy them. He would give them that life,--that
eternal life of love, in which He had dwelt with the Father. They were
surrounded by enemies who were seeking to rob them of life, to draw
them into death. He was stronger than these enemies. They should not
perish; neither man nor devil should take them out of His hands. The
eternal will which He came to fulfil was on their side. _The Father
who gave them to Him was greater than all._ Those who were seeking to
separate them from their Lord and Shepherd were at war with this
Father; for He had owned them, they were His.

To this mighty declaration all His discourse concerning the sheep and
the shepherd has been tending; but at the ground of it lies a mightier
still: '_I and my Father are one_.' All that He has been teaching is
without foundation, if it has not this foundation. The unity of the
Father and the Son is the only ground of the unity between the
shepherd and the sheep; undermine one, and you undermine both. And
when I say this, I mean you undermine all unity among men, all the
order and principles of human society. For if these do not rest upon
certain temporary conventions; if they have not been devised to
facilitate the exchange of commodities, and the operations of the
money market; if there is not a lie at the root of all fellowship and
all government, which will be detected one day, and which popular rage
or the swords of armed men will cut in pieces;--we must recognise, at
last, the spiritual constitution of men in one Head and Shepherd, who
rules those wills which every other power has failed and shall fail to
rule. We must recognise it. The existence of a Christendom either
means _this_,--either affirms that such a constitution is, and that
national unity and family unity imply it, and depend upon it;--or it
means nothing, and will dissolve into a collection of sects and
parties, which will become so intolerable to men, and so hateful to
God, that He will sweep them from His earth. Do you think sects would
last now for an hour, if there was not in the heart of each of them a
witness for a fellowship, which combinations and shibboleths did not
create, and which, thanks be to God, they cannot destroy? The true
Shepherd makes His voice to be heard, through all the noise and
clatter of earthly shepherds; the sheep hear that voice, and know that
it is calling them to follow Him into a common fold where all may rest
and dwell together. And when once they understand that still deeper
message which He is uttering here, and which the old creeds of
Christendom are repeating to us, '_I and my Father are one_;' whenever
they understand that the unity of the Church and the unity of mankind
depends on this eternal distinction and unity in God Himself, and not
upon the authority or decrees of any mortal pastor, the sects will
crumble to pieces, and there will be, in very deed, '_one flock and
one Shepherd_.'

But, that we may enter thoroughly and deeply into the meaning of these
words, we should meditate earnestly upon those which followed them,
those especially in which our Lord justified what the Jews declared to
be blasphemy. '_Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him. Jesus
answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for
which of those works do ye stone me? The Jews answered Him, saying,
For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that
thou, being a man, makest thyself God. Jesus answered them, Is it not
written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto
whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; say ye
of Him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou
blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God? If I do not the
works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not
me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father
is in me, and I in Him._'

We are eager to quote these words of Jesus, as a proof that He is God.
I fear that, very often, we only mean, _that He took to Himself the
name of God_. We associate with that name a certain idea of power and
absoluteness; we believe that He vindicated that power and
absoluteness to Himself. No, brethren. He came--if we may believe His
own words--to show us what God is; to deliver us from our crude,
earthly, dark notions of Him; to prevent us from identifying His
nature with mere power and sovereignty, as the heathens did, as the
Jews in that day were doing. He came to show us the Father. Instead,
therefore, of eagerly grasping at the divine name, and appropriating
it to Himself, the method which He takes of proving His unity with the
Father is, to humble Himself, to identify Himself with men, to refuse
to be separate from them. 'You charge me with calling myself God.
"_But did not he call them gods, to whom the word of God came?_"' We
are startled at the defence. We ask ourselves whether He was not
abandoning the very claim which He had put forward; whether He was not
allowing others to share the incommunicable glory with Him? No! but He
was showing that a dignity and a glory had been put upon men by the
word of God itself, which proved that there must be a Son of Man who
was indeed the Son of God.

It was not only heathen sages who had spoken of man's divine
faculties, divine origin, divine destiny. The Scriptures had called
those whom God had set over men, gods. Psalmists, who were most
jealous for the honour of Jehovah, had not feared to use the language.
Prophets could not maintain the truth of their own mission--could not
declare that the word of God was speaking by them and in them--without
falling into it. There _was_ the greatest peril of men becoming
Lucifers,--of their setting themselves up in the place of God. It is
the very danger of which Christ has been speaking in this
discourse,--the temptation into which kings, prophets, priests,--even
teachers who pretended to no inspiration, who merely stood on the
ground of their traditional greatness, or of men's preference for
them,--had fallen. Nor was there any deliverance from such
pretensions, and from the robberies and murders which were the
consequence of them, unless One came who did not exalt Himself, who
did the works of His Father, who simply glorified Him. Such a One
could justify all the high words that had ever been spoken of our
race, and yet could lay low the pride of those who had aspired to be
the lords of it. He could show what the true man is; and, in doing so,
could show what the true God is. By putting Himself into the position
of the lowest of the sheep, by enduring the death to which each one of
the sheep had been subjected, He could prove that the glory of man is
to serve; He could show that the true sons of God had been the true
servants of men; He could show that the perfect servant of all must be
_the_ Son of God. All titles, honours, dignities among men, had
derived their virtue and efficacy from Him. Their virtue and efficacy
lay in His Sonship. He was content to be a Son, to be nothing else
than a Son. So He showed forth His eternal consubstantial union with
the Father. If God is merely absolute Power, then all this Christian
theology is a dream and a falsehood,--then there is no Son of God or
Son of Man, in any real sense of the words. But if God is absolute
Love, then He who died for the sheep must be His perfect image and
likeness, the '_only-begotten, full of grace and truth_;' then to
separate Him from the Father, to seek for the Father in any but Him,
must lead to the denial of both, ultimately to the glorification of an
evil spirit, a being of absolute selfishness, in place of both. From
which frightful consummation, brethren, may the Father, the Son, and
the Spirit, the one God, whose name is Love, preserve us and His whole
Church!




DISCOURSE XX.

THE RAISING OF LAZARUS.

[Lincoln's Inn, 4th Sunday after Trinity, June 15th, 1856.]

ST. JOHN XI. 25.

_Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that
believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live._


The words, '_I and my Father are one_;' '_The Father is in me and I in
Him_,' which were spoken in the porch of the Temple at the feast of
Dedication, had the same effect as the words, '_Before Abraham was, I
am_,' which were spoken after the feast of Tabernacles. In both cases
the Jews sought to take Jesus that they might stone Him; in both Jesus
escaped out of their hands. On the last occasion we are told whither
He retired: '_He went away again beyond Jordan into the place where
John at first baptized, and there He abode_.' The disciples who had
been with Him in the crowd of the city found themselves in the lonely
place where they had first heard Him proclaimed as the Lamb of God.
Since that time there had been a whirl of new thoughts and strange
hopes in their minds. The kingdom of God had appeared to be indeed at
hand; they had seen their Master exercising the powers of it; they had
exercised those powers themselves. Some day His throne would be
established; they should sit beside Him. The vision had passed away;
they were the companions of a fugitive; they were in the desert where
they had first learned, not that they were princes to sit and judge,
but sinners wanting a Deliverer.

I cannot doubt that He who was educating them, not only by His speech
but by all His acts, had devised this lesson for them, that it was
just what they needed at that time. How often do we all need just such
a discipline; the return to some old haunt that some past experience
has hallowed; the return to that experience which we seem to have left
far behind us, that we may compare it with what we have gone through
since! How good it would be for us if when circumstances take us back
to the past, we believed that the Son of Man had ordered those
circumstances, and was Himself with us to draw the blessing out of
them!

Others beside the disciples were profiting, the Evangelist tells us,
by this choice of a place. '_And many resorted unto Him, and said,
John did no miracle: but all things that John spake of this Man were
true._' They had perhaps contrasted John the preacher in the
wilderness, with Jesus who ate with publicans and sinners; John, who
said, Repent, with Jesus, who opened the eyes of the blind. Now they
were reminded of the likeness between them. Jesus drew them away from
earthly things, as John had done. Jesus made them conscious of a light
shining into them, as John had done. Only what John had said was true.
They needed a baptism of the Spirit, that the baptism for the
remission of sins might not be in vain. They needed a Lamb of God and
a Son of God, who should do for them what no miracles could do. Was He
not here? '_And many believed on Him there._'

I can conceive no diviner introduction than this to the story of the
raising of Lazarus. It prepares us to understand that what we are
about to hear of, is not one of those signs which Jesus rebuked His
countrymen as sinful and adulterous for desiring; not one of those
wonders which draw men away from the invisible to the visible,--from
the object of faith to an object of sight; but just the reverse of
this,--a witness that what _John spake of Jesus was true_,--a witness
that in Him was Life, and that this Life always had been, was then,
and always would be, the Life as well as the Light of men. With what
care the story is related so that it shall leave this impression on
our minds--how all those incidents contribute to it which would have
been passed over by a reporter of miracles, nay, which would have been
rejected by him as commonplace, and therefore as interfering with his
object--I shall hope to point out as we proceed. And I would
thankfully acknowledge at the outset, that, on the whole, the mind of
Christendom has responded to the intention of the divine narrator;
that whatever scholars and divines may have made of the story, the
people have apprehended its human and domestic characteristics, and
have refused to be cheated of its application to themselves under the
pretext that it would serve better as an evidence for Christianity if
its meaning were limited to one age. I am still more thankful that the
Church, by adopting the words of my text into her Burial Service, has
sanctified this rebellion. An attempt, therefore, to discover the
exact meaning of the Evangelist will not introduce novelties, but will
deepen old faith. And I cannot help feeling that unless we do seek to
deepen that faith, unless we are willing to learn again from St. John
some of the lessons which we may think we know very perfectly, or
have left behind us in our nurseries, we shall find that we have less
of belief than many Jews and many heathens had before our Lord came in
the flesh.

'_Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of
Mary and her sister Martha. (It was that Mary which anointed the Lord
with ointment, and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus
was sick.)_' The story of Mary and the alabaster box of ointment has
not yet been told by our Evangelist. But he had too distinct and high
an object to care for preserving the conventional proprieties of a
narrator. He never pretended to be giving those who read him their
first information about the events that happened while our Lord was
upon earth. Their memories, he knew, were stored with these events.
What they wanted was to see further into the meaning of them; to see
how they exhibited the life of the Son of Man and the Son of God. He
will tell us afterwards what is the context and significance of Mary's
act. Here he assumes that it was known at Ephesus,--as it was to be
known wherever the Gospel was preached,--and he uses it to identify
Lazarus. But how could Lazarus need to be identified? Must not his
name and his fame have been spread as widely as his sister's? Was any
other more likely to be preserved in the first century, by tradition,
if not by record? The answer is contained in the narrative. Lazarus,
as a man who had been in a grave and had come forth out of it, might
be spoken of then as he is spoken of now. A glorious halo might
surround him. It would be shocking to connect him with ordinary
feelings and interests. A like halo would encircle her head who had
anointed the Lord's body for the burial. Men would refuse to look upon
her as one of the common children of earth. It was just this which
John dared to do, which it was essential to his purpose that he should
do. He would have us know that Mary dwelt in the little town of
Bethany; that she had a sister Martha; that Lazarus was her brother.
The story is stripped of its fantastical ornaments. The hero and
heroine have passed into the brother and sister. If they have to do
with an unseen world, it is not with a world of dreams, but of
realities; not with a heaven that scorns the earth, but with a heaven
that has entered into fellowship with earth.

'_Therefore his sisters sent unto Him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom
thou lovest is sick._' The man who was healed at the Pool of Bethesda,
the blind man who was sent to wash in the Pool of Siloam, were merely
suffering Jews; the bread at Capernaum was given to five thousand men
gathered indiscriminately; the nobleman of Capernaum seems to have
heard for the first time of Jesus; the guests at the marriage-feast
may have been His neighbours, or even His kinsmen, but we are not told
that they were. This message is the first which directly appeals to
the private affection of the Son of Man, which calls Him to help a
friend because he is a friend. The words which follow of our Lord and
of His Apostle are worthy of all study in reference to this point.
'_When Jesus heard that, He said, This sickness is not unto death, but
for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.
Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. When He had heard
therefore that he was sick, He abode two days still in the same place
where He was._' He had a work to do. This was the first thought of
all. The sickness was to glorify God, just as the blindness of the man
to whom He restored sight was to glorify God. The Son of God who had
been revealed as the Light of the world, was to be revealed as the
Restorer of life. Death was not to be conqueror here, any more than
darkness there. All other thoughts must give way to this. Yet '_Jesus
loved Martha and her sister, and Lazarus_.' The individual sympathy
was not crushed by the universal, but grew and expanded in the light
and warmth of it. He did respond to the message in His inmost heart.
The love which it assumed to be there--the love for that particular
man--was there. And in spite of it, yea, because of it, He continued
in the desert, and made no sign of moving towards Bethany. These
sentences enable us to enter into the Divine humanity of Jesus, as a
thousand prelections and discourses would not enable us to enter into
it. They do not present to us first the Divine side of His life, and
then the human, as if they were opposing aspects of the same Being.
They make us feel that the one is the only medium through which we can
behold the other.

'_Then after that He saith to His disciples, Let us go into Judæa
again. His disciples say unto Him, Master, the Jews of late sought to
stone thee; and goest thou thither again? Jesus answered, Are there
not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth
not, because he seeth the light of the world. But if a man walk in the
night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him._' I suppose
many persons have asked themselves, 'What does this sentence mean just
here? why was it introduced?' I do not know that we, who are living
easy and comfortable lives, can quite solve the question. But many a
patriot and confessor, who has been concealing himself from the anger
of those whom he wished to bless, has, I doubt not, learnt the meaning
of the sentence, and has felt the support of it. If he tried to rush
forth into danger, merely in obedience to some instinct or passion of
his own, he was walking in the night, and was sure to stumble. If he
heard a voice in his conscience bidding him go and do some work for
God,--go and aid some suffering friend,--he would be walking in a
track of light; it signified not what enemies might be awaiting him,
what stones might be cast at him, he could move on fearlessly and
safely. The sun was in the heavens,--the stones would miss until his
hour was come. If it was come, the sooner they struck the better.

'_These things said He: and after that He saith unto them, Our friend
Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep. Then
said His disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. Howbeit Jesus
spake of his death: but they thought that He had spoken of taking of
rest in sleep. Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead. And
I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may
believe; nevertheless let us go unto him. Then said Thomas, which is
called Didymus, unto his fellow-disciples, Let us also go, that we may
die with him._' These words, '_Our friend sleepeth_,' recal what was
said, in the other Gospels, of the daughter of Jairus; and they point
onwards to the language of the Epistles to the Thessalonians and to
the Corinthians, concerning those that are fallen asleep in Jesus. Our
Lord is evidently teaching His disciples a new language; a language
drawn from nature and experience; one which had mixed itself with
other forms of speech in the dialect of all nations; but yet which was
not easy for them to learn, and which we understand very imperfectly
yet. It might not help them much then, but it helped them afterwards,
that He did not speak merely of a man having fallen asleep, but of
'_our friend_' sleeping. They might not have seen Lazarus for weeks
or months, or heard any tidings of him. All the outward tokens by
which the existence of friendship is ascertained, might have ceased.
They might never meet again. Would, therefore, the name lose its
meaning or its power? What limit would you fix for that meaning or
that power? Surely there is something immortal about the name; it
prepares us for understanding how thin the thread is which separates
death from taking of rest in sleep. The words, '_I go to awake him out
of sleep_,' could, of course, convey little sense till the event
interpreted them. But the expression, '_Nevertheless let us go to
him_,' must have had a strange sound. 'Go to one who was already
dead,--what could that mean? What did it all mean?' Thomas, the
greatest doubter among them, assuredly could not tell. But he was
willing to die with his Master; and that was the best preparation for
understanding whatever He had to teach.

'_Then when Jesus came, He found that he had lain in the grave four
days already._' The commentator takes this opportunity of saying a
word about Eastern customs, and the need of a burial immediately after
death. Does he suppose that that necessity makes the story less near
and dear to the sorrower of the West? The longer he is permitted to
look at a face which appears often as if it had lost its
restlessness,--not its beauty or its life,--the more dark and terrible
must be the grave which is to hide it from him altogether, the more
earnestly he must ask, Can light ever penetrate into that darkness? It
is because the story of Lazarus has been believed to meet this
question; because it comes into contact with the fact which speaks
most directly to the senses and to the imagination of every one of us,
that we cling to it when the topics of ordinary consolation are
wearisome, unintelligible, even hateful, to us.

By such topics the sisters of Lazarus were tormented; for St. John
says,--'_Now Bethany was nigh unto Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs
off: and many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary, to comfort them
concerning their brother_.' They endure the visitation impatiently or
patiently, according to their different dispositions. '_Then Martha,
as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met Him: but Mary
sat still in the house._' The impulse of the first is to find a Friend
to whom she can dare to make complaints, because she trusts Him; the
other retreats into herself, and, perhaps, finds that same Friend
there, teaching her another kind of lore than that which the
well-meaning comforters are pouring into her ear.

'_Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my
brother had not died._' It is the language of reproach; but it is the
kind of reproach which has faith and confidence for the ground of
it,--which comes from a longing that the person who is the object of
it should clear himself, and prove that he has not failed in the
office of friendship, however he may have seemed to do so. And then,
as if His face had already answered the uneasy suspicion which her
words had expressed--had given her a hope of some unknown,
inconceivable blessing--she adds, '_But I know that even now,
whatsoever thou shalt ask of God, God will give it thee. Jesus saith
unto her, Thy brother shall rise again._' The words sound grand and
glorious; they were really disappointing. What else she thought He
might ask of God she could not say; but it was not _this_. She had
heard often of a resurrection; the Jews, who had come to Bethany, had,
no doubt, been telling her many good discourses of the elders
concerning it. Ages hence he would, she thought, awake out of the
dust; in the meantime, the light in their house had been quenched; he
was gone from them. She said, '_I know that he shall rise again in the
resurrection at the last day. Jesus said unto her, I am the
resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were
dead, yet shall he live._' If He intended to give back Lazarus to her
at once, could He not have told her so? Might He not have said, 'In
thy special case, for my love to Lazarus and Mary and thee, I am about
to break through ordinary laws, and to raise a body out of the
grave,--not at the last day, but now.' Why not? Because, if He had
said so, He would have contradicted His own words, His own acts, the
whole tenor of His life. He did not come into the world to show
special favours, but to assert and manifest universal truth. He did
not come into the world to break God's laws, but to establish them,
and to show forth the will which was at the foundation of them.
Therefore, instead of limiting Martha's words about a resurrection in
the last day, He expanded her words,--He uttered what was a _more_
general proposition than that one,--not bounded to a certain moment in
the future, but extending over the present and the past. The
resurrection in the last day,--vague and loose as Martha's thoughts
were about it,--was still practically bounded by the feeling which
occupied her soul in that hour. 'I know that _my brother_ shall rise
again,' did not mean very much to her; the rising of any besides her
brother meant nothing. But '_I am the resurrection and the life_,'
were words that applied to herself as much as to Lazarus,--to her
sister as much as to either. She could not apprehend them, even in the
slightest degree, without feeling that they were spoken of _human_
beings,--not merely of that being who had been lying in the grave four
days. And yet how immeasurably more they met her own case, her own
sorrow, than the others! '_I am the resurrection and the life._' 'You
have a Friend, an almighty Friend, who restores life, who is the Giver
of life. Do not task your poor, feeble, sorrow-stricken fancy to
conceive of some distant world-gathering. There may be such a one;
but, if you are to know anything of it, know Me first. Trust in an
actual person; leave yourself and the world to Him.' And He went on:
'_He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and
whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die_.' I do not say
that she could understand this, or that we can. But I am sure she did
understand that she was meant to believe in Him--to rest in Him; and
that this belief and this rest might be exercised, not only by those
who could look into His countenance and hear sounds coming from His
lips, but by those who were out of sight,--who had passed into the
unseen world. The dead might hear His word speaking to them. The dead
might believe in Him. The dead might be quickened by that word and
that faith. Therefore, when He asked her the question, '_Believest
thou this?_'--though she could not dare to say, 'I believe it all; I
take it in just as Thou hast spoken it,'--she could say, '_Yea, Lord:
I believe that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come
into the world_.' She could trust absolutely, unreservedly in Himself,
whatever His language might or might not import.

'_And when she had so said, she went her way, and called Mary her
sister secretly, saying, The Master is come, and calleth for thee. As
soon as she heard that, she arose quickly, and came to Him._'
Martha went into a presence which she felt to be dear, with a
confidence that she should be welcome, with a certain sense that she
had a right to speak; Mary must wait in silence and awe till she had
some intimation that He was seeking for her. This difference of
characters is as marked in the nineteenth century as in the first; it
affects all the common subordinate relations of life; it reaches to
the highest and most divine. Each has its own worth, and its own
temptations. We have no business to disparage either; for Christ has
imparted both, and has made each a way to Himself.

'_Now Jesus was not yet come into the town, but was in that place
where Martha met Him. The Jews then which were with her in the house,
and comforted her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up hastily and
went out, followed her, saying, She goeth unto the grave to weep
there. Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw Him, she fell
down at His feet, saying, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother
had not died._'

The good-natured comforters can give their victim no peace,--even the
grave is not too sacred a place for their persecutions; her only
safety is where her sister had sought it and found it. The words Mary
uses are the same as Martha's; they are the simplest expressions of
the thought which must have been in both of them,--the thought which
each must have understood the other to be vexed with, if nothing was
spoken,--the thought which Martha will have been able to utter, and
which Mary will probably have kept closed within her till that moment.
And is there anything in that thought to make a chasm between the
household in Bethany, and any English household in the nineteenth
century? Is not the feeling the very same, in the heart of every one
who has lost a friend or brother? 'He might have been saved; Christ
might have ordered this differently. In this and in that case He did;
why not in mine?'

'_When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping
which came with her, He groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, and
said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto Him, Lord, come and see.
Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, Behold how He loved him! And some of
them said, Could not this Man, which opened the eyes of the blind,
have caused that even this man should not have died?_' The strength of
these words, which has been so great for those who have taken them
simply and naturally, has often been diluted. 'What need had He to
weep, seeing that He was about to remove the cause for weeping?' But
what if that grief of Mary was in kind the grief of every sister that
had lost a brother, since death entered into the world,--of every
sister who shall lose one, till death be finally swallowed up in
victory? What if the grief of those about her, though less earnest,
yet was at least a testimony that each of us has a share and a right
in that which any other is afflicted with? Would the Son of Man, who
had taken man's flesh, who had entered into man's sorrows, sympathise
less with her who was beside Him then, because He knew the depth and
cause of her grief better than she knew it herself; because He knew
that it could not be cured by the smile of a brother, or the pressure
of his hand, if that were granted her again; because He knew in
Himself the mystery of the death of every man, and was to bear it
Himself for every man? Surely it would have been a woful thing for us,
and for the world, if He had not groaned in spirit at the sight of
that cave, merely because Lazarus was to come out of it; if He had not
wept when He saw Mary and the Jews weep, merely because a sudden joy
was to succeed their tears! And was it not a cause for groaning, that
those who saw how minute, and tender, and personal His affection was
for this one man, should take so poor a measure of His love as to
suppose that He cared for him, and not for them,--for Mary and Martha,
and not for every human sorrower,--that He might from partiality have
caused that this man should not have died, but had no power of
delivering all from death?

'_Jesus therefore again groaning in Himself cometh to the grave. It
was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, Take ye away the
stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto Him, Lord,
by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days. Jesus saith
unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou
shouldest see the glory of God?_'

He had said to her, '_Thy brother shall rise again_.' He changes the
language now, that He may convey a deeper sense. It was God's glory
that was to be revealed in that act. Hereafter she would know how much
more it concerned her, and her sister, and her brother, that Jesus
should manifest that, than that He should have caused her brother not
to have gone into the grave, or to come forth from it again.

'_Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was
laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee
that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always: but
because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe
that thou hast sent me. And when He thus had spoken, He cried with a_
_loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth,
bound hand and foot with grave-clothes; and his face was bound about
with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go._'

The thanksgiving to His Father for the power which He felt He had been
endued with to finish that work, unfolds the mystery of His life; the
sense of filial dependence and trust that was at the root of it; the
pressure of human misery and death which turned His confidence into
cries and groans for deliverance and help; the quickening energy which
answered the cry; because, as He tells us so often, He was not doing
His own will, but the will of Him who sent Him. This time it was
needful that the cry should be heard by others. They must be taught
that He was not exercising some rare and unwonted privilege to serve a
partial end,--that He could bid Lazarus come forth, because He was in
the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, the resurrection and the
life.

St. John, who has told us the story with such care and minuteness,
does not stop for an instant to comment upon it, or to utter any
expressions of astonishment; he merely tells us: '_Then many of the
Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did,
believed on Him. But some of them went their ways to the Pharisees,
and told them what things Jesus had done._'

Could he have spoken otherwise, brethren? Did he not wish us to
consider this act as the sign of a truth, as the exercise of a power,
which circumstances cannot affect, which is proving its vitality from
age to age? Why should he comment? Why should he wonder? The
commentary was to be in the history of the world; the wonder was to
be renewed in the case of every brother, whom Christian hands were to
lay in the grave, 'earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust,' in
sure and certain hope that Christ is '_the resurrection and the life,
and that whosoever believeth in Him, though he were dead, yet should
he live_.' When we think of the return of Lazarus to his house at
Bethany, it is not with an unmixed delight. We ask whether he could
have welcomed the world's confusions which he had escaped? whether the
thought must not have haunted him, that after a little while he should
be in the same cave again? These are questions which it may be well
for us to consider; though, perhaps, they are not different in kind
from those which arise when any one who has been on the borders of the
unseen world, who has taken leave of kinsfolk and friends, who has had
glimpses of another country, suddenly recovers, and has to adapt
himself once more--for a time probably with a strange sense of
awkwardness and incoherency--to the business and intercourse of the
earth. In one case as in the other, I conceive there is but this
solution of the difficulty. The man must be glad to be placed where it
pleases Christ that he should be placed. He will not certainly be
nearer Him by complaining of his destiny, or by not desiring exactly
the work which has been given him to do. If he has dreamed of a heaven
above where he shall be under some other law than that, or where his
will must not be in conformity with that law, the dream will never be
realized. So, doubtless, Lazarus was taught by his discipline. And
this may have been to him, if he could take it in, a greater comfort
than even his appearance again beside the old hearth,--a compensation
for all he might suffer then or afterwards,--that through him
multitudes unborn were to learn the meaning of their own death, the
secret of their own life, and who is the Friend that interprets them
both. To each man who has been near the grave, and has come back to
ever such commonplace duties, something of the same blessing may be
given. He may think of One who hallows the common feast as well as the
grave, who binds both worlds together.

To the question--

    "Where wast thou, brother, those four days?
    There lives no record of reply,
    Which telling us what it is to die,
    Had surely added praise to praise."

So we think very naturally. And yet, if we reflect, we shall perceive
that those four days can only have been a part of the education of
Lazarus,--that they cannot have been separate from all his previous
and all his later experience.

The first cry of life, when he came out of the womb, as much testified
of One in whom is life, who is the Source of life, as the look with
which he greeted his sisters or his Lord, when he was commanded to
come out of the grave. The opening of every sense to take in the
sights and sounds of the world around him,--the opening of every
affection which apprehended his human relations,--testified of the
same living Word. The revival of past acts and scenes in the
memory,--the awakening of the conscience, which bound those acts and
scenes to his own individual self,--declared that there is One who not
only gives life, but brings it back, who is the resurrection as well
as the life. As the years of manhood brought him into converse with
beings of his own race, whom he must meet on equal terms, whom he must
recognise as having powers, affections, and responsibilities like his
own,--as creatures looking before and after like himself,--he had a
witness that there must be a common life, a common resurrection. As
intercourse with Jesus gradually brought him to the knowledge of One
who was a friend, and more than a friend,--a Master to whom he could
submit,--an inspirer of strange thoughts,--a deliverer from infinite
perplexities,--the discerner of mysteries which eye could not see, or
ear hear; there was a more and more direct witness to his heart and
reason: 'Thou hast found the Christ. Thou hast found the resurrection
and the life.'

When one looks at the subject in this way, I am not sure whether one
cares so much to know what passed in those four days. Let death and
the grave claim their rights and keep their secrets, as long as they
can. They were to assert a higher right than they asserted over this
man of Bethany. Within a few days they were to claim dominion over Him
who said, '_I am the resurrection and the life_;' they were to try
whether they could not hold Him as their thrall for ever. If they
succeeded, it does not much concern us what has happened elsewhere in
the universe; there is one thick impenetrable cloud over it all. If
they failed, life must have fuller and more perfect dominion in the
unseen region than it has in ours. Nothing which seems to die here can
be under the sway of death there. And Christ, by raising one poor man
before He was raised Himself, testified that death shall have no
power, that the grave shall have no power, to extinguish one faculty
of the soul, one sense of the body, in any creature whose nature He
has taken.

Brethren, here is the doctrine of the resurrection of the spirit and
of the body taught in Christ's own manner, not in words, but in an
act. And here, too, is that doctrine of a general resurrection at the
last day, which Martha had learnt from the Pharisees,--which,
separated from the words, '_I am the resurrection and the life_,' is
the hardest and most unpractical of all opinions,--which, united to
them, as it is in the Burial Service of our Church, is the most
consolatory. A particular resurrection for individual men, without a
general resurrection of our race, without such a restitution of all
things as has been spoken of by prophets since the world began, would
be utterly unsatisfactory, because it would not set forth the glory of
God and the love of God. The general resurrection in Scripture is
described in various forms of speech, all answering to deep human
necessities. It is spoken of as a revelation of the Son of God; it is
spoken of as a revelation or unveiling of the sons of God in Him; it
is spoken of as a gathering together in Him of all things in heaven
and all in earth.

I cannot read this story without feeling that, among those things in
heaven and earth that are so to be restored, the sympathies and
affections of the family are some of the chief. I know not why St.
John should have dwelt so much upon the sorrow of the sisters of
Lazarus, and upon Christ's feeling for them, if he had not meant us to
understand this. Martha, I suppose, thought before she came to Jesus,
that her brother would ascend some time or other on angels' wings into
a place somewhere above the stars; but that all the threads which,
from their childhood upwards, had been winding round them and binding
them to each other, should be broken; that the associations of home
should cease for ever. I am sure she learnt a different lesson after
she had seen her brother again, and had understood the declaration,
'_I am the resurrection and the life_.' Then she will have known that
if, in the resurrection, 'they neither marry nor are given in
marriage,'--if no fresh ties are formed like those which bind us
together on earth,--yet that the old relationships, the old
affections, are to have a new and higher life. What is sown in
corruption is raised in incorruption; what is sown in weakness is
raised in strength; what is sown a natural relationship is raised a
spiritual. But in this case, as in every other, the change does not
alter the substance of that which has been, only brings it forth in
its might and purity.

Towards this resurrection all creation is groaning and travailing. And
that groan which burst from Christ at the grave of Lazarus, was the
expression of His sympathy in that groan of His creatures; even as His
own travail hour, in the garden, on the cross, in the tomb of Joseph,
showed that the path of the Shepherd is the same as that of the sheep,
to victory and rest. Why cannot we enter into His sufferings? why
cannot we look forward hopefully to His triumph? There are some
fearful words in the text I have taken to-day--fearful in the midst of
all their consolation--which explain the secret. It is said, '_He
that_ BELIEVETH _in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live_.' Do
we not feel sometimes as if all power of believing in anything that is
great and noble were departing from us? Do we not feel as if to
believe in Him who is goodness and truth, were the hardest effort of
all? Does it not appear as if a second death were coming upon us,--a
death of all energy, of all trust, of all power to look beyond
ourselves? Oh, if this numbness and coldness have overtaken us, or
should overtake us,--if we should be tempted to sit down in it and
sink to sleep,--let the cry which awakened Lazarus awake us. Let us be
sure that He who is the resurrection and the life is saying to each of
us, however deep the cave in which he is buried, '_Come forth!_'
however stifling the grave-clothes with which he is bound, '_Loose
him, and let him go!_'




DISCOURSE XXI.

THE DEATH FOR ALL NATIONS.

[Lincoln's Inn, 5th Sunday after Trinity, June 22, 1856.]

ST. JOHN XI. 49, 50.

     _And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that
     same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all, nor
     consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should
     die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not._


We naturally ask ourselves why Caiaphas should have taken this tone in
speaking to his colleagues in the Sanhedrim? What did he wish them to
do which they had not shown themselves ready to do? Had they not sent
officers to take Jesus? Had they not encouraged the impulse of some
amongst His hearers to stone him, if they had not issued a formal
decree that He should be stoned? The explanation lies, I think, in the
fact that Caiaphas was a Sadducee. It might be straining the words,
'_Then gathered the chief priests_ AND _the Pharisees a council_,' to
conclude from them that the priests in general were not Pharisees. But
there are other good reasons for thinking that the accession of
Caiaphas to the office of High Priest marks the commencement of a
Sadducean ascendency. Now, the views of these schools respecting
Jesus, however they might ultimately coincide, must have been
determined by their other opinions. The Sadducees will have been much
more disposed to regard Him as a fanatic than as a blasphemer; they
will have dreaded His doctrine much less than the belief of His
kingship among the multitude; consequently, they may have thought the
experiment of putting Him to death by stoning very unwise. It was
making a trial of their native jurisdiction which was, at least,
hazardous; it might lead both to a tumult among their countrymen, and
to interference from their masters. In the council which was held
after the raising of Lazarus, it is evident that the indignation
against Jesus for '_making Himself equal with God_,'--even the
indignation at a Galilæan for pretending to be a prophet--has been
merged in the fear, lest if '_they let Him alone, the Romans should
destroy both their place and nation_.' Caiaphas takes advantage of the
feeling, by whomsoever it may have been expressed, to state and defend
his own policy. '_Ye know nothing at all_'--'you who are trying to
punish Him by your own laws. You do not consider that if we are in the
danger you apprehend, "_it is expedient that one man should die for
the people_:" that we should give Him up to the Romans, as a rebel
against them; gulping down our scruples about our dignity and our
reluctance to ask aid from the Cæsar for crushing an enemy, rather
than that "_the whole nation_" should "_perish_," through our
obstinacy in maintaining an ancient and doubtful privilege.'

This was genuine Sadducean language,--precisely what one would expect
to come from such a mouth. But it was also triumphant language. The
Pharisee must yield to it, or else forego the gratification of his own
chief desire. He might very much have preferred to assert Jewish law.
He might have been willing to run some risk in enforcing it. To do
otherwise was to stoop to the maxims of a sect which he detested. But
a compromise was the only possible course. By adopting it, he could
ensure a general agreement among the rulers in bringing about the
death of Jesus at the next Passover. And there would be some
compensation. The death would be more ignominious than the national
customs would have made it. We are told, therefore, that '_from that
day forth they took counsel to put Him to death_.' There was now no
division, either about the end or the means. Pilate was to be the
judge; the death they were to aim at was the death of the Cross.

Such, I suppose, was what Caiaphas himself understood by the words,
'_It is expedient for us that one man should die for the nation, and
that the whole nation perish not_.' A narrow meaning enough,--one in
which there was nothing of patriotism, in the vulgarest sense of that
word. Caiaphas would save his nation by binding the chains of foreign
domination more strictly upon it; he would put on a new badge of
slavery, that it might be permitted to exist. But then, as now, men
utter words--made, as they think, to fit an occasion--intended to
express only some paltry device of their minds--which are pregnant
with a signification that ages unborn will confess and wonder at. St.
John does not say to his Ephesian readers or to us,--'_We_ can see
another force in the words of the High Priest than that which he put
on them; _we_ can translate them in our way and to our use.' But he
says, 'There _was_ that force in them always.' Caiaphas had not the
power to contract his speech to the dimensions of his wit. '_Being
high priest that year, he prophesied._' The grandeur of the office,
which had witnessed the relation of God to His people for fourteen
hundred years, manifested itself through the poor creature, who could
look no further than the expediency of the moment; to whom the past
and the future were as nothing. He who believed in no angel or spirit
was compelled to be the spokesman of the Divine Word, even when he was
plotting His death. Strange and awful reflection! And yet so it must
be,--so experience shows us continually that it is. Our words are not
our own,--we are not lords over them, whatever we may think. Is it not
well for us to ask who is Lord over them; how such terrible
instruments--so immeasurably more terrible than swords or rifles--may
be used lawfully, for the protection, and not the destruction, of our
brethren; how we may be the willing, and not merely, like Caiaphas,
the unconscious, proclaimers of a Divine purpose; how we may execute
it by obeying it, not by the crimes which strive, vainly, to defeat
it?

Caiaphas prophesied, says St. John, that '_Jesus should die for that
nation; and not for that nation only, but that also He should gather
together in one the children of God which were scattered abroad_.' It
is not chiefly the form of the High Priest's sentence which suggests
this thought to him; he does not play upon the words of it. The
proposition, that Jesus should not be tried for violating Jewish law,
but should be given up as a treasonable subject of Rome, involved the
breaking down of barriers between the nations. The cross was
emphatically a message to mankind,--to all tribes and races within the
circle of the empire that had appointed this punishment for rebels and
slaves. It is a thought which possessed the minds of all the
apostles,--of none more than St. John. The cross was to do what the
eagle had tried to do. It was to bind men in one society. I shall not
dwell upon the words that announce that doctrine here, because it
forms the most prominent subject in the following chapter of which I
am going to speak. We shall find, I think, that every discourse and
narrative in it is penetrated with the idea of crucifixion. So it
becomes the suitable close to the records of our Lord's public
ministry,--the right preface to those private interviews of which St.
John is the only historian.

We are now arrived at the point in which the narratives of the
different Evangelists coincide. All the others lead us from Galilee to
Jerusalem at this Passover. St. John, who has taken us so often to
Jerusalem at other feasts before, yet prepares us, by many significant
intimations, to feel the special grandeur of the present.

'_Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews; but went
thence unto a country near to the wilderness, into a city called
Ephraim, and there continued with His disciples. And the Jews'
passover was nigh at hand; and many went out of the country up to
Jerusalem before the passover, to purify themselves. Then sought they
for Jesus, and spake among themselves, as they stood in the temple,
What think ye, that He will not come to the feast? Now both the chief
priests and the Pharisees had given a commandment, that, if any man
knew where He were, he should shew it, that they might take Him._'

He had walked the twelve hours of the day, and no stone had reached
Him. But the night was closing in. The Jews were about to take the
great step of confessing Cæsar to be the only king; therefore _the_
King must prepare to be the Sacrifice.

The story which follows connects the two characters together:--'_Then
Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was
which had been dead, whom He raised from the dead. There they made Him
a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat
at the table with Him._'

I spoke, last Sunday, of the domestic tone which pervades the history
of the resurrection of Lazarus; how St. John refused to regard death
except as the breaking of a family bond--resurrection except as the
renewal of it. The same tone is preserved here. The family feast is
the resurrection feast; it is the union of the several limbs of a body
which had been torn asunder. There is no change of relation or of
sympathy; the old ways of expressing it are retained. Only service has
been ennobled. He who sits at meat, and she who serves, are brother
and sister. For there is a Guest at the table whose life has been a
service, and yet whose acts are all kingly. The awe of Lazarus, who
has known the secrets of the grave, does not interrupt fellowship; for
He must know them better, and He is with them, sharing in their
gladness. 'And what is He? Is He only the elder brother of one
household? May He not be the elder brother of all households? Has He
only done acts of mysterious grace and power for us? May He not be the
Ruler everywhere--over the whole earth, and over those who are in the
region from which Lazarus has come back?'

Such thoughts may have been in the minds of both sisters. Martha
cannot express them save by fulfilling her simple household duties;
they are done for Him. He can translate them into heavenly ministries.
Mary must find some other way to utter what is working in her
heart,--what no words can give expression to. '_Then took Mary a pound
of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus,
and wiped His feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the
odour of the ointment. Then saith one of His disciples, Judas
Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray Him, Why was not this
ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?_' Mary
was probably puzzled by this question. She could not the least have
defended her act, or even have explained what she meant by it. She had
heard of the anointing of kings, and of the anointing in tombs. The
thought of royalty and of burial would become associated in her mind.
But why she should have done this thing,--why she had not reserved the
money for those who needed it,--she could not have told. Judas may
have seemed to her a prudent and religious man for rebuking her. And
the other Evangelists say that he was not alone in the complaint. The
Apostles generally seem to have agreed in it, and felt its
reasonableness.

Later knowledge led St. John to say, '_This he said, not that he cared
for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare
what was put therein_.' But at the time he may have shared the feeling
of the others. The covetousness of the betrayer may have been quite
concealed by his judicious charity; Mary's act may have been measured
by his rules. If it were so, John and his fellows showed that there
was in them that mind which was rapidly becoming the only mind in
Judas. It _might_ become victorious in them; it _might_ be overcome in
him. This perhaps was a very critical moment in their lives. Mary's
act was essentially a woman's act. No man would be commended for it; a
man who imitated it would not be doing what he could, but attempting
awkwardly to do what he could not. To rough men, therefore, it was a
trial to understand her and sympathise with her. They had need to pass
through many hard processes themselves--to be purged of the covetous
spirit,--to be under the guidance of a Spirit who was not yet
given,--before they could enter into the worth of services which they
were not called to perform, before they could judge them by their
origin, not by their immediate results, before they could see what a
force love may put into symbols, and how that force may be felt from
generation to generation by the humble and meek, whom words and
notions affect very little.

But there was one who knew Mary's meaning not only better than they
knew it, but better than she knew it. '_Then said Jesus, Let her
alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this. For the poor
always ye have with you; but me ye have not always._' What the day of
His burying was, must have been unintelligible to the disciples
generally; but the reference to it, and to a time when He should not
be with them, may have had a solemnising effect upon them; they will
have been less ready to judge, more inclined to honour those whom He
honoured. Mary may have divined a little more of His meaning. The
thought of His burial might perplex her. But it could not cause her
despair. She knew that a body which had lain in the grave four days
had been safe there. Surely some anointing, better than hers, would
keep His body if it was laid in any tomb. In her the instinct of love
made the thought of death and sacrifice, however wonderful, not
incredible. On Judas it is evident that the sight of Mary's devotion
had a withering effect. First, it led him to hypocritical professions
about the poor, that he might persuade himself he had some benevolent
feelings; then, when Christ drove him from this ground,--when he was
reminded that he might always help the poor if he chose,--a conscious
hatred against goodness began to unfold itself in him. He went away
from that feast a traitor in heart, prepared to accomplish the
prophecy that Jesus had uttered concerning Himself. He was to be
present at one more feast,--to take one more sop,--then all would be
dark within him.

The Evangelist leaves a strong impression upon our minds of the hurry
and confusion in Jerusalem at that feast; the curiosity of the people
to see Jesus and to see Lazarus; the questionings of the council
whether the excitement could be removed without the death of both; the
half-formed thought, which might soon take shape and lead to some act,
that perhaps the king was among them after all. And then follows the
story of the entrance into Jerusalem, which is told at less length
than in the other Evangelists; but to which there are two additions
that are worthy of note. St. John quotes, as St. Matthew has done, the
prophecy of Zechariah:--'_Thy king cometh, meek, and sitting upon an
ass_:' and then adds, '_These things understood not His disciples at
the first: but when He was risen from the dead, then remembered they
that these things were written of Him, and that they had done these
things unto Him_.' The illumination of his own mind, and of the minds
of his fellow Apostles, respecting the sense and connexion of the
Scriptures,--how they learned to connect with Him the descriptions of
a King reigning in righteousness, which the Old Testament
contained,--how the resurrection from the dead identified Him as the
fulfiller of them,--how it linked His relation to God with His
relation to man,--this we learn more clearly from St. John than from
all the other apostolical writings. _They_ take the matter, in a
certain degree, for granted; he enables us to see the process of it. I
have spoken of this subject in considering the passage,--'_The zeal of
thine house hath eaten me up._' The more we meditate upon it, the
more, I believe, we shall be able to trace lines of thought running
through the Old Testament, by which the formal critic is puzzled,--the
more we shall find how little the word written in letters could
profit, if the Living Word did not expound it to the heart and
reason,--the more we shall be sure that the laws which governed men in
the old time are those which govern us; that we must have the same
Teacher as they had; or that while we seem to know everything we shall
know nothing.

The other addition is this:--'_The Pharisees therefore said among
themselves, Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the world is
gone after Him_.' The words may indicate a doubt whether the new
scheme which Caiaphas had devised was likely to succeed so well as
their own; whether the feeling of the people for the Christ would not
prove stronger than their submission to the Romans; whether it was not
better, therefore, to accuse Him of breaking a law which the multitude
did regard as sacred and Divine, however little they might understand
it. At any rate, they show how much men, who have lost all sympathy
with truth, are apt to overrate the power of mere numbers, and to
underrate the effects of one simple, humble, brave act. The crowds
that shouted 'Hosanna!' alarmed the Pharisees. Yet, in a few days, the
temper of those crowds was changed; they could cry that Barabbas might
be released, and Jesus crucified. The mere coming into Jerusalem
royally, yet without the outward signs of royalty, was nothing in
their eyes. Yet therein lay the real effective message to their city;
that was the hour of its visitation; that has been received by
generations of men, in the most cultivated nations of the earth, as
the warning of its doom.

'_And there were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at
the feast: the same came therefore to Philip, which was of
Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see
Jesus. Philip cometh and telleth Andrew: and again Andrew and Philip
tell Jesus._' The event seemed to the disciples a little one. They
were used to see Greek proselytes at the great festivals; it was not
strange that some of them should have heard of the Teacher from
Galilee; or that, if they had heard of Him, they should wish to judge
of Him for themselves. Coming with such feelings, to perform what must
have seemed to them so easy a request, how they must have been
astonished to see the emotion which it caused their Lord, and to hear
Him answer them thus:--'_The hour is come, that the Son of man should
be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat
fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it
bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and
he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.
If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall
also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.
Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from
this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour._'

It is impossible, if we are not utterly loose in our mode of
interpretation, not to connect these words with the Greeks who had
come to the feast, whether we suppose that they were present and heard
them, or that the answer was simply addressed to Philip and Andrew.
And then the questions arise,--Why should this be such an hour of
trouble and of glory? How should the appearance of a few strangers
have led to a discussion respecting the falling of wheat into the
ground, and its death,--respecting the saving of life and the losing
it? You will remember that when our Lord spoke of those other sheep
He had, which were not of the Jewish fold, and whom also He must
bring, He connected the formation of the one flock with the death of
the one Shepherd. He signified clearly that the union could take place
only upon this condition. The assertion is in strict harmony with the
comment of the Apostle upon the words of Caiaphas to which I have
alluded already. The death upon the cross was to take place that He
might gather together in one those scattered children of God. If you
turn from St. John to St. Paul,--from this Gospel to the Epistle to
the Ephesians,--you will find the breaking down of the middle wall of
partition between Jews and Greeks is said to be effected '_in the body
of Christ's flesh, through death_;' that He is said to have '_nailed
the enmity to His cross_.' If you reflect on these passages, you will
perceive (as I said in my discourse on the 10th of John) that what we
sometimes speak of very lightly, as if it were only an accident of the
New Testament,--the calling in of the Gentiles--the unfolding of a
universal society out of the Jewish national society,--is treated by
our Lord Himself, and by His Apostles, as that wonderful event to
which all God's purposes, from the beginning of the world, had been
tending. You will perceive that they looked upon this reunion, or
reconciliation, as unveiling a deep mystery--the deepest mystery of
all--in the relations of God to man, in the being of God Himself.
Without sacrifice,--so the Jews had been taught from the beginning of
their history,--so the other nations had believed just in proportion
as they _were_ nations,--without sacrifice, there could be no unity
among the members of a race. Sacrifice must bind them to God.
Sacrifice must bind them to each other. This great political and
Divine truth had been confirmed by the human conscience, even when it
protested most against some of the inferences which priestcraft had
deduced from it. Only he who can give up himself--so the heart of
mankind testified--is a patriot; only he obeys the laws; only he can
save his country when it is falling. There had been then a sure
conviction expressed by prophets and holy men, planted deep in men's
hearts, that any larger union--any union which should be between all
nations, which should really be for mankind--must involve a mightier
and more transcendent sacrifice; a sacrifice in which there should be
no blemish. As the conscience was awakened by God's teaching more and
more clearly to perceive that all resistance to God lies in the
setting up of self--that this is the great barrier between Him and His
revolted creatures--it began to be understood that the atonement of
man with man must have its basis in an atonement of God with man, and
that the same sacrifice was needed for both. One thing yet remained to
be learnt, the most wonderful lesson of all; and yet of which God had
been giving the elements, line upon line, precept upon precept, from
the beginning. Could sacrifice originate in God? Could it be made, not
first _to_ Him, but first _by_ Him? Could the sacrifices of men be the
effect, not the cause, of His love and free grace to them? All our
Lord's discourses concerning Himself and His Father,--concerning His
own acts as being merely the fulfilment of His Father's
will,--concerning the love which the Father had to Him because He laid
down His life for the sheep,--had been bringing these mysteries to
light; had been preparing the humble and meek to confess, with wonder
and contrition, that in every selfish act they had been fighting
against the unselfish God,--that in every self-sacrificing act they
had been merely yielding to Him,--merely submitting to die, according
to the law of His Eternal Being, which He had created men to show
forth. And so far as they had any glimpses of the accomplishment of
God's promises,--that He would bring all into one,--that the Gentiles
should wait for His law,--that He would be a Father of all the
families of the earth, and that they should be His children,--so far
they had the vision of a transcendent and Divine sacrifice.

There was One, at least, who lived in the assurance that God's will
would be done in earth as in heaven, and whose soul was straitened
till that will was accomplished. To His inward eye, the Greeks, who
had come to claim their share in Jewish privileges and Jewish
knowledge, and who wished to see Him, represented all those who should
believe in Him, when His Apostles should go forth to baptize the
nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Ghost. They represented the human race of which He was the head, which
should be at last gathered together in Him. How emphatically, then,
did that moment speak to Him of the glory of the Son of Man,--of the
end of His travail for the race of which He was the brother! It was
the sign of that coming victory and glory. But how could He see that
final issue, and not feel in Himself all the conflict which was to
precede it? There was to be a mighty harvest: but the seed, from which
it was to spring, must '_first fall into the ground and die, else it
would abide alone_; it would give birth to nothing.' Yes! that was the
law; He knew it, He realized it in His own inmost being, that He
might bring the world under it. He who would not give up his life,
must lose his life; he who was content to cast it away, to surrender
it wholly, should have the Life which is in God,--the eternal
life--the life of truth and love, which cannot be destroyed. 'If any
man "_serve me_," if he call himself after my name, let him go along
with me in this path of sacrifice; let him be content to die with me;
then where I am, he shall be; he shall share the presence and the love
which are my joy and my reward; "_him shall my Father honour_."' But
then comes the agony. The death He called upon others to die with Him,
He must taste in its bitterness. He must tread the winepress alone. He
_was_ treading it at that very moment. The sense of the glory of the
Son of Man--of the work that He would achieve for humanity--brings on
the unutterable sorrow. The whole man sinks within Him,--He can only
say, '_Father, save me from this hour_.' And yet He adds, '_For this
cause came I to this hour_.' It is not often that these actual signs
of the struggle within Him are declared to us. How wise and necessary
that we should have only rare and occasional discoveries of it! But of
what unspeakable worth have these discoveries been to the hearts of
sufferers in every age! The agony must be passed through; the
death-struggle--which is most tremendous after the vision of coming
good has been the brightest. But the sting of solitude, which is the
sharpest of all, is taken out of it. Christ has cried, '_Save me from
this hour_.' Christ has Himself said, 'That all He had passed through
before, had been to prepare Him for that hour.' And Christ changed
this cry into another. '_Father, glorify thy name. Then came there
a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will
glorify it again. The people, therefore, that stood by, and heard it,
said that it thundered: others said, an Angel spake to Him. Jesus
answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your
sakes. Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the prince of this
world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw
all men unto me. This He said, signifying by what death He should
die._'

I have heard speculations about this voice from heaven. It seems to me
that St. John's words, taking them just as they stand, convey a much
clearer impression to our minds than all commentaries upon them. There
is a sound. The people take it for thunder. Some, seeing perhaps a
sudden radiance in His countenance, think that an angel has brought
Him strength and consolation. He hears in it the voice of His
Father,--the sure witness that that name has been glorified, and shall
be glorified. To Him the mere voice, the outward sound, is nothing.
'_That came for their sakes._' It was the outward witness to them of
the reality of that which He received into His heart. And surely the
message has done its work. The struggle is over. He can see victory in
His death. Sentence is passed on the tyrant of the world,--the
Destroyer of the world. The trial-hour of the Son of Man is the hour
of his defeat and overthrow. '_And I, if I be lifted up from the
earth, will draw all men unto me._'

'_I will draw all men unto me._' How can we explain these words?
First, let us listen to those which followed them, and then let us
consider how far we dare explain them. '_The people answered him, We
have heard out of the law that Christ abideth for ever: and how
sayest thou, The Son of man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of man?
Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while is the light with you.
Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that
walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. While ye have light,
believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light. These
things said Jesus, and departed, and did hide Himself from them._'

Yes, brethren, we must either take those words, '_I, if I be lifted
up, will draw all men unto me_,' as they stand, trying to learn a
little of what they mean from the past history of the world, waiting
for God to explain them to us more perfectly in the future; we must
either confess that there are depths in God's purposes of love which
no creature has sounded, heights which no creature has reached, but of
which the Cross gives us the fullest glimpse we are capable of; we
must either do this, or we must ask just as the Jews did,--'_Who is
this Son of man?_' They could dream of a Christ who should exalt the
chosen people, who should set them over their enemies. They could
anticipate with a kind of faith the coming of such a Christ, and they
could be sure that when He came He would abide for ever. But one who
identified Himself with men, they would not, could not confess. I use
both phrases, for the Bible uses them; St. John uses them at the close
of this chapter. There is a hardness of heart, an inhumanity, which
makes it _impossible_ for men, for the most apparently religious men,
to receive Jesus as the Son of Man. And therefore it is _impossible_
for them really to receive Him as the Son of God, as revealing the
mind and character of His Father in heaven. And the Atonement of
heaven and earth, of God and man; the Atonement through a sacrifice
made once for all; the Atonement by the blood of One who has taken the
manhood into God,--who has raised, purified, redeemed, glorified the
earthly nature by joining it to the Divine,--is changed into a cold,
formal arrangement for delivering certain men from the punishment of a
sin which has itself not been purged away. For sin is no longer that
root of bitterness, that selfishness, which has poisoned the universe,
and poisons the hearts of each one of us--that deadly thing which
betrays Christ, and which divides us from the Father; sin becomes the
violation of an arbitrary rule, drawing after it the endurance of an
arbitrary and infinite penalty. Those who boast of their religion
think they can have a Christ who is not a Son of Man; a God who is
their Father, and not the Father of men in Christ; a Spirit who
sanctifies them, but who does not dwell in the Church,--who is not the
witness of a fellowship for all creatures whatever who bear the nature
which Christ bore, who die the death which Christ died. Nay, the cross
of Christ--of Him who gave up Himself--is actually so presented to
men, that they suppose it is the instrument by which self-seeking men
may secure the greatest amount of selfish rewards! Then other men, who
know that such a scheme must be subversive of all pure morality,
abandon the Gospel of God for what they call the Gospel of humanity.
They fancy there can be a society of men without a Shepherd who dies
for them; without a Father who loves Him because He dies. And the
world begins to be divided between those who deny a Son of Man,
because they think only of a salvation for themselves, and those who
deny Him, because they worship the body of which we declare Him to be
the Head instead of Him.

Brethren, this division will not last. The Pharisees and Sadducees,
much as they hated one another, came to understand that they had a
common enemy when Christ walked the earth. They will do so again. The
creeds of the Catholic Church, all our prayers and thanksgivings, bear
witness that there is a Son of Man,--that He died for mankind, and
that He lives for mankind. Do you not think there will be a
combination against these? Do you think their antiquity will save
them? Or do you think there is a heart in our people to say,--'These
witnesses are dearer to us than our lives. Life would be nothing to us
without them.' I dare not trust to such a feeling. I know that the cry
of 'Hosanna' may be followed very soon by the cry of 'Crucify.' And we
have dealt so unfaithfully with these witnesses, they have been such
dead letters to us, that I dare not hope the people know the worth of
them. Oh that they may not be tolerated any longer because they are
regarded as doing no harm! Oh that they may become real torments to
those who deny a Son of Man,--real messengers of life to those who
seek for one! And to you brethren, I say,--or rather Christ
says,--'_Walk in the light while you have the light, that ye may be
the children of the light_.' Cling to these prayers, and
thanksgivings, and sacraments, while you have them. Bind the meaning
of them to your hearts. Live it out in your families. Serve Christ in
your daily tasks. Follow Him in simple, hearty, self-sacrifice. And
then, when the dark hour comes, and the open witnesses of Him
disappear, and even two or three are scarcely gathered together in His
name, you may await the time of His full revelation; the time which
shall show that He died indeed to gather into one all the children of
God who are scattered throughout this divided world; the men of every
age, tongue, clime, colour, opinion; that by the might of His cross He
has drawn all to Himself.




DISCOURSE XXII.

THE WORLD AND THE DISCIPLES.

[Lincoln's Inn, 6th Sunday after Trinity, June 29, 1856 (St.
Peter's-day).]

ST. JOHN XII. 44-50, and XIII. 1.

     _Jesus cried and said, He that believeth on me, believeth
     not on me, but on Him that sent me. And he that seeth me
     seeth Him that sent me. I am come a light into the world,
     that whomsoever believeth on me should not abide in
     darkness. And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I
     judge him not; for I came not to judge the world, but to
     save the world. He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my
     words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have
     spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day. For I have
     not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, He gave
     me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should
     speak. And I know that His commandment is life everlasting:
     whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto
     me, so I speak. Now before the feast of the Passover, when
     Jesus knew that His hour was come that He should depart out
     of this world unto the Father, having loved His own which
     were in the world, He loved them unto the end._


I said, in my last sermon, that we were approaching the end of our
Lord's public ministry. The verses which I have just read to you are
those which close it. I have connected them with the opening of the
13th chapter, because I wish you to mark the transition from this part
of St. John's Gospel to that which records Christ's private interviews
with the disciples. Hitherto the Apostles have had _less_ prominence
in St. John's Gospel than in the others. We have had narratives of
discourses with Nicodemus, with the woman of Samaria, with the Jews at
the feast, with the Galilæans at Capernaum, with the blind man, with
Mary and Martha,--only now and then, (chiefly to introduce these
dialogues or to link them together,) with the Twelve. The contrast,
therefore, in him is far more marked than in St. Matthew, St. Mark, or
St. Luke, between the Paschal supper and all that goes before it. And
since inferences have been drawn from this contrast which I think are
not true, I am anxious that you should feel how the words to the
multitude, and the words to the chosen few, are connected, and in what
the difference between them consists.

I must begin with some words which occur before those I have read to
you:--'_But though He had done so many miracles before them, yet they
believed not on Him: that the saying of Esaias the prophet might be
fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report? and to
whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? Therefore they could not
believe, because that Esaias said again, He hath blinded their eyes,
and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes,
nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal
them. These things said Esaias, when he saw His glory, and spake of
Him._' St. John speaks here of the signs which Jesus did, as he has
spoken of them from the first. They were signs of a divine presence, a
divine power, a divine goodness. They were mighty, in so far as they
revealed His presence, and power, and goodness. They were utterly
ineffectual to any who esteemed them for their own sakes,--who merely
wondered at them. These signs, he tells us now, had not produced
belief. Was it to be expected that they would? Had not an old Prophet,
who spoke the word of God, testified that they would not? Had he not
complained for his predecessors, for himself, for all that should come
after him, that the report of the care of God for men would be
believed by very few; that only by very few would it be felt that the
arm of a living God was stretched forth? And Isaiah, so the Apostle
goes on, has not merely told us the effect which he witnessed, but has
laid bare the cause. The inner eye which should see the divine arm is
blinded, the heart which should take in the tidings of goodness and
love is hardened: this was the reason why men with all outward
advantages,--with a law, and a history, and a covenant,--chosen out of
all nations to know God and be witnesses of Him, made all these
privileges the very excuse for not turning to God, for not receiving
His healing virtue.

But this is not the whole explanation. We must not forget that St.
John says,--'HE _hath blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts_.'
We must not dare to cancel these words, because we may find them
difficult. St. John himself interprets them in the next verse. He
reminds us that Isaiah spake these words when he had the vision of the
King who was sitting upon a throne and filling the temple with His
glory. 'That,' he intimates, 'was a vision of the true Lord of the
nation, of that same Ruler who now that He was called Jesus of
Nazareth was rejected, just as He had been in the days of old when He
was revealing Himself to His subjects in personal and in national
judgments.' In both cases it was the goodness, the beauty, the glory,
which blinded the eyes and hardened the hearts. We know it is so.
Experience tells us that goodness has this effect upon minds in a
certain condition. The bad that was in them it makes worse. The sight
of love awakens and deepens hatred. If we believe and are sure that
love has another power than this, that it is stronger than hatred, and
can overcome hatred, let us cherish that faith. St. John certainly
will not discourage us in it. No one demands it of us so much. But we
must arrive at it, not through the denial of any facts, only through
the fullest and frankest acknowledgment of them. This blinding,
destructive effect of goodness and love upon the evil will, is a fact
which we are bound to confess, and to tremble. It will force itself
upon us, it will explain itself to us in ourselves, if we pretend to
dispute it. If we own the danger, God will reveal to us the arm which
can avert it; He will enable us to take in the mighty report of that
power and love which can subdue all enemies.

The next words are also of the Evangelist. They contain partly a
limitation of the former, partly an illustration of them.
'_Nevertheless among the chief rulers many believed on Him; but
because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, lest they should be
put out of the synagogue: for they loved the praise of men more than
the praise of God._' Only two verses before, the word which we render
_praise_ here had been rendered _glory_. I do not know why the
connexion should not have been kept up for the English reader, seeing
that it must certainly have been present to the mind of the Apostle. A
vision of glory, he seems to say, did dawn upon the hearts of these
rulers. It was not the notion of an outward Christ which presented
itself to them. There came to their inmost consciences the sense of a
King who was over them, of a Word who was enlightening them. But there
rose up beside this vision another which seemed to be nearer,--the
vision of human glory, human reputation, respectability in the class
to which they belonged, the smile and good opinion of the Pharisee,
the comfort of being called members of the synagogue. Brethren, which
of us does not understand how this image might displace and banish the
other,--how the hearts of these poor rulers, because they were like
ours, might reject the noble to fondle and embrace the vile? Let us
submit to be judged ourselves by the Apostle's words, instead of
judging others. And let us ask that what we believe with our hearts we
may confess with our lips; knowing that there is no condition so
miserable as that of those who are enemies both to God and to His
enemies; knowing that such must be, above all, enemies to themselves.

Here is the remedy against this state of mind:--'_Jesus cried and
said, He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on Him that
sent me. And he that seeth me, seeth Him that sent me. I am come a
light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide
in darkness. And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge
him not; for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He
that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth
him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last
day. For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, He
gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And
I know that His commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak
therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak._'

This was the summary of all that He had been teaching hitherto. Yet
with what new force must it have come upon those who were halting
between Jesus and the Pharisees, who were convinced that He was the
true leader, and yet clung to the leaders of their sect! 'Belief in me
is not belief in a chief of your choice. It is belief in the God of
Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the Father of your spirits. In me
you see Him. I find you in darkness, ignorance of yourselves, of your
relation to each other, of your relation to God. I am come a Light
into the world,--a Light to show you what you are, where you are, what
you have to do with your fellows, what you have to do with Him apart
from whom you have no life. You _can_ refuse that Light; you can treat
what I say as vain babbling, as coming from the inspiration of an evil
spirit. I judge you not. I have come not to judge the world, but to
save it out of its darkness; to bring it back to God. But the word
that I speak, which is echoed in your consciences, which is testifying
of God in them, that word will judge you in the last day; that will
tell you who has been with you, who has been binding you to Himself
when you have been tearing yourselves away. For I have not been
uttering a word out of my own heart; I have not been setting up my own
will. I have been obeying my Father's will, fulfilling His
commandments. And I know that His commandment is life eternal. I know
that it is life in itself, and that its effect is life. These words
which I speak, do themselves issue from that Fountain of life; they
are the words of the living Father; therefore, they are living and
life-giving words.'

If we consider well the force of this parting testimony to the Jewish
world, we shall be prepared to understand the words:--'_Now before the
feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour was come that He
should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved His own
which were in the world, He loved them unto the end_.'

The Jewish sects had refused to believe in a Father. They had refused
to believe in a Son of Man. They had refused to believe in a Lord of
their own hearts. For a Father they had substituted a lawgiver, who
hated all Gentiles, and to whom Jews could only look up with terror,
not with confidence. For a Son of Man they had substituted their sect
and its leaders. For a Lord over their hearts they had substituted the
notion of an outward Christ, who was to be identified by certain
particulars of place and time, which must be ascertained by studying
the letters of a book. The hour was come when all these contradictions
would reach their highest point, when the sects would combine to show
what was the real point of their agreement; to Whom they were equally
opposed. The feast of the Passover was to be the crisis which would
reveal the dark thoughts that were in them; which would show what they
were, and what Jesus was. He knew that the moment was come when the
question was to be decided, whether men have a Father, or are orphans;
whether they have a living Head, or are the loose, broken limbs of a
body which has none; whether they are to be governed as horses and
mules are governed, by bit and bridle, or as spirits are governed, by
a higher Spirit. He had chosen His Apostles to testify to their own
nation, and to all nations, of Him and of His Father. He had held them
together by His own love, when there was that in the world, and that
in themselves, which would have separated them. Had anything happened
to break this bond between them and Him? If He left the world, if He
returned to His Father, would it be broken?

These were the questions which that Passover-night was to answer.
Perhaps you will think that as I have spoken so much of Christ's love
to the world, of Christ as the Son of Man, I may shrink from what
seems the exclusive tone of this sentence: '_He loved_ His own; _He
loved_ them _to the end_.' Shrink from it! No, brethren, I would do
the utmost to bring forth the full force of these words; to impress
their meaning upon you. I would have you observe how carefully we are
told that these disciples were chosen by Him; that His love to them
did not depend upon their faith, but their faith upon His love. I
would have you observe how this love was manifested to them all as a
body--to one and another of them individually; how they were taught
that it was only this love which was sustaining them then, or could
sustain them afterwards. Unless we do that, we shall never understand
how they were witnesses against that religious world out of which they
were called,--that world of sects and parties,--that world where all
were choosing for themselves, and none were acknowledging a loving
Will which was ruling them; where all were striving for their own
views and opinions, and none were confessing their relations to each
other; where each was fighting for ascendency, and none was content to
be a servant. We shall never understand how these Apostles were
witnesses for the original calling of their nation, how they really
represented the tribes in which God had put His name, and through
which all the families of the earth were to be blessed. We shall never
understand what that Church was which they were to bring out of these
twelve tribes to be a witness to the world what its relation to God
was, and how, by forgetting that relation, it had sunk into a poor,
dark, divided, selfish world.

If we look upon His last supper as the special education of the
Apostles for that work which they had to do in the world, we shall
prize the part of this Gospel upon which we are now entering; we shall
perceive how all the discourses of our Lord that are recorded in the
other Evangelists, from the time that they left their fathers' ships,
or the receipt of custom, till the time that He entered with them into
Jerusalem, find their fullest illustration, their deepest root, in the
dialogues and in the prayer which St. John has reported to us; we
shall perceive how the institution of the Eucharist--which, as I said
when I was speaking of the discourse at Capernaum, it was no part of
St. John's function to announce--is more perfectly explained, both in
its principle and its effects, by these specially sacramental
interviews, than it is in any other part of the New Testament. And we
shall begin to enter--it can be but the beginning of a lesson which
must last to our life's end--into the purport of that sign which,
whether it preceded or followed the giving the bread and the pouring
out of the wine, teaches us how they are to be received.

'_And supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of
Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him; Jesus knowing that the
Father had given all things into His hands, and that He was come from
God, and went to God; He riseth from supper, and laid aside His
garments; and took a towel, and girded Himself. After that He poureth
water into a bason, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe
them with the towel wherewith He was girded._'

Two hints are given to us which may assist us in entering into the
meaning of this act, though, at first, they seem as if they had little
connexion with it. First, St. John speaks of what had taken place and
was taking place in the mind of Judas; secondly, of the knowledge
which was in the mind of Jesus, that He was come from His Father and
was going to Him. What has the condition of the betrayer's heart to do
with this washing? We are to learn, I apprehend, that the very
corruption which was in _that_ heart,--the very evil which had ripened
into the darkest of all purposes there,--was that from which all the
disciples had need to be cleansed. Whatever else the washing
symbolized, it certainly imported the existence of _this_ defilement,
and that there was One who could remove it. Who could take the deep
stain of covetousness, of selfishness, away from the heart of man,
away from a human society? Only He who had come from the Father of
love, that He might enter into the strictest and closest fellowship
with human beings in their lowest estate, in all their peculiar and
individual misery. Only He, who was going to the Father, that He might
unite all in Himself. And He, knowing that He had come for this end,
and was going away that He might accomplish it fully, He gives a
pledge to the disciples that when He was seemingly absent from them,
He would always be with them to do this work for them. He would be
always near them to cleanse them from that pride and selfishness which
would hinder them from being at one with each other, and from showing
forth His mind to the world.

'_Then cometh He to Simon Peter: and Peter saith unto Him, Lord, dost
thou wash my feet? Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou
knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter. Peter saith unto Him,
Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not,
thou hast no part with me. Simon Peter saith unto Him, Lord, not my
feet only, but also my hands and my head._'

On St. Peter's-day you will not suppose that I could pass over these
words; they illustrate so strikingly, as other parts of this chapter
do, the character of him whom we are commemorating. They illustrate
the particular education to which he was subjected; the education
which is needed for the impatient and self-confident man, who must be
kept waiting, that his eagerness to know, which is in itself a
blessing, may not become a curse; who must often have the very
thoughts and convictions which are most honest and appear most
indisputable, turned upside down, that he may not exult in them as
_his_ thoughts and _his_ convictions, and so change the truth that is
in them into falsehood. But the lesson, though peculiarly applicable
to him, is a universal one, and shows the universal worth of Christ's
sign. It is true of all symbols, that we can know little of them at
first. The experience of life interprets them. And it is the hardest
thing for all of us to believe that the Highest must wait upon the
lowest; that it is not humility, but pride, to refuse the service.
Wonderful thought to take in! God must stoop, or man cannot stoop. We
must set ourselves up as gods, unless we believe that God's glory is
shown in doing the lowest offices of a man.

But why was not Peter right in that other prayer of his,--'_Not my
feet only, but also my hands and my head_?' Did he not want a thorough
cleansing? Does not each of us want it? The question is one which
requires the most careful answer. If the Bible did not give it in the
most express terms, we should be utterly at a loss where to find it.
But from first to last the Jewish nation is spoken of as a pure and
holy nation by those lawgivers and prophets who complain of its
members for being stiff-necked and rebellious. There is nothing which
the prophets are so earnest in as in persuading their countrymen that
they are the people of God's covenant, and are therefore a holy
people; that they are _forgetting_ His covenant, and _so_ are making
themselves unholy. They call upon the people to repent and turn to
God, and then He will restore them, He will purify them; the hearts
which are red as scarlet, shall become as white as wool. The Jewish
sects did not in the least understand this truth. They looked for an
individual holiness, an individual cleanness, apart from the holiness
of their nation. Each member of them wanted a holiness of his own; he
regarded his race as unholy. He did not repent of the sins which kept
him from sharing in the holiness which they all had in God.

Now our Lord was educating _His_ disciples out of this falsehood into
which their age had fallen, this falsehood which was so natural to
every one of them. He came to show them on what ground the holiness of
their nation stood. It had been called and chosen in Him. It was His
righteousness, and not the righteousness of its individual members,
which justified the titles that had been bestowed upon it. These
members were righteous only so far as they rose out of themselves; as
they submitted to the righteousness of God. It was, therefore, His
first lesson to His disciples that, as a body, they were clean and
holy because He had called them and they were complete in Him.

'_Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his
feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all. For He
knew who should betray Him; therefore said He, Ye are not all clean._'

They were clean as a body, as a family. Each had need to be purified
from his own individual selfishness which kept him apart from the
family, which kept him from claiming the common righteousness of his
Lord. But they were not all clean. There was one who had wrapt
himself up in his individual nature,--one solitary, selfish being, who
would have nothing to do with the family,--who would have nothing to
do with the common Lord, the Son of Man; one who had sold his heart to
the divider, to the spirit of selfishness and evil. I do not know
anything which illustrates more clearly the sense in which the
Apostles, as a body, were clean than this terrible exception; or
anything which explains more clearly what need they would have for
that daily cleansing of the feet of which He had given them a pledge.

'_So after He had washed their feet, and had taken His garments, and
was set down again, He said unto them, Know ye what I have done to
you? Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I
then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to
wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye
should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The
servant is not greater than his Lord; neither He that is sent greater
than He that sent Him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do
them._'

In the last century, preachers were wont to speak continually of our
Lord as an example. In our time there has been a kind of revolt
against that phrase as a hard and even as an unpractical one. 'It is
very well,' we say, 'to have an example; but can we follow it? Christ
is divine, and we are human. No doubt He was human, too, in a sense;
but then surely His divinity helped His humanity, so as to put all His
acts at an immeasurable distance from ours.' I believe there is a
genuine feeling at the bottom of this complaint. I believe it is a
very wearisome and a very useless thing to talk to men about examples,
unless you can show how that he who exhibits the example has some
connexion with them, and some power over them. But, on the other hand,
we are bound to inquire what has been the effect of example upon the
world, how the men whom we meet with that are better than ourselves
operate upon us, how it is that we can be impressed by the records of
men who have departed. Christ's divinity is not a hindrance to our
understanding the might of His example; it rather explains to us the
whole doctrine and law of example. Are not that doctrine and law to be
found in this passage? If He were not the Master and Lord, if the
disciples did not say well in calling Him so, then His act would have
been a solitary one, belonging to Himself, one which they could not
imitate; but if He were their Lord in the highest sense of the word,
in that sense which John has been setting forth to us throughout his
Gospel,--if He were the Word in whom they had been created, the Word
who was their life and their light, the Word from whom every energy of
their spirits was derived,--then everything which dwelt in Him could
descend upon them; whatever shone forth in Him could be reflected in
them. And this would take place, not by their raising themselves to
contemplate a lofty ideal, but by their submitting to a gracious and
loving Will. The Highest of all showed Himself to them in washing
their feet. All they had to do was not to think themselves greater
than He, not to think that unworthy of the disciple which was not
unworthy of the Lord.

The difficulty to the formal divine is no doubt this:--'If cleansing
the feet symbolizes the removing of defilements from the inner man, is
not that Christ's work alone? Can the disciple follow His example in
doing that work?' Our consciences tell us that he can. We do know that
we may receive purification from one another, that the tenderness,
and love, and patience of one man act in a marvellous way upon
another, when those qualities seem the furthest from him, when he most
confesses that they do not belong to him. We do not set ourselves
deliberately to follow examples. The examples get the mastery over us;
there is a life in the men who exhibit them which awakens life in us.
These are facts not to be gainsaid for the sake of any system. Upon
them have been built theories about the righteousness of the saints,
and the transference of one man's righteousness to another, which are,
no doubt, very immoral and ungodly. But St. Paul's words, which are
the plea for these theories, '_I fill up in my body the sufferings of
Christ_,' are both moral and godly. For they are grounded upon the
idea which St. John is setting forth here: that Christ, the Divine
Sufferer, is the source of all purification and of all life; and that
all men, in their proper spheres, may share His sufferings, and
transmit and communicate the purification and life that flow from them
to their fellows. All difficulties about example are capable of that
solution. If we are members of one body, if He is the Head, why should
not there be a continual circulation of life from each member of the
body to every other? How can the departure of men out of this world
hinder that circulation, or cause us who are here to feel it less? May
not their power have become greater as the mortal fetters have been
taken from them? May not we feel it more?

That is a strange announcement,--'_The disciple is not above His
master_,'--to be introduced by a '_Verily_;' and yet the longer the
Apostles lived, the more they understood what need they had to be told
this truth, and told it with such solemnity. What follows reminds us
that a commonplace in words may become a paradox in action, and that
we never experience either the difficulty of a divine sentence, or the
power of it, till we put it in practice. All the crimes of Churchmen
from that hour to this, all their cowardice, their arrogance, their
baseness, their violence, have had this one root: the servants of
Christ have believed themselves greater than Christ; they have counted
it a shame and disgrace to do what He did, to endure what He endured.
Here has been the cause of their powerlessness; the very secret of His
power has been wanting in them. They have put forth the mock power
which His real power has come into the world to crush and subdue. Does
not the Christian power--the Church's power--_begin_ when it has been
brought to work _with_ this power of Him who humbled Himself, and not
against it? Do we want another ground for believing that those who
have completely washed their robes and made them white from every
stain of selfishness in the blood of the Lamb, must be mightier than
they were here? Do we want another explanation of the fact, that those
words of theirs which spoke out the true mind of Christ in them, live
and are fruitful for generations after their names, and all the
efforts they made to magnify their own names, have been forgotten?

'_I spake not of you all: I know whom I have chosen: but that the
Scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth bread with me hath lifted
up his heel against me. Now I tell you before it come, that, when it
is come to pass, ye may believe that I am He. Verily, verily, I say
unto you, He that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth me; and he
that receiveth me receiveth Him that sent me. When Jesus had thus
said, He was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me._'

How are these verses connected with those that went before them? how
are they connected with each other? Sometimes the thought comes to
us,--'Can we trace the processes of that Mind in that hour? Must not
His words spring out of depths into which our eyes can never look?
Must they not follow each other in an order which is altogether unlike
that of other men?' So far as such a doubt leads to reverence,--so far
as it makes us distrust our own perceptions, eager to learn from
others, certain that we can but see the smallest portion of that which
is in Him, I would cherish it. So far as it puts Christ at a distance
from us, as it tempts us to think that He was not the Son of Man
feeling perfectly as a man,--that He did not mean that the things He
said to us should be apprehended by us, and that He will not help us
to apprehend them,--so far I would eschew it, and cast it off; because
it is fatal to all sincere reverence and sincere humility.

I think He says plainly,--'I am not speaking to you all when I bid you
wash each other's feet. There is a sympathy with my mind implied in
that act. There is a submission to me, as one who has chosen you,
implied in it. That sympathy, that submission, one of you has shaken
off. He sits at my feast; He has disclaimed me. But I tell you to do
as I have done, that you may know hereafter what the secret of the
power you exert over men is. If they receive you, they will be
receiving me; if they receive me, they will be receiving my Father.'
Does it seem to you that such an assurance was likely to counteract
the humbling lesson which He had just given? I do not wonder that any
should entertain that opinion, because it is undoubtedly true that men
may give themselves intolerable airs on the strength of their being
messengers of the Most High; may curse and excommunicate all who do
not receive _their_ decrees and confess _their_ dignity, under
pretence that they are setting Christ at nought. It is true also, and
the records of the world establish the truth, that none have been so
free from pretension, that none have borne such insults, and been so
ready to die that men might not be cursed and excommunicated, as those
who have given themselves up to speak a word which they were sure was
not theirs, who have felt that they had no goodness or love of their
own to show forth, but that the Son of God was showing forth His love
to sinners through them, even as the Father showed His love to men
through the Son. There needed a '_Verily_' to confirm this sentence as
well as the other. They are, in fact, parts of the same sentence. The
disciple will think himself above his Master as long as he thinks
himself separate from his Master; when that thought ceases, he must
accept our Lord's language in the length and breadth of it: '_He that
receiveth you receiveth me_.' Dare he be an insolent, usurping,
persecuting priest, unless he inwardly denies that the meek, suffering
Jesus, who washed His disciples' feet, is in him?

And is it wonderful that the 'trouble of spirit' which St. John speaks
of, should have mixed itself with this thought, and that the image of
the betrayer, which had been appearing from time to time during this
discourse in the background, should now rise fully and terribly before
Him? 'There is one who chooses to be separate from me! one who will
stand in his own name! one who will cast me his Lord, and friend, and
reprover, away! He is one of you,--one of those whom I have sent forth
as a messenger in my Father's name and mine.' Jesus has spoken of the
Scripture being fulfilled in the act of Judas. It was a Scripture
which David felt had been fulfilled in his own case. A friend who had
eaten of _his_ bread had lifted up his heel. It had been fulfilled in
a thousand cases before David, and since. But this was _the_
fulfilment; this contained the essence of all treacheries that had
been and that were to be; this explained the principle and author of
them. If there is a Son of Man, one in whom all human feelings,
sympathies, affections, reach their highest point, one from whom they
have been derived, one in whom they reflect perfectly that God of whom
He is the image, then the betrayer of that Son of Man exhibits _the_
revolt against these feelings, affections, and sympathies, _the_
strife against this love, in which every false friend may read the
ground and the possible consummation of his own baseness. Men,
generally, have confessed this remark to be true, and have embodied it
even in their careless forms of speech; therefore they ought to
confess, also, that whatever pain and inward anguish any have
experienced from the insincerity of those who have eaten their bread
and lifted up the heel against them, must have been undergone by Jesus
with an intensity proportioned to the intensity of His love. Surely
this reflection, if we follow it out, may help us more to such an
apprehension of His sufferings, as it is permitted and possible for us
to have, than any phrases of pompous rhetoric which put Him at a
distance from us, and make us suppose that He did not bear our griefs
and carry _our_ sins.

'_Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of His disciples, whom
Jesus loved. Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him, that he should ask
who it should be of whom He spake. He then lying on Jesus' breast
saith unto Him, Lord, who is it? Jesus answered, He it is, to whom I
shall give a sop, when I have dipped it. And when He had dipped the
sop, He gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon._'

St. John has not spoken of himself hitherto. Why does he introduce
himself now? When I was quoting, in my first sermon, the accounts
which are given of him by the other Evangelists, I did not refer to
the name by which he has described himself. Do we not sometimes think
that it was a kind of indelicacy and presumption in an Apostle to
claim it? Was it not setting himself above the others? Would it not
have been better that he should have let them give him the title? Are
not those which they do give him less honourable? I do not wish to
evade any of these inquiries. Let it be remembered that St. John was
writing in the full knowledge that he had been described as a Son of
Thunder, that his ambition and his desire to call down fire had been
recorded. These signs of what he was, of what he had shown himself to
be, could not be separated from him; they were fixed upon him
indelibly. None, therefore, could say that he was an object of
Christ's affection because he had shown a gentler disposition than his
fellows. Could they say, then, that the love of Christ was a partial
love, that it was not directed to mankind, that it was not the
expression of a universal love? St. John is the especial witness
against these heresies. He declares that God loved the world; and
Christ came to do His Father's will in saving it. What, then, might
be--what has been--the effect of the name, '_the disciple whom Jesus
loved_,' upon the Church? It has been felt that the story of Judas
needed this foil. The dark, solitary, separate man must be brought
into direct contrast to a man who lives only on trust. We understand
by the disciple who leant on Jesus' bosom what his condition was who
went out into the night. At the same time, we must not be allowed to
fancy that the love came forth from John. He could only be the
receiver of it. If he ever fancied himself the disciple who loved
Jesus, and not '_the disciple whom Jesus loved_,' he would be
magnifying himself, he would be claiming to be better than his
brethren. As it is, he can only regard it as part of Christ's
manifestation of the divine character that this peculiar affection
should be displayed to him. In the world of nature the distinctness of
each thing is necessary to the harmony of the whole. Can it be
otherwise in the world of human beings? Are they to be merged, now or
hereafter, in one great chaos of being? Must not each form, each
person, be brought out fully and brightly when the mists that prevent
us from seeing the perfect unity have been scattered? Personal
affections, gradations of sympathy, attachments and affinities between
this human being and that, are the barriers which sever the true life
of man from that Pantheistical absorption which is another name for
death. Should not we expect there to be a witness for these, a
restoration of them to their proper unselfish ground, in the acts and
the life of the Word made flesh?

'_And after the sop Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him,
That thou doest, do quickly. Now no man at the table knew for what
intent He spake this unto him. For some of them thought, because Judas
had the bag, that Jesus had said unto him, Buy those things that we
have need of against the feast; or, that he should give something to
the poor. He then having received the sop went immediately out: and it
was night._'

Though I have spoken of St. John as the contrast to Judas, the
contrast must not be regarded in this sense,--that love was withheld
from Judas. We are occupied with that awful mystery of a human will
and its relation to the divine will, where every step is perilous,
respecting which the truest statements must wear the appearance of
contradictions. But it has been the belief of all earnest men of all
schools that the sop given to Judas was a last love-token, and that
the entrance of Satan into him, after it had been received, expresses
that last defiance of love, that utter abandonment to the spirit of
selfishness, which precedes the commission of the greatest conceivable
crime. After that perdition has come, the Lord speaks words to the man
which he can understand, and he only. They may mean nothing to the
bystanders; they may be capable of the most frivolous construction. To
him they testify,--'There is one who knows thy heart; who knows thee.
He restrains thee no longer. Nay, He bids thee be quick. It is to be;
thou hast decreed it. Go and do thy new master's bidding faithfully.
Then it will be seen whether he or I shall prevail at last.'

And as Judas goes out into the night, a new hymn rises to heaven, and
a new commandment is given on earth. '_Now is the Son of man
glorified, and God is glorified in Him. If God be glorified in Him,
God shall also glorify Him in Himself, and shall straightway glorify
Him. Little children, yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek
me: and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come; so now
I say to you. A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one
another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this
shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to
another._'

Does it not sound tremendous that the Son of Man is exalted, in the
voluntary exile of a human being from the society of his fellow-men,
from all communion with his Lord? It is tremendous; but must it not be
so? Is not the spirit of selfishness that which has destroyed human
society, that which wars against the Son of Man, that which declares
that man shall not show forth the image of the perfect and unselfish
God? Must it not, shall it not be cast forth utterly from the Church
of God? And ought not all humanity, all nature, to join in the Song of
praise of the Great High Priest, that Judas did go out into the night
to achieve that purpose, to bring about that death, by which God was
glorified in His Son, and which led to the glorification of the Son in
Himself?

Perhaps the other portion of the passage seems to you plain enough.
'The command to the disciples to love one another--that sounds so
beautiful! there is nothing in that to which every heart must not
respond.' Brethren, I will tell you plainly: I find far greater
difficulty in this commandment than in all the rest of the discourse.
The Church has been trying to construe it for eighteen hundred years,
and has succeeded miserably ill. I will go further. I will say that,
if it is a mere precept written in letters in a book, it is the
cruelest precept that was ever uttered. Men say so when they are
honest: they say, 'Tell us to do anything but this. We will give, if
it is necessary, ten thousand rivers of oil, the first-born of our
body for the sin of our soul. But do not tell us to love. That we can
do in obedience to no statute, from dread of no punishment.' Even so.
If God demands that we should bring this offering to Him or perish, we
must perish. But if He says, 'My name and nature is love; my Son has
manifested my name and nature to you: you are created in Him; you are
created to obey Him: you need not resist Him: His Spirit shall be
with you that you may do His will as He has done mine,'--then the
precept is not cruel, but blessed and divine. For then in the
commandment is life--life for those who first heard it, life for us.
He was going away from them where they could not follow Him, that He
might make it effectual for those who never saw Him, but over whom He
reigns the same Son of Man, the same Son of God, to-day and for ever.

'_Simon Peter said unto Him, Lord, whither goest thou? Jesus answered
Him, Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now: but thou shalt follow
me afterwards. Peter said unto Him, Lord, why cannot I follow thee
now? I will lay down my life for thy sake. Jesus answered him, Wilt
thou lay down thy life for my sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee,
The cock shall not crow, till thou hast denied me thrice._'

This is the commentary on the new commandment and on the whole
discourse. Let St. Peter's-day fix it deeply in our hearts. Where lay
his error? Why was it inevitable that he should fall? He thought he
loved. He fancied his love would stand him in some stead. That
delusion must be thoroughly purged away from him. The washing of the
feet did not cleanse him as long as he gave himself credit for
possessing that which was God's own possession, which none can enter
into till he gives up himself. The prophecy to Peter, fearful as it
was to him, fearful as it should be to every one of us, is yet the
induction to the words, '_Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe
in God, believe also in me_,' and to all the depths of consolation
which Christ opened to His disciples in His Paschal discourses.




DISCOURSE XXIII.

THE FATHER'S HOUSE.

[Lincoln's Inn, 8th Sunday after Trinity, July 13, 1856.]

ST. JOHN XIV. 25, 26.

     _These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with
     you. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the
     Father will send in my name, He shall teach you all things,
     and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have
     said unto you._


The words to St. Peter, with which the 13th chapter closes, must have
been a cause of dismay and confusion to all the disciples as well as
to him. But it was not the only cause. The words, '_Whither I go, ye
cannot follow me_,' had called forth his passionate question, and the
expression of his readiness to lay down his life. They were terrible
enough in themselves, even without reference to betrayal and denial.
They must have mixed with the prophecies of both. He spoke of going
away. He must mean that a death, a violent death, was awaiting Him.
Why He did not say so plainly they could not tell. The darkness of the
language added to the gloom of their spirits.

Then He spake again, '_Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in
God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it
were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and
receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And
whither I go ye know, and the way ye know._'

He addresses Himself here to all the causes of their trouble. The
first was the deepest; for they had been told that a love which they
supposed nothing could shake would be shaken to its foundations. They
had believed in themselves; that belief would be found to rest upon
the sand. The refuge was in another kind of belief altogether. Our
translation assumes that they had a belief in God already; that it was
to be fortified by a belief in Jesus. There is a justification for
that rendering; perhaps it is the right one. But if we take both verbs
to be in the imperative, the sense will be good. 'For your faith in
your own willingness to follow me substitute a faith in me.' The
result of the two constructions is not very different. The disciples
had no doubt a faith in God, however feeble a one. It might be made
firm and efficient if faith in His Son was joined with it. They wanted
a faith as well in God as in Him. Neither could live without the
other.

And here also is the deliverance from the other source of anxiety. By
uniting the belief in God to the belief in Him, by no longer accepting
the first as a tradition from their fathers, the second as belonging
especially to themselves, by perceiving that the one is involved in
the other, they would enter into the mystery of His speech respecting
His own departure; they would see that it was not wilfully obscure;
they would know what hindered them from following them, and how they
might follow Him. He could not talk of going to the grave--that would
convey altogether a false impression about Him and themselves. He had
not come out of the grave; that had not been His original home; and
to His original home He was returning. There was no other mode of
speaking: He was going to His Father's house. And that was their house
too. He was not entering it to claim it for Himself, but for them.
There were dwellings in it for them all; if not so, He '_would have
told them_.'

Why would He have told them? Because He had been continually speaking
to them of a Father who had sent Him, of a Father whom they were to
know, of a Father who was drawing them towards Him. If there was no
issue of His mission; if He had done all His work by merely giving
them a glimpse of a divine kingdom; if they and He were not to rest in
it together; would He not have scattered the false hopes which they
were beginning to form, which His own language had kindled?

Yes, brethren! that awful dream which shook the heart of the German
poet,--the dream of Christ coming into the world with the message,
'There is no God. You have no Father,' must have been realized, if He
did not come with the other message, 'I can declare to you the name of
your God. You have a Father. I am come to lead you to Him.' He himself
shows us that this is the alternative. 'I would have told you,--I
would have sent you to tell the world,--that all the thoughts it has
ever entertained of an intercourse between earth and heaven, of a
ladder by which man may ascend to God, are lying thoughts, inspired by
the spirit of lies; unless I could have said, "There is a Father's
house; there are many mansions in it; and I am going to prepare a
place for you."' Oh! let us consider it well. Our Christianity must
either sweep away all that has sustained the life and hopes of human
creatures to this hour; it must become the most inhuman, the most
narrow, the most God-denying system that the world has yet seen; it
must prepare the way for a general atheism; or it must proclaim a Son
of Man who unites mankind to God, who is a way by which the spirit of
every man may ascend to the Father who is seeking it.

He had a right then to say, '_Whither I go ye know_;' for the
knowledge of a Father was that which He had been all along imparting
to them. It was that which the whole heart of humanity, expressing
itself through songs, myths, forms of worship, had been aiming at.
Doctors might have crushed it out of their hearts; peasants could not.
And had not the disciples heard of a way to God? What had John the
Baptist come for but to prepare such a way? What had the call to
repentance, what had the message concerning a kingdom of heaven at
hand, and a Word who is the light of men, been, but an opening of this
way?

The difficulty was to connect this way with that by which Jesus said
He was going. Thomas gave utterance to the difficulty with singular
frankness. '_Thomas saith unto Him, Lord, we know not whither thou
goest; and how can we know the way?_'

Would that we were all as honest in asking questions as he was; then
we should be prepared to receive the answer. '_Jesus saith unto him, I
am the way, and the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the
Father, but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father
also: and from henceforth ye know Him, and have seen Him._'

Are you so familiar with the first of these verses that it leaves no
impression upon you? Connect it with the second, from which, in
general, it is widely disjoined, and you will see how much of its
meaning we have all still to learn. We think of a way to _heaven_.
Christ, we say, is that way. Even so. But the old question which we
saw was so intensely puzzling to the people of Capernaum--which is not
less so to us--recurs at each step, 'What is heaven?' Jesus answers by
saying that He is the way to the Father. '_No man cometh to the Father
but by me._' So the words, '_I am the truth_,' acquire an infinite
significance. Christ is the way to the eternal truth, which makes
free. He is both the way and the truth, because He is one with the
Father, who is that eternal truth. And the words, '_I am the life_,'
are but the same, proceeding from His own lips, which we heard before
from the lips of His Evangelist--'_In the Word was life_.' They are
but the gathering up of all the signs which have manifested Him as the
Life-giver to the bodies of men,--as Giver of a divine and eternal
life to their spirits. But if we forget that Christ's work is to bring
men to their Father; and that He is distinct from the Father, as well
as one with the Father: if we exchange this evangelical statement for
some miserable one of our own, about 'the happiness of a future
state,' the announcement of Christ as the way and the truth becomes a
mere self-contradiction.

Our Lord's teaching was not in vain. One of the disciples perceived
that to know the Father was all in all,--that he wanted nothing but
this. '_Philip saith unto Him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it
sufficeth us._'

We are now, surely, ready for the reply, wonderful as it is: '_Jesus
saith unto Him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou
not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and
how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?_'

The revelation of the Father in the Son was then the revelation of
the kingdom of heaven; it was the revelation of God Himself. There
could be no higher. It was a revelation to that which was highest in
man, to that which really constitutes the man. And for the man really
to enter into the knowledge and communion of God, to be able to pass
out of the fetters and limitations of mortality into this blessedness,
this eternal life, must be the consummation of all that Jesus came to
do.

He therefore adds: '_Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and
the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of
myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me He doeth the works. Believe
me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me
for the very works' sake._'

Perhaps, when the question took this form, Philip might be startled.
He might say to himself, 'Do I believe this? Is this what I mean?' And
he might, for a while, be at a loss for the answer. But he could not
say, 'I do not believe it,' without saying, 'I do not believe this,
and this, and this, which I have heard Jesus say, and seen Jesus do.'
However he might wonder at the strangeness and awfulness of the truth,
yet he had been led into it most carefully and gradually. It had
seemed to come out of himself; to be implied in his acts, and
thoughts, and intuitions. It was not like something new which had been
given him, but something very old, which he had now for the first time
been able to recognise. And his Teacher still deals with him in the
same gentle, even method. 'Believe this,' He says, 'on its own ground,
on its own evidence, because it explains to you what would be else
inexplicable in yourself and in others. Or else believe it for the
very works' sake. That, too, is a legitimate process,--for some
minds, the easiest and most natural. The works lead back to the
Worker. The laws and principles in His mind lead back to the original
of them in the mind of the Father.

The works lead back to the Worker. They would do so even when Jesus
was no longer the visible instrument in effecting them. '_Verily,
verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do
shall he do also. And greater works than these shall he do; because I
go to the Father._' St. Luke says, in the beginning of the Acts of the
Apostles, that he had written before a treatise of all that Jesus
_began_ both to do and to teach. He intimates that he is now going to
continue that treatise, to show how much more Jesus did and taught,
after He ascended into heaven, than when He was on earth. Here, in the
most solemn manner, Jesus makes the same assertion to His disciples.
The works that He did upon earth were only the beginning of what He
would do--the signs, as St. John has expressed it so constantly, of a
power to be more completely exerted, of a purpose to be fulfilled. His
returning to the Father is to be the crisis and commencement of a new
life to the world,--the pledge that all the influences for health and
renovation which the Son of Man had put forth, instead of being
exhausted, were to go on proving their vigour and winning their
victories from generation to generation.

In the next verse He assigns the reason: '_And whatsoever ye shall ask
in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the
Son. If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it._' He had
taught them to pray, saying, '_Our Father_.' No doubt they had done as
He had bidden them. And the thought, 'He taught us so to speak,' must
have been a mighty help when the effort was hardest, when it seemed
most impossible to conceive that they had a Father. But to pray _in
His name_, what a new world was opened to them, if they might do that!
If there was One who did bind them all together, One in whom they were
one, what an emphasis was there in that word, 'Our!' If this Son of
Man were indeed the Son of God, what life, what reality there was in
the word 'Father!' It was not that the prayer wanted its virtue till
the name of Christ was openly, formally introduced into it. If that
had been so, His own prayer must have been unfit for the Apostles and
for us. All prayer that had ever ascended to God had ascended in His
name. The Word was with God; the Word was the light of men. All things
were created by Him, and in Him. When He had taught His spiritual
creatures to feel they had need of a Father of their spirits, He had
awakened in them the impulse to pray. The Father of those spirits was
seeking such to worship Him, and owned their worship as that of
children made in His image, unable to live apart from Him. In the
Mediator, He could meet those to whom He had thus given power to
become sons of God; He could own them as the spokesmen of humanity.
But now it could be declared in what name men had prayed; how it was
that the spirits in them answered to each other; in whom God had
looked upon them, and been satisfied. No such revelation had yet been
made, no such assurance had been given, that every beggar who desired
that God's will might be done on earth as it is in heaven, was praying
for that which Christ Himself must certainly accomplish. He goes on,
'_If ye love me, keep my commandments_.' The Apostles thought, as we
saw last Sunday, that they could suffer for Christ because they loved
Him. They were right in believing that love is the ground of all
action and of all suffering, but they were utterly wrong in supposing
that their own love could be the ground of either. If this love were
in any degree an effort of their own, if it were not God's love
working in them, it would prove, as He had warned Peter that it would,
the weakest of all things; before the cock crowed, it might be found
good for nothing. But if they loved Him, let them keep His
commandments; let them submit themselves to the will of One in whom
love dwells perfectly, from whom it flows forth freely. '_And I will
pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may
abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth, whom the world
cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him. But ye
know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you._'

This promise, I believe, is the characteristical one of those Paschal
conversations; it is that which distinguishes them from our Lord's
discourses to the multitude. It is most important, therefore, to
observe how the subject is introduced, and how it is connected with
the passages we have just been considering. The new commandment, which
we find in the previous chapter, had been, '_Love one another, as I
have loved you_;' which was further expounded by the words, '_As I
have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another's feet_.' It had
been a social commandment. Each obeyed it in so far as he regarded
himself as one of a family, under a Master who was his Elder Brother.
The loss of fellowship was the loss of allegiance; the loss of
allegiance was the loss of fellowship. Since He had given them this
commandment, He had been speaking to them of His own union with the
Father, of His own obedience to the Father. One truth lay beneath the
other; they must be learnt together. _Their_ union would be the way to
the apprehension of this union. _Their_ obedience would enable them to
enter into this obedience. But, on the other hand, they would find
union among themselves impossible till they had a glimpse of the
fundamental unity; they would find human obedience impossible till
they believed that there was a divine obedience.

But how should they bind these two truths together in their hearts?
What would save them from revolving in a hopeless circle, never
knowing whether the divine lesson or the human practice must come
first?

Before they well knew what they wanted, what deliverer they could have
in their infinite perplexity, He, their Head, would pray the Father,
and He would give them a Paraclete, one who would be always ready to
help when they called for Him, one who should not be with them to-day
and gone to-morrow, but with them for ever; not an external Teacher,
but a Guide of their spirits; not a Spirit who would obey their
fancies or notions, but a Spirit of truth, to whom they must yield,
that they might be freed from their confusions and falsehoods. This
Spirit, it is added, '_the world could not receive_.' That world or
order which does not own a Head, which is made up of sections and
parties, to which the Word of God comes, and which rejects Him,--such
a world is not capable of a uniting, fusing Spirit, not capable even
of conceiving how there can be such a Spirit, how He can enter into
human beings with all their different tastes and propensities, all
their contradictions, to mould them into one, how He can give them one
heart and one soul. But the Apostles did know it. They had the germs
of unity within them; amidst all their rivalries and discords, they
aspired to be one. The Spirit was dwelling _with_ them even then; He
should be _in_ them.

I wish you to observe how every word and every symbolical act of
Christ has pointed to the disciples as a body, as a family; how all
commandments and all promises have reference to them in this
character; how the difference between them and the world was not that
they were individually better than the persons of whom it consisted,
not that they had blessings which the world was not intended to be a
partaker of, but simply that the Son of Man had chosen them, and had
constituted them His witnesses to the world. And to those who owned
Him as the Head of their body, whether they saw Him or not, He would
come. '_I will not leave you orphans_,' He says; '_I will come to
you_.' If they were left without Him who alone had told them of a
Father, who was their only bond to a Father, they would be in the
strictest sense orphans. These last words took off the rough edge of
that sentence which, with all its apparent fulness and richness, must
have sounded sorrowful in the ears of the disciples, as if there could
be a substitute for Him, another Paraclete. In some wonderful manner
He would Himself be among them; in some wonderful manner His Father
would be among them. Else why did He speak of orphans? And the next
words made His meaning more definite, if not at once more clear, to
them: '_Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see
me. Because I live, ye shall live also._' 'The world, which judges
only by sense, which _believes_ nothing, will have no organ by which
to apprehend me. I shall seem to it to be far away. It will proclaim
that it has got rid of me. But you will apprehend me through the
spirit's organ. Your inner life will rest upon my life. In your own
selves you will be in contact with me.'

'_At that day_,' He goes on, '_ye shall know that I am in my Father,
and ye in me, and I in you_.' 'In that day, when you shall begin truly
to see me, when you shall know me more fully than you have ever known
me yet, in that day the great mystery of my union with the Father will
come out fully before you. It will come forth to explain another
mystery, which without it would be incredible, that as I am in Him, so
you are in me; that as He is in me, so am I in you.'

We shall find how this mystery, in connexion with the other, becomes
the subject of the subsequent discourse, till it finds its fullest
expansion and expression in the prayer of the 17th chapter. But it was
necessary that He should set before them once again the nature of the
mystery, and the way to the knowledge of it, lest they should lose
themselves in abortive efforts to embrace it. '_He that hath my
commandments_,' He says, '_and keepeth them, He it is that loveth me:
and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father; and I will love
him, and will manifest myself to him_.' The love of the Father for the
Son, and of the Son for the Father, was the ground of their union. He
who would remember Christ's commandments that they should love one
another, and would watch over them and cherish them in his heart, he
would show his love to Christ; and to him the love of the Father would
be manifested, to him the Son would manifest Himself.

This idea of a secret manifestation which the world could not share
in, may have seemed merely astonishing to some of the disciples,--may
have awakened certain feelings of vanity, as if they would be His
exclusive favourites, in others of them. Either feeling might have
been in Jude, or both might have been mixed, when he said, '_Lord, how
is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the
world?_' The answer is one which, if it were taken in, would destroy
all exclusiveness, but would not diminish wonder: '_Jesus answered and
said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father
will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
He that loveth me not keepeth not my words: and the word which ye hear
is not mine, but the Father's which sent me._' If a man loved Christ,
he would hold fast those words of His in which He said that God
'_loved the world, and gave His only-begotten Son for it_;' that God
'_sent not His Son to condemn the world, but that the world through
Him might be saved_.' And then, because these words were dear to him,
and he wished to live in the spirit of them, the Father who loved the
world would come and make His abode with him, would impart to him His
own likeness, and enable him in a measure to enter into His love. But
one who cared nothing for Christ, would not care for these words of
His, would not keep them in his heart, would not really believe them,
would not desire to have his own mind fashioned in accordance with
them. And seeing that Christ's word is not His, but the Father's who
sent Him, that Father would remain to such a person always hidden and
unknown.

'_These things_,' He adds, '_have I spoken unto you, being yet present
with you. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father
will send in my name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all
things to your remembrance._' It may be hypercritical to complain of
our translators for rendering μένων by '_being yet present_;' but I
cannot help thinking that 'remaining,' or 'while I remain with you,'
would have diminished the likelihood of a misapprehension which must
make much of what He says here and afterwards unintelligible. That He
was going away He had told them; only one day longer He would remain
among them as their visible Teacher. But, assuredly, He declares
solemnly that He shall not cease to be present with them; it is the
express object of His conversation to give them that assurance.
Nowhere does it come forth more strongly than in this sentence. What
He said to them while they could look into His face, while they could
see His lips moving, was but poorly apprehended by them; only a small
portion of its meaning passed into them. Their real learning would
come hereafter,--the vital recollection and understanding of the very
words they were listening to then. Did they not feel that they wanted
some one to fix the sense in their hearts, before the sounds mingled
with the common air? Did they not want an interpreter, who should not
translate one set of phrases by another, but should translate phrases
into realities, and should open the spirit to entertain them? Were
they not conscious of a hebetude and dulness, which the divinest
wisdom could not penetrate as long as it remained on the outside of
them? Did not the dulness hinder their intercourse with each other?
Did any know exactly what the other meant? Did they not talk of
trifles, because they despaired of breaking through the ice which
enclosed their neighbour's heart, and had not even learnt the secret
of thawing their own?

Yes; in this way they were taught that they must have a Spirit such as
He spoke of, to be with them, not occasionally, but continually; to be
with them, not as separate creatures, but as fellow-men; to be the
Inspirer of their memories, their understandings, their affections; to
be their Deliverer from shallowness; to be their Guide to that well of
living water at the bottom of which truth lies. It was thus that they
learnt, however imperfectly, that this Spirit must be a Divine
Person,--could not be a mere vague and floating influence. It was thus
that they sprung to the conviction, however hard it might be, which
our Lord had expressed, and which He repeated in another form of words
here, that the Spirit must bring Him near to them, must come in His
name, must bind them together in His name. It was thus they learnt
that a Spirit, which did not proceed from a Father and testify of a
Father, could not be the Spirit of truth or the Spirit of peace.

He had been described already by one of these names. Our Lord now
fixed the thoughts of His disciples upon the other. '_Peace I leave
with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I
unto you._' It was the legacy which they needed above all others. But
how could it be received? How can a treasure which all experience
proclaims to be open to thefts, lessened by a thousand accidents,
dependent upon mental and bodily temperament,--how can this be
actually left, not to one, two, or three, upon certain conditions, but
to a whole body permanently and not capriciously, '_as the world
giveth_?' Christ's words imported this; the Apostles must have felt
that He was deceiving them if less than this was meant or was
performed. Only a Spirit to abide for ever with them; a Paraclete to
whom they could have recourse when fightings were most terrible
without; One whom they might find beneath all the wars and fightings
within themselves; one who could unite them to each other, because He
united them to the Father;--only such a Spirit could be the gift of
peace which Christ bestowed; only concerning such a Spirit could He
have said, 'This is my peace.'

He repeats the words He had used a short time before. He said, '_Let
not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid_.' He could utter
them now with a new and mightier force; for now, far better than
before, He could remove that cause of trouble, the dread that He was
going away from them. '_Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away,
and come again unto you. If ye loved me ye would rejoice, because I
said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I._'

The explanation of His going is the same as before. It is the return
to a Father's house,--a house with many mansions,--a house for them as
for Him. But, since the promise of the Spirit has been given, He can
say, '_I come again unto you_.' 'It is not merely that you will know I
am in a home which you cannot see, in a home which is out of the reach
of the tumults and distractions that surround you--a home of peace,
and truth, and love; it is that here, in the midst of this earth,
peace and truth and love shall abide with you. It is that I have a
kingdom in this world; it is that my Spirit will be with you, to
enable you to make continual inroads upon the world which "_sees me
not, neither knows me_," to bring fresh portions of it under my
government.' This coming again into the regions of earth--coming as a
king and conqueror, yet still as a fellow-sufferer to bear the cross
with His disciples, is a new element of consolation. But it does not
displace the former. The celestial house is still to be the object and
final resting-place of their thoughts and hopes. They were to rejoice
that their Lord was there, in His proper and eternal dwelling, united
as a Son to a Father, doing homage as a Son to a Father, confessing
there, as He did on earth, His own glory to be derived from the
Father. They were to rejoice for His sake, because they loved Him; and
that rejoicing for His sake would be the greatest elevation, and the
highest satisfaction to themselves. They would look through Christ to
the Father; they would see all things issuing from Him, and tending to
their fruition and perfection in Him.

'_And now_,' He concludes, '_I have told you before it come to pass,
that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe. Hereafter I will not
talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath
nothing in me. But that the world may know that I love the Father; and
as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go
hence_.'

That which was coming to pass, we can have no doubt, was the death of
the Son of Man, His ascension, the gift of the Spirit; for of all
these He has discoursed, as if they were inseparably connected. Each
event would be imperfectly understood till the next came to expound
it. When the Spirit was given, there would be a flood of light upon
all the acts of Christ; all the lines of the world's history would be
seen to be converging towards Him. But an hour of darkness must
precede this illumination, an hour in which the living Word, the
upholder of all things, would be almost silent; the hour, He calls it,
of the prince of this world, the hour when righteousness would seem to
be put down for ever, when the priestly tyrants of Judæa, and the
imperial tyrants of Rome, would seem to have established their
supremacy. But their master had _nothing in Jesus_. The cross upon
which they raised Him would stand forth as the perfect opposite of his
selfishness the perfect manifestation of the Divine love. For the
world's sake, that cross would be set up; for the world's sake, He
spoke these things to His disciples. He would have the world know that
He loved the Father, and that He was fulfilling His Father's
commandment in dying for it. What a wonderful conclusion to a
discourse which He had addressed to His own, whom He had chosen out of
the world! What a wonderful preparation for that discourse concerning
the vine and the branches, which He seems to have spoken as He walked
with His disciples towards the Garden of Gethsemane!




DISCOURSE XXIV.

THE VINE AND THE BRANCHES.

[Lincoln's Inn, 9th Sunday after Trinity, July 20, 1856.]

ST. JOHN XV. 1.

_I am the true Vine, and my Father is the Husbandman._


The words, '_Arise, let us go hence_,' with which the 14th chapter
concludes, have been taken by some to indicate that our Lord was about
to lead His disciples into a higher region of thought and of hope than
they had yet visited. The feeling is a very natural one that
everything in these conversations must have a sublime sense, that no
words can be used in them in their common earthly sense. But it is not
an altogether healthy feeling. It may lead us to forget that the
disciples were sitting in an actual room, at an actual supper; it may
give us the notion that we have been transported into some fantastical
world. That is a heavy price to pay for a refined or spiritual
interpretation. It may make the whole life of the Son of Man
unintelligible to us.

From the beginning of the 13th chapter, our Lord has been preparing
them to '_arise and go hence_.' He has been leading them towards that
Father's house, whither He is going and to which He is the way. We
might say that He reaches the mountain summit, in His prayer in the
17th chapter; yet even that must be said with caution, because His
death and ascension were yet to come, and the Spirit had not yet been
poured upon them. But though nothing which He ever spoke is deeper, or
has had a mightier effect on mankind, than the passage of which I am
about to speak, we do not conceive of it rightly if we describe it as
a departure from earthly facts or earthly images. We are about to be
told of the discipline which is necessary for those who are upon earth
fighting, not transfigured, and how the discipline will be
administered. The old form of speaking by parables, which the
disciples might easily have thought was intended only for the
multitude, and might be discarded in the more advanced stages of their
education, is resorted to again. The forms of earth are still claimed
as interpreters of the kingdom of heaven.

I think it is better, therefore, to take the words in their simplest
sense,--to suppose that our Lord and His disciples did arise from the
supper as He spoke, and that the first object which they saw as they
walked towards the Mount of Olives was a _vine_. That tree had been
the old lesson-book of Prophets. They had watched its growth; had
wondered at the life which circulated through its branches; had
thought of the care which was needful in the choice of a place to
plant it in; of the incessant vigilance which must be bestowed upon it
after it had grown. '_Thou hast brought_,' they said in their songs,
'_a vine out of Egypt, and planted it_.' '_The house of Israel_,' they
said in their discourses, '_is the Lord's vineyard, and Judah His
pleasant plant_.' Then the question arose, 'Why does it bring forth
wild grapes? Will it never fill the land?' Which led to the other
deeper questions, 'How is it that these comparisons _must_ be true in
spite of all experience which seems to prove them deceitful? What
makes our nation one,--what gives it life, though we seem a mere set
of loose, wretched, dead sticks, trying to be separate?'

Here was the answer, '_I am the true Vine_.' As the words, '_I am the
good Shepherd_,' explained all the previous uses of _that_ symbol, and
showed why they were not fictitious, so this sentence interprets all
the passages of the Old Testament which connect the life of trees with
the life of man. 'You have been told that you were the branches of a
vine; that God was pruning you, and lopping off dead boughs from you.
Now, look into the heart of this mystery. In me you have been made
one; from me you have drawn life. _My Father_ Himself has been, and
_is_, the _Husbandman_. It was over His own Son that He was watching.
It was the branches in ME which were not bearing fruit that He was
taking away. It was every branch in ME that beareth fruit which He was
purging, that it might bring forth more fruit.' Here was the
interpretation of the unity of the nation; for here is the
interpretation of the unity of man. We shall find no wider, or deeper,
or more practical one. The more we apply it to all the circumstances
of our lives, and to all the problems of history, the more
satisfactory it will appear to us. But first, as always, Christ
Himself applies it to the persons immediately before Him.

'_Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself,
except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I
am the Vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him,
the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do
nothing._' The words in the 13th chapter, '_Ye are clean, but not
all_,' led me to anticipate what I should say about these, '_Ye are
clean through the word which I have spoken unto you_.' I said that He
treated them as a pure and holy body, and that the unclean person was
he who would not belong to the body, but chose to dwell in his own
isolation. What is added to that statement here is, that Christ's word
was that which purified them. They had no unity of their own, or
purity of their own. He spoke to them in their inmost hearts, claimed
them as His. That quickening, uniting, purifying word, going forth
from Him, was the source of their life, their purity, their unity.
What they had to do was not to put forth self-willed efforts for the
sake of making themselves better, or wiser, or more united, but simply
to abide in Him, to believe that they were His, to act as if they
were. I resort to other forms of expression, as if I hoped to make
that which He chose clearer; but, in fact, that is immeasurably
plainer, and fuller, and deeper, than any I can imagine. '_Abide in
me_' at once recals the natural analogy, while it is in strictness
appropriate only to the condition of a voluntary being. It implies a
possible separation, an act of adhesion; and yet it implies that this
separation is altogether monstrous and anomalous; that this adhesion
is merely the refusal to break a cord of love with which God is
actually binding us. '_Abide in me_' is doubtless a command; but it is
supported by the other clause, '_and I in you_.' 'Rest in me as if you
were united to me; and a living power shall go forth from me to
sustain and quicken you. And all this that you may _bear fruit_.' That
part of the symbol is never for a moment lost sight of. The relation
of the branch to the stem implies the passage of a productive life
from one into the other. The secret processes within are tending to a
result which shall be visible. Christ tells them that they can bear
nothing, that they will be utterly barren and dry, unless they retain
their attachment to Him, unless He communicates a sap to them
continually. He is not satisfied with the comparison; He again puts
the doctrine into a more direct form, as if to assure them that He was
not using metaphors, that He was taking the most direct method of
bringing before them that which was not real but _the_ reality, not
_a_ fact, but _the_ fact of their existence. '_I am the Vine, ye are
the branches._' 'The energies and powers within you, when I quicken
them, shall bring forth thoughts, deeds, words, that shall be living,
and shall spread life. Without me all is dead.'

The last clause has brought the law home to the disciples themselves;
but the former was more general: '_He that abideth in me, and I in
him_.' And so is the 6th verse: '_Except a man_' (any one) '_abide in
me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and they gather
them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned_.' That 'any
one' gives the sentence a fearful significance. Let us think well of
it. Have we never felt as if, though no voice had cut us off from the
fellowship of our brethren, we had cut ourselves off? Have we never
felt an internal withering, as if the springs of life in us were all
dried up? What was the secret of this condition, which we could trace
to no outward violence? Or do we ask, 'What is the cure? How may that
separation be put an end to before it becomes fixed and everlasting?
How may that secret withering be arrested before it ends in absolute
death?' The evil is traced to its source when we are told that we have
not abided in Him; the remedy lies in that command, and in no other.
The dead sticks are gathered into a bundle and burnt. But the sap has
not gone out of the Vine; that may still make the bough to sprout and
bud.

The next verses take us a step further. '_If ye abide in me, and my
words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done
unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so
shall ye be my disciples._' He had said, '_Whatsoever ye shall ask in
my name, I will do it_.' He can now give the words, '_in my name_,'
their full force. It is not the name of one who may have power with
Him to whom they are pleading, but who is far from _them_. It is the
name of Him in whom they are actually dwelling, in whom they are one.
And His words are the expression of His Father's will. So far, then,
as those words dwell in them, and ascend up from them in prayer to
God, so far they are asking according to His will, and He is doing
that will in granting them their petitions. Not merely, as we render
the passage, '_It shall be done for you_,' but '_It shall become to
you_.' God's will shall work with your will, which it is moulding to
itself. And so God is glorified in the fruit which you bring forth.
The more rich you are in love and good works, the more is He Himself
manifested in you, the more are you Christ's disciples.

Thus we are brought back to the ultimate ground of this relation
between Christ and human beings. '_As the Father hath loved me, so
have I loved you: abide in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye
shall abide in my love; as I have kept my Father's commandments, and
abide in His love._' This is the continually recurring burden of this
divine song. The love of the Father is at the root of all. The Son can
do nothing but in obedience to that. He believes it, obeys it, and so
lives in it. The law of the disciples' being is the same. They are to
believe in the love which is the manifestation and reflection of this
love, to obey it, to live in it.

And now another gift is bestowed which we expect less, on this night
of sorrow, than even that gift of peace of which I spoke last Sunday.
'_These things have I said unto you, that my joy may remain in you,
and that your joy may be full_' (or fulfilled). Remember that this was
spoken after He had been 'troubled in spirit' at the thought of His
betrayal, not long before He was to pass through the agony. If any one
says to himself,--who has not said it to himself?--'What is joy to me?
how can I ever be partaker of that?' let him think thus. 'Christ knew,
as none of us ever have known or shall know, what the death and
extinction of all joy means; what it is to be alone; what it is to
feel deserted of men and deserted of God. And yet He spoke of His joy,
and of communicating that joy to the disciples. Whence came it? What
was it? How could it be communicated? It was obedience to His Father's
commands. It came from His submitting to those commands, though they
brought Him to suffering, and desertion, and death. It is communicated
to men along with that same power of obedience and endurance. His joy
was to do a will which He knew to be a loving will, into whatsoever
heights or depths it might bring Him. That obedience with all its
consequences, He says, He will impart to us if we will receive it.'

Therefore He goes on: '_This is my commandment, That ye love one
another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that
a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do
whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants; for
the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth. But I have called you
friends; for all things which I have heard from my Father, I have made
known unto you._'

You see how earnestly He repeats those words which to many of us have
such a paradoxical sound. 'I _command_ you to love.' 'Just the thing,'
we say in our hearts, 'which cannot be commanded, which must come from
choice.' 'Just that,' He answers, 'which cannot come from choice,
which must come from submission.' If a loving Being were not the Lord
of our wills, were not the Lord of the universe, we might make mighty
efforts to love, supposing we had been taught by some visitant from
another region what love was; and every such effort would be a
rebellious struggle against our Master and our destiny. If there is a
perfect Love creating and sustaining all things, if men have a Father,
then such efforts cannot be rebellious, must be in conformity to this
law: 'Love as I have loved you.' I have said this before, while
dwelling on another part of this discourse; but I must say it again
and again, for it is the principle which underlies the whole of it,
and upon which the distinction that is made here between servants and
friends entirely depends. Christ manifests the greatest love which, He
says, can be manifested. The love which He manifests is His Father's.
He lays down His life in submission to that. They become His friends
by yielding to that love, by confessing it, by allowing it to have
dominion over them. He calls them no longer servants, but friends,
because servants only know what they are to do, without knowing why
they are to do it; whereas He has told them the very secret of His
Father's mind, the ground on which His acts and His precepts rest. It
is not that the friend is less under authority than the servant. It
is not that the one does what He is bidden, and the other may do what
he likes. It is that the friend enters into the very nature of the
command,--that it is a command which is addressed to his will, and
which moulds his will to its own likeness.

In strict consistency with this language, He goes on: '_Ye have not
chosen me, but I have chosen you, and have ordained you, that ye
should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain;
that whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, He may give it
you.'_ All sectarianism, all self-seeking and self-willed religion, is
based upon the idea, 'We have chosen Him. By an act of faith, or an
act of love, we have entered into a relation with Him, which but for
that act would not be.' And the whole Gospel turns upon the opposite
maxim to this: '_I have chosen you_.' 'You are merely obeying a call.
You are merely confessing a relation, with the making of which you had
nothing to do.' Even when this doctrine of election has taken a narrow
form,--even when it has been recognised chiefly as exclusive,--it has
had a mighty power over the hearts of men. They have given themselves
up, as they never could do when they thought they had selected their
own Master, or were going upon errands of their own. But when it takes
the form which it has here; when Christ, who has loved them to the
death, commands them to love others as He has loved; when He tells
them that He has placed them in their different circumstances that
they may go and bring forth fruit,--that fruit being the men whom they
shall persuade that they too belong to a race for which Christ has
died, and which the Father loves;--there cannot be any principle which
is at once so humbling and so elevating, which so takes away all
notion from the disciple that there is any worth in his own deeds or
words, which gives him so confident an assurance that God's word,
spoken through him or through any man, will not return to Him void.
And that, if I am not mistaken, is the reason why the promise, that
whatever is asked of the Father in Christ's name shall be granted, is
again introduced here with the variation, '_He may give it_,' instead
of 'I will do it.' A man who feels that he is called to a work, does
not therefore feel power to accomplish it. He may feel--as Moses did,
and as Jeremiah did--an increased feebleness, an utter childishness;
but he understands that he may ask the Father, whose will he is called
to do, that that will may be done; so he wins a strength which is and
is not his own.

We wonder to find the command which we have heard so often, delivered
once more in the 17th verse. But we presently discover that it is as
an introduction to a new subject, and that in relation to that subject
the old words have a new force. '_These things I command you, that ye
love one another. If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me
before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love its
own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of
the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word which I
spake to you, The servant is not greater than his Master. If they have
persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my
word, they will keep yours also._' Here the love which He commands
them to have for one another--the love which is His own, and which He
inspires--is contrasted with the hatred of the world. The one
difference which we have already discovered between the world and
those whom He chooses out of it, is that they confess a Centre, and
that the world confesses none; that they desire to move, each in his
own orbit, about this Centre, and that the world acknowledges only a
revolution of each man about himself. The world, indeed, cannot
realize its own principles. It must have companies, parties,
sects,--bodies acknowledging some principle of cohesion, aspiring
after a kind of unity. Still, as a world, this is the description of
it; and therefore, as a world, it must hate all who say, 'We are a
society bound together, not by any law of our own, not by an election
of our own, but by God's law and election. And His law is a law of
sacrifice. He gives up His Son; His Son gives up Himself. We are to
give up ourselves in obedience to His Spirit, that we may do His
work.'

As He had so lately called them friends, not servants, we may be
surprised that here He gave them the old name again. But the title,
servant, is not now a dishonourable title for those whom He has called
friends. Since the Master became a servant, His friends must be
content to be servants, otherwise they do not know what their Lord
doeth; they cannot enter into His mind. With this service, too, they
must take the hatred and persecution of the world as part of their
endowment, as one of the treasures which their Lord shares with them.
If it does not hate them, they must always fear that they are not
loving each other, or loving it as God loves it.

'_But all these things will they do to you for my name's sake, because
they know not Him that sent me. If I had not come and spoken unto
them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin.
He that hateth me, hateth my Father also. If I had not done among them
the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now_
_have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. But this cometh
to pass, that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their
law, They hated me without a cause._' These are, perhaps, the most
terrible words in the Old or New Testament. No descriptions of divine
punishment which are written anywhere, can come the least into
comparison with them for awfulness and horror. This gratuitous
hatred--this hatred of Christ by men because they hate God, this
hatred of God because He has manifested and proved Himself to be
love--is something which passes all our conceptions, and yet which
would not mean anything to us if our consciences did not bear witness
that the possibility of it lies in ourselves. And do not let us put
away that thought, brethren, or the other which is closely akin to it,
that such hatred is only possible in a nation which, like the Jewish,
is full of religious knowledge and of religious profession. There, our
Lord tells us Himself, was a hatred of Him and of His Father which
could be found nowhere else,--there, among scribes, and Pharisees, and
chief priests. Let us ask God, that none of us may say of his brother,
'This crime may be committed by thee;' but each of himself: 'God be
merciful to me a sinner. Keep me by Thy love, abiding in Thy love.
Help me to keep Christ's commandment of loving my brother as well as
Thee; else, if I am left to myself, I may sink into such a hell of
hatred, as would be worse than all other hells that men have ever
feared to think of.'

Let us pray this prayer, and then our Lord's last words in this
chapter will come to us as the most wonderful relief, as the very
answer which we long for. '_But when the Comforter shall come, whom I
will send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth which
proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of me: and ye also shall
bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning._' To
have the Comforter, the Paraclete, with us, this is the security that
the spirit of hatred shall not overcome us. To have the Spirit of
truth with us, this is the security that we shall not be brought to
believe a lie, or to disbelieve in the God of truth. To have Him
testifying of Christ, the Son of Man and the Son of God, is the
security that we shall abide in Him who has given the greatest proof
of love that can be given, by laying down His life for His friends. To
be able to testify of Him because we have been with Him, even when He
was hidden from us, and we did not know how near He was; to testify of
Him by our words and our deeds; this is the security that He is using
us for His own gracious purpose, and that He will be glorified in the
fruits which He will cause us to bring forth.




DISCOURSE XXV.

THE COMFORTER AND HIS TESTIMONY.

[Lincoln's Inn, 10th Sunday after Trinity (Morning), July 27, 1856.]

ST. JOHN XVI. 1.

_These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended._


The things which Jesus had just spoken to the disciples were, that His
countrymen '_hated Him without a cause_;' that they '_hated both Him
and His Father_.' These things were to take away the scandal which it
would be to them to find that they made themselves hated by
proclaiming a Gospel of peace and good will. '_They shall put you out
of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you
will think that he doeth God service._' It would be a strange result;
fellowship with their brethren destroyed because they proclaimed the
ground of fellowship; death inflicted upon them because they preached
that death was overcome. Might not poor Galilæans, conscious of folly
and sin, often say to themselves: 'We must be wrong; the rulers of the
land must be wiser than we are. Ought we to turn the world upside down
for an opinion of ours?' But '_these things will they do unto you,
because they have not known the Father, nor me_.' 'They have not known
what the Lord and Light of their spirit meant: do you think they can
know what you mean? They have hated my character; they have hated God
in His own essential nature: would you expect them to love you who are
sent forth to testify what that nature is, and how it has been
manifested?'

All His education had been gradual; no word had been spoken till it
was needed. So it is now. '_And these things will they do unto you,
because they have not known the Father, nor me. But these things have
I told you, that when the time shall come, ye may remember that I told
you of them. And these things I said not unto you at the beginning,
because I was with you. But now I go my way to Him that sent me; and
none of you asketh me, Whither goest thou?_' His meaning would only be
entered into fully when the events explained it; but what a difference
would it make to them that they could assure themselves then, 'It _is_
His meaning! All this He told us of.' And this would be no mere act of
memory, at least if memory is only concerned with the past. It would
do more than anything else to remove the confusion which beset them,
which His own words seemed almost to increase, as to His absence from
them, and His presence with them. He had said that He was going to the
Father; He had said that His going would be an elevation and a
blessing to them. He had said that He should come to them. They could
not see their way through these apparent inconsistencies. They had
begun to ask whither He was going, but they had stopped short in the
inquiry. The news of His departure possessed them; that was an
unspeakable weight upon their minds. They scarcely thought that any
knowledge of the 'where' would materially lighten it.

'_Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I
go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you;
but if I depart, I will send Him unto you._' It was the hardest of all
truths; the hearts which grief had occupied could afford little room
for it. '_It is expedient that I should go away._' Again the doubt
will have come back in its full force: 'What compensation can there be
for His absence? What new friend can take His place?' Before, the
promise, however difficult to comprehend, '_I will come to you_,' had
taken away some of the bitterness of their anticipations. Now it was
necessary that they should face the whole subject; that they should
apprehend the Comforter as a distinct Person from Him who was speaking
to them; that they should rise by degrees to feel how compatible this
distinctness was with perfect unity. We, with our rough blundering
dogmatism, may think that we can teach these lessons at once; and when
we find how difficult it is for men to take them in, because they are
men like ourselves--incapable of seeing more than half a truth at a
time--may conclude just as rashly that no processes can ever bring any
but a few learned and subtle men to such a discovery. But He who knew
what was in man, was content to give His disciples line upon line; to
go over the steps of His teaching often again; to make them conscious
first of one need of their spirits, then of another; to present each
by turns with the satisfaction which it demands; to be indifferent
about apparent contradictions, so long as real contradictions were
escaped. He who knew what was in man was sure that it is not the
doctor or the systematizer, but the human being, who wants to be
instructed in the distinction of Persons and the unity of Substance;
that our minds rest upon the principles to which these opposing words
are the indices; that the fisherman or the publican feels after them
with his heart, and assumes them in his discourse; that he and the
doctor may enter into them together, when both are willing to perform
the highest demand of science as well as of faith, by becoming little
children.

Here, then, He tells them that His departure out of their sight was
actually necessary in order that the Paraclete--whom He had spoken of
as the bond of their union, as their efficient Teacher and
Friend--should come to them. You would have supposed, perhaps, that He
would have gone on to tell them what blessings the coming of this
Paraclete would confer upon _them_, which He would not confer upon the
world, since He had said that the world would not receive Him or know
Him. It may cause us some surprise, then, to read: '_And when He is
come, He will reprove the_ WORLD _of sin, and of righteousness, and of
judgment: of sin, because they believe not on me; of righteousness,
because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; of judgment, because
the prince of this world is judged_.' It is impossible to get rid of
this difficulty by any loose interpretation of the word _world_. It is
one of the characteristic and vital words in all this discourse. It is
used, as I think, with great precision and uniformity throughout St.
John: to evade its force here, is to destroy his meaning altogether.
On the other hand, if we will adhere steadfastly to the language as it
stands, we gain a fresh and brilliant illustration of the work to
which our Lord had destined His disciples, and apart from their
performance of which they could look for no blessings to themselves.
They were to be witnesses to a world which had forgotten its Centre,
concerning that Centre; witnesses to a world which was created by a
righteous God, and was meant to show forth His righteousness, in whom
this righteousness dwelt, and how it was to be sought after;
witnesses to a world which had set up a prince of its own, that his
power must come to an end, that it had been proved to be weakness.

How could they fulfil such a mission as this? What could their
arguments or their rhetoric avail to bring home such convictions to a
single Jew or a single idolater, to say nothing of a world of Jews, or
a world of idolaters? By their very nature, such convictions must be
inward and radical. They could not play about the surface of men's
hearts, but must penetrate into them. Whence could come this
demonstration? Our Lord tells the disciples at once that they are to
despair of its ever coming from them, that they are to be sure it will
come from the Spirit with which He will endue them. Not they, but He,
will convince the world; because, though the world may not receive Him
neither know Him, it has been formed to receive all quickening life
from Him; it must confess His presence, even if it would hide itself
from His presence. And the disciples were to go forth in this faith;
in the certainty that wherever they met a man, Jew or Gentile, there
was one whose Head was Christ, who owed his life to Christ, who was
receiving light from Christ, and who only sinned because he did not
own this Head, confess this Life, open his conscience and heart to
this Light. The Spirit in them would show them this truth concerning
themselves, and would only show it to them concerning themselves,
because they were partakers of the nature which every worshipper of
Jupiter or Brahm had as much as they. The disciples were to go forth
in the certainty that the righteous Man whom they had once seen upon
earth, in whom they had beheld the grace and truth of the Father, was
the same when they saw Him no more. They were to believe in Him as
the Lord their righteousness; they were to believe that the
righteousness of God was in Him; so they were to rise up righteous
men, children bearing the image of their Father. The Spirit within
them would give them this faith; the Spirit within them would make
them partakers of this righteousness. And that same Spirit would
convince the world of this righteousness, would bring this standard
continually before it, would make this standard the real measure of
its laws, its polity, its customs; the measure of its deflections from
right and truth. There would be an inward conviction, a continually
growing conviction among men, that nothing short of this could be the
human standard, even when they were setting up another, even when they
were pronouncing this to be unattainable, even when they said that
they would rather not attain it if they could. The disciples were to
go forth in the belief that when the spirit of selfishness seemed
strongest in themselves, strongest among their fellows,--when they
were most disposed to bow to him and acknowledge him as their
king,--he was not their king, but a lying usurper, whose pretensions
Christ had confounded in the wilderness and on the cross, whom they
could trample underfoot if they remembered that Christ's Father was
their Father. The Spirit would teach them that this prince of the
world was not their prince. He would teach them, therefore, that he
was not indeed, and by right, any man's prince, that all might
disclaim him, that for the sake of all he had been judged. And the
Spirit would convince the world also of this, that the untruths to
which it bows down can have only a brief dominion; that that which is,
must prevail over that which is not; that all evil lingers on under a
curse which has been pronounced, and shall be fully and eternally
executed.

All this they would learn hereafter; it could only be prophecy to them
now. And there were many things which it would be of no avail to utter
even in prophecy. '_I have yet many things to say to you, but ye
cannot bear them now. But_,' our Lord goes on, '_when He, the Spirit
of truth, is come, He shall guide you into all truth_,'--into the
whole truth, not merely into scattered fragments of it. For He shall
have dominion over your whole being. He shall guide it into that
fulness which it longs for, the fulness of God Himself. But it shall
be still a _guidance_; He will take you by regular steps along the
road which leads to this satisfaction. '_For He shall not speak of
Himself, but what He shall hear that shall He speak, and He shall tell
you things to come._' We should not, perhaps, be able to make out the
force of the words, '_He shall not speak of Himself_,' if the history
of the Church and the world had not expounded them. Again and again
there have been teachers in the Church who have spoken loudly of an
illuminating Spirit. They have said that a dispensation of the Spirit
had come, which made the old Gospel of Jesus Christ poor and obsolete;
they have said that now the Spirit was all that men had to think of or
believe in. So spoke a portion of the Franciscans, in the thirteenth
century; some of the brethren and sisters of the Free Spirit, in the
fourteenth; some of the Anabaptists, in the sixteenth; some of the
Quakers, in the seventeenth; so speak not a few who are revolting
against Materialism, without having found any safe standing-ground
from which to oppose it, in our own. The spirit in such men speaks
'_of itself_.' Such a spirit, our Lord says, is not the Holy Spirit;
for He will speak whatsoever things He hears; He will bring to us the
message of a Father, from whom He comes. He will not make us impatient
of a Lord and Ruler, but desirous of one, eager to give up ourselves
to His guidance, eager to get rid of our own fancies and conceits, and
to enter more into fellowship with all men. He will not allow us to be
satisfied with our advanced knowledge or great discoveries, but will
always be showing us things that _are coming_; giving us an
apprehension of truths that we have not yet reached, though they be
truths which are '_the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever_.'
That may not be the whole meaning of the words, '_things to come_;'
the phrase may intimate that foresight which is given to those who
study principles, meditating on the past, and believing in God. The
Spirit which our Lord promises is assuredly the Spirit who spoke by
the prophets of old, and has spoken by all His servants who have
humbled themselves, and sought light and wisdom from above. But these
two senses do not contradict each other; and the first is, I think,
more directly suggested by the context. It may also imply that the
Spirit, who does not speak of Himself, leads men away from that
incessant poring over the operations and experiences of their inner
life, which is unhealthy and morbid, to dwell upon the events which
are continually unfolding themselves in God's world under His
providence, and teaches them to expect the final issue of those events
in the complete manifestation and triumph of the Son of God.

The last meaning would connect the 13th verse with the 14th, '_He
shall glorify me_.' 'Whenever the Spirit of truth is working most
energetically in you, the effect will be that the glory of the
Deliverer and Head of man becomes more dear to you; that you proclaim
me more and more earnestly in that character.' '_For He, the
Comforter, shall take of mine, and shall shew it to you._' 'He shall,
in your hours of deepest gloom and despondency, reveal to you One who
is above yourselves, One in whom you may forget yourselves, One in
whom you may see all that perfection of your nature which it will
drive you to despair to seek in yourselves. Not, indeed, that you
could be satisfied with even this vision, if it were only the vision
of a Son of Man, of what is most glorious in humanity.' '_But all
things which the Father hath are mine._' 'All the glory of the Godhead
shines forth in the Manhood; all that original goodness and truth and
love which man is created to long for and to show forth.' '_Therefore,
said I, He shall take of mine and shall shew it to you._'

He has returned to the point from which He started. His going to the
Father has been the subject of His discourse ever since He met them in
the upper room at the feast. That has led Him to speak of the
Comforter who should tell them of His Father; afterwards of His own
eternal union to them, as the root of their fellowship, as the spring
of their life; then again of the Comforter who should teach them of
both Him and the Father, who should make them witnesses of their
eternal unity to men. It is no break in the discourse when He adds,
'_A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while,
and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father_.' The words which we
translate '_see_' in the two clauses, are different. I do not know
that I can discern the shades of their meaning; but I am sure that
there is a reason for the variation, and that it should not be
overlooked. The word θεωρεῖτε may, perhaps, intimate that for a time
they would lose all perception of Him, even an intellectual
perception; the word ὄψεσθε, that they should see Him again with the
eyes of the body as well as of the mind, may have cheered the
disciples afterwards; at present it added to their confusion. '_Then
said some of His disciples among themselves, What is this that He
saith unto us, A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a
little while, and ye shall see me: and, Because I go to the Father?
They said therefore, What is this that He saith, A little while? we
cannot tell what He saith._' They are like men awakening out of a
dream, full of troubles and of joys mixed strangely together. He was
departing from the earth; He was going to the Father; He was to
prepare a place for them. What did it all mean? They thought He was
about to tell them; these words '_a little while_' seem to throw them
back into more than their old perplexity.

'_Now Jesus knew that they were desirous to ask Him, and said unto
them, Do ye inquire among yourselves of that I said, A little while,
and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see
me?_' He knew that they were desirous to ask Him, because He had
taught them to ask. The processes of their minds were under His
guidance, as well as the issues of the processes. He determined
nothing for them till He had led them to feel after it. So their
conversations have become lesson-books for all ages; not resolutions
of doubts by peremptory decisions, but histories of transactions in
the hearts of men like ourselves, whom the Divine Word chose as
instances of the method by which He educates us. And the sentences
which follow show us something more of this method, and make us
understand how little even the most celestial food can nourish us if
it is taken in without being digested.

'_Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but
the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow
shall be turned into joy. A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow,
because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the
child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born
into the world. And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you
again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from
you._'

Their thoughts of the '_little while_' had been half sad, half
frivolous. They supposed that He could at once tell them what He meant
by telling them how long He would be absent, and in what place and
under what circumstances He would meet them again. He presents the
subject in an altogether different light; for He tells them that the
little while in which He shall be hidden from them will be an hour of
travail and of death, and that the little while of His reappearance
will be the hour of the birth of a man into the world. We feel at once
that these cannot be metaphors; that if the death of Christ is
anything, and the resurrection of Christ is anything, this must be
_the_ language, the most exact and living which Christ Himself could
speak, or we could hear, to determine the signification of them. Here,
as throughout the conversation, our Lord connects the world with His
disciples, and at the same time contrasts the one with the other. They
will mourn that they have lost a friend; the world will rejoice that
it has got rid of an enemy. But their ultimate joy must be that a MAN,
_the_ Man for whom the world has been waiting so long, has been born
into it. They can have no joy for themselves which is not a joy for
mankind, which is not a thanksgiving for its victory. '_And ye now
therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart
shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you._' They should see
Him returning the Conqueror of death, the Conqueror of man's enemy;
that should be a joy not dependent upon the sight of their eyes, not
dependent upon His visible continuance with them; it should be a joy
of the heart, and it should be a joy which no man could take from
them. Their own weakness, or sin, or death, could not, for this joy
would raise them above themselves; this would give them an inheritance
in One in whom was no sin or ignorance, and over whom death had no
power. The unbelief of others could not, for the fact of His triumph
would remain the same whether men confessed it or no.

He goes on: '_And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily,
I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, He will
give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye
shall receive, that your joy may be full._' This was the secret,
half-understood cause of their grief, as it is one cause of the grief
of all who are about to lose a friend. We can go to him no more; we
can tell him of no more difficulties; we can ask him no more
questions. 'But in that day,' He says, 'when you shall see me
again,--in that day of full, satisfying joy,--you will not feel this
want; you will not be longing to ask that which only concerns
yourselves; you will feel yourselves bound together in my name, a
family of brothers in an Elder Brother. The vision of a Father will
open clearly upon you; and verily whatever you ask Him in my name,--in
the name of Him who binds you to one another, and binds you all to the
Father of heaven and earth,--He will give it you. For you will desire
that which He desires, that which I have died and risen again to work
out, the glory of His name, the coming of His kingdom, the doing of
His will. Hitherto you have not entered into this joy. Your thoughts
have been narrow, weak, limited to yourselves. When you pray to the
Father in my name, when you enter into communion with Him, your joy
will be full; you will attain the highest blessedness of which man is
capable.'

'_These things_,' He continues, '_have I spoken unto you in proverbs:
but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs,
but I shall shew you plainly of the Father. At that day ye shall ask
in my name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for
you: for the Father Himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and
have believed that I came out from God. I came forth from the Father,
and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the
Father._'

This is the climax of His discourse, one may say of all human
discourse; though prayer, as I think we shall find in the next
chapter, may take us into a higher region still. He has been speaking
to them in symbols, proverbs, parables. He has been showing them how
all nature, how human transactions, how their own lives, all implied a
kingdom of heaven, were ladders upon which angels were ascending and
descending. The ladder would not be thrown down; parables and proverbs
would remain everlastingly true. But now His voice could be heard who
was at the top of the ladder. The Father, who had been declared
through all subordinate relations, would Himself be revealed. And
though all prayers are ascending up to Him, yet His love would be
discovered as itself the fountain of them all. Even the Son, the great
Intercessor, will not say to them that He will pray for them, if they
take prayer to mean anything which is to alter the Father's purpose,
or augment His love. For of His will His own words are the utterance
and expression. He came forth from the Father, and is come into the
world. He is going back to the Father to unite the world to Him.

'_His disciples said unto Him, Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and
speakest no proverb. Now are we sure that thou knowest all things, and
needest not that any man should ask thee: by this we believe that thou
camest forth from God._' It seemed to the disciples as if all clouds
were now scattered. They thought the Man was already born into the
world. Alas! it was in their own faith they were still in part
believing, not in Him. The travail-hour must be passed through by them
as by us; that which would scatter all trust in themselves, that which
would leave them only God to trust in. '_Jesus answered them, Do ye
now believe? Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, in which ye
shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone._'
Their hour of weakness was at hand. It would be also His. They would
be deserted, and He would be deserted. And yet He adds, '_I am not
alone, because the Father is with me_.' 'Your faith will perish. Even
I shall cry, "_My God, why hast thou forsaken me?_" And yet that
eternal union which I have been declaring to you, which I have come
into the world to manifest, will be unshaken. This desertion will make
it manifest. And because that is unshaken, your union with me will be
unshaken also. Nothing which I have said to you will prove untrue.
"_These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might have
peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation_,"--that world which
surrounds you, and in the evils and faithlessness of which you share.
"_But be of good cheer; I have overcome the world._" Its wars and
divisions and hatreds have not vanquished me; I have vanquished them.
Not the king whom the world has chosen for itself, but the Son whom
the Father has set over it, shall reign in it for ever and ever.'




DISCOURSE XXVI.

THE PRAYER OF THE HIGH PRIEST.

[Lincoln's Inn, 10th Sunday after Trinity (Afternoon), July 27, 1856.]

ST. JOHN XVII. 1.

     _These words spake Jesus, and lifted up His eyes to heaven,
     and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that
     thy Son also may glorify thee._


The more we enter into our Lord's teaching, the more profound is our
apprehension of the dignity, the awfulness, the divinity of words; the
more we confess their insufficiency. If He who was in the beginning
with God is the Word, if words have been the expression of His mind,
they awaken those thoughts in our minds which they are intended to
clothe. But if the Word has spoken of Himself as a Son; if He has said
that He has come from a Father; if He has promised a Comforter, He has
taken us out of the region of words into the heart of the realities
which they represent. It is the Son Himself who reveals the Father:
what could words effect without His Person? The Father Himself, He has
said, draws us to the Son: words would be spoken in vain if there were
not that wonderful and loving attraction upon the hearts of the
creatures whom He has formed in the image of the Son. The Spirit's
work is to produce that inward conviction which words cannot produce,
to act upon the man himself, to bind those into fellowship whom the
diversities of speech and custom have made unintelligible to each
other, to testify to men of the Father and the Son, as the ground of
all speech, thought, and being. But here, as throughout this Gospel,
the deepest revelation is the commonest and simplest. As we enter into
the region of the divine relations, of divine communion, all must
tremble; none are forbidden to approach. Intellectual differences
disappear; here every spirit may find its home.

We sometimes ask ourselves, as we read the prayer in this chapter--and
it is good that we should ask ourselves--'Is this the model of our
prayer? Is Christ giving us an example here that we should follow in
His steps? Or does it stand awfully alone, separated from every other
that ever has been or can be offered; one which we are to wonder at
the more, because so vast a chasm separates it from all our acts and
efforts of devotion?' I believe that if we have _not_ understood the
acts and discourses on the Paschal night, there can be but one answer
to this question. 'The Son of God praying to His Father the night
before His Passion,--how entirely isolated,' we should say, 'must such
intercourse be from all that ever has been, from all that can be
conceived of! What blasphemy to connect it, even in thought, with the
petitions of those who have little to do but to confess their sins,
and supplicate forgiveness!' But if we have studied these chapters; if
we have learnt that when the disciples saw Christ they saw the Father;
if we have understood that He is the Vine, and they the branches; if
we have known what He meant when He told them that they were to ask in
His name, that their joy might be full; if we have observed how He
distinguishes the disciples from the world, and yet how He teaches
them that everything they do is to be done for the world, and as a
witness of God's love to the world; then, I think, we shall feel that
it is the greatest of all contradictions to suppose that this prayer
does not contain in itself the essence and meaning of all prayer, that
it is not the one which best expresses the wants and longings of every
man, that it is not the prayer of all the children of God, in all
places and in all ages, because it is the prayer of the only-begotten
Son of God.

'_These words spake Jesus, and lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said,
Father, the hour is come._' He had spoken to His disciples of an hour
of travail, which was to terminate in a new birth for them and for the
world. The world knew nothing of this hour; no one of its works or
pleasures was interrupted; that night was like every other night. The
disciples had a dull sense of present oppression, a vague presentiment
of approaching calamity. But they, as little as the world, felt what
the sorrow was, still less what joy they had to expect when it was
over. He knew it all. He knew inwardly that that was the hour to
fulfil the purpose for which He was come into the world. The life and
death of the world were gathered up into it. The feeling would have
been intolerable if it had been a solitary, separate one; but the
foresight of it had been given Him by His Father; the sense that the
hour was come was imparted by Him; His prayer was the acknowledgment
of that which had been revealed to Him, His filial acceptance of that
which had been prepared for Him. And surely, brethren, all prayer must
be this. It is the acknowledging of that, be it sad or joyful, which
has been given to us; it is the casting our experience upon Him who
has brought us into it, and who understands it, because without Him we
cannot go through it, or in the least understand it ourselves.

And this is the petition which is grounded upon that confession,
'_Glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee_.' Every prayer
that had been presented since the creation-day had been a prophecy of
this. When the Psalmist cried out of the depths, '_Lord, hear my
voice_;' when he said, '_Let not any be offended or confounded because
of me_;' when he confessed his sin, that God might be justified, and
_might be clear when He was judged_, he _seemed_ to say, 'Glorify
_me_, that I may glorify thee;' he _seemed_ to pray, 'Let _me_, David,
be brought out of my ignorance and darkness and sin, that thy name may
be honoured and not blasphemed.' He did _really_ pray, '_Glorify thy
Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee_!' He prayed that not he, but
that the Son of Man, might be raised and delivered and exalted, in
order that God's own image might be exalted, and might shine forth
upon men. When the Son of Man actually in His own person prayed this
prayer, He was expressing that which was latent and could not be
expressed in those earlier petitions; He was bringing them forth into
their full clearness and power; He was actually presenting them in His
own name to Him who had known and inspired the suppliant.

'_As thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give
eternal life to as many as thou hast given Him._' I do not think that
when we are occupied with the words of our Lord Himself, spoken in
prayer the night before His crucifixion, we have a right to alter them
in the slightest degree, for the sake of extracting from them what may
seem to us a more natural and obvious signification. I am quite aware
that our translators would have appeared to themselves and to many of
their readers to be using an uncouth and strange form of speech if
they had rendered the words literally, '_That all that which thou hast
given to Him, He may give to them life eternal_.' But I think they
were bound to encounter any apparent difficulty of construction,
rather than to incur the risk of contracting or perverting this sense.
It was not a time to ask themselves whether their understandings could
fully measure or take in the words. If they had faith in Him who spoke
them, they should have given them exactly, and left Him to interpret
them in His own time to those who had need of them. Christ says that
His Father has given Him power over all flesh. He speaks, again, of
all (_everything_) which His Father had given to Him. And then,
leaving the neuter, πᾶν, He uses the masculine plural, _them_,
αὔτοις, surely that He may denote the universality of the gift, as
well as the personality of those on whom it is bestowed. It seems to
me that we cannot afford to lose either of the truths which He thus
declares, because it requires a violation of the technicalities of
grammar, not of its essential laws, to utter them both. I suppose it
was only in prayer that even He could have united them; and possibly
it is only in prayer that we can apprehend them, so that they should
not clash with each other.

'_And this is the eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true
God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent._' If these words came upon
us for the first time, without any preparation, we should perhaps
think them very wonderful, but should either pass them over, or try to
reduce them under some notions or formulas of ours. But in this Gospel
we have been most carefully educated into an apprehension of their
force; they do not burst upon us suddenly, though they may be both
more full and more distinct than any with which we can compare them.
In the night dialogue with Nicodemus, by the well with the woman of
Samaria, in the synagogue at Capernaum after the feast of the five
loaves, in Jerusalem on the great day of the Feast of Tabernacles, we
have been hearing of a life which the Son of Man gives, a life of the
Spirit, a life which is not of yesterday or to-day, a life of
communion, a life of God. If what was said there was true, this must
be true; or rather, this is the truth which throws back a light upon
the words concerning the new life, and the '_water of life_,' and the
'_bread of life_.' This explains the assurance in man that he is born
to know that which is above himself, and his equally strong assurance
that he must be known before he can know. The only true God knows the
creature in all his wanderings and ignorance and falsehood, knows him
in that Son in whom He has created him. When he turns to that God of
truth, when he confesses Him and the Son, who is His image and the
Light of man, then comes the true life, the eternal life, which
Christ, who has power over all flesh, alone confers upon it.

'_I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which
thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine
own self with the glory which I had with thee before the worlds
were._' It is impossible to say anything which will not weaken the
force of these words. All I desire is to show you how they fulfil the
idea, which St. John has been presenting to us from the beginning of
his Gospel, of a Word who was with God and was God, of a Son who had
come forth from the Father to reveal His grace and truth to men, of a
Son who was returning to that Father as to His proper home. All is
consistent from first to last; all has been divine, and all human. No
clashing of the one with the other; but the human showing forth the
divine as the perfect light from which it has been derived; the human
leading on to the divine as that in which it is satisfied.

Hitherto this prayer has had no special reference to the disciples. He
has spoken of His power over all flesh, of eternal life, of the work
which He had accomplished. Now it turns to them: '_I have manifested
thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine
they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word_.' We
have traced the use of this language through the later discourses of
this Gospel, and have seen how entirely they are in harmony with the
commencement of it. The disciples are taken out of the narrow
exclusive sect-world by which they are surrounded, to be a family of
witnesses for the Father and the Son; witnesses of that love which the
world--and no part of it so much as the religious world in
Jerusalem--was by its acts, its words, its principles, repudiating. To
those Jesus had manifested the name of His Father. He had shown them
what He was, and that they belonged to Him. Amidst all their
confusions and errors, they had kept firm hold of this word. They had
yielded to Christ's guidance; believing, when they understood Him
least, that there was none else to whom they could go; that He had the
words of eternal life. And they had now learnt a deeper lore. They had
referred His calling and guidance to the Father. '_Now they have known
that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee. For I have
given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have
received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and
they have believed that thou didst send me._' This had been the design
of all His discipline. It had been working gradually upon them and in
them. But there had been still a clinging to Him as _their_ Master;
the vision of a Father had only just dawned upon them. Now in these
last discourses they had learnt the mystery of His relation and their
relation to the invisible world. Their belief might not be strong
enough to be proof against all storms, but it had taken root. Their
position was that of friends, not servants; they were waiting for the
Comforter to tell them fully of the Father; already they had the sense
of not being born of flesh, or of blood, or of the will of men, but of
God.

'_I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou
hast given me; for they are thine._' It is not because I wish in the
least to evade the force of these words as they stand in our version,
that I plead for a more exact rendering: '_I am asking concerning
them; not concerning the world do I ask, but concerning those whom
thou hast given me_.' I believe the impression left on many minds by
our use of the preposition _for_, is that Christ is indifferent to the
world, and only solicitous on behalf of a certain select circle. I do
not say that any one will quite put that thought into words. When he
sees it stated, he will shrink from it. Still it lurks in men's minds,
and it is very desirable to remove any prop, however feeble and
unimportant in itself, which may sustain it there. If any one says,
'But the force of the words lies not in this _for_, but in the
expression, "_whom thou hast given me_,"' I say at once that, so far
from wishing to make _that_ expression less strong, I would insist
upon it vehemently, as marking the distinction between a family which
stands in its calling by God, and a world which attempts to associate
on another ground than that calling, which chooses for itself. Christ
is here praying concerning those who are to be the lights of this dark
world, the salt of this corrupting earth; those who are to teach the
world, in Whom it is constituted, the earth, by Whom it has been
created and is kept alive.

'_They are thine. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am
glorified in them. And now I am no more in the world, but these are in
the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own
name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are._'
All that has been said in the Paschal discourses, concerning the unity
of the disciples with Him and His unity with the Father, concerning
the essential and eternal dependence of the human unity upon the
divine, is here translated into prayer. And yet, _translated_ is an
unsatisfactory word. It rather finds its only root and ground in
prayer. For what is prayer but that intercourse of the Father with the
Son, of the family with its Head, which this unity makes possible? And
what is the object and result of all prayer but this, that what is
true in the mind of God may be true in the actual condition of men;
all the hindrances which self-will has opposed to the divine Will
being finally and for ever taken away?

'_While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those
that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost but the son
of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled._' Here, no doubt,
is an unfathomable abyss; we cannot see down into it; to attempt it,
is to hazard the loss of our footing. One of those whom the Father has
given to Christ (so the passage seems to say, and we cannot alter the
terms of it to fit our fancies or wishes) perishes in his own
selfishness and sin. Jesus says so. He says that that which had been
written of old had come to pass; curses had come upon the man who
loved cursing; he who had chosen death had been left to die. It is
terrible to think of. But how infinitely more terrible would this
fact, and all the facts that are daily occurring in the world's
history, be, if they were not associated with the gift of eternal
life, with the cry of the Son to the Holy Father on behalf of all whom
He has given Him! What the heights and depths of that prayer are, none
of us can know. It is enough to know who spoke and who heard, what
love is above all and beneath all, how that love has been manifested
and accomplished on this earth of ours. To dwell in it must be eternal
life; to be separated from it must be eternal death.

'_And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that
they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them thy
word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the
world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest
take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the
evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world._' The
idea of men living as children of God, members of Christ's body,
inheritors of the kingdom of heaven, with a world and a flesh and an
evil spirit striving against them which they can renounce and can
overcome, is not one which is strange to any of us. It is only too
familiar. We know the sounds so well, and we have repeated them so
often and so idly, that the words have lost their significance; we
think they are words of art, or words of course. Here we have the
beginning and ground of them. Throughout, St. John has been speaking
of a race born, not of flesh, nor of blood, nor of the will of men,
but of God. Christ here declares that He has founded such a race upon
the earth. He prays His Father to keep it in the world, not to take it
out of the world; to keep it by His word, His quickening, uniting
word, which a world that is divided and is seeking death must hate; to
keep it in the confession of Him who is not of the world, but is the
Son of God; to keep it from that evil spirit who would make it
selfish, divided, hating, and therefore the worst portion of the world
against which it is to bear witness.

'_Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. As thou hast
sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.
And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be
sanctified through the truth._' Surely, brethren, there are no words
that we need to meditate on more than these: for it cannot be denied
that sanctity and truth have become strangely separated among those
who call themselves by Christ's name. Oftentimes it would seem as if
holiness were pursued to the utter denial and dereliction of truth;
nay, as if it courted an alliance with falsehood. Oftentimes, again,
it would seem as if men who desired truth and pursued it, regarded it
as a dead and abstract thing, which has no affinity with the life of
man, which has no effect in making him purer or better. Nevertheless,
the voice has ascended on high, 'Make them holy by truth,' for truth
only can make holy. Whatever is contrary to it or mixed with
falsehood, must defile and make base. And the prayer has been heard,
and will be answered completely at last; for the Son of God, who is
the way, and the truth, and the life, took our flesh upon Him, and met
falsehood in all the forms in which it presents itself in this world,
and sanctified Himself, and kept Himself from all contact with it,
only by the might and energy of truth, only by submitting in all
things to His Father, who is the God of truth. And these temptations
He underwent, and this battle He fought, for the sake of His
disciples, that they also might be sanctified by truth and truth only,
that it might be an armour to them on the right hand and on the left,
that they might live for it, and die for it.

In this second part of the prayer, all has had direct reference to the
disciples who surrounded Him, whatever ultimate reference it might
have to the remotest corner of the universe. But in the third part of
it, He says expressly: '_Neither pray I for these alone, but for them
also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may
be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may
be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And
the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be
one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be
made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent
me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me._' Here is a prayer for
the whole state of Christ's Church militant here on earth from age to
age; a prayer offered by the Head of that Church to His Father,
offered on the night before His sacrifice was to be perfected; a
prayer grounded not upon some wish or high aspiration hard to be
realized, but, as He has just said, upon truth, upon the eternal truth
that the Father is in Him and He in the Father, and that He is the
Head of all men and that all live by Him. This glory, He says, He has
given not to those eleven who were sitting about Him then, but to all
everywhere who should believe in Him through their words. He has put
this glory upon them; He has given them the name of Himself, and of
His Father, and of the Holy Spirit the Comforter, to be _their_ name,
that they might dwell in it and abide in it. And He prays for them,
that they may not choose to be divided when He has made them one, that
they may not make themselves the curses of the world by sharing in all
its envies and hatreds, and by pleading God's name as the excuse for
them, when He has sent them into the world to be the witnesses that
His own Son has declared His love to it, and has gone forth from Him
to bring it into the circle of His love.

He began by saying, that eternal life was to know the only true God
and His Son Jesus Christ; He ends with saying, that this is the glory
which all are created to seek after, and which He has taken flesh that
they may attain and possess with Him. '_Father, I will that they also,
whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold
my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the
foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world hath not known
thee_' (has not known thy righteousness, but has supposed thee to be
altogether unrighteous like itself; has not known thee by that name of
Father, but has taken thee to be hard-hearted and grudging like
itself): '_but I have known thee_,' (known thee as the image of thy
righteousness, known thee as thy Son,) '_and these have known that
thou hast sent me_.' These have seen thy light shining forth through
me. These have beheld my glory as the glory of an only-begotten Son,
full of grace and truth. '_And I have declared unto them thy name, and
will declare it_' (to the end of all things): '_that the love
wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them_.'




DISCOURSE XXVII.

THE PASSION.

[Lincoln's Inn, 11th Sunday after Trinity (Morning), August 3, 1856.]

ST. JOHN XIX. 37.

_And again another scripture saith, They shall look on him whom they
have pierced._


In our services for the earlier days of Passion Week we read carefully
and at length the narratives of the first three Evangelists. The
narrative of St. John is reserved for Good Friday.

There is great wisdom, I think, as well as courage in this course. The
diversities in these narratives, instead of being concealed from us,
are forced upon our notice; we are taught that we shall gain insight
into the whole purpose of the writers of the Gospels, of God Himself,
by considering them. We are taught, at the same time, that it is here
we are to look for the unity of the Gospels; that all the lines in
them have been tending to this point; that we must learn what they
signify at the Cross itself. The special honour which is given to St.
John may have been suggested by the name of 'beloved disciple.' But it
has, I think, a higher justification. St. John's Gospel takes us into
the very heart of the Good Friday mystery. The passages in his
narrative of the Passion, which do not occur in the other Gospels,
throw back a light upon them, while they explain the special end for
which he wrote. But they do much more. They show us why the death of
Christ has been, and must be, the centre of the Gospel concerning Him;
why all His discourses, nay, even that prayer I was trying to speak of
last Sunday, would be worthless and unmeaning without it. How we
should tremble to overlay the record of it with our words! How careful
the Evangelists are that we should not be hindered from seeing the
facts, and the Person, even by listening to their words! I shall
attempt little more this morning than to seize those points of the
narrative contained in the 18th and 19th chapters of St. John, which
are different from the narratives in St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St.
Luke. But, that we may feel the force of these differences, it is
necessary to say a word respecting their essential agreement.

This agreement is negative as well as positive. In contemplating the
passion of our Lord, one class of devout persons have encouraged a
sentimental habit of mind. They have dwelt upon the seven wounds, upon
the crown of thorns, upon the circumstances either of mental or bodily
anguish which seem to separate this Divine death from every other. A
second class has meditated less upon the suffering and upon the Person
of the Sufferer; much more upon the effects which the suffering would
produce either upon men or upon God I do not condemn these courses;
none can tell what good for life or for death may have been extracted
from either. I only say, that the method in the four Gospels is
equally different from both; and seeing that those who have chosen the
one or the other acknowledge the authority of Scripture as paramount
and divine, I cannot offend them if I add that the Gospel method is
simpler, deeper, and more reverent than theirs, and that probably any
blessing which they have divided between them will be ultimately
possessed in fulness by those who follow it.

In trying to discover what this method is, the reader is likely to be
struck with the importance which all the Evangelists attach to the
arraignment of Christ before Caiaphas and before Pontius Pilate.
Perhaps, if they were honest with themselves, they would confess that
they have been surprised at finding so much said upon this part of the
subject, so little comparatively of the crucifixion itself. But the
more we reflect, the more clearly we shall perceive that in this,
which seems to them the legal portion of the history, the ground is
laid for that part of it which is most transcendent and divine, and
also which is nearest to the sympathies of all human beings. The
charge before the Sanhedrim was, that Jesus claimed to be the Son of
God; the charge before the Roman governor was, that Jesus claimed to
be a king. To set Him forth in that double character, as the Witness
of the Father whom Jewish rulers were denying, as the true human King
whose power the absolute emperor was counterfeiting and
usurping,--this was the business of the Evangelists in their records
of all Christ's discourses and acts. And it was this which gave the
significance to His death. It was _the_ divine death and _the_ human
death, the death which manifested the mind and will of the Father; it
was the death in which all men were to see their own. In this respect
St. John does not in the least differ from his predecessors. It was
certainly not _less_ his purpose than theirs to exhibit the Son of God
and the Son of Man. What was spoken against Jesus, and what He spoke
before Caiaphas and before Pilate, could not therefore be passed over
or dwelt upon with less emphasis in the fourth Gospel than in the
other three. It must be dwelt on with more emphasis. He can tell us
nothing of Calvary till he has made us understand Who was brought
there, and why He was brought.

And as in this main characteristic of the other Evangelists St. John
resembles them, so also he follows them in all the chief incidents
which they record. The night scene when He is apprehended by Judas and
the band of officers from the chief priests; St. Peter's attempt to
defend Him by cutting off the ear of Malchus; St. Peter's denial; the
cry of the multitude for Barabbas; the purple robe and the crown of
thorns; Pilate's efforts to release Him; the inscription on the cross;
and the burial in the tomb of Joseph; are told as carefully in St.
John as if no previous narratives of them had been known in the
Church.

Yet under each of these heads points are brought out by St. John to
which there is nothing corresponding in the earlier Evangelists, and
which one feels instinctively would have been out of place in them.
The first is this in the story of the apprehension: '_Jesus therefore,
knowing all things that should come upon Him, went forth, and said
unto them, Whom seek ye? They answered Him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus
saith unto them, I am He. And Judas also, which betrayed Him, stood
with them. As soon then as He had said unto them, I am He, they went
backward, and fell to the ground. Then asked He them again, Whom seek
ye? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus answered, I have told you
that I am He: if therefore ye seek me, let these go their way: that
the saying might be fulfilled, which He spake, Of them which thou
gavest me have I lost none._'

The last quotation is taken from the prayer which St. John alone has
given us. But I think the words, '_I am_' which made the officers
stagger as they drew near with their torches in the dark night to the
Nazarene prophet, have also their interpretation in previous words
which belong exclusively to this Gospel. We are told in the 8th
chapter that the Jews in the Temple took up stones to cast at Jesus,
because He appeared to them to be claiming the words spoken in the
bush as if they were spoken of Him. Was there not a recollection of
those words as He stood before them now? Did not the clear light of
righteousness and truth in His face carry them home to the conscience
of the officers, and make them feel for a moment that One was using
them who had a right to use them, One to whom they owed homage?

The struggle was soon over; they had been sent to do a work, and they
went through it. Then came that other sentence, '_Let these go their
way_,' which fulfilled, St. John says, the words, '_Of them which thou
gavest me have I lost none_.' What! we say to ourselves, Were not
those words spoken for all time? Did not they refer to a deliverance
from ultimate perdition? Could they be accomplished in the deliverance
of the eleven Apostles from the immediate peril of being apprehended
with their Lord? I answer, the more we become acquainted with the
letter and with the spirit of St. John's narrative, the more we
understand that he regards every act done by our Lord, to effect ever
so temporary a redemption, for ever so small a body, or so
insignificant an individual, as a sign of what He is, of the work in
which He is always engaged, of the blessing which He has wrought out
and designs for the universe. If we do not like to take this as a sign
that the words of that prayer were uttered on earth and accomplished
in heaven, we may form what sublime notions we will about Christ's
redemption, but they will be notions only; they will not belong to
reality; at best they will point to some good which we expect for
ourselves; they will not glorify Him from whom all good comes.

The incident of Peter smiting the high-priest's servant follows
immediately upon this sentence. The sequence is, I think, significant.
The Apostle begins to defend his Master; he does not know that his
Master is defending him. Of His disciples He loses none; but '_the cup
which His Father has given Him, He must drink_.' Then the vigorous
champion is chilled. He must warm himself at the fire, for it is cold,
while his Master is in the hall before the high-priest; the faces of
maid-servants terrify him; he forgets that he was in the garden with
Christ; he forgets his own violence; and the cock crows. The story is
told with peculiar vividness by St. John, but it is the same in
substance with that which the Hebrew Matthew told of the Apostle of
the Hebrews; which Mark told of his own kinsman and master, writing
perhaps from his dictation.

But the answer of Jesus to the high-priest is found only in St. John.
'_I spake openly to the world; I ever taught in the synagogue, and in
the temple, whither the Jews always resort, and in secret have I said
nothing. Why askest thou me? Ask them which heard me, what I have said
unto them: behold, they know what I said._' I do not quote these words
only or chiefly because they show that He who when He was reviled
reviled not again, could answer in a way which the bystanders thought
offensive to the dignity of the high-priest; so justifying words that
have been pronounced unseemly in many of his followers, when they
have been brought before priests and rulers; nor because they show how
easily affected reverence for an administrator of the law may be
joined with an outrage upon the law itself. I quote them much more
because they occur in that Evangelist, who has been suspected of
revealing a secret lore which Christ had kept back from those who
heard Him in the synagogue and in the Temple. That inference has been
grounded upon those Paschal discourses which I have been considering
lately; discourses especially designed to prepare the disciples for
delivering a message to the world; discourses of which the main
characteristic is, that they contain the promise of a Comforter who
should deliver them from their narrowness, and who should convince the
world. But here is a testimony, coming after those discourses, from
the lips of Christ himself, that He had no esoteric lore, that His
doctrine may be learnt from that which He spoke openly, and that His
disciples are teaching another doctrine than His, if theirs is not one
which can be proclaimed as good news to the universe.

It is St. John who tells us that the Jews did not '_go into the
judgment-hall lest they should be defiled, that they might eat the
passover_.' This most characteristic trait of a religious and godless
nation ever put upon record, should be thought of by each of us in
silence and awe, since every age has brought some terrible repetitions
of it. What cautions have not inquisitors taken lest they should be
defiled! what care have they not used to prepare themselves for
feasts, at which their hands were to be dipped deep in blood for the
honour of their god! They never fancied that they were copying the
Pharisees of Jerusalem. We wrap ourselves in our Protestantism, and
think we are quite secure that we shall not follow them. Alas! there
is our peril! to dream that there is one evil tendency in Jews or in
Romanists which is not in us, that there is one crime of theirs which
we may not commit!

It is from St. John that we learn that Pilate would have wished the
people to take Jesus, and judge Him according to their own law; and
that they, acting in the spirit of the advice of Caiaphas, waived the
privilege which perhaps they might have asserted, that He might die
the Roman death of the cross, and perish as a traitor against the
Cæsar. And it is St. John who gives us that dialogue in Pilate's hall,
of which we are only beginning, after eighteen hundred years, to spell
out the sense, though during all those eighteen hundred years the
sense has been declaring itself in wonderful ways. '_Then Pilate
entered into the judgment-hall again, and called Jesus, and said unto
Him, Art thou the King of the Jews? Jesus answered him, Sayest thou
this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me? Pilate
answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have
delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done? Jesus answered, My
kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then
would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews:
but now is my kingdom not from hence. Pilate therefore said unto Him,
Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To
this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I
should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth
heareth my voice. Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he
had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I
find in him no fault at all._'

The other Evangelists have spoken to us of a kingdom of heaven, a
kingdom the nature of which might be explained by parables of nature,
the powers of which were manifested in acts of healing and blessing to
men. It was a kingdom in the strictest sense, a kingdom set up on
earth to rule over the earth. But it was not of this world. Its
capacity of blessing men arose from its not being created by them, or
dependent upon them. It was God's kingdom, therefore it was as unlike
as possible to the tyrannies by which the world had tormented itself.
St. John had gone in his Gospel to the root of this doctrine. He had
spoken of a Word by whom the world is created, who is the Source of
its life, though it knows Him not. He had spoken of this Word as the
Light of men. He had shown how the Word, being made flesh, proved
Himself by all His acts and discourses to be the same who had taught
the hearts and consciences of men in all ages. He had spoken of this
Word as setting forth the Father from whom He came. He had said that
in manifesting Him, he manifested the truth which would make men free.

In this dialogue all these lessons are gathered up. Jesus will not
tell Pilate that He is _not_ a king, for that would be to contradict
all His preaching and all His acts; He will not tell him that He _is_
a king, for how could a poor official and slave of Roman absolutism
understand Him? But He says: '_For this cause was I born, and for this
cause came I into the world, that I might bear witness_ (to Jews, to
Romans, to thee) of the truth. And I know that those who seek truth
and love truth will hear my voice.' This was that 'good confession'
which he witnessed before Pontius Pilate, the ground and pattern of
all confessions that were to be borne afterwards in the world; all
these deriving their virtue from this, all being witnesses of a
kingdom which is not of the world, but overcomes the world; all being
true because He is the truth.

I have said already that Jesus is represented in all the Gospels as
wearing the purple robe and the crown of thorns. But the words of
Pilate, when he brought Him forth with these signs of royalty,
'_Behold the Man!_' occur only in St. John. The answer of the chief
priests and of the officers was, '_Crucify Him, crucify Him._' Pilate
said, '_Take ye Him, and crucify Him: for I find no fault in Him. The
Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law He ought to die,
because He made Himself the Son of God_.' These words, like so many of
which he speaks in his Gospel, may have fallen lightly upon St. John's
ears at first; but after that '_Jesus was risen from the dead, then
would he have remembered what things were spoken of Him, and what
things were done unto Him_.' Then will the sentence, '_Behold the
Man_,' have seemed to him the most wonderful inspiration which an evil
ruler, who spoke not of himself, was ever visited with. Then the cry,
'_Crucify Him_,' will indeed have meant, 'Crucify _the_ Man, the Son
of Man, the Representative of Humanity.' Then the attempt of the chief
priests to sustain their charge of treason against Rome when that was
failing, with the charge which Pilate could not understand, and which
therefore made him the more afraid, of treason against God, will have
appeared to him a startling testimony that they could not crucify the
Son of Man without crucifying the Son of God.

What follows belongs only to St. John. '_Pilate went again into the
judgment-hall, and saith unto Jesus, Whence art thou? But Jesus gave
him no answer._' Pilate may have had a misgiving that he and the
prisoner were not in their right relations to each other. There was
something in the criminal which judged Him. He shook off the feeling,
as most would have done, by boasting of his superiority. '_Speakest
thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee,
and have power to release thee?_' No doubt he watched the countenance
of Jesus, to see if such words did not make Him quail. The calm answer
came: '_Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were
given thee from above; therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath
the greater sin_.' He did not dispute the authority of the governor or
of the empire. It was God-given authority. They believed it was their
own. He told them whence it was derived. The heavier sin lay with
those who boasted that they were chosen by the righteous God, and who
sought the aid of the rulers of the world to put down Right. Pilate
was convinced that Jesus was not a rebel, whatever his words about a
kingdom might mean. '_From thenceforth he sought to release Him: but
the Jews cried out, If thou let this man go, thou art not Cæsar's
friend. He that maketh himself a king, speaketh against Cæsar._' The
governor had too much Roman sense not to see through this petty
sacerdotal artifice, this affected reverence for a ruler whom, as
Jews, they hated. '_When he heard that saying_,' probably to indulge
his scorn of men who were driving him into an act that he disliked;
perhaps--though I think there is over-refinement in attributing that
motive to him--because he fancied he should have the people on his
side against the priests--'_He brought Jesus forth, and sat down in
the judgment-seat, in a place that is called the Pavement, but in the
Hebrew, Gabbatha. And it was the preparation of the Passover, and
about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King!
But they cried out. Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him!
Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief
priests answered, We have no king but Cæsar._'

If Pilate had had a deliberate scheme of policy to extract from a
turbulent province a solemn recantation of the faith which had kept
alive its national existence from age to age, he could not have
effected his purpose more perfectly than he did by this proceeding.
For an unusual crowd must have been assembled; it was the feast which
celebrated the deliverance of the land from a foreign tyrant, and its
allegiance to an invisible king. There and then the rulers of the land
severed all ties except those which bound them as servants to the
emperors. If Pilate had been (as indeed he was) a prophet of God, he
could not have proclaimed more solemnly and awfully that the Jewish
people were thenceforth ineffectual for any moral purpose, as
witnesses against human tyranny or human idolatry, and that there is
no real alternative for any people between the acknowledgment of _the_
Man as King and the worship of a military tyrant or Man-God. This,
therefore, is the crisis in the history of that day and of the world.
'_Then delivered he Him therefore unto them to be crucified. And they
took Jesus and led Him away._'

All the Evangelists speak of the title on the cross. St. John dwells
upon it with great emphasis: '_And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on
the cross. And the writing was, Jesus of Nazareth the King of the
Jews. This title then read many of the Jews: for the place where Jesus
was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew, and
Greek, and Latin. Then said the chief priests of the Jews to Pilate,
Write not, The King of the Jews; but that He said, I am King of the
Jews. Pilate answered, What I have written I have written._'

If we have understood the meaning of this Gospel, we shall feel the
emphasis of the words, '_What I have written, I have written_.' The
Jews had declared, '_We have no king but Cæsar_.' But they cannot
prevent the servant of Cæsar from declaring, in bitter mockery, to all
men who could read Hebrew, or Greek, or Latin, 'This Man, whom they
have forced me to put to death as an evil-doer, is their King. Look
up, and see what kind of a king they have.' The insult was felt by
them; they must bear it. And that Hebrew nation has said by the
prophets and apostles whom it has sent forth, has said by all who have
believed through their word, has said in their own tongue, has said in
Greek and in Latin to the nations which Alexander vanquished and
civilized, to the new world of the West which Julius Cæsar reclaimed
from chaos, 'Our King is your King; to this malefactor you must bow
down; by this sign you must conquer, or be conquered.'

'_Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took His garments,
and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also His coat: now
the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. They said
therefore among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it,
whose it shall be: that the Scripture might be fulfilled, which saith,
They parted my raiment among them, and for my vesture they did cast
lots. These things therefore the soldiers did._' Do you ask how St.
John could speak of that act of the soldiers whilst Jesus was hanging
there? Do you ask how he could dwell upon fulfilments of the Scripture
at such a time? Think a moment! Would anything give you the same
impression of horror, if you were standing by an ordinary deathbed, as
the sight of men contending for the raiment and goods of him who was
leaving them? Is there anything so horrible as the thought how much
death is regarded as only an event which gives the survivors a right
to appropriate the things which the man has no more use for? If we had
not been told that it was so when the Prince of the whole earth was
dying, how much less we should know of the indifference which it is
possible for human beings to feel! How much less we shall know of what
He had to bear! '_These things therefore the soldiers did_,' in the
sight of the Cross, under the eye of the Son of God. We might in their
place have done the same; there was nothing in the mere sight of the
suffering to prevent it. '_They parted my raiment among them; for my
vesture did they cast lots._' Thus a man of the old world, dying in
desertion and darkness, expressed a part of his suffering, not a less
intense part of it than the dryness of the '_throat with thirst, than
the melting of the heart like wax_.' And that suffering was all
_fulfilled_, all raised to its most intense point in Him who gave
Himself for all, that all might be brought within the power of a love
which they seemed utterly incapable of perceiving. I am sure there is
immeasurably more in these words than I can enter into or dream of;
but I dare not leave realities for metaphors at such a time. It may be
lawful to speak of the divisions in Christ's Church as the rending of
His seamless robe; they are that, and much more than that; they are
the rending of His body and of His heart. But they are too awful, and
the Cross is too awful, to permit plays of the fancy. Let us ask God
to keep us from them, that we may have some faint perception of the
truth of His grief, as He entered into the inmost experience of ours.

'_Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother's
sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus
therefore saw His mother, and the disciple standing by, whom He loved,
He saith unto His mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then saith He to the
disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her
unto his own home. After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now
accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst.
Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a spunge
with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to His mouth. When
Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, He said, It is finished: and
He bowed His head, and gave up the ghost._'

This is all which St. John tells us of the Cross, and of the words
that were spoken upon it. We may think it little; but it has been
found enough for tens of thousands of men and women dying on their
beds, by the sword, at the stake. When they have doubted, and have
even been led by religious teachers to doubt, whether human affections
did not belong to frail and sinful mortality, the words, '_Woman,
behold thy son: son, behold thy mother_,' coming from the Divine lips,
have testified to them that selfishness only is accursed, that all
which belongs to love is imperishable. When they have felt the
intensity of bodily pain, and have felt how little they could obey the
dreary command to think of their souls; the cry, '_I thirst_,' has
bound them to Him who knew the fulness of their sorrow, who entered
into the wants, not of souls, but of men. And when all sight of the
future has been shut out, and there has been in their minds only the
sense of evil triumphant and exulting, a voice which no clamour could
drown has said to them, '_It is finished_.' 'The battle is fought; the
victory is won. A little while, and the hosts which look so mighty
now, shall be seen no more for ever.'

'_The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies
should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath-day, (for that
Sabbath-day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be
broken, and that they might be taken away. Then came the soldiers, and
brake the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with
Him. But when they came to Jesus, and saw that He was dead already,
they brake not His legs: but one of the soldiers with a spear pierced
His side, and forthwith came there out blood and water. And he that
saw it bare record, and his record is true: and He knoweth that he
saith true, that ye might believe._'

That some in St. John's day had begun to deny that Jesus Christ was
come in the flesh, nay, that he regarded this denial as _the_
anti-Christian doctrine, we know from his Epistle. His Gospel is the
answer to this denial, because it begins from the divine ground, and
shows how impossible it is to maintain that ground, unless we believe
in the Word made flesh. He that saw the water and the blood then bare
record of the fact, the import of which concerned the life of the
Church and of every man. If we look at the subject from this point of
view, we are not obliged to decide whether St. John spoke of the water
and the blood in a common sense, as a point of evidence, or in a
sacramental sense, as involving a high mystery. The common sense _is_
the sacramental sense; the evidence of Christ's actual relation to our
nature is the assurance that He cleanses it of its defilement, that He
endues it with a new and higher life. What more is conveyed by this
sign, or, rather, what a force it gives to the whole history of the
crucifixion, St. John himself must tell us.

'_For these things were done, that the Scripture should be fulfilled,
A bone of Him shall not be broken. And again another Scripture saith,
They shall look on Him whom they pierced._'

To understand the fulfilments of Scripture of which the Apostle
speaks, by merely fitting the words which he quotes to some fact, I
believe to be impossible. There is a fact always answering to the
words; but its import, its connexion with the life of our Lord and the
life of man, must be ascertained by meditating on the context: that
context being found, not always in the letters of a book, but quite as
often in a portion of history, or in an institution and the purposes
for which it existed. Here is a type instance. The words, '_A bone
shall not be broken_,' are brought to the Apostle's mind by seeing
that the usual custom of breaking the legs of crucified malefactors
was not followed in the case of our Lord. But those words recalled to
him and to his countrymen the feast of the Passover, and all that is
declared respecting it in the 12th chapter of Exodus. The fulfilment,
then, of these words was the fulfilment of the whole Passover service;
the translation of the national deliverance which it spoke of into a
complete and universal deliverance; the substitution of the Lamb of
God that taketh away the sin of the world, for the lamb whose blood
was sprinkled upon the door-posts of the houses that the angel of
death might not touch them.

The other quotation is even more remarkable; it is taken from the 12th
chapter of Zechariah. '_And I will pour upon the house of David, and
upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of
supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and
they shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth for his only son, and
shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his
first-born._'

One fulfilment of Scripture at the Cross was in the rending of the
vesture by the soldiers, and in the mockery of the priests. The last,
representing the inward hatred of the Jewish nation, is more fearful
than the mere recklessness of the heathen officials. How utterly
overwhelming it would have been to the Apostle, if he could have
supposed that either the recklessness or the hatred was mightier than
the divine love which was manifested there! But the pierced side
recalled the words of the old prophet. There was a witness in them
that even hatred would prove weak at last; that even upon the
inhabitants of Jerusalem and the house of David a power would come
from that Cross that nothing should resist. It said, 'The will of
eternal Love may be contended with long. It must prevail at last and
for ever.'

With the assurance that Scripture shall yet receive this grand and
complete fulfilment the history of the crucifixion closes. St. John,
like the other Evangelists, records the burial in Joseph's tomb. He
introduces one particular into their narratives which, for the
students of his Gospel, is full of interest. '_And there came also
Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night; and brought a
mixture of myrrh, and aloes, about an hundred pound weight._'

On the night of which St. John speaks, Nicodemus had heard the words,
'_As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the
Son of Man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in Him should not
perish, but have everlasting life. For God so loved the world, that He
sent His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should
not perish, but have everlasting life._' As the eyes of the ruler
turned to the Cross, may there not have come to him a sense of divine,
unutterable love, stronger than death, which will have made these dark
words intelligible? May there not have come to himself, in that hour,
the pangs of the second birth of which all his Jewish lore had taught
him nothing? May he not have hoped that for the body he was anointing,
there would also be a second birth, a resurrection morn?




DISCOURSE XXVIII.

THE RESURRECTION.

[Lincoln's Inn, 11th Sunday after Trinity (Afternoon), August 3,
1856.]

ST. JOHN XX. 30, 31.

     _And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his
     disciples, which are not written in this book: but these are
     written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the
     Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through
     his name._


This morning I went through the narrative of our Lord's Passion, which
is contained in the 18th and 19th chapters of this Gospel. I propose
to examine, this afternoon, the narrative of the resurrection, and of
the events that followed it, which is contained in the 20th and 21st
chapters.

Those who have formed a vague notion of the fourth Gospel, as the
Gospel _according to the Spirit_, the other three being represented as
Gospels _according to the flesh_, will expect that St. John should
attach far less importance than his predecessors did to the
resurrection of our Lord's body out of the grave. They will suppose
that he must have sympathised much more in those passages of St.
Paul's Epistle to the Romans, in which he speaks of our being risen
with Christ, than with the 15th chapter of the Epistle to the
Corinthians, in which he makes that resurrection, which many among
them denied, the very centre of his message to mankind.

I hope we have not gone thus far in the study of St. John without
discovering that this conception of his character and purpose is an
entirely false one. In whatever sense St. John's Gospel is a spiritual
one, he has spoken of Christ's presence at feasts, family and
national, of His hunger and fatigue, of His friendship for special
persons, of actual bodily suffering in the hour of death, at least as
much as any of the four. He takes more, not less, pains than the
others, in recording incidents. No plain person ever felt that his
story, if it is ever so divine, is not human. I may have made this
observation very often, but I will repeat it even to weariness, rather
than that it should be forgotten, since upon the recollection of it
depends all hope of our understanding the beloved disciple, or of our
gaining anything from him. It is true that he has carried us back to
the beginning of all things, instead of introducing us to the manger
in Bethlehem, or telling us first of the preaching of John in the
wilderness. It is true that he has told us of the Word who was with
God, before he has used the name of Jesus Christ. It is true that
throughout his Gospel he has been presenting to us Jesus Christ as the
Word of God, the Giver of light and life to men. It is true that this
has been his explanation of the signs which Jesus did when He fed the
multitude, or healed the sick, or raised the dead. It is true that
this has been his explanation of those parables in the natural world,
by which the Creator of that world revealed to men the mysteries of
the kingdom of God. It is true that, by following this method, St.
John interprets to us those names, Son of God and Son of Man, kingdom
of God, kingdom of heaven, which occur so continually in the previous
Gospels. It is true that he brings out in its fulness their
declaration, that the office of the Christ was to baptize with the
Holy Spirit, and to deliver men from the spirit of evil. It is true
that the Name in which St. Matthew declares that the disciples were to
baptize all nations, is unfolded to us by St. John with a distinctness
and fulness with which it had never been unfolded before.

And _therefore_ I think St. John must be even more careful than the
other Evangelists to speak of the resurrection as a distinct, definite
event: to set it before us in language which shall give us no excuse
for supposing that he is merely talking of our spiritual nature, or of
Christ's spiritual nature; in language which shall fix it upon our
minds as a fact that was accomplished upon this earth. Of evidence, as
I have remarked to you before, the other Evangelists give us very
little. They assume that it was not possible that the Son of God
should be holden by death, that the marvel which angels desired to
look into was that He should have submitted to death. Only so far as
that conviction took hold of men's minds could they believe in a
resurrection, though a body of the most incredulous and learned
witnesses should conspire to affirm it. St. John cannot have attached
more weight to this kind of evidence than they did. His whole Gospel
has been showing that it is an evidence which the living Word presents
to the hearts and consciences of men, that alone produces any
practical conviction. He must have felt, even more than his
brother-disciples did, that the Word of life could not be overcome by
death; that the great contradiction of all, which could only be
explained by the truth that the highest life is the life of love, was
in His undergoing death. He, therefore, more than any one else, must
have felt the resurrection to be necessary, to be implied in the
relation of Christ to his Father. He has again and again told us that
the return of Christ to the Father was that to which He looked forward
as the return to His natural state and proper home; at the same time
as the consummation of the work He had done upon earth. He is so
impressed with this conviction, it was so much his work to impress us
with this conviction, that he will not relate, as St. Luke does, the
fact of the ascension in the sight of the disciples. _That_ is taken
for granted. All that he has written would be unmeaning, if his Master
were not gone to the Father to prepare mansions for His disciples. But
the victory of the Spirit over the flesh, the proof that He who was
united to the Father and united to a mortal body, overcame, in virtue
of His divine fellowship, his fellowship with dust, and made that body
free from its bondage--this must be spoken of as the proper
termination of His earthly conflict. For by this He justified fully
the feeling of mankind, which all the teaching of Scripture had
confirmed, but which no prophet or saint had been able to justify to
himself, that death is an intruder into this world of ours; that it is
not less an intruder because all have yielded to it, and must yield to
it; that there is a law of life which is higher than the law of death;
that we cannot be satisfied till that law is promulgated and
vindicated, not for one here and there, but for the whole race in the
person of its Head.

With these thoughts in our minds, let us consider the following
verses: '_The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when
it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away
from the sepulchre. Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and
to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have
taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not_ where they
have laid Him. Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple,
and came to the sepulchre. So they ran both together: and the other
disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre. And he
stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went
he not in. Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the
sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie, and the napkin, that was
about His head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together
in a place by itself. Then went in also that other disciple, which
came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed. For as yet they
knew not the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead. Then
the disciples went away again unto their own home._'

The points wherein this narrative differs from those in the earlier
Gospels, are those which refer to the Apostle himself and to St.
Peter. There is more, you will perceive, not less, of detail than
elsewhere. The Apostles look into the sepulchre; they see the linen
clothes and the napkin. We are told where the napkin is lying. These
are not points of evidence, in the sense in which we commonly use that
word. If we repeated them ever so often, or multiplied them ever so
much, they would not establish the fact. They have served a much
higher and more practical purpose. They have brought the fact home to
the minds of multitudes as a fact. They have taken it out of the
region of mist and shadow. They have connected it with a Person. Their
very minuteness leads us to think of Him, not of them. They say to us,
as they said to the Apostles, not 'There is a resurrection,' but '_He_
is risen.'

By speaking of himself, St. John is able to make us acquainted with
the process of conviction in one mind. He does not indeed, dwell upon
any mental struggles. He just hints at the dull unbelief with which
he began; at the eagerness, more of curiosity than of hope, with which
he ran to the sepulchre; at the timidity or awe which hindered him
from going in; at the dawn of faith when he saw the clothes. It is all
very simple and childlike. What surprises some of us most is, that he
should blame himself for not having known the Scriptures, '_that He
must rise again from the dead_.' What Scriptures could have told him
this so clearly? Are there any which positively and formally announce
it to us who read them in this day,--any, at all events, which we
could blame a plain wayfarer for not connecting with it? Have not
learned men of our own, able and vehement opposers of infidelity,
affirmed that there are no traces of a belief in a future state among
the writers of the Old Testament, nay, urged the absence of such
traces as a proof of their divine legation? And has not St. John
himself produced evidence enough that those who pored over the
Scriptures most could not identify Jesus as the Person in whom their
prophecies were to meet? We must go back, I believe, to the language
of which I have spoken so often, if we would see our way through this
difficulty. If the old Scriptures said nothing of a Word of God, of a
divine Lord of men's spirits and bodies, it was impossible to conclude
from them that He, or any one, would rise again from the dead. As long
as St. John was blind to the fact that they _did_ speak of such a One,
that they were speaking of Him from beginning to end, that He only
gave any unity to their histories or their prophecies; so long the
most incessant diligence could not enable him to discover in these
Scriptures more than dark hints of a triumph over death,--hints which
never could support a practical belief, could never overcome the
objections of sense and experience. The moment they found _this_ Word
speaking in all the words of the Bible, the moment they believed that
Jesus was the Word made flesh, the Scriptures became full even to
overflowing with these tidings. Not to see them there was to see there
only dead letters.

'_But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and as she wept,
she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre, and seeth two angels
in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet,
where the body of Jesus had lain. And they say unto her, Woman, why
weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my
Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him. And when she had thus
said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not
that it was Jesus. Jesus saith unto her Woman, why weepest thou? whom
seekest thou? She, supposing Him to be the gardener, saith unto Him,
Sir, if thou have borne Him hence, tell me where thou hast laid Him,
and I will take Him away. Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned
herself, and saith unto Him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master. Jesus
saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father:
but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and
your Father; and to my God, and your God. Mary Magdalene came and told
the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that He had spoken these
things unto her._'

There had been differences in the reports of the Evangelists
respecting the appearance of the angels to the women. St. Matthew had
said:--'_And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of
the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone
from the door, and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning,
and his raiment white as snow: and for fear of him the keepers did
shake, and became as dead men. And the angel answered and said unto
the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was
crucified. He is not here: for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the
place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell His disciples that
He is risen from the dead; and, behold, He goeth before you into
Galilee; there shall ye see Him: lo, I have told you. And they
departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did
run to bring His disciples word._' St. Mark had said:--'_And very
early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the
sepulchre at the rising of the sun. And they said among themselves,
Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre? And
when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away: for it was
very great. And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man
sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they
were affrighted. And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted: Ye seek
Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: He is risen; He is not here:
behold the place where they laid Him. But go your way, tell His
disciples and Peter that He goeth before you into Galilee: there shall
ye see Him, as He said unto you. And they went out quickly, and fled
from the sepulchre; for they trembled and were amazed: neither said
they any thing to any man; for they were afraid._' St. Luke had
said:--'_And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre. And
they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus. And it came
to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood
by them in shining garments: and as they were afraid, and bowed down
their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living
among the dead? He is not here, but is risen: remember how He spake
unto you when He was yet in Galilee, saying, The Son of Man must be
delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the
third day rise again. And they remembered His words, and returned from
the sepulchre, and told all these things unto the eleven, and to all
the rest._'

I thank God that we belong to a Church which is not afraid to bring
these diversities before us, as it does those in the reports of the
Passion; a Church which believes so strongly in God, that it can leave
Him to interpret these differences to us without making any awkward
attempts at reconciliation. Our faith in the Resurrection is not
affected by them so long as we live upon God's word, and not upon the
letters of a book. When we change the one for the other, it must
perish; no arguments or explanations will keep it alive. St. John, in
some respects, differs from them all. I think many would have been
glad if he had differed more widely. There is a dislike in our day, in
Protestant countries, to any notice of angelical visitations.
Romanists, and some who are not Romanists, would denounce the feeling
as a sign that we are losing all faith in the spiritual world. I am
not willing to interpret it so harshly. I think there is a feeling
amongst us that we ought to be connected with the spiritual world now
as much as in the days of old, and that these reports seem to keep us
at a distance from it by drawing a line between us and former ages, by
affirming communications to have been made to them which are not made
to us. I partly considered this subject when I was speaking of the
angel who is said to have troubled the Pool of Bethesda; but I must
refer to it again, because we all feel, I think, that the angels who
sang to the shepherds of the Child who was born in Bethlehem, and the
angels who spake to the women at the tomb of Joseph, must have had a
different message to deliver from all others. What was the difference?
Surely this, that they came to tell of a union of earth and heaven, of
the spiritual and the visible world in the person of a Man. If there
were no such news to bring, we should indeed be left under the
dominion of angels; for we should not be able to get rid of the
thought--no nation ever has been able--that we are surrounded by
invisible creatures, and that they do in some way communicate with us.
But if there was such a truth to be told, should we not be rather
startled to find that there was none to tell it? Would not the absence
of these stories leave a blank, not in our imaginations, but in our
hearts and in our reason? Was not the appearance of these angels a
witness to men that we do not need, as former ages may have done,
special messengers to come from behind a veil which the Son of God has
rent asunder, but that hosts of such creatures may be working with us,
and ministering to us, and joining with us, the sinful spirits, who
present the sacrifice that was made once for all before the Father of
spirits?

St. John tells us, at once, of another apparition to Mary, which was
immeasurably more to her than the apparition of any angels. An actual
human form stood before her, the one which she had known best and
loved best in the world, and yet she took it to be the gardener's. It
was not, therefore, that it was too radiant for her to look upon, that
it had lost the signs and marks that belong to her race. But it was
not the figure or the countenance which revealed Him to her. It was
the voice calling her by her name, it was the voice which had bidden
the seven devils depart out of her, that brought her to own Him as her
Lord.

Then came those wonderful words which contain the deepest and most
blessed of all truths in the form of the most startling contradiction.
She was not to touch Him, _for_ He was not ascended. That which
appeared to invite intercourse was the bar to it; that which would
appear to put them at a hopeless distance would be the beginning of a
fellowship that could not be interrupted. The weak, penitent woman was
to learn the lesson which the Apostles had been taught at the Paschal
supper. He must go to His Father that they might know Him. The private
and exclusive communion into which they had entered so imperfectly,
must be merged in one in which all should share who would take up
their lot as brethren of each other and of Him; for He was to dwell
with His Father and their Father, with His God and their God. This was
a risen life indeed; and we see at each turn how a risen life implies
an ascension.

'_Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when
the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the
Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be
unto you. And when He had so said, He shewed unto them His hands and
His side. Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord._' You
think of these as sudden apparitions, glimpses granted and withdrawn,
of the Teacher who had once walked with them by day and sat with them
by night; and you think rightly. St. John's words give us that
impression of them. But do they give us no other at the same time? Is
it not the apparition of an actual Person, of an actual human body? He
may be seen, and may disappear; but He _is_. We are not among shadows
more than we were before. The air is freer, the light is clearer. He
only does not tarry in that room where the disciples are assembled for
fear of the Jews, because they are to learn that wherever two or three
are assembled in His name, there is He in the midst of them.

And consider His words to them. The last time they had met at the
Paschal supper He had said--'_Peace I leave with you, my peace I give
to you. And these things I have spoken to you that in me ye might have
peace._' Since they heard that language, they had known more of
fightings without and within than in all their lives before. And now
He repeats it again, and shows them His hands and His side. Now it
comes with power. If there was a moment of intense agonizing
excitement, you might have fancied it would have been that. There is
no excitement. There is perfect quietness in them all; in him who had
forsaken the Master, in him who had denied Him. He has spoken peace to
them, and they are at peace. The beloved disciple can only describe
what he felt, what all felt, in the simplest, calmest words--'_Then
were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord_.'

What had happened to them? He with whom they had been at war had
declared Himself at one with them. Christ had brought that message
from the grave. His hands and side assured them of it. Their
consciences were absolved. They were freed men.

'_Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath
sent me, even so send I you. And when He had said this, He breathed on
them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose soever
sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye
retain, they are retained._'

The connexion between the two passages is too obvious to be
overlooked. He had come in His Father's name to bring them peace. He
sent them forth in His name with the same gift. The Spirit of peace
should go with them, that they might execute their commission. The
pierced hands and side, which had been the witness and pledge of it to
them, should be the witness and pledge of it to the world. Their
conscience had been absolved. A chain had been taken from them. They
should, in the name of Christ and of His Father, break the chains
which bind the consciences of others. They should remit, or send away,
the sins which keep men the prisoners and slaves of an evil and
accusing spirit, which prevent them from serving their Father in
heaven. But since it was _consciences_ they were to unbind--since they
were carrying a message of peace to voluntary creatures--the liberty
might be refused, the rebellion might be persevered in. The very word
which looses becomes then a word to bind. It is a tremendous fact,
asserted again and again in Scripture, certified by experience. The
message of reconciliation and deliverance holds in an iron gripe those
spirits which it does not emancipate. They cry out that it has come to
torment them; they have a sense of evil which they had not before;
they are bound by it as they were not before.

I cannot see _less_ in the words which were spoken that night--or in
the commission which was then given to the ministers of Christ--than I
have expressed. If you say that I ought to see _more_, I submit
willingly to the rebuke. But I deny that it _is_ more to talk of some
power of the keys being entrusted to the Apostles or their successors,
if by that power is meant only some outward authority to withdraw the
punishment for sins, or to enforce it. I cannot, in any case, read
'punishment,' where I find 'sin' written. I must regard remission of
punishment as a very poor and miserable substitute for remission of
sins. If it is said that we cannot imagine ministers who have received
such a power, for that remission of sins must belong to God only, I
answer, 'Most assuredly ministers can neither remit sins nor
punishments in their own name.' If they assume to do either, they
violate the charter upon which all their authority rests; they claim
to be what Christ did not claim to be, to do what He did not claim to
do. For He said that He was nothing, and could do nothing without His
Father. His glory was that He did not come in His own name. But if the
ministers of Christ _do_ confess that they are sent in His name, as He
was sent in His Father's name, then I say they can, in His name, speak
to the conscience and absolve the conscience, not from its punishment
but from its sin. And I say that the consciences of thousands and tens
of thousands have waited in all ages, do wait in our age, to receive
this blessing, and have actually received it, and are receiving it.
And I say that when it is spoken to them, and they do not receive it,
they bear testimony to the other half of the sentence; they are bound
more closely, because they will not be loosed. Therefore I fear it is
because Christ's ministers do not care to exercise His powers, but
wish to exercise some powers of their own, that they fight so stoutly
for these rights to punish or forego punishment, to curse or to take
off curses, which, when they were most fully acknowledged and produced
most terror in the minds of men, were generally very feeble for any
good moral purpose, and were very dreadful temptations to tyranny and
lying in those who exercised them.

I am far, indeed, from saying that absolution consists only in
preaching the Gospel. The words, '_Peace be to you_,'--the hands and
the side,--spake to the consciences of the disciples. At what time
more than when we are kneeling and confessing, is the conscience
likely to receive the message, 'He pardoneth and absolveth?' What has
been more effectual than the Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ
in carrying home the words to each heart, '_Son, thy sins be forgiven
thee, rise up and walk_'? And in both these cases it is not merely to
single hearts that the blessing is imparted. The gathering together in
Christ's name is a witness that we meet as a family just as the
Apostles did; and that, as a family, we want the peace and
reconciliation which a Father only can send us through His Son. Did we
understand the worth of that _communion_ more, and how all individual
blessings are associated with it and rise out of it, the power of
_excommunicating_ would not be something to boast of, or to fight for,
or to play with. To cut a man off from the Church would then, indeed,
be to deliver one who had sold himself to the service of evil to the
master he has chosen, that he may feel the bitterness of his yoke, and
so may return to his true Lord, and his spirit be saved when that Lord
appears. But till we know more of that Spirit which Jesus breathed on
His disciples, on that first day of the week, we shall be as little
competent to administer censures as we are to testify of
reconciliation and absolution.

'_But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them
when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have
seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in His hands
the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails,
and thrust my hand into His side, I will not believe. And after
eight days again His disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then
came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said,
Peace be unto you. Then saith He to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger,
and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my
side: and be not faithless, but believing. And Thomas answered and
said unto Him, My Lord, and my God! Jesus saith unto him, Thomas,
because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that
have not seen, and yet have believed._'

By one class of readers, Thomas is described as a doubter, impatient
of all evidence but such as amounts to demonstration. By another
class, he is described as a man with the idolatrous tendency which
insists upon sensible tokens, because it has no apprehension of that
which is spiritual. By a third, the moral is drawn from his story,
that those who forsake the fellowship of their brethren, miss the
presence of their Lord and the grace of faith. There may be much of
truth in each of these observations, and they do not contradict each
other. We are all, at different times of our lives, greedy for proofs
that shall satisfy the logical understanding, and for signs that
address themselves to the senses. We have all thought that we should
gain more by lonely study than by intercourse with our fellows and by
common worship, and have been punished for our pride. But I do not
think that Thomas should be accused of asking for too complete a
demonstration. He asked for too weak a one. He wished to put his hands
into the print of the nails. That would not have convinced him. It was
another evidence addressing itself not to his eyes, but to his heart,
which forced him to cry, '_My Lord, and my God_!' And I cannot believe
that we have any right to cast stones at those who require outward
tokens to assist their faith; for Christ vouchsafed to this Apostle
the very tokens which he desired. And we ought to remember that we do
not bring Christ amongst us, or procure graces from Him, by
frequenting the assemblies of His disciples, but that we should go to
them because He is there speaking peace, and revealing Himself to
those who are willing to be members of a body, and who wish for no
privileges which all cannot share with them. Whatever reproof Thomas
needed, whatever encouragement we can desire, is gathered in our
Lord's last words to him. If he required the aid of seeing to sustain
his belief, it might be afforded him. But faith itself is a higher
evidence. Things not seen present themselves to it with a force and
demonstration as great as that with which the things seen present
themselves to the eye. The invisible Person who is the Light of men,
makes Himself known to that organ which is created to receive His
light. His life, His peace, are as near to us as they were to those to
whom He showed Himself alive after His Passion. Our knowledge that He
is risen may be as certain as theirs, and essentially of the same
kind.

With this sign to the unbelieving Apostle, I suppose St. John's
narrative originally closed; for he adds immediately: '_And many other
signs truly did Jesus in the presence of His disciples, which are not
written in this book. But these are written, that ye might believe
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might
have life through His name_.'

I have taken these words for my text, because they express with
peculiar terseness the characteristics of the Gospel as they have come
out gradually before us. It is a book of _Signs_. Every event that
has been recorded has been significant. It has been the index to a
truth. These signs have been selected out of _many_ others, all
bearing the same import. Each of these signs declares--all of them
together declare--that _Jesus is the Son of God_. Their design is to
awaken _belief_ in Him as the Son of God. Those who have this belief
have _life_ through His name. He does not, then, merely compile a
story of certain acts; he honours all previous Gospels which do not
bring forth a collection of stories, but make known a living Person;
he desires to remove the confusions which had beset those who believed
in a Son of God, but not in an actual man; in a man who was not a Son
of God. He desires that that Son of God should speak to the spirit of
man, to that in man which exercises faith. He wishes us to feel that
the Son of God is the one Source of life, that only through Him as the
Son of Man can men receive life.

When St. John had been enabled to give this perfect explanation of
what he had written, he might well think that his task was done. If he
had been an artist instead of an evangelist, he would have been afraid
to disturb the symmetry of his work by making any additions to it. But
he was under other guidance than his own judgment; what it was good
for the world to hear, the Spirit within him would not suffer him to
keep back. Another vision rose before him, a vision so clear and
bright, that he knew it could not have been given to him for his own
sake; men in distant lands and ages were to be blessed by it. He was
again by the Lake of Tiberias, amidst old friends. '_There were
together Simon Peter, and Thomas called Didymus, and Nathanael of Cana
in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two other of His
disciples._' We ask ourselves for what great purpose they were
assembled there. The very names are for us full of wonder and mystery.
Those who bore them had been witnesses of the death and resurrection
of the Son of God. He had breathed on them; as His Father had sent
Him, He had sent them; they were to loose and to bind. The next verse
answers our question: '_Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing.
They say unto him, We also go with thee. They went forth, and entered
into a ship immediately; and that night they caught nothing_.' We
thought that when Jesus called them from mending their nets, that
occupation was for ever abandoned. Who would have dreamed of their
resuming it now? They had been admitted behind the veil; One from the
grave had come back to them. Were they to become common fishermen
again? They evidently go into their boats with no misgiving of
conscience. They set about their toil as freshly and earnestly as
ever. _As_ freshly and earnestly? Was there nothing in that lake, and
in all that had happened to them upon it, which made every labourer
more free and joyous? Did not the water speak to them of Him who had
walked upon it? Did not the shore beyond tell them of the bread which
He had blessed? Was not the still night full of voices that echoed the
voice which had said to them, '_Peace be with you; my peace I give to
you_'? Had not the curse been taken from the earth and from the labour
of man, since He had been called 'the carpenter's son,' since He had
been proved to be the Son of God with power?

There must have been the sense of His presence everywhere; and it was
not merely _the sense of a presence_: He was there. '_But when the
morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore: but the disciples knew
not that it was Jesus. Then Jesus saith unto them, Children, have
ye any meat? They answered Him, No. And He said unto them, Cast the
net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find. They cast
therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of
fishes._'

The old sign is given again. They had been taught that He cared for
their craft and blessed it, when they had only a dim notion of Him as
a great Prophet and King. They find that He cares for it and blesses
it still. The risen Christ is the same as the Christ who told them
words, hard to believe, about rejection and crucifixion. Only He does
not sit with _them_ in the boat, as if He were caring for one
particular band of fishermen. He has chosen them to tell all workers
everywhere, that He is watching over them, that their work is not a
barrier between them and Him, but a means of grace, a road to
intercourse with Him. '_Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved saith
unto Peter, It is the Lord. Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the
Lord, he girt his fisher's coat unto him, (for he was naked,) and did
cast himself into the sea. And the other disciples came in a little
ship; (for they were not far from land, but as it were two hundred
cubits,) dragging the net with fishes. As soon then as they were come
to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon, and
bread. Jesus saith unto them, Bring of the fish which ye have now
caught. Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land full of great
fishes, an hundred and fifty and three: and for all there were so
many, yet was not the net broken. Jesus saith unto them, Come and
dine. And none of the disciples durst ask Him, Who art thou? knowing
that it was the Lord. Jesus then cometh, and taketh bread, and giveth
them, and fish likewise._'

We must not suffer ourselves to be cheated of the blessing which lies
in this simple and minute narrative, by vulgar efforts of the fancy to
give it what is called a spiritual signification. Our spirits want to
know that they have a Lord who has shared earthly food, and does not
disdain us for partaking it, but who Himself bestows it and blesses
it. Our spirits do not want to know why the number of fishes caught
was one hundred and fifty-three; they cannot live upon meagre,
childish analogies about those who were to be caught in the Gospel
net. Our Lord had promised His disciples that they should be fishers
of men, and they were speedily to become so. But He was teaching them
and us that the higher duty glorifies, instead of degrading, the
lower; that every business in which men can be engaged is a calling
and a ministry; that the bread which sustains the eternal life in man
hallows the bread which sustains the life that is to pass away.

Our Lord did not allow His disciples to forget that grander office to
which He had destined them, while He was putting this honour upon the
one to which for a time they had returned. But instead of taking His
comparison from the work of the fisherman, He takes another, with
which His own lessons and the lessons of the old Scriptures had made
them quite as familiar.

'_So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of
Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord;
thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. He
saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou
me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He
saith unto him, Feed my sheep. He saith unto him the third time,
Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because He said
unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him,
Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus
saith unto him, Feed my sheep._'

We are wont to dwell, perhaps, too much upon the thrice-repeated
questions to him who had thrice denied. There is a meaning in all such
correspondences; every hint to the conscience is worth something. But
the meaning is always subordinate to a higher one; the hint brings a
train of thought, or it fails of its purpose. Peter had boasted of his
love; his sore discipline had been to show him how little it was good
for, how utterly it must fail. Now he was asked, '_Lovest thou me more
than these_?' He had loved Christ just as he had loved other people;
more intensely, it might be, but with a love going out from himself.
Had he learnt yet that he needed One who could bestow love upon him,
One in whom he must trust and to whom he must cling, because he was so
poor in that wherein he had fancied he was rich? Did he love his
Master now with this dependent, trusting love, instead of that
self-confident love? with a love that sought to be always replenished
from the Fountain whence it proceeded, instead of with a love which he
could call _his_, and which therefore must continually run dry? Simon
Peter appears to answer boldly; he does answer humbly. He would have
said in former days, 'I know that I love thee.' He now says, '_Thou
knowest that I love thee_.' It is an appeal from himself to his
Master. It is saying, 'My love is but the fruit of that knowledge
which thou hast taken of me. I love thee so long as thou knowest me,
and no longer.'

And then comes the command which shows that the loving Him more than
these implied anything rather than loving these less. He had been told
at the former supper, that if he loved Christ, he was to keep His
commandments. To obey a loving Being is to love Him. His love works in
the man who is content to do His will. That love must go forth to His
sheep. Here, then, was the minister's commission and his power. The
Chief Shepherd had taken care of the sheep, and had died for them; the
under shepherd was to do His work for them. So far as he did it, he
would feel how scanty and wretched his own love for them was. He could
not feed them at all unless he was possessed by his Master's love.

You see how remarkably these commands are in accordance with the
doctrine which our Lord set forth in the conversation which is
recorded in the 10th chapter of this Gospel, and also with that
language which He addressed to the disciples generally, to Peter
especially, at the Passover, because he had in the highest degree that
trust in his own love which was infecting them all: '_Ye have not
chosen me; but I have chosen you_.' And you will see how the idea
which is contained in that sentence, is expressed and expounded in the
words that follow the command to feed the lambs and the sheep.

'_Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdedst
thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be
old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee,
and carry thee whither thou wouldest not._'

This doctrine of a divine compulsion acting upon the heart and will of
a man, of a wisdom ordaining every step for him, of a love imposing
upon him duties which of himself he would be least willing to
undertake, bearing him on to sufferings from which he would most
shrink, is the one which St. Peter needed to learn, which every
minister of Christ and every Christian man must, by one discipline or
another, be taught. St. John intimates that his brother-disciple was
to be led along in the exact path which his Master had trodden before
him.

'_This spake He, signifying by what death he should glorify God. And
when He had spoken this, He saith unto him, Follow me._'

But the Evangelist goes on to show, by another example, that Christ
prepares the most different lots for different men; that two may be
standing close to each other, may be intended during a part of their
lives to work together, who may in the close of their earthly
pilgrimage be the most remarkable contrasts to each other, though they
may be following the same crucified Lord, and one may be bearing as
heavy a cross as the other.

'_Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved
following; which also leaned on His breast at supper, and said, Lord,
which is he that betrayeth thee? Peter seeing Him saith to Jesus,
Lord, and what shall this man do? Jesus saith unto him, If I will that
he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me. Then went
this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not
die: yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die; but, if I will
that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?_'

St. Peter was not to know what was intended for his brother-Apostle;
that Apostle was to know as little himself. Some meaning there was in
that intimate communion which he had had with his Lord on earth. So
great a gift could not have been bestowed upon him for his own sake;
it must have been meant to fit him for a work that he had to do in the
world. What it was he may have waited long to know. He was not to stay
in Jerusalem with St. James; he was not to travel to the dispersed
among the Gentiles with St. Peter; he was not to raise up Churches
among the Gentiles, like St. Paul. He was to stay upon the earth till
Jerusalem had been trodden down by the Gentiles; till St. James and
St. Peter, and all who had been most dear to him, had glorified God by
their deaths; till a Gentile society had seemed about to displace the
old Hebrew society; till the new Christian Church had been threatened
by the same discords, the same sins, the same unbelief, which were
undermining his country and the empire of the world. In some sense he
was to tarry till his Lord came. Was he then not to die? That had not
been said. Yet the words had been spoken by Him who did not deceive,
and they must be fulfilled. _Did_ he not tarry till his Lord came? Was
He not revealed in flaming fire, taking vengeance of the unrighteous
nation, of the evil world? Was He not revealed as the Alpha and Omega,
the beginning and the end, as the faithful Witness, as the Prince of
all the kings of the earth, as the Lion of the tribe of Judah, as the
Son of Man standing in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, as
the Lamb that was slain in the midst of the throne, as the Word of
God? Was it not for this revelation that St. John had tarried on
earth? Was it not that he might declare Who is the foundation of the
new heaven and the new earth which should arise out of the wreck of
the world that was perishing?

It appears as if the elders of the Church of Ephesus had added their
attestation to the Gospel in the words of the 24th verse: '_This is
the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things:
and we know that his testimony is true_.' I do not profess to decide
whether to them or to the Apostle we should ascribe the last verse.
'_And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if
they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself
could not contain the books that should be written. Amen._' Some have
wished that the verse were omitted altogether, because it seems to
them a conclusion scarcely worthy of so divine a record. I accept it
as a simple and childlike testimony to the truth of which the whole
Gospel has been bearing witness, that the acts of the Son of God do
not belong to the few years in which He dwelt visibly upon earth, but
to all ages from the beginning, when He was '_with God, and was God_,'
even to the end '_when He shall put down all rule and all authority
and power, and when the Son also Himself shall be subject to Him, who
put all things under Him, that God may be all in all_.' I accept it as
a testimony that all the books in the world cannot contain the things
which Jesus has been doing and is doing, in the hearts of human
beings, in the world which He made, in the kingdom which He rules. I
accept it as a warning to us, that we can know nothing of the Book
which explains other books, unless we ask that it may be explained to
us by Him who is, and was, and ever shall be, the Word of God.




NOTES.


DISCOURSE I.

The scheme of Baur, to which allusion is made in this sermon, is set
forth in his '_Kritische Untersuchungen über die Kanonischen
Evangelien_.' The part especially relating to St. John is contained
between pages 79 and 389. In the First Part he maintains that there is
a leading thought, a _Hauptidee_, in the Gospel. He traces this out,
beginning from the prologue; notices the testimony of the Baptist, the
comparison of Jesus with John, the first coming of Jesus into
Jerusalem, the conflict between belief and unbelief in its different
forms, the signs and works of Christ, the argumentative conflict with
the unbelief of the Jews, the raising of Lazarus, the transition to
the history of the passion and death, the final crisis of the nation's
unbelief, the discourses of Jesus with His disciples and the
sacerdotal prayer, the history of the death and resurrection,--as
different points and instances in the development of this idea. He
then goes on, in the Second Part, to consider the relation of this
Gospel to the synoptical Gospels; maintaining the absence of any
leading idea in them, and the consequent evidence that, in spite of
the historical confusions which he supposes to be in them, there is
more mixture in them of simple facts related without a purpose. Next
he enters upon the internal probability of the history in St. John.
Then he considers the relation of the Gospel to the consciousness of
the time. Finally, he maintains the identity of the Apostle with the
author of the Apocalypse; dwelling especially upon his sympathies with
the feelings of the Christians in Asia Minor respecting the keeping
of Easter; and regarding the Apocalypse as the work of a Jew
passionately attached to the traditions of his fathers, and vehemently
opposed to the spiritual doctrines of St. Paul.

Perhaps I may be allowed to explain in what relation the view I have
taken of the Gospels in these Sermons stands to that of this learned
Tübingen Professor.

1st. I have maintained, as he has done, that there is a leading idea
which may be traced through the whole of the Gospel; that what is
called the prologue is not an idle introduction to a narrative with
which it has no connexion, but is the key to the meaning of every part
of it. 'This leading idea' I have further maintained to be the leading
idea of the whole Bible, to be unfolding itself through all the Law
and the Prophets, to be that which makes the history of the Jews a
coherent history, to be that which makes that history the exposition
of all histories. Supposing it entirely absent from the mind of any
people on the face of the earth, I hold that people not to be a
nation, but a mere herd of animals, and its records a mere collection
of fragments, with nothing to bind them together. In proportion as any
people has been possessed with this idea, in that proportion has it
been a nation great in itself, one which could interpret the
conditions and destinies of other nations. That the Jewish people were
brought to know that they were under the guidance of a Divine
Word--their ever-present Teacher, and King, and Judge--is what I mean
when I speak of God calling out that nation, of God ruling it and
educating it, of God making it a blessing to all the families of the
earth.

2d. Next, with reference to the synoptical Gospels. It follows, from
what I have said, that if I did not trace any of this 'Hauptidee' in
them, I should regard them not as histories, not as Gospels, but as
that collection of fragments, partly mythical, partly historical,
which Baur and his school suppose them to be. I have contended, in a
book on 'The Unity of the New Testament,' that there is a 'Hauptidee'
in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke; that they are not
biographies of a certain Man called Jesus of Nazareth, whom His
disciples supposed to be endued with supernatural powers, or to be
actually divine; but that they are the history of the way in which
that King, whom the Jewish prophets had been declaring as the
invisible Ruler over them, manifested Himself visibly to His subjects,
and claimed their obedience. By a careful examination of all the
passages which these Evangelists have in common, by an equally careful
examination of their differences, I have endeavoured to show that they
were all setting forth this King of men, that each was setting Him
forth under a distinct aspect. There may be very little of what is
called the higher criticism in such an examination as this. To that I
do not aspire. We English may be content to work on in the stupid old
Baconian method, trying to find out the meaning of facts, and not
quite indifferent to _this_ fact, that these Gospels have exercised an
influence over eighteen centuries of human beings in different lands,
which it is not very easy to understand how they could have exercised,
if they had contained a few doubtful records of journeys between
Nazareth and Capernaum, of miracles imagined by superstitious
wonder-hunters, of discourses some tenth part of which may possibly
have proceeded from a Nazarene Prophet. If they set forth a Person who
has been, and is now, and will be for ever, the King over men, there
is at least _an_ explanation of the secret of their power; whether it
is the right one may be at least worth some consideration.

3d. In the book to which I referred, I carefully abstained from any
comparison of the three Gospels with the fourth. I have, throughout
that book and this, admitted that they are widely different, and that
it confuses our impressions of all four to blend them together as the
Harmonists attempt to do. I have maintained, indeed, that the first
three Gospels assert, as distinctly as the fourth, that the King of
men whom they are proclaiming was the Son of God. I have maintained
that they would not have proved themselves to be the Jews that they
were, if they had begun with the records of the life of a Man, seeing
that every book of the Old Testament begins with God, and treats of
men only as they testify of God or are related to Him. But I have said
that in the commencement of the three Gospels, in their incidents, in
their whole framework, there is a marked and characteristic difference
from the fourth, which no faithful expositor can overlook or try to
explain away. There can be no doubt about the nature of the
difference. The prologue, as Baur truly says, at once denotes it. St.
Mark speaks of Jesus as the Son of God in his opening sentence. The
use of the name Word of God, as identical with Son of God, is found in
St. John, and perhaps in St. John only. That name belongs, the
Tübingen Professor tells us, to the _consciousness_ of the next age.
Of course, we are liable to make mistakes about the meaning of that
phrase. It is not a native or natural phrase to us; and some of us are
not eager to import it, seeing that our home manufacture of cant is
quite prolific enough. But if the consciousness of an age is what I
take it to be, I have maintained that the first century, even from its
very commencement, was the age which showed itself peculiarly
conscious of the truth which is denoted by the expressions 'Word,'
'Life,' 'Light,' and all the others which characterise this Gospel.
The evidence of this fact is so notorious, that nothing but an
elaborate theory could force a man of Baur's extraordinary learning to
cast it aside. Supposing all he says of the absence of Gnosticism in
the Christian Church in the first century were as true as I apprehend
it to be unfounded, would that prove that no such man as Philo ever
existed; that chronologers have been mistaken by a hundred years about
the date of his birth and his teaching; or that he was a solitary
phenomenon, a person who exercised no influence, and indicated no
_consciousness_ in the country and period to which he belonged?

4th. The question, I am aware, when once Philo is mentioned, is how
far so learned and accomplished a man could have affected, by his
thoughts, humble fishermen like the Apostle John? The question is
raised and answered by two different classes of people. One set is
eager to maintain that what they call the _Logos-idea_ must have been
derived from a great mystical speculator, and cannot have presented
itself naturally to an ignorant man. The other is utterly scandalized
that an inspired Apostle should be supposed to have anything to do
with that which was passing in the minds of his uninspired
contemporaries. On the question of simplicity I have spoken at
considerable length. Whether the writer of the fourth Gospel was
simple or not, whether his doctrine respecting the Word affected his
simplicity, must be ascertained from the book itself, and cannot be
learnt from any theories of mine or of any one else. But if I am right
in thinking that this (so-called) _Logos-idea_ is that which gave
simplicity and clearness to the lives of prophets and patriarchs,
because they did not think of it as an idea at all, but believed that
they were ploughing, and keeping sheep, and eating and drinking, under
the eye of a living Person, then it was surely not an unnatural thing
that an Apostle should be taught to bring out that truth in its
simplicity which had been mixed with conceits and phantasies. If it is
inconsistent with our notion of the teaching of the Spirit of God that
He should enable a Jewish Apostle--living in a heathen city, amidst
Jews and Heathens who were both confused with thoughts upon this very
subject, among Christians who did not know how to connect their
thoughts of Jesus with the Divine Word--to bring forth a Gospel which
should have this special object; I cannot find that it is inconsistent
with the promise of the Comforter which our Lord Himself gives us, or
that that promise could have been more perfectly fulfilled to His own
generation than by such an illumination of an Apostle's mind and
memory. And for those who do not believe that that promise is
withdrawn, who think that the Spirit which was given to dwell in the
Church dwells in it still, I do not know that there can be a more
cheering thought than this, that His revelations of Himself were
gradual to His own Apostles; that He taught those who were nearest to
the time of His ascension to present Him as the risen Son of God; that
He taught His disciples who lived at the end of the age to see in that
Son also the living and eternal Word who was before all worlds, who
would be manifested as the Centre of all society, as the final
Conqueror of all enemies. For there surely may be a gradual unveiling,
in the later times also, of Him who has been with us from the
beginning; and it may be given to these later ages, when kingdoms are
falling down, and ecclesiastical systems are wearing out, and scholars
are finding nothing solid remaining in heaven and earth except their
own criticisms and their own conceptions, to see the Word of God
coming forth in His living power and majesty as the King of kings and
Lord of lords, the foundation of that heaven and earth wherein
dwelleth righteousness.

5th. I have touched, in these last words, on Baur's doctrine
respecting the identity of the Apostle with the author of the
Apocalypse, and the essential differences between the Apocalypse and
the Gospel.

It is notorious that many in the Alexandrian Church agreed with Baur
in separating the author of the Apocalypse from the author of the
Gospel; but that they gave the Gospel to St. John, and the Apocalypse
to some other author. I am quite willing, with the German Professor,
to consider the Apostle as first of all the 'Apocalyptiker;' to
believe that he was regarded specially in that character by the
Churches of Asia Minor; and to take the vision of the Son of Man, in
the first chapter, as the explanation of that confused tradition
respecting John which represents him as in some manner keeping alive
the office of the high-priest after its representative in Jerusalem
had disappeared. I am most willing, also, to admit that the author of
the Apocalypse does regard himself as a true Jew, in contradistinction
from those who called themselves Jews, but did lie and were of the
synagogue of Satan. What I contend is, that the writer of the fourth
Gospel is an 'Apocalyptiker,' in the strictest sense of the word; that
the unveiling of the Son of God and the Son of Man is the subject of
one book as well as of the other; that the meaning which is given to
revelation or unveiling, in both, is not at variance with the meaning
which it bears in St. Paul's Epistles, but is the expansion and
illustration of that meaning; that the Jews who do lie in the
Apocalypse, as well as in the Gospel, were those who were content with
a visible high-priest, and were not asking as their high-priest for
Him whose eyes were as a flame of fire, who died and was alive; that
as the Epistle of the Hebrews, whether written by St. Paul or not,
explains the very ground of all St. Paul's Epistles and their unity,
so the fourth Gospel and the Apocalypse show what is the underground
of the doctrine of that Epistle, viz. that the High-Priest of the
universe is that Word of God who was with the Father before all
worlds, in whom men may ascend to His Father and their Father, to His
God and their God. I have expressed, in this Sermon, a hope that the
Apocalypse may some day be proved to be a revelation of Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, and not of certain dates and mystical numbers,
because I believe that its radical and essential harmony with the
Gospel will be more and more discovered to those who read it, and
because the two books and the Epistle will then, I think, explain to
us all the former books of the Bible--how they are related to each
other, how they are related to Him in whom alone God is unveiled to
man. I have spoken of the Gospel as a book of theology, the Apocalypse
as a book of politics, not because I believe that these artificial
distinctions of ours can represent satisfactorily their different
objects, but because I am convinced that theology will be a mere
_hortus siccus_ for schoolmen to entertain themselves with, till it
becomes associated once more with the Life of nations and humanity;
that politics will be a mere ground on which despots and democrats,
and the tools of both, play with the morality and happiness of their
fellow-beings, till we seek again for the ground of them in the nature
and purposes of the eternal God.


DISCOURSE II.

I have not seen my way to adopt the punctuation of the 3d and 4th
verses of the 1st chapter, (Χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο
οὐδἕ ἑν. Ὅ γέγονεν ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν,) which
many of the Fathers approve, which Lachmann has introduced into his text, and
which Mr. Bunsen appears to regard as of very high importance. On the
question of a various reading, I might have deferred to these
authorities; on a question of pointing, their judgment is merely that
of ordinary students. The simplicity of the Apostle's style, it seems
to me, is violated by the change. Nor am I yet aware what we gain by
it. Is it the pleonasm in the 1st verse which is objected to? Surely
we must strike out half the verses in the Psalms, if we complain of
such pleonasms. I believe we shall find, when we have done so, that
the force of that which we have retained has not been increased, but
weakened. Or is it that the words, 'in Him was life,' are regarded as
a mere commonplace? God give us such commonplaces in exchange for all
the rarities and refinements that wise men can present us with! I do
not mean that the difference between 'being' and 'becoming' is not
involved in all the doctrine of these verses. No one can read them
thoughtfully without perceiving it. But need it be thrust upon us in
the very terms of school philosophy? Does it not come out much more
naturally and truly in the old simple Hebraic forms? Those who suppose
these forms to be obsolete for us, cannot suppose them to have been
obsolete for the writer of the fourth Gospel, unless they accept
Baur's theory concerning him.

I have also not been induced to depart from our version of the words,
Ἡν τὸ φῶς τὸ ἀληθινὁν, ὃ φωτίζει πάντα
ἄνθρωπον ἐρχόμενον εἰς τὸν κόσμον, in spite
of the many objections which have, in modern times and in old times,
been raised against it. I do not think that I have what is called a theological
interest in defending it. If the light is said to lighten every man, I
can ask no more. Give what force you will to the coming into the
world, connect it with what clause of the sentence you will, that
assertion remains good, perhaps even less qualified than it is in our
translation. Moreover, a single text would be a very poor ground on
which to rest such a doctrine. A person who finds it in every line of
St. John--nay, implied in the whole Bible--can afford to make a
present of one passage to those who find it inconvenient. I contend
for the fidelity of our version upon a different ground. If we
construe the words, 'The light which lighteneth every man was coming
into the world,' we destroy the order of the Apostle's discourse, and
we go near to make him contradict himself. He declares that the Word
was in the world, and that the world knew Him not. The coming into it,
in the sense of being made flesh, is reserved for the 14th verse. My
great object in this Sermon has been to assert this order, and to show
how much we mistake the purpose of the Evangelist when we substitute
another of our own. Until some rendering of the passage is suggested
which does not involve that great mischief, I must adhere to the one
with which we are all familiar.


DISCOURSE III.

The notion of St. John as the teacher who possesses a higher lore than
the other writers of the New Testament, which I have considered in
this Sermon, may be traced especially to Origen. If the reader is at
the pains to consider the opening of his Commentary upon St. John, he
will discover in what sense this Gospel seemed to him a kind of
quintessence of all the previous revelations of God. His own emblem is
drawn from the first-fruits of a sacrifice; a better comparison in
itself, but one which does not make its meaning at once evident to the
modern reader. I cannot have any wish to speak disrespectfully or
disparagingly of Origen, with whose mysticism some will accuse me of
having only too much sympathy. Yet I cannot help thinking that his
attempt to distinguish between the spiritual and the sensible Gospel,
has been the source of infinite confusions in the study of the
Evangelist. Its other evil consequences--as cultivating a morbid
ingenuity in seeking for distant analogies, and in destroying the
force of plain narratives--have been often dwelt upon. I allude to it
in connexion with what I have said, in this Sermon and in the eighth,
of our Lord's forerunner.

Even the most earnest seekers after truth are continually perplexed by
the question how John the Baptist could have been a guide into what
Origen and his school have taught them to consider the most esoteric
part of the Christian faith. 'If the least in the kingdom of heaven,'
they say, 'was greater than he, how can he have been possessed of a
doctrine which even some of the great in the kingdom of heaven seem
very imperfectly to have apprehended?' The answer to this question, I
believe, will come to such persons gradually,--at last decisively.
What is called the doctrine of the Logos--the idea of the Logos--may
have been seized and possessed by one here and one there, at different
periods of the Church. The best of these, like Clemens of Alexandria,
may have been driven to it by the necessities of their position, by
their conflict with the false Gnosticism, by the impossibility of
preaching the Gospel to Heathens without the belief in a universal
Teacher. They may have been often dazzled with their own light--often
tempted, if not to glorify themselves upon the possession of it, yet
to denounce others as carnal or earthly who were without it. I cannot,
indeed, say that I trace as much scorn of others and exaltation of
their own wisdom in the Alexandrian school, as in that which was most
opposed to it, in the hard dogmatist of Carthage. But they were
tempted to make distinctions which interfere, it seems to me, most
grievously with all that is truest in their teaching. If the Word is
the Teacher and Light of men, as they represented Him to be, the
vulgarest men must have been under His teaching; the commonest facts,
the most simple forms of nature, must be instruments through which His
learning is communicated. If the Word has been, as they say, made
flesh, fleshly things cannot be despicable, but must contain those
spiritual truths which the wise and prudent who despise them, and
exult in their own intellectual superiority, cannot find. Therefore
the simplest men, the preachers of repentance, those who have brought
a message to the poor,--whether they have talked of the living Word or
not,--have borne the best and fullest witness of Him. It is so now; it
has been so always. The prophets of old spoke of a Word because they
were preachers of repentance. I contend that John the Baptist spoke of
Him just as they did, only with more clearness, with a stronger
apprehension of His personality. But if John was the messenger of a
Word made flesh, if the Incarnation is the beginning of a new world,
the opening of a new heaven, it must needs be that the least of those
who are born into that world, who are permitted to ascend into that
heaven, is greater than John. If, indeed, he forgets the answer which
was given to the disciples when they asked, '_Who is greatest in the
kingdom of heaven_?' if he begins to exult in his knowledge or in his
privileges; if he scorns the world which Christ has redeemed; if he
denies that Christ is the Light of the world; he not only puts himself
below John the Baptist, but below every Jew, Mahometan, worshipper of
Juggernaut; he more openly sets Christ at nought than they do. The
Christian world may come to this utter denial of its Master; then will
come a preacher of repentance,--a preacher of the living Word to
publicans and sinners,--an Elias to witness of judgments upon Scribes
and Pharisees, who will make it evident that the deepest lore is also
the simplest; that that which is most divine has most power over those
who have been most given up to the world, the flesh, and the devil.

To return for a moment to the Alexandrian divines. I cannot acquit
Clemens of having given encouragement to that esoterical doctrine
which led Origen, it appears to me, into such dangerous refinements.
But the spirit of his 'Pædagogue' is so personal and so practical,
that many of the tendencies to which his pupil yielded were
counteracted, if not wholly overcome, in him. Above all, there is one
passage of Origen's Commentary which shows him to have utterly
departed from the principle which goes through all the books of
Clemens. He considers (tom. i. c. 23) why the name Logos should have
been especially chosen as a title of the Saviour. He has been
extensively followed by persons who would not like to acknowledge that
they have learnt anything from him, in this mode of speaking. But it
is surely fatal to the humble study of St. John. We do not suffer him
to tell us of the Word, and then to tell us how the Word was made
flesh, and dwelt among men, and manifested forth His glory. We start
from an assumption and speculation of our own; we chain the Apostle,
as if he were a Proteus, that we may compel him to give forth, not his
own oracles, but those which we have put into his mouth. If I could
induce but one student of divinity to abandon this perilous and
irreverent course, I should believe that God had permitted me to be an
instrument of some good to His Church.


DISCOURSE IV.

Mr. Alford has given it as his opinion that the sentence, '_Lamb of
God that taketh away the sin of the world_,' does not refer at all to
the Paschal feast, but to the words in the 53d chapter of Isaiah. He
raises the natural objection, of which I have spoken in this
Discourse, that the scape-goat bears away sins, but that no such
association is connected with the Lamb except in the words, '_Surely
He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows_.' I do not venture to
affirm that the words of Isaiah were not in the Baptist's mind when he
uttered this sentence, or that they did not suggest themselves to the
minds of the disciples who heard him speak, and who followed Jesus.
But supposing that to be the case, why did the Prophet connect the
lamb that was led to the slaughter, and the sheep that was dumb before
his shearers, with the exclamation in the fourth verse? Why did
Isaiah, as well as John, think of a lamb instead of a goat? We are all
agreed that the scape-goat was the most obvious image, one specially
suggested, to a preacher in the wilderness. Why was it not the one to
which that preacher in the wilderness resorted? Why did he
industriously choose another image, which no tradition except that of
one passage in a prophet seemed to justify? Why has all Christendom
accepted and ratified that selection, the other being thrown quite
into the background, only furnishing an occasional simile to divines,
being scarcely brought within the range of our sympathies even by the
earnestness and genius of an adventurous and devout painter of our own
day, while the lamb has been the favourite subject of Christian art in
all ages? Surely these questions require to be considered. The
Passover, I admit, does not suggest the thought of a sin-bearer. That
thought is suggested to the conscience by the sense of sin, or rather
is that sense. But did not the Passover suggest to those who had that
thought deeply fixed in their own minds and consciences, the sense of
a deliverer? May not John have felt--may not all Christendom have
felt--that the sin-bearer must, as I have expressed it in this
Discourse, go into the presence of God to deliver us from our burden
and bondage, not into a land uninhabited?

The intolerable burden which Luther had felt on his conscience leads
him to speak of this verse with intense delight and satisfaction. (See
Werke, b. vii. p. 1637, u. s. w. Walch.) Starting from his inward
experience, he takes it for granted that Isaiah's words were the
exposition to the Jew of the inadequacy of the legal lamb offered day
by day, or at the annual feast, to take away sin. St. John's words,
_in that sense_, become, for him, the interpretation of Isaiah's
words, 'Surely the Lamb that was dumb before his shearers hath carried
our sins.' '_Behold that Lamb of God!_' But it never occurs to him
that the Jew could have separated the lamb at the feast from the
consciousness of evil, or that it could have suggested any thoughts
which did not point to a deliverer from the evil. On many subjects
older writers or modern writers may see further than he does; on
_this_ no one, I think, is so entitled to bear witness.


DISCOURSE V.

_Note 1._

Those who maintain that it is dangerous to attempt any revision of our
present translation of the Scriptures are fond of two arguments
especially. One is, that the language which would be substituted, in
almost every case, for that of the divines in King James's reign would
be less simple and popular than theirs; the other is, that no vital or
fundamental doctrine of our faith is affected by any errors or
inadvertencies into which they may have fallen.

These arguments have been illustrated by a large amount of eulogistic
and vituperative rhetoric; but plain readers would rather that they
were brought to some practical test. Here is one. I have urged that we
should put _Signs_ in nearly all those verses of St. John in which we
now find '_Miracles_.' Is this change likely to affect the simplicity
of our version, to make its 'language not understanded by the people?'
Is 'miracle' one of their ordinary, homely, Saxon expressions? Would
it be exceedingly difficult for a preacher to make his humble
parishioners understand the use and purpose of 'Signs?'

But there is the _cui bono_ objection:--'You unsettle a mode of speech
to which we are accustomed. To what end? Is there anything "vital" in
the difference?' Vital means, I suppose, if it is rendered into our
vernacular speech, that which affects life--the life of individuals or
of societies. I venture to think that this change is important to the
life of both. The habit of looking for wonderments, as the decisive
and overpowering witnesses of Christ, has, it seems to me, been most
mischievous to the life of the Church, is affecting the life of each
one of us. Those who wish to think and speak of Him as not only born
at a certain time into the world, but as living before the world, and
as the founder of it, find themselves perpetually embarrassed by the
notion which has worked itself into the minds of our people and of
ourselves, that He established His claim to be an extraordinary person
by doing extraordinary acts in the towns of Galilee and the city of
Jerusalem, instead of showing by signs what He is and always has been.
The Catholic doctrine is more undermined than we are at all aware by
the feeling which this deviation from the original has sanctioned and
promoted. We assume Christ's simple humanity as the ground of our
thoughts, and then add on to it an indefinite notion of divinity. The
truth which was so dear to the earnest Evangelical teachers of the
last century, that Christ is to be proclaimed as the Emmanuel, 'God
with us,' that the whole Gospel is concerning a living Christ, suffers
scarcely less from the same cause. And how much the whole argument of
Protestants with Romanists about _their_ miracles is weakened, and its
practical effect destroyed, by the use of an expression which (such is
the curious Nemesis upon those who, for any cause whatever, trifle
with language) we have derived, not from the Vulgate, but from
Theodore Beza, I fancy some of our professional anti-Romanist orators
might discover, if they spent some of the time in studying the
controversy and the history of the Church which they spend in
constructing denunciations against the superstitions and apostasy of
their opponents.

I offer these as proofs that in one instance, at all events, 'vital'
benefits may be gained by an earnest and sober consideration of our
existing translation, and that even deadly mischiefs may be averted by
it. And I am inclined to think that it is a fair instance. Among those
divines who are most earnest for a revision, and would be most
competent to take part in it, there is not one, so far as I am aware,
who would not watch with the greatest jealousy over the Saxon
character of our version, who would wish to substitute for a single
venerable phrase a nineteenth century equivalent, who would not
sacrifice anything excepting truth to the preservation of that which
is popular and human, who would not expect, as the reward of a
steadfast adherence to truth, that the book would become more a book
for the English people, and less a book for the schools. And I am
satisfied that these honest and learned men may look for
another--even, if possible, a higher--reward for their serious
devotion to the book which they love and reverence most. Many
delusions like that of which I have spoken are perpetuated, I am
persuaded, through phrases which crept into our version from
carelessness,--which have been repeated and turned into arguments by
pulpit rhetoricians,--which often lead honest Englishmen to doubt the
truth of the Bible. They will be, in the best sense, defenders of the
faith if they rescue the words which the Psalmist speaks of as
purified seven times in the fire from any earthly dross, and if they
spoil the trade of those who wish it to be mingled with the genuine
ore.

I will add one word in conclusion. Much is said in our day about
verbal inspiration. Some accuse their brethren of superstition for
maintaining it; some accuse their brethren of infidelity for not
maintaining it. I suspect that a common name may cover the most
opposite feelings and convictions. A believer in verbal inspiration,
like Mr. Tregelles--who lives laborious days that he may discover the
purest text, so that none of the inspired words may fall to the ground
or be perverted--is one of the noblest witnesses for truth I can
conceive of. May God give us more and more of such men, and hearts to
honour them for their works' sake! On the other hand, those who say
they believe in verbal inspiration, whenever they wish to direct the
wrath of their disciples or of a religious mob against men that are
more righteous than themselves, and who then show that they are afraid
of trying God's words, and freeing them from insincere mixtures, lest
the minds of the people should be disturbed, are not exactly those
whom one can think of as '_Israelites indeed, in whom is no guile_.'

_Note 2._

My attention has been called by a friend to a very interesting
interpretation of the dialogue between Jesus and the Virgin, which is
given by Gregory of Nyssa, Tom. ii. p. 9, B. c. He makes, it will be
seen, the words of our Lord interrogative: 'Is not my hour yet
come?'--

Τὴν γὰρ μητρῴαν συμβουλὴν, ὡς οὐκέτι
κατὰ καιρὸν αὐτῷ προσαγομένην
ἀπεποιήσατο, εἰπών· τί ἐμοὶ καί σοι
γύναι; μὴ καί ταύτης μου τῆς
ἡλικίας ἑπιστατεῖν ἑθέλεις; οὔπω ἕκει
μου ἡ ὥρα ἡ τὸ αὑτοκρατὲς περιεχομένη
τῇ ἡλικίᾳ καὶ αὐτεξούσιον;


DISCOURSE XII.

I have spoken in this _Sermon_ on two subjects, of which I have spoken
at some length in my Theological Essays; the 'Resurrection' and the
'Judgment.' I am not the least anxious to correct any impressions
which my remarks in that book may have made on the minds of religious
critics. If they have misunderstood me, nothing which I could say
would make me intelligible to them. If they have misinterpreted me
without misunderstanding me, I am not the sufferer. But I shall be
very glad if what I have said here should remove any difficulty from
the minds of earnest and thoughtful men, some of whom have written
their complaints to me in a most kind and friendly spirit, evidently
regarding me as a fellow-inquirer after truth, and wishing that we
should help each other in the pursuit of it.

I think they will perceive, from what I have said on the
words--'_Those that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the
Son of God, and they that hear shall live_,'--that I am not less
zealous than they are to assert the absolute identity of the body of
humiliation with the body of glory. That truth cannot be asserted in
stronger language than it is asserted by St. Paul in the 15th chapter
of the 1st Corinthians, and by our own Burial Service. God forbid
that any one should make it weaker! What I affirm is, that we do not
gain the least strength for this conviction by setting aside St.
Paul's assertion, that corruption shall not inherit incorruption; and
that the Burial Service nowhere gives the slightest hint that what is
committed as earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, shall be
reunited to constitute that body which we have a sure and certain hope
will be raised, and will be made like unto Christ's glorious body.
This attempt to identify the corruption of the body with the body, the
effects of death with the substance which death is unable to destroy,
I know has the sanction of great and venerable names. Transubstantiation
and Consubstantiation have also the sanction of names which are most
dear to the Church. But if Bonaventura and Thomas à Kempis cannot bind
us to the one, or Luther to the other; if we have a right to feel that
we partake with them of the sacrament of Christ's risen and glorified
body most completely when we forget the theories by which here on
earth they limited it; we are surely not bound by the rhetoric of
Donne or of Jeremy Taylor, however much we may reverence them both, to
adopt what seems to us merely an earthly and sensual explanation of a
glorious reality, directly interfering with the scriptural account of
it, and with many of the most practical and consolatory truths which
flow from it. I do not wish to get rid of any passage in the New
Testament upon the subject, or to give it a forced construction. I do
wish that we may look straight at all the passages in it, and not
allow a conception which we have formed,--a very natural, but it seems
to me a very low and grovelling conception,--to interfere with the
full understanding and reception of them. I would not wish a better
argument against the popular theory than the eloquent sermon of Donne
in the support and elucidation of it. Let any one see how utterly
unrestrained the fancy of a devout and excellent man becomes when it
enters into this speculation, how entirely it loses sight of all
scriptural guidance, how it revels amongst the images of the
charnel-house. And then let any one ask himself whether this is the
doctrine of that divine passage in St. Paul, which reaches indeed from
earth to heaven, which is not afraid of the lowest objects when it is
in contact with the highest; yet in which all is clear and awful, as
if he knew that he was speaking of death and life, of God and man, and
as if the Spirit who was guiding him abhorred all conceits and
trifling. Only imagine Donne's Sermon substituted for the 15th of
Corinthians, when we meet in the church around the coffin of a friend!
It is a very simple test; but I think any one who applies it fairly
will know what is the worth of the additions which the fancy, even if
it is not ordinarily a vulgar fancy, makes to the divine testimony.

Precisely on the same ground do I protest against the exercises of
this same fancy respecting what is called, by a phrase which I have
not met with anywhere in Scripture, the intermediate state of
disembodied spirits. I am told by a gentleman, who seems to know, that
they are placed in the moon, or in one of the fixed stars. Any one who
can find consolation in such an opinion, I should be very sorry to
deprive of it. But I must say plainly, that we are in a world of life
and death; and that if we have nothing better than these dreams to
sustain each other with, we had better hold our peace. In the words of
our Lord in the 5th chapter of St. John, in the comment upon these
words at the tomb of Lazarus, I find what I want, and what I believe
every one wants, and more than we shall ever get to the bottom of, if
we meditate upon them from this day till the consummation of all
things. While I have them I will not, for my part, build up a world of
fantasies which, seeing that it has no foundation in the nature of
things or in the word of God, any physical discovery, any application
of ordinary logic, may throw down in a moment. _Da nuces puero._ The
boyhood of the Church, as of individuals, may have innocently occupied
itself in cracking nuts, and eating the poor kernel in the inside.
_Our_ faith perishes in such experiments. Let us put away childish
things, and try that we may know those blessed things which are freely
given us of God.

That the declarations respecting a general resurrection at the last
day are to me of infinite worth, and that they do not at all clash in
my mind with the belief which our Lord's words in this chapter appear
very distinctly to justify,--that men, at all times and in all ages,
who have been in their graves, have heard the voice of the Son of Man
and have lived; that in their bodies, and not in their spirits only,
they have awakened at His call; I think will be evident from what I
have said on the resurrection of Lazarus. And this general
resurrection I connect, as I think all men connect it, with a
judgment-day. The only question is, whether we are to follow strictly
the assertions of the Evangelists, and call that day an unveiling of
the Son of Man--a discovery to all, wherever they are, in one part of
the universe or another, quick or dead, of Him who is, and always has
been, their King and their Judge, so that every eye shall see Him, and
the secrets of all hearts shall be discovered; or whether we shall
substitute for _this_ notion of His advent to judgment, one which
supposes a gathering together, in some certain space, of multitudes
that never could be gathered together in any space,--one that
reproduces all the pomp and solemnities of earthly courts of
justice,--one that supposes Christ not to be the Searcher of hearts,
not to be the Light of men, but the mere image and pattern of an
earthly magistrate. What I call for, is the _strict_ interpretation of
the words of Scripture. What I denounce, is an attempt to substitute
the forms and conceptions of our own carnal understandings for that
which speaks to a faculty within us which is higher than our
understandings, and which belongs to us all alike. Far from agreeing
with those writers, immeasurably superior to me I own in learning and
insight, who think that the words of Scripture do not fit the
conditions of modern times, and that we need to adapt them to our
stage of civilization, or else to cast them aside, I expect no
deliverance from the superstitions by which we are tied and bound,
from the confusions which a corrupt and money-getting civilization has
introduced into our thoughts on the meanest and on the highest
subjects, but in a return to the more accurate study of those
Scriptural phrases which we use most familiarly, but in the attempt to
bring our theology to the higher and simpler standard which they set
before us. Earnestly would I implore those friends who have so kindly
told me that they would gladly agree with me, in my views respecting
the Resurrection and the Judgment, but that they find it
impossible--not to trouble themselves about my views at all; to be
sure that they can only be of use to them, that I can only be of use
to them, just so far as I can help them to clear their minds of mists
which hinder them from seeing that light which must throw all my
opinions and those of far wiser men into the shade.


DISCOURSES XVI. AND XVII.

A friend, who has kindly looked over the sheets of these Discourses,
has intimated to me that though I may have said enough on the simple
and childlike character of St. John's _narrative_, I have not directly
encountered an impression which he believes to be very general,--that
the _discourses_ of our Lord which are contained in this Gospel, are
essentially and radically unlike those in the other three. He thinks
that this impression may not be felt by the _most_ humble and devout
readers of the Gospel; but that it is far from being confined to those
who have any knowledge of Baur's opinions, or have even the slightest
acquaintance with German theology. It forces itself upon every one who
is only beginning to exercise his faculties of comparison and
criticism upon the Scriptures; it is especially likely to affect those
who have derived their impressions of them from our ordinary English
commentators and pulpit teachers.

My own experience corroborates this opinion. Earnest men feel this
difficulty more than indifferent men. It is, therefore, one which no
teacher ought to leave unconsidered. But every reader must feel how
hard it is for one man to put himself exactly in another's point of
view, and to discern what the inconsistencies are which seem to him
most glaring. To speak about tones and habits of writing, so as to
make oneself intelligible, so as not to assume canons of criticism
which the objector does not recognise, is possible, but certainly far
from easy. I believe that I can only fulfil my friend's wishes on this
subject, with any satisfaction, if I take some special discourse from
one of the first three Gospels,--some one which shall be admitted to
exhibit their characteristical manner,--and another from St. John,
which shall be admitted to exhibit his manner. For many reasons, I
think that the former specimen ought to be taken from St. Matthew. Nor
can I have much doubt on which passage of St. Matthew the reader would
wish me to fix. All would say, 'The Sermon on the Mount exhibits that
purely ethical tone which we trace in the earlier Gospels. There
Christ speaks with authority, no doubt, as a king and a lawgiver; but
it is to proclaim blessings upon the poor in spirit, the merciful, the
pure in heart. There is little of what in modern times we call
doctrine. There is no formal theology. It is a code which saint,
savage, and sage, may all recognise as divine, whether they conform to
it or no.'

What shall we choose as the parallel discourse to this in St. John? It
would be difficult to find any contrast so marked and striking as that
which the 8th chapter offers. The discourse there is argumentative,
not hortatory. It is addressed to disputers in Jerusalem, not to
crowds about a mountain. Those who hear it do not confess its
authority, but canvass every word of it. No passage in St. John is
more strictly theological. Here, then, if anywhere, we may expect to
find the radical essential dissimilitude which is spoken of. Let us
see whether it is there,--whether the opposition which is so manifest
upon the surface does, or does not, penetrate to the heart's core of
the two records.

We may amuse ourselves for ever with the words ethical, theological,
doctrinal. They are evidently mere artificial helps to our
conceptions. We can never arrive through them at any safe apprehension
of human thoughts or divine. But it is not difficult, I think, for any
earnest reader to ascertain what is the cardinal idea,--at all events
the cardinal word in the Sermon on the Mount. Let us take a few
passages of it, that we may be clear on this point. '_Let your light
so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify
your Father which is in heaven.' 'I say unto you, Love your enemies,
bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for
them that despitefully use you, and persecute you; that you may be the
children of your Father which is in heaven: for He maketh His sun
to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and
on the unjust.' 'Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is
in heaven is perfect.' 'Take heed that ye do not your alms before men,
to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which
is in heaven.' 'But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know
what thy right hand doeth: that thine alms may be in secret: and thy
Father which seeth in secret Himself shall reward thee openly.' 'But
thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast
shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father
which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.' 'Be not ye therefore
like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of,
before ye ask Him. After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father
which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.' 'For if ye forgive men
their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: but if
ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive
your trespasses.' 'But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and
wash thy face; that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy
Father which is in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret shall
reward thee openly.' 'Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not,
neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father
feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?' 'Therefore take no
thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or,
Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the
Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of
these things.' 'If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts
unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven
give good things to them that ask Him?' 'Not every one that saith unto
me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that
doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven._'

I am sure I need not remark that we have not here the mere repetition
of a name. All the precepts that answer most to the description that
is given of the Sermon on the Mount, when it is praised for its
ethical qualities, for its beautiful morality, are here made to depend
upon the fact that those whom He was addressing had a Father in
heaven, who knew them and desired them to be what He was. This is the
thread which binds all these precepts together. Take it away, and they
lose not only their cohesion, but all their practical force; they
become a set of cold, dead, formal letters in a book, which we may
admire if we like them, but which have no power over us, which do not
concern human beings at all. This is not only a truth, but it is _the_
truth which exercises all the charm over those who feel that there is
any charm in the Sermon on the Mount, however they may account for it,
or represent it to themselves. A person who has been reading the old
Hebrew Scriptures asks himself,--'What is the change that I experience
in passing from them to this document? St. Matthew was a Hebrew;
perhaps he wrote in Hebrew. He says the law is not to pass away; but
that every jot and tittle of it is to be fulfilled. Why, then, do I
call his book a Gospel? Why does it transport me into a world
altogether different from that in which I have been dwelling,--from
that in which I have had such wonderful revelations of God? Christ
speaks to me of a Father; Christ reveals a Father. All other
differences are contained in that. This is the new revelation.'

Having made this discovery, let us turn to the 8th chapter of St.
John. What is that about? I am afraid of repeating myself; but I will
repeat St. John without fear.

'_And yet if I judge, my judgment is true: for I am not alone, but I
and the Father that sent me.' 'I am one that bear witness of myself,
and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me. Then said they unto
Him, Where is thy Father? Jesus answered, Ye neither know me, nor my
Father: if ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also?'
'They understood not that He spake to them of the Father.' 'And He
that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do
always those things that please Him.' 'I speak that which I have seen
with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father.'
'Jesus answered, I have not a devil; but I honour my Father, and ye do
dishonour me.' 'Jesus answered, If I honour myself, my honour is
nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me; of whom ye say, that He is
your God._'

These passages I think I have shown are the cardinal passages here,
as the others are the cardinal passages there. May I entreat the
reader, who thinks there is a radical difference between St. Matthew
and St. John, seriously to meditate upon them? They will show him that
there is a difference, a very great difference, between these
Evangelists. I think they will show him that the difference is of the
kind which I have endeavoured to indicate in these Sermons, between
one whose function it was to declare to men that they had a Father,
and one whose function it was to show them how it was possible they
should have a Father, by unfolding the unity of the Father and the
Son.


DISCOURSE XIX.

A book has recently been published by Mr. John McLeod Campbell 'On the
Nature of the Atonement.' I cannot feel too thankful to the pious and
excellent writer for the light which he has thrown upon this subject;
for his exemplary charity to those with whom he is at variance; for
his successful effort to reclaim the doctrine from the region of hard
scholasticism to the region of practical life and holiness; above all,
for his vindication of the character of God as a Father, and for his
determination to assert, that likeness to His character, and communion
with Him, are the ends which God is seeking for us, and which we are
to seek from Him. In every one of these respects, I wish to be a
learner from Mr. Campbell. Others may criticise him who feel that they
know more than he does. I cannot read his book without perceiving how
little I do know of the truths which seem to me the most vital and
cardinal, and how impossible it is to know more, except by having more
of the spirit of love, which is the Spirit of God.

In a book written expressly for Scotland--though admirably fitted to
enlarge and deepen the thoughts of Englishmen--I cannot wish that he
should have followed any other method than that which he has followed.
He knows what books are popular among the religious people of his own
land; and of these he has spoken with singular candour and wisdom. I
might, indeed, wish that Calvinists knew something of Calvin as well
as of Edwards, and that Scotchmen cared more for the broad, bold
statements of Knox, than for the modifications of much feebler men in
this country. I can say for myself that I have read, with infinite
delight, Knox's book on Predestination; finding there the fullest and
most vehement assertions of God as an absolutely righteous Being, and
the greatest indignation against his opponents for daring to say that
a believer in predestination must think of Him chiefly as a Sovereign.
Knox would evidently have died rather than have adopted phraseology
which his descendants think that it is heretical to complain of. He
would have rejoiced not to limit God's grace in any way; only he could
not see how the acknowledgment of it as universal was compatible with
the attributing of every good thing to God and nothing to man. As an
assertor, as a resistor of Arminian denials, we may embrace him and go
all lengths with him. And I apprehend that even when he was upon
earth, at all events that now, he would prefer this sympathy to that
of men who fritter away his positions, and only accept his negations.

Neither Edwards, however, nor Dr. Williams, nor Knox, nor Calvin, have
much influence upon the mind of England in the present day--at all
events on the minds of English Episcopalians. Luther, to whose
Commentary on the Galatians Mr. Campbell has done justice, commands
our sympathy more. It is the man who speaks to us more than his books.
I believe if we knew them better, we should find such a man speaking
in them that we should be scarcely able to make the distinction. He
whom we suppose to be the assertor of Justification by Faith, is
really the poor stricken monk, overwhelmed by the sense and burden of
sin; grasping the assurance of forgiveness which comes to him from the
old Creed; believing that assurance as given by the God who is the
subject of the Creed; certain that it cannot mean indulgence for sin,
that it must mean deliverance from sin; discovering that it involves
the actual possession of righteousness; discovering that he cannot
have that righteousness in himself, and must have it in Christ;
learning gradually from St. Paul how Christ is made unto us
righteousness and is the righteousness of God; knocking down every
obstacle which stood in the way of the apprehension of this
righteousness; preaching the Gospel to men that it is theirs as well
as his; anathematizing Popes, Councils, Kings, Doctors, Reformers,
whoever seem to him to intercept the intercourse between the sinner
and his Lord. With such a man--in his strength and in his weakness, in
his gentleness and in his rage--Englishmen, so far as they are enabled
to make his acquaintance, feel a cordial interest; they are sure that
he was fighting a good fight, even when the smoke of the cannon, or
his own single-handed rashness, conceal him from their sight, and make
his intentions perplexing to them. And those who have had any fights
in themselves, and who therefore know that his descriptions are real
and not imaginary, will heartily approve of Mr. Campbell's judgment in
putting him foremost among those who have started from the sense of
evil in themselves, and have been led to believe in an atonement as
the only emancipation from it.

It must not, however, be concealed, that the following of Luther has
had an effect in cramping men's study of St. Paul. In another book I
have endeavoured to explain how it seems to me that this effect has
been produced. The doctrine of Justification by Faith has been assumed
to be _the_ Pauline doctrine. Luther said that it was so; and Luther
surely entered into St. Paul as no one else has done. Persons who
followed the course of Luther's experience thought that the Epistle to
the Romans must begin from the sense of sin, as Luther and as they
began. If it did not appear to do so, then the two first chapters must
be treated as prologue, and it must begin with the third. All
questions about the relation of Jews and Gentiles must be treated as
accidental or subordinate to the primary thesis; whatever does not
concern that, in the final chapters, must be resolved into practical
exhortations, introduced, after the manner of a modern sermon, when
the doctrinal statement has been concluded. Those who, without this
experience, merely desired to elucidate the formal doctrine, of course
subjected the Epistle to still more formal treatment. Its human
character disappeared; and the divinity which was to compensate for
that disappearance was of a very dry, hungry, uninspired character
indeed. Both parties agreed to regard the Epistles to the Romans and
the Galatians as the specially Pauline Epistles, because there were
most allusions in them to justification by faith; other Epistles were
to be interpreted mainly by reference to these. Ultimately, Baur, who
wrote a triumphant vindication of the Lutheran doctrine against
Möhler's 'Symbolik,' has discovered that only four of the thirteen
Epistles can be genuine, because the Pauline diagnostic is wanting in
the rest; and that there was a deadly antipathy between St. Paul and
the other apostles, because he was asserting that spiritual doctrine
which they were setting at nought.

The time, therefore, it seemed to me, had come for re-examining this
question about the subject-matter of St. Paul's Epistles, and seeing
whether we have a right to limit them as some German Evangelicals have
been inclined to limit them. I contended, in 'The Unity of the New
Testament,' that the words '_It pleased God to reveal His Son in me,
that I might preach Him among the Gentiles_,'--words that occur in the
Epistle which was dearest to Luther, in the Epistle on which Baur
grounds his great argument for an opposition between St. Paul and the
other apostles; words that contain St. Paul's own account of his
conversion, and therefore begin from what Lutherans must admit to be
the right starting-point of his history,--are the key to the meaning
of his life and the object of his mission. I attempted to show that,
if we used this key, the Epistle to the Romans might be read as a
whole letter, not be cut into fragments to meet a certain hypothesis;
and that all the Epistles which Baur would reject become the varied
and harmonious expositions of a great and divine purpose. Using that
key, also, it seemed to me that a most close and intimate relation
would appear between the Epistle to the Hebrews and those which bear
St. Paul's name on the face of them; and that--whether the old
tradition or the suspicion of critics respecting that Epistle has the
strongest foundation, whether or not it actually proceeded from the
hand of St. Paul--it does illustrate and fulfil his intention, and is
a transition point between him and the other Apostles, especially
between him and the Apostle St. John.

Why do I refer to these points here? Because it seems to me that the
doctrine of Justification by Faith, either in the practical form in
which it presented itself to Luther, or in the merely dogmatical form
which it assumes in some of his successors, has determined the
thoughts of a number of Germans, Englishmen, and Scotchmen on the
subject of the Atonement; so that their thoughts of the one
unconsciously and inevitably govern their thoughts of the other. They
start from evil, from the conscience of evil in themselves, and then
either each man asks himself,--'How can I be free from this oppression
which is sitting so heavily upon me?' or the schoolman asks, 'What
divine arrangement would meet the necessities of this case?' Of
course, the results of these two inquiries are very different; and Mr.
Campbell has done an immense service to Christian faith and life by
bringing forth the former into prominence, and throwing the other into
the shade. His book may be read as a great protest of the individual
conscience against the utter inadequacy of the scholastic arrangements
to satisfy it; as a solemn assertion,--'This arrangement of yours will
not take away my sin; and I must have my sin taken away; this
arrangement of yours does not bring me into fellowship with a
righteous and loving God; and I must have that fellowship, or perish.'
This is admirable; but if what I have said is true, there is another
way of contemplating the subject. We need not begin with the sinner;
we may begin with God. And so beginning, that which speaks most
comfort to the individual man may not be first of all contrived for
his justification. God may have reconciled the world unto Himself; God
may have atoned Himself with mankind; and the declaration of this
atonement, the setting forth the nature and grounds of it, and all the
different aspects of it, may be the real subjects of those Epistles,
in which the individual man has found the secret of his own blessing,
of his own restoration; but which he mangles and well-nigh destroys
when he reconstructs them upon the basis of his individual
necessities, and makes them utter a message which has been first
suggested by them.

The subject belongs to this place, because the words, '_Other sheep I
have, which are not of this fold_,' have led me to speak in this
Discourse of the calling in of the Gentiles as part of that mystery of
atonement, the great act of which was the Son of Man's laying down His
life that He might take it again, the ground of which was the unity of
the Father and the Son. Here St. Paul and St. John wonderfully
coincide. That which must be thrown into the background by those who
merely connect the atonement with individual salvation, becomes most
prominent for both Apostles; for the one who believed that He was an
ambassador from God to men, telling them that He had reconciled the
world unto Himself, and beseeching them to be reconciled to Him; for
the other who taught that '_God sent not His Son into the world to
condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved_.' If
it be asked, then, whether there is no difference between the
tent-maker of Tarsus and the old man of Ephesus, I should
answer--this; that while St. Paul's main work was to set forth the
fact of atonement, laying its groundwork always in the righteousness
of God manifested in Christ, and ascending, in the Epistle to the
Ephesians especially, to the purpose which He purposed in Christ
before the worlds were; St. John's calling was to trace this last idea
to its source in God Himself; to exhibit the original constitution of
man in the Divine Word; to set forth atonement as the vindication of
that constitution, and the vindication of the right of all men to
enter into it; to set forth the union of the Father with the Son in
one Spirit, as the ground of the reconciliation of man, and of his
restoration to the image of his Creator.

To those, then, who ask me whether I hold the doctrine of the
Atonement in some unusual and unnatural sense, or do not wish to
thrust it into a corner, as if the Bible had other more important
subjects to treat of, I answer,--My great complaint of the oracles of
the English religious world is, that they do give a most unusual and
unnatural sense to the word Atonement; that they give it a most
contracted signification; that they lead their disciples to form a
poor opinion of its effects; that they do not follow Apostles and
Evangelists, in connecting it with the whole revelation of God and the
whole mystery of man. I answer again,--that they connect it with their
own faith and their own salvation, not with that cross on which Christ
was lifted up that He might draw all men to Him. On many points I
believe I could adopt forms of language usual among Calvinistical
divines, to which Mr. Campbell, looking at them from his point of
view, rightly objects as involving fictions; but I would rather be
suspected of rejecting all popular modes of speech on the subject,
even when I see in them a good and wholesome meaning, than yield for
one instant to those representations of the character and will of God
which must end with us, as they did with the Jews, in the
identification of the Father of lights with the Spirit of lies.


DISCOURSES XXII. XXIII. AND XXIV.

I have dwelt much in these Sermons upon the fact that our Lord treated
His disciples as a body, and as a holy body. Many persons, as soon as
they hear remarks of this kind, exclaim--'Oh, yes; we have often heard
that doctrine of corporate holiness set forth before. But it seems to
us the very destruction of personal holiness. It involves every
ecclesiastical fiction; Romanism is at the bottom of it.'

When statements of this kind are made honestly and earnestly, I am
glad to hear them. Abhorrence of fictions we should take all pains to
cultivate in others and in ourselves. Whatever tends to the weakening
of personal holiness, let it have what logical consistency it may,
must be false. And that there is a doctrine about corporate
Christianity, corporate faith, corporate righteousness, which is open
to these charges, I, at least, can have no doubt. I should not say
that Romanism was at the bottom of it; but rather that it is at the
bottom of Romanism, in so far as Romanism is an immoral system, and
one that deposes Christ from His rightful dignity.

1. Let me explain myself upon each of these points. To suppose a
society--call it a Church or what you will--constituted holy by an
arbitrary decree of God, its members remaining unholy, I hold to be a
most dangerous fiction; one which we cannot too vehemently repudiate,
as alike condemned by experience, by reason, and by Scripture.
Experience testifies that when a nation or a Church claims a holiness
or a righteousness of its own, it becomes practically most unholy and
unrighteous in all its acts and purposes. Reason declares that it must
be so, because righteousness is predicable only of voluntary beings,
and that to be made righteous by an arrangement is impossible in the
nature of things. Scripture declares that it must be so, because God
is holy; and the holiness of man is only possible by the participation
of His nature. But is it the same thing to assert that God has
constituted man holy in His Son; that all unholiness is the result of
the selfish desire of men to have something of their own, and not to
abide in God's order; that a Church is the witness of the true
constitution of man in Christ; that every Churchman, therefore, by his
position and calling, is bound to say that he is only holy as a member
of a body, and holy in its Head; that every Churchman who does not say
this, who thinks that it is his individual holiness which helps to
make up the Church, is setting up himself, and imitating the sin for
which our Lord denounced the Pharisee? Does experience, does reason,
does Scripture, protest against this doctrine? Is not experience in
favour of it, inasmuch as it testifies that every true patriot has
lived and died for his nation, and has renounced himself; that every
true Churchman has lived to claim his own blessings for all men, to
declare that he himself, as an individual, was worthy of none of them?
Is not reason in favour of this doctrine, seeing that it affirms a
voluntary creature to be a mere curse to himself till he confesses a
law which is above himself, and gives up his self-will that he may
have a free-will? Is not Scripture affirming, in every line, that God
has chosen families, nations, Churches; and that these are holy
because He is holy; and that those who go about to establish a
holiness or righteousness of their own have not submitted to His
righteousness?

2. I have anticipated the answer to the second question. Personal
holiness is weakened, nay, is destroyed, by everything that could
lead a man to think that it was fictitious in him, or that God was
sanctioning a fiction. And therefore it is greatly imperilled by any
notions which speak of the individual man having a righteousness
imputed to him, in consequence of his faith, which is not truly and
actually his. But this fiction is not the consequence of maintaining
the doctrine I am asserting; it becomes inevitable when we deny that
doctrine. If by the very law and constitution of His universe God
contemplates us as members of a body in His Son, we are bound to
contemplate ourselves in the same way. We have a righteousness and
holiness in Christ. We have no right to deny it; our unrighteousness
is the very effect of denying it. Imputation of righteousness _then_
becomes no fiction. It means only that God beholds us as we are, as we
have not learnt or do not choose to behold ourselves. The fiction has
arisen because the truth has been denied.

3. When I speak of a Church, St. Paul tells me to speak of a body. He
pursues the analogy, we all know, into its details; he speaks of head,
and feet, and hands, of functions assigned to each, of sufferings
passing from one to another, of a life circulating through the whole.
Everything here is living and real. You turn the body into a
corporation, a certain thing created by enactment, without parts,
functions, life; you attribute to the dead thing what is true of the
living thing--to the decapitated trunk what was true of that which
derives all its strength and virtue from its head; then, indeed, you
are involved in a series of falsehoods, each more monstrous than the
last; or, to speak more modern and courteous language, in a series of
developments, each preserving a family likeness to its ancestor, the
very last and most prodigious being able to prove its descent from the
notion out of which they all started. Once suppose it possible for the
Church to exist out of Christ, and for humanity to exist out of
Christ, and a Church which thinks this may impose anything it pleases
upon those who belong to it. Nothing would be restrained from it which
it had imagined to do, if its first maxim were _not_ a falsehood, if
Christ did _not_ reign in spite of the determination of His subjects
to set up another ruler.

4. I have given an outline of what I believe to be the Romish system;
and surely it is a system which may obtain a hold over England, as
well as over any country in the world. Nay, must it not obtain a hold
if we have nothing to set up against it but the notion of a Church,
compounded of a number of men believing themselves to be holy, and
despising others? Romanism is the fearful parody of Christian Unity.
This is the absolute denial that any such Unity exists or is possible.
When the Son of God and the Son of Man is manifested, the parody and
the denial will perish together.


DISCOURSE XXVI.

A friend has suggested to me a punctuation of the 2d verse of the 17th
chapter, which would enable us to translate it: '_That He should give
to them all which Thou hast given Him, (even) eternal life_.' This
version seems to me at least worthy of serious consideration.


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End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gospel of St. John, by 
Frederick Denison Maurice

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