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From the Library of
Dr. C. Ray Palmer
1915

®

THE

LIFE OF CHRIST.

REV. WILLIAM HANNA, D.D., LL.D.

Vol. III.
LAST DAY OF OUE LORD'S PASSION,
FORTY DAYS AFTEE THE EESUERECTION.

NEW YORK:
ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS,
630 Bkoadway.
1871.

JOHN WILSON AND SON,
Cambridge.

THE LAST DAY

OF

OUR LORD'S PASSION.

CONTENTS

»A8»
The Betrayal and the Betrayer,  9
The Denials, Repentance, and Eestoration of St.
Peter  36
The Trial before the Sanhedrim  63
Christ's First Appearance before Pilate,  90
Christ's Appearance before Herod,  114
Christ's Second Appearance before Pilate  139
The Daughters of Jerusalem Weeping,  169
The Penitent Thief,  195
The Mother of our Lord,  228
The Darkness and the Desertion,  254
"It is Finished,"  2?5
The Attendant Miracles,  29?
The Physical Cause of the Death of Christ  323
The Burial,  351
Appendix,   369

I.
©foe gtttapt tm& flu grfwpr.*
" The night on which he was betrayed"
— that long, sleepless, checkered, troubled
night — the last night of our Lord's suffering
life — that one and only night in which we
can follow him throughout, and trace his
footsteps from hour to hour,' — through what
strange vicissitudes of scene and incident,
of thought and feeling, did our Saviour on
that night pass ! The meeting in the upper
chamber, the washing of the disciples' feet,
the keeping of the Hebrew passover ; the
cloud that gathered round his brow, the sad
warnings to Peter, and the terrible ones to
Judas; the institution of his own Supper,
* Matthew xxvl 4T-56; Mark xiv, 43-50 ; Luka xxii. 4*-i>3
John xviii. 2-11. 1*

10 THE BETRAYAL AND
the tender consolatory discourse, the sub
lime intercessory prayer; the Garden; its
brief and broken prayers, its deep and aw
ful agony ; the approach of the High Priest's
band, the arrest, the desertion by all, the
denials by one ; the private examination
before Annas, the public arraignment before
the Sanhedrim; the silence as to all minor
charges, the great confession, the final and
formal condemnation to death ; — all these
between the time that the sun of that Thurs
day evening set, and the sun of Friday
morning rose upon Jerusalem. We are all,
perhaps, more familiar with the incidents of
the first half of that night, than with those
of the second. Of its manifold sorrows, the
agony in the Garden formed the fitting
climax. Both outwardly and inwardly, it
was to the great Sufferer its hour of darkest,
deepest midnight. Let us join him now as
he rises from his last struggle in Gethsemane,
and follow till we see him laid in Joseph's
sepulchre. The sore amazement is past. Some voice

THE BETRAYER. 11
has said to the troubled waters of his spirit,
Peace, be still ! Instead of the stir and
tumult of the soul, there is a calm and digni
fied composure, which never once forsakes
him, till the same strange internal agony once
more comes upon him on the cross. " Rise,"
says Jesus, as for the third and last time he
bends over the slumbering disciples in the
Garden, " Rise, let us be going. Lo, he that
betrayeth is at hand !" Wakeful as he has
been whilst the others were sleeping, has he
heard the noise of approaching footsteps ?
has he seen the shadows of advancing forms,
the flickering light of torch and lantern glim
mering through the olive leaves? It was
not necessary that eye or ear should give him
notice of the approach. He knew all that
the betrayer meditated when, a few hours
before, he had said to him, " That thou doest,
do quickly." He had seen and known, as
though he had been present, the immediate
resort of Judas to those with whom he had
so recently made his unhallowed bargain,
telling them that the hour had come for car

12 THE BETRAYAL AND
rying the projected arrangement into execu
tion, and that he was quite sure that Jesus,
as his custom all that week had been, would
go out to Gethsemane so soon as the meeting
in the upper chamber had broken up, and
that there they could easily and surely, with
out any fear of popular disturbance, lay hold
of him. The proposal was hailed and adopt
ed with eager haste, for there was no time to
be lost, — they had but a single day for action
left. The band for seizing him was instantly
assembled — " a great multitude," quite need
lessly numerous, even though resistance had
been contemplated by the eleven; a band
curiously composed, — some Roman soldiers
in it from the garrison of Fort Antonia, ex
cited on being summoned to take part in a
midnight enterprise of some difficulty and
danger; the captain of the Temple guard,
accompanied by some subordinates, private
servants of Annas and Caiaphas, the High
Priests, with some members even of the San
hedrim among them ;* a band curiously ao
* See Luke xxii. 52.

THE BETRAYER. 13
coutred, — with staves as well as swords, with
lanterns and torches, that, clear though the
night was — the moon being at the full,* they
might hunt their victim out through all the
shady retreats of the olive gardens, and pre
vent the possibility of escape. Stealthily
they cross the Kedron, with Judas at their
head, and come to the very place where all
this while Jesus has been enduring his great
agony. Yes ; this is the place where Judas
tells them they will be so sure to find him.
Now, then, is the time for the lanterns and
the torches. They are saved the search.
Stepping out suddenly into the clear moon
light, Jesus himself stands before them, and
calmly says, " Whom seek ye ?" There are
many in that band who know him well
enough, but there is not one of them who has
courage to answer — " Thee." A creeping
awe is already on their spirits. They leave
it to others, to those who know him but by
name, to say, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus
* We know it was so from the day of the' month on which the
Passover was celebrated.

14 THE BETRAYAL AND
says to them, I am he ; and as soon as he
has said it, they go backward, and fall every
one to the ground. Has some strange sight
met their eye, has Jesus been momentarily
transfigured as on the Mount, have some
stray beams from the concealed glory burst
forth upon them, or is it some inward terror
shot by a hand invisible through their
hearts ? Whatever the spell be that has
stripped them of all strength, and driven
them backwards to the ground, it lasts but
for a brief season. He who suddenly laid it
on as quickly lifts it off. But for that short
time, what a picture does the scene present !
Jesus standing in the quiet moonlight, calmly
waiting till the postrate men shall rise again ;
or turning, perhaps, a pensive look upon his
disciples cowering under the shade of the
olive-trees, and gazing with wonder at the
sight of that whole band lying flat upon the
ground. For a moment or two, how still it
is ! you could have heard the falling of an
olive-leaf. But now the spell is over, and
they rise. The Roman soldier starts to his

THE BETRAYER. 15
feet again, as more than half ashamed, not
knowing what should have so frightened him.
The Jewish officer gathers up his scattered
strength, wondering that it had not gone for
ever. Again the quiet question comes from
the lips of Jesus, Whom seek ye? They
say to him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus an
swers, " 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 hast given me I
have lost none."
Perfectly spontaneous, then, on the part
of our Divine Redeemer, was the delivering
of himself up into the hands of his enemies.
He who by a word and look sent that rough
hireling band reeling backwards to the ground,
how easily could he have kept it there ; or
how easily, though they had been standing
all around him, could he have passed out
through the midst of them, every eye so
blinded that it could not see him, every arm
so paralyzed that it could not touch him ?
Judas knew how in such a manner he had

16 THE BETRAYAL AND
previously escaped. He must have had a
strong impression that it would not be so
easy a thing to accomplish the arrest, when
he told the men, " Whomsoever I shall kiss,
that same is he ; take him, and hold him fast."
Take him ; hold him ! it will only be if he
please to be taken and to be held that they
will have any power to do it. This perfect
freedom from all outward compulsion, this
entirely voluntary surrender of himself to suf
fering and death, enter as necessary elements
into the great Atonement. And is not its es
sential element — its being made for others —
shadowed forth in this outward incident of
the Redeemer's life ? " Take me," he said,
" but let these go their way." It was to
throw a protecting shield over this little flock,
that he put forth his great power over that
mixed multitude before him, and made them
feel how wholly they were within his grasp.
It was to acquire for the time such a mastery
over them that they should consent to let his
disciples go. It was no part of their purpose
beforehand to have done so. They proved

THE BETRAYER. 17
this, when, the temporary impression over,
they seized the young man by the way, whom
curiosity had drawn out of the city, whom
they took to be one of his disciples, and who
with difficulty escaped out of their hands.
" Take me, but let these go their way."
John saw, in the freedom and safety of the
disciples thus secured, a fulfilment of the
Lord's own saying in the prayer of the Sup
per-chamber, " Them that thou gavest me I
have kept, and none of them is lost." We
can not imagine that the beloved disciple saw
nothing beyond protection from common
earthly danger in the expression which he
quotes ; but that he saw, in the very manner
in which that kind of protection had been
extended, a type or emblem of the higher
and spiritual deliverance that Christ has ac
complished for his people by his deliverance
unto death. Freedom for us, by his suffering
himself to be bound ; safety for us, by the
sacrifice of himself; life for us, by the death
which he endured : have we not much of the
very soul and spirit of the atonement in those

18 THE BETRAYAL AND
few words, " Take me, but let these go their
way ?" It is the spiritual David, the great
good Shepherd, saying, " Let thine hand be
laid upon me ; but as for these sheep, not,
0 Lord my God, on them."
Judas stood with those to whom Jesus said,
Whom seek ye ? Along with them he reeled
back and fell to the ground. Along with
them he speedily regained his standing pos
ture, and was a listener as the Lord said, I
have told you that I am he ; inviting them to
do with him as they wished. There is a
pause, a hesitation ; for who will be the first
to lay hand upon him ? Judas will relieve
them of any lingering fear. He will show
them how safe it is to approach this Jesus.
Though the stepping forth of Christ, and the
questions and answers which followed, have
done away with all need of the preconcerted
signal, he will yet go through all that he had
engaged to do ; or, perhaps, it is almost a
mechanical impulse upon which he acts, for
he had fixed on the thing that he was to do
toward accomplishing the arrest ; he had

THE BETRAYER. 19
conned his part well beforehand, and braced
himself up to go through with it. Hence,
when the time for action comes, he stops not
to reflect, but lets the momentum of his pre
determined purpose carry him along. He
salutes Jesus with a kiss. If ever a righteous
indignation might legitimately be felt, surely
it was here. And if that burning sense of
wrong had gone no further in its expression
than simply the refusal of such a salutation,
would not Christ have acted with unimpeach
able propriety ? But it is far above this level
that Jesus will now rise. He will give an
example of gentleness, of forbearance, of long-
suffering kindness without a parallel. Jesus
accepts the betrayer's salutation. He does
more. He says a word or two to this de
luded man; — "Friend, wherefore art thou
come ?" Is it possible that thou canst im
agine, after all that passed between us at the
supper-table, that I am ignorant of thy pur
pose in this visit ? I know that purpose well ;
thou knowest that I do ; if not, I will make
a last attempt to make thee know and feel it

20 THE BETRAYAL AND
now. Thought of, cared for, warned in so
many ways, art thou really come to betray
such a Master as I have ever been to thee ?
But though thou hast made up thy mind to
such a deed, how is it that thou choosest such
a cloak as this beneath which to conceal thy
purpose ? The deed is bad enough itself
without crowning it with the lie of the hypo
crite, — " Judas, betrayest thou the Son of
man with a kiss ?" — the last complaint of
wounded love, the last of the many and most
touching appeals made to the conscience and
heart of the betrayer ; rebuke and remon
strance in the words, but surely their tone is
one more of pity than of anger ; surely the
wish of the speaker was to arrest the traitor,
if it were not yet too late. Had Judas
yielded even at that last moment ; with a
broken and a contrite heart had he thrown
himself at his Master's feet, to bathe with
tears the feet of him whose cheek he had just
polluted with his unhallowed kiss ; looking
up through those tears of penitence, had he
sought mercy of the Lord, how freely would

, THE BETRAYER. 21
that mercy have been extended to him ! who
can doubt that he would have been at once
forgiven ? But he did not, he would not
yield ; and so on he went, till there was no
thing left to him but the horror of that re
morse which dug for him the grave of the
suicide. We often wonder, as we read his story,
how it was ever possible, that, in the face of
so many, such explicit, solemn, affectionate
appeals, this man should have so obstinately
pursued his course. We should wonder, per
haps, the less, if we only reflected what a
blinding, hardening power any one fixed idea,
any one settled purpose, any one dominant
passion, in the full flush and fervor of its as
cendency, exerts upon the human spirit ; how
it blinds to consequences that are then staring
us in the very face ; how it deadens to re
monstrances to which, in other circumstances,
we should at once have yielded ; how it car
ries us over obstacles that at other times
would at once have stopped us ; nay, more,
and what perhaps is the most striking feature

22 THE BETRAYAL AND
of the whole, how the very interferences, for
which otherwise we should have been grate
ful, are resented ; how the very appeals in
tended and fitted to arrest, become as so many
goads driving us on the more determinedly
upon our path. So it was with Judas. And
let us not think that we have in him a mon
strous specimen of almost superhuman wick
edness. We should be nearer the truth, I
6uspect, if we took him as an average speci
men of what the passion of avarice, or any
like passion, when once it has got the mas
tery, may lead any man to be and do. For
we have no reason to believe of Judas, that
from the first he was an utter reprobate. Our
Lord we scarcely can believe would have ad
mitted such a man to the number of the
twelve. Can it be believed of him that when
he first joined himself to. Jesus, it was to
make gain of that connexion ? There was
but little prospect of worldly gain in following
the Nazarene. Nor can we fairly attribute
that obstinacy which Judas showed in the last
great crisis of his life, to utter deadness of

THE BETRAYER. 23
conscience, utter hardness of heart. The
man who no sooner heard the death- sentence
given against his Master, than — without even
waiting to see if it would be executed — he
rushed before the men by whom that sentence
had been pronounced — the very men with
whom he had made his unholy covenant, from
whom he had got but an hour or two before
the price of blood — exclaiming in the bitter
ness of his heart, " I have sinned, in that I
have betrayed innocent blood ;"— the man
who took those thirty pieces of silver, which
his itching palm had so longed to clutch, but
which now were burning like scorching lead
the hand that grasped them, and flung them
ringing on the temple floor, and hurried to a
lonely field without the city walls and hanged
himself, dying in all likelihood before his
Master — let us not think of him that he was
utterly heartless — that he had a conscience
seared as with a hot iron.
What, then, is the true explanation of his
character and career ? Let us assume that,
when he first united himself to Christ, it was

24 THE BETRAYAL AND
not of deliberate design to turn that connex
ion into a source of profit. He found, how
ever, as time run on, that to some small ex
tent it could be so employed. The little
company that he had joined had chosen him
to be their treasurer, to hold and to dispense
the slender funds which they possessed.
Those who are fond of money, as he was, are
generally careful in the keeping, thrifty in
their use of it. Judas had those faculties in
perfection, and they won for him that office
of trust, to him so terribly dangerous. The
temptation was greater than he could resist.
He became a pilferer from that small bag.
Little as it had to feed upon, his passion
grew. It grew, for he had no higher prin
ciple, no better feeling, to subdue it. It
grew, till he began to picture to himself what
untold wealth was in store for him when his
Master should throw off that reserve and dis
guise which he had so long and so studiously
preserved, and take to himself his power, and
set up his kingdom — a kingdom which he, in
common with all the apostles, believed was

THE BETRAYER. 25
to be a visible and temporal one. It grew,
till delay became intolerable. At the supper
in Bethany, it vexed him to see that box of
ointment of spikenard which might have been
sold for three hundred pence, wasted on what
seemed to him an idle piece of premature and
romantic homage. It vexed him still more
to hear his Master rebuke the irritation he
had displayed, and speak now once again, as
he had been doing so often lately, of his
death and burial, as if the splendid vision of
his kingdom were never to be realized.
Could nothing be done to force his Master on
to exercise his kingly power ? These Scribes
and Pharisees, who hated him so bitterly,
desired nothing so much as to get him into
their hands. If once they did so, would he
not, in self-defence, be obliged to put forth
that power which Judas knew that he pos
sessed ? And were he to do so, things could
not remain any longer as they were. The
Passover — this great gathering of the people
— would soon go past, and he, Judas, and the
rest, have to resume their weary journeyings

26 THE BETRAYAL AND
on foot throughout Judea. Thus and then it
was, that, in all likelihood, the thought
flashed into the mind of the betrayer to go
and ask the chief priests what they would
give him if he delivered Jesus into their
hands. They offered him thirty pieces of
silver, a very paltry bribe — the price in
the old Hebrew code of a slave that was
gored by an ox — less than £5 of our money ;
— a bribe insufficient of itself to have tempt
ed even a grossly avaricious man, in the posi
tion in which Judas was, to betray his Mas
ter, knowing or believing that it was unto
death. Why, in a year or two Judas might
have realized as much as that by petty pil-
ferings from the apostolical bag. But this
scheme of his would bring his Master to the
test. It would expedite what, to his cove
tous, ambitious heart, had seemed to be that
slow and meaningless course to a throne and
kingdom which his Master had been pursu
ing. Not suspecting what the immediate
and actual issue was to be, he made his un
holy compact with the High Priests. He

THE BETRAYER. 27
made it on the Wednesday of the Passion
week. Next evening he sat with Jesus in
the supper-chamber. He found himself de
tected ; more than one terrible warning was
sounded in his ears. Strange, you may
think, that instead of stopping him in his
course, these warnings suggested, perhaps for
the first time, the thought that what he had
engaged to do might be done that very night.
The words, "What thou doest do quickly,"
themselves gave eagerness and firmness to
his purpose; for, after all, though Jesus
seemed for the time so much displeased, — let
this scheme but prosper, — let the kingdom be
set up, and would he not be sure to forgive
the offence that had hastened so happy a
result ?
Have we any grounds for interpreting in
this way the betrayal ? Are we right in at
tributing such motives to Judas ? If not,
then how are we to explain his surprise when
he saw his Master, though still possessing all
his wonderful power, as he showed by the
healing of the servant's ear, allow himself to

28 THE BETRAYAL AND
be bound and led away like a felon ? How
are we to explain the consternation of Judas
when he learned that though Jesus publicly,
before the Sanhedrim, claimed to be the
Christ, the Son of God, the King of Israel,
yet, instead of there being any acquiescence
in that claim, a universal horror was ex
pressed, and on the very ground of his mak
ing it, he was doomed to the death of a blas
phemer ? Then it was, when all turned out
so differently from what he had anticipated,
that the idea of his having been the instru
ment of his Master's death entered like iron
into the soul of Judas. Then it was, that,
overwhelmed with nameless, countless dis
appointments, vexations, self-reproaches, his
very living to see his Master die became in
tolerable to him, and in his despair he flung
his ill-used life away.
Accept such solution, and the story of the
betrayal of our Lord becomes natural and con
sistent ; reject it, and have you not difficulties
in your way not to be got over by any amount
of villany that you may attribute to the trai-

THE BETRAYER. 29
tor ? But does not this solution take down
the crime of Judas from that pinnacle of
almost superhuman and unapproachable guilt
on which many seem inclined to place it ? It
does ; but it renders it all the more available
as a beacon of warning to us all. For if we
are right in the idea we have formed of the
character and conduct of Judas, there have
been many since his time, there may be many
still, in the same way, and from the operation
of the same motives, betrayers of Christ. For
everywhere he is a Judas, with whom his
worldly interests, his worldly ambition, pre
vail over his attachment to Christ and to
Christ's cause ; who joins the Christian so
ciety, it may not be to make gain thereby, — ¦
but who, when the occasion presents itself,
scruples not to make what gain he can of that
connexion ; who, beneath the garb of the
Christian calling, pursues a dishonest traffic ;
who, when the gain and the godliness come
into collision, sacrifices the godliness for the
gain. How many such Judases the world
has seen, how much of that Judas spirit there

30 THE BETRAYAL AND
may be in our own hearts, I leave it to your
knowledge of yourselves and your knowledge
of the world to determine.
Let us now resume our narrative of the ar
rest. Whatever lingering reluctance to touch
Christ had been felt, that kiss of Judas re
moved. They laid their hands upon him in
stantly thereafter, grasping him as if he were
a vulgar villain of the highway, and binding
him after the merciless fashion of the Romans.
This is what one, at least, of his followers
can not bear. Peter springs forth from the
darkness, draws his sword, and aims at the
head of the first person he sees ; who, how
ever, bends to the side, and his ear only is
lopped off. To Christ an unwelcome act of
friendship. It ruffles his composure, it im
pairs the dignity of his patience. For the
first and only time a human creature suffers
that he may be protected. The injury thus
done he must instantly repair. They have
his hand within their hold, when, gently say
ing to them, " Suffer ye thus far," he releases
ii from their grasp, and, stretching it out.

THE BETRAYER. 31
touches the bleeding ear, and heals it :— the
only act of healing wrought on one who nei
ther asked it of him, nor had any faith in his
healing virtue ; but an act which showed how
full of almighty power that hand was which
yet gave itself up to ignominious bonds.
Then said Jesus to Peter, " Put up again thy
sword into his place : for all they that take
the sword shall perish with the sword. Think-
est thou that I can not now pray to my
Father, and he shall presently give me more
than twelve legions of angels ? But how
then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus
it must be ? The cup which my Father hath
given me, shall I not drink it ?" He was
drinking then, even at that time, of the same
cup in regard to which he had been praying
in the Garden. Not only his agonies in Geth
semane and on the Cross, but all his griefs,
internal and external, were ingredients in that
cup which, for us and for our salvation, he
took, and drank to the very dregs — a cup
put by his Father's hand into his, and by him
voluntarily taken, that the will of his Father

32 THE BETRAYAL AND
might be done, and that the Scriptures might
be fulfilled. All this about the cup, and his
Father, and the Scriptures, spoken for the in
struction and reproof of Peter, must have
sounded not a little strange to those Chief
Priests and scribes and elders who have come
out to be present, at least, if not to take part
in the apprehension, and who are now stand
ing by his side. But for them, too, there
must be a word, to show them that he is after
all a very brother of our race, who feels as
any other innocent man would feel if bound
thus, and led away as a malefactor. " And
Jesus said unto the chief priests, and captains
of the temple, and the elders, which were
come to him, Be ye come out, as against a
thief, with swords and staves ? When I was
daily with you in the temple, ye stretched
forth no hands against me : but this is your
hour, and the power of darkness." A short
hour of fancied triumph theirs ; the powers
of darkness permitted for a short season to
prevail : but beyond that hour, bight, and a
full, glorious, eternal triumph his.

THE BETRAYER. 33
"Then all the disciples forsook him and
fled." That utter desertion had been one of
the incidents of this night of sorrows upon
which his foreseeing eye had already fixed.
" The hour cometh," he had said to them in
the upper chamber, "yea, is now come, that
ye shall be scattered, every man to his own,
and shall leave me alone : and yet I am not
alone, because the Father is with me." It
was only during that hurried march from the
Garden to the judgment-hall that Jesus was
left literally and absolutely alone : not one
friendly eye upon him ; not one friendly arm
within his reach. But this temporary soli
tude, was it not the type of the inner, deeper
solitude, in which his whole earthly work was
carried on ? — not the solitude of the hermit
or the monk, — he lived ever with and among
his fellow-men ; not the solitude of pride,
sullenly refusing all sympathy and aid ; not
the solitude of selfishness, creating around its
icy centre a cold, bleak, barren wilderness;
not the solitude of sickly sentimentality, for
ever crying out that it can find no one to un-
2*

34 THE BETRAYAL AND
derstand or appreciate. No ; but the solitude
of a pure, holy, heavenly spirit, into all whose
deeper thoughts there was not a single human
being near him or around him who could en
ter ; with all whose deeper feelings there was
not one who could sympathize ; whose truest,
deepest motives, ends, and objects, in living
and dying as he did, not one could compre
hend. Spiritually, and all throughout, the
loneliest man that ever lived was Jesus Christ.
But there were hours when that solitude
deepened upon his soul. So was it in the
Garden, when, but a stone-cast from the near
est to him upon earth, even that broken, im
perfect sympathy which their looking on him
and watching with him in his great sorrow
might have supplied, was denied to him, and
an angel had to be sent from heaven to cheer
the forsaken one of earth. So was it upon
the cross, in that dread moment, when he
could no longer even say, " I am not alone,
for my Father is with me ;" when there burst
from his dying lips that cry — a cry from the
darkest, deepest, dreariest loneliness into

THE BETRAYER. 35
which a pure and holy spirit ever passed —
" My God, my God ! why hast thou forsaken
me?" Shall we pity him, — in that lonely" life,
these lonely sufferings, that lonely death?
Our pity he does not ask. Shall we sym
pathize with him? Our sympathy he does
not need. But let us stand by the brink of
that deep and awful gulf into which he de
scended, and through which he passed ; and
let wonder, awe, gratitude, love, enter into
and fill all our hearts, as we remember that
that descent and that passage were made to
redeem our souls from death, and to open up
a way for us into a sinless and sorrowless
heaven.

II.
®to §mtel$, ^tymtmct, audi ^Mtmtism
ol JW. f *tw *
When they saw their Master bound and
borne away, all the disciples forsook him and
fled. Two of them, however, recovered
speedily from their panic. Foremost now,
and bravest of them all, John first regained
his self-possession, and returning on his foot
steps followed the band which conveyed Je
sus to the residence of the High Priest.
Coming alone, and so far behind the others,
he might have found some difficulty in get
ting admission. The day had not yet dawned,
and at so early an hour, and upon so unusual
an occasion, the keeper of the outer door
* Matthew xxvi. 51-59, 69-75; Markxiv. 54, 55, 66-72; Luke
sadi. 54-62 ; John xviii. 15-27 ; Mark xvi. 7 ; John xxi. 15-17.

THE DENIALS, REPENTANCE, ETC. 37
might have hesitated to admit a stranger ; but
John had some acquaintance with the domes
tics of the High Priest, and so got entrance ;
an entrance which Peter might not have ven
tured to ask, or asking, might have failed to
get, had not John noticed him following in
the distance, and, on looking back as he en
tered, seen him standing outside the door. He
went, therefore, and spoke to the porteress,
who at his instance allowed Peter to pass in.
The two disciples made their way together
into the interior quadrangular hall, at the up
per and raised end of which Jesus was being
cross-examined by Annas. It was the cold
est hour of the night, the hour that precedes
the dawn, and the servants and officers had
kindled a fire in that end of the hall where
they were gathered. Peter did not wish to be
recognized, and the best way he thought to
preserve his incognito was to put at once the
boldest face he could upon it, act as if he had
been one of the capturing band and had as
good a right to be there as others of that
mixed company, as little known in this palace

38 THE DENIALS, REPENTANCE, AND
as himself. So stepping boldly forward, and
sitting down among the men who were warm
ing themselves around the fire, he made him
self one of them. The woman who kept the
door was standing near. The strong light of
the kindling fire, falling upon that group of
faces, her eye fell upon Peter's. That surely,
it occurred to her as she looked at it, was the
face of the man whom she had admitted a few
minutes ago, of whose features she had caught
a glimpse as he passed by. She looks again,
and looks more earnestly.* Her first impres
sion is confirmed. It is John's friend ; that
Galilean's friend ; some friend too, no doubt,
of this same Jesus. She says so to a com
panion by her side; but not satisfied with
that, wondering, perhaps, at the way in which
Peter was comporting himself, she waits till
she has caught his eye, and going up to him
she says : " Art not thou also one of this
man's disciples ?" — a short, abrupt, peremp
tory, unexpected challenge. It takes Peter
entirely by surprise. It throws him wholly
* See John xviii. 17 ; Mark xiv. 67 ; Luke xxii. 56.

RESTORATION OP ST. PETER. 39
off his guard. There they are, the eyes of all
those men around now turned inquiringly
upon him; and there she is — a woman he
knows nothing of — perhaps had scarcely
noticed as he passed quickly through the
porch, — a woman who can know nothing about
him, yet putting that pert question, to which,
if he is to keep up the character he has as
sumed, there must be a quick and positive
reply. And so the first hasty falsehood es
capes his lips. The woman, however, won't
believe him when he says that he does not
understand her question. Both to himself and
to others around her, she re-affirms her first
belief. Peter has to back his first falsehood
by a second and a third : " Woman, I am not
one of this man's disciples; I know him
not." — Peter's first denial of his Master.
He has now openly committed himself, and
he must carry the thing through as best he
can. He is not at ease, however, in his seat
with the others around the fire. The glare
of that light is too strong. Those prying eyes
disturb. As soon as conveniently he can,

40 THE DENIALS, REPENTANCE, AND
without attracting notice, he rises and retires
into the shadow of the porch, through which
in entering he had passed. A cock now crows
without. He hears but heeds it not. Per
haps he might have done so, had not another
woman — some friend in all likelihood of the
porteress with whom she had been convers
ing — been overheard by him affirming most
positively, as she pointed him out, " This fel
low also was with Jesus of Nazareth." And
she too comes up to him and repeats the say
ing to himself. The falsehood of the first
denial he has now to repeat and justify. He
does so with an oath, declaring, " I do not
know the man." — Peter's second denial of his
Master. A full hour has passed. The examination
going on at the other end of the hall has
been engrossing the attention of the onlook
ers. Peter's lost composure and self-confi
dence have in a measure been regained. He
is out in the hall again, standing talking with
the others ; no glare of light upon his face,
yet little thinking all the while that by his

RESTORATION OF ST. PETER. 41
very talking he is supplying another mode of
recognition. And now for the third time,
and from many quarters, he is challenged.
One said, " Of a truth this fellow was with
him." A second : " Did I not see thee with
him in the garden ?" A third : " Thy speech
bewrayeth thee." Beset and badgered thus,
Peter begins to curse and to swear, as he
affirms, " I know not the man of whom you
speak." — Peter's third and last denial of his
Lord. Truly a very sad and humbling exhibition
this of human frailty. But is it one so rare ]
Has it seldom been repeated since'? Have
we never ourselves been guilty of a like
offence against our Saviour? Is there no
danger that we may again be guilty of it]
That we may be prepared to give a true
answer to such questions, let us consider
wherein the essence of this offence of the
Apostle consisted, and by what steps he was
led to its commission. His sin against his
Master lay in his being ashamed and afraid
to confess his connexion with him, when

42 THE DENIALS, REPENTANCE, AND
taunted with it at a time when apparently
confession could do Christ no good, and
might damage greatly the confessor. It was
rather shame than fear, let us believe, which
led to the first denial. It was in moral
courage, not physical, that Peter failed. By
nature he was brave as he was honest. It
was no idle boast of his, " Lord, I will follow
thee to prison and to death." Had there
been any open danger to be faced, can we
doubt that he would gallantly have faced it ?
Had his Master called him to stand by his
side in some open conflict with his enemies,
would Peter have forsaken him? His was
one of but two swords in the garden; those
two against all the swords and other weapons
of that multitude. But even against such
odds, Peter, bold as a lion, drew his sword,
and had the use of it been allowed, would
have fought it out, till he had died by his
Master's side. But it is altogether a new
and unexpected state of things, this willing
surrender of himself by Jesus into the hands
of his enemies ; this refusal, almost rebuke,

RESTORATION OP ST. PETER. 43
of any attempt at rescue or defence. It un
settles, it overturns all Peter's former ideas
of his Master's power, and of the manner in
which that power was to be put forth. He
can make nothing of it. It looks as if all
those fond hopes about the coming kingdom
were indeed to perish. Confused, bewil
dered, Peter enters the High Priest's hall.
Why should he acknowledge who he is, or
wherefore he is there ? What harm can
there be in his appearing for the time as in
different to Christ's fate as any of these offi
cers and servants among whom he sits ?
That free and easy gait of theirs he assumes ;
goes in with all they say ; perhaps tries to
join with them in their coarse, untimely
mirth. First easy yet fatal step, this taking
on a character not his own. He is false to
himself before he proves false to his Master.
The acted lie precedes the spoken one ; pre
pares for it, almost necessitates it. It was
the rash act of sitting down with those men
at that fireside, that assumption of the mask,
the attempt to appear to be what he was not.

44 THE DENIALS, REPENTANCE, AND
which set Peter upon the slippery edge of
that slope, down which to such a depth he
afterwards descended. Why is it we think
so ? Because we have asked ourselves the
question, Where all this while was his com
panion John, and how was it faring with
him ? He too was within the hall, yet there
is no challenging or badgering of him. The
domestics of the dwelling indeed know him,
and he may be safe from any interference on
their part ; but there are many here besides
who know as little about him as they do
about Peter. Yet never once is John ques
tioned or disturbed. And why, but because
he had joined none of their companies, had
attempted no disguise ; his speech was not
heard bewraying him. Had you looked for
him there, you would have found him in
some quiet shaded nook of that quadrangle,
as near his Master as he could get, yet in
viting no scrutiny, exposing himself to no
detection. That first false act committed, how natu
ral with Peter was all that followed ! His

RESTORATION OF ST. PETER. 45
position, once taken, had to be supported, had
to be made stronger and stronger to meet the
renewed and more impetuous assaults. So is
it with all courses of iniquity. The fatal step
is the first one, taken often thoughtlessly,
almost unconsciously. But our feet get hope
lessly entangled ; the weight that drags us
along the incline gets at every step the
heavier, till onward, downward we go into
depths that our eyes at the first would have
shuddered to contemplate, our souls revolting
at the thought that we should ever have been
found there. In this matter, then, of denying
our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, let us not
be high-minded, but fear; and, taking our
special warning from that first false step of
Peter, should we ever happen to be thrown
into the society of those who bear no liking
to the name or the cause of the Redeemer,
let us beware lest, hiding in inglorious shame
our faces from him, we be tempted to say or
to do what for us, with our knowledge, would
be a far worse thing to say or do, than what

46 THE DENIALS, REPENTANCE, AND
was said and done by Peter, in his ignorance
within the High Priest's hall.
The oaths with which he sealed his third
denial were yet fresh on Peter's lips,* when a
second time the cock crew without. And
that shrill sound was yet ringing in his ears
when " the Lord turned and looked upon
Peter." How singularly well-timed that look !
The Lord is waiting till the fit moment come,
and instantly seizes it. It might be wrong
in us to say that but for the look, the second
cock-crowing would have been as little heeded
as the first. It might be wrong in us to say
that, but for the awakening sound, the look
would of itself have failed in its effect. But
we can not be wrong in saying that the look
and the sound each helped the other, and that
it was the striking and designed coincidence
of the two — their conjunction at the very time
when Peter was confirming that third denial
by those oaths — that formed the external
agency which our Lord was pleased to con-
* " Immediately, while he yet spake, the cock crew.'' Luke,
xxii. 60. See also Matt., xxvi. 74.

RESTORATION OP ST. PETER. 47
struct and employ for stirring the sluggish
memory and quickening the dead conscience
of the apostle. And sluggish memories, dead
consciences, are they not often thus awakened
by striking outward providences co-operating
with the Word and with the Spirit ? Have
none of us been startled thus, as Peter was,
amid our denials or betrayals of our Master ?
Let us bless the instrument, whatever it may
be, by which so valuable a service is ren
dered, and see in its employment only an
other proof of the thoughtful, loving care of
him who would not let us be guilty of such
offences without some means being taken to
alarm and to recover.
Let us believe, however, that of the two —
the sound and the look — the chief power and
virtue lay in the latter. " The Lord turned."
He turned from facing those scowling judges ;
from listening to all the false testimony
brought forward against him ; from bearing
all the insults that masters and servants were
heaping upon him ; from all the excitements
of a trial which he knew was to end in his

48 THE DENIALS, REPENTANCE, AND
condemnation unto death. Forgetful of self,
still thoughtful of his own, " He turned and
looked upon Peter." Was that a look of an
ger ; of unmingled, unmitigated rebuke ?
Such a look might have sent Peter away to
hang himself as Judas did ; but never to shed
such tears of penitence as he went out to
weep. The naked eye of the very Godhead
might be on us ; but if from that eye there
looked out nothing but stern, rebuking, re
lentless wrath, the look of such an eye might
scorch and wither, but never melt and subdue
hearts like ours. Doubtless there was re
proach in the look which Jesus bent upon
Peter ; gentle reproach, all the more powerful
because of its gentleness. But that reproach,
quickly as it was perceived, and keenly as it
was felt, formed but the outward border or
fringe of an expression, the body of which
was tender, forgiving, sympathizing love.
Volumes of pity and compassion lay enfolded
in that look. It told the apostle how well
He, of whom he had just been saying that he
knew him not, knew him ; how thoroughly he

RESTORATION OP ST. PETER. 49
knew him when he forewarned him of his fall.
But it told Peter at the same time, that it
was no thought or feeling of the injury or
wrong that had been done personally to him
self, which made Jesus fix now so earnest a
gaze upon him. Not so much of himself as
of Peter was he thinking : not for himself,
but for Peter was he caring. It was the
thought of that wrong which Peter had been
doing to himself, which winged the look, and
sent it on its hallowed errand into Peter's
heart. He felt, as it fell upon him, that it
was the look of one, not angrily complaining
of injury, not indignantly demanding redress,
but only longing for it that Peter might feel
how unkindly, ungratefully, ungenerously, he
had acted towards such a Master ; of one who
wished him above all things to be assured
that if he but saw and felt his error, there
was readiness and room enough in his heart
to receive him back at once and fully into
favor, — to forgive all, forget all, be all to him
he had ever been. Another kind of look the
apostle might have encountered unflinchingly,

50 THE DENIALS, REI ENTANCE, AND
but not a look like that. Instantly there
flashed upon his memory those words of
prophetic warning, spoken a few hours before
in the guest-chamber. Thrice had Jesus fore
warned him, that before the cock crew twice,
he should thrice deny him. Had he never
thought of these words till now ? In the dis
traction of the moment he might have allowed
the first cock-crowing to pass by unheeded,
but how could that whole hour* which fol
lowed his two earliest denials have gone past,
without the striking warning occurring once
to his memory ? Very strange it seems to
us ; but very strange are the moods and pas
sions of the mind — what is remembered by it,
and what forgotten, when some new strong
tide of thought and feeling rushes into, fills,
and agitates the soul. In the strange, unex
pected, perilous position in which he had so
suddenly been placed, Peter had forgotten
all ; — the meeting of the upper chamber, the
rtriple warning, the "Verily verily, I say
unto you," which had then sounded in his
* Luke xxii. 59.

RESTORATION OF ST. PETER. 51
ears. But now, as if the awakened memory,
by the very fulness and vividness of its recall"
would repair the past forgetfulness, he sees
all, hears all again. Those words of warning
are anew ringing in his ears, and as he thinks
how fearfully exact the fulfilment of those
forgotten predictions of his Master has been,
a sense of guilt and shame oppresses him.
He can bear that look no longer; he turns
and hurries out of the hall, seeking a place to
shed his bitter tears — tears not like those of
Judas, of dismal and hopeless remorse, but of
genuine and unaffected repentance. He goes
out alone, but whither ? It was still dark.
The day had not yet dawned. He would not
surely at such an hour, and in such a state of
feeling, go back at once into the city, to seek
out and join the others who had fled. Such
deep and bitter grief as his seeks solitude ;
and where could he find a solitude so suitable
as that which his Lord and Master had so
loved ? We picture him to our fancy as visit
ing alone the garden of Gethsemane, not now
to sleep while his Lord is suffering; but to

52 THE DENIALS, REPENTANCE, AND
seek out the spot which Jesus had hallowed
by his agony, to mingle his tears with the
blood-drops which still bedew the sod.
When and how he spent the two dismal
days which followed we do not know. After
that look from Him in the judgment-hall he
never saw his Lord alive again. But as on
the third morning we find John and him to
gether, we may believe that it was from the
the lips of the beloved disciple — the only one
of all the twelve who was present at the trial
before Pilate, and who stood before the
cross — that Peter heard the narrative of that
day's sad doings ; how they bound and
scourged and mocked and spat upon the
Lord ; how they nailed him to the cross, and
set him up there in agony to die. And at
each part of the sad recital, how would that
heart, made so tender by penitence, be
touched; how would it grieve Peter to re
member that he too had had a share in laying
such heavy burdens on the last hours of his
Lord's suffering life ! That Master whom he
had so dishonorably and ungratefully denied,

RESTORATION OP ST. PETER. 53
was now sleeping in the grave. 0 but for
one short hour with him — a single inter
view — that he might tell him how bitterly he
repented what he had done, and get from his
Master's living, loving lips the assurance that
he had been forgiven ! But that never was
to be. He should never see him more.
Never ! grief-blinded man ? Thine eye it
sees not, thine ear it hears not, neither can
that sorrow-burdened heart of thine conceive
what even now Jesus is preparing for thee.
The third morning dawns. The Saviour rises
triumphant from the grave ; in rising, sets
the angels there as sentries before the empty
tomb ; gives to them the order that, to the
first visitants of the sepulchre, this message
shall be given : " Go, tell the disciples and
Peter, that he is risen from the dead." This
message from the angel, Peter had not heard*
when he and John ran out together to the
sepulchre, and found it empty. But he heard
it not long thereafter. Who may tell what
* Mary Magdalene, on whose report they acted, had seen no
ungel on her first visit to the sepulchre.

54 THE DENIALS, REPENTANCE, AND
strange thoughts that singling out of him —
that special mention of his name by those
angelic watchers of the sepulchre — excited
in Peter's heart ? How came those angels to
know or think of him at such a time as this ?
It could not be on motion of their own that
they had acted. They must have got that
message from the Lord himself, been told by
him particularly to name Peter to the women.
But was it not a thing most wonderful, that,
in the very act of bursting the barriers of the
grave, there should be such a remembrance
of him on the part of that Master whom he
had so lately denied ? Was it not an omen
for good ? Peter had his rising hopes con
firmed, his doubts and fears all quenched,
when, some time in the course of that fore
noon, waiting till John and he had parted —
waiting till he could meet him alone, and
speak to him with all the greater freedom
and fulness — Jesus showed himself to Peter.
Before he met the others to speak peace,
he hastened to meet Peter to speak pardon.

RESTORATION OF ST. PETER. 55
One of the first offices of the risen Saviour
was to wipe away the tears of the penitent.
" Go your way," said the angel to the
women at the sepulchre, "tell his disciples
and Peter, that he goeth before you into
Galilee ; there shall ye see him, as he said
unto you." The Paschal festival, and Christ's
own presence, kept the apostles for eight
days and more in the holy city. But as,
after those two interviews in the evenings of
the first two Lord's days of the Christian
Church, Jesus did not appear to them again,
presuming that he had gone before them to
Galilee, the eleven also went thither. The
return to their old homes and haunts, the
sight of their nets and fishing-boats, the ab
sence of any specific instructions as to what
they were to be, or what to do in the future,
suggest to some of them the thought of tak
ing up again their earlier occupation. Seven
of them are walking together one evening by
the lake side. It is the best hour of all the
day for fishing in it. The lake looks tempt
ing ; the boats and the nets are near. Peter

56 THE -DENIALS, REPENTANCE, AND
¦ — the very one from whom we should have
expected a first proposal of this kind to come
— says to them, " I go a fishing." They all
go with him. They toil all the night, but
catch nothing. As morning breaks they see
a man standing on the shore, seen but dimly
through the haze, but near enough to let his
voice be heard across the water. " Children,"
he says, "have ye any meat?" They tell
him they have none. " Cast the net," he
replies, "on the right side of the ship, and
ye shall find." And now they are not able
to draw it for the multitude of fishes. This
could scarcely fail to recall to the memory of
some at least within the boat, that other
miraculous draught of fishes, by which, now
nearly three years before, three out of the
twelve apostles were taught to forsake all
and follow Jesus, that he might make them
fishers of men. This repetition of the
miracle was nothing else than a symbolic re
newal of that first commission, intended to
teach the twelve that their apostolic calling
still held good. There was one, however, of

RESTORATION OF ST. PETER. 57
the seven who gathered round Jesus at the
morning meal which he spread for them on
the shore, when their fisher's toil was over,
Whose position towards that commission and
apostleship had become peculiar. He had
been in the habit of taking a very prominent
place among the twelve, had often acted
as their representative and spokesman. But
on the night of the betrayal, he had played
a singularly shameful and inconsistent part.
They had all, indeed, forsaken their Master ;
but who would have thought that the very
one of them who that night had been so
vehement in his assertions that though all
men, all his fellow-disciples, should forsake
his Master, he never would, should yet so
often, and with such superfluous oaths, have
denied that he ever knew, or had anything
to do with Jesus ? True it was that Jesus
had forgiven Peter. His fellow-disciples,
also, had forgiven that overboastful magni
fying of himself above the others. There
was something so frank about him, and so
genuine ; such outgoings of an honest, manly,
3*

58 THE DENIALS, REPENTANCE, AND
kindly, generous nature, that they could not
bear against him any grudge. They were all
now on their old terms with one another.
But how will it stand with Peter if that apos
tolic work has to be taken up again ? How
will he feel as to resuming his old position
among the twelve? Will he not, in the
depth of that humility and self-distrust
taught him by his great fall, shrink now from
placing himself even on the same level with
the others ? And how will his Lord and
Master feel and act as to his re-instatement
in that office from which by his transgression
he might be regarded as having fallen ? To
all these questions there were answers given,
when Jesus, once more singling Peter out,
said to him, " Simon, son of Jonas," — the
very giving him his old and double name
sounding as a note of preparation, telling that
some important question was about to be ad
dressed to him, — " Simon, son of Jonas,
lovest thou me more than these," thy breth
ren, my other disciples, do? — a gentle ye
distinct enough reminder of that former say

RESTORATION OF ST. PETER. 59
ing : " Though all men should be offended, 1
never will ;" a delicate yet searching probe,
pressed kindly but firmly home into the
depths of Peter's heart ; a skilful method of
testing and exhibiting the trueness and deep
ness of Peter's repentance, without subject
ing him to the painful humiliation of having
the terrible denials of his Master brought up
and dwelt upon, either by Jesus in the way
of charge, or by himself in the way of con
fession. The best way of trying any man
whether he has really repented of any sinful
deed is to place him again in the like cir
cumstances, and see if he will act in the like
manner. This is the way in which the Lord
now tries Peter. Will he again compare
himself with the others ; will he set himself
above them ; will he say as much now about
his love being greater than theirs, as he did
then about his courage ; will he repeat that
boasting which which was the precursor of
his fall ? How touchingly does his answer
show that he perfectly understood the in
volved reference to the past ; that he had

60 THE DENIALS, REPENTANCE, AND
thoroughly learned its humbling lessons ?
No longer any comparing himself with or set
ting himself above others, — the old Peter
like frankness and fervor in the " Yea, Lord,
I love thee," but a new humility in it, for he
will not say how much he loves, still less will
venture to say that he loves more than
others ; and a still deeper humility in it, for
he will not offer his own testimony as to
the love he feels, he will trust no more that
deceitful heart of his, nor ask his Lord to
trust it, but throwing himself upon another
knowledge of that heart which had proved
to be better than its own, he says, " Yea,
Lord, thou knowest that I love thee." Our
Lord's reply is a most emphatic affirmative
response to this appeal. It is as if he had
said at large, " Yes, Simon Barjona, I do
know that thou lovest me. I know, too, that
thou wouldst make no boast of thy love, nor
in that or anything else set thyself any lon
ger above thy fellows ; and now, that these
thy brethren might know and see it too, how
hearty thy penitence has been, how thorough-

RESTORATION OF ST. PETER. 61
ly it has done its humbling work, and how
readily I own and acknowledge thee as being
all to me thou ever wert ; therefore now, in
presence of these brethren, I renew to thee
the apostolic commission — publicly re-instate
thee in the apostolic office — 'Feed my
sheep.' I need not ask thee again whether
thou lovest me more than others. I will
prove thee no more by that allusion to the
past ; but I have once, twice, thrice to put
that other general question to thee, that as
three times I warned thee, and three times
thou didst deny me, even so I may three
times re-instate, restore." Can we wonder
that Peter was grieved, when for the third
time that question, Lovest thou me? was put
to him. It was not the grief of doubt, as if
he suspected that Jesus only half-believed
his word ; but the grief of that contrition
which grows into a deeper sadness at the so
distinct allusion to his three denials in that
triple repetition of the question. And yet
even in that sadness there is a comfort ;
the comfort of the feeling that his affectionate

62 THE DENIALS, REPENTANCE, ETC.
Master is giving him the opportunity of
wiping away by threefold confession his three
fold denial. And so, with a fuller heart, and
in stronger words than ever, will he make
avowal of his love : " Lord, thou knowest all
things ; thou knowest that I love thee."

III.
®ft* Wv&X Mm the MnkeMm.*
The Jews regarded their day as beginning
at one sunset and ending with the next. This
interval was not divided into twenty-four
parts or hours of equal and invariable length.
They took each day by itself, from sunrise to
sunset, and each night by itself, from sunset
to sunrise, and divided each into twelve equal
parts or hours ; so that a Jewish hour, instead
of being, as it is with us, a fixed measure of
. time, varied in its length as each successive
day and night varied in theirs at different
seasons of the year. Neither did the Jews
begin as we do, reckoning the twelve hours,
into which the day and night were respect-
* John xyiii. 19-24; Luke xxii. 66-71; Matt, xxvi 59-68;
Mark xiv. 53-65.

64 THE TRIAL BEFORE
ively divided, from midday and midnight, but
from sunset and sunrise ; their sixth hour of
the night corresponding thus with our twelve
o'clock, our midnight ; their sixth hour of the
day with our twelve o'clock, our midday.
There were but two periods of the year, those
of the autumnal and vernal equinox, when,
day and night being exactly equal, the length
of the hours in both was precisely the same
with our own. It was at one of these periods,
that of the vernal equinox, that the Jewish
Passover was celebrated, and it was on the
day which preceded its celebration that our
Lord was crucified. It was close upon the
hour of sunrise on that day that Jesus was
carried to the Prsetorium, to be examined by
the Roman Governor. Assuming that he en
tered Gethsemane about midnight, and re-.
mained there about an hour, the interval be
tween the Jewish seventh and twelfth hour
of the night, or between our one and six
o'clock of the morning, was spent in the trial
before Annas and Caiphas, both reckoned as
High Priests, the one being such de jure, the

THE SANHEDRIM. 65
other de facto. They seem to have been liv
ing at this time in the same palace into the
hall of which Jesus was carried immediately
after his arrest. It was in this hall, and be
fore Annas, that Jesus was subjected to that
preliminary informal examination recorded in
the eighteenth* chapter of the Gospel of St.
John. He was to be formally tried, with
show at least of law, before the Sanhedrim,
the highest of the Jewish courts, but this
could not be done at once. Some time was
needed to call the members of that court to
gether, and to consult as to the conduct of
the trial. Annas was there from the first,
awaiting the return of the band sent out to
arrest the Saviour. His son-in-law Caiaphas
was in all likelihood by his side, eager both
and ready to proceed. But they could not
act without their colleagues, nor pronounce
any sentence which they might call upon the
Roman Governor at once to ratify and exe
cute. Whilst the messengers, however, are
despatched to summon them, and the mem-
* Johi xviii. 19-24.

66 THE TRIAL BEFORE
bers of the Sanhedrim are gathering, Annas
may prepare the way by sounding Christ, in a
far-off, unofficial, conversational manner, and
may perhaps extract from his replies some
good material upon which the court may
afterward proceed. Calling Jesus before him,
he puts to him some questions about his disci
ples, and his doctrine ; questions fair enough,
and proper enough as to their outward form,
yet captious and inquisitorial, intended to en
tangle, and pointing not obscurely to the two
main charges to be afterwards brought against
him, of being a disturber of the public peace,
and a teacher of blasphemous doctrines.
First, then, about his disciples: Annas
would like to know, what this gathering of
men around him meant ; this forming them
into a distinct society. By what bond or
pledge to one another were the members of
this new society united ; what secret instruc
tions had they got; what hidden objects had
they in view ? Though Christ might not re
veal the secrets of this combination, yet, let
it but appear — as by his very refusal to give

THE SANHEDRIM. 67
the required information it might be made to
do — that an attempt was here being made to
organize a confederation all over the country,
how easy would it be to awaken the jealousy
of the Roman authorities, and get them to
believe that some insurrectionary plot was
being hatched which it was most desirable at
once to crush, by cutting off the ringleader.
Such we know to have been the impression
so diligently sought to be conveyed into the
mind of Pontius Pilate. And Annas began
by trying whether he could get Jesus to say
anything that should give a color of truthful
ness to such an imputation. Penetrating at
once this design of the questioner, knowing
thoroughly what his real meaning and pur
poses were, our Lord utterly and indignantly
denies the charge that was attempted thus to
be fastened on him. Neither as to his disci
ples, nor as to his doctrine, — neither as to
the instructions given to his followers, nor as
to the bonds of their union and fellowship
with one another, had there been anything of
the concealed or the sinister; not one doc-

68 THE TRIAL BEFORE
trine for the people without, and another for
the initiated within ; no meetings under cloud
of night in hidden places for doubtful or dan
gerous objects. " I spake," said Jesus to this
first questioner, " openly to the world ; I ever
taught in the synagogue and in the temple,
whither the Jews always resort; and in se
cret" — that is, in the sense in which I know
that you mean and use that term — " have I
said nothing."
But now the questioner must have rolled
back upon himself a question, which tells him
how naked and bare that hypocritical heart
of his lay to the inspection of the questioned :
" Why askest thou me ?" Put that question,
Annas, to thy heart, and let it answer thee,
if it be not so deceitful as to hide its secrets
from thine own eyes. " Why askest thou
me ?" Art thou really so ignorant as thou
pretendest to be ; thou, who hast had thy
spies about me for well-nigh three years,
tracking my footsteps, watching my actions,
reporting my words ? " Why askest thou
me ?" Dost thou really care to know, as these

THE SANHEDRIM. 69
questions of thine would seem to indicate ?
then go, " ask them which heard me, what I
have said unto them : behold, they know what
I said." A boldness here, a touch of irony,
a stroke of rebuke, which, perhaps, our Lord
might not have used, had it been upon his
seat and in his office as President of the San
hedrim that the High Priest was speaking to
him ; had it not been for the mean advantage
which he was trying to take of him ; had it
not been for the cloak of hypocrisy which, in
trying to take that advantage, he had as
sumed. We shall see presently, at least, that
our Lord's tone and manner were somewhat
different when his more formal trial come on.
Christ's sharp sententious answer to Annas
protected him — and perhaps that was one of
its chief purposes — from the repetition and
prolongation of the annoyance. It seems to
have silenced the High Priest. He had made
but little by that way of interrogating his
prisoner, and he wisely gives it up. What
ever resentment he cherished at being checked
and spoken to in such a manner, he restrained

70 THE TRIAL BEFORE
himself from any expression of it, biding the
hour when all the bitter pent-up hatred at the
Nazarene might find fitter and fuller vent.
But there was one -of his officers who could
not so restrain himself, who could not bear to
see his master thus insulted, and who, in the
heat of his indignation, struck Christ with the
palm of his hand, — some forward official, who
thought in this way to earn his master's favor,
but who only earned for himself the unenvi
able notoriety of having been the first to be
gin those acts of inhuman violence with which
the trial and condemnation of Jesus were so
largely and disgracefully interspersed. Others
afterwards came forward to mock and to jos
tle and to blindfold, and to smite and to spit
upon our Lord, to .whom he answered no
thing ; but, whether it was that there was
something in this man which made our Sa
viour's words to him peculiarly needful and
peculiarly appropriate, or whether it was that
at this early stage of the proceedings Jesus
was using the same freedom with the servant
which he had used with the master, — when

THE SANHEDRIM. 71
he inflicted that first stroke, and said to Je
sus, " Answerest thou the High Priest so ?"
— Jesus did not receive the stroke in silence.
He answered the question by another : " If .1
have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil ;
but if well, why smitest thou me ?" Best
comment this on our Lord's own precept : " If
thy brother smite thee on the one cheek, turn
to him the other also ;" and a general key to
all like Scripture precepts, teaching us that
the true observance of them lies not in the
fulfilment of them as to the letter, but in the
possession and exhibition of the spirit which
they prescribe. How much easier would it
be when smitten upon the one cheek, to turn
the other for a second stroke, than to be alto
gether like our Lord in temper and spirit un
der the infliction of the stroke ! More diffi
cult, also, than any silence, to imitate that
gentle answer. The lip might keep itself
closed, while the heart was burning with
anger. But it was out of the depths of a per
fect patience, a gentleness which nothing
could irritate, a condescension which stooped,

72 THE TRIAL BEFORE
even while smitten, to remonstrate, that the
saying came : " If I have spoken evil, bear
witness of the evil ; but if well, why smitest
thou me ?" " Think," says Chrysostom, " on
him who said these words, on him to whom
they were said, and on the reason why they
were said, and these words will, with divine
power, cast down all wrath which may rise
within thy soul."
But now at last the whole Council has
assembled, Caiaphas has taken his seat as
President, and they may go more formally
to work. Their object is to convict him of
some crime which shall warrant their pro
nouncing upon him the severest sentence of
the law. That the appearance of justice
may be preserved,* they must have wit
nesses ; these witnessess must testify to some
speech or act of Christ, which would involve

* It would appear that in holding their Council during the
night, and in condemning Christ solely upon his own confession,
the Jews violated express enactments of their own code. See
"Jesus devant Caiphe et Pilate — Refutation du chapitre de M.
Salvador, intitule" 'Jugement et Condamnation de Jesus,'" par
M. Dupin.

THE SANHEDRIM. 73
him in that doom; and as to any specific
charge, two of these witnesses must agree
before they can condemn. They could have
got plenty of witnesses to testify as to
Christ's having within the last few days
openly denounced themselves, the members
of the Sanhedrim, as fools and blind, hypo
crites, a very generation of vipers; but to
have convicted Christ upon that count or
charge would have given to their proceeding
against him the aspect of personal revenge.
They could have got plenty of witnesses to
testify as to Christ's having often broken and
spoken slightingly of ordinances and tradi
tions of the Pharisees ; but there were Sad-
ducees among their own members, and the
Council might thus have been divided. They
could have got plenty of witnesses to testify
as to Christ's frequent profanation of the
Sabbath ; but .how should they deal with
those miracles, in or connected with the per
formance of which so many of these cases of
profanation of the Sabbath had occurred?
They are in difficulty about their witnesses.

74 THE TRIAL BEFORE
They bring forth many ; but either the
charge which their testimony proposes to
establish against Christ, comes not up to the
required degree of criminality, or the clumsy
testifiers, brought hastily forward, undrilled
beforehand, break down in their witness-
giving. Two, however, do at last appear,
who seem at first sight to agree ; but when
minutely questioned as to the words which
•they allege that more than two years before
they had heard him utter about the destruc
tion of the Temple, they report them differ
ently, so that "neither did their witness
agree." The prosecution is in danger of
breaking down through want of sufficient
proof. All this time, the accused has observed a
strange — to his judges an unaccountable and
provoking silence. He hears as though he
heard not — cared not — were indifferent about
I the result. It is more than the presiding
y'udge can stand. He rises from his seat,
and, fixing his eyes on Jesus, says to him,
" Answerest thou nothing ? " Hast thou

THE SANHEDRIM. 75
nothing to say ?— no question to put, no ex
planation to offer, as to what these witnesses
testify against thee ? Jesus returns the
look, but there is no reply : he stands as
silent, as unmoved as ever. Baffled, per
plexed, irritated, the High Priest will try
yet another way with him. Using the accus
tomed Jewish formula for administering an
oath — a formula recited by the judge, and
accepted without repetition by the respond
ent — " I adjure thee," said the High Priest,
"by the living God, that thou tell us whether
thou be the Christ, the Son of God." Ap
pealed to thus solemnly, by the first magis
trate of his nation, sitting in presidency over
the highest of its courts, our Lord keeps
silence no longer. But it is in words of
wonder that he replies to the High Priest's
adjuration. He sees quite through the pur
pose of the questioner. He knows quite
well what will be the immediate issue of his
reply. Yet he says, "I am;" I am the
Christ, the Son of the Blessed ; " and ye " — ¦
ye who are sitting there now as my judges, — «

76 THE TRIAL BEFORE
" ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the
right hand of power, and coming in the
clouds to heaven." It is our Lord's own
free and full confession, his public and solemn
assertion of his claim to the Messiahship, and
Sonship to God. The time for all conceal
ment or reserve is past. Jesus will now
openly, not only take to himself his own
name, assume his office, and assert his Divine
prerogatives, but in doing so, he will let
those earthly dignitaries, who have dragged
him thus to their tribunal, before whose judg
ment-seat he stands, know that the hour is
coming which shall witness a strange reversal
in their relative positions, — he being seen
sitting on the seat of power, and they, with
all the world beside, seen standing before his
bar, as on the clouds of heaven he comes to
judge all mankind.
The effect of this confession, this sublime
unfolding of his true character, and prophecy
of his second coming, was immediate, and
though extraordinary, not unnatural. The
High Priest, as soon as he drank in the real

THE SANHEDRIM. 77
meaning of the words which fell on his aston
ished ear, grasped his mantle, and rent it in
real or feigned horror, exclaiming, " He hath
spoken blasphemy." Then rose up also the
other judges who were sitting round him, ex
cited to the highest pitch, each one more
eager than the other, to put this question to
the accused, " Art thou then the Son of
God ?" to all of whom there is the same
answer as to Caiaphas, " I am." " What
further need, then," says the President of the
Court to his brother judges, " have we of wit
nesses ? Now ye have heard his blasphemy.
What think ye?" "What need we," they
say to him, taking up his own words, " any
further witnesses ? for we ourselves have
heard it out of his own mouth." And they
" answered and said, He is guilty of death."*
The unanimous judgment of the Court is
delivered,! and the sentence of death pro
nounced. Is there not one among all those judges
within whose heart there rise some strange
* See Deut. xiii. 5 ; xviii, 20. \ Mark xiv. 64.

78 THE TRIAL BEFORE
misgivings as he dooms this man to die ; not
one whom the calmness, the serenity, the
dignified bearing of the Lord, as he made the
great revelation of himself before them, have
impressed with wonder and with awe ? Per
haps there is ; but the tumult of that vehe
ment condemnation carries him away ; or if
any inward voice be pleading for the accused,
he quenches it by saying that, if Jesus really
submit to such a sentence being executed
upon him, he cannot be the Messiah, he must
be a deceiver ; and so he lets the matter take
its course.
The pronouncing of the sentence from the
bench was the signal for a horrible outburst
of coarsest violence in the hall below. As if
all license were theirs to do with him what
they liked — as if they knew they could not
go too far ; could do nothing that their mas
ters would not approve, perhaps enjoy — the
men who held Jesus* (for it would seem they
could not trust him, bound though he was, to
stand there free before them), began to mock
* Luke xxii. 63.

THE SANHEDRIM. 79
him, and to buffet him, and to spit upon him,
and to cover his eyes with their hands, say
ing, as they struck at him, " Prophesy to us
who it is that smiteth thee." " And many
other things blasphemously spake they
against him." How long all this went on we
know not. They had to wait till the proper
hour for carrying Jesus before the Roman
Governor arrived, and it was thus that the
interval was filled up; the meek and the
patient One, who was the object of all this
scorn and cruelty, neither answering, nor
murmuring, nor resisting, nor reproaching.
There was but one man in that hall to look
with loving, pitying eyes on him who was
being treated thus ; and, in the words which
that spectator penned long years thereafter
in the distant lonely island, we may see some
trace of the impression which the sight of
the great sufferer made — " I, John, who also
am your brother and companion in tribula
tion, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus
Christ." Th1* malignant antipathy to Christ cherished

80 THE TRIAL BEFORE
by the hierarchical party at Jerusalem had
early ripened into an intention to cut him off
»y death. It was at the beginning of the
second year of his ministry that he healed the
impotent man at the pool of Bethesda. " 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 an
swered 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."*
So far from repudiating this interpretation of
his words, Jesus accepted and confirmed it ;
enlarging the scope, without altering the na-
* John v. 15-18. When, on a succeeding Sabbath Christ
healed the man who had a withered hand, the Pharisees " were
filled with madness, and straightway took counsel with the Hero-
dians against him how they might destroy him." — Luke vi. 11 ;
Mark iii. 6. Christ's movements were, from the beginning and
throughout, more regulated by the pressure of the persecution to
which he was exposed, than a cursory reading of the Gospel nar
rative might lead us to imagine. — See John ii. 24 ; iv. 1-3 ; Mark
L 45 ; Luke v 17 • xi. 53-56.

THE SANHEDRIM. 81
ture of what he had said about the Father,
claiming not only unity in action, but unity
in honor with him.* So vengeful in their
hatred did the Jews of Jerusalem become, that
Jesus had to seek safety by retiring from
Judea. In the course of the two years which
followed, Jesus paid only two visits to the
metropolis, and both were marked by out
breaks of the same implacable animosity. His
appearance in Jerusalem at the Feast of Tab
ernacles excited such an instant and intense
spirit of vindictiveness, that one of our Lord's
first sayings to the Jews in the Temple was,
" Why go ye about to kill me ?" So well
known was the purpose of the rulers that it
was currently said, " 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 ?"f Hearing that such things were
said, the rulers sent their officers to seize him,
but failed in the attempt to get him into their
hands. They then confronted him in the
* John v. 33. f John vii. 25, 26.

82 THE TRIAL BEFORE
Temple, and openly charged him with bearing
a false record about himself. A strange dia
logue ensued, in the course of which, instead
of retracting any thing which he had formerly
said, or attempting to explain it away, Jesus
not only exalted himself above Abraham, in
whom they boasted, but declared, in language
which they could only understand as an as
sumption by him of Divine prerogatives :
" Before Abraham was, I am." So exaspe
rated were they when he said this, that they
took up stones to cast at him ; and had he not
made himself invisible, and so passed through
the midst of them, they would, in the heat
of the moment, and without troubling them
selves about any formal trial, have inflicted
on him the doom of the blasphemer. Having
lingered for a few days longer in the neigh
borhood of Jerusalem, wrought a memorable
cure on the man born blind, and delivered
that memorable discourse which John has pre
served to us in the 10th chapter of his Gos
pel, Jesus again retired from the capital. On
his return, two months afterwards, at the

THE SANHEDRTM. 83
Feast of Dedication, he was met as he walked
in the Temple in Solomon's Porch, and with
some show of candor and anxiety, the ques
tion was put to him, " How long dost thou
make us to doubt ? if thou be the Christ, tell
us plainly." Jesus did not tell them so plainly
as they desired, about his being the Christ,
but he told them plainly enough, as he had
done before, that he was the Son of God.
" I," said he, " and my Father are one. Then
the Jews took up stones again to stone him.
Jesus answered them, Many good works have
I showed you from my Father : for which of
those works do ye stone me ? The Jews an
swered him, saying, For a good work we stone
thee not, but for blasphemy ; and because
that thou, being a man, makest thyself God."
Again our Lord had to protect himself from
the storm of their wrath by retreating to
Persea. The message from the mourning
sisters recalled him from this retreat. The
raising from the dead of a man so well known
as Lazarus, in a village so near to Jerusalem
as Bethany, produced such an effect that a

84 THE TRIAL BEFORE
meeting of the Sanhedrim was summoned to
deliberate as to what should be done. The
design which they had so long cherished, they
now more deliberately than ever determined
to accomplish : " From that day forth they
took counsel together,to put him to death."*
Though hurried at last in the time and
manner of its execution, it was no hasty pur
pose on the part of the members of the Jew
ish Council to put our Lord to death. The
proposal of Judas did not take them by sur
prise, the arrest in the garden did not find
them unprepared. They must often have
deliberated how they should proceed if they
once had him in their hands. And when he
was at last before them for formal trial, and
they were eager to get him condemned, they
had not for the first time to consider what
charges they should bring against him, and by
what evidence the charges might be sus
tained. Witnesses enough of all kinds were
within their easy reach, nor had they any
scruple as to the means they took to get from
* John xi. 53.

THE SANHEDRIM. 85
them the evidence they wanted. But with
all their facilities, and all their bribery,
they could not substantiate a single charge
against Jesus which would justify them in
condemning him. Why, when they found
themselves in such difficulty, did they not
summon into their presence some of those
who had heard Jesus commit that kind of
blasphemy, upon the ground of which they
had twice, upon the spur of the moment, at
tempted to stone him to death ? Testimony
in abundance to that effect must have been
lying ready to their hands. It seems clear to
us that the first and earnest desire of the
members of the Sanhedrim was to convict
Christ of some other breach of their law, suf
ficient to justify the infliction of death ; and
that it was not till every attempt of this kind
had failed, that, as a last resort, the High
Priest put our Lord himself upon his oath.
In the form of adjuration which he employed,
two separate questions were put to Christ :
the one, Whether he claimed to be the
Christ ; the other, Whether he claimed to

86 THE TRIAL BEFORE
be the Son of God. These were not iden
tical. The latter title was not one which
either Scripture or Jewish usage had attached
to the Messiah. The patent act of blas
phemy which our Lord was considered as
having perpetrated in presence of the Council
was not his having asserted his Messiahship,
but his having appropriated the other title to
himself. When, after Christ had given his
first affirmative reply to the complex chal
lenge of Caiaphas, the other judges interfered
to interrogate the prisoner, they dropped all
allusion to the Messiahship. " Then said
they all, Art thou then the Son of God ?" and
it was upon our Lord's reassertion that he
was, — upon that, and that alone, that he was
doomed to death as a blasphemer. For it
was perfectly understood between the judges
and the judged, that, in thus speaking of him
self, Jesus claimed a peculiar, an intrinsic
affinity, — oneness in essence, knowledge,
power, and glory, with the Father. His
judges took Jesus to be only man, and look
ing upon him as such, they were so far right

THE SANHEDRIM 87
in regarding him as guilty of blasphemous pre
sumption. In this, then, one of the most
solemn moments of his existence, when his
character was at stake, when life and death
were trembling in the balance, Jesus, fully
aware of the meaning attached by his judges
to the expression, claimed to be the Son of
God. He heard, and heard without explana
tion or remonstrance, sentence of death passed
upon him, for no other reason whatever but
his making that claim. On any other suppo
sition than that of his having been really that
which, his judges regarded him as asserting
that he was ; on any other supposition than
that of his true and proper Divinity, this pas
sage of the Redeemer's life becomes worse
than unmeaning in our eyes. There would
be something more here than the needless
flinging away of a life, by the absence of all
attempt to remove the misconception (if mis
conception it had been), upon which the death
sentence had been based. If only a man, if
not the co-eternal, co-equal Son of the Father,
in speaking of himself as he did before that

88 THE TRIAL BEFORE
Jewish Council, Jesus was guilty of an ex
tent, an audacity, an effrontery of pretension,
which the blindest, wildest, most arrogant
religious enthusiast has never exceeded. The
only way to free his character as a man from
the stain of such egregious vanity and pre
sumption, is to recognize him as the Son of
the Highest. If the Divinity that was in him
be denied, the humanity no longer stands
stainless. But we believe in both, and see both mani
fested in the very scene that is here before
our eyes. Now, with the eye of sense we
look on Jesus as he stands before this Jewish
tribunal. It is the Man of sorrows, despised
and rejected of men ; treated by those lordly
judges, and the brutal band of servitors, as
the vilest of felons, the very refuse of the
earth. Again, with the eye of faith we look
on him, and he seems as if transfigured before
us, when, breaking the long-kept silence, he
declares, " I am the Son of God, and hereafter
ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the
right hand of power, and coming in the clouds

THE SANHEDRIM. 89
of heaven." From what a depth of earthly
degradation, to what a height of superhuman
dignity does Jesus at once ascend ! And is
it not striking to notice how he himself blends
his humiliation and exaltation, his humanity
and divinity, as he takes to himself the
double, title, and binds it to his suffering
brow : The Son of Man ; the Son of God.

IV.
©fwtet'is Jtot gwwarwitt Mow ittstfe.*
Christ's trial before the Jewish Sanhedrim,
closed in his conviction and condemnation.
The strange commotion on the bench, in the
midst of which the sentence was pronounced,
and the outbreak of brutal violence on the
part of the menials in the hall, being over,
there was an eager and hurried consultation
as to how that sentence which had been pro
nounced could most speedily be executed.
Had the full power of carrying out their own
sentence been in their own hands, there had
been no difficulty ; Jesus would have been
led out instantly to execution. But Judea
was now under the Roman yoke ; one bond
and badge of its servitude being this, that
c Matt. xv. i; Luke xxiii 1-4; John xvii. 28-39.

CHRIST BEFORE PILATE. 91
while the old Jewish courts were permitted
to try and to punish minor offences, the final
judgment of all capital offences was reserved
for the Roman tribunals. A Roman judge
must pass the sentence, or, at least, must
sign the warrant that consigned the criminal
to execution. At Jerusalem, these reserved
cases were brought up for adjudication at the
time of the great festivals, when the Roman
Procurator, who resided ordinarily at Csesarea,
visited the capital. For the last six years,
Pontius Pilate had held this office in Judea,
and he was now on occasion of this Passover
in the city. His order, therefore, for the
execution, must be obtained that forenoon, or
perhaps not at all. It was now the last day
before the Passover on which a court of jus
tice could be held ; and if not held before six
o'clock that evening, when the Passover
period began, then not for seven days there
after. To keep Christ so long in bonds,
awaiting his presentation to the Roman judge,
¦ — with an uncertainty, besides, whether Pilate
would take up the case after the Passover. —

92 Christ's first appearance
that were a risk too perilous to run. They
had, indeed, the whole day before them, and
there was time enough to get Pilate's judg
ment before the Passover commenced ; but
to keep Jesus not only bound, but bound
with the order for his crucifixion hanging
over him ; to keep him so for eight days to
come ; to keep him so till not only citizens
of Jerusalem, but the inhabitants of the whole
region round about, had heard all the particu
lars of his apprehension and condemnation, —
that also were peril which must, if possible,
be avoided. And it could only be avoided
by getting the crucifixion over before that sun
which was just about to rise had set.
Obviously there was urgent need of haste.
The consultation, therefore, was a brief and a
hurried one. The resolution was taken to
bind Jesus once more — bind him as men con
demned to death were wont to be bound —
and to carry him at once to Pilate, and get
from him the authority to proceed. Thither,
therefore, to the official residence of the Pro
curator, accompanied by the whole multitude

BEFORE PILATE. 93
that had assembled in and around the hall of
Caiaphas, Jesus is conveyed. It is a house
which the Gentile has occupied and polluted ;
a house from which the leaven has not been
cast out ; a house to cross whose threshold
at such a time as this, on the very eve of
the Passover, — was to disqualify the entrant
from all participation in the holy rite. And
though there be among their number those
who, from their position and previous ac
quaintance, might well have claimed the priv
ilege of access, and asked a private audience
of Pilate, to explain to him the nature of the
case in which his interference at such an
unseasonable hour was required, yet will not
one of these precise, punctilious chief priests,
scribes, and councillors venture into that
dwelling, lest they should be defiled. They
send in their message by some of Pilate's
officers or servants. At once, with Roman
courtesy, he comes out to them — to where
they are all standing around the bound and
sentenced Jesus. The glance of a quick eye
at once revealed to Pilate the general object

94 CHRIST'S FIRST APPEARANCE
of this early visit. These, he knew, as his
eye ran round the leaders of the crowd, were
the Jewish judges, and this, as that eye rested
upon Jesus, some one whom they were anx
ious to get punished. But why all this haste ?
What can it have been that has brought
together, at such an unusual hour, all these
city magnates, and drawn them as suppliants
to his door ? What extraordinary crime can
this man, whom they have borne to him, have
committed, that they are so impatient to see
him punished ? He looks at Christ again.
He had tried many ; he had condemned
many ; his practised eye was familiar with
the features which great guilt ordinarily
wears, but he had never seen a great criminal
look as this man looks ; nothing here either
of that sunk and hollow aspect that those
convicted of great crimes sometimes show ;
nothing here of that bold and brazen front
with which they still more frequently are
wont to face their doom : he looks so gentle,
so meek, so innocent, yet so calm, so self-pos
sessed, so dignified. It does not seem that

BEFORE PILATE. 95
Pilate knew at first who this bound one was
that now stood there before him. He must
have heard something, perhaps much, of Je
sus of Nazareth before. He had been gover
nor of the country all through the years of
our Lord's public ministry, and it could
scarcely be but that some report of his great
sayings and doings must have reached his
ear ; but no more, perhaps, than Herod had
ne ever met him — ever seen him face to face ;
nor does he yet know that this is he. He
only knows and feels that never has his eye
rested upon one more unlike a hardened rep
robate than this. His curiosity roused, his
interest excited, the favorable impression
which this first sight of the accused has made,
co-operating with the instinctive and official
sense of justice, Pilate's first words to these
judges and heads of the Jewish people are,
" What accusation bring ye against this man ?"
Was that question put in such a way, was it
spoken in such a tone, or accompanied by such
a look as to convey the idea that the ques
tioner was not at once ready to believe that

96 CHRIST'S FIRST APPEARANCE
any very heinous offence had been committed
by that man ? Perhaps it did carry with it
some indication of that kind. But whether
so or not, it indicated this, that Pilate meant
to open up or re-try the case, or, at least, to
get at and go over, upon his own account, the
ground of their condemnation ere he ratified
it. He could not but know — if he had not
been distinctly told by the messengers whom
the Jews sent to him, he saw it plainly
enough in all the attendant circumstances — :
what it was that these Jews were expecting
him to do. But he will do it in his own way.
He will not sign off-hand, upon their credit
and at their bidding, the death-warrant of a
man like this. Had he been a judge of the
purest and strictest honor, he would not have
signed in such a hurried way the death-war
rant of any one ; but we know it from other
sources, and the Jews who stood before him
knew it too, that he was not such a judge,
that he had often condemned without a hear
ing. And it is this which inclines us to be
lieve that there was something in the very

BEFORE PILATE. 97
first impression that our Lord's appearance
made upon Pilate which touched the better
part of his nature, and not only stirred within
his heart the wish to know what it was of
which they accused such a man, but also the
desire to ascertain, for his own satisfaction,
whether or not that accusation was well
founded. Obviously, to the men to whom it was ad
dressed, Pilate's question was a disappointing
one. They did not want, they had not ex
pected, to be summoned thus to adduce and
to substantiate some charge against Jesus,
which, in Pilate's judgment, might be suffi
cient to doom him to death. They had hoped
that to save himself the trouble of investiga
tion, and in compliment to them at this Pass
over season — a compliment which, when it
cost him nothing, they knew that he was quite
willing to pay — he would take their judgment
on trust and proceed upon it. And they still
hope so. They will let Pilate know how
good a right they have to expect this service
at his hand ; how much they will be offended

98 CHRIST'S FIRST APPEARANCE
if he refuse it. When the question, then, is
put to them, " What accusation bring ye
against this man ?" they content themselves
with saying, " If he were not a malefactor,
we would not have delivered him up to thee,"
— words of haughtiness and injured pride.
" Do you think that we, the whole assembled
Sanhedrim ; we, the very first men in this
Jewish community over which you happen to
have been placed ; we, who have come to you,
as we are not often wont to do, and are here
before your gates to ask a very easy act of
compliance with our will, — do you think that
we would have brought this man to you, if
we had not already ascertained his guilt ?
Do you think that we would either have ven
tured to offer such an insult to you, or our
selves perpetrate such injustice ?" A very
high tone this to take, which they have some
hope will yet carry their point for them with
the weak and vacillating governor. They are
disappointeu. They have stirred a pride that
is equal to their own. If those Jews won't
tell him what kind or degree of criminality it

BEFORE PILATE. 99
is that they attribute to this man, he, Pilate,
won't put himself as a blind tool into their
hands. " If it be your judgment, and your
judgment alone, that is to rule this man's case,
< Take ye him, then,' said Pilate, ' and judge
him according to your own law ;' " — a refusal
on Pilate's part to do the thing which they
first hoped that they might get him to do off
hand ; a refusal to countersign their sentence,
whatever it was, and by whatever evidence
supported. It was as much as saying, that
so far as he had yet heard or known any thing
of this case, it was one which their own law,
as administered by themselves, was quite
competent to deal with.
Let them take this man, and judge him
and punish him as they pleased, provided
only that they kept strictly within the limits
that their conquerors had laid down. — This
were wholly to miss their mark. Their tone
changes; their pride humbles itself. They
are obliged to explain to the Governor, what
he had known well enough from the first, but
what they had not been candid enough to tell

100 CHRIST'S FIRST APPEARANCE
him, that it was a sentence unto death which
they wished to get executed, a sentence
which they were not at liberty to carry out.
This determination of Pilate to make personal
inquiry into the grounds of that sentence,
obliged them also to lodge some distinct and
specific charge against Jesus ; — one of such a
kind that the Governor would be forced to
deal with it ; one too of sufficient magnitude
to draw down upon it the punishment of
death. Now mark the deep hypocrisy and
utter falseness of these men. It won't do
now to say that it was as a blasphemer, and
as that alone, in calling himself the Son of
God, that Jesus had been condemned before
their bar. It won't do to let Pilate know
anything of that one and only piece of evi
dence upon which their sentence has been
founded. What cares he about that kind of
blasphemy of which Jesus has been convicted ;
what cares that Roman law, of which he is
the administrator, who or what any man
thinks himself to be, or claims to be, in his
relationship with God ? Let any Jew be but

BEFORE PILATE. 101
a good and faithful subject to Caesar, and, so
far as Caesar or Csesar's representatives are
concerned, he may claim any rank he pleases
among the gods. It was necessary, there
fore, to draw the thickest veil of concealment
over their own procedure as judges, although
before the examination at this new bar was
over, it oozed out that Jesus had made him
self the Son of God, — with what strange effect
upon Pilate's mind we shall presently see.
But, in the first instance, some civil or poli
tical offence, some crime against the common
law of the land, must be sought for to charge
against Jesus. It was not easy to find or
fabricate such a crime. Our Saviour had
throughout most carefully and cautiously
avoided everything like interference or inter
meddling with, condemning or resisting, the
ordinary administration of law, the policy and
procedure of the government. He refused to
entertain a -question about the rights of in
heritance between two brothers, saying to
him who seught his interference, " Man, who
made me a judge or a ruler over you?"

102 CHRIST'S FIRST APPEARANCE
These very men, who are now about to frame
their first accusation of him before Pilate,
had tried to get him to pass his judgment
upon the abstract question as to whether it
was lawful to pay tribute to Coesar or not,
and had failed in their attempt to entangle
him. What concealment, then, what decep
tion, what effrontery of falsehood in it, —
and it shows to what extremity they were
driven, — that when forced to adduce some
specific accusation, they said, " We found
this fellow perverting the nation, and forbid
ding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that
he himself is Christ a King !" They here
bring three different accusations against him,
not one of which — in that sense in which
alone they desire that Pilate should under
stand them — they know is true ; and one of
which, the central one of the three, they
know is absolutely, and in every sense of
it, false. But it suits their object to repre
sent the accused to Pilate as a stirrer up of
sedition, as a refuser to pay custom, as a
denier of the Romai right to reign over

BEFORE PILATE. 103
Judea, as a claimant to be king of the coun
try, in his own person and of his own right.
These, however, were charges which they
knew that a Roman governor, whose chief
business in their country was to see that the
rights of the Emperor whom he represented
should suffer no damage, could not pass by ;
charges by no means unlikely to be true, for
Judea was at this time in a most unsettled
state. There were multitudes of Jews who
questioned Csesar's right to tax them; mul
titudes who regarded him as a foreign usurper.
Give them but a chance of success, and the
great majority of the people would have risen
then, as they rose afterwards, and risked
their lives to regain their national liberties.
One thing alone was suspicious — that such an
accusation should come from such a quarter;
that those leaders of the Jews should be so
very eager to get a man punished for such a
crime. It surely could not be so mighty an
offence in their eyes. They were not them
selves so very loyal to Rome as to be anxious
to see a resister of the Roman power cut off-

104 CHRIST'S FIRST APPEARANCE
Never before, at least, had they displayed
any great zeal in that direction. Pilate had
no faith in their sincerity. He saw through
their designs. Perhaps it was now that, for
the first time, he recognized that it was with
Jesus of Nazareth, of whom he had heard
so much, that he had to do. He did not en
tertain, because he did not believe, the charge
of his being a seditious and rebellious sub
ject. But there was one part of the accusa
tion which was quite new to him, which
sounded ridiculous in his ears, that this poor
Nazarene should say that he was a king, the
king of the Jews, — a very preposterous pre
tension; one sufficient of itself, if there was
any real ground for saying that it ever had
actually been set forth, to suggest a doubt as
to whether Jesus was a fit subject for any
judicial procedure whatever being taken
against him. Overlooking all else that had
been said against him, Pilate turns to Christ,
and says to him, " Art thou the king of the
Jews ?" He expected nothing else than to
get an immediate disclaimer of the absurd

BEFORE PILATE. 105
pretension. To his surprise, however, Jesus
calmly and deliberately replies, " Thou sayest
it, — I am the king of the Jews." Very curious
this, to hear such a man, in such a condition,
and in such circumstances, speak in such a
way. He must be some egregious, designing,
perhaps dangerous impostor, or, more likely,
some wretched, ignorant, half-mad enthusiast
or fanatic. He would like to search a little
into the matter, and find out how it really
stood. The man himself would in all likeli
hood be the first to supply the clue ; he had
so willingly and so calmly answered that first
question that he would answer others. But
it would be better to interrogate him alone,
away from these accusers of his. He might
not be so ready to answer further questions
in their hearing, or they might interfere and
prevent Pilate prosecuting the inquiry in his
own way. He retires, therefore, to his own
dwelling, into that part of it called and used
generally as the Judgment Hall, and calls
upon Christ to follow him. Jesus at once
consents. He makes no scruple about cross-

106 CHRIST'S FIRST APPEARANCE
ing that threshold : he fears no contagion from
contact with the Gentile ; his passover has
been already held. And now, when they are
alone, out of sight and out of hearing of those
Jews, Pilate says again to him in a subdued
and under-tone, as of one really anxious to
get at the truth, " Art thou the King of the
Jews ?" Waiving in the meantime anything
like a direct reply, Jesus said to him, " Sayest
thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it
thee of me ?" ' Art thou but repeating the
words of others, or art thou asking out of the
depths of thine own inquiring spirit? Hast
thou too, Pilate, for that unruled, unruly
spirit of thine, felt the inward need of some
one to be its Governor and Lord ? Lies there
behind the outward form and meaning of that
question of thine, the indistinct, the inarticu
late longing after another king and another
kingdom than either Jews or Romans own ?'
Was there indeed, for one passing moment,
far down in the depths of Pilate's struggling
thoughts, an element of this kind at work ;
and did Jesus, knowing that it was there, try

BEFORE PILATE. 107
thus to bring it up, that he might proceed to
satisfy it ? If so, what a moment of tran
scendent interest to the Roman judge, of
which, had he but known how to take ad
vantage, he too might have entered the king
dom, and shared its securities and blessedness.
But he does not, he will not stoop to acknowl
edge, what we suspect was true, that there
did mingle in the thoughts and feelings of
that moment some element of the kind de
scribed. This is too personal, too bold, too
home a question of the Nazarene. The pride
of the Roman, the judge, swells up within his
breast, and quenches the interests of the man,
tho sinner — and so he haughtily replies : "Am
I a Jew ? Thine own nation, and the chief
priests, have delivered thee unto me : what
hast thou done ?" The chance of reaching
the individual conscience of the questioner
has passed away ; the trial has been made,
and it has failed; Jesus must take up the
question not as one between him and Pilate —
between Pilate's conscience and Pilate's God —
but as one simply between himself &n a sen-

108 CHRIST'S FIRST APPEARANCE
tenced criminal, and those Jews without, who
are his accusers. He will not answer the last
question of the Governor, " What hast thou
done ?" — upon that he will not enter ; it
would be of no avail ; but he will satisfy
Pilate upon one point. He will convince him
that he has committed no political offence ;
that he never meant to set himself in opposi
tion to any of this world's governments. " My
kingdom," said he, " is not of this world. If
my kingdom were of this world, then would
my servants fight, that I should not be deliv
ered to the Jews : but now is my kingdom
not from hence :" a kingdom rising up among
the others of the world, to struggle for its ex
istence, to establish, to protect, to extend it
self, by earthly weapons, by outward force of
any kind, — not such is that kingdom which I
Jesus call my own.
But if not, what kind of kingdom can it
be ? what kind of king is he who rules it ?
So far satisfied, yet still wondering and per
plexed, Pilate puts his question, not in its
first specific form, but in a more general one ;

BEFORE PILATE. 109
" Art thou a king then ?" " If not a king,
like our own Csesars or your own Herods, if
not a king to fight with rival sovereigns, or
ask thy subjects to fight for thee, then in
what sense a king ?" Our Lord's reply, we
can perceive, was particularly adap.ted to the
position, character, acquirements, experience
of his questioner, — a Roman official of high
rank, educated, cultivated ; a man of affairs,
of large experience of men — men in different
countries and of different creeds ; not given
much, perhaps, to any deep or serious thought
about religious matters, yet sufficiently ac
quainted with the rival schools of philosophy
and religion by which the then great living
Roman commonwealth was divided and dis
tracted. Truth, moral truth, religious truth,
was the one proclaimed object of research, of
which some were saying, Lo, here it is, and
others, Lo, there it is ; but of which he,
Pilate, in pursuit of quite a different object,
had learned to think that neither here nor there
nor anywhere was it to be found. It is to
this man that Jesus says, speaking in the

110 CHRIST'S FIRST APPEARANCE
language that would be most intelligible to
him : " 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 hear.eth my voice." As these words
fell upon the ear of Pilate, one can well
enough imagine that the current of his
thoughts ran thus : — " It is even as I sus
pected ; here is another of these pretenders,
who each would have us to believe that he
alone had discovered the undiscoverable, that
he alone has found out and got exclusive
possession of the truth ; here is a new Jewish
rival of those old Stoics of our own, who were
ever teaching us that every wise man was a
king, — the setter up of a new system, which
he imagines is to dethrone every other one
that the world before has seen, whose fancy
is that he himself is already upon the throne
of his great kingdom, — some poor egotistical,
yet quite harmless enthusiast, whose day
dream who would wish to break ? One thing,
at least, is clear enough, that it is a quite

BEFORE PILATE. Ill
empty, hollow charge ¦ these Jews are urging
here against him. He may sit as long as he
likes upon that ideal throne of his, without
the throne of Tiberius being endangered ; he
may get as many subjects as he can to enter
that ideal kingdom of his, and my master, the
Emperor, have not a loyal subject the less."
And so with that passing question to Jesus,
" What is truth ?" — a question he does not
stay to get answered, as he has no faith that
any answer to it can be given ; a question
not uttered sneeringly or scoffingly, but rather
sadly and bitterly, so far as he himself is
concerned, having come to regard all truth as
a phantom ; and with a kindly, tolerant, half-
pitying, half-envious feeling towards Jesus, —
with that question put to Jesus by the way,
Pilate goes out to the Jews, and says to them
boldly and emphatically, " I find in him no
fault at all ;" — the faultlessness of Christ ac
knowledged, his kingly claims scarcely com
prehended, and so far as comprehended, re
jected, perhaps despised.
Let each of us now ask himself, How

112 CHRIST'S FIRST APPEARANCE
stands it as to me and this kingdom of the
truth, this one great King of the true ? Is
Jesus Christ to me the way, the truth, the
life ? Does truth, simple, pure, eternal truth,
stand expressed and exhibited to me in those
words, those prayers, those acts, those suffer
ings, that life, that death, of Jesus Christ ?
The witness that he bore to the truth, in the
living of that life and the dying of that death,
— have I listened to it, and believed in it,
and submitted to it ? Am I of the truth ; a
simple, humble, earnest seeker after it ; and
have I this evidence of my being so, that I
hear the voice of Jesus, hear it and hail it,
among all the conflicting voices that are fall
ing on my ear, as the voice of him who right
fully claims the lordship of my soul ? Is
truth — the truth as to God, my Creator, my
Father, my Redeemer ; the truth as to my
self, what I am, what I ought to be, what I
may be, what I shall be, — is this truth not a
mere form of sound words, not a mere con
geries of acknowledged or accepted proposi
tions ; but does it stand before me embodied

BEFORE PILATE. 113
in the person, the life, the death, the medita
tion of Jesus Christ ; and have I enshrined
and enthroned him as King and Lord of my
weak, my sinful, my immortal spirit ?

Jesus had spoken quite frankly and openly
to Pilate when they were together, out of
sight and hearing of the Jews, alone in the
Judgment Hall. It was quite different when,
accompanied by Christ, Pilate came out again
to the attendant crowd, and boldly said to
them, " I find no fault in this man." So far,
then, the Chief Priests and Elders have failed.
Failure always embitters. Failure here was
what these men were by no means disposed
to submit to. Pilate's assertion of his belief
in the innocence of Jesus only made them the
more vehement in their assertion of his crim
inality. They became the more fierce. They
* Matt, xxvii. 12, 13 Mark vi. 14-16 ; Luke ix. 7-9; xiii. 31,
82. xxiii. 4-12.

APPEARANCE BEFORE HEROD. 115
accused him, Mark tell us, of many things.
But the waves and the billows of this swell
ing wrath of theirs broke harmlessly upon
Christ. So absent, so unmoved, so indiffer
ent did he appear, that it seemed as if he had
not heard what they were saying against him,
or hearing had not understood, or understand
ing had not heeded. Very different his re
tirement into himself, — this unruffled com
posure, this unbroken silence, from those
eager and animated utterances to which the
Governor had just been listening in the hall
within. Perhaps it is wounded pride that
seals the lips of Jesus. To men like these,
animated by such a bitter personal hostility
to him, exhausting every epithet of vitupera-
tion, heaping upon him all kinds of charges,
Jesus may not choose to condescend to give
any answer. But he has not treated, will
not treat, the Roman governor in the same
way ; at least will surely tell him why it is
that he preserves this silence. Pilate says to
him, " Hearest thou not how many things they
witness against thee ?" There is no reply.

116 CHRIST'S APPEARANCE
The lips are as shut at the question of Pilate
as at the accusation of the Jews. Christ has
said all that he meant to say, done all that
he meant to do, so far as those charges were
concerned that they were now bringing
against him. He had answered to the
Roman judge that the kingship which he
claimed was not of a kind in any way to
interfere with this world's governments ; he
had satisfied him of his perfect innocuous-
¦*es£ as a subject of the State ; and, having
done that, he would say and do no more.
One observes an almost exact parallel as to
his silences and his speakings in our Lord's
conduct before the Jewish and the Gentile
courts of justice. In that preliminary unoffi
cial conversation he held with Annas before
the Sanhedrim sat in judgment on his case,
Jesus had spoken without reserve, had an
swered the High Priest's questions but too
fully, and had brought down upon himself
the stroke of the officer who stood by. But
when the regular trial commenced, and
charges were formally brought forward, and

BEFORE HEROD. 117
attempted by many witnesses to be substan
tiated, Jesus held his peace, so long and so
resolutely, manifesting so little disposition or
desire to medde in any way with the pro
cedure that was going on, that the High
Priest rose from his seat in the midst, and
put to him a question of the same import
with that which Pilate afterwards put ; and
the two questions met with the very same
treatment, — to neither of them a single word
of reply was given. But when the High
Priest rose, and solemnly adjured Jesus to
tell whether he was the Christ the Son of
God, just as when Pilate asked whether he
was the King of the Jews, and what kind
of king he was, our Lord made instant and
distinct and unambiguous reply. So far as
we can see or understand the principle ruling
here the Saviour's conduct, determining the
time to speak and the time to be silent, it
was this : that when the matter immediately
and directly concerns his Divine Sonship and
Kingship, he will help his judges in every
way he can ; nay, he will himself supply the

118 CHRIST'S APPEARANCE
evidence they want. Upon that count he
will allow himself to be condemned ; he will
co-operate with his enemies in the bringing
about of his condemnation ; but of all these
other lesser trifling charges he will take no
account ; but leave all their manifold attempts
to fasten on him any other kind of charge, to
break down of themselves, that, his enemies
themselves being witnesses, it might be solely
and alone as the Son of God, the King of
Israel, that he should be convicted, con
demned, and crucified.
Among the many things that the Chief
Priests were now accusing Jesus of in the
presence of the Governor, hoping still to
convince Pilate that he was not the guiltless
man that he had taken him to be, there was
one thing that they put prominently forward,
presented in every form, amplified in every
way, on which they mainly relied in their
dealings with Pilate, — the setting forth of
Christ as a ringleader of sedition. " He stir-
reth up the people," stirreth them up against
the constituted authorities,' preaching rebel-

BEFORE HEROD. 119
lion through the whole country, not here in
Judea alone, but there also in Galilee where
he began this work. This allusion to Galilee
as the birthplace of the alleged seditious
movement may have been accidental ; they
may have meant merely thereby to signify
how widespread the evil had been which
they were calling upon Pilate to check ; or it
may have been done designedly, with that art
which was to leave nothing unsaid or unsug-
gested, by which the Governor could possibly
be influenced. Galilee might have been
named by them, to suggest to Pilate how dif
ficult it was to produce proof of crime com
mitted in so remote a district ; or to remind
him that this Galilee, upon which so much of
Christ's time and labor had been spent, was
the chosen haunt of the resisters of the
Roman authority, the cradle of most of the
seditious plots concocted against the Emper
or's government ; or they might have known
of the bad feeling that there was at this
time between Pilate and the King of Galilee,
and might have imagined that it would be

120 CHRIST'S APPEARANCE
rather gratifying to Pilate than otherwise to
lay his hand judicially upon one who might
be regarded as a subject of that prince.
However it was, no sooner had the words
escaped their lips, than a happy thought sug
gests itself to Pilate. He is in great diffi
culty with this case ; he knows not how to
deal with it. He had never been so impor
tuned as he now was by those Chief Priests
and elders ; he never saw them more bent on
anything than on the death of this man whom
they have brought to him ; it would be easy
to give him up to their vengeance — he had
done as much as that before; — but he was
convinced of this man's innocence ; there was
something too, so peculiar about his whole
look, bearing, and conduct, that he could not
make up his mind to have any share in send
ing him to be executed as a common criminal.
But now he hears, that part at least, perhaps,
the greater part of the offence that these were
alleging he had committed, had taken place
in Galilee, in that part of the country which
was not under his jurisdiction, but belonged

BEFORE HEROD. 121
to that of Herod. This Herod, the King of
Galilee, happened at this very time to be in
Jerusalem. Pilate will send the case to him;
and thus get the responsibility of deciding it
shifted from his own shoulders, by laying it
upon one who not only may be quite willing
to assume it, but may regard as a compliment
the reference of the case to his adjudication.
There was a misunderstanding between the
two — the Roman Procurator and the Galilean
king — which the sending of Jesus to the
latter for trial might serve to heal. Pilate
had done something to displease Herod, —
something, in all likelihood, in the very way
of interfering with what Herod regarded as
his rights, and the rights of his subjects.
Some Galileans had been up lately at Jeru
salem, offering sacrifice there. There had
been a riot, which Pilate had promptly and
summarily quelled ; but in doing so he had
mingled the blood of some of these Galileans
with their sacrifices — cut them down without
inquiring whose subjects they were, or what
right they might have to demand a trial in

122 CHRIST'S APPEARANCE
one or other of the Herodian courts. For
this, or such-like imagined interference with
his jurisdiction, Herod had taken offence at
Pilate. It would be, then, the very kind of
compliment most soothing to his kingly van
ity, this recognition of his jurisdiction, by
sending to him so notorious a person as Jesus
was, to be tried at his bar. Herod recognised
and appreciated the compliment ; and what
ever else Pilate lost by the line of conduct he
pursued that day, he at least gained this, — ¦
he got that quarrel between him and Herod
healed. The happy thought no sooner occurs to
Pilate than he acts upon it. And now, guard
ed by some Roman soldiers, accompanied by
the whole crowd of his accusers, Jesus is de
spatched to Herod. To enter into the scene
that follows, we must go back a little upon
this Herod's history. How John the Baptist
and he became first acquainted, we are not
told. A part of the territory (Per sea) over
which Herod's jurisdiction extended, ran
down along the eastern shore of the Dead

BEFORE HEROD. J.23
Sea, and it is probable that it was in some of
the circuits that he made of this district that
he first fell in with the Baptist, engaged in his
great ministry of repentance. Herod was
greatly struck alike with the man and with
his teaching. There was a strange fascination
about both which drew the attention of the
King. As there was nothing about John's
ministry to excite or gratify either the intel
lect or the fancy, — no miracles wrought, no
new doctrines propounded, no vivid picturing •
employed ; as all was so purely moral, so
plain, so pointed, so practical in his teaching,
we must believe that what at first drew Herod
to John, and made him listen with such pleas
ure, was that it was a faithful portraiture of
men that John was drawing, an honest and
fearless exposure of their sins that he made.
Herod both admired and approved ; but the
pleasure that he had in observing John, and
in listening to his instruction, was by no
means a pure or untroubled one. He feared
John, we are told, knowing that he was a just
man and a holy. This fear was the fruit of

124 CHRIST'S APPEARANCE
guilt. He knew and felt what a different man
John was from himself. The very presence
of the Baptist was a rebuke, and he was not
yet so hardened as to receive that rebuke
without alarm. Nor did this first connexion
of the King with the Baptist terminate in the
mere excitement of certain emotions, whether
of respect, or admiration, or fear. Herod did
many things, we are told, at John's bidding.
I imagine that, in the first stage of their in
tercourse, John dealt with Herod as he dealt
with the Pharisees, and the soldiers, and the
publicans ; that he laid his hand upon those
open and patent offences which as a ruler, and
in common with others holding that office,
Herod notoriously was guilty of. The King
not only suffered him to do so, but even went
the length of reforming his conduct in some
respects, in obedience to the Baptist's instruc
tions. But John did not stop there — did not
stop where Herod would have liked ; but,
stepping boldly into the inner circle of his
private life, and laying his hand upon the
stain which disfigured it, he said to him, " It

BEFORE HEROD. 125
is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's
wife." In all likelihood Herodias was not with
Herod when first he met the Baptist, and
heard him so gladly, and did many things at
his bidding. This meeting may have hap
pened in the wilderness, where Herod ranked
but as one of John's large and public au
dience. But the King invited the Baptist
to his court, and it was there, perhaps in pres
ence of Herodias, that the rebuke of that
particular transgression was given. Herod's
anger was kindled at what appeared an im
pertinent and officious intermeddling with his
private conduct, his family affairs. And there
was one beside him who resented that inter
meddling still more than he, and was at pains
to excite and to nurse his wrath. Herodias
would have made short work of it with this
sharp reprover ; she would have sealed those
lips of his at once in death, so that she should
no more be troubled with their unwelcome
utterances ; and Herod would have yielded to
her desire, notwithstanding all his earlier

126 CHRIST'S APPEARANCE
readiness to hear and to obey, notwithstand
ing all his respect and regard for John ; but
he feared the multitude, and, yielding to that
fear, he made a compromise — he cast John
into prison, and kept him there for months.
But months could not quench the thirst for
his blood that had been stirred in the heart
of that second Jezebel ; still she was asking
for the head of the Baptist, but Herod would
not yield, — took no little credit to himself,
we may believe, for being so firm, and, for
getting that it was the fear of the multitude
that overbalanced the influence of the Queen,
might have come to persuade himself that he
was dealing very gently and tenderly with the
Baptist. But the Queen knew him better
than he knew himself, and so with diabolic
art contrived the plot that was to bring an
other and still weightier fear, to overbalance
in its turn that fear of the multitude.
All went as she desired. The evening for
the royal supper came ; the chief men of
Galilee, with the king in high good-humor at
their head, sat down at the banqueting-table.

BEFORE HEROD. 127
Salome entered, and danced before them ; the
guests, heated with wine, broke out into rap
turous applause. In a transport of delight,
the King made the fatal promise, and con
firmed it with an oath, that he would give her
whatsoever she should ask. Salome went
out to consult her mother as to what her re
quest should be. There was little time spent
in deliberation. The Queen's reply was all
ready, for she had conjectured what would
occur, and so Mark tells, Salome came in
straightway unto the King, and said, Give
me here John the Baptist's head upon a
charger. The King was taken in the snare ;
no time for thought was given, no way of es
cape left open. There was the oath which he
had taken ; there were the witnesses of that
oath around the board. He could not break
his oath without standing dishonored before
those witnesses. The fear of the multitude
is overborne by a still higher fear. He gives
the order, and the deed is done. Unhappy
man ! entangled, betrayed by his own rash
vow ; his very sense of honor turned into the

128 CHRIST'S APPEARANCE
instrument that makes of him a murderer !
Herod was exceeding sorry ; he knew well
how wrong a thing it was that he was doing ;
it was with bitter self-reproach that the order
for the execution was given. For a short
time there were the stings of remorse, but
these soon lost their power. John was be
headed, and no manifestation of popular dis
pleasure made. John was beheaded ; Hero
dias and Salome were satisfied, and Herod
himself could not but acknowledge that there
was a kind of relief in knowing that he should
be troubled by her no more about him. Re
morse died out, but a strange kind of super
stitious fear haunted Herod's spirit. Reports
are brought to him of another strange teacher
who has arisen, and to whom all men are now
flocking, as they had flocked to the Baptist at
the first. And Herod says, " John have I
beheaded, but who is this of whom I hear
such things ?"
What perplexed him was, that it was said
by some that John was risen from the dead,
by some that Elias had appeared, by others

BEFORE HEROD. 129
that one of the old prophets had arisen.
Herod hesitated for a time which of these
suppositions he should adopt ; but at last he
adopted one of them, and said to his servants,
" This is John the Baptist ; he is risen from
the dead, and therefore mighty works do show
forth themselves in him." He desired to see
him; a desire in which there mingled at the
first so much of awe and dread, that he rather
shunned than courted an interview ; so much
so, that when Christ came afterwards into
Galilee, and there was some prospect they
might meet, he had in a very artful way, by
working on Christ's fears, persuaded him to
withdraw from that part of the country. He
sent some Pharisees, who said to Jesus, " Get
thee out, and depart hence, for Herod will
kill thee." Herod never could have really
meditated such a deed. We know that after
wards when it was in his power, he declined
taking any part in the condemnation and cru
cifixion of Jesus. It was but a cunning de
vice intended to get Herod out of the embar
rassments in which he found that Christ's

130 CHRIST'S APPEARANCE
residence and teaching in the territory within
his jurisdiction might involve him. And so
Jesus seems to have dealt with it, when he
said to the Pharisees, whom he at once re
cognized as the agents of the King : " Go,"
said he, " and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out
devils, and I do cures to-day and to-morrow,
and the third day I shall be perfected," — ' my
times and places for working and for finishing
my work, are all definitely arranged, and that
quite independently of any stratagem of this
cunning king.'
At last, at an unexpected time and place,
and in an unexpected way, Jesus is presented
to him ; presented by Pilate ; presented to be
tried ; presented as a criminal at the bar,
with whom he may use the greatest freedom,
as Jesus will surely be anxious to say and do
all he can in order to obtain his release.
Herod, therefore, when he sees Jesus thus
placed before him, is exceedingly glad, — he
had heard so much about him, had desired so
long to see him. But now, as indicating at
once the state of mind and heart into which

BEFORE HEROD. 131
worldliness indulged, and levity and licen
tiousness, have sunk this man, and as supply
ing to us the key that explains our Lord's
singular conduct to him, let us particularly
notice, that in the gladness which Herod feels
in having the desire to see Christ thus grati
fied, there mingles no wish to be instructed,
no alarm of a guilty conscience, no dread of
meeting another Baptist to rebuke him for his
iniquities. He has got over whatever com
punction he may at one time have felt. He
has quenched those risings of remorse within
his heart. He has come to be once more on
such good terms with himself; so much at
ease, that when he looks at Jesus, it is with
no disturbing remembrances of that bloody
head once brought to him upon the charger, —
no shrinking dread that he may see again the
Baptist's form, and hear again the Baptist's
voice. It is with an eager, idle, prurient
curiosity — having a tinge, perhaps, of super
stitious wonder in it, that he looks upon Je
sus, and proceeds to put his questions to him.
As compared with John, this new teacher had

132 CHRIST'S APPEARANCE
been distinguished by the miracles which he
had wrought. And if he wrought miracles
to save others, surely he will work some to
save himself. Herod tries in every way he
can think of, to induce him to work some
wonder in his presence. How does Jesus act
when addressed and treated thus by such a
man ? Shall it be as if the Baptist had in
deed risen from the dead ? Will Jesus seize
upon the opportunity now given, to take up,
reiterate, and redouble upon the profligate
prince the rebuke of his great forerunner?
Shall Herod hear it said to him now, in tones
more piercing than ever John employed, It
was not lawful for thee to take the Baptist's
life ? Not thus does Jesus act. Herod puts
question after question to him. Jesus looks
at the questioner, but opens not his lips.
Herod asks and asks again, that some sign
may be shown by Jesus, some token of his
alleged power exhibited. Jesus never lifts a
finger, nor makes a single movement, in com
pliance. Herod is the only one of all his
judges whom Jesus deals with in this way, —

BEFORE HEROD. 133
the only one of them before whom, however
spoken to, he preserves a continuous and un
broken silence. It does not appear that, from
the time when he was presented to Herod, to
the time when he was sent away from him, a
single word ever passed the Saviour's, lips.
That deep and death-like silence, the
silence of those lips which opened with such
pliant readiness when any word of gentle
entreaty or hopeful warning was to be spoken,
how shall we interpret it ? Was it indigna
tion that sealed those lips ? Would Christ
hold no intercourse with the man who had
dipped his hands in such blood as that of the
Baptist ? Did he mean to mark off Herod
as the one and only man so deeply stained
with guilt that he will not stoop to exchange
with him a single word ? It had been human
this, but not divine ; and it is a divine meaning
that we must look for in this dread and aw
ful silence. There lived not, there breathed
not upon the earth the man, however
steeped in guilt, from whom that loving Sav
iour would have turned away, had but the

134 CHRIST'S APPEARANCE
slightest sign of penitence been shown, the
slightest symptom of a readiness to listen and
be saved. It was no bygone act of Herod's
life that drew down upon him the doom of
that silence — though doom it little seemed to
him to be ; it was the temper and the spirit
of the man as he stood there before the Lord,
after all that he had passed through ; it was
that which did it. Why, the very sight of
Jesus, connected, as he knew or fancied him,
in some mysterious way with John, should
have been to Herod as though one risen from
the dead had actually appeared in his pres
ence. It should have been he, not Jesus,
that should have been speechless when they
met ; or, if he spake at all, it should have
been to ask whether, in that world of spirits
from which Christ came, there was mercy for
a sinner such as he. But, instead of this,
instead of anything like this, instead of deep
or earnest or anxious feeling of any kind,
there is nothing but a vain-glorious wish to
have his kingly pride gratified by some talk
with this strange man, with whose name and

BEFORE HEROD. 135
fame all the country has been ringing, the
babblings of an empty curiosity, the thirst for
some showy exhibition of knowledge or of
power. Let not that man think that he shall
hear anything of the Lord. Christ could have
spoken such a word as Herod never would
have liked to hear again ; he could have
wrought such a miracle as would have turned
the curiosity of the king into terror, his pride
into abasement. But he is now to reap the
fruit of his own doings, and that fruit is even
this, that he is left unspoken to by the Lord
from heaven. This silence, had he but inter
preted it aright, was perhaps the very instru
ment most fitted to speak home to his con
science and his heart. But he did not
understand it, did not enter into the reason
of it, never thought of his own past con
duct, his own present character, as the cause
of it ; it stirred him to no inquiry, it
awakened in him no remorse. The only
feeling that it appears to have produced
was irritation; the irritation of mortified
vanity. Greatly galled, yet in no way soft-

136 CHRIST'S APPEARANCE
ened, when he could make nothing of this
mysterious man who mantled himself in such
obstinate silence, he and his men of war found
nothing else to do than to set Christ at
naught, and mock him, and array him in a
white robe, and send him back to Pilate.
A wonderful instance this of the onward,
downward course of crime, particularly of that
peculiar course of crime, levity, and licen
tiousness, which Herod had pursued ; an in
stance how speedily and how thoroughly a
human heart may harden itself against re
proof, quench its convictions, get over its
fears, and bring down upon itself that doom,
than which there is none more awful, —
Ephraim is joined to his idols ; let him alone.
To be left utterly and absolutely alone ; to
have all the voices that speak to us of God
and duty, the voice of conscience from within,
the voice of providence from without, the
voice which comes from the lips of Jesus, —
to have all these voices hushed, hushed into
an unbroken, perhaps eternal stillness ; can
one conceive any condition of a human spirit

BEFORE HEROD. 137
sadder or more awful ? Yet this- is the very
condition to which the abuse of opportunity,
the indulgence of passion, the drowning of
the voices when they do speak to us, is natu
rally and continually tending.
My young friends let me entreat you es
pecially to take a double warning from such
a case as this : — 1st. Beware how you deal
with your first religious convictions ; tremble
for yourselves if you find them dying by a
slow death, as the withering, hardening spirit
of worldliness creeps in upon your soul, or
perishing suddenly amid the consuming fires
of some burning passion. They tell us that
there is no ice so close and hard as that
which forms upon the surface which once was
thawed; and there is no hardness of the
human spirit so great as that which forms
over hearts that once had melted. And, 2d,
Beware of hot fits of enthusiasm, in which
you go farther in profession than you are
prepared to go in steady and sustained prac
tice. Herod went too far at first, and got
himself involved among obligations and re-

138 CHRIST BEFORE HEROD.
straints from which, when the hour of temp
tation came, he flung himself free by an effort
which damaged his moral and spiritual nature
more than it had been ever damaged before ;
his revulsions from religion all the greater on
account of the temporary and partial, but
hollow and merely emotional entertainment
that he had given to its claims. What you
do, do it with all your heart ; for it is good to
be zealously affected in a good thing ; but do
it intelligently, calmly, deliberately, as those
who know and feel that it is the greatest of
all transactions that you engage in, when it
is with God and for your soul's eternal wel
fare that you transact.

VI.
(•SMssi'g jfcronfl Qwtuxmt Mm iitet* *
" This child," said good old Simeon, as he
took up the infant Jesus into his arms to
bless him — " this child is set for the fall and
rising again of many in Israel; and for a
sign that shall be spoken against; that the
thoughts of many hearts may be revealed."
Never were those words more strikingly ful
filled than in these closing scenes of the
Saviour's life which we are now engaged in
tracing. Then many fell, — those forsaking,
despairing disciples of Jesus, — but fell to rise
again ; then was that sign set up, against
which so many shafts of so many kinds were
launched ; and then were the thoughts of
c Luke xxiii. 13-16 ; Matthew xxvii. 15-23 ; Luke xxiii. 20-23 ;
Matthew xxvii. 26-30 ; John xix. 1-16.

140 CHRIST'S SECOND APPEARANCE
many hearts revealed — among others those
of Judas, and Peter, and Caiaphas, and
Herod, and Pilate — revealed by the very
closeness of their contact with Christ, by the
peculiarity of those relationships to him into
which they were then thrown. Last Sunday
our attention was concentrated upon Herod ;
to-day let us fix our eyes on Pilate, and,
taking him up at that stage where we left
him, let us try to understand and to follow
the working of his thoughts and feelings
during those two hours of their earthly lives
in which he and Jesus had to do with one
another — he in the character of the judge,
Jesus in the character of one accused and
condemned by the Sanhedrim.
You will remember that when first he
heard among the other accusations that the
High Priests lodged against him, that Jesus
had said that he himself was Christ a King, —
struck at once with the singularity of the pre
tension, and with the appearance of the man
who made it, Pilate called on Christ to follow
him into the inner hall of his residence ; that

BEFORE PILATE. 141
there, when alone with him, omitting all refer
ence to any other charge, he asked him par
ticularly about this one; that Christ fully
satisfied him as to there being nothing politi
cally dangerous or offensive in the claim to
kingship he had put forth ; that, bringing
Christ out along with him to the Jews, he
said at once and decidedly, " I find no fault
in this man;" and that then, taking advan
tage of a reference to Galilee, he had sent
Jesus off to Herod, to see what that Galilean
king and judge might think and do. In this
way he hoped to be relieved from the painful
and embarrassing position in which he felt
himself to be placed.
He was disappointed in this hope. Jesus
was sent back to him by Herod ; sent back
without any judgment having been pro
nounced ; sent back in such a way as to in
dicate that Herod as well as he made light of
this poor Galilean's pretension to be a king, — ¦
thought it, in fact, more a matter for mockery
and ridicule than for serious judicial enter
tainment. Although a considerable body of

142 CHRIST'S SECOND APPEARANCE
the High Priests and of the people had ac
companied Jesus to and from the bar of
Herod, yet in that interval there had been to
some extent a scattering of the crowd. Pilate
called, therefore, now afresh together the
Chief Priests, and the rulers, and the people
— the latter particularly mentioned, as Pilate
had now begun to think that his best chance
of gaining the end upon which his heart was
set, — the deliverance of Christ out of the
hands of his enemies, — would be by appeal
ing, over the heads of their rulers, to the hu
manity of the common people. When all,
then, were again assembled, he made a short
speech to them, reiterating his own conviction
of Christ's innocence, confirming it by the
testimony of Herod, and closing by a pro
posal that he hoped would be at once accept
ed, — I will therefore chastise him. and release
him. But why, if he were innocent, chastise
him at all ? Why not at once acquit the cul
prit and send him away absolved from the
bar of Roman judgment ? It was a weak
and unworthy concession, the first faltering

BEFORE PILATE. 143
of Pilate s footstep. He cannot but say that
he has found nothing worthy of death in this
man ; he is himself thoroughly satisfied that
there is nothing worthy of any punishment
in him ; but it will please his accusers, it will
conciliate the people, it may open the way to
their readier acquiescence in his after dis
missal, to inflict some punishment upon him ;
a proposal not dictated by any spirit of
cruelty, springing rather from the wish to
protect Jesus from the greater penalty, by
inflicting on him the less ; yet one that
weakened his position, that made those
sharp-sighted Jews at once perceive that he
could be moved, that he was not ready to
take up and stand firmly and fixedly upon
the ground of Christ's innocence. In defer
ence to them, he has gone so far against his
own convictions ; he may go farther. He
has yielded the inch, they may force him to
yield the ell. The proposal, therefore, of
chastising Jesus, and letting him go, is re
jected, and rejected so as to throw Pilate
back upon some other, some new device.

144 Christ's second appearance
He. recollected that at this time of the
Passover it was a customary thing, in com
pliment to the great assembly of the Jews
in their metropolis, for the Procurator to ar
rest in a single instance the ordinary course
of justice, and to release whatever prisoner
the people might ask to be given up. He
recollected at the same time that there was
a notable prisoner, who then lay bound at
Jerusalem, one Barabbas, who for sedition
and murder had been cast into prison ; and
the idea occurred to Pilate that if, instead
either of asking them broadly and generally
who it was that they wished him to release,
or whether they would let him choose for
them and release Jesus, — if he narrowed in
this instance the choice, and presented to
them the alternative of taking Barabbas or
Jesus, they could scarcely fail to choose the
latter. To give the greater effect to this
proposition, Pilate ascended the movable ros
trum or judgment-seat, which stood upon the
tessalated pavement that ran before the ves
tibule of the Palace, and addressing himself

BEFORE PILATE. 145
to the multitude, said to them, " Whom will
ye that I release unto you ? Barabbas, or
Jesus who is called Christ ?"
While waiting their answer, a message was
brought to him, the messenger having been
instructed to deliver it immediately, wherever
he was, and however he might be engaged.
It came from his wife ; was distinct and some
what authoritative, — " Have thou nothing to
do with that just man, for I haAre suffered
many things this day in a dream because of
him." Pilate's wife was not a Jew, nor did
she mix much with the common people of the
land. That she should have heard so much
of Jesus, have learned to think and speak of
him as that just man, should have been so
much concerned when she heard that her hus
band had been asked to try him, that she took
this uncommon step of sending a warning to
him on the judgment>seat, — may be taken as
a proof how wide-spread and how deep the
impression was that Christ had made.
The time occupied by the hearing and
thinking about this message, — whose warning

146 CHRIST'S SECOND APPEARANCE
knell rung in strange harmony with the alarm
that was already pealing in Pilate's spirit, —
gave to the Chief Priests and the rulers the
opportunity they were so quick to seize, to
prompt the crowd as to the answer they were
to give to the proposal which Pilate had sub
mitted. We do not know what kind of stimu
lants were employed upon this occasion ; but
we all do know what a flexible, impressible,
excitable a thing a city mob is, when com
posed, as this one mainly was, of the lowest
of the people ; and we can at least easily
conjecture what the firebrands were which
the expert hands of the priesthood threw in
among that mob, inflaming its passions to the
highest pitch, and giving the burning mass
into their hands, to be directed as they de
sired. Recovered a little from the disturb
ance which his wife's message cost him, Pilate
turns again to the people, and says to them,
" Which of the two, then, will ye that I re
lease unto you ?" They say, " Barabbas."
Surprised and annoyed at the reply, almost
willing to believe there has been some mis.

BEFORE PILATE. 147
take, he puts it to them in another form •.
" Will ye that I release unto you the King of
the Jews ?" using the epithet, in the belief
that they, as well as he, will look upon its
claimant more as an object of pity than of
condemnation. But now they leave him in
no doubt as to what their will and pleasure
is : " Away with this man," they all cry out
at once, " and release unto us Barabbas !"
" What shall I then do with Jesus, which is
called Christ ?" This weak and almost pitiful
asking of them what it was that he should
do, ends, as all such yielding to popular pre
judices, cringing to popular passions, ever
does ; it makes the multitude more confident,
more imperious. The Governor has put him
self into their hands, and they will make him
do their will. " What shall I do, then, with
Jesus ?" Let him be crucified, they say.
Crucified ! It is the first time the word has
been named in Pilate's hearing, the first time
they tell him articulately what it is they de
sire to have done with Jesus. Crucify him !
-—give up to that worst and most ignominious

148 CHRIST'S SECOND APPEARANCE
of all deaths this meek and gentle man, who
he is sure has done no wrong ; whom he sees
well enough that the Chief Priests seek to get
rid of from some religious antipathy that they
have taken against him : — can the people
mean it ? He had fancied, whatever the
Chief Priests thought, that they had a differ
ent feeling towards him. " Why," in his sur
prise, he says to them, " what evil hath he
done ?" But this now excited and uproarious
crowd is far past the point of answering or
arguing with the Governor. Its one and only
cry is, " Let him be crucified !" Twice Pilate
asks them to tell him what crime he had com
mitted, that they should doom him to a felon's
death. He gets but that cry repeated, with
louder, angrier voice. Yet a third time, —
clinging to the hope that he may still suc
ceed in extricating Jesus from their grasp,
without putting himself entirely wrong with
them, — he puts the query, — ¦" Why, what evil
hath he done?" and gathering up a little
strength, as if he were determined to take
his own way, and act upon the suggestion

BEFORE PILATE. 149
that he had thrown out a few moments before,
he adds, " I have found no cause of death in
him. I will therefore chastise him, and let
him go." The very mention of letting him
go stirs the crowd to a tenfold frenzy, and
now the voices of the Chief Priests them
selves are heard swelling and intensifying the
cry, " Crucify him ! crucify him !"
Before a storm like this who can stand ?
He has done — so Pilate thinks — the most he
can. If he go further, he will raise another
city tumult which it will cost many lives to
quell, and the quelling of which by force may
expose him to the very same charges of
tyranny and cruelty which, upon more than
one occasion of the kind before, had actually
been transmitted to Rome against him, and
drawn down upon him the rebuke and dis
pleasure of the Emperor. The yielding is but
the sacrifice of a single life, which may be
made without involving the Governor in any
danger. But the resisting ; who can tell in
what that might land ? Still, however, he is
not at ease. He himself scarce knows the

15.0 CHRIST'S SECOND APPEARANCE
reason why ; but somehow he never saw the
man whose blood he would bike so ill to have
resting upon him as the blood of Jesus. The
private interview they had together in the
Hall had raised some strange misgivings in
Pilate's heart. What is it about this man
that has given him so strong a hold upon
Pilate, and makes him struggle so hard to get
him released ? Pilate himself could not have
told ; but even now, though he has at last
resolved to give him up, he will not, cannot
do it without trying in some way to throw off
his shoulders the responsibility of his death.
"When Pilate saw that he could prevail
nothing, but rather that a tumult was made,
he took water and washed his hands before
the multitude, saying, ' I am innocent of the
blood of this just person ; see ye to it.' Then
answered all the people and said, ' His blood
be on us, and on our children.' And he de
livered Jesus to their will."
Now, let us pause a moment here in the
narrative to mark the inner workings of con
science and of humanity in the heart of Pilate.

BEFORE PILATE. 151
It seemed an ingenious device to give the
people their choice. It was resorted to from
a desire on his part to rescue Jesus. It would
gain, as it first seemed to him, a double ob
ject, — it would prevent the Jews from saying
that he had screened a seditious man, and yet
it would rescue an innocent one from death.
But to what did it amount ? It proceeded on
the assumption that Christ was guilty; it
asked that as one righteously condemned, he
might by an act of grace be released. There
lay one fatal flaw in the proposition. But,
still worse, it put the matter out of Pilate's
hands into those of the people. It was a
virtual renunciation, on Pilate's part, of the
rights and prerogatives of the judge. And
by thus denuding himself of his own proper
official position, Pilate put himself at the
mercy of a fickle and infuriated populace, and
gave them that hold and power over him
which they so mercilessly employed.
This crying out — " Crucify, crucify him !"
as contrasted with the hosannas that a few
days before had greeted Christ's entrance into

152 CHRIST'S SECOND APPEARANCE
Jerusalem, has been often quoted to prove
how rapid the changes in popular sentiment
sometimes are, how little a multitude can be
trusted. But was it the same crowd which
raised the hosannas of the one day, that ut
tered the " Crucify him, crucify him !" of the
other? I rather think that had we been
present upon both occasions, and intimately
acquainted with the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
we should have seen that the two crowds
were differently constituted; and that how
ever true it may be that tides of public feel
ing often take suddenly opposite directions,
this can scarcely be quoted as an instance
exactly in point.
But very curious is it to mark the expe
dient to which Pilate had recourse, in that
public washing of his hands. He delivers
Jesus up to be crucified. Therein lay his
guilt; he might, and should have refused to
become a party to his crucifixion. Believing
Jesus to be innocent, to give him up to death
was to take a large share of the criminality
upon himself. And yet he thinks that when

BEFORE PILATE. 153
he gets the Jews to take it upon them that
he has relieved himself, if not entirely, yet in
great measure, of the responsibility. He re
gards himself as one coerced by others ; and
when these others are quite willing to take on
themselves the entire weight of the deed, he
imagines that this will go a great length in
clearing him. And if ever, placed under
strong compulsion from without, urged on to
a certain course of conduct which in our con
science we disapprove, we yield, and in yield
ing take comfort to ourselves from others say
ing that they are quite ready to incur the
whole responsibility of the affair, then let us
remember that we are acting over again the
part of Pilate ; and that just as little as that
outward washing of his hands did anything
to clear him of the stain he was contracting,
so little can we hope that the guilt contracted
by our being a consenting and co-operating
party in any deed of injustice or dishonor,
may thus be mitigated or wiped away.
Pilate haa given up Jesus to the will of
the multitude ; given him up to be crucified.

154 CHRIST'S SECOND APPEARANCE
The judge's work is done; there remains only
the work of the executioner. Over that it is
no part of the Procurator's office to preside.
Why, then, does Pilate not withdraw ? We
might have thought that, wearied with his
conflict with the rabble, and oppressed with
painful feelings as to its issue, he would have
been only too glad to retire — but he cannot :
a singular fascination still binds him to the
spot, — perhaps the fingering hope that he
may yet succeed in rescuing the victim from
his bloodthirsty enemies. He hands Christ
over to his soldiers, to have that scourging
inflicted which was the ordinary precursor
and preliminary to crucifixion. It might not
be difficult from the narratives of eye-wit
nesses to give you some idea of what a mili
tary scourging was, what kind of instrument
they used in it, what kind of wounds that
instrument made, what terrible torture was
inflicted, to what lengths that torture was
often carried ; but we would rather have a
veil drawn over the purely physical sufferings
of our Saviour, than have them pressed pro-

BEFORE PILATE. 155
minently upon our eye. We recoil from the
attempts so often made to excite a sympa
thetic horror by vivid details of our Lord's
bodily sufferings. We feel as if it were de
grading him to present him in that character,
in which so many, equal nay superior in their
claims upon our sympathy, might be put be
side him.
But the scourging did not satisfy the rude
and brutal soldiers who had got Christ into
their hands. As Romans, these men knew
fittle, cared little about any kingship that
Christ might claim. With them it could not
be, as with the Jews, a subject of religious
hate or scorn. It was a topic alone of ribald
mirth, of Gentile mockery. This Roman co
hort takes the hint that Herod's men of war
had given them ; who had thrown a white
robe over Jesus, clothing him with something
like the garment that their own kings wore,
that they might set at naught his vain pre
tensions to be a king. And now, when the
scourging is over, these Roman soldiers will
outdo their Jewish comrades ; they will make

156 CHRIST'S SECOND APPEARANCE
a more perfect pantomime of this poor Gali
lean's royalty. They take some old military
cloak, of the same color with the robes of
their emperors; they throw it over his bloody
shoulders ; they plait a crown of thorns, and
put it on his head ; they thrust a reed as a
mock sceptre, into his right hand ; and then,
when they have got him robed, and crowned,
and sceptred thus, they bow the knee, and
hail him as a king. But they tire even of
that mock homage ; the demon spirit that is
in them inspires the merriment with a savage
cruelty ; and so, as if ashamed even of that
kind of homage they had rendered, they
snatch impatiently the reed out of his hand,
and smite with it the crown of thorns, and
drive it down upon his pierced and bleeding
brow, and spit upon him, and smite him with
their hands.
All this is done in an inner court or guard
room, out of sight of the crowd that is still
waiting without. Pilate sees it all ; makes
no attempt to mitigate the suffering or the
mockery ; is absorbed in wonder as he gazes

BEFORE PILATE. 157
upon Jesus — such a picture of silent, gentle,
meek, unmurmuring, uncomplaining patience !
— standing there, and taking all that treat
ment as though no strange thing were hap
pening, as if he had expected all, were
prepared for all, found no difficulty in sub
mitting to all. There is no weakness in
that patience ; but a strength, a power, a
dignity. The sight moves Pilate's heart ; it
would move any heart, he thinks ; may it not
move even the hearts of those people with
out ? may it not satisfy their thirst for ven
geance to see the suffering Jesus reduced to
such a pitiable plight as this ? He will try
at least what the sight can do in the way of
stirring such sympathy. He goes forth, with
Jesus following, and says to the multitude,
" Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye
may know that I find no fault in him ;" then,
turning and pointing to Jesus, as he stood
wearing still the purple robe and the crown
of thorns, bearing on his face and person the
marks of all the sufferings and indignities of
the guardhouse, Pilate says, "Behold the

158 CHRIST'S SECOND APPEARANCE
man !" — behold and pity, behold and be satis
fied, — behold, and suffer me, now that I have
thus chastised him, to let him go ! Alas ! he
knew not the intensity of such fanatic hatred
as that which those High Priests and rulers
cherished, and had, for the time, infused into
the obedient crowd ; how it quenches every
impulse of kindliness in the human heart,
and nerves the human hand for deeds of
utmost cruelty. That sight to which he
points, instead of moving any pity, only
evokes fresh outbreaks of ferocious violence ;
with unabated breath, the same wild cry from
every side salutes the ear of the Governor —
" Crucify him, crucify him !" It not only dis
appoints, it provokes Pilate to be baffled thus
again, and baffled by such a display of im
movable and unappeasable malignity. "Take
ye him and crucify him," he says, ' crucify
him as best you can, but do not expect that
I shall countenance the deed by any counter
signing of your sentence in condemning the
man, as if I thought he deserved to die —

BEFORE PILATE. 159
take ye him and crucify him, for I find no
fault in him.'
But the yielding Governor is not in this
way to slip out of their hands ; he, too, must
be a party ; and now, at last, they tell him
what hitherto they had concealed — to show
him that theirs was not such a groundless
sentence as he imagined it to be — " We have
a law," they said, " and by our law he ought
to die, because he made himself the Son of
God." It is impossible to say what ideas
that phrase, "the Son of God," excited in
the mind of Pilate. He was familiar with all
the legends of the heathen mythologies, which
told of gods and demigods descending and
living upon the earth. Like so many of the
educated Romans of his day, he had thrown
off all faith in their divinity, and yet some
how there still lingered within, a faith in
something higher than humanity, some beings
superior to our race. And what if this Jesus
were one of these ! never in all his intercourse
with men, had he met one the least like this,
»ne who looked so kinglike, so Godlike ;

160 CHRIST'S SECOND APPEARANCE
Kinglike, Godlike, even there as he now
stands with a robe of faded purple and a
crown of plaited thorns. Never in kingly
garments, never beneath imperial crown, did
he see a sceptred sovereign stand so serene,
so dignified, so far above the men that stood
round him. Whatever the ideas were which
passed through Pilate's mind when he heard
that Jesus had made himself the Son of God,
they deepened that awe which from the first
had been creeping in upon and taking pos
session of his spirit : — he was the more afraid.
Once again, therefore, he takes Christ apart,
and says to him, " Whence art thou ? " ' In
that first interview, you told me that your
kingdom was not of this world, but whence
art thou thyself? art thou of this earth, I
mean like the rest of us, or art thou other
than thou seemest, — comest thou indeed from
heaven?' But Jesus gave him no answer.
Of all the silences of our Lord that day, of
which this in number was the fifth, it seems
the most difficult to understand. Was it
that Pilate, by the way in which he had then

BEFORE PILATE. 161
put the question, " What is truth ?" without
pausing for a reply, had forfeited his right to
an answer now ? Was it that Pilate was
wholly unprepared to receive the answer;
that it would have been a casting of pearls
before swine to have told him whence Jesus
was? Was it that the information, had it
been given, while ineffectual to stop his
course, might have aggravated Pilate's guilt,
and therefore, in mercy, was withheld ? We
cannot tell ; but we can perceive that the
very silence was in itself an answer; for,
supposing Jesus had been a mere man, had
come into this world even as we all come,
would he, had he been sincere and upright,
have hesitated to say whence he came ?
would he have allowed Pilate to remain in
doubt? would he have suffered him, as his
question evidently implied, to cherish the
impression that he was something more than
human? We can scarcely think he would.
By his very silence, therefore, our Lord
would throw Pilate back upon that incipient
impression of his Divine origin, that it

162 CRRIST'S SECOND APPEARANCE
might be confirmed and strengthened in his
breast. But here again, even as in the first inter
view, the haughtiness of the man comes in to
quench all deeper thought. Annoyed by this
silence, this calmness, this apparent indiffer
ence of Jesus, Pilate, in all the pride of office,
says, " Speakest thou not to me ; knowest
thou not that I have power to crucify thee,
and power to release thee ?" — a very idle at
tempt to work upon the mere selfish fears of
Christ; — a question that brings a speedy
answer, one in which rebuke and sympathy
are singularly blended : ' Thou couldest have
no power against me, except it were given
thee from above." " That power of thine, to
crucify me or release, which I do not dispute,
which thou mayest exercise as thou pleasest,
— do not think that it is a power original, un-
derived, independent. Thou hast it, thou ex-
ercisest it but as Heaven permits ; thou little
knowest, indeed, what thou doest ; it is as a
mere holder of the power that thou art act
ing, acting at others' bidding ; therefore, that

BEFORE PILATE. 163
Jewish Judge, who knowing far better at
least than thou what it was he did, and who
it was that he was giving up to death,' — •
" therefore he that delivered me unto thee
hath the greater sin." There is something
surely very impressive here ; that, sunk as
Jesus was beneath the weight of his own suf
ferings — sufferings so acute, that they well
might have engrossed his thoughts and feel
ings, — he yet so calmly weighs in the judicial
balance the comparative guilt of the actors in
this sad scene, and excuses, as far as he is
able, the actings of Pilate. It had something
of its proper effect upon the Procurator. In
stead of diminishing, it but increased the de
sire he already had to deliver him. He tried
again ; tried with still greater earnestness to
effect his object. But again he failed, for
now the last arrow in that quiver of his ad
versaries is shot at him — " If thou let this
man go, thou art not Csesar's friend ; whoso
ever maketh himself a king, speaketh against
Caesar." Pilate knew that already he stood
upon uncertain ground with the imperial au-

164 CHRIST'S SECOND APPEARANCE
thorities ; he knew that a fresh report of any
thing like unfaithfulness to Csesar would cost
him his office. The risk of losing all that by
occupying that office he had hoped to gain,
he was not prepared to face, and so, yielding
to this last pressure, he gives way, and de-
fivers up Jesus to be crucified.
Now, let us look a moment at the faults
and at the virtues of this man. The fact that
it fell to his lot to be Governor of Judea at
this time, and to consign the Saviour to the
cross, inclines us to form exaggerated notions
of his criminality. He was not, let us be
lieve, a worse governor than many who pre
ceded and who followed him in that office.
We know from other sources that he fre
quently showed but little regard to human
life — recklessly, indeed, shed human blood,
when the shedding of it ministered to the ob
jects of his ambition ; but we have no reason
to believe that he was a wantonly cruel man,
or a particularly oppressive and tyrannical
governor, as governors then went. His treat
ment of Christ was marked by any thing but

BEFORE PILATE. 165
a contempt for justice and an absence of all
human feeling. He showed a respect, a pity,
a tenderness to Jesus Christ that, considering
the fittle that he knew of him, excites our
wonder. He struggled hard to evade the
conclusion to which, with such unrelenting
malignity, the Jewish leaders drove him. No
other king, no other ruler with whom Christ
or his Apostles had to do, acted half as con
scientiously or half as tenderly as Pilate did.
Herod, Felix, Agrippa, — compare their con
duct in like circumstances with that of Pilate,
and does he not in your estimate rise superior
to them all ? There is something in the com
punctions, the relentings, the hesitations, the
embarrassments of Pilate- — those reiterated
attempts of his to find a way of escape for
himself and for Christ, -that takes a strong
hold upon our sympathy. We can not but
pity, even while forced to condemn. Con
demn, indeed, we must ; for —
1. He was false to his own convictions ; he
was satisfied that Christ was innocent. In
stead of acting at once and decidedly upon

166 CHRIST'S SECOND APPEARANCE
that conviction, he dallied and he parleyed
with it ; sought to find some way by which
he might get rid of that clear and imperative
duty which it laid upon him ; and by so doing
he weakened and unsettled this conviction,
and prepared for its being overborne.
2. He exhibited a sad degree of vacillation,
inconsistency, indecision. Now he throws all
blame upon the Priests : " I am innocent of
his blood ; see ye to it." Again, he takes
the entire responsibility upon himself :
" Knowest thou not that I have power to
crucify thee, and power to release ?" Now
he pronounces Jesus innocent, yet with the
same breath proposes to have him punished
as guilty : now he gives him up, and then he
has recourse to every kind of expedient to
rescue. Unstable as water, he does not, he
cannot succeed.
3. He allowed others to dictate to him.
Carelessly and inconsiderately he submits
that to their judgment which he should have
kept wholly within his own hold. He be
comes thus as a wave of the sea, as a feather

BEFORE PILATE. 167
in the air, which every breeze of heaven
bloweth about as it listeth.
4. He allowed worldly interest to pre
dominate over the sense of duty. Such was
the plain and simple issue to which it came
at last : Do the thing he knew was right —
acquit the Saviour — do that, and run all
risks ; or do the thing he knew was wrong —
do that, and escape all danger. Such was
the alternative which was at last presented
to him. Alas for Pilate ! he chose the latter.
But let each of us now ask himself, Had I
been placed exactly in his position, with those
lights only to guide me that he then had,
should I have acted a better and bolder part ?
We may think and hope we should ; but, in
thinking so and hoping so, let us remember
how often, when conscience aud duty pointed
in the one direction, and passion and self-
interest pointed in the other, we have acted
over and over again the very part of Pilate ;
hesitated and wavered, and argued and de
bated, and opened our ears to what others
told us, or allowed ourselves to be borne away

168 SECOND APPEARANCE BEFORE PILATE.
by some strong tide that was running in the
wrong direction. Nay more, how often have
we, knowing as we do, or profess to do, who
Christ was, whence he came, what he did for
us, and whither he has gone, — how often have
we given him up into unfriendly hands, to do
with him what they would, without even the
washing of our own, or the saying what we
thought of him 1

VII.
Mt §m$Mm »i itfwataw MWjrtttfl.*
The mockeries of the Judgment Hall ended.
Jesus is delivered into the hands of the offi
cers, to be led away to the place of execution.
It cannot now be settled with certainty or
exactness, where this hill of Calvary was
situated, nor how far it was from the resi
dence of Pilate. It lay, we know, without
the city gate, and a very ancient tradition
points us to a low, bare, rounded elevation,
outside and near the walls, which resembled
somewhat in its form a human skull, and is
supposed to have got from that resemblance
the name it bore, of Golgotha. If that indeed
was Calvary, the way was but a short one
which the sad procession had to traverse
* Matt, xxvii. 31-34; Luke xxiii. 27-32.
8

170 THE DAUGHTERS OF
First, however, ere beginning the mournful
march, they strip our Lord of the purple robe
they had thrown around his bleeding shoul
ders, and put his own raiment on him. It is
not said that they took the crown of thorns
from his bleeding brow ; he may have worn
that to the last. It was part of the degrada
tion of a public crucifixion that the doomed
one should assist in carrying to the place of
crucifixion the instrument of death. They
might have spared this indignity to Jesus ;
they might have had some compassion as
they saw with what a faint and weary step
he walked. But compassion has no place in
the hearts of these crucifiers, and so they lay
the common burden on him. He sinks be
neath the load. They must relieve him of
it ; but who will bear it instead ? not one of
themselves will stoop to the low office. A
stranger, a man from Africa, Simon the Cy-
renian, coming in from the country, meets
them by the way. He would willingly have
let the crowd go by that presses on to Cal
vary. But he is the very kind of man whom

JERUSALEM WEEPING. 171
they can turn into a tool to do this piece of
drudgery. They lay hold of him and compel
him to take up what Jesus was too weak to
bear. Unwillingly he had to obey, to turn
upon his steps, and follow Jesus, bearing after
him the cross ; a reluctant instrument of an
overbearing soldiery and a haughty priest
hood. So far as we can learn, Simon had no pre
vious knowledge of, had no special interest in
Christ ; instead of any great sympathy with
him at the moment, he may rather have felt
and resented it as a hardship, that such a ser
vice should have been exacted of him, and in
such imperious fashion. But this compulsory
companionship with Jesus in the bearing of
the cross, carried him to Calvary; the sad
tragedy enacted there forced him with so
many other idle spectators to the spot. He
stood there gazing upon the scene ; he heard
the words that came from the lips of Jesus ;
he felt the three hours' darkness come down,
and wrap them all around. As the darkness
cleared away, he saw the centurion standing

172 THE DAUGHTERS OF
transfixed before the central cross, as Jesus
cried with a loud voice, and gave up the
ghost. He heard that Roman officer, a stran
ger like himself, break forth with the excla
mation : " Truly this was the Son of God !"
What impression all that he saw and heard
then made upon him we are not informed.
From its being said, however, that he was the
father of Alexander and Rufus, whom Mark
speaks of as being well-known disciples of
the Lord, may we not indulge the belief that
he who, when he was lifted up, was to draw
all men unto him, that day drew this Cyrenian
to himself; that the sight of those sufferings
and of that death led Simon to inquire ; that
the inquiry conducted to discipleship ; and
that ever after he had to thank the Lord for
the strange arrangement of his providence,
which led him along that way into the city,
at the very time when they were leading
Jesus out to be crucified ; .that he met the
crowd at the very moment that they were
wanting some one to do that menial service

JERUSALEM WEEPING. 173
which in so rough a m&nner they pressed him
to undertake ?
Another incident marked the sorrowful
procession to Calvary. Some women of the
city, looking at him, as first he bends beneath
the cross, and then, with aspect so meek and
gentle, yet so sad and sorrow-stricken, moves
onward to be crucified, have their feelings so
deeply touched, that, unable to restrain their
emotions, they openly bewail and lament his
doom. These are not the women who had
followed him from Galilee, and been in the
habit of ministering to him. No more than
Simon, were they numbered with his disci
ples. It was not with such grief as any of
the Marys would have felt, had they been in
the crowd, that these women were affected.
They were not lamenting the loss of- a teacher,
a master, a friend they had learned to revere
and love. They had joined the crowd as it
gathered in the city thoroughfares through
which it passed. The singular but common
curiosity to look at men who are soon to die,
and to see how they comport themselves in

174 THE DAUGHTERS OF
front of death, has drawn them on. Soon,
however, out of the three who are going forth
to be crucified, their attention fixes upon
Jesus. Something of him they may have
known before ; some part of his story they
may have picked up by the way. They hear
nothing friendly to him from any who are
there around them. The spirit of the crowd
they mingle with is one of rude and bitter
hatred towards him. But woman's loving eye
looks on him, woman's tender heart is melted
at the sight ; and, despite of all the restraint
that might have been imposed on them by the
tone and temper of that crowd, revelling with
savage delight at the prospect of his cruci
fixion, and led on by some of the chief men
of the city, they give free vent to that gen
erous pity" which swells their bosoms. They
weep as they follow him. This weeping, the
only circumstance, so far as we know, attend
ing his passage out to Calvary, that attracted
the special notice of our Lord, was the only
one which induced him to break the patient
silence he all along observed. But how does

JERUSALEM WEEPING. 175
he notice it ? What does he say ? He
stops ; he turns ; he fixes his eye upon the
weepers ; and he says, " Daughters of Jeru
salem, weep not for me, but weep for your
selves, and for your children."
" Weep not for me." Does he reject that
simple tribute of sympathy which they are
rendering ? Is he in any sense displeased at
the tears they shed ? Does he blame or for
bid such tears ? Not thus are we to interpret
our Saviour's words. It may be quite true
that it was not from any very deep, much less
from any very pure or holy fountain, that
those tears were flowing. It may have been
nothing about him but the shame and the
agony he had to suffer which drew them out.
Still, they are tears of kindly pity, and such
tears it never could have been his meaning or
intention to condemn. He had freely shed
such tears himself. They fell before the
tomb of Lazarus, fell simply at sight of the
weeping sisters, and of the Jews weeping
along with them. Sympathy with human
suffering, simply and purely as such, claims

176 THE DAUGHTERS OF
the sanction of the tears which upon that
occasion the Saviour shed ; and that sanction
covers the bewailing of these daughters of
Jerusalem. Jesus is not displeased with,
Jesus does not reject, the expression of their
pity. So far from this, the tender sympathy
that they show for him stirs a still deeper
sympathy for them within his heart. This is
the way that he acknowledges and thanks
them for their tears. He thinks of them, he
feels for them ; he forgets his own impending
griefs as he contemplates theirs. It had been
but an hour or so before, that all the people
who gathered round the bar of Pilate had
cried out, "His blood be on us, and on our
children !" How little did they know what a
doom it was they thus invoked upon them
selves ; how near and how terrible ! But
Jesus knew it ; had thought of it perhaps
when that wild cry arose ; was thinking of it
still. He had those scenes of famine, fire,
and slaughter, when that ill-fated city of his
crucifiers should see the execution of the sen
tence they had called down upon their own

JERUSALEM WEEPING. 177
head, — he had them all before his eye when
he turned to those women by the way, and
said to them, " Daughters of Jerusalem, weep
not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for
your children. For, behold, the days are
coming, in the which they shall say, Blessed
are the barren, and the wombs that never
bare, and the paps which never gave suck.
Then shall they begin to say to the moun
tains, Fall on us ; and to the hills, Cover us."
Many of the very women who were lament
ing Jesus by the way, may have perished in
the siege of Jerusalem. That siege took
place within less than forty years from the
day of our Lord's crucifixion. Some of the
younger mothers of that weeping band, would
not have then seen out the threescore years
and ten of human life. Their children would
be all in middle fife, constituting the genera
tion upon which those woes were to descend
which, three days before, while sitting quietly
on the Mount of Olives with his disciples,
looking across the valley upon the Holy City,
Jesus had described by saying, that in those

178 THE DAUGHTERS OF
days there should be great tribulation, such
as was not from the beginning of the world to
that time, no, nor even should be again.
When in the straitness of that terrible siege,
before the terrors of the last assault, they
crept into the underground passages and sew
ers of the city ; when those who escaped out
of the city hid themselves in the dens and
rocks of the mountains, — then were those
prophecies of Isaiah and Hosea, which our
Saviour had obviously before him — some of
whose words, indeed, he quotes — in part ful
filled. But just as, in that more lengthened
discourse which our Lord had so recently
delivered to his disciples, he mixed up in a
way that it is impossible wholly to unravel,
the destruction of Jerusalem, his second com
ing, and the end of the world ; so also, even
within the compass of this short speech to the
daughters of Jerusalem, it is easy enough to
perceive that, beyond that nearer and more
limited event, of which these women and their
children were to be spectators, our Lord looks
forward to the wider judgment, which at the

JERUSALEM WEEPING. 179
close of all was to enfold the whole world of
the impenitent in its embrace.
And widening thus, as we are warranted to
do, the scope and bearing of our Lord's words
to these daughters of Jerusalem, let us ask
ourselves, what message of instruction and of
warning do they convey to us and to all men ?
First, I think we shall not be wrong if we
interpret them as indicating to us the unpro
fitableness of that sympathy with human suf
fering which takes in nothing but the suffer
ing it sees, and which expends itself alone in
tears. The sympathy excited in the breasts
of these women of Jerusalem was of this kind.
It was the spectacle of human grief then be
fore their eyes which had awakened it ; there
was a danger, at least, that those sensibilities,
so deeply moved as long as the spectacle was
before them, should collapse when that spec
tacle was withdrawn, and leave the heart
quickened, it might be, in its susceptibility to
the mere emotion of compassion, yet not other
wise improved. Weep not, then, the Saviour
says to them, and says to us; weep not for

180 THE DAUGHTERS OF
me ; weep not, or weep not long, and weep
not idly, over any sight or story of human
suffering which calls not for your interference,
which you have no power, not even by the
sympathy that you expend upon it, to miti
gate ; or if, naturally and irresistibly, properly
and becomingly, your tears flow forth, stop
not at their shedding, do not indolently in
dulge the mere sentiment of pity ; such in
dulgence may become but a piece of selfish
gratification, narrowing the heart and paralyz
ing the hand for the dispositions and the do
ings of a true and genuine benevolence. Pity
was never meant by the Creator to be separ?
ately or exclusively cultivated as an isolated
emotion; it was meant to be the spring and
the ally of a ready and generous aid held out
to its object ; to be the stimulus to, and the
support of active effort. And such is the
structure of that beautiful and nicely-balanced
instrument, the human spirit, that if this
established connexion between action and
emotion be overlooked ; if you foster the one
without letting it lead on to the other, you

JERUSALEM WEEPING. 181
do a serious damage to the soul ; you create
in one region a monstrous overgrowth, in an
other a stunted deformity ; and you dislocate
and disconnect what the Creator intended
should always be conjoined.
Take here the familiar instance of indulg
ing to excess the reading of-exciting fiction —
tales in which the hero of the story passes
through terrible trials, endurances, agonies of
mind and heart. Our heart may pulsate all
through with pity as we read ; we may wet
with tears the page that spreads out some
heart-rending scene. Now, I am not going to
say that it is in itself a wrong, or a sinful
thing, or even a hurtful thing, to read such
stories. On the contrary, I believe that it is
not wrong ; that it may be as beneficial as it
is agreeable occasionally to do so. There are
peculiar and there are good services to mind
and heart that a well-executed fiction may
render, which you cannot have rendered in
any other way so well. But let such kind of
reading usurp the place that should be given
to other and better employment ; let the taste

182 THE DAUGHTERS OF
for it be gratified, without the consideration
of anything beyond the pleasure that it
yields ; let the heart of the reader, with all
its manifold affections, give itself up to be
played upon continually by the hand of some
great master .in the art of quickening to the
uttermost its sympathies with human passions
and human griefs ; will that heart, whose sen
sibilities may thus be stimulated until it yield
to the gentlest touch of the great describer,
will it be made kinder and better in its dispo
sitions ? will it even be made more tender to
the sorrows of the real sufferers among whom
it lives and moves ? Is it not notoriously the
reverse ? You will find few more selfish, few
less practically benevolent than those who
expend all their stores of pity upon ideal
woes. It is a deep well of pity, that which
God has sunk in most human hearts. They
are healing, refreshing, fructifying waters that
it sends forth to cover the sorrows of the sor
rowful ; but if these waters be dammed up
within the heart, they become first stagnant,
and then the breeders of many noxious va-

JERUSALEM WEEPING. 183
pors, under which the true and simple chari
ties wither away.
But let us now give to our Lord's words a
more direct appfication to himself; to himself
as the bearer of the cross. It cannot be
thought that all sympathy with the Man of
sorrows is forbidden. The recital, especially
of his last sufferings, would not have been so
full and so minute as it is in the sacred page,
had it not been intended to take hold thereby
of that sympathy. But the contemplation of
Christ merely as a sufferer, if it terminate in
nothing else than the excitement of sympa
thy, is a barren contemplation. Offer him
nothing besides your compassion, he repu
diates and rejects it. It is to dishonor the
Redeemer to class him with those unfortu
nates, those unwilling victims of distress,
whose unexampled sorrows knock hard at
the heart for pity. Our pity he does not
ask, he does not need. He spreads out before
us his unparalleled griefs ; he says, " Behold,
and see if there be any sorrow like unto my
sorrow ;" but he does so not to win from us

184 THE DAUGHTERS OF
compassion, but to prove how he has loved
us, loved us even to the death, suffering and
dying for our redemption. His sorrows should
set us thinking of our sins. Those sufferings
which rested upon him when he took his
place as our great Head and Representative,
should bring up before our minds the suffer
ings which hang suspended over the heads of
the finally impenitent and unbelieving.
"Weep not for me, but weep for your
selves : for if these things be done in a green
tree, what shall be done in the dry ?" He
was himself the Green Tree ; the fresh, the
vigorous Vine, — its stock full of sap, its
branches all nourished by union with that
parent, life-giving Stem. Was he, then — in
condition so unlike to that of fuel ready for
the fire — cast into that great furnace of afflic
tion? Had he to endure all its scorching,
though to him unconsuming flames ? What
shall be done with him whose heart softens
not at the sight of this divine and all-endur
ing love : whose heart closes up and hardens
against God and Christ, till it becomes like

JERUSALEM WEEPING* 185
one of those dry and withered branches which
men gather and cast into the fire ? If God
spared not his own Son, but gave him up to
the death for us all, who is there, among the
rejecters and despisers of such a Saviour, that
he will spare ? Or if you would have the
same argument set before you in yet another
form, take it as presented by Peter : " For
the time is come that judgment must begin at
the house of God : and if it first begin at us,
what shall the end be of them that obey not
the gospel of God? And if the righteous
scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly
and the sinner appear?" I shall make no
attempt either to expand or enforce the argu
ment thus employed. Let me only remind
you, that it was by these strange and solemn
words of warning, " If they do these things
in a green tree, what shall be done in the
dry ?" that our Lord closed the public teach
ing of his ministry upon earth. Quiet as our
skies now look, and secure and stable as all
things around us seem, the days are coming,
— he has told us among his latest sayings,—

186 THE DAUGHTERS OF
when those who resist the approaches of his
love shall see him in other guise, and when at
the sight they shall cry to the mountains,
" Fall on us, and to the hills, Cov^r us ; hide
us from the face of him that sitteth upon the
throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb : for
the great day of his wrath is come ; and who
shall be able to stand ?" How wise and good
a thing were it for us all, in prospect of such
days coming, to hide ourselves even now in
the clefts of the smitten Rock ; to hide our
selves in Jesus Christ as our loving Lord and
Saviour; that, safe within that covert, the
tribulation of those days may not reach us !
And now let me crave your attention, for a
moment or two, to that singular tie of thought
which so quickly linked together in the mind
of the Saviour the sight of those sorrowful
daughters of Jerusalem, with the fearful doom
that was impending over their city. It is
very remarkable how frequently and how
vividly, in all its minute details, the coming
destruction of Jerusalem was present to his
thoughts during the last days and hours of

JERUSALEM WEEPING. 187
his earthly ministry. From the day that he
raised Lazarus from the grave, — knowing that
his enemies had taken counsel together to put
him to death, — Jesus walked no more openly
among the Jews. He retired to the country
beyond Jordan, near to the wilderness. His
hour at last approached, and he set his face
to go up to Jerusalem to be crucified. He
was in a part of the country that was under
Herod's jurisdiction, and they told him that
Herod sought to kill him. It cannot be, he
said, that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem.
The naming of the holy city ; the thought of
all the blood of all the prophets that was to
cry out against her, and to seal her doom,
filled his heart with sadness, and instantly he
broke out into the exclamation, " 0 Jerusa
lem, Jerusalem ! thou that killest the pro
phets, and stonest them which are sent unto
thee, how often would I have gathered thy
children together, even as a hen gathereth
her chickens under her wings, and ye would
not ! Behold, your house is left unto you
desolate !"

188 THE DAUGHTERS OF
On the Saturday before his death he arrives
at Bethany. Next day he ascends the Mount
of Olives. In the city they have heard of
his coming. They go out to meet him, they
hail him as they had never done before.
Garments and palm-branches are spread upon
the ground that he is to tread. Before him
and around him the voices of the multitude
are shouting " Hosanna ! Blessed is he that
cometh in the name of the Lord. Hosanna
to the Son of David ! Hosanna in the high
est !" The ridge of the hill is reached, and
Jerusalem bursts upon the view, lying across
the valley spread out before the eye. He
pauses ; he gazes ; his eyes they fill with
tears. How strange it looks to that jubilant
multitude ! Ah ! other sounds than their
hosannas are falling on the Saviour's inner
ear ; other sights than that of their waving
palm-branches are rising before his prophetic
eye. He weeps ; and, without naming it,
looking at the doomed city, and pointing to
it, he says : " If thou hadst known, even thou,
at. least in this thy day, the things which be-

JERUSALEM WEEPING. 189
long unto thy peace ! but now they are hid
from thine eyes. For the days shall come
upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a
trench about thee, and compass thee round,
and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay
thee even with the ground, and thy children
within thee ; and they shall not leave in thee
one stone upon another ; because thou knew-
est not the time of thy visitation."
Christ's last day in the Temple and in
Jerusalem was one of great excitement, of
varied incident. Question after question
about his authority to teach, about the pay
ment of tribute-money, about the resurrec
tion of the dead, is put to him. Attempt
after attempt is made to entangle him in his
talk. At last, from being the assailed, Jesus
in his turn becomes the assailant, puts the
question about Christ being David's Son and
David's Lord, which none of them can an
swer, and then proceeds to launch his terrible
denunciations at the Scribes and Pharisees.
Woe is heaped upon woe, till all the righteous
blood shed upon the earth seems coming on

190 THE DAUGHTERS OF
the men of that generation, and concen-
tratedly upon that city of Jerusalem. Again,
as when he first turned his face towards the
holy city, the thought melts his spirit into
tenderness; the indignation dissolves and
passes away, as, taking up the same words
he had used before, he exclaims, " 0 Jerusa
lem, Jerusalem ! thou that killest the pro
phets, and stonest them which are sent unto
thee, how often would I have gathered thy
children together, even as a hen gathereth
her chickens under her wings, and ye would
not ! Behold, your house is left unto you
desolate," — our Lord's last words within the
Temple. As they went out in the afternoon of that
day, " Master," said one of his disciples to
him, " see what manner of stones and what
buildings are here ! Jesus answering, said
unto him, Seest thou these great buildings ?
Verily I say unto you, there shall not be left
here one stone upon another that shall not be
thrown down." Later in the evening of that
day — two days before his crucifixion — he sat

JERUSALEM WEEPING. 191
upon the Mount of Olives over against the
Temple, looking once again at these great
buildings, and in answer to an inquiry of his
disciples, tired though he must have been
with all the incidents of a most harassing day,
he entered upon that lengthened prophecy in
which he told how Jerusalem should be trod
den down of the Gentiles. And now again,
in this last stage of his way to. Calvary, the
days that he "had spoken of so particularly in
that prophecy are once more before his eyes.
How shall we explain all this ? How was it
ihat the city of Jerusalem had such a hold
upon the heart of Jesus Christ ? How was it
that the joys and the sorrows, the provoca
tions and the sympathies of his latest days,
all alike, by some mysterious link of associa
tion, called up before his thoughts the terrible
calamities which Jerusalem was to endure ?
Grant all that can be claimed for Jerusalem
in the way of pre-eminence both as to cha
racter and destiny over all the cities of this
earth; acknowledge the power that the close
connexion between our Lord's own death and

192 THE DAUGHTERS OF
its destruction must have exerted upon hia
mind ; but beside all this, may we not believe
that in the human heart of Jesus, as we know
that there was room for special affection, indi
vidual attachment, so also was there room for
the patriotic sentiment, that love of country
by which every true man of woman born is
characterized? Jesus was a Jew. Judea
was the land of his birth. Jerusalem was
the chief city of that land. Around its ear
lier and its later history there gathered all of
joyful and of sorrowful interest that could
touch a Jewish heart. And it touched the
spirit of Jesus to contemplate its downfall.
Are we wrong in thinking that with that
which was divine, and that which was broadly
human, there mingled a Jewish, a patriotic
element in the grief which shed tears over its
destruction? If love of country form part of
a perfect man, shall we not believe that, puri
fied from all imperfection, — its narrowness,
its exclusiveness, its selfishness, — that affec
tion had a place and found a home in the
bosom of our Lord ?

JERUSALEM WEEPING. 193
At such a season as this in the history of
our own land we would fain believe so. A
common loss, a common grief, a common
sympathy, has knit all hearts together as
they have but rarely been united. He can
have been no ordinary Prince, whose death
has caused so general, such universal grief.
And she assuredly is no ordinary Queen,
whose sorrow has been made their own by so
many millions of human hearts. There is
something cementing, purifying, ennobling, in
a whole nation mourning as ours does now.
Let us try to consecrate that mourning, and
whilst we give to our beloved Sovereign the
entire sympathy of our heart, only wishing
that she fully knew* what a place she holds
in the affections of her people, let "is lift up
our hearts in gratitude to Him who has be
stowed on us in her such a priceless treasure,
and let us lift up prayers to heaven, that she
may have imparted to her that comfort and

* This Lecture was delivered on the Sunday succeeding the
death of the Prince Consort, and before full expression of public
Bympathy had been given.

194 DAUGHTERS. OF JERUSALEM WEEPING.
that strength, which, in such sorrow as hers,
the highest and the humblest of earth equally
need, and which are bestowed alike on all
who ask, and trust, and hope, in and through
Jesus Christ our Lord,

VIII
Me penitent MHel*
One of the first things done by the Roman
soldiers to whom the execution of the sen
tence was committed, was to strip our Sa
viour and to nail him to the cross. We do
not know whether that cruel operation of
transfixing the hands and feet was performed
while the cross yet lay upon the ground, or
after it was erected. They offered him, — in
kindness let us believe rather than in scorn,
wine mingled with myrrh, an anodyne or
soothing draught, fitted to dull or deaden the
sense of pain, but he waved it away ; he
would do nothing that might lull the senses,
but might at the same time impair the full,
clear, mental consciousness. The clothing of
* Matt, xxvii. 35-37 ; John xix. 20-22 ; Luke xxiii. 23-43.

196 THE PENITENT THIEF.
the criminal was in all such instances a legal
perquisite of the executioners, and the sol
diers proceeded to divide it among them.
The other parts of his outer raiment they
found it comparatively easy to divide ; but
when they came to his inner coat, finding it
of somewhat unusual texture, woven from the
top throughout — it may have been his mother's
workmanship, or the gift of some of those
kind women who had ministered to his wants
and comforts — they found no way of disposing
of it so easy as to cast lots among them whose
it should be, fulfilling thus, but all uncon
sciously, that Scripture, which, apart from
this manner of disposal of the clothing, we
might not well have understood how it could
be verified — " They parted my raiment among
them, and for my vesture they did cast lots."
Pilate's last act that morning, after he had
given up Jesus to be crucified, was to have
the ground of his sentence declared in a writ
ing which he directed should be placed con*
spicuously upon the cross above his head. To
secure that this writing should be seen and

THE PENITENT THIEF. 197
read of all men, Pilate further ordered that
it should be written in Greek, and Latin, and
Hebrew, the three chief languages of the
time. All the four evangelists record what
this writing or superscription was, yet in each
the words of which it was composed are dif
ferently reported. No two of them agree as
to the precise terms of the title, though all
of them are perfectly at one as to its meaning
and intent. It does not in the least surprise
us when four different narrators of some
spoken, and it may be lengthened discourse,
vary here and there in the exact words im
puted to the speaker. It is somewhat differ
ent when it is a short written public docu
ment, like that placed over the Saviour's
head on this occasion, the contents of which
are given. Here we might naturally have
expected that the very words — literatim et
verbatim — would have been preserved. And
if it be not so, in this case as well as in
others equally if not more remarkable, such
as that of the few words spoken by the voice
from heaven at the time of the Saviour's bap-

198 THE PENITENT THIEF.
tism, and those spoken by our Lord himself
at the institution of his own Supper, — if it
be the general sense, and not the exact words
which the sacred writers present to us, is
there no warning in this against the expecta
tion of finding a minute and fiteral exactness
everywhere in the gospel narrative ? no
warning against our treating that narrative
as if such kind of exactness had been in
tended, and is to be found therein ?
The sight of this title, posted up so promi
nently above the head of Jesus, annoyed the
Jews. The Chief Priests were especially
provoked ; nor have we far to go to discover
the reason of their provocation. Among the
last things Pilate said to them, when he
brought out Jesus, had been, " Behold your
king !" And among the last things they said
to Pilate, in the heat of their exasperation,
and the urgency of their desire to have Jesus
ordered off to instant crucifixion, was,
" Away, away with him ! crucify him ! we
have no king but C&sar," — this man is not
only a false pretender, but he and all others

THE PENITENT THIEF. 199
except Csesar are traitors who make any such
pretension. Thus, in that unguarded hour,
did they absolutely renounce all desire or
hope of having a king of their own. Pilate
took them at their word, and put over Christ's
head such a title as implied that any one
claiming to be king of the Jews might, on
that ground alone, whatever his rights and
claims — on the ground simply of the alle
giance which the Jews owed, and which the
Chief Priests had avowed, to the Roman
Emperor — be justly condemned to death.
When they looked at that legal declaration
of his crime placed above Christ's head, and
thought of all that it implied, the Chief
Priests hurried back to Pilate, and asked him
to make a modification of it, which should
leave it open that there might be another
king of the Jews besides Csesar. " Write
not," they said to Pilate, " The King of the
Jews ; but that he said, I am King of the
Jews." Let it be made patent, that it was
as an illegitimate claimant that he was put to
death. In ill humor with himself, in worse

200 THE PENITENT THIEF.
humor with them, Pilate is in no mood to
listen to their proposal. He will hold them
tightly to their own denial and disavowal of
any king but Csesar ; and so, with a somewhat
sharp and surly decisiveness, he dismisses
them by saying, " What I have written, I
have written."
Meanwhile, the soldiers have completed
their cruel work. It was when in their hands,
or soon after, that Jesus said, " Father, for
give them, for they know not what they do."
Such rough handling as that to which our
Lord had been subjected, such acute bodily
suffering as it had inflicted, have a strong
tendency to irritate, and to render the suf
ferer indifferent to everything beyond his own
injuries and pains. But how far above this
does Jesus rise ? No murmuring; no threaten
ing ; no accusation ; no lament ; no cry for
help ; no invoking of vengeance ; no care for,
or thought of self; no obtruding of his own
forgiveness. It is not, I forgive you ; but,
" Father, forgive them." No sidelong glance
even at his own wrongs and sufferings, in

THE PENITENT THIEF. 201
stating for what the forgiveness is solicited.
" They know not what they do ;" iu this sim
ple and sublime petition, not the slightest,
most shadowy trace of self-consideration. It
is from a heart occupied with thought for
others, and not with its own woes ; it is out
of the depths of an infinite love and pity,
which no waters can quench, that there comes
forth the purest and highest petition for mercy
that ever ascended to the Father of mercies
in the heavens. It is from the lips of a
Brother-Man that this petition comes, yet
from One who can speak to God as to his own
Father. It is from Jesus on the cross it
comes ; from him who submits to all the shame
and agony of crucifixion, that as the Lamb
that once was slain for us, he might earn, as
it were, the right thus to pray, and furnish
himself with a plea in praying, such as none
but he possesseth and can employ. As a
Prophet, he had spoken to the daughters of
Jerusalem by the way; as the great High
Priest, he intercedes for his crucifiers from
the cross.

202 THE PENITENT THIEF.
Nor are we to confine that intercession to
those for whom in the first instance it was
exerted. Wide over the whole range of sin
ful humanity does that prayer of our Re
deemer extend. For every sinner of our
race, if it be true of him that he knew not
what he did, that Prayer of Jesus goes up to
the throne of mercy. It was in comparative
ignorance that those soldiers and those Jews
crucified Jesus. Had they known what they
did, we have an apostle's testimony for believ
ing they would not have crucified the Lord
of glory. But their ignorance did not take
away their guilt. Had it done so, there had
been no need of an intercessor in their behalf.
It was with wicked hands they did that deed.
Nor did their ignorance in any way entitle
them to forgiveness ; then might it have been
left to the Father to deal with them without
any intercession of the Son. But their ignor
ance brought them and their doings within
the pale of that Divine mercy for which the
prayer of the &reat Mediator was presented.
How far we are entitled to carry this idea, I

THE PENITENT THIEF. 203
shall not presume to say. Was it because of
that element — the element of an imperfect
knowledge of what was done — that for the
transgression of man a Saviour and a sacrifice
were provided, — not provided for the sin of
fallen angels, of whom it could not, in the
same sense, be said that they knew not what
they did ? Is it to that degree in which a
partial ignorance of what we do, prevails —
that ignorance not being of itself entirely our
own fault — that our transgression comes with
in the scope and power of the intercession of
the Redeemer? To questions such as these
we venture no reply. Only let us remember
that sins rise in magnitude as they are com
mitted against light, and that the clearer and
fuller that light is, and the greater and more
determined and obstinate our resistance to it,
the nearer we approach to that condition
which the apostle had in his eye when he
wrote these words of warning : " For it is im
possible for those who were once enlightened,
and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were
made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have

204 THE PENITENT THIEF.
tasted the good word of God, and the powers
of the world to come, if they shall fall away,
to renew them again unto repentance, seeing
they crucify to themselves the Son of God
afresh, and put him to an open shame ; for if
we sin wilfully after we have received the
knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no
more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful
looking for of judgment and fiery indignation,
which shall devour the adversaries."
Their cruel work completed, the soldiers sit
down before the cross to watch. Behind them
the people stand beholding. There is a mo
mentary stillness. It is broken by some pass
ers by — for the cross was raised near some
public thoroughfare — who, stopping for a mo
ment as they pass, look up, and wag their
heads at Jesus, saying contemptuously to him,
" Ah ! thou that destroyest the Temple, and
buildest it in three days, save thyself! If
thou be the Son of God, come down from the
cross." That ribald speech strikes the key
note for other like fiendish taunts and gibes.
The Chief Priests, the scribes, the elders — •

THE PENITENT THIEF. 205
their dignity forgotten — hasten to join the
mockery ; to deaden perhaps some unwelcome
voices rising within their hearts. They do
not act, however, fike the honest common
people, who in their passing by look up at or
speak directly to Jesus, — they do not, they
dare not. They stand repeating, as Mark
tells us, among themselves ; saying of him, not
to him, " He saved others, himself he cannot
save ; let him save himself if he be the Christ,
the chosen of God. If he be the King of
Israel, let him come down from the cross, and
we will believe him. He trusted in God
(strange that they should thus blasphemously
use the very words of the twenty-second
Psalm), let him deliver him now if he will
have him, for he said, I am the Son of God."
The Roman soldiers get excited by the talk
they hear going on around. They rise, and
they offer him some vinegar to drink, repeat
ing one of the current taunts, till at last one
of the malefactors, hanging on the cross beside
him, does the same.
Strange, certainly, that among those who

206 THE PENITENT THIEF
rail at Jesus at such a time, one of those cru
cified along with him should be numbered.
Those brought out to share together the shame
and agony of a public execution, have gen
erally looked on each other with a kindly and
indulgent eye. Outcasts from the world's
sympathy, they have drawn largely upon the
sympathy of one another. Since they were
to die thus together, they have desired to die
at .peace. Many an old, deep grudge has
been buried at the gallows-foot. But here,
where there is nothing to be mutually forgot
ten, nothing to be forgiven, nothing whatever
to check the operation of that common law by
which community in suffering begets sym
pathy; here, instead of sympathy, there is
scorn ; instead of pity, reproach. What called
forth such feelings, at such a time, and from
such a quarter ? In part it may have been
due to the circumstance that it was upon
Jesus that the main burden of the public re
proach was flung. Bad men like to join with
others in blaming those who either are, or are
supposed to be, worse men than themselves.

THE PENITENT THIEF. 207
A.nd so it may have brought something fike
relief, may even have ministered something
like gratification to this man to find that when
brought out for execution, the tide of public
indignation directed itself so exclusively
against Jesus — by making so much more of
whose criminality, he thinks to make so much
less of his own. Or is it the spirit of the
religious scoffer that vents here its expiring
breath ? All he sees, and all he hears — those
pouting lips, those wagging heads, those up
braiding speeches — tell him what it was in
Jesus that had kindled such enmity against
him, and too thoroughly does he go in with
that spirit which is rife around the cross, not
to join in the expression of it, and so whilst
others are railing at Jesus, he too will rail. It
is difficult to give any more satisfactory ex
planation of his conduct, difficult in any case
like this to fathom the depths even of a single
human spirit ; but explain it as you may, it
was one drop added to the cup of bitterness
which our Lord that day took into his hands,
and drunk to the very dregs, that not only

208 THE PENITENT THIEF.
were his enemies permitted to do with him
what they would, but the very criminal who
is crucified by his side, deems himself entitled
to cast such reproachful sayings in his teeth.
But he is not suffered to rail at Jesus unre-
buked, and the rebuke comes most appro
priately from his brother malefactor, who
turning upon him says, " Dost not thou fear
God, seeing thou art in the same condemna
tion ?" " Dost not thou fear God ?"— he does
not need to say, Dost thou not fear man ? for
man has already done all that man can do.
But, Dost not thou fear God ? He knows
then that there is a God to fear, a God before
whose bar he and his brother sufferer are
soon to appear ; a God to whom they shall
have to give account, not only for every evil
action that in their past lives they have done,
but for every idle word that in dying they
shall speak. He knows it now, he feels it
now, — had he known and felt it sooner, it
might have saved him from hanging on that
cross, — that over and above the condemnation
of man which he had so lightly thought of,

THE PENITENT THIEF. 209
and so fearlessly had braved, there is another
and weightier condemnation, even that of the
great God, into whose hands, as a God of
judgment, it is a fearful thing for the impeni
tent to fall.
" And we indeed justly." No questioning
of the proof, no quarrelling with the law, no
reproaching of the judge. He neither thinks
that his crime was less heinous than the law
made it, nor his punishment greater than the
crime deserved. Nor do you hear from this
man's lips what you so often hear from men
placed in like circumstances, the complaint
that he had been taken, and he must die,
whilst so many others, greater criminals than
himself, are suffered to go at large unpun
ished. At once and unreservedly he acknow
ledges the justice of the sentence, and in so
doing, shows a spirit penetrated with a sense
of guilt. And not only is he thoroughly con
vinced of his own guilt, he is as thoroughly
convinced of Christ's innocence. "We indeed
justly" — for we receive the due reward of our
deeds — "but this man hath done nothing

210 THE PENITENT THIEF.
amiss." Little as he may have seen or
known before of Jesus, what he had wit
nessed had entirely convinced him that His
was a case of unmerited and unprovoked per
secution ; that he was an innocent man whom
these Jews, to gratify their own spleen, to
avenge themselves in their own ignoble quar
rel with him, were hounding to the death.
But he goes much further than to give ex
pression merely to his conviction of Christ's
innocence,— and it is here we touch upon the
spiritual marvels of this extraordinary inci
dent. Turning from speaking to his brother
malefactor, fixing his eye upon, and address
ing himself to Jesus, as he hangs upon the
neighboring cross, he says, " Lord, remember
me when thou comest into thy kingdom."
How came he, at such a time, and in such
circumstances, to call Jesus Lord ? how came
he to believe in the coming of his kingdom ?
It is going the utmost length to which suppo
sition can be carried, to imagine that he had
never met with Jesus till he had met him
that morning to be led out in company with

THE PENITENT THIEF. 211
him to Calvary. He saw the daughters of
Jerusalem weeping by the way ; he heard
those words of Jesus which told of the speak
er's having power to withdraw the veil which
hides the future ; he had seen and read the
title nailed above the Saviour's head, pro
claiming him to be the King of the Jews ;
from the lips of the passers-by, of the Chief
Priests, the elders, the soldiers, he had gath
ered that this Jesus, now dying by his side,
had saved others from that very death he is
himself about to die, had professed a supreme
trust in God, had claimed to be the Christ,
the Chosen, the Son of God, and he had seen
and heard enough to satisfy him that all
which Jesus had claimed to be he truly was.
Such were some of the materials put by Di
vine Providence into this man's hands whereon
to build his faith ; such the broken fragments
of the truth loosely scattered in his way. He
takes them up, collects, combines ; the En
lightening Spirit shines upon the evidence
thus afforded, shines in upon his quickened
soul ; and there brightly dawns upon his

212 THE PENITENT THIEF.
spirit the sublime belief that in that strangb
sufferer by his side he sees the long-promised
Messiah, the Saviour of mankind, the Son and
equal of the Father, who now, at the very
time that his mind has opened to a sense of
his great iniquity, and he stands trembling on
the brink of eternity, reveals himself as so
near at hand, so easy of access. His faith,
thus quickly formed, goes forth into instant
exercise, and, turning to Jesus, he breathes
into his convenient ear the simple but ardent
prayer, " Lord, remember me when thou com
est into thy kingdom."
The hostile multitude around are looking
forward to Christ's approaching death, as to
that decisive event which shall at once, and
for ever, scatter to the winds all the idle
rumors that have been rife about him; all
his vain pretensions to the Messiahship. The
faith of Christ's own immediate followers is
ready to give way before that same event ;
they bury it in his grave, and have only to
say of him afterwards, " We hoped that it
had been he that should have redeemed

THE PENITENT THIEF. 213
Israel." Yet here amid the triumph of ene
mies, and the failure of the faith of friends,
is one who, conquering all the difficulties that
sense opposes to its recognition, discerns,
even through the dark envelope which covers
it, the hidden glory of the Redeemer, and
openly hails him as his Lord and King. Mar
vellous, indeed, the faith in our Lord's di
vinity which sprung up so suddenly in such
an unlikely region; which shone out so
brightly in the very midnight of the world's
unbelief. Are we wrong in saying that, at
the particular moment when that testimony
to Christ's divinity was borne, there was not
another full believer in that divinity but this
dying thief ? If so, was it not a fitting thing,
that he who was never to be left without a
witness, now when there was but one witness
left, should have had this solitary testimony
given to his divinity at the very time when it
was passing into almost total eclipse; so
nearly wholly shrouded from mortal vision ?
There were many to call him Lord when he
rose triumphant from the tomb ; there is but

214 THE PENITENT THIEF.
one to call him Lord as he hangs dying on the
cross. But let us look upon the prayer of the
dying thief not only as a public testimony to
the kingly character and prerogative of Jesus,
but as the prayer of individual, appropriating
faith; the earnest, hopeful, trustful applica
tion of a dying sinner to a dying Saviour.
His ideas of Christ's character and office
may have been obscure ; the nature of that
kingdom into possession of which he was
about to enter, he may have but imperfectly
understood. He knew it, however, to be a
spiritual kingdom; he felt that individually
he had forfeited his right of admission to its
privileges and its joys ; he believed that it
lay with Jesus to admit him into that king
dom. Not with a spirit void of apprehension,
may he have made his last appeal. It may
have seemed to him a very doubtful thing,
whether, when relieved from the sharp pains
of crucifixion, the suffering over, and the
throne of the kingdom reached, Jesus would
think of him amid the splendors and the joys

THE PENITENT THIEF. 215
of his new kingly state. Doubts of a kindred
character have often haunted the hearts of
the penitent, the hearts of the best and the
holiest ; but there were two things of which
he had no doubt, that Jesus could save him if
he would, and if he did not, he should perish.
And it is out of these two simple elements
that genuine faith is always formed, a deep,
pervading, subduing consciousness of our un-
worthiness, a simple and entire trust in
Christ. It has been often and well said, that whilst
this one instance of faith in Jesus formed at
the eleventh hour is recorded in the New
Testament, in order that none, even to the
last moment of their being, should despair, —
there is but this one instance, that none may
presume upon a death-bed repentance. And
even this instance teaches most impressively
that the faith which justifies always sanc
tifies ; that the faith which brings forgiveness
and opens the gates of Paradise to the dying
sinner carries with it a renovating power;
that the faith which conveys the title, works

216 THE PENITENT THIEF.
at the same time the meetness foi the hea
venly inheritance. Let a man die that hour
in which he truly and cordially believes, that
hour his passage into the heavenly kingdom
is made secure ; but let a window be opened
that hour into his soul, let us see into all the
secrets thereof, and we shall discover that
morally and spiritually there has been a
change in inward character corresponding to
the change in legal standing or relationship
with God. It was so with this dying thief.
True, we have but a short period of his life
before us, and in that period only two short
sayings to go upon; happily, however, say
ings of such a kind, and spoken in such cir
cumstances, as to preclude all doubt of their
entire honesty and truthfulness ; and what do
they reveal of the condition of that man's
mind and heart ? What tenderness of con
science is here; what deep reverence for God;
what devout submission to the divine will ;
what entire relinquishment of all personal
grounds of confidence before God; what a
vivid realizing of the world of spirits ; what

THE PENITENT THIEF. 217
a humble trust in Jesus ; what a zeal for the
Saviour's honor ; what an indignation at the
unworthy treatment he was receiving ? May
we not take that catalogue of the fruits of
genuine repentance which an apostle has
drawn up for us, and applying it here, say of
this man's repentance, — Behold what careful
ness it wrought in him ; yea, what clearing
of himself; yea, what indignation ; yea, what
fear ; yea, what vehement desire ; yea, what
zeal ; yea, what revenge ! In all things he
approved himself to be a changed man, in the
desires and dispositions and purposes of his
heart. The belief has been expressed, that
in all the earth there was not at that particu
lar moment such a believer in the Lord's
divinity as he ; would it be going too far to
couple with that belief this other, that in all
the earth, and at that moment, there was not
another man inwardly riper and readier for
entrance into Paradise ?
"Lord, remember me when thou comest
into thy kingdom." Loud and angry voices
have for hours been ringing in the vexed ear
10

218 THE PENITENT THIEF.
of Jesus, — voices whose blasphemy and inhu
manity wounded him far more than the mere
personal antipathy they breathed. Amid
these harsh and grating sounds, how new, how
welcome, how grateful, this soft and gentle
utterance of desire, and trust, and love ! It
dropped like a cordial upon the fainting spirit
of our Lord, the only balm that earth came
forth to lay upon his wounded spirit. Let
us, too, be grateful for that one soothing word
addressed to the dying Jesus, and wherever
the gospel is declared let these words which
that man spake be repeated in memorial of
him. " Lord, remember me when thou comest
into thy kingdom." He will not ask to be
remembered now ; he will not break in upon
this season of his Lord's bitter anguish. He
only asks that, when the sharp pains of his
passion shall be over, the passage made, and
the throne of the kingdom won, Jesus will, in
his great mercy, then think of him. Jesus
will let him know that he does not need to
wait so long ; he will let him know that the

THE PENITENT THIEF. 219
Son of man hath power, even on earth, to
forgive sin ; that the hour never cometh when
his ear is so heavy that it can not hear, his
hand so shortened that it can not save ; and
the prayer has scarce been offered when the
answer comes, " Verily, I say unto thee, To
day shalt thou be with me in paradise."
The lips may have trembled that spake
these words ; soft and low may have been the
tone in which they were uttered ; but they
were words of power,— words which only one
Being who ever wore human form, could have
spoken. His divinity is acknowledged : the
moment it is so, it breaks forth into bright
and beautiful manifestation. The hidden glory
bursts through the dark cloud that veiled it,
and, in all his omnipotence to save, Jesus
stands revealed. What a rebuke to his cru-
cifiers ! They may strip his mortal body of
its outward raiment, which these soldiers may
divide among them as they please ; his hu
man soul they may strip of its outer garment
of the flesh, and send it forth unclothed into
the world of spirits. But his kingly right to

220 THE PENITENT THIEF.
dispense the royal gift of pardon, his power
to save, can they strip him of that ? Nay,
fittle as they know it, they are helping to
clothe him with that power, at the very time
when they think they are laying all his kingly
pretensions in the dust. He will not do what
they had so often in derision asked him that
day to do ; — he will not come down from the
cross ; — he will not give that proof of his
divinity ; he will not put forth his almighty
power by exerting it upon the world of mat
ter. But on this very cross he will give a
higher proof of his divinity : he will exert
that power, not over the world of matter, but
over the world of spirits, by stretching forth
his hand and delivering a soul from death,
and carrying it with him that day into para
dise. " Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou
be with me in paradise." Jesus would not
rise from the sepulchre alone ; he would have
others rise along with him. And so, even as
he dies, the earthquake does its allotted work,
work so strange for an earthquake to do, — it

THE PENITENT THIEF. 221
opens not a new grave for the living, it opens
the old graves of the dead ; and as the third
morning dawns, from the opened graves the
bodies of the saints arise with the rising body
of the Lord, — types and pledges of the gen
eral resurrection of the dead, verifying, by
their appearance in the Holy City, the words
of ancient prophecy : " Thy dead men shall
live, together with my dead body shall they
arise,. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the
dust ; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs,
and the earth shall cast out her dead." And
as Jesus would not rise from the sepulchre
alone, so neither will he enter Paradise alone.
He will carry one companion spirit with him
to the place of the blessed ; thus early giving
proof of his having died upon that cross that
others through his death might live, and live
for ever. See, then, in the ransomed spirit
borne that day to Paradise, the primal trophy
of the power of the uplifted cross of Jesus !
What saved this penitent thief? No water of
baptism was ever sprinkled upon him ; at no
table of communion did he ever sit; of the

222 THE PENITENT THIEF.
virtue said to fie in sacramental rites he knew
nothing. It was a simple believing look of a
dying sinner upon a dying Saviour that did it.
And that sight has lost nothing of its power.
Too many, alas ! have passed, are still passing
by that spectacle of Jesus upon the cross ;
going, one to his farm, another to his mer
chandise, and not suffering it to make its due
impression on their hearts ; but thousands
upon thousands of the human race — we bless
God for this — have gazed upon it with a look
kindred to that of the dying thief, and have
felt it exert upon them a kindred power.
Around it, once more, let me ask you all to
gather. Many here, I trust, as they look at
it, can say, with adoring gratitude, He loved
me; he gave himself for me ; he was wounded
for my transgression, he was bruised for mine
iniquity ; he is all my salvation, he is all my
desire. Some may not be able to go so far ;
yet there is one step that all of us, who are in
any degree alive to our obligations to redeem
ing love, can take — one prayer that we all
may offer ; and surely, if that petition got so

THE PENITENT THIEF. 223
ready audience when addressed to Jesus in
the midst of his dying agonies, with certain
hope of not less favorable audience may we
take it up, and shaping it to meet our case,
may say, Now that thou hast gone into thy
kingdom, 0 Lord, remember me.
Yet once more let the words of our Lord
be repeated, " To-day shalt thou be with me
in paradise." But where this Paradise ; what
this Paradise ? We can say, in answer to
Tfiese questions, that with this heavenly Pa
radise into which the redeemed at death do
enter, the ancient, the earthly Paradise is not
fit to be compared. In the one, the direct
intercourse with God was but occasional ; in
the other it shall be constant. In the one,
the Deity was known only as he revealed
himself in the works of creation and in the
ways of his providence ; in the other, it will
be as the God of our "redemption, the God
and Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus,
that he will be recognised, adored, obeyed —
all the higher moral attributes of his nature
shining forth in harmonious and illustrious

224 THE PENITENT THIEF.
display. Into the earthly Paradise the
Tempter entered ; from the heavenly he will
be shut out. From the earthly Paradise sad
exiles once were driven ; from the heavenly
we shall go no more out for ever. Still, how
ever, after all such imperfect and unsatisfying
comparisons, the questions return upon us,
Where, and what is this Paradise of the re
deemed1? Our simplest and our best an
swers to those questions perhaps are these —
Where is Paradise 1 wherever Jesus is. What
is Paradise 1 to be for ever with, and to be
fully like, our Lord. We know — for God has
told us so, of that Paradise of the redeemed —
that it is a land of perfect light ; the day has
dawned there ; the shadows have for ever
fled away. It is a land of perfect blessed
ness ; no tears fall there ; no sighs rise
there ; up to the measure of its capacity,
each spirit filled with a pure never-ending
joy. It is a land of perfect holiness ; no
thing that defileth shall enter there, neither
whatsoever loveth or maketh a lie. But what
gives to that land its light, its joy, its holi-

THE PENITENT THIEF. 225
ness in, the sight of the redeemed ? it is the
presence of Jesus. If there be no night
there, it is because the Lamb is the light of
that place ; if there be no tears there, it is
because from every eye his hand has wiped
off every tear. The holiness that reigneth
there is a holiness caught from the seeing him
as he is. And trace the tide of joy that cir
culates through the hosts of the blessed to its
fountain-head, you will find it within that
throne on which the Lamb that once was slain
is sitting. To be with Jesus, to be like Jesus,
to love and serve him purely, deeply, unfail
ingly, unfalteringly — that is the Christian's
heaven. I love, says one, to think of heaven; and
as I repeat the words, they will find an echo
in each Christian heart :- —
" I love to think of heaven ; its cloudless light,
Its tearless joys, its recognitions, and its fellowships
Of love and joy unending ; but when my mind anticipates
The sight of God incarnate, wearing on his hands
And feet and side marks of the wounds
Which he for me on Calvary endured,
All heaven beside is swallcwed up in this;
And he who was my hope of heaven below
Becomes the glory of my heaven above."
10*

226 THE PENITENT THIEF.
Yet once again let the memorable words ot
our Lord be repeated, " To-day shalt thou be
with me in paradise." What a day to that
dying man! How strange the contrast be
tween its opening and its close, its morning
and its night ! Its morning saw him a cul
prit condemned before the bar of earthly
judgment ; before evening shadowed the Hill
of Zion, he stood accepted at the bar of hea
ven. The morning saw him led out through
an earthly city's gates in company with one
who was hooted at by the crowd that gathered
round him ; before night fell upon Jerusalem,
the gates of another city, even the heavenly,
were lifted up, and he went up through them
in company with one around whom all the
hosts of heaven were bowing down, as he
passed on to take his place beside the Father
on his everlasting throne. Humblest believer
in the Saviour, a like marvellous contrast is
in store for you. This hour, it may be, weak
and burdened, tossing on the bed of agony,
in that darkened chamber of stifled sobs and
drooping tears ; the next hour, up and away

THE PENITENT THIEF. 227
in the Paradise of God, mingling with the
spirits of the just made perfect, renewing
death-broken friendships, gazing on the un
veiled glories of the Lamb. Be thou then
but faithful unto death ; struggle on for a few
more of those numbered days, or months, or
years, and on that day of your departure
hence, in his name I have to say it to
you, Verily, thou too shalt be with him in
Paradise.

IX.
Me potto* at mv f mtf .»
The last sight we got of the disciple whom
Jesus loved was when he and Peter entered
together into the Hall of the High Priest.
Silent and in the shade, he escaped the scru
tiny that his rash companion drew upon him
self. Of the sad scene that ensued, John was
the sorrowful witness. He saw the Lord turn
and look upon Peter ; he saw Peter turn and
leave the hall. It is not likely that he fol
lowed him. A stronger attraction kept him
where he was. He waited to see what the
issue of these strange proceedings should be;
waited till he heard the judgment of the San
hedrim given ; waited till he saw the weak
and sorely-badgered Governor at last give
* 1 John xix 25-21.

THE MOTHER OF OUR LORD. 229
way ; waited perhaps till the preparations for
the crucifixion had commenced. Then may
he have gone in haste into the city ; gone to
seek out those who, he knew, would be most
interested to hear; especially to seek out and
to comfort her upon whose wounded heart the
burden of these terrible tidings would fall
most heavily. Most likely it was from the
lips of the beloved disciple that Mary first
heard that morning of the fate which awaited
Jesus. But where and when did she first see
him ? Not in the palace of the High Priest ;
not in the Judgment Hall of Pilate. Al
though she had got the tidings soon enough
to be there, these were not places for such a
visitant. Nor was she one of those daugh
ters of Jerusalem that lamented and bewailed
him by the way. The first sight she gets of
him is when, mocked by the soldiers, derided
by the passers-by, insulted by the Chief
Priests, he hangs upon the cross. She has
her own sister Mary with her, and that other
faithful Mary of Magdala, with John beside
them, making up that little group, who, with

230 THE MOTHER OF OUR LORD.
feelings so different from those of all the
others, gaze upon the scene.
The prayer for his crucifiers has been
offered. The penitent thief has heard the
declaration that opens to him that day the
gates of Paradise, when the eye of the Cruci
fied, wandering over the motley crowd, fixes
upon that little group standing, quietly but
sadly, near enough to be spoken to. John is
addressing some word, or doing some act of
kindness to Mary. They are at least so close
to one another, that though Jesus names
neither, neither can mistake of whom and to
whom he speaks, as, bending a tender look
upon them, he says, "Woman, behold thy
son !" " Son, behold thy mother !" John
acts at once on the direction given, and with
draws Mary from the spot, and takes her to
his own home in Jerusalem. Amid the dark
and tumultuous, solemn and awful incidents
of the crucifixion, this incident has so much
of peaceful repose that we feel tempted to
dwell upon it. At once, and very naturally,
it suggests to us a review of the previous re-

THE MOTHER OF OUR LORD. 231
lationship and intercourse between Mary and
her mysterious Son. We cannot, indeed,
rightly appreciate our Lord's notice of her
from the cross without taking it in connexion
with that relationship and intercourse.
The angelic annunciation, the salutation of
Elizabeth, the visits of the Bethlehem shep
herds and the Eastern Magi, had all prepared
Mary to see, in her first-born Son, One greater
than the children of men. All those say
ings — about his greatness and glory, his being
called the Son of the Highest, his sitting upon
the throne of David his father, his reigning
over the house of Jacob for ever — she kept
and pondered in her heart, wondering exceed
ingly what manner of man that child of hers
should be, in whom those sayings should be
fulfilled. As she listened to all those prophe
cies of his future greatness, by which his
birth was foretold and celebrated, what bright
and glowing anticipations must have filled
Mary's heart ! One discordant word alone at
this time fell upon her ear, one saying differ
ing from all the rest, the meaning of which

232 THE MOTHER OF OUR LORD
she could not understand. " This child," said
the aged Simeon, as he took up the babe into
his arms at his presentation within the Tem
ple, — " this child is set for the fall and rising
again of many in Israel, and for a sign that
shall be spoken against. Yea, added the
aged prophet, as he looked sadly and sym-
pathizingly at Mary, " a sword shall pierce
through thy own soul also." Was it to tem
per her new-born joy ; was it to teach her to
mingle some apprehension with her hopes;
was it to prepare and fortify her for the actual
future that lay before her — so different from
the imagined one — that these words were
spoken? Beyond exciting a fresh wonder
and perplexity, they could, however, have
had but fittle effect on Mary at the time. She
did not, she could not understand them then;
therefore, with those bright and joyous anti
cipations still within her heart, she retired to
Nazareth. The child grew, the Evangelist
tells us, waxed strong in spirit, was filled
with wisdom, the grace of God was upon him ;
but beyond that gentleness which nothing

THE MOTHER OF OUR LORD. 233
could ruffle, that meekness which nothing
could provoke, that wisdom which was daily
deepening and widening, giving ever new and
more wonderful, yet ever natural and child
like exhibitions of itself, that dutiful submis
sion to his reputed parents, that love to all
around him upon earth, that deeper love to
his Father in heaven, — beyond that rare and
unexampled assemblage of all the virtues
and graces by which a human childhood could
be adorned, there was nothing outwardly to
distinguish him from any child of his own age,
nothing outwardly to mark him out as the
heir of such a glorious destiny.
Twelve years of that childhood pass. Je
sus has been to Mary so like what any other
son might have been to his mother, that, un
conscious of any difference, she assumes and
exercises over him all ordinary maternal
rights. But now, again, just as it was with
that speech of Simeon among the other
prophecies that heralded the Redeemer's
birth, so is it with an act and speech of
Christ himself among the quiet incidents

234 THE MOTHER OF OUR LORD.
out of which, for thirty years, his life ac
Nazareth was made up. When twelve years
old, they take Jesus up to Jerusalem, the
days of the festival are fulfilled, the village
company to which Jesus and his family were
attached, leave the Holy City on their return.
Joseph and Mary never for a moment doubt
that, acting with his accustomed wisdom and
dutifulness, their son will be with the other
youths from Nazareth and its neighborhood,
along with whom he had made the journey up
to the Holy City. Not till the usual resting-
place for the night is reached do they miss
him. Something must have happened to hin
der him from joining the company at Jeru
salem. Full of anxiety, Joseph and Mary
return into the city. Three days are spent
in the sorrowful search. At last they find
him, sitting quietly among the doctors, as if
the Temple were his home. Imagine Mary's
feelings at this sight. No accident, then, had
happened to him ; no restraint had been laid
upon him. It had been voluntarily and de
liberately that her son had remained thus

THE MOTHER OF OUR LORD. 235
behind for four days after her departure.
Never before had Jesus acted in such a way,
never said or done anything fitted to give
her pain. Never before had she occasion to
reproach or rebuke him, but now, in her sur
prise and grief, she cannot help speaking to
him as she had never done before. " Son,"
said she, when at last she found him, —
" Son, why hast thou dealt thus with us ?
Thy father and I have sought thee sorrow
ing." Now, mark the Son's reply when
spoken to as if he had been forgetful of the
duty that a child owes to his parents. Mary
had called him Son; he does not call her
Mother ; he never does, — never in any con
versation related in the Gospels. Mary had
spoken of Joseph as his father; he nowise
recognizes that relationship. The full con
sciousness of another, higher Sonship than
that to Mary has entered his youthful heart ;
and, under the inspiration of this conscious
ness, his only reply to the maternal appeal is,
" How is it that ye sought me ? wist ye not
that I must be about my Father's busi-

236 THE MOTHER OF OUR LORD.
ness ?" — a very strange and altogether un
expected answer; one which, we are dis
tinctly told, neither Mary nor Joseph under
stood. It offered no explanation or excuse
for his conduct. It denied all need for any
such explanation or excuse. In the matter
of his heavenly Father's business, it repu
diated their interference. Mary had never
heard her own or Joseph's authority over him
questioned by Jesus. Had this visit to Jeru
salem weakened in his heart the sense of sub
jection to them ? Was he going to throw it
off? Will he refuse to accompany them?
Must he still continue to be thus engaged
about his Father's business ? No ! Having
said thus much, to teach them that he knew
how special his earthly relationship to them
was, he rose, he left the temple, and returning
with them to Nazareth, was subject to them
as before, yet not without having deposited
another seed of wonder in Mary's heart, —
wonder as to what that other Father's busi
ness was, with her son's mode of doing which
she, as his mother, must not interfere.

THE MOTHER OF OUR LORD. 237
Jesus is, as before, Mary's dutiful and sub
missive Son. Joseph dies, and he, who had
been sharer of his reputed father's earthly
labors, becomes perhaps the chief support and
solace of his mother in her widowhood.
Eighteen years go past. Jesus leaves his
home at Nazareth, alone, for none of his own
family believe in him. He presents himself
on the banks of the Jordan, and asks baptism
at the hands of John. The sign from heaven
is given ; the voice from heaven is heard ; the
Baptist points to him as the Lamb of God.
Philip hails him as the Messiah promised to
the fathers. Nathanael recognizes him as the
Son of God, the King of Israel. All this is
told to Mary. A few weeks later her Son
returns, and finds her at the marriage-feast at
Cana ; returns now with public vouchers of
his Messiahship, and with five followers, who
acknowledge him as their Master. Once
more, as at his birth, the hopes of Mary's
heart rise high. It is at the house of a friend
— of a near relative, it has been conjectured — •
that this marriage-feast is held. The guests,

238 THE MOTHER OF OUR LORD.
swelled by Christ's disciples, are more r. umer-
ous than had been anticipated. The wine
provided fails. If her Son be indeed that
great Prophet who is to appear, might he not
take this public opportunity of partially, at
least, revealing himself ? Might he not inter
fere to shield this family from discredit?
Might he not, with the wine that still re
mained, do something like to what Elijah had
done with the cruse of oil and the barrel of
meal ? Filled with such hopes, she calls his
attention to the deficiency, trusting that he
may possibly, in his new character and office,
remove it. " She saith to him, They have no
wine. Jesus saith to her, Woman, what have
I to do with thee ? (or, what hast thou to do
with me ?) mine hour is not yet come."
Soften it as we may, relieve it from all that
may seem disrespectful, there was discourage
ment and reproof in this reply. Presuming
upon her motherly relationship, on the privi
leges that her thirty years of ma ernal control
have given her, Mary ventures to suggest, and
she does it in the most delicate manner, what

THE MOTHER OF OUR LORD. 239
nis course of action might be, now that he
enters upon the public walk of the great
Prophet. Upon all such interference on her
part, an instant, gentle, but firm check must
be imposed. Mary must be taught the limits
of that influence and authority which her
earthly relationship to him had hitherto per
mitted her to exercise. She must be taught
that in the new and higher path upon which
he was now about to enter, that motherly re
lationship gave her no place nor right to
direct or to control.
Mary felt and acted upon the reproof. She
never afterwards, at least that we know of,
in any way obtruded herself. In the history
of our Lord's three years' ministry, she never
once appears in direct intercourse with her
Son. She may sometimes have been with
him in his many circuits of Galilee, but you
will search in vain for her name among the
women who accompanied him, and who minis
tered to him. Between the words spoken to
her at Cana, and those addressed to her from
the cross, not another word, addressed by

240 THE MOTHER OF OUR LORD.
Jesus to his mother, is recorded in the Gos
pels. True, indeed, he speaks of her ; and
in such instances what was said seems to have
been intended to moderate in the minds of his
hearers their estimate of her position, as his
mother. From the outskirts of a crowd that
had gathered round him as he taught, the
message was once sent in to him, " Behold,
thy mother and thy brothers stand without,
desiring to speak with thee." What they
wanted with him, we do not know : it was on
no friendly errand that his brothers came ;
they disliked his public preaching on the hill
sides to the multitude ; they thought him be
side himself. They expected, on this occa
sion, that so soon as he got their message, he
would give up the work in which he was en
gaged, and come, to them, — that he would feel
that his mother and they had a claim upon his
attention, superior to that of the motley com
pany that was pressing in upon him. It was
a case in many respects like that in the Tem
ple, of a competition between two kinds or
classes of obligations. Very striking was

THE MOTHER OF OUR LORD. 241
the way in which Jesus in this instance acted.
As soon as he heard the message, he ex
claimed, " Who is my mother or my breth
ren ?" Then, looking around, he stretches
forth his hands to his disciples (and it is but
rarely that any gesture of our Lord is chron
icled in the Gospel story), and said, " Behold
my mother and my brethren ; for whosoever
shall do the will of my Father which is in
heaven, the same is my brother, and sister,
and mother." Another time, as he was speak
ing with great power and effect, one of his
hearers, struck with admiration, broke forth
with the exclamation, " Blessed is the womb
that bare thee, and the paps that gave thee
suck !" " Yea," said Jesus, checking in
stantly and emphatically that spirit which had
prompted the exclamation, — " yea, rather
blessed is he that heareth the word of God,
and doeth it."
Mary was highly favored. With Gabriel
and with all generations of our race, we are
prepared to call her blessed. We are pre
pared to render all due honor to that relation-
II

242 THE MOTHER OF OUR LORD.
ship in which she stood to the Redeemer of
mankind. Among all the earthly distinctions
and dignities that could have been bestowed
upon a woman, the very greatest, we believe,
was that which was thus conferred on Mary.
And to the reverential regard which this rela
tionship demands, we are prepared to add the
still higher regard due to her genuine mod
esty, her simple faith. Nor are we sure but
that, in the depth of our recoil from the su
perstitious reverence that has gathered round
her name, we have overlooked and failed to
do full justice to the simplicity, the beauty,
the retiringness of that piety which makes
her among the pious women of the Gospels
what John was among the apostles of our
Lord. But when asked to worship her, to
pray to her as the mother of the Lord, to en
treat that she will exert her influence with
her Divine Son, is it possible to overlook that
treatment which she met with at our Lord's
own hands when here upon earth ; is it pos
sible to put away from us the thought that,
in that very treatment, he was prophetically

THE MOTHER OF OUR LORD. 243
uttering his own solemn protest against any
such idolatrous magnifying of the position and
relationship in which it pleased God that she
should stand to him ? We say this in the
spirit of no mere ecclesiastical quarrel with
the worship of the Virgin. We know how
soon it was that Paganism mingled its super
stitions with the simple worship of the Cruci
fied ; and we can well, therefore, understand
how, in virtue of all the gentle and sacred as
sociations that finked themselves with her
name, her character, her peculiar connexion
with Jesus, Mary should have come to be
regarded with an idolatrous regard. Nay,
further, looking back upon those dark ages
when, under the grinding tread of Northern
barbarism, the civilization of Southern Eu
rope was well-nigh obliterated, we can see a
beauty, a tenderness, a power in the worship
of Mary ; in the prayers and the hymns ad
dressed to her, which turned them into a
softening and civilizing element. Nay, fur
ther still, were we asked, among all the idola
tries that have prevailed upon this idol-loving,

244 THE MOTHER OF OUR LORD.
idol-worshipping world of ours, to say which
one of them it was that touched the finest
chords of the human heart, awoke the purest
and tenderest emotions, had the best and
most humanizing effect, we do not know but
that we should fix upon this worship of the
Virgin. But delivered, as we have been,
from the bondage of the Mid die- Age super
stitions ; with that narrative in our hands
which tells us how our Lord himself dealt
with Mary ; standing as we do, or ought to
do, in the full light of that great truth, that
" there is one God, and one Mediator between
God and men, the Man Christ Jesus," — it can
not but be matter of surprise, that this wor
ship of the Virgin should still prevail in so
many of the enlightened countries of Chris
tendom ; suggesting the reflection, how slowly
it is that the human spirit emancipates itself
from any natural, long-continued, and fondly
cherished superstition.
Keeping now the whole history of Mary's
previous connexion with our Lord before our
eye, and especially their intercourse during

THE MOTHER OF OUR LORD. 245
the three years of his public ministry, let us
dwell for a moment or two upon Christ's re
cognition of her from the cross. This affec
tionate recognition in his dying agonies, must
have been peculiarly grateful to Mary. His
departure from Nazareth, to which he seems
to have paid only one short visit afterwards ;
his separation from the members of his own
family ; his engrossment with the great ob
jects of his public fife; the checks he had
imposed upon her interference; the manner
in which he had publicly spoken of her ; all
these must have created something like a feel
ing of estrangement in Mary's breast, as if
he had ceased to be to her all that he once
was. How pleasing to her then to learn from
that look and speech of kindness, that his
love for her remained unchanged. How sooth
ing to her motherly affection to receive this
last, this parting token of his undying affec
tion for her ! She may banish all her fears,
bury all her suspicions ; that Son of hers, he
loves her still, loves her as he had ever done ;
be cannot die without assuring her of that

246 THE MOTHER OF OUR LORD.
love. But it is more than a simple expres
sion of affection that comes here from the
Redeemer's lips. There is a thoughtful care
for Mary's future earthly comfort, the secur
ing for her the attention of another son, the
providing for her the shelter of a new home.
The dying Jesus has present to his thoughts
the bereaved, the desolate condition in which
his death will leave his mother ; he will make
all the provision he can towards alleviating
her distress ; silver and gold he has none to
give her, but he has what silver and gold
could never buy, — a hold and power over the
heart of one who, if he be well described as
the disciple whom Jesus loved, might almost
as aptly be described as the disciple who
loved Jesus. That hold he will now exercise
on her behalf. " Woman, behold thy son !"
Woman, not mother: he might, upon this
occasion, have restrained himself from calling
her so, lest the very mention of her relation
ship to him should mark her out to that un
friendly crowd, and expose her to their ill-
treatment. He is but repeating, however, on

THE MOTHER OF OUR LORD. 247
the cross, the address of the marriage-feast —
" Woman, behold thy son !" Mary, perhaps
up to that moment, had cherished some hope
of his deliverance ; but at that word this hope
gives way ; she is to lose him ; he is to be her
Son no more ; that tie is to be broken, and a
new one created in its stead. A better, kinder
son than John, Jesus could not have provided ;
but, alas ! Mary feels that he can never fill
that Son's place ; still there is a great kind
ness in selecting such a substitute.
To John, no name, no epithet is applied ;
Jesus simply looks at him and says, " Behold
thy mother /" John had already been kind to
Mary, was at that moment doing what he
could to comfort her, would have cared for her,
though no special charge of this kind had been
given ; but a son's place, that son's place, he
could not have felt warranted to assume.
Now, however, when Jesus with his dying
breath calls upon him to occupy it, he counts
it as a high honor conferred upon him. He
undertakes the trust, and-proceeds to execute
it in the promptest and most delicate way.

248 THE MOTHER OF OOR LORD.
Was he but interpreting aright the look that
Jesus gave him, or was he only obeying an
impulse of thoughtful, son-fike affection in his
own breast? However it was, he saw that
Mary's strength was failing, that she was un
fit for the closing scene ; he instantly led her
away to his own home in the city. She was
not at the cross when the darkness descended ,
she was not there when the last and bitterest
agonies were borne. You search for her in
vain among the women who stood afar off be
holding to the last. By John's kind act of
instant withdrawal, she was saved what she
might not have had strength to bear; and
though that withdrawal was neither prescribed
nor suggested by our Lord himself, one can
well imagine with what a grateful look he
would follow that son as he discharged this
the first office of his new relationship ; how
pleased he too would be that a mother's heart
was spared the pangs of witnessing that suf
fering which drew from him the cry, "My
God ! my God ! why- hast thou forsaken me ?"
Mary showed the submissiveness of her dis-

THE MOTHER OF OUR LORD. 249
position in yielding to John's suggestion, and
retiring from the cross, and you never see her
but once again in the Gospel narrative.
Neither at the resurrection nor at the ascen
sion, nor during the forty days that inter
vened between them, is her name mentioned,
or does she appear. The one and only glance
we get of her is in the first chapter of the
Acts of the Apostles, where her name and
that of our Lord's brother, who had come
then to believe on him, are mentioned among
the hundred and twenty who, after the ascen
sion, continued in prayer and supplication,
waiting for the promise of the Spirit.
And now, in conclusion, in that love which
in his latest hours Jesus showed to Mary, let
us hail the great and perfect example of filial
affection he has left behind him. In that
mingling with the broader thoughts of a
world's redemption which must then have
occupied his thoughts, the thoughtful care for
her earthly comfort, let us see the evidence
of how essential a part of all true religion it
is to provide, as God enables us, for those

250 THE MOTHER OF OUR LORD
whom we leave behind us in this world. Let
no pretext of other and higher obligations
weaken within our breasts the sense of our
obligation to discharge this duty before we
die. From our Saviour's treatment of Mary let
us learn, too, to put in their right place, to
estimate according to their real worth, all
earthly, all external distinctions. To be the
mother of our Lord, that raised her above all
other women, — and we gladly join with all
vho, upon that ground, would call her blessed;
yet would we still more wish to join heart and
soul in our Lord's own saying, that " more
blessed is he who heareth the word of God,
and doeth it." To be the nearest herald, the
immediate harbinger of Jesus, that raised
John the Baptist above all the prophets, and
ranked him among the greatest of the children
of men. But yet there is another connexion
with Christ, higher and still more honorable — ¦
a connexion in comparison with which the
closest of mere external or official bonds sink
into absolute insignifi lance — that inward, that

THE MOTHER OF OUR :.ORD. 251
spiritual, that eternal tie which binds the
humble, contrite, trustful spirit to the Re
deemer. To be the least in his kingdom, to
be the least among those who truly love and
faithfully obey him, is a more enduring, a
more illustrious distinction than to be the
highest among those upon whom the honors
of this world are heaped. And let us bless
God for it, that this, the highest honor to
which humanity can be exalted, is one that
is within the reach of all. It cometh through
humility and faith and love ; it cometh
through the weight of our sin being felt, the
worth of our Redeemer being appreciated.
It cometh through our becoming as little chil
dren, and yielding ourselves up to those
gracious influences of the Divine Spirit, by
which alone the proud heart can be humbled,
and the doubtful heart be assured, and the
unloving heart be brought to love. It cometh
through the eye of faith being opened to dis
cern the closeness and the reality of the
unseen world, that world of spirits, whose
all-engulfing bosom, when a few more of these

252 THE MOTHER OF OUR LORD.
numbered years of ours on earth are over,
shall have received us all. It cometh from
our giving to all that concerns our spiritual
state, our spiritual welfare and preparation for
futurity, that predominance in our regards,
our affections, our lives, to which their inhe
rent, their surpassing worth, entitles them.
It springs from our caring less for the honor
that cometh from man, and more for that
honor which cometh from God only.
Finally, let us realize those relationships to
one another established in Christ our Lord,
which, in their closeness, their blessedness,
their enduringness, so far outmeasure all the
other relationships of this human life. Why
was John selected to take Christ's place, to
be a second son to Mary ? Why was Mary
so specially committed to his charge ? She
had other sons, upon whom the duty natur
ally devolved. They, indeed, as yet were
unbelievers ; and upon that ground might fitly
have been excluded. But were there not two
of her own sister's sons among the twelve ?
Why pass the sister and the nephews over.

THE MOTHER OF OUR LORD. 253
and select John to stand to her in this new
relationship? It may have been that John
was better placed than they, as to outward
circumstances abler to provide a home for the
bereaved; but can we doubt that another and
still weightier consideration determined the
Saviour's choice — the spiritual affinity be
tween John and Mary ; his capacity to enter
into all her sorrows ; his power by sympathy
to support ? And ties kindred to those which
bound John and Mary together, do they not
still bind together those whose hearts have
been taught to beat in unison, and who have
been formed to be mutual helps and comforts
amid the trials and bereavements of life ?
Thank God for it, if he has given you any
such support as Mary and John found in each
other ; and rejoice in the belief, that those
relationships which are grounded on and spring
out of our oneness in Jesus Christ, partake not
of the mutability of this earthly scene, but,
destined to outlive it, are impressed with the
seal of eternity.

X.
Me §mtou&$ awd the §emtim*
The full, bright sun of an eastern sky has
been looking down on what these men are
doing who have nailed Jesus to the cross, and
are standing mocking and gibing him. The
mid-day hour has come ; when suddenly there
falls a darkness which swallows up the light,
and hangs a funeral pall around the cross : —
no darkness of an eclipse — that could not be
as the moon then stood — no darkness which
any natural cause whatever can account for.
As we think of it, many questions rise to
which no answer can now be given. Did it
come slowly on, deepening and deepening till
it reached its point of thickest gloom ? or was
* Mark xv. 33. 34

THE DARKNESS AND THE DESERTION. 255
it, as we incline to believe, as instantaneous
in its entrance as its exit : at the sixth hour,
covering all in a moment with its dark mantle ;
at the ninth hour, in a moment lifting that
mantle off? Was it total or partial : a dark
ness deep as that of moonless, starless mid
night, wrapping the cross so thickly round,
that not the man who stood the nearest to it
could see aught of the sufferer ? Or was it
the darkness of a hazy twilight obscuring but
not wholly concealing, which left the upraised
form of the Redeemer dimly visible through
the gloom? Was it local and limited, con
fined to Jerusalem or Judea ; or did it spread
over the entire enlightened portion of the
globe ? We cannot tell. We may say of it,
and say truly, that it was inanimate nature,
supplying, in her mute elements, that sym
pathy with her suffering Lord which was de
nied by man. Men gazed rudely on the sight,
but the sun refused to look on it, hiding his
face for a season. Men would leave the Cru
cified, exposed in shame and nakedness, to
lie ; but an unseen hand was stretched forth

256 THE DARKNESS AND
to draw the drapery of darkness around the
sufferer, and hide him from vulgar gaze.
But the truest and deepest significance of
this darkness is as a type or emblem of the
horror of that great darkness which at this
period enveloped the spirit of the Redeemer.
The outer incidents, if there were any, of
those three hours of darkness, remain untold.
We are left only to believe that its sudden
descent wrought like a spell upon the actors
and spectators ; it stopped each wagging head,
it silenced each gibing tongue ; not a word
seems to have been spoken, not a thing done ;
there they stood, or there they lay, with that
spell upon them, wondering what this dark
ness meant. We can easily enough imagine
what they may have fancied or felt during
that strange period of suspense ; but who can
imagine what He was thinking of, how He,
the Saviour, was feeling in that dread and
awful interval ? No eye perhaps may have
pierced the outer darkness that shrouded his
suffering body ; still less may any human eye
penetrate that deeper darkness which shrouded

THE DESERTION. 257
his suffering soul. We are left here without
a single external index ; not a look, a word,
an act, to tell us what was going on within
the Redeemer's spirit, — till the ninth hour
came, the moment which preceded the rolling
away of the darkness, and the return of the
clear shining of the day, and then the only
sound that strikes the ear is the agonizing
cry — " My God, my God ! why hast thou for
saken me ?" — a cry wrung, as it were, from
the sufferer's fips, when the severe agony of
his soul has reached its last, its culminating,
its closing point ; a cry which, revealing some
what of the interior of the burdened heart
from which it springs, leaves still more unre-
vealed ; a cry which, after we have listened
to it, and pondered it, and turned it over and
over again in our thoughts, seems to grow
darker instead of brighter to our eye, and of
which we become at last convinced that it
was the simple, spontaneous, irrepressible,
outcry of a spirit tried to the last limit
of endurance ; the expression of what must

258 THE DARKNESS AND
for ever remain to us an indescribable, unfa
thomable, unimaginable woe.
It would strip, indeed, this cry of the suf
fering Saviour of all difficulty and mystery,
could we look upon him as a man, and no
thing more ; could we look upon him in dying
as subject to the same mental and spiritual,
as well as bodily weakness with any of our
selves ; could we believe that such doubts
and fears as have eclipsed the faith, and dark
ened for a time the hopes of other dying men,
had place within his breast ; could we inter
pret this saying as the utterance of a momen
tary despondency, a transient despair. We
are disposed to go the utmost length in attri
buting to the humanity of our Lord all the
sinless frailties of our nature ; and had we
seen him struggling in agony through the
tedious death-throes of dissolution, the sink
ing body drawing the sinking spirit down
along with it, and draining it of all its
strength, — had it been from a spirit enfeebled
to the uttermost, its very powers of thought
and apprehension, of faith and feeling, faint-

THE DESERTION. 259
ing, failing, that this sad lament proceeded,
we can scarcely tell whether or not it would
have been inconsistent with a right estimate of
the humanity of Jesus to attribute to him
such a momentary oppression under doubt and
fear as should have forced this exclamation
from his lips, prompted by his obscured per
ception of his personal relationship with the
Father. It stands, however, in the way of our re
ceiving any such interpretation of this say
ing, that it came from one whose intellect was
so clear and unclouded that the moment after
it was uttered he could reflect on all he had
to say or do in order that the Scripture might
be fulfilled, and whose bodily powers were so
far from being reduced to the last extremity
of weakness, that it was " with a loud voice,"
betokening a vigor as yet unexhausted, that
he uttered the despairing cry.
Besides, we have only to look back upon
the few days that preceded the crucifixion, to
find evidence that there mingled with the suf
ferings which Christ endured upon the cross

260 THE DARKNESS AND
an element altogether different from the com
mon pains of dying. On one of the last days
of his teaching in the temple, certain Greeks
desired to see him. Their earnest request
sounded to his prophetic ear like the entreaty
of the entire Gentile world. It threw him
into a subfime reverie of thought. Bright
visions of a distant future, when all men
should be drawn unto him, rose before his
eye ; but with them the vision of a future
even then at hand, — of his being lifted up
upon the cross. A sudden change comes over
his spirit. He ceases to think of, to speak
with man. His eye closes upon the crowd
that stands around. He is alone with the
Father. A dark cloud wraps his spirit. He
fears as he enters it. From the bosom of the
darkness there comes an agitated voice :
" 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. Father,
glorify thy name ;"• — some deep, inward
trouble of the heart, a shrinking from it, a cry
for deliverance, a meek submission to the

THE DESERTION, 261
Divine will. You have all these repeated in
order, and with greater intensity in the Gar
den of Gethsemane : " My soul is exceeding
sorrowful, even unto death. 0 my Father, if
it be possible, let this cup pass from me :
nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt."
Here, once more, there is the agony, the
shrinking, the petition, the acquiescence.
What so troubled Jesus in the Temple ?
what threw him into that bloody sweat in the
Garden ? what drew from him these strong
cryings for deliverance ? Can any one be
lieve that it was the mere prospect of dying
upon a cross which thus shook his spirit to
the very centre ? To believe so, were to de
grade him beneath a level to which multitudes
of his followers have risen. Deaths far more
formidable, more protracted, more excruciat
ing, they have contemplated beforehand with
unruffled composure, and endured with un
shrinking fortitude. Shall the disciple be
greater than the master ? No ; there was
something more in that hour for which Jesus
came into this world, something more in that

262 THE DARKNESS AND
cup which he took into his trembling hands,
than the mere bitterness of apprehended dis
solution. He has himself taught us, by the
language which he employed, to identify the
hour and the cup. He has taught us, too,
that this hour was on him in the Temple ;
this cup was there raised by him to his lips.
The same hour was on him in the Garden ;
of the same cup he there drank large and
bitter draughts. It was that same hour
which came upon him on the cross, to run out
its course during the supernatural darkness ;
it was that same cup which he took once more
into his hands, to drain to the very dregs.
Here also, as in the Temple, in the Garden,
you have the same features, — the conflict, the
recoil, the victory. Perhaps the inward
trouble and agony of his soul reached a some
what higher pitch on Calvary than in Geth
semane : that bitter cry — " My God, my
God ! why hast thou forsaken me ?" — sounds
to our ear as coming from a profounder depth
of woe than any into which Jesus had ever
sunk before ; but in source and in character

THE DESERTION. 263
the sorrow of the Saviour's spirit was in each
of the three instances the same — a purely
mental or spiritual grief, unconnected in two
of these cases with any bodily endurance,
and, in the third, carefully to be distinguished
from those pains of dissolution with which it
mingled. Whence did that grief arise ? what were
its elements ? how came it to be so accumu
lated and condensed, and to exert such a
pressure upon the spirit of our Redeemer, as
to force from him those prayers in the Gar
den, this exclamation on the cross ? It was
because he stood as our great Head and Rep
resentative, and suffered in our room and
stead : " He was wounded for our transgres
sions, he was bruised for our iniquities ;" he
made " his soul an offering for sin ;" " he
died the just for the unjust, to bring us to
God." The testimony of the Scriptures to
the vicarious, sacrificial, atoning character of
the sufferings and death of Christ, is clear,
emphatic, multiform, and unambiguous. But
when we go beyond the simple statements of

264 THE DARKNESS AND
the Inspired Record, and, admitting the gieat
fact of the Atonement, inquire into the how
and the wherefore of that fact, — resolved to
accept implicitly all that the Scriptures teach,
but equally resolved not to go beyond its
teaching, nor add any theories of our own to
its simple and impressive lessons, — we feel
ourselves on the borders of a region, too re
mote, too mysterious, for eyes like ours fully
and accurately to survey.
Let us, however, that we may catch a dis
tant sight of one inner fountain of our Re
deemer's sufferings, approach it by a path
which, for some distance at least, is not ob
scure. It is said in Scripture that Christ
bore our sins in his own body on the tree ; it
is said, also, that he bore our griefs, and car
ried our sorrows. Our griefs he bore by
sympathy ; our sorrows he carried by enter
ing into them and making them his own.
That central heart of love and pity opened
itself, at every point, to all the forms and
varieties of human woe. Its sympathy stood
free from all those restraints that lie upon

THE DESERTION. 265
ours. Our ignorance, our selfishness, our
coldness, our incapacity for more than a few
intense affections, narrow and weaken the
sympathy we feel. But he knows all, can
feel for all ; so that not a pang of grief wrings
any human bosom but sends an answering
thrill through the loving, pitying heart of our
Divine Redeemer. Human sympathy, too,
deepens, takes a peculiar character, a peculiar
tenderness, according to the closeness and
dearness of the tie which binds us to the suf
ferer. A mother's fellow-feeling with a suffer
ing child is something very different from
what any stranger can experience. And it is
not simply as one of us, as a brother man,
that Jesus feels for us in our sorrows. It is
as one who has finked himself to our race, or
rather has linked our race to him by a tie the
nature and force of which we are fittle capa
ble of understanding. Only we may say,
that parent was never bound to .child, nor
child to parent, in a bond so close as that
which binds Jesus Christ and those whom he
came to redeem. It would need his own om-

266 THE DARKNESS AND
niscience to fathom the depth and intensity
imparted to his sympathy by the pecufiarity
of that relationship in which it has pleased
him to place himself to his own.
Now, Christ's is as much the central con
science as the central heart of humanity.
Conceive him entering into a connexion with
human sin, kindred to that into which he
enters with human sorrow, realizing to him
self, as he only could, its extent, its invet
eracy, its malignity : in this way taking on
him all our sins, and letting the full impres
sion of their inherent turpitude, their ruinous
results, fall upon his spirit, — who shall calcu
late for us the bulk and weight of that bur
den which might thus come to be borne by
him? Once, in a Jewish synagogue, he
looked round upon a small company of men,
and he was grieved because of the hardness
of their hearts. Let us imagine that grief
amplified and intensified to the uttermost by
our Lord's taking upon himself the sin of the
world. Let all the hardness of all men's
hearts, all the hard speeches that ungodly

THE DESERTIOJN. 267
sinners have spoken, the ungodly deeds they
have done ; let all the impurity, and in
justice, and cruelty, and profanity, and im
piety which have been perpetrated under
these heavens — of which the enmity and
malignity which nailed him to the cross might
be taken as a specimen and index; let all
that vast accumulation of human iniquity be
conceived of as- present to the Redeemer's
thoughts, appropriated and realized by him as
the iniquity of those to whom he had linked
himself by a bond of closest fellowship, of
undying, unquenchable love ; let all the sins
of that world he came to save gather in and
press down upon the pure and holy and loving
spirit of the man Christ Jesus : — Do we not
get a dim and distant sight of a fountain of
woe thus opened within, sufficient to send
forth waters of bitterness which might well-
nigh overwhelm his soul, putting his capacity
to suffer to an extreme trial ?
Further still, may we not imagine that as
he made thus the sins of our sinful world his
own, and thought and dwelt upon that holi-

268 THE DARKNESS AND
ness of God, upon which they were such ter
rible invasions ; the wrath of the Holy One,
which they had so thoroughly deserved, and
so deeply had provoked ; the separation from
God, the banishment from his presence, the
death they did so righteously entail ; that, in
the very fulness of that love and sympathy
which made him identify himself with us men
for our salvation, the horror of such a dark
ness settled over the mind of the Redeemer
that the face even of his heavenly Father for
a moment seemed obscured, that its smile
seemed changed into a frown, that the mo
mentary apprehension seized him that in him
self that death, that separation from the
Father, was about to be realized, so that from
his oppressed, bewildered, faltering manhood,
there came forth the cry, " My God, my God !
why hast thou forsaken me ?"
Let us not forget that there was not, indeed
could not be — the nature of the connexion
forbade it — any absolute or entire desertion
of the Son by the Father. " Therefore," said
Jesus, " doth my Father love me, because I

THE DESERTION. 269
lay down my life for the sheep." Could that
love be withdrawn from Jesus when he was
in the very act of laying down his life ?
" This," said the Father, " is my beloved Son,
in whom I am well pleased." Was there ever
a time at which he was more pleased with
him than when he was offering himself up in
that sacrifice so acceptable to God ? Nor does
the Son ever entirely lose his hold of the
Father. Even in this moment of amazement
and oppression it is still to God, as his God,
that he speaks : " My God ! my God ! why
hast thou forsaken me !" It was the sensible
comfort only of the Divine presence and favor
which were for the time withdrawn ; the felt
inflowings of the Divine love which were for
the time checked. But what a time of agony
must that have been to him who knew, as none
other could, what it was to bask in the light
of his Father's countenance; who felt, as
none other could, that his favor indeed was
life ! On us, — so little do we know or feel
what it is to be forsaken by God, — the
thought of it, or sense of it, may make but a

270 THE DARKNESS AND
slight impression, produce but fittle heartfelt
misery ; but to him it was the consummation
and the concentration of all woe, beyond which
there was and could be no deeper anguish for
the soul.
I have thus presented to you but a single
side, as it were, of that sorrow unto death
which rent the bosom of the Redeemer, as he
was offering himself a sacrifice for us upon
the cross. Perhaps it is the side which lies
nearest to us, and is most open to our com
prehension. Certainly it is one the looking
at which believingly is fitted to tell power
fully on our consciences and hearts — to make
us feel the exceeding sinfulness of our sin,
and set us hopefully and trustfully to struggle
with the temptations that beset our path.
In a household which enjoyed all the bene
fits of high culture and Christian care, one of
the children committed a grievous and unex
pected fault ; he told a falsehood to cover a
petty theft; rebuke and punishment were
administered, carried farther than they had
ever been before, but without effect. The

THE DESERTION. 271
offender was not awakened to any real or deep
sorrow for his offence. The boy's insensibil
ity quite overcame his father. Sitting in the
same room with his obstinate and sullen child,
he bent his head upon his hands, and, sob
bing, burst into a flood of tears. For a mo
ment or two the boy looked on in wonder ; he
then crept gradually nearer and nearer to his
sobbing parent, and at last got up upon his
father's knees, asking, in a low whisper, why
it was that he was weeping so. He was told
the reason. It wrought like a spell upon his
young heart ; the sight of his father suffering
so bitterly on his account was more than he
could bear. He flung his fittle arms around
his father, and wept along with him. That
father never needed to correct his child again
for any like offence. And surely, if, in that
great sorrow which overwhelmed the spirit of
our Redeemer on the cross, there mingled, as
one of its ingredients, a grief like, in origin
and character, to that which wrung this
father's heart, and melted his child to peni
tence, the sight and thought of it ought to

272 THE DARKNESS AND
exert a kindred power over those for whom
Jesus died.
A younger son is guilty of a great offence
against his father. His elder brother, in act
ing the part of a mediator between the offend
ing child and his offended parent, might volun
tarily submit to the exact and the full pun
ishment which his younger brother had
deserved, — by doing so might turn away the
father's wrath, and earn the title to a brother's
gratitude. But what if the offender sees his
elder brother, at the pure and simple impulse
of love, melted into a profound and heart
breaking grief, yearning over him, weeping
over him, ^aking on himself a suffering far
more acute than that which the lash of pa
rental discipline might righteously have in
flicted on the offender, would not the sight of
the pain that his conduct had given one who
loved him so tenderly, tell most powerfully in
the way of quickening him to a sense of hi&
wrong-doing? Transfer this to our Elder
Brother, the Mediator with our offended
Father in heaven. The exact punishment

THE DESERTION. 273
which our sin entails — remorse, despair, the
sting of a torturing conscience, the felt abid
ing misery of a soul cut off from the Divine
favor — Jesus could not literally bear. He
has, indeed, borne that for us which has satis
fied the Divine justice, and been accepted as
a full and adequate atonement for our trans
gression ; but may it not have been that the
suffering in our room and stead, which was
accepted of the Father, was part of the suffer
ing which our great sin and his gi'eat love
drew down on him, who, by linking himself
to us by the tie of a common humanity, laid a
brother's heart open to such a sorrow for our
sin as none but the Eternal Son of the Father
could have endured ? Surely, in the conside
ration that it was in such kind of suffering
with and for our sins that the great Atone
ment of the cross, in a measure at least, con
sisted, there is one of the most direct and
powerful of appeals, — one singularly fitted to
touch, to soften, to subdue.
I am very conscious how little anything
which has as yet been said is fitted to throw
11

274 THE DARKNESS AND THE DESERTION.
full or satisfactory light upon that most mys
terious of all the mysterious sayings of our
Lord — the plaintive, lonely, loud, and bitter
cry which emanated from the cross, which,
piercing the overhanging darkness, was heard
with wonder in the heavens. It came out of
the depth of an anguish that we have no
plummet in our hand to sound ; and we be
come only the more conscious how unfathom
able that depth is, by trying it here and
there with the fine of our short-reaching in
tellect. Instead of hoping to find the bot
tom anywhere, let us pause upon the brink ;
adoring, wondering, praising that great love
of our most gracious Saviour, which has a
height and a depth, a length and a breadth
in it, surpassing all human, all angelic mea
surement : —
" Oh, never, never canst thou know
What then for thee the Saviour bore,
The pangs of that mysterious woe
Which wrung his bosom's inmost core.
Yes, man for man perchance may bravo
The horrors of the yawning grave ;
And friend for friend, or son for sire,
Undaunted ana unmoved expire,
From love, or piety, or pride ;
But who can die as Jesus died '"

XI.
" it tg mme&.:'*
With the arrival, of the ninth hour, the
outer darkness cleared away, and with it too
the horrors of that inner darkness, from whose
troubled bosom the cry at last came forth,
" My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me ?" That mental agony, one of whose in
gredients — perhaps to us the most intelligible
— I endeavored last Sunday to describe, had
been endured. The hour for which he came
into the world has run its course; the cup
which with such a trembling hand he had put
to shrinking fips, has been drunk to its dregs ;
the powers of darkness have made on him
their last assault, and been repelled ; the mo-
* Matt, xxvii. 4T-50 ¦ Mark xv. 35-31 ; Luke xxiii. 46 ; John
six. 28-30

276 "IT IS FINISHED."
mentary darkness of his Father's countenance
has passed away. As the sun of nature dis
pels the gloom that for these three hours had
hung around the scene, and sheds once more
his illuminating beams upon the cross; even
so the light of an answering inward joy comes
to cheer in death the spirit of our Redeemer.
It is not in darkness, whether outward or
inward, — not in darkness, but in light, in full,
clear, unclouded fight, that Jesus dies.
The first, however, and immediate effect of
the lifting from his oppressed and burdened
heart that load "of inward grief which had
been laid upon it, was a reviving conscious
ness of his bodily condition, the awakening of
the sensation of a burning thirst. Let the
spirit be thoroughly absorbed by any very
strong emotion, and the bodily sensations are
for the time unfelt or overborne, they fail to
attract notice ; but let the tide of that over
whelming emotion retreat, and these sensa
tions once more exert their power. In the
shock of battle, the excited combatant may
receive his death-wound, and be unconscious

"IT IS FINISHED." 277
of pain. It is when they lay him down in
quiet to die, that exhausted nature betrays a
sense of suffering. So it is, after a manner,
here with Christ. His lips scarce feel their
parchedness as they utter the cry, " My God,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me ?" Too
full, too agitated, is the soul within, to be
keenly alive to bodily sensations. But now
that the relief from inward agony has come,
the cravings of nature return, and first among
these the strong desire for something to alle
viate the thirst. This thirst, however, so far
from entirely engrossing his thoughts, serves
but to suggest to the dying Saviour — and this
shows, as we before remarked, how clear and
calm and self-possessed he was to the very
last — that among all the numerous prophecies
which had spoken of the time and manner of
his decease, of his being numbered with trans
gressors, of the shaking of heads, and the
shooting out of tongues, the parting of his
garments, the casting lots for his vesture,
there still was one* about their giving him in
* See Psalm lxix.

278 "IT IS FINISHED."
his thirst vinegar to drink, which remained to
to be fulfilled. As being, then, at once the
natural expression of the feeling of the mo
ment, and the means of bringing about the
fulfilment of that prophecy, " Jesus said, I
thirst." In saying so, he made an appeal to the sym
pathy of his crucifiers, in the belief that they
would offer him some of that sour wine, or
vinegar which was the ordinary drink of the
Roman soldiers. Did Jesus know how that
appeal would be met and answered ? We
cannot but believe he did ; and if so, it stands
out as at once the last act in point of time,
and one of the lowest in point of degree, of
that humiliation before men to which it
pleased him to stoop, that he addressed him
self as a petitioner to those who treated his
petition as they did. Let us try to realize
what happened around the cross immediately
after the departure of the three hours' dark
ness. One might have expected that the
natural awe which that darkness had undoubt/-
edly inspired ; the moaning cry, as from one

"IT IS FINISHED." 279
deserted, that came from the cross, as it was
rolling away ; the fresh sight of Jesus, upon
whose pallid features there lingered the traces
of his terrible agony ; and, last of all, his
asking of them to drink, — would have con
spired to awaken pity, or at least to silence
scorn. The coming back, however, of the
light — relieving, perhaps, a dread they might
have felt that in the darkness Jesus should
escape or be delivered — seems to have rekin
dled that fiendish malignity which now found
a last and most demoniac way of expressing
itself. "Eli! Eli!" — no Jew could possibly
misunderstand the words, or imagine that they
were a call to Elias for help. The Roman
soldiers did not know enough about Elias to
have fallen on any such interpretation. That
the words were taken up, played upon by the
bystanders, and turned into a new instru
ment of mockery, shows to what a fiendish
length of heartless, pitiless contempt and
scorn such passions as those of these Scribes
and Pharisees, if unrestrained, will go. One,
indeed, of those around the cross appears to

280 "IT IS FINISHED."
have been touched with momentary pity,
perhaps a Roman soldier, who, when he heard
Jesus say, "I thirst," and looked upon his
pale, parched fips, ran and took a stalk of
hyssop. From what we know of the size of
the plant, this stalk could not have been much
above two feet long, but it was long enough
to reach the lips of Jesus, the feet of a person
crucified not being ordinarily elevated more
than a foot or two above the ground. This
circumstance explains to us how close to the
crucified the soldiers must have stood ; how
near many of the outstanding crowd may
have been ; how natural and easy it was for
Jesus to speak to Mary and John as he did.
To that stalk of hyssop the man attached a
sponge, and, dipping it in the vessel of vine
gar, that stood at hand, was putting it to the
Saviour's lips, when the mocking crowd cried
out, " Let be ; let us see whether Elias will
come to save him." This did not stop him
from giving Jesus, in his thirst, vinegar to
drink. The ancient prophecy he must uncon
sciously fulfil ; but it did serve to half-extin-

"IT IS FINISHED," 281
guish the prompting upon whiclr he had be
gun to act, and induce him to take up into his
own lips, and to repeat the current mockery,
" Let us see whether Elias will come to take
him down."
When Jesus had received the vinegar, he
said, "It is finished !" It does not fall in with
the character or purpose of these Lectures,
intended to be as purely as possible exposi
tory, to take up this memorable expression of
our dying Lord, and use it as a text out of
which a full exposition of the doctrine of the
Cross might be derived. Rather, as being
more in accordance with our present design,
let us endeavor to conceive of, and to enter
into, as far as it is possible, the spirit and
meaning of the expression as employed by our
Lord upon the cross.
First, then, as coming at this time from the
Saviour's hips, it betokens an inward and deep
sensation of relief, repose ; relief from a
heavy burden; repose after a toilsome labor.
To the bearing of that burden, the endurance
of that toil, Jesus had long and anxiously

282 "IT IS FINISHED."
looked forward. From that time, if time it
may be called, when he undertook the high
office of the Mediatorship, — from the begin
ning, even from everlasting, through the vista
of the future, the cross of his last agony had
risen up before his all-seeing eye, as the object
towards which, notwithstanding the dark
shadows cast before it, the thought of his
spirit stretched forward. In what manner
and with what feeling it was regarded by him
in the period which preceded his incarnation,
it becomes us not to speak, as we have no
means of judging ; but we can mark how he
felt regarding it after he became a man.
In the earlier period of his ministry, Christ
practised a strict reserve in speaking of his
death. In spite, however, of that self-imposed
restraint, broken hints were ever and anon
dropping from his lips, sounding quite strange
and enigmatical in the ears to which they
were addressed. "I have a baptism," said
he to his disciples, " to be baptized with, and
how am I straitened till it be accomplished !"
When near the end of his ministry, the

"IT IS FINISHED." 283
necessity for reserve was removed, Jesus
spoke openly about his coming death, and
always in such a way as to convey the very
deepest impression of the profound interest
with which he himself contemplated before
hand that great event. So eagerly did he
look forward to it, so striking an influence
had that prospect even upon his outward as
pect and movements, that when for the last
time, he set his face to go up to Jerusalem,
and all the things that were to happen to him
there came rushing into his mind, he " went
before" the twelve, as if impatient to get for
ward. They were amazed, we are told, as he
did so ; and as they followed him, and gazed
upon him, they were afraid. The reason of
this rapid gait and strange expression he re
vealed, when he took them apart by the way,
and told them what his thoughts had been
dwelling on. There was but one occasion on
which he could freely and intelligibly speak
out the sentiments of his heart : it was when
he stood with Moses and Elias on the mount,
and there, even when invested with the glories

284 «IT IS FINISHED."
of transfiguration, the decease which he was
to accomplish at Jerusalem was the one chosen
topic of discourse. As the time drew near,
still oftener was that great decease before his
thoughts ; still heavier did its impending
weight appear to press upon his spirit. It
was not, it could not be any mere ordinary
human death that so occupied the thoughts
of Jesus Christ. We endeavored in our last
Lecture to make it apparent to you that the
true, the real sufferings of that death lay in
another, far deeper region than that to which
the ordinary pangs of bodily dissolution be
long; and we cannot but believe that that
internal conflict, that inner agony of soul, re
served for the last days and hours of our Re
deemer's life, was broken, as it were, into
parts, distributed between the Temple, the
Garden, the Cross, for the very purpose of
making it palpable, even to the eye of the
ordinary observer, that the sufferings of the
Redeemer's soul formed, as has been well
said, the very soul of his sufferings. And
when those mysterious sufferings, so long

"IT IS FINISHED." 285
looked forward to, at last were over, the load
borne and lifted off, with what a deep inward
feeling of relief, repose, must Jesus have said,
" It is finished !" '
Secondly, Connecting this expression with
what went so immediately before — our Lord's
remembrance of all that was needful to be
done to him and by him in dying, in order
that the Scriptures might be fulfilled — it may
reasonably be assumed that he meant thereby
to declare the final close and completion of
that long series of types and prophecies of
his death which crowd the pages of the Old
Testament Scriptures. In the very number
and variety of these types and prophecies,
another attestation meets our eye to the pre
eminent importance of that event to which
they point. If you take the twenty-four hours
which embrace the last night and day of the
Redeemer's life, you will "find that more fre
quent and more minute pre-intimations of
what occurred throughout their course are to
be found in the prophetic pages, than of what
happened in any other equal period in the his-

286 "IT IS FINISHED"
tory of our globe. The seemingly trifling
character of some of the incidents which are
made the subjects of prophecy at first sur
prises us ; but that surprise changes into won
der as we perceive that they fix our attention
upon the death of Jesus Christ, as the central
incident of this world's strange history, the
one around which the whole spiritual govern
ment of this earth revolves. By all those
promises and prophecies, those typical persons
and typical events and typical services, — the
raising of the altar, the slaying of the sacri
fice, the institution of the priesthood, the ark,
with its broken tables and sprinkled mercy-
seat, the Passover, the great day of atone
ment, the passage of the High Priest within
the veil ; — by the voice of God himself speak
ing, in the first promise, about the seed of the
woman, and the bruising of his heel ; by the
wonderful Psalms of David, in which the gen
eral description of the suffering righteous man
passes into those minute details which were
embodied in the Crucifixion; by those rapt
utterances of Isaiah, some portions of which

"IT IS FINISHED." 287
read now more like histories of the past than
intimations of the future, — the eye of this
world's hope was turned to that event before
hand, as backward to it the eye of the world's
faith has ever since been directed.
But, Thirdly, that we may make our way
into the very heart of its meaning, does not
the expression, " It is finished," suggest the
idea of a prescribed, a distinct, a definite work,
brought to a final, satisfactory, and triumph
ant conclusion ? Spoken in no boastful spirit,
it is the language of one who, having had a
great commission given him, a great task as
signed, announces that the commission has
been executed, the task fulfilled. Taking it
as the simple announcement of the fact, that
some great transaction was brought to its con
summation, we ask ourselves, as we contem
plate the entire circle of the Redeemer's
services to our race, still running out their
course, what part of these services was it of
which it could be said that it was then finished?
Here, in the foreground, we have to put that
one and perfect sacrifice which he offered up

288 «IT IS FINISHED."
for the sin of the world. Through the Eter
nal Spirit, he offered himself without spot to
God, and by that one sacrifice for sin, once
for all, he hath perfected for ever those that
are sanctified ; he hath done all that was
needed to atone for human guilt, to redeem us
from the curse of the law, to finish transgres
sion, to "make an end of sin, to make recon
ciliation for iniquity.
But again, Christ's death upon the cross
brought to a close that obedience to the Di
vine law, that_ perfect fulfilment of all the
righteousness which it required ; held out to
us as the ground upon which we are to find
immediate and full acceptance with our Maker.
"As by one man's disobedience many were
made sinners ; so by the obedience of one
shall many be made righteous." " He made
him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we
might be made the righteousness of God in
him." " For all have sinned, and come short
of the glory of God : being justified freely by
his grace, through the redemption that is in
Christ Jesus ; whom God hath set forth to be

"IT IS FINISHED." 289
a propitiation through faith in his blood, to
declare his righteousness for the remission of
sins that are past ; to declare, I say, at this
time his righteousness ; that he might be just,
and the justifier of him which believeth in
Jesus." Further still — though embraced indeed in
the two particulars of the sufferings and ser
vices of the Redeemer already mentioned —
there was finished upon the cross the new, the
full, the wonderful revelation of the Father,
that unbosoming of the Eternal, the opening
up to us of the very heart of the Godhead,
the exhibition of the mingled love and holi
ness of our Father who is in heaven. There
was completed then that glorious, that attract
ive, that subduing manifestation of the love
of God for sinful men, which carried the Di
vine Being to the extreme length of suffering
and of self-sacrifice, and which has ever
formed the most powerful of all instruments
for pacifying the conscience, melting the heart,
moulding the character, renewing and sancti
fying the will. 13

290 "IT IS FINISHED."
Whether, then, he looked up to God, and
thought of his having glorified his name,
finished the work thai had been given him to
do ; or whether he looked down to man, and
thought of the saving power which his cross
was to exert over millions upon millions of
the human family, it may well have been to
Jesus Christ a moment of intensest joy
when — his last pang endured, his last service
rendered, his strictly vicarious work com
pleted — he exclaimed, " It is finished !"
To Jesus Christ alone was given that joy
in dying which springs from the knowledge
that all the ends of living and dying had
been perfectly answered. Looking upon the
career he had pursued, he could see not a
single blot nor blank space in the whole. Of
what other man, cut off as he was in the
midst of his years, could the same be said ?
When good and great men die in the full flush
of their manhood, the full vigor of their
powers, we are apt to mourn the untimely
stroke that has laid them low, that has cut
short so many of the undertakings they were

"IT IS FINISHED." 291
engaged in, deprived the world of so much
service that it was in their heart to have ren
dered. Nor can any such look back upon the
past without this humbling feeling in the
retrospect, that many an offence has been
committed, many a duty left imperfectly dis
charged. But for us there is no place for
mourning, as we contemplate the death of our
Redeemer, which came to close the one and
only life which, stainless throughout its every
hour, did so thoroughly and to the last degree
of the Divine requirement accomplish all that
had been intended. And for him it was as if
the cup of bitterness having been drunk, the
cry of agony as he drained the last drop of it
having been uttered, there was given to him,
even before he died, to taste a single drop of
that other cup — that cup of full ecstatic bliss,
which the contemplation of the travail of his
soul, of the glory it rendered to the Father,
the good it did to man, shall never cease to
yield. But to what practical use are we to turn
this declaration of our dying Saviour ? He

292 "IT IS FINISHED.'*
rested complacently, gratefully, exultingly in
the thought that his work for us was finished.
Shall we not try to enter into the full mean
ing of this great saying ? Shall we not try,
in the way in which it becomes us, to enter
with him into that same rest ? For the for
giveness, then, of all our sins, for our accept
ance with a holy and righteous God, let us
put our sole, immediate, and entire trust upon
this finished work of our Redeemer ; let us
believe, that whatever obstacles our guilt
threw in the way of our being received back
into the Divine favor, have been removed ;
that whatever the holiness of the lawgiver,
and the integrity of his law, and the moral
interests of his government required in the
way of atonement or expiation, has been ren
dered. Let us look upon the way of access
to God as lying quite open to us ; let us take
the pardon ; let us enter into peace with
God ; let us bring all our guilt and bury it
in the depths of his atonement. Let us lay
hold of the righteousness of Christ, and clothe
ourselves with it in the Divine presence ; and

"IT IS FINISHED." 293
regarding the reconciliation with God, effected
by the death of his dear Son, as only the
first step or stage of the Christian salvation,
let us throw open our whole mind and heart
to the blessed influences that Christ's love,
his life, his sufferings, his death, his entire
example were intended to exert in making us
less selfish, more loving, more dutiful, more
thankful, more submissive, more holy.
There still remain, for one or two brief
remarks, these last words of our Redeemer, — ¦
" Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit."
The words are borrowed from one of the
Psalms. Jesus dies with a passage of the
old Hebrew Scriptures on his lips, only he
prefaces the words by the epithet so familiar
to his lips and heart, " Father." In the
depth of his bitter anguish, under the dark
ness of momentary desolation, he had dropped
this phrase. It had been then, " My God,
my God !" But now, once more, in the fight
that shines within, around, he resumes it, and
he says, " Father, into thy hands I commit
my spirit." If the saying which went before,

294 "IT IS FINISHED."
" It is finished," be taken, as it well may be,
as Christ's last word of farewell to the world
he leaves behind, this may be taken as his
first word of greeting to the new world that
he is about to enter. New world, we say, for
though, as the Eternal Son, he was but re
turning to the glory that he had with the
Father before the world was, let us not forget
that death was to the humanity of the Lord,
— as it will be to each and all of us, — an en
trance upon a new and untried state. It
seems to us as if, in these last words of our
Elder Brother, it was that nature of ours he
wore which breathed itself forth in our hear
ing ; that human nature which, when the hour
of departure comes, looks out with trembling
solicitude into the world of spirits, seeking
for some one there into whose hands the de
parting spirit may confidingly commit itself.
In the " It is finished," the voice of the great
High Priest, the Eternal Son of the Father,
predominates. In the " Father, into thy
hands I commit my spirit," is it not the voice
of the man Christ Jesus that mainly salutes

"IT IS FINISHED." 295
our ear ? No timidity, indeed, nor fear, nor
any such trembling awe as any of us might
fitly feel in dying. Nothing of these ; not a
shadow of them here ; yet certainly solemnity,
concern, the sense as of a need of some sup
port, some upbearing hand. And shall we
not thank our Saviour, that not only has he
made the passage before us, and opened for
us, in doing so, the gate to eternal fife, but
taught us, by his own example, not to wonder
if our weak human nature, as it stands upon
the brink, should look out with an eager soli
citude to find the hands into which, in mak
ing the great transition, it may throw itself?
And where shall we find those hands ? He
found them in the hands of that Father, who
at all times had been so well pleased with
him. We find them in his hands who went
thus before us to his Father and our Father,
to his God and our God. He too found them
there who has left us the earliest example
how a true Christian may and ought to die.
Considering the small number of the Lord's
disciples, we may believe that Stephen was

296 "IT IS FINISHED."
not only the first of the Christian martyrs, but
actually the first after the crucifixion who fell
asleep in Jesus. Can we doubt that in dying
the last words of Jesus were in Stephen's
memory ? There had been too many points of
resemblance between his own and his Master's
trial and condemnation, for Stephen not to
have the close of the Redeemer's life before
his mind. His dying prayer is an echo of
that which came from his Master's fips ; the
same, yet changed. It might do for the sin
less one to say, " Father, into thy hands I
commit my spirit." It is not for the sinful to
take up at once and appropriate such words ;
so, turning to Jesus, the dying martyr says,
" Lord Jesus, receive my spirit," in that sim
ple, fervent, confiding petition, leaving behind
him, for all ages, the pattern of a sinner's
dying prayer, modelled upon the last words of
the dying Saviour.

XII.
Me gitttftttot ptafeg *
In all its outward form and circumstance,
there scarcely could have been a lowlier en
trance into this world of ours than that made
by Jesus Christ. The poorest wandering
gipsy's child has seldom had a meaner birth.
There was no room for Mary in the inn. She
brought forth her first-born son amid the
beasts of the stall, and she laid him in a
manger. But was that birth — which, though
it had so little about it to draw the notice of
man, was yet the greatest that this earth has
ever witnessed — to pass by without any token
of its greatness given ? No ; other eyes than
those of men were fixed on it, and other
* Matt, xxvii. 51-54; Mark xv. 39; Luke xxiii. 47-49 ; John
xix. 11-31

298 THE ATTENDANT MIRACLES.
tongues were loosed to celebrate it. The
glory of the Lord shone around the shep
herds, and a multitude of the heavenly host,
borrowing for a time the speech of Canaan,
filled the midnight sky with their praises, as
they chanted, " Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace, goodwill toward men."
Never was there a lowlier cradle than that in
which the new-born Redeemer lay ; but over
what other cradle was there ever such a birth-
hymn sung ?
And as with the birth, so also with the
death of Jesus. In all its outward form and
circumstance, a more humiliating death than
that of being crucified as one of three con
victed felons, he could not have died. There
was no darker, more degrading passage through
which he could have been sent forth from
among the living. But was that death of the
Eternal Son of God to have no outward marks
of its importance imprinted on it ? Left to
man, there had been none ; but Heaven will
not let it pass unsignalized. And so, at mid
day the darkness came and settled for three

THE ATTENDANT MIRACLES. 299
hours around the cross ; and when at the
ninth hour Jesus gave up the ghost, the veil
of the Temple was torn in twain from the top
to the bottom, and the rocks rent, and the
graves opened. These were the external seals
which the hand of the Omnipotent stamped
upon the event, proclaiming its importance.
But these seals were also symbols ; they were
more than mere preternatural indications that
this was no common death. Each in its way
told something about the character and object
of this death. The mystery of those hidden
sufferings of the Redeemer's spirit, — the inner
darkening of the light of his Father's counte
nance, — stood shadowed forth in the three
hours' darkness. The rending of the veil had
a meaning of its own, which it scarcely needed
an apostle to interpret. To the few eyes that
witnessed it, it must have been a most myste
rious spectacle. Jesus died at the third hour
after mid-day; the very hour when eager
crowds of worshippers would be thronging
into the courts of the Temple, and all would
be preparing for the evening sacrifice. Within

300 THE ATTENDANT MIRACLES.
the Holy Place, kindling perhaps the many
lights of the golden candlestick, some priests
would be busy before the inner veil which
hung between them and the Holy of Holies ;
that veil no thin, old, time-worn piece of faded
drapery, but fresh, and strong, and thickly
woven, for they renewed it year by year ;
that Holy of Holies — the dark, secluded
apartment within which lay the ark of the
covenant, with the cherubim above it shadow
ing the mercy-seat, which no mortal footstep
was permitted to invade, save that of the
High Priest once only every year. How
strange, how awful to the ministering priests,
standing before that veil, to feel the earth
tremble beneath their feet, and to see the
strong veil grasped, as if by two unseen
hands of superhuman strength, and torn
down in the middle from top to bottom, — the
glaring light of day, that never, for long cen
turies gone by, had entered there, flung into
that sacred tenement, and all its mysteries
laid open to vulgar gaze. The Holy Ghost
by all this signified that while as yet that first

THE ATTENDANT MIRACLES. 301
tabernacle was standing, the way into the
holiest, the access to God, was not yet made
manifest ; but now, Christ being come, to
offer himself without spot to God, neither by
the blood of goats nor calves, but by his own
blood, to enter into the true Holy of Holies,
— even as he died on Calvary that veil was
rent asunder thus within the Temple to teach
us that a new and living way, open to all, ac
cessible to all, had been consecrated for us
through the rending of the Redeemer's flesh,
that we might have boldness to enter into the
holiest, and might draw near, each of us, to
God, with a new heart and in full assurance
of faith. Little of all this may those few
priests have known who stood that day, gaz
ing with awe-struck wonder upon that work
ing of the Divine and unseen hand, — to them
a sign of terror, rather than a symbol of what
the death on Calvary had done. We read,
however, that not long afterwards — within a
year — many priests became obedient unto the
faith ; and it pleases us to think that among
those who, from the inner heart of Judaism,

302 THE ATTENDANT MIRACLES.
from the stronghold of its priestly caste, were
converted unto Christ, some of them may
have been numbered whose first movement in
that direction was given them as they wit
nessed that rending of the veil, that laying
open of the Most Holy Place.
" And the earth did quake : and the rocks
rent; and the graves were opened" — the main
office, let us believe, of that earthquake which
accompanied or immediately followed upon the
death of Christ, — not to strike terror into the
hearts of men ; not to herald judgments upon
this earth ; not to swallow up the living in its
opening jaws ; no, but to shake the domains
of death ; to break the stony fetters of the
dead ; to lay open the graves, out of which
the bodies of the saints might arise. It seems
clear enough, from the words which Matthew
uses — who is the only one of the Evangelists
who alludes to the event, — that they did not
come out of their graves till the morning of
our Lord's own resurrection. It is scarcely
conceivable that they had been re-animated
before that time, and lain awake in their graves

THE ATTENDANT MIRACLES. 303
till his rising called them from their tombs.
Then they did arise, and went into the Holy
City, and appeared unto many, — one cer
tainly, of the most mysterious incidents which
attended the death and resurrection of the
Saviour, suggesting many a question: Who
were they that thus arose ? were they of the
recently dead, recognized by loving relatives
in the Holy City, or were they chosen from
the buried of many bygone generations ? Did
they return to their sepulchres, or did the
grave never more close over them ? Did they
after a brief appearance in the Holy City,
pass into the heavenly Jerusalem ? or did
they finger upon this earth, to be the com
panions of our Lord during those forty days,
so small a portion of which is occupied by
Christ's appearances to his disciples, the rest
spent where and how we know not ; and did
they, that ministry to Jesus over, go up with
him into the heavenly places? All about
them is hid in the deepest obscurity. Like
shadows they come, fike shadows they depart.
This, however, their presence told, that the

304 THE ATTENDANT MIRACLES.
voice which from the cross cried, " It is
finished," went where sound of human voice
had never gone before, and did what sound of
human voice had never done. It was heard
among the dead ; it stirred the heavy sleep
ers there, and piercing the stony sepulchre,
went quivering into ears long sealed against
all sound. And when the third morning
dawned, these bodies of the saints arose, to
complete as it were the pledge and promise of
the general resurrection of the dead which our
Lord's own rising carried with it, and having
done that office, silently and mysteriously
withdrew. You may have sometimes seen a
day in early spring, stolen from the coming
summer, a day of sunshine so bright and
warm, of air so bland, of breeze so gentle,
that, as if fancying that her resurrection-time
had come, dead nature woke, buds began to
burst, flower-leaves to unfold, and birds to
sing, — all to be shut up again in death, as the
bleak withering winds of days that followed
swept across the plain. Even into such a day
did the appearance of these old tenants of the

THE ATTENDANT MIRACLES. 305
grave turn that of our Lord's resurrection,
lightening and enriching it with the promise
of the time when all that are in their graves
shall hear Christ's voice, and his full and final
victory over death and the grave shall be ac
complished. Mark the Evangelist, to whom we are in
debted for so many minute and graphic inci
dents in the gospel history, tells us that at
the moment when Christ expired, the Roman
officer in charge was standing over against
him, within a few yards of the cross, gazing
on the face of the crucified. He had halted
there as the darkness rolled away. He heard
that loud and piercing cry, as of one forsaken,
come from the fips of Jesus. He saw the
change come over the Saviour's countenance,
the light that spread over those pallid features,
the joy that beamed from those uplifted eyes.
Another and a louder cry, — not now the cry
as of one sinking in conflict, but of one rejoi
cing in victory, — when suddenly Jesus bows
his head and gives up the ghost; that mo
ment, too, the earthquake shook the earth,

306 THE ATTENDANT MIRACLES.
and the cross of Jesus trembled before the
Roman's eyes. The shaking earth, the trem
bfing cross, impressed him less, as Mark lets
us know, than the loud cry so instantly fol
lowed by death. He had, perhaps, been pres
ent at other crucifixions, and knew well how
long the band he ruled was ordinarily required
to watch the crucified. But he had never
seen, he had never known, he had never heard
of a man dying upon a cross within six hours.
He had seen other men expire ; had watched
weak nature as it wanes away at death — the
voice sinking into feebleness with its last ef
forts at articulation, — but he had never heard
a man in dying speak in tones like these.
And so impressed was he with what he saw
and heard, that instantly and spontaneously
he exclaimed, " Truly this man was the Son
of God !" Foreigner and Gentile as he was,
he may have attached no higher meaning to
the epithet than Pilate did when he said to
Jesus, "Art thou then the Son of God?"
This much, however, he meant to say, that
truly and to his judgment this Jesus was more

THE ATTENDANT MIRACLES. 307
than human — was divine — was that very Son
of God, whatever this might mean, which
these Jews had condemned him for claiming
to be. Such was the faith so quickly kindled
in this Gentile breast. The Cross is early
giving tokens of its power. It lays hold of
the dying thief, and opens to him the gates of
Paradise. It lays hold of this Centurion, and
works in him a faith which, let us hope, deep
ened into a trust in Jesus as his Saviour.
From such unlikely quarters came the two tes
timonies borne to the Lord's divinity the day
he died.
The Centurion speaks of him as one already
dead. The pale face and the drooping head
tell all the lookers-on that he has breathed
his last. The great interest of the day is
over ; the crowd breaks up ; group after
group returning to Jerusalem, in very differ
ent mood and temper from that in which they
had come out a few hours before. It had
been little more at first than an idle curiosity
which had drawn many of those onlookers
that morning from their dwellings. Cherish-

308 THE ATTENDANT MIRACLES
ing, perhaps, no particular ill-will to Jesus,
they had joined the procession on its way to
Calvary. They gather by the way that this
Jesus has been convicted as a pretender, who
had impiously claimed to be their king, their
Christ. They see how irritated the High
Priests and their followers are at him. It is
an unusual thing for these magnates of the
people to come out, as they now are doing,
to attend a public execution. There must
surely be something peculiarly criminal in this
Jesus, against whom their enmity is so bit
ter. Soon these new comers catch the spirit
that their rulers have breathed into the crowd,
and for the first three hours they heartily
chime in with the others, and keep up their
mockery of the crucified. But from the mo
ment that the darkness falls upon them, what
a change ! There they stand, silently peering
through the gloom ; no jest nor laughter now,
nor strife of mocking tongues. Upon that.
cross, but dimly seen, their eyes are fixed.
The wonder grows as to how all this shall end.
It ends with those prodigies that accompany

THE ATTENDANT MIRACLES. 309
the death. Appalled by these, they smite
upon their breasts — as Easterns do in pres
ence of all superhuman power — and make
their way back to their homes ; no noisy,
shouting rabble, but each man silent, and full
of thought and awe. Who or what, then,
could that Jesus be whom they had seen die
such a death, — at whose death the whole
frame of nature seemed to quiver ? What
ever he was, he was not what their rulers had
told them. No false, deceitful man, no im
pious pretender. Was he then indeed their
Christ, their king ? They got the answer to
those questions a few weeks later, when Peter
preached to that great company on the day
of Pentecost ; and may we not believe that
among those who listened to the great Apos
tle on that occasion, and to whom he spake
as to the very men who, with wicked hands,
had slain the Lord of glory, there were not a
few of those who now returned to Jerusalem
from Calvary, impressed and half-convinced,
waiting but the work of the Spirit to turn

310 THE ATTENDANT MIRACLES.
them into true and faithful followers of the
Crucified ?
Such was the impression made upon the
Roman officer, and on a section of the by
standers. But the High Priests and their
minions, the true crucifiers of the Lord, —
what impression has all which has happened
thus at Calvary made on them ? Has it stir
red any doubt, has it awakened any compunc
tion, has it allayed their fears or quenched
their hate ? No ; they witness all these won
ders, and remain hard and unrelenting as at
the first. Speaking of that obduracy, which
stood out against all the demonstrations of
the Lord's Divinity, St. Gregory exclaims,
" The heavens knew him, and forthwith sent
out a star and a company of angels to sing
his birth. The sea knew him, and made itself
a way to be trodden by his feet ; the earth
knew him, and trembled at his dying; the
sun knew him, and hid the rays of its light ;
the rocks knew him, for they were rent in
twain ; Hades knew him, and gave up the
dead it had received. But though the sense-

THE ATTENDANT MIRACLES. 311
less elements perceived him to be their Lord,
the hearts of the unbelieving Jews knew him
not as God, and, harder than the very rocks,
were not rent by repentance."
The only effect upon the rulers of the
Jewish people of the sudden and unexpected
death of Jesus was to set them thinking how
the crosses and bodies which hung upon them
might most speedily be removed. Their own
Jewish code forbade that the body of one
hung upon a tree should remain suspended
over a single night : " His body shall not re
main all night upon the tree, but thou shalt
in any wise bury him that day, that thy land
be not defiled."* As crucifixion was a mode
of punishment originally unknown among the
Jews, this, command refers to the case of those
who, after death by stoning or strangulation,
were hung upon a gibbet. The Roman law
and practice were different. Crucifixion was
the mode of death to which slaves and the
greater criminals were doomed. In ordinary
circumstances, the bodies of the crucified
* See Deut. ttH-

312 THE ATTENDANT MIRACLES.
were suffered to hang upon the cross till the
action of the elements, at times otherwise
aided and accelerated, wasted them away.
Even when sepulture was allowed, it was
thought profitable for the ends of justice that
for some days the frightful spectacle should
be exposed to the public eye. In no case
under the Roman rule did burial take place
on the very day of the execution. If that
rule were in this instance to be broken, it
must be under the special leave and direction
of Pilate. Besides, however, the natural de
sire that their own rather than the Roman
method of dealing with the crucified should
be followed, there was another and more
special reason why the Jews desired that the
bodies should as quickly as possible be re
moved. Next day was the Sabbath ; no com
mon Sabbath either — the Sabbath of the great
Paschal festival. It began at sunset. Only
an hour or two remained. It would be offen
sive, ill-ominous, if on a day so sacred three
bodies hanging upon crosses should be ex
hibited so near the Holy City. It would dis-

THE ATTENDANT MIRACLES. 313
turb, defile the services of the holy day.
Besides, who could tell what effect upon the
changeful, excitable multitude this spectacle
of Jesus might have, if kept so long before
their eyes ? A deputation is despatched,
therefore, to Pilate, to entreat him to give
orders that means may be taken to expedite
the death by crucifixion, and have the bodies
removed. Pilate accedes to the request; the
necessary order is forwarded to Calvary, and
the soldiers proceed in the ordinary way to
execute it. They break the legs of both the
others ; they pass Jesus by. There is every
sign, indeed, that he is already dead, but why
not make his death thus doubly sure ? Perhaps,
even over the spirits of those rough and hard
ened men, the Saviour's looks and words, the
manner of his death, the darkness and the
earthquake, which they connected in some
way with him, may have caused a feeling
of awe to creep, restraining them from sub
jecting him to that rough handling which they
were ready enough to give to the others.
However this may have been, the shield of
14

314 THE ATTENDANT MIRACLES.
that prophecy, — " A bone of him shall not be
broken," guarded his limbs from their rude
and crushing strokes.
One, indeed, of the soldiers is not to be re
strained, and to make sure that this seeming
death is real, he lifts his spear as he passes
by, and thrusts it into the Redeemer's side ;
a strong, rude thrust, sufficient of itself to
have caused death, inflicting a wide, deep
wound, that left behind such a scar, that Jesus
could say to Thomas afterwards, " Reach hither
thy hand, and thrust it into my side." From
that wound there flowed out blood and water,
in such quantity, that the outflow attracted
the special notice of John, who was standing
at some distance from the cross ; the blood and
the water so distinct and distinguishable from
one another, that this observer could not be
deceived, and thought it right to leave behind
him this peculiarly emphatic testimony: "He
that saw it bare record, and his record is
true ; and he knoweth that he saith true, that
ye might believe." It has been thought that
John was led to put such stress upon this in-

THE ATTENDANT MIRACLES. 315
cident of the crucifixion, and to piess into
such prominence his own testimony as an eye
witness to its reality, on account of the con
vincing refutation thus afforded of two strange
heresies that sprung up early in the Church :
the first, that Jesus had never really died
upon the cross, but only passed into a swoon,
from which he afterwards revived ; and the
second, that it was not a real human body of
flesh and blood, but only the appearance of
one that was suspended on the cross. It may
have been that the Evangelist had these beliefs
in view. But whatever was his immediate
object in testifying so particularly and so earn
estly to the fact, it only puts that fact so
much the more clearly now before our eyes.
authorizing us to assume it as placed beyond
all doubt, that within an hour or so after
Christ's death — for it could not have been
much longer, when a deep incision was made
in the side of the Redeemer, there visibly
flowed forth a copious stream of blood and
water. Is that fact of any moment, does it
give any clue to, or throw any light upon the

316 THE ATTENDANT MIRACLES.
proximate or physical cause of the death of
Christ? The answer to these questions we
reserve for our next Lecture.
Meanwhile, let us give a moment or two
more to reflection upon that strange variety of
impression and effect which the crucifixion of
our Lord had upon the original spectators.
There were those whom that spectacle plunged
into a despondency bordering on despair.
Mary, the mother of our Lord, was not able
to bear that sight, and the love of her Divine
Son went forth, and withdrew her early from
the trial of seeing him expire. His other ac
quaintance, and the women that followed him
from Galilee, stood afar off, beholding; half
ashamed and half afraid ; with something of
hope, with more of fear ; lost in wonder that
he, about whom they had been cherishing
such grand, yet false and earthly expecta
tions, should suffer himself, or should be suf
fered by that Father — of whom he had so
often spoken as hearing him always, who had
himself declared that he was at all times well
pleased with him — to die such a death as this.

THE ATTENDANT MIRACLES. 317
As the darkness fell, perhaps a new hope
sprung up within some of their breasts. Was
Jesus about to use that darkness as a veil be
hind which he would withdraw himself, as he
had withdrawn himself from those who were
about to cast him from the rocky height at
Nazareth ? Had he gone up to that cross to
work there the greatest of his miracles ? and
was he in very deed about to meet the taunt
of his enemies, and come down from the cross
that they might believe in him ? Alas ! if
any such hope arose, the ninth hour quenched
it ; and when they saw him draw his latest
breath, this band of friends and followers of
Jesus turned their backs on Calvary, with
slow, sad footsteps, to return, dispirited and
disconsolate, to their homes. Mainly this was
owing to the strength of that prejudice which
had so early taken such strong possession of
their minds, that the kingdom which their
new Master was to set up was a temporal one.
To that prejudice so sudden and so overwhelm
ing a shock was given by the crucifixion, that,
stunned and stupefied by it, these simple-

318 THE ATTENDANT MIRACLES.
minded followers of Jesus were for a time
unable to recall, and unprepared to believe,
his own predictions as to his death. Upon
the Scribes and Pharisees, the Chief Priests
and rulers of the people, the six hours of the
crucifixion had, as we have seen, none other
than a hardening effect. The gentleness, the
patience, the forgiving spirit, the thoughtful-
ness for others, the sore trouble of his own
spirit, the supernatural darkness, the return
ing light, the sudden and subfime decease, the
reeling earth, the opening graves ; — all these,
which might have moved them, had they not
been possessed by the one great passion of
quenching for ever the hated pretensions of
this Nazarene — have no other influence upon
their spirits than quickening their ingenuity
to contrive how best, most quickly, and most
securely, they can accomplish their design.
And these are they of all that motley crowd,
who knew the most, and made the greatest
profession of religion ! These are the men
who would not that morning cross the thresh
old of Pilate's dwelling, lest they might unfit

THE ATTENDANT MIRACLES. 319
themselves for the morrow's duties within the
Temple ! These are the men who cannot bear
the thought that the services of their great
Paschal Sabbath should be polluted by the
proximity of the three crosses of Golgotha !
They can spill, without compunction, the
blood of the innocent. They can take that
blood upon themselves and upon their chil
dren, but they cannot suffer the sight of it to
offend their eye as they go up to worship upon
Mount Zion. These are the men who, in
their deep self-ignorance, in their proud and
boastful spirit, were wont to say, " If we had
been in the days of our fathers, we would not
have been partakers with them in the blood
of the prophets." These are the men whose
whole character and conduct are suggestive of
the likenesses to themselves that have arisen
in every age of the church, one of whose noted
peculiarities is ever this, that to wound their
pride, or expose in any way their hollow
pretensions, is sure to draw down on all who
attempt the dangerous office the very same

320 THE ATTENDANT MIRACLES.
malignity of dislike and persecution that
nailed our Saviour to his cross.
Upon many of the crowd which stood for
those six hours around the cross, the events
that transpired there appear to have produced
that surprise, solemnity, alarm, and subdued
state of feeling, they were so fitted to pro
duce on the bulk of mankind. We have
already ventured to express the hope that,
with not a few of them, what they saw and
heard prepared their minds and opened their
hearts to receive the good seed which, scat
tered on the day of Pentecost by apostolic
hands, was so watered with the influences of
the Holy Spirit.
But are we wrong in imagining, of another
and perhaps still larger proportion of those
who returned, beating their breasts, to Jeru
salem, that a few days, or a few weeks,
brought them down to their ordinary and
natural condition of indifference and uncon
cern ? Yes, they would say, that was a won
derful forenoon ; there was a strange concur
rence of striking things about the close of

THE ATTENDANT MIRACLES. 321
that strange man's life ; but as to any further
inquiry after him — the lending their ears to
that gospel which set him forth as crucified to
redeem their souls from death, and cover, by
his mediation, the multitude of their sins —
they became too callous, the world got too
strong a hold of them, to admit of their giv
ing any further or more earnest heed. Have
not these, too, their likenesses among us ?
men capable of strong but temporary impres
sions. Bring them to Golgotha, set up the
cross before them, let them see the Saviour
die, and their breasts may own a sentiment
akin to that which affected so many originally
at Calvary : but they are morning clouds
those feelings, it is an early dew this soften
ing of their hearts ; let the bright sun rise,
the fresh breeze blow ; let the day, with so
many calls to business and pleasure come,
and those clouds vanish, — this dew disap
pears. And yet the cross was not to be lifted
up in vain. It hardened the Pharisees, it
dispirited the disciples, it awed the multitude ;
but it saved the penitent thief, and it con-
14*

322 THE ATTENDANT MIRACLES.
vinced the unprejudiced Centurion. " I," said
the Lord himself, contemplating beforehand
the triumph of his cross, — " I, if I be lifted
up, will draw all men unto me." And when
he was lifted up, even before he died, and in
the very act of dying, he drew to him that
Gentile and that Jew, each one the leader of
a multitude that no man may number, upon
whom the power of that attraction has since
acted. God grant that upon all our spirits
this power may come, drawing us to Jesus
now, and lifting us at last to heaven.

XIII.
Me pptol (Smut <rt i%e §eutk tti (SMsst.*
Had no one interfered, the body of our
Lord had been taken down by the soldiers
from the cross, by their cold and careless
hands to be conveyed away to one of those
separate burying-places reserved for those
who had suffered the extreme penalty of the
law. Not unfrequently, in such cases, friends
or relatives came forward to crave the body
at the hands of the authorities, that they
might give it a more becoming burial. There
was but one exception, the case of those
whose crime was treason against the State, —
the very crime for which Christ had, nomin
ally at least, been condemned. In that in
stance the mode of disposal of the body pre-
* John xix. 33-35 ; Mark xv. 42-45.

324 THE PHYSICAL CAUSE OF
scribed by law was rarely if ever departed
from. But where are there any friends or
relatives of Jesus in condition hopefully to in
terfere ? That small band of his acquaint
ance, which has stood throughout the cruci
fixion beholding it afar off, is composed
principally of women. John, indeed, is there,
a witness of the closing scene, and of the pre
paration made for the removal of the bodies.
But was Pilate, to whom application must of
course be made, likely to listen to any peti
tion that he might present ? John knew
something of the High Priest, but nothing
of the Roman Governor. There was every
thing in fact to discourage him from making
any application in that quarter, even if the
idea of doing so had occurred to him. But it
is most unlikely that it had. For what could
John, or the disciples generally, have done
with the body of their Master though they
had got it into their hands ? It must be
buried quickly, — within an hour or so. And
where could these Galilean strangers find a
grave at Jerusalem to lay it in, where but in

THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 325
some exposed and public place of sepulture,
unsuitable for the destiny in store for it ?
At the fitting time, the fit instrument ap
pears. Joseph of Arimathea, a rich man, an
honorable councillor, a member of the Sanhe
drim well known as such to Pilate, has either
himself been present at the crucifixion, or
hears how matters stand. Shall the body of
Jesus pass into the rough hands of these
Roman soldiers, and be dragged by them to a
dishonored burial ? Not if he can hinder it.
He has a new sepulchre of his own, close by
the very place where Christ has died, whose
very nearness to the spot suggests to him how
suitable a place it would be for so sacred a
deposit. Joseph goes instantly to Pilate, and
boldly asks that the body may be given to
him. Pilate makes no difficulty regarding the
alleged crime of Jesus. He never had be
lieved that Christ was guilty of treason
against Csesar's government; does not now
act on any such assumption. But Joseph has
told him something about the time and man
ner of the Sav;our's death which he had not

326 THE PHYSICAL CAUSE OF
heard before, which greatly amazes and in
duces him to hesitate. Those Jews who had
come to him a short time before, with the re
quest that he would issue an order that the
bones of the three might be broken and their
bodies removed, must have come to him after
the three hours' darkness, after the death of
Christ. But they had told him nothing about
that death. They had spoken as if the same
means for expediting their decease had to be
taken with all the three. Now, for the first
time, he hears that Jesus had, even then,
breathed his last ; had died just as that mys
terious darkness, which had troubled Pilate as
it had troubled the crowd at Golgotha, had
rolled away ; as that earthquake, which had
shaken every dwelling in Jerusalem, had been
felt within his residence. Pilate will not be
lieve it, — can scarcely credit Joseph's story, —
must have a thing so strange attested upon
better testimony. Waiving, in the meantime,
all answer to Joseph's request, he sends for
the Centurion, who, doubtless, told him all
that he had witnessed; told him about the

THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 327
loud voice, and the immediately succeeding
death ; told him what raised in the eyes of
these two Romans, even to the height of a
miracle, a death like this.
We should understand their feelings better
were we as familiar as they were with the
common course of things at a crucifixion. It
is now fifteen hundred years since this mode
of punishment ceased to be practised in
Christendom ; it was discontinued because of
the sacredness, the spiritual glory which
Christ's crucifixion had thrown around it.
With eyes unfamiliar with its details, yet
with imaginations that delighted to picture its
cruelties and horrors, the priesthood of the
middle ages put these materials into the hands
of poets and painters, out of which the popu
lar conceptions of the ereotion of the cross,
and the sufferings on the cross, and the taking
down from the cross, have for so long a time
been drawn. There is much in these concep
tions, that by using the means of information
which we now possess, we can assure our
selves is incorrect. The cross was no such

328 THE PHYSICAL CAUSE OF
elevated structure as we see it sometimes
represented, needing ladders to be applied to
get at the suspended body. It was seldom
more than a foot or two higher than the man it
bore ; neither was the whole weight of his body
borne upon the nails which pierced the hands.
Such a position of painful suspension, causing
such a strain upon all the muscles of the up
per extremities, would have added greatly to
the sufferings of the victim, and brought them
to a much speedier close. The cross, in every
instance, was furnished with a small piece of
wood projecting from the upright post or beam,
astride which the crucified sat, and which bore
the chief weight of his body. The conse
quence of this arrangement was, that crucifix
ion was a much more lingering kind of death,
and, in its earlier stages, a much less excru
ciating one than we are apt to imagine, or than
otherwise it would have been. As there was
but fittle loss of blood, — the nails that pierced
the extremities touching no large bloodvessel,
and closing the wounds they made, — the death
which followed resulted from the processes of

THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 329
bodily exhaustion and irritation; anu these
were so slow, that in no case, where the per
son crucified was in ordinary health and vigor,
did they terminate within twelve hours. Al
most invariably he survived the first twenty-
four hours, lived generally over the second,
occasionally even into the fifth or sixth day.
The ancient testimonies to this fact are quite
explicit, nor are modern ones wanting, al
though there are but few parts of the world
now where crucifixion is practised. " I was
told," says Captain Clapperton, speaking of
the capital punishments inflicted in Soudan, a
district of Africa, " that wretches on the cross
generally linger three days before death puts
an end to their sufferings."
So well was it understood by the early
Fathers of the Church, by those who lived in
or near the times when this mode of capital
punishment was still in use, that life never
was terminated by it alone within six hours,
as was the case with Christ, that they all
agree in attributing his death to a supernatu
ral agency. Most of them, as well as many

330 THE PHYSICAL CAUSES OF
of the most distinguished of our modern
commentators, assign it to the exercise by
Christ of the power over his own fife which
he possessed ; in accordance, it was thought,
with his own declaration : " No man taketh
my life from me, but I lay it down of my
self. I have power to lay it down, and I
have power to take it again. This command
ment have I received of my Father." That
Christ's death was entirely voluntary, sub
mitted to of his own free will, and not under
any outward pressure or constraint, is univer
sally conceded. This entire voluntariness,
however, it will at once appear to you, is suf
ficiently covered and vindicated when we be
lieve that whatever the physical agencies
were which combined to effect the death, it
was an act of pure free will in him to submit
to their operation. That without or indepen
dent of any such agency, Christ chose to accel
erate his decease upon the cross by a simple
fiat of his own will, — breaking the tie which
bound tody and soul together, was the solu
tion of the difficulty very naturally resorted

THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 331
to by those who had the clearest possible per
ception of the extraordinary character of this
incident, and who knew of no other adequate
cause to which it could be attributed.
Another solution, indeed, has been pro
posed, reserved for modern times, but not
coming from our highest authorities, which
would explain the speedy death of Jesus on
the cross, by ascribing it to an extreme de
gree of bodily debility induced by the sleep
less night, the agony in the Garden, the
scourging in Pilate's Hall, and the mental con
flict at Calvary. All these must undoubtedly
have told upon the frame of the suffering Re
deemer, and have impaired its powers of en
durance. But we must remember that they
found that frame in the very flower and ful
ness of its strength, free, we may believe, of
all constitutional or induced defects. Nor
should we, in order to make out this solution
to be sufficient, exaggerate their actual effects.
However acute the bodily endurance of Geth
semane may have been, we know that Jesus
was supernaturally assisted to sustain them ;

332 THE PHYSICAL CAUSE OF
they passed wholly away when the mental
agony which produced them ended. You see
no trace of them in our Lord's presentation of
himself to the band which arrested him, or in
his appearances before Caiaphas and Pilate.
The scourging was a not uncommon precursor
of crucifixion, and could not have enfeebled
Christ more than it did others. He bent so
much beneath the weight of the cross that a
temporary relief from the burden was given ;
but that he had not sunk in utter exhaustion
was apparent enough, from the very manner
in which he turned immediately thereafter to
the daughters of Jerusalem, and from the way
in which he spoke to them. Further evi
dence that Jesus did not sink prematurely
under physical debility is afforded us by the
fact, witnessed to particularly by many of the
Evangelists, and which, as we saw in our last
Lecture, made a strong impression upon the
mind of the Centurion. The fact alluded to
is this, that it was with a loud voice, indicat
ing a great amount of existing vigor, that
Jesus uttered his last fervent exclamation op

THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 333
the cross. He did not die of sheer exhaus
tion, fainting away in feebleness, as one
drained wholly of his strength.
Are we, then, to leave the mystery of our
Lord's dying thus, at the ninth hour, in the
obscurity which covers it; or is there any
other probable explanation of the circum
stance ? It is now some years since a devout
and scholarly physician,* as the result, he
tells us, of a quarter of a century's reading
and reflection, ventured to suggest — dealing
with this subject with all that reverence and
delicacy with which it so especially requires
to be handled — that the immediate physical
cause of the death of Christ was the rupture
of his heart, induced by the inner agony of
his spirit. That strong emotion may of itself
prostrate the "body in death, is a familiar fact
in the history of the passions.f Joy, or grief,
* Dr. Stroud, in a treatise On the Physical Cause of the Death of
Christ, published in 1847.
f Ancient story tells us of one the greatest of Greek tragedians
(Sophooles) expiring on its being announced to him that the palm
of victory had been awarded, in a public literary contest in which
he was engaged ; of a father dying on its being told him that,
on the same day, three of his sons had been crowned as Tictors in
the Olympian games. — See Dr. Stroud's Treatise.

334 THE PHYSICAL CAUSE OF
or anger, suddenly or intensely excited, have
been often known to produce this effect. It
has been only, however, in later times that the
discovery has been made, by post mortem ex
aminations, that in such instances, the death
resulted from actual rupture of the heart.
That organ, which the universal language of
mankind has spoken of as being peculiarly
affected by the play of the passions, has been
found in such cases to have been rent or torn
by the violence of its own action. The blood
issuing from the fissure thus created has filled
the pericardium,* and, by its pressure, stopped
the action of the heart. In speaking of those
who have died of a broken heart, we have
been using words that were often exactly and
literally true.
If this, then, be sometimes one of the
proved results of extreme, intense emotion,
why may it not have been realized in the case
of the Redeemer? If common earthly sor
row has broken other human hearts, why may
* The shut sac or bag by which the heart is surrounded and en
closed.

THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 335
not that sorrow, deep beyond all other sor
row, have broken his? We know that of
itself, apart from all external appliances, the
agony of his spirit in Gethsemane so affected
his body that a bloody sweat suffused it, — a
result identical with what has been sometimes
noticed of extreme surprise or terror having
bathed the human body in the same kind of
bloody dew. Why, then, should not the
agony of the Saviour's spirit on the cross —
which we have every reason to regard as a
renewal of that in the Garden — have told
upon his physical frame in a way equally
analogous to other results verified by experi
ence? Still, however, had we nothing more
positive to go upon, it could only be regarded
as a conjecture, a thing conceivable and quite
possible, that Jesus had literally died of a
broken heart. But that striking incident,
upon the nature of which, and the singular
testimony regarding it, we remarked in the
close of our last Lecture, puts positive evi
dence into our hands ; and the precise weight
of this evidence every recent inquiry into the

336 THE PHYSICAL CAUSE OF
condition of the blood within the human body
after death has been helping us more accu
rately and fully to appreciate. Let me re
mind you, then, that within an hour or two
after our Saviour's death (it could not have
been more), what the skilful knife of the
anatomist does upon the subject on which it
operates, the Roman soldier's spear did upon
the dead body of our Lord, — it broadly and
deeply pierced the side, and from the wound
inflicted thus there flowed out blood and
water ; so much of both, and the water so
distinguishable from the blood, as to attract
the particular observation of John, who was
standing a little way off. We cannot be
wrong in fixing our attention upon a fact to
which the beloved Apostle so especially sum
mons it in his Gospel.
First, then, we have it now authenticated
beyond reasonable doubt, that what John
noticed, the copious outflow of blood and wa
ter, is precisely what would have happened
on the supposition that the heart of our Re
deemer had been ruptured under the pressure

THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 337
of inward grief, — is precisely what has been
noticed in other instances of this form of
death. When it escapes from the blood-vessels,
whether that escape takes place within the
body or without, human blood within a short
time coagulates, its watery part separating
slowly from its thicker substance. When
rupture of the heart takes place, and the blood
which that organ contains passes into the peri
cardium, it ere long undergoes this change ;
and, as the capsule into which it flows is large
enough to contain many ounces' weight of
liquid, if, when it is full, the heart be pierced,
the contents escaping exhibit such a stream
of mingled blood and water as the eye of John
noticed as he gazed upon the cross. This is
what the anatomist has actually witnessed;
numerous instances existing in which the
quantity and quality of the blood escaping
from a ruptured heart have been carefully
noted and recorded. Having satisfied our
selves as to these facts, from regarding it at
first as but an ingenious supposition, we feel
constrained to regard it as in the highest

338 THE PHYSICAL CAUSE OF
degree probable that Christ our Saviour died
this very kind of death. But what shuts us
up to this conclusion is, that no other satisfac
tory explanation can be given of the outflow
of blood and water from the Saviour's side.
When not extravasated — that is, when allowed
at death to remain in the vascular system, — •
the blood of the human body rarely coagu
lates, and when it does, the coagulation, or
separation into blood and water, does not take
place till many hours after death. In rare
instances — of persons dying from long con
tinued or extreme debility — the entire blood
of the body has been found in a half watery
condition ; but our Saviour's death was not an
instance of this kind, and even though it
should be imagined that what long-continued
illness did with others, agony of spirit did
with him, inducing the same degree of debil
ity, attended with all its ordinary physical
results ; this, which is the only other suppo
sition that can be held as accounting to us for
what John witnessed, fails in this respect,
that, pierce when or how it might, it could

THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 339
only have been a few trickling drops of watery
blood that the spear of the soldier could have
extracted from the Redeemer's side. Inas
much, then, as all other attempted explana
tions of the recorded incidents of our Re
deemer's death are found to be at fault, and
inasmuch as it corresponds with and explains
them all, we rest in the belief that such was
the bitter agony of the Redeemer's soul as he
hung upon the cross, that — unstrengthened
now by any angel from heaven, as in the Gar
den, when but for that strengthening the same
issue might have been realized — the heart of
our Redeemer was broken, and in this way
the tie that bound body and spirit together
was dissolved.*
But of what use is it to institute any such
inquiry as that in which we have been en
gaged ? or what gain would there be in win
ning for the conclusion arrived at a general
assent ? It might be enough to say here that,
if reverently treated, there is no single inci
dent connected with the life or death of our
* See Appendix.

340 THE PHYSICAL CAUSE OF
Divine Redeemer, upon which it is possible
that any light may be thrown, which does not
solicit at our hands the utmost effort we can
make fully and minutely to understand it.
Even, then, though it should appear that no
direct or practical benefit would attend the
discovery and establishment of the true and
proximate physical cause of the death of
Christ, still we should regard the inquiry as
one in itself too full of interest to refrain from
prosecuting it. But would it not be wonder
ful, would it not correspond with other evi
dences of the truth of the Gospel narrative
which the progress of our knowledge has
eliminated, should it turn out to be true, as we
believe it has done, that the accounts of the
sufferings and death of Jesus, drawn up by
four independent witnesses — all of them un
informed as to the true state of the case, and
signally ignorant how that which they re
corded might serve to reveal it — did, never
theless, when brought together and minutely
scrutinized, contain within them those distinct
and decisive tokens which the advanced

THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 341
science of this age recognizes as indicative of
a mode of death, so singular in its character,
so rare in its occurrence, so peculiar in its
physical effects ?
Would it not also give a new meaning to
some of the expressions which in Psalms lxix.
and xxii. — the two Psalms specially pre
dictive of his sufferings and death — our Sav
iour is himself represented as employing?
Read together the 20th and 21st verses of
Psalm lxix. : " Reproach hath broken my
heart ; and I am full of heaviness : and I
looked for some to take pity, but there was
none; and for comforters, but I found none.
They gave me also gall for my meat ; and in
my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." If
the very kind of drink they were to offer him
was not deemed unworthy of being specified
in that ancient prophecy — the very smallness,
in fact, of the incident making it serve all the
better the purposes of the prophecy, — need
we wonder if it were only the literal truth
which the speaker uttered when he said,
" Reproach hath broken my heart"? When so

342 THE PHYSICAL CAUSE OF
much has turned out to-be literally true, it ia
but ranking that expression with the others,
when it also has that character assigned to it.
Or take the 14th verse of Psalm xxii. : " I am
poured out like water, and all my bones are
out of joint : my heart is fike wax ; it is
melted in the midst of my bowels." Here,
again, we feel that, if in other parts of that
Psalm — if in speaking of the shooting out of
the fips, the shaking of the head, the words
that were spoken, the parting of his garments,
the casting of lots for his vesture — the great
Sufferer is recognized as describing that which
did afterwards actually occur, it is not sur
prising if, in describing his own bodily condi
tion, in speaking, as he does, especially of the
state of his heart, he should be speaking of
that which also was actually realized.
But there are positive benefits attendant
on the reception of that view of the Saviour's
death which I have now unfolded to you. It
serves, I think, to spiritualize and elevate our
conception of the sufferings of Calvary; it
carries oui thoughts away from the mere

THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 343
bodily endurances of the crucifixion ; it con
centrates them on that mysterious woe which
agitated his spirit, till the very heart that
beat within the body of the agonized Re
deemer, under the powerful impulse of those
emotions which shook and wrung his soul,
did burst and break. If the bloody sweat of
the Garden, and the broken heart of the
Cross, were naturally, directly, exclusively
the results of those inward sorrows to which
it pleased the Saviour to open his soul, that
in the enduring of them he might bear our
sins, then how little had man to do physically
with the infliction of that agony wherein the
great atonement lay ! If we have read and
interpreted aright the details of our Lord's
sufferings in the Garden and on the Cross,
these very details do of themselves throw
into the background the corporeal part of the
endurances, representing it in fact only as the
appropriate physical appendix to that over
whelming sorrow, by which the spirit of the
Redeemer was bowed down under the load
of human guilt. This spiritual sorrow formed

344 THE PHYSICAL CAUSE OF
the body of that agony of which the corpo
real was but the shadow and the sign.
From the very heart of the simple but most
affecting records of Gethsemane and the
Cross, there issues the voice of a double
warning — a warning against any such esti
mate of the sufferings of the man Christ
Jesus as would assimilate them to the com
mon sorrows of suffering humanity. As a
man there was nothing in all that he had to
endure from man, which can in any way ac
count for his sweat being as great drops of
blood in the Garden. In the rending of his
heart upon the cross, his sufferings remain,
even in their outward manifestations and re
sults, inexplicable on any other supposition
than that which attributes to them a vicarious
character, representing them as borne by the
incarnate Son of God, as the Head and Rep
resentative of his people. But whilst the
very outward history of Gethsemane and the
Cross pleads thus strongly against any lower
ing of our estimate of the true character and
design of Christ's sufferings, does it not as

THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 345
strongly and persuasively lift up its protest
against those pictorial and sentimental repre
sentations of the Saviour in his agony and in
his death, which make their appeal to a mere
human sympathy, by dwelling upon and ex
aggerating the bodily endurances which were
undergone ? We approach these closing scenes
of our Redeemer's life, we plant our footsteps
in the neighborhood of the Garden and the
Cross ; as soon as we do so, we begin to feel
that is very sacred ground we tread. We
try to get nearer and nearer to the Great Suf
ferer, to look a little farther into the bosom
of that exceeding sorrow of his troubled,
oppressed, bewildered spirit. It is not long
ere we become convinced, that in that sorrow
there are elements we are altogether unable
to compute and appreciate, and that our most
becoming attitude, in presence of such a Suf
ferer as this — the One through whose suffer
ings for us we look for our forgiveness and
acceptance with God — is one of childlike trust,
devout adoring gratitude and love. It is too
remote, too hidden a region this for us rashly

346 THE PHYSICAL CAUSE OF
to invade, in the hope, that with those dim
fights which alone are in our hands, we shall
be able to explore it. It is too sacred a re
gion for the vulgar tread of a mere human
curiosity, or the busy play of a mere human
sympathy. But what chiefly commends to us the view
now given of the Redeemer's death, is its cor
respondence with all that the Scriptures teach
as to the sacrificial character of that death, —
all that they tell us of the virtue of Christ's
most precious blood. More clearly and imme
diately than any other does this view repre
sent Christ's death as the proximate and
natural result of the offering up of himself to
God, the pouring out of his soul in the great
sacrifice for sin. From the lips of the broken
hearted, these words seem fraught to us with
a new significance, " No man taketh my life
from me ; I lay it down of myself," — all,
even to the very death of the body, being em
braced in his entire willingness that there
should be laid upon him the transgressions of
us all. It was his soul, his life, that Jesus

THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 347
gave a ransom for many. The life was re
garded as lying in the blood, and so it was
the blood of the sacrificed animal that was
sprinkled of old upon the door-posts, upon
the altar, upon the mercy-seat, — the atoning
virtue regarded as accompanying the applica
tion of the blood ; and so, lifting this idea up
from the level of mere ceremonialism, we are
taught that "without shedding of blood,"
without life given for life, " there is no remis
sion ;" and so, still further pointing us to the
one true sacrifice, we are told that not by the
blood of bulls and goats, but by his own blood
Christ has entered into the Holy Place, hav
ing obtained eternal redemption for us. It is
the blood of Christ " which cleanseth from all
sin." It is the blood of Christ " which purges
the conscience from dead works, to serve the
living God." It is the blood of the covenant
by which we are sanctified. We know, and
desire ever to remember, that this is but a
figurative expression ; that the blood of Christ
stands only as the type or emblem of the life
that was given up to God for us. But the

348 THE PHYSICAL CAUSE OF
blood merely of a crucifixion does not fill up
the type, does not put its full meaning into
the figure. Crucifixion was not a bloody
death, it was only a few trickling drops that
flowed from the pierced hands and feet. But
if, indeed, it was his very heart's blood which
Jesus poured out in the act of giving up his
life for us on Calvary, with what fuller and
richer significance will that expression, "the
blood of Jesus," fall upon the ear of faith!
This, then, is he — his bleeding broken heart
the witness to it — who came by water and by
blood ; not by water only, but by water and
by blood. With minds afresh impressed by
the thought how it was that the blood of
Christ was shed ; with hearts all full of grati
tude and love, let us take up the words that
the Spirit has put into our lips : " Unto him
that loved us, and washed us from our sins in
his own blood, to him be glory and dominion
for ever and ever." " Thou art worthy, for
thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God
by thy blood, out of every kindred, and
tongue, and people, and nation."

THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 349

" Rock of ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee ;
Let the water and the blood,
From thy riven side that flowed,
Be of sin the double cure,
Cleanse me from its guilt and power.'*

XIV
Me §u*M.*
Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus were
both rulers of the Jews, both members of the
Sanhedrim, — the Jewish council or court,
composed of seventy members, in whose hands
the supreme judicial power was lodged. It
was the right and duty of both these men to
have been present at the trial of our Lord on
the morning of the crucifixion. In common
with the other members of the Sanhedrim,
they in all likelihood received the early sum
mons to assemble in the hall of Caiaphas.
It would seem, however, that they did not
obey the call ; that, knowing something before
hand of the object of the meeting, of the
spirit and design of those who summoned it,
* John xix. 38-42 ; Luke xxiii. 55 ; Matt, xxvii. 61.

THE BURIAL. 351
they absented themselves. We infer this
from the fact that when, after Christ's great
confession, the High Priest put the question,
"What think ye?" to the Council, they all
condemned him to be guilty of death. But
we are told of Joseph, that he had not con
sented to the counsel and deed of those by
whom the arrest and condemnation of Jesus
were planned and executed. In what way his
dissent had been expressed we are not in
formed, but having somehow intimated it
beforehand, it is altogether improbable that,
without any demur on his part, he should
have been a consenting party to the final sen
tence when pronounced. And neither had
Nicodemus gone in with the course which his
fellow-rulers had from the beginning pursued
towards Jesus. When the officers of the
Chief Priests and Pharisees came back to
their employers, their task unexecuted, giving
as their reason for not having arrested Jesus,
that " never man spake like this man," so pro
voked were those Pharisees at seeing such in
fluence exerted by Jesus upon their own

352 THE BURIAL.
menial servants, that in the passion of the
moment, they exclaimed, " Are ye also de
ceived? Have any of the rulers or of the
Pharisees believed on him ? But this people,
who knoweth not the law, are cursed."
Perhaps the question about the rulers
touched the conscience of Nicodemus, who
was present on the occasion ; perhaps he felt
that it was not so true as they imagined that
none of the rulers believed on Jesus ; per
haps he felt, somewhat ashamed of himself
and of the false position which he occupied.
At any rate, the haughty and contemptuous
tone of his brethren stirred him up for once
to say a word : " Doth our law," said he to
them, "judge any man before it hear him,
and know what he doeth ?" A very gentle
and reasonable remonstrance, but one which
had no other effect than turning against him
self the wrath that had been expending itself
upon their officials. " Art thou also," they
say to him, " of Galilee ?" Nicodemus cow
ered under that question, and the suspicion
that it implied. Neither then nor afterwards

THE BURIAL. 353
did he say or do anything more which might
expose him to the imputation of being a fol
lower of Jesus ; but we cannot think so ill
of him as to believe that, beyond concealing
whatever belief in Christ he cherished, he
would have played the hypocrite so far as to
let his voice openly be heard as one of those
condemning our Lord to death.
Let us judge both these men as fairly and
gently as we ourselves would desire to be
judged. To what amount of enlightenment
and belief as to the character and claims of
Christ they had arrived previous to his de
cease, it were difficult to imagine. Both must
have had a large amount of deep, inveterate
Jewish prejudice to contend with in accepting
the Messiahship of the Nazarene ; not such
prejudice alone as was common to the great
mass of their countrymen, but such as had a
peculiar hold on the more educated men of
their time, when raised to be guides and rulers
of the people. Over all this prejudice Joseph
had already triumphed ; there was a sincerity
and integrity of judgment in him, an earnest

354 THE BURIAL.
spirit of faith and hope ; he was a good man
and a just ; one who, like the aged Simeon,
had been waiting for the kingdom of God, the
better prepared to hail it in whatever guise it
came. He had thus become really, though
not openly or professedly, a disciple of Jesus.
We do not know whether Nicodemus had got
so far. We do know, however, that the very
first words and acts of Jesus at Jerusalem
made the deepest and most favorable impres
sion on his mind. It was at the very opening
of our Lord's ministry, that this man came to
Jesus by night. Instead of thinking of the
covert way by which he came, only to find
ground of censure in it, let us remember that
he was the one and only ruler who did in any
Way come to Jesus ; and that he came — as
his very first words of salutation and inquiry
showed — in the spirit of deep respect, and
earnest desire for instruction. Let us remem
ber, too, that without one word of blame
escaping from our Lord's own fips, it was to
this man that, at so early a period of his min
istry, our Saviour made the clear and full dis-

THE BURIAL. 355
closure of the great object of his own mission
and death, preserved in the third chapter of
the Gospel by John; that it was to Nicode
mus he spake of that new spiritual birth
by which the kingdom was to be entered ;
that it was to Nicodemus he said, that
as Moses had lifted up the serpent in the
wilderness, even so must He be lifted up ;
that it was to Nicodemus that the great
saying was addressed, " God so loved the
world that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever befieveth in him should not
perish, but have everlasting life." Surely he
who, up till near the close, was so chary of
speaking about his death even to his own dis
ciples, would not, at the very beginning of his
ministry, have spoken thus to this ruler of
the Jews, had he not perceived in him one
willing and waiting to be taught. Christ
must have seen some good soil in that man's
heart, to have scattered there so much of the
good seed. That seed was long of germinat
ing, but it bore fruit at last, very pleasant for
the eye to look upon.

356 THE BURIAL.
It was the fault both of Joseph and Nico
demus, that they hid, as it were, their faces
from Christ ; that they were ashamed and
afraid to confess him openly. But who shall
tell us exactly what their state of mind, their
faith and feeling toward him was ; how much
of hesitation both of them may — indeed, we
may boldly say must — have felt as to many
things about Jesus which they could in no
way harmonize with their conceptions of the
Great Prophet that was to arise ? " Search
and look," his brother councillors had said to
Nicodemus, at that time when he had ven
tured to interpose the question which pro
voked them, — " search and look ; for out of
Galilee ariseth no prophet." Nicodemus had
nothing to say to that bold assertion ; nothing
to say, we may well believe, to many an ob
jection taken to the pretensions of the Son of
the Galilean carpenter. In common with Jo
seph, he may have believed ; but both to
gether may have been quietly waiting till
some further and more distinct manifestations
of his Messiahship were made by Christ.

THE BURIAL. 357
But why did they not, so far as they did be
lieve in him, openly acknowledge it ? Why
did they not feel rebuked by that poor man,
blind from his birth, dragged for examination
before them, who witnessed in their presence
so good a confession ? It was because they
knew so well that their brother rulers had
agreed that, " if any man did confess that he
was Christ, he should be put out of the syna
gogue." It was because they knew so well
and felt so keenly what to them that excom
munication would involve : for it was no
slight punishment among the Jews to be ex
pelled from the synagogue ; it involved in its
extreme issue consequences far more disas
trous than a mere ban of admission into their
religious assemblies ; it involved loss of sta
tion, separation from kindred and the society
of their fellow-men. To the poor blind beg
gar upon whom it actually was passed, that
doom may have fallen but lightly ; for he had
never known much of that of which this
doom was to deprive him. A very different
thing this expulsion from the synagogue

358 THE BURIAL.
would have been to Joseph and to Nicode
mus. Let us not judge these men too
harshly for the reluctance they showed to
brave it ; let us rather try to put ourselves
exactly in their position, that we may sympa
thize with the hesitation which they felt in
making any open acknowledgment of their
attachment to Christ.
His death, however, at once put an end to
that hesitation in both their breasts. They
may not have been present at the crucifixion.
They would not well have known where to
take their station, or how to comport them
selves there. They could not have joined in
the mockery, nor were they prepared to ex
hibit themselves as friends of the Crucified.
But though not spectators of the tragedy,
they were somewhere in the immediate neigh
borhood, waiting anxiously to learn the issue.
Could they, members of the same Sanhedrim,
thrown often into contact, witnesses of each
other's bearing and conduct, as to all the steps
which had been taken against Jesus, have
remained ignorant of each other's secret lean-

THE BURIAL. 359
ings toward the persecuted Nazarene ? Was
it by chance they met together at the cross,
to act in concert there ? We would rather
believe that, attracted by the tie of a com
mon sympathy with Jesus, the sad news of
his being taken out to Golgotha to be cruci
fied, brought them that forenoon together ;
that they were by each other's side as the
tidings reached them of all the wonders which
had transpired around the cross, and of the
strange death which Jesus died. The resolu
tion of both is promptly taken ; and it looks,
certainly, as if taken with the knowledge of
each other's purpose. Joseph goes at once
boldly to Pilate, and craves the body of Jesus.
An ancient prophecy, of which he knew no
thing — one that seemed, as Jesus died, most
unlikely of accomplishment — had proclaimed
that he was to make his grave with the rich.
This rich man has a new sepulchre, wherein
never man lay, which he had bought or got
hewn out of the rock, with the idea, perhaps,
that he might himself be the first to occupy
it. It hies there close at hand, not many

360 THE BURIAL.
paces from the cross. He is resolved to cpen
it, that it may receive, as its first tenant, the
body of the crucified. Nay, further ; as
there are few, if any, now of Christ's known
friends to undertake the task, he is resolved
— his dignity, the sense of shame, the fear
of the Jews, all forgotten — to put his own
hands to the office of giving that body the
most honorable sepulture that the time and
circumstances can afford.
Once assured, on the Centurion's testimony,
that it was even as Joseph said, Pilate at once
gives the order that the body shall be com
mitted into his hands. The Centurion, bear
ing that order, returns to Golgotha. Joseph
provides himself by the way with the clean
white cloth in which to shroud the body. The
soldiers, at their officer's command, bear the
bodies of the other two away, leaving that of
Jesus still suspended on the cross. It is
there when Joseph reaches the spot, to be
dealt with as he likes. How quiet and how
lonely the place, as the first preparations are
made for the interment ! few to help, and

THE BURIAL. 361
none to interrupt. The crowd has all dis
persed; some half dozen Galilean women
alone remain. But is John not here ? He
had returned to Calvary, had seen but a little
before the thrust of the soldier's spear; he
knew that but a short time was left for dis
posing of the body. Is it at all likely that
in such circumstances he should leave, and
not wait to see the close ? Let us believe
that though, with his accustomed modesty, he
has veiled his presence, he was present stand
ing with those Galilean women. They see,
coming in haste, this Joseph of Arimathea,
whom none of them had ever known as a dis
ciple of their Master ; they see the white linen
cloth that he has provided ; they notice that
the body is committed to his charge; they
watch with wonder as he puts forth his own
hand to the taking down of the body. Their
wonder grows as Nicodemus — also a stranger
to them, whom they had never seen coming
to Jesus — joins himself to Joseph ; not rudely
and roughly, as the soldiers had dealt with
the others, but gently and reverently handling

362 THE BURIAL.
the dead. As they lay the body on the
ground, it appears that this new-comer, Nico
demus, has brough with him a mixture of
powdered myrrh and aloes, about one hundred
pounds' weight. The richest man in Jerusa
lem could not have furnished more or better
spicery for the burial of his dearest friend.
It is evident that these two men have it in
their heart, and are ready to put to their
hands, to treat the dead with all due respect.
Their fears disarmed, assured of the friendly
purpose of those interposing thus, the Gali
lean women gather in around the pale and life
less form. The white shroud is ready, the
myrrh and the aloes are at hand, but who
shall spread those spices on the funeral gar
ment, and wrap it round the corpse to fit it
for the burial? This is a service, one of the
last and the saddest which our poor humanity
needs, which, as if by an instinct of nature,
woman's gentle hand has in all ages and in all
countries been wont to render to the dead ;
and though the Gospel narrative be silent here,
we will not believe that it was otherwise at

THE BURIAL. 363
the cross ; we will not believe but that it was
the tender hands of those loving women who
had watched at Calvary from morningtide till
now, which offer their aid, and are permitted
and honored to wipe from that mutilated form
the bloody marks of dishonor which it wore,
to swathe it with the pure linen robe, and
wrap around the thorn-marked brow the nap
kin, so falsely deemed to be the last clothing
of the dead.
One thing alone is wanting, that the man
ner of the Jews in burying may be observed — ¦
a bier to lay the body on, to bear it to the
sepulchre. There has been no time to get
one, or it is felt that the distance is so short
that it is not needed. That body has, how
ever, the best bier of all — the hands of true
affection, to lift it up and carry it aeross to
the new tomb which waits to receive it. The
feet let us assign to Joseph, the body to Nico
demus, and that regal head with those closed
eyes, over which the shadows of the resurrec
tion are already flitting, let us lay it on the
breast of the beloved disciple. The brief

364 THE BURIAL.
path from the cross to the sepulchre is soon
traversed. In silence and in deep sorrow
they bear their sacred burden, and lay it
gently down upon its clean, cold, rocky bed.
The last look of the dead is taken. The
buriers reverently withdraw, the stone is
rolled to the mouth of the sepulchre : —
separated from the living— Jesus rests with
the dead —

1 At length the worst is o'er, and thou art laid
Deep in thy darksome bed ;
All still and cold behind yon dreary stone
Thy sacred form is gone.
Around those lips where peace and mercy hung
The dew of death hath clung ;
The dull earth o'er thee, and thy friends around,
Thou sleep'st a silent corse, in funeral-raiment wound."

The burial is over now, and we might de
part; but let us finger a little longer, and
bestow a parting look on the persons and the
place, — the buriers and the burying-ground.
The former have been few in number ; what
they have to do, they must do quickly ; for
the sun is far down in the western sky when
Joseph gets the order from Pilate ; and before

THE BURIAL. 365
it sets, before the great Sabbath begins, they
must lay Jesus in the grave. Yet hurried as
they have been, with all such honor as they
can show, with every token of respect, have
laid that body in the tomb ; they have done
all they could. The last service which Jesus
ever needed at the hands of men it has been
their privilege to render. And for the man
ner in which they have rendered it, shall we
not honor them ? Yes, verily, wherever this
gospel of the kingdom shall be made known,
what they thus did for the Lord's burial shall
be told for a memorial of them ; and hence
forth we shall forget of Joseph that hitherto
he had concealed his discipleship, and acted
as if he were a stranger to the Lord, seeing
that, when Christ was in such a special sense
a stranger on the earth, he opened his own
new sepulchre to take him in ; and we shall
forget it of Nicodemus that it was by night he
had come to Jesus, seeing that, upon this last
sad day he came forth so openly, with his
costly offering of myrrh and aloes, to embalm
Christ for the burial. Of the Galilean women

366 THE BURIAL.
we have nothing to forget ; but let this be the
token wherewith we shall remember them,
that, the last at the cross and the first at the
sepulchre, they were the latest at the grave :
for Joseph has departed ; Nicodemus and the
rest are gone ; but there, while the sun goes
down, and the evening shadows deepen
around, the very solitude and gloom of the
place such as might have warned them away —
there are Mary Magdalene and the other Mary
to be seen sitting over-against the sepulchre,
unable to tear themselves from the spot,
gazing through their tears at the place where
the body of their Lord is laid.
Let us now bestow a parting look upon the
burying-ground. " In the place where he was
crucified there was a garden, and in that gar
den a sepulchre." Plant yourselves before
that sepulchre, and look around. This is no
place of graves ; here rise around you no
memorials of the dead. You see but a single
sepulchre, and that sepulchre in a garden.
Strange mingling this of opposites, the garden
of life and growth and beauty, circling the

THE BURIAL. 367
sepulchre of death, corruption, and decay.
Miniature of the strange world we five in.
What garden of it has not its own grave ?
Your path may, for a time, be through flowers
and fragrance ; follow it far enough, it leads
ever to a grave. But this sepulchre in this
garden suggests other and happier thoughts.
It was in a garden once of old — in Eden, that
death had his first summons given, to find
there his first prey ; it is in a garden here at
Calvary, that the last enemy of mankind has
the death-blow given to him — that the great
Conqueror is in his turn overcome. Upon
that stone which they rolled to the mouth of
the sepulchre, let us engrave the words —
" 0 death, where is thy sting ? 0 grave,
where is thy victory ? Thanks be to God,
which giveth us the victory, through our Lord
Jesus Christ." What a change it has made in
the character and aspect of the grave, that our
Saviour himself once lay in it ! He has
stripped it of its terrors, and to many a weary
one given it an attractive rather than a repul
sive look. "I heard a voice from heaven

368 THE BURIAL.
saying" — it needed a voice from heaven to
assure us of the truth — " Blessed are the dead
who die in the Lord." To such the grave is,
indeed, a bed of blessed rest. Buried with
Jesus, they repose till the hour of the great
awakening cometh, when with him they shall
arise to that newness of life over which no
shadow of death shall ever pass.

A PPENDIX.
It is in the hope that they may win for the
explanation of Christ's death presented in the
preceding pages a larger measure of attention
than it has yet received, that the following
letters from eminent medical authorities are
appended :—
From JAMES BEGBIE, M.D., F.R.S.E.
Fellow, and late President, of the Eoyal College of Physicians of
Edinburgh ; Physician to the Queen in Scotland.
My dear De. Hanna, — I cannot help accepting,
as correct, the explanation which Dr. Stroud has of
fered — and which you have adopted, and so strikingly
applied — of the physical cause of the death of Christ,
namely, rupture of the heart, and consequent effusion
of blood into the pericardium, the investing sheath
of that organ.
Such a lesion accounts for the phenomena recorded
in the Scriptures regarding him, namely, the earlier
than usual cessation of life during crucifixion, and the

370 APPENDIX.
issuing of blood and water on the piercing of his side
with the spear.
It must be borne in mind, howevei , that rupture of
the heart is comparatively a rare affection, and that
the cases of it on record are, so far as I know, limited
to those advanced in life, or to such as have been la
boring under some degeneration of the structure of
the organ, a condition which rendered it liable to be
torn when subjected to the pressure of severe physi
cal exertion, or the weight of mental agony. Now,
in regard to Christ, we know that at the period of
his death he was in the prime of life ; and that as
morally be was " holy, harmless, and undefiled," so
physically he was without spot or blemish.
How intensely does this consideration magnify the
sufferings he endured ! We see him in the agony in
the Garden, and under the bloody sweat. "We follow
him to Calvary, and see him under the hiding of his
Father's face, bearing our sins in his own body on
the tree. We cannot estimate the anguish of his holy
human soul during these awful hours, when there was
drawn from him that most touching language, " My
soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death ;" but
we can in some measure understand how his bodily
frame, subjected to the full weight both of mental
and bodily suffering, should yield and give way at the
fountain of life, and how Christ, in his death, should
thus literally fulfil the prophetic words of Old Testa-

APPENDIX. 371
ment writings concerning him : " Reproach hath
broken my heart." I shrink from treading farther on
this sacred ground, and remain, dear Dr. Hanna,
yours affectionately, J. BEOBIE.
10, Charlotte Sqt/abe,
Edlnbobgu, 26th April, 1862.

Feom J. T. SIMPSON, M.D., F.R.S.E.
Professor of Medicine and Midwifery in the University of Edinburgh ;
and Physician-Accoucheur to the Queen in Scotland.
My dear Db. Hanna, — Ever since reading, some
ten or twelve years ago, Dr. Stroud's remarkable trea
tise On the Physical Cause of the Death of Christ,
I have been strongly impressed with the belief that
the views which he adopted* and maintained on this
subject are fundamentally correct. Nor has this
opinion been in any way altered by a perusal of some
later observations published on the same question,
both here and on the Continent.
That the immediate cause of the death of our blessed
Saviour was — speaking medically— -laceration or rup
ture of the heart, is a doctrine in regard to which.
* Dr. Stroud himself points out that Russell, Edwards, Ram-
bach, and other writers, had more or less correctly anticipated him
in the belief that Ohiist had died from rupture or breaking of the
heart

372 APPENDIX.
there can be no absolute certainty ; but, assuredly, in
favor of it there is a very high amount of circumstan
tial probability.
Let me try to state the arguments for this view m
the form of a few brief propositions.
I. His death was not the mere result of crucifixion ;
for, 1st, The period was too short; a person in the.
prime of life, as Christ was, not dying from this mode
of mortal punishment in six hours, as He did, but usu
ally surviving till the second or third day, or even
longer. 2dly, The attendant phenomena, at the time
of actual death were different from those of cruoi-
fixion. The crucified died, as is well known, under a
lingering process of gradual exhaustion, weakness,
and faintness. On the contrary, Christ cried with a
loud voice, and spoke once and again, — all apparently
within a few minutes of His dissolution.
II. No known injury, lesion, or disease of the brain,
lungs, or other vital organs could, I believe, account
for such a sudden termination of His sufferings in
death, except (1.) arrestment of the action of the
heart by fatal fainting or syncope ; or (2.) rupture
of the walls of the heart or larger blood-vessels is
suing from it.
III. The attendant symptoms — particularly the loud
cry and subsequent exclamations — show that death
was not the effect of mortal fainting, or mere fatal
arrestment of the action of the heart by syncope.

APPENDIX. 373
IV. On the other hand, these symptoms were such
as have been seen in cases of rupture of the walls
of the heart. Thus, in the latest book published in
the English language on Diseases of the Heart, the
eminent author, Dr. Walshe, Professor of Medicine
in University College, London, when treating of the
symptoms indicating death by rupture of the heart,
observes, " The hand is suddenly carried to the front
of the chest, a piercing shriek uttered," etc. etc. The
rapidity of the resulting death is regulated by the
size and shape of the ruptured opening. But usually
death very speedily ensues in consequence of the blood
escaping from the interior of the heart into the cavity
of the large surrounding heart-sac or pericardium ;
which sac has, in cases of rupture of the heart, been
found on dissection to contain sometimes two, three,
four, or more pounds of blood accumulated within
it, and separated into red clot and limpid serum, or
" blood and water," — as is seen in blood when col
lected out of the body in a cup or basin in the opera
tion of common blood-letting.
V. No medical jurist would in a court of law, ven
ture to assert, from the mere symptoms preceding
death, that a person had certainly died of rupture of
the heart. To obtain positive proof that rupture of
the heart was the cause of death, a post-mortem, exa-
mination'of the chest would be necessary. In ancient
times, such dissections were not practised. But the

374 APPENDIX.
details left regarding Christ's death are most strik
ingly peculiar in this respect, that they offer us the
result of a very rude dissection, as it were, by the
gash* made in His side after death by the thrust of
the Roman soldier's spear. The effect of that wound
ing or piercing of the side was an escape of " blood
and water," visible to the Apostle John standing
some distance off; and I do not believe that anything
could possibly account for this appearance, as de
scribed by that Apostle, except a collection of blood
effused into the distended sac of the pericardium in
consequence of rupture of the heart, and afterwards
separated, as is usual with extravasated blood, into
those two parts, viz. (I.) crassamentum or red clot.
and (2.) watery serum. The subsequent puncture
from below of the distended pericardial sac would
most certainly, under such circumstances, lead to the
immediate ejection and escape of its sanguineous con
tents in the form of red clots of blood and a stream
of watery serum, exactly corresponding to that de
scription given in the sacred narrative, " and forth
with came there out blood and water," — an appear
ance which no other natural event or mode of death
can explain or account for.
VI. Mental emotions and passions are well known
by all to affect the actions of the heart in the way of
* Its size may be inferred from the Apostle Thomas being asked
to thrust not his "finger," but his "hand" into it. — John xx.

APPENDIX. 375
palpitation, fainting, etc. That these emotions and
passions, when in overwhelming excess, occasionally
though rarely, produce laceration or rupture of the
walls of the heart, is stated by most medical authori
ties who have written on the affections of this organ ;
and our poets even allude to this effect as an esta
blished fact, — " The grief that does not speak
Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break."
But if ever a human heart was riven and ruptured
by the mere amount of mental agony that was en
dured, it would surely — we might even argue d
priori — be that of our Redeemer, when, during these
dark and dreadful hours on the cross, He, "being
made a curse for us," " bore our griefs and carried
our sorrows," and suffered for sin, the malediction of
God and man, " full of anguish," and now " exceed
ing sorrowful even unto death."
There are theological as well as medical arguments
in favor of the opinion that Christ in reality died
from a ruptured or broken heart. Vou know them
infinitely better than I do. But let me merely
observe that
VII. If the various wondrous prophecies and
minute predictions in Psalms xxii. and lxix., regard
ing the circumstances connected with Christ's death
be justly held as literally true, such as, " They
pierced my hands and my feet," " They part my gar-

376 APPENDIX.
ments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture,"
etc., why should we regard as merely metaphorical,
and not as literally true also, the declarations in the
same Psalms, "Reproach hath broken my heart,"
" My heart is like wax, it is melted in the midst of
my bowels ?" And
VHI. Death by mere crucifixion was not a form oi
death in which there was much, if indeed any, shed
ding of blood. Punctured wounds do not generally
bleed; and the nails, besides being driven through
parts that were not provided with large blood
vessels, necessarily remained plugging up the open
ings made by their passage. The whole language
and types of Scripture, however, involve the idea
that the atonement for our sins was obtained by the
blood of Christ shed for us during his death on tha
cross. "Without shedding of blood there is no
remission." This shedding, however, was assuredly
done in the fullest possible sense, under the view that
the immediate cause of his dissolution was rupture of
the heart, and the consequent fatal escape of His
heart- and life-blood from the central cistern of the
circulation. It has always appeared — to my medical mind at
least — that this view of the mode by which death
was produced in the human body of Christ, intensi
fies all our thoughts and ideas regarding the immen
sity of the astounding sacrifice which He made for

APPENDIX. 377
our sinful race upon the cross. Nothing can possibly
be more striking and startling than the appalling and
terrible passiveness with which God as man sub
mitted, for our sakes, His incarnate body to all the
horrors and tortures of the crucifixion. But our
wonderment at the stupendous sacrifice only increases
when we reflect that, while thus enduring for our sins
the most cruel and agonizing form of corporeal death,
He was ultimately " slain," not by the effects of the
anguish of his corporeal frame, but by the effects of
the mightier anguish of His mind ; the fleshy walls
of His heart — like the veil, as it were, in the temple
of His human body — becoming rent and riven, as for
us " He poured out his soul unto death ;" — " the tra
vail of His soul " in that awful hour thus standing
out as unspeakably bitterer and more dreadful than
even the travail of his body.
Believe me, my dear Dr. Hanna, ever sincerely
yours, J. T. SIMPSON, M.D.
62 Queen Street, Edinburgh,
May 1, 1862.

Feom JOHN STRTJTHERS, M.D., F.R.C.S.
Lecturer on Anatomy, Surgeons' Hall.
Dear Dr. Hanna, — I do not think that any intel
ligent medical man will read Dr. Stroud's treatise

378 APPENDIX.
On the Physical Cause of the Death of Christ,
without being satisfied with the explanation. No
other hypothesis will satisfactorily explain the sepa
rate escape of blood and water from a wound in that
region, and all the incidents attending the death of
Christ are entirely accounted for by the hypothesis
of rupture of the heart, and the separation of the
watery and the red constituents of the blood within
the distended pericardium, on the puncture of which
they would escape forcibly. The various cases of
rupture of the heart from mental emotion, with simi
lar separation of the watery and the red parts of the
blood, collected by Dr. Stroud, and also his cases of
bloody sweat, form a body of extremely interesting
illustration and proof, and altogether the treatise is a
monument of careful research and cautious reasoning.
To medical men it has a special additional value as
accounting for incidents which force themselves upon
the medical mind for explanation. Those of my
brethren who have not read Dr. Stroud's book, must
be much puzzled, as I was before I had read it, to
account for the escape of water after, and distinct
from, blood, from a wound in that part of the body —
supposing the words "blood and water" to be
accepted literally, which there need be no hesitation
now in doing. Of course, the rupture of the heart is
in every aspect the great point of interest, the escape
of the blood and water being of importance only as

APPENDIX. 379
an incident which, having been seen, requires expla
nation, and as further bearing on the previous rup
ture of the heart.
To all, Dr. Stroud's treatise must be interesting,
not as raising or gratifying curiosity, but as an intel
ligent explanation of the incidents themselves, and,
still more, as a new illustration of the awful agony
which our Redeemer must have suffered. I was in
debted to you for first bringing Dr. Stroud's boot
under my notice, and I have since repeatedly recom
mended it to the notice of my medical friends and
students. I find lately that the first edition is now
exhausted, and hope that it will not be long before a
new edition of so valuable a work makes its appear
ance. Believe me, with much respect, yours very sincerely,
JOHN STRUTHER&
8 Paek Plaoe, Edinburgh,
May 1, 1862.

THE FORTY DAYS

Our Lord's Resurrection.

CONTENTS.

PAGfl
THE RESURRECTION,  21
APPEARANCE TO MART MAGDALENE, ... 45
THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS, . .68
THE EVENING MEETING,  91
THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS, . . . .115
THE LAKE-SIDE OF GALILEE, . . . .139
PETER AND JOHN,  169
THE GREAT COMMISSION  184
THE ASCENSION,  229
APPENDIX,  259

PREFACE.
I have long had the conviction that the
results of that fuller and more exact inter
pretation of the books of the New Testa
ment to which biblical scholars have been
conducted, might be made available for
framing such a continuous and expanded
narrative of the leading incidents in our
Eedeemer's life as would be profitable for
practical and devotional, rather than for doc
trinal or controversial purposes. It was
chiefly to try whether I could succeed in
realizing the conception I had formed of
what such a narrative might be made, that
the volume on the Last Day of Ow Lord's
Passion was published. The favourable
reception which it met has induced me to
issue a companion volume on the succeeding
and closing period of our Lord's life on earth.
Should this meet with anything like equal
favour, I will be encouraged to prosecute
'vii)

VH1 PREFACE.
the task of completing the narrative in a
similar form.
To one who previously had doubts of the
historic truth of the entire Gospel narrative,
a personal inspection of the localities in
which the events are represented as having
occurred, must have a peculiar interest and
value. It was in such a state of mind, half
inclined to believe that the whole story of
the Gospel was legendary, that" M. Eenan
visited the Holy Land three years ago. He
has told us the result. "All that history,"
he says, " which at a distance seemed to float
in the clouds of an unreal world took in
stantly a body, a solidity, which astonished
me. The striking accord between the texts
and the places, the marvellous harmony of
the evangelical picture with the country
which served as its frame, were to me as a
revelation. I had before my eyes a fifth gos
pel, mutilated but still legible, and ever af
terwards in the recitals of Matthew and
Mark, instead of an abstract Being that one
would say had never existed, I saw a won-

PREFACE. IX
derful human figure live and move." In
listening to this striking testimony as to the
effect of his visit to the East, we have deep
ly to regret that with M. Eenan the move
ment from incredulity towards belief stopped
at its first stage.
Besides its use in cases like that of Eenan,
in removing pre-existing doubts, a journey
through Palestine is of the greatest service
in giving a certain freshness and vividness
to one's conceptions of the incidents described
by the Evangelists, which nothing else can
impart. Its benefits in this respect it would
be difficult to exaggerate. But if any one
go to the Holy Land full of the expectation
of gazing on spots, or limited localities, once
hallowed by the Eedeemer's presence, and
closely linked with some great event in his
history; or if he go, cherishing the idea,
that a study of the topography will throw
fresh light upon some of the obscurer por.
tions of the Gospel record, he will be doom
ed, I apprehend, to disappointment. I had
the strongest possible desire to plant my foot
1*

X PREFACE.
upon some portion of the soil of Palestine,
on which I could be sure that Jesus once had
stood. I searched diligently for such a place,
but it was not to be found. Walking to and
fro, between Jerusalem and Bethany, you
have the feeling — one that no other walks
in the world can raise — that He often tra
versed one or other of the roads leading out
to the village. But when you ask where,
along any one of them, is a spot of which
you can be certain that Jesus once stood
there, you cannot find it. The nearest ap
proach you can make to the identification of
any such spot, is at the point where the
lower road curves round the shoulder of
Mount Olivet, the point from which the first
view of Jerusalem would be got by one en
tering the city by this route. It is here that
Dr. Stanley supposes Jesus to have paused
and beheld the city, and to have wept over
it. There is every likelihood that his sup
position is correct ; and it was with his des
cription fresh in the memory, that more than
once I visited the memorable spot. I found,

PREFACE. XI
however, that the best topographer of Jeru
salem and its neighbourhood, whom I had the
fortune to meet there — one who had studied
the subject for years — was strongly inclined
to the belief that it was along the higher
and not the lower road that the triumphal
procession passed; and that it was on his
reaching the summit of Mount Olivet, that
the city burst upon the Saviour's view. It
did not alter my own conviction that Dr.
Stanley was correct ; but it hindered, indeed
destroyed, the impression which absolute cer
tainty would have produced.
There is, indeed, one circle of limited dia
meter, I believe but one, that you can trace
on the soil of Palestine, and be absolutely
certain that Jesus once stood within its cir
cumference — that which you may draw
round Jacob's Well near Sychar. I had de
termined to tread that circle round and
round ; to sit here and there and everywhere
about, so as to gratify a long-cherished wish.
How bitter the disappointment on reaching
it to find no open space at the well-mouth ;

Xll PREFACE.
but, spread all round, the remains of an old
building, over whose ruinous walls we had
to scramble and slide down, through heaps
of stones and rubbish, till through two or
three small apertures we looked down into
the undiscoverable well !
It would seem indeed that, Jacob's Well
excepted, there is not a definite locality in
Palestine that you can certainly and inti
mately connect with the presence of Jesus
Christ. The grotto shown at Bethlehem
may have been the stable of the village inn,
but who can now assure us of the fact ? It
is impossible to determine the site of that
house in Nazareth under whose roof, for
thirty years, Jesus lived. Of Capernaum,
the city in which most of his wonderful
works were wrought, scarcely a vestige re
mains. Travelers and scholars are disputing
which is Capernaum among various obscure
heaps of ruins on the north-western shore of
the Sea of Galilee. No one, I believe, can
tell the exact place where any one of our
Lord's miracles was wrought, or any one of

PREFACE. Xlll
his parables was spoken. The topographical
obscurity that hangs around the history of
Jesus, reaches its climax at Jerusalem. Beth
any is sure, but the house of Lazarus is a
fable. The Mount of Olives remains, but it
cannot have been where they show it, so
near the city, that the real Gethsemane lay.
You cannot err as to the ridge on which of
old the Temple stood, but where were the
courts around it, in which Jesus so often
taught ; where the palace of the High Priest,
the hall of Pilate, the ground on which the
cross stood, the new sepulchre in which they
laid his body ? Whenever you try to get at
some fixed and limited locality, it eludes
your search. All is obscurity ; either utterly
unknown, or covered with a thickening cloud
of controversy. May it not have been meant
that the natural, but in this case too human
curiosity that we cherish, should be baffled \
Is it not better that he should have passed
away, leaving so little of minute local as
sociation connected with his presence in the
midst of us ? Does it not seem more in ac-

XIV PREFACE.
cordance with the dignity of his divine char
acter, that of all the lives that were ever lived
on earth, his should be the one that it is
least possible to degrade by rude familiari
ties of conception ; his the name which it is
least possible to mix up with that supersti
tion which ever seeks an earthly shrine at
which to offer its incense ?
It is true that tradition has fixed on many
holy places in Palestine, and that each year
sends crowds of worshippers to these shrines ;
but as the darkness of those ages in which
these traditions arose is giving place to light,
the faith of many in these holy places cannot
stand against the gathering force of evidence.
The time must come, however long it be of
arriving, when what is doubtful and what
is sure shall be clearly known ; and if then,
still more than now, it shall appear that the
most wonderful of all earthly lives has left
the fewest visible marks of itself behind in
recognisable localities, it will also, perhaps,
be believed that this is so, not without a
purpose, but that it should be manifest that

PREFACE. XV
the ties of Jesus of Nazareth were not with
places, but with persons ; the story of his
life one easily and equally understood in all
ages and in every land.
It was while the sheets of this volume
were passing through the press, that the Vie
de Jesus came into the writer's hands. I
deed not say with what lively interest I
turned to that part of it in which the period
of our Saviour's life, of which this volume
treats, should have been represented. I
found an utter blank. " For the historian,"
says M. Eenan, " the life of Jesus terminates
with his last breath. It would, perhaps,
scarcely be fair to call this a verdict against
evidence, as M. Eenan has told us that in a
future volume he will explain to us how the
legend of the resurrection arose. We must
be permitted, however, even in absence of
such explanation, to express our strong con
viction of the unreasonableness of that pro
cedure which assumes that what are good
and sufficient materials for history up to the
death of Jesus, are utterly useless afterwards.

XVI PREFACE.
Admitting for the moment that the resurrec
tion, as a miraculous event, did not and
could not happen, the seeing and conversing
with Jesus was surely a thing as much with
in the power of human testimony to estab
lish at one time as at another. And if those
witnesses are to be credited, as M. Eenan
admits they are, who tells us of seeing and
hearing him before the crucifixion, why are
the same witnesses tc be discredited when
they tell us of seeing and hearing him after
that event ? If the mixture of miracle with
recorded incident throws the later period out
of the historian's pale, should it not have
done the same with the earlier period also %
This, however, is not the place to enter
upon any of those momentous topics which
M. Eenan has brought up afresh for discus
sion. There are different modes in which
his Life of Jesus may be met and answered.
One is a full and critical exposure of all the
arbitrary assumptions and denials, affirma
tions without proof, doubts without reasons,
inconsistencies and contradictions, errors his-

PREFACE. XVD
torical and exegetical, which are to be met
with throughout the volume. Eenan's own
range of scholarship is so extensive, and he
has derived his materials from so many re
sources, that we trust no incompetent hand
will rashly undertake the critical dissection
of his book. A simpler, more direct, and
more effective method of dealing with this
work, would be to expose its flagrant failure
in what may be regarded as its capital de
sign and object ; to eliminate all that is
superhuman and divine from the character
and life of Christ, and yet leave him a man
of such pure, exalted, unrivalled virtue, as
to be worthy of the unreserved and un
bounded love and reverence of mankind.
Let the fancy sketch of Jesus of Nazareth,
which M. Eenan has presented to us, be
stripped of that rich coloring which he has
thrown around it, and it will appear as that
of a man who at times showed himself to be
ignorant, weak, prejudiced, extravagant, fan
atical ; who in his teaching advanced some
times what was foolish, sometimes what was

XVUl PREFACE.
positively immoral ; who in his practice was
often himself misled, and became at least aD
accomplice in misleading and deceiving
others; it is such a man whom he holds
forth to us, and would have us venerate as
the author of the Christian faith. Here in
this latest assault upon the Divinity of
Christ, we have it set before us what kind
of human character is left to Him if his Son-
ship to God be denied. It is a singular re
sult of this attempt to strip Christ of all
Divine qualities and perfections, that it mars
and mutilates his character even as a man.
The two elements— the human, the Divine —
are so inseparably interwoven, that you can
not take away the one and leave the other
uiiimpaired. If Jesus be not one with the
Father in the possession of Divine attributes,
he can no longer be regarded as the type and
model of a perfect humanity. A curious in
quiry thus suggests itself into the modifica
tions to which the humanity was subjected
by its alliance with Divinity in the complex
chai acter of the Eedeemer, and into the man-

PREFACE. XIX
ner in which the natural and the super
natural were woven together in his earthly
history. But without any controversial treatment,
the evil which M. Eenan's work is fitted to
produce may be neutralized -¦- by a simple
recital of the Life of Jesus, so as to show
that the blending of the natural with the
miraculous, the human with the Divine, is
essential to the coherence and consistency of
the record; absolutely precluding such a
conception of Christ's character as that which
M. Eenan has presented ; that the fabric of
the Gospel history is so constructed that if
you take out of it the Divinity of Jesus, the
whole edifice falls into ruins. The writer
ventures to hope that such a Life of Jesus as
he meditates may at least partially serve this
purpose, and be useful in promoting an in
telligent and devout faith in Jesus of Nazar
eth, the Son of Mary, as the Son of God, the
Saviour of mankind.
W. HANNA
Edinburgh, 11th Nov., 1863.

We left Mary Magdalene and the other
Mary keeping their lonely watch over against
the sepulchre till the sun of Friday sets. At
its setting, Saturday, the great Sabbath of
the Passover, begins. Such a Sabbath nev
er dawned upon this world before or since.
All things wear an outward look of quiet in
Jerusalem. A great calm, a deeper than
Sabbath stillness, has followed the stir and
excitement of those strange scenes at Golgo
tha. Crowds of silent worshippers fill, as
usual, the courts of the Temple ; and all
goes on, at the hours of the morning and
evening sacrifice, as it had done for hundreds
of years gone by. But can those priests,
who minister within the Holy Place, gaze
without some strange misgivings upon the
rent in the veil from top to bottom, which
*M(itt xxvii. 62-6B: xxviii. 16. (21)

22 THE RESURRECTION.
yesterday they had seen so strangely made,
and which they scarce had time imperfectly
to repair ? Can they think without dismay
of that rude uncovering of all the hidden
mysteries of the most Holy Place, which
they had witnessed ? Among the crowds
of worshippers without, there are friends
and followers of Jesus. They would have
been here, had nothing happened to their
Master the day before, and they are here
now, for, by keeping away, they might draw
suspicion upon themselves ; but what heart
have they for the services of the Sanctuary %
They have just had all their brightest earth
ly hopes smitten to the dust ; and so pros
trate are they beneath the stroke, that they
cannot even recall to memory, that but a few
months before, Jesus had, more than once,
distinctly told them that he must go up to
Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the el
ders and chief priests, and be killed, and be
raised again the third day. No writer of a
fictitious story, no framer of a religious
myth, had he previously put into Christ's

THE RESURRECTION. 23
lips such distinct foretellings of his death
and resurrection, would have attributed to
his followers such an entire forgetfulness of
these predictions, such an utter prostration
of all faith and hope, as that which the
Evangelists describe as coming upon all our
Lord's disciples immediately after his death,
lasting till the most extraordinary means
were taken to remove them, and yielding
slowly even then. Yet, after all, is it not
true to human nature, that upon the minds
and hearts of those simple, rude, uncultiva
ted men and women, filled as they had been
with other and quite different expectations,
"the shock of such a shameful death, coming
in such a way upon their Master, was so sud
den and so stunning, that all power of form
ing a new conception of their Master's char
acter, and taking up a new faith in him, was
gone ; the power even of remembering what
he had said about himself beforehand for the
season paralysed?
But love lives on, even where faith dies
out, among those disconsolate and utterly

24 THE RESURRECTION.
hopeless friends and followers of our Lord,
While the two Marys had remained through
out the preceding day before the sepulchre,
others of those Galilean women had hasten
ed to occupy the short space between the
burial and the sunset, in beginning their
preparations for the embalming of their Mas
ter's body. And these, with the two Marys,
are waiting now, not without impatience;
for their hearts, not in the Temple services,
have gone where they have seen him laid, — •
till the sunset, the close of the Sabbath, en
ables them to have all the needed wrap
pings, and spices, and ointments prepared,
so that when the third morning dawns they
may go out to Golgotha, to finish there at leis
ure what Joseph and Nicodemus had more
hurriedly and imperfectly attempted, before
they laid Jesus in the sepulchre.
But how, throughout this intervening Sab
bath, fares it with the chief priests and rul
ers ? Are they quite at ease ; content and
happy; satisfied with, if not glorying in,
their success ? They have got rid of this

THE RESURRECTION. 25
obnoxious man; he is dead and buried.
What fear can there be of him now ? What
risk or danger to them, or to their suprem
acy, can come out of his grave ? May they
not bury all their apprehensions in that
closed sepulchre ? No ; a ghastly fear comes
in to mar the joy of a gratified revenge.
They dread that dead man still; he rules
their spirits from his sepulchre. They would
not cross Herod's threshold the day before,
lest they should be defiled. They could not
bear the thought that Jesus should hang
suspended on the cross throughout the Sab
bath-day ; it would disturb, it would dese
crate the services of the Holy day, the Holy
Place. But they scruple not to desecrate
the Sabbath by their jealous fears ; by their
secret councils ; by their plannings to pre
vent a future, dreaded danger. And so, no
sooner is the Sabbath over, than they hasten
to the Governor, saying to him : — " Sir, we
remember that that deceiver said, while he
was yet alive, After three days I will rise
again." They had themselves heard him, at

26 THE RESURRECTION.
the very beginning of his ministry, say pub
licly : " Destroy this temple, and in three
days I will raise it again." They had heard
him at a later period say: "An evil and
adulterous generation seeketh after a sign ;
and there shall no sign be given to it, but
the sign of the prophet Jonas : for as Jonas
was three days and three nights in the
whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man be
three days and three nights in the heart of
the earth." Was it to these vague and gen
eral sayings of our Lord that the Eulers now
referred ? It is more likely that they had in
view some of those more recent and more ex
plicit declarations of Jesus to his own disci
ples, such as the one already quoted, or such
as that other, and still more explicit one,
when he took his disciples apart by the way,
as they were going up to Jerusalem, and
said to them, " Behold, we go up to Jerusa
lem; and the Son of Man shall be be
trayed unto the chief priests, and unto the
scribes, and they shall condemn him to death,
and. shall deliver him to the Gentiles to

THE RESURRECTION. 27
mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him :
and the third day he shall rise again." What
more natural than that the betrayer himself,
to whose act especial allusion was thus made,
should, in some of his communications with
the Eulers, have repeated to them those
memorable words? They now remember,
while the disciples themselves forget. They
fear, while the disciples have ceased to hope.
When first reported to them, they had
mocked at the unmeaning words ; but now
that so much of the prophecy has been ac
complished, they begin to dread lest somehow
or other the remainder of it should also be
fulfilled. As yet all was safe ; it was not till
the third day that he was to rise again.
During that Sabbath-day the body of the
Crucified was secure enough in the sepul
chre ; the very sanctity of the day a suffi
cient guard against any attempt to invade
the tomb. But instant means must be taken
that thereafter there be no tampering with
the place of burial. No night-guard could
they get so good as a company of Eoman

28 THE RESURRECTION.
soldiers whose iron rule of discipline im
posed death upon the sentinel who slept at
his post. Such guard they could get sta
tioned at the sepulchre only under the Gov
ernor's sanction. " Command therefore," they
said to Pilate, " that the sepulchre be made
sure until the third day, lest his disciples
come by night, and steal him away, and say
unto the people, He is risen from the dead :
so the last error shall be worse than the
first." Little heeding either the first or the
last error, having no sympathy with their idle
fears about the rifling of the sepulchre, in no
good humour either with himself or with the
Eulers, yet, since he had gone so far to please
them, not caring to refuse their last request,
Pilate complies. " Ye have a watch," he
says ; " a detachment of my soldiers placed
at your disposal during the feast, use it as
you please ; go your way, and, with its help,
make the sepulchre of that poor, innocent
Nazarene, you got me to crucify, as sure as
you can." And they went their way. They
passed a cord across the stone which filled

THE RESURRECTION. 29
the entrance into the sepulchre, and fastened
it at each end to the adjoining rock with the
sealing clay, so that the stone could not be
removed and replaced, however carefully, in
its first position, without leaving behind a
mark of the disturbance. And they placed
the sentinels, with the strict command that
they were to suffer no man in the darkness
to meddle with that sepulchre; and thus,
securely guarded, the dead body of the Ee-
deemer reposes.
The darkness deepens round the sepulchre,
the sentinels kindle their night-lamps, and
pace to and fro before it. The midnight
hour has passed; it is yet dark. The day
has but begun to dawn, when those women,
whose wakeful love sends them forth on their
early errand, leave the Holy City to go out
to Calvary to complete there the interrupted
embalming. They are already near the spot,
when a difficulty, not thought of till then,
occurs to them. And they said among
themselves, Who shall roll away the stone
from the door of the sepulchre ? That stone

30 THE RESURRECTION.
which they had seen two nights before close
ly fitted into its place, was too large, too
firmly embedded in its place for their weak
hands to move, and at this hour, and at that
spot, what aid of stronger hands can they
obtain ? Another difficulty there was ; but
of it happily they were ignorant, or it might
have stopped their movement altogether.
Of that stealing of the stone, of that guard
planted the preceding day before the sepul
chre, they had heard nothing, else they might
have put to one another the further question,
How, with such guard before it, shall we
ever get access to the grave ? It is as they
are communing with one another by the way,
that the earth quakes, and the angel descends
from heaven, and rolls the stone back from
the door of the sepulchre, and, having done
this service for the embalmers, sits down
upon it, waiting their approach. Was it
then that the great event of that morning
took place? Was it as the angel's hand
rolled back the stone, and opened the en
trance of the tomb, that the Great Eedeemer

THE RESURRECTION. 31
of mankind awoke, arose, and stepped forth
from his temporary rest among the dead?
It is not said so. The keepers did not wit
ness the resurrection. They saw the angel,
the light of his countenance, the snowy
radiance of his raiment, and for fear of him
they became as dead men. But they saw
not the Lord himself come forth. The angel
himself may not have witnessed the resur
rection. He did not say he had. He speaks
of it as an event already past. It may not
have been as a spectator or minister to his
Lord, in the act of rising from the dead, that
he was sent down from heaven. The Lord
of life needed not that service which he came
to render. Through that stone door he could
have passed as easily as he passed afterwards
through other doors which barred not his
entrances nor his exits. Altogether secret,
the exact time and manner of the event,
unnoticed and unknown was that great rising
from the dead. The clearest and amplest
proof was afterwards given of the fact that,
some time between sunset of the last and

32 THE RESURRECTION.
sunrise of the first day of the week, the
resurrection had taken place ; but it pleased
not the Lord who then arose to do so under
the immediate eye or inspection of any hu
man witness.
Alarmed by the quaking of the ground
beneath their feet, bewildered by the strange
light which is seen streaming forth from be
side the sepulchre, the women enter the gar
den, approach the sepulchre, gather courage
as they see that the stone is already rolled
away, but might have sunk again in terror
as they looked at him. who sat upon that
stone, had he not prevented their fears by
saying to them, in tones, let us believe, full
of soothing power : " Fear not ye : for I know
that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified " —
' I know the errand that you come on. I
know that it is love to the Crucified which
brings you, thus early, to what was once his
grave ; and I have tidings of him that such
love as yours will delight to hear. True,
all that labour of yours about these spices
and ointments is lost; you will find here

THE RESURRECTION. 33
no body to embalm. But not lost this
visit to the sepulchre ; for to you first, among
all his followers, have I to tell : " He is not
here : for he is risen, as he said. Come, see
the place where the Lord lay ;" ' and he led
them into the sepulchre.
" Come, see the place where the Lord lay."
How little did the angel who first uttered
these words, and heard the echo of them die
away among the recesses of the rocky gar
den, — how little, perhaps, did he think that
the invitation which he thus gave to those
few trembling women who stood before him,
would be conveyed down through all after
times, and be borne to the ears of millions
of the followers of Jesus Christ. And yet
it has been even so, and in the course of its
long descent and wide circulation, it has
reached even unto us. Let us listen to and
obey it. Come, let us look at the place
where the Lord once lay, and from which on
that third morning he arose.
We cannot indeed literally accept the an
gelic invitation, and go and look into the
2*

34 THE RESURRECTION.
empty sepulchre. The hand of time, and in
this instance the still rougher hands of the
devotee and of the infidel, have wrought
such changes in that sacred neighbourhood
that the exact site of the holy sepulchre
cannot be identified. But though we may
not be able to plant our footsteps on the
very ground that the trembling women oc
cupied, or follow them as, angel led, they
passed into the deserted tomb, yet in thought
we may still bend over the place where the
Lord once lay.
As we do so, let us reflect upon the proofs
of the divine mission of the Eedeemer af
forded by his resurrection from the grave.
Evidence enough had been afforded by our
Lord himself, during his lifetime, of his
divine character and authority. The words
he spake, the works he did, proclaimed him
to be the Son of the Highest. But sufficient
as it was to convince the candid, that evi
dence had not been sufficient to silence the
cavillers. His words were misunderstood
and misinterpreted ; his miracles, though not

THE RESURRECTION. 35
denied, were attributed to Satanic agency.
It was as a blasphemer that he was put to
death. But his resurrection appears at least
to have had this effect, it stopped the mouths
of his adversaries. There might be a few
among the more credulous of them who
accepted the clumsy tale that the chief
priests tried to circulate about his disciples
coming by night and taking the body away.
But loudly and publicly as, both in the
heart of Jerusalem and elsewhere, the apos
tles proclaimed this fact in the presence of
the Eulers themselves, it does not appear
that its reality was ever openly challenged,
or that any such attempt was made to ex
plain it away as had been made regarding
other miracles wrought by the Saviour's
hands. If it failed to convince, it succeeded
at least in silencing those who would, if they
could, have dealt with it in a like manner.
It had indeed the force of a double miracle.
Barely, and by itself, the rising of Jesus
from the dead most fully authenticated the
claims he had put forth. Had the Son of

36 THE RESURRECTION.
Mary not been all that he had declared him
self to be, never would such an exercise of
the Divine power have been put forth on hia
behalf. But more than this, Christ had pub
licly perilled his reputation as the Christ of
God, on the occurrence of this event. When
challenged to give some sign in support of
his pretensions, it was to his future resurrec
tion from the dead, and to it alone, that he
appealed. Often, as we have seen, and that
in terms incapable of misconstruction, had
our Lord foretold his resurrection. It car
ried thus along with it, a triple proof of the
divinity of our Lord's mission. It was the
fulfilment of a prophecy, as well as the work
ing of a miracle ; that miracle wrought, and
that prophecy fulfilled, in answer to a solemn
and confident appeal made beforehand by
Christ to this event as the crowning testi
mony to his Messiahship.
But not yet have we exhausted the testi
mony which the resurrection of Jesus em
bodies. He spoke of that resurrection as the
raising of himself by himself. " Destroy

THE RESURRECTION. 37
this temple, and in three days I will raise it
up. I lay down my life, that I may take it
again. I have power to lay it down ; I have
power to take it again." An assumption by
Jesus Christ of a power proper to the Crea
tor alone ; a clothing of himself with the
high prerogatives of the giver and the re
storer of life. His actual resurrection, did
it not in the most solemn manner ratify that
assumption, convincing us by an instance of
the highest kind, that whatsoever the Fath
er doeth, the same doeth the Son likewise ?
But further still — and it is this which at
taches such importance to this incident in
the history of our Eedeemer, and causes it
to be spoken of in the New Testament
Scriptures as standing in such close connex
ion with all our dearest hopes as to the life
beyond the grave, — in the resurrection of the
Saviour, the seal of the Divine acceptance
and approval was put upon that great work
of service and of sacrifice, of atonement and
of obedience in our room and stead, which Je
sus finished on the cross. The expression

38 THE RESURRECTION.
and embodiment of that acceptance and ap
proval in a visible act, an outward and pal
pable incident, gives an aid and a security
to our faith in Christ for our acceptance with
God, far beyond that which any bare an
nouncement in words could possibly have
conveyed. Can we wonder, then, at the
prominence given, in the teachings and writ
ings of the apostles of our Lord, to an event
so full of convincing evidence, so rich in
spiritual instruction and comfort ? To be a
witness to this great event was held — as the
election of Matthias informs us — to be the
special function of the apostolic office. It was
this event that Peter referred at large in his
discourse to the multitude on the day of
Pentecost. "This Jesus hath God raised
up, whereof we all are witnesses." Ques
tioned, a short time afterwards, before the
Sanhedrim, as to the earliest of the apostolic
miracles, " Be it known," said Peter, " unto
you all, and to all the people of Israel, that
by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,
whom you crucified, whom God raised f: om

THE RESURRECTION. 39
the dead, even by him doth this man stand
before you whole." When Paul addressed
the men of Athens, this was the one super
natural incident to which, in the way of at
testation, he referred : " God hath appointed
a day, in the which he will judge the world
by that man whom he hath ordained ; where
of he hath given assurance, in that he hath
raised him from the dead." I have but to
refer to the 15th chapter of the 1st Epistle
to the Corinthians, to remind you of the place
and prominence given to the event by the
great apostle of the Gentiles : " If Christ be
not risen, then is our preaching vain, and
your faith is also vain."*
From the first, it was to that crowning
miracle of Christianity that its teachers
made appeal. And now once more, in our
own times, it is by that event that we desire
that the entire question of the supernatural-
ism of our religion should be decided ; for
if that event be true, then any, then all oth
er miracles are at least credible, for where
* See Appendix A.

40 THE RESURRECTION.
among them shall a greater than this be
found ? If that event be true, then upon it
does the entire fabric of our Christian faith
securely rest ; for if we believe that Jesus
died and rose again, then are we prepared
along with this, and as harmonizing with
this, to believe all that the Scriptures have
taught us of the glory of Christ's person, as
one with, and equal to the Father ; — all that
they have taught us of the design of his life
and death among us, as the Eedeemer of our
souls from death, — the giver, the infuser, the
nourisher, the maturer of that eternal life
which is for our souls in him. Let us then
be devoutly grateful for it, that our faith in
him — in knowledge of whom, in union with
whom standeth our eternal life — has such a
solid foundation of fact to rest upon, — a
foundation so firmly imbedded among all
those other foundations upon which oui
knowledge of the past reposes, that to un
settle, to overturn it, you must unsettle,
must overturn them all.
" Come, see the place where the Lord lay,"

THE RESURRECTION. 41
that you may contemplate him, the one and
only instance which this world hath witness
ed of the last enemy, Death, being fairly
met, — met in his own territory, triump hd
over in his own domain, by the use of his
own weapons. That grim, inexorable ty
rant, wealth has never bribed, tears have
never softened, beauty has never moved
as he made his unfaltering approach, and
struck his unerring blow. To and fro, wide
over the vast field of humanity, has that
sheer, cold scythe been ever swaying, and
generation after generation has it laid low in
the dust. Two only out of the many mil
lions of our race — two in olden time were
snatched away before the stroke of the de
stroyer came upon them, and passed away
without tasting death. But the translation
of Enoch and Elijah was no victory over
death ; they never met, they never grappled
with this foe; they were withdrawn from
the battle-field before the day of conflict
came. Some there were, too, in after times,
who, subject for a season to the dominion of

42 THE RESURRECTION.
death, were delivered from his sway ; but
neither was theirs the victory, for they had
to return again, and bow once more beneath
the yoke of the great conqueror. The wid
ow's son, the ruler's daughter, and Lazarus
whom Jesus loved, lie low as others in the
caverns of the dead. One alone of human
form ever grappled with that strong wrest
ler, Death, and cast him from him overcome.
His way to conquest lay through brief sub
mission. Like others, he descended into the
dark and dreary prison-house. The grave
opened to receive him. He seemed to have
passed away, as the multitudes who had
gone before. But Death and the Grave
never received such a visitant into their si
lent and vast domains. He approached the
throne of the tyrant, to wrench the sceptre
of empire from his hand. In bursting, as he
did, the barriers of the grave, it was no
mere respite that he obtained for himself,
but a full and final victory. He bade adieu
that morning to the sepulchre for ever. He
left no trophy behind ; nothing of his in the

THE RESURRECTION. 43
hands of death; nothing but that empty
sepulchre to tell that he had once, and for a
short season, been under the hold of the de
stroyer. Even had this been a solitary con
quest, though the sepulchre of Jesus were
to remain for ever as the only one from
which the tenant came forth alive, to return
to it no more, — still would we draw near to
muse upon this one triumph of humanity
over the last enemy.
But we have all a nearer, a more special
interest in this deserted tomb of Jesus Christ.
His was no solitary, isolated victory over the
grave. For us he died, and for us he rose
again. Firm and fast as the grave now seems
to hold the buried generations of our race,
it is now doomed, as a fruit of Christ's resur
rection, to relax its grasp, and yield them up
again. Empty as was Joseph's sepulchre
when the angel stood before it and invited
the women to enter, so empty shall one day
be every grave of earth, when another angel
shall sound his trumpet, and it shall ring
through all the regions of the dead, and stir

44 THE RESURRECTION.
all to life again. Blessed was that morning
which dawned upon the empty tomb at Cal
vary, but more blessed to us shall that other
morning be, which shall dawn upon all the
emptied graves of earth, if only now we live
in Christ ; if at death we sleep in Jesus ; if at
that resurrection we be numbered with those
who shall share the resurrection of the just.

ir,

In relating the incidents of the resurrec
tion, St. Matthew tells us that it was Mary
Magdalene and the other Mary, who, as the
first day of the week began to dawn, went
out to the sepulchre. St. Mark mentions
Salome as having accompanied them. St.
Luke introduces the additional name of
Joanna. St. John speaks of Mary Magda
lene, and of her only. On the supposition
that a number of those women who came
with Jesus from Galilee had agreed to com
plete as early as possible the embalming of
his body, and that they had either started
together from the city, or, being in different
parts of it the night before, had fixed to
meet at early dawn at the sepulchre, we can
readily enough understand that each of the
four independent narrators might name one
* John xx. 1-18. (45)

46 APPEARANCE TO
or more of them without specifying the
others. Looking, however, a little more
closely into the fow separate accounts, we
notice that, according to Matthew, the women
on their arrival found the stone removed
from the entrance of the sepulchre, and an
angel sitting upon it, who invited them to
enter and look at the place where the Lord
had lain. Mark, making no allusion to any
vision of an angel without, says that they
passed into the sepulchre, and, on entering,
saw " a young man sitting at the right side,
clothed in a long white garment," who ad
dressed to them nearly the same words which
Matthew puts into the mouth of the angel
seen sitting upon the stone. Luke tells us
that, finding the stone rolled away, they en
tered in and found the sepulchre empty, and
as they stood perplexed at the discovery,
" behold, two men stood by them in shining
garments," and spoke to them in terms and
in a tone differing considerably from that at
tributed to the single angel by the first two
evangelists. It appears again, from the nar

MARY MAGDALENE. 47
rative of John, that Mary Magdalene had
seen no angel, had heard at least no an
nouncement that the Lord was actually
alive, when she hurried off from the sepul
chre in search of Peter and John. What
are we to make of these discrepancies ? Was
it sometimes one and sometimes two angels
that appeared ; were some eyes opened and
some eyes shut to the angelic visions ? Was
it one visit, or two, or more, by the same or
different groups of women, which were paid
to the sepulchre ? Various attempts to an
swer such questions have been made ; various
suppositions have been framed, the adoption
of which, it has been thought, would relieve
the different accounts from conflicting with
one another; various modes of interlacing
them, so as to form out of them a continu
ous and consistent narrative, have been pre
sented. If it cannot be said that they have
all absolutely failed, it must be said that not
one of them is entirely satisfactory. We
cannot doubt that if all the minor and con
necting links were in our hands, we should

48 APPEARANCE TO
be able to explain what now seems to be
obscure, to harmonize what now seems to be
conflicting ; but in the absence of such knowl
edge, we must be content to take what each
writer tells us, and regard it as the broken
fragment of a whole, all the parts of which
are not in our hands, so that we can put
them connectedly together. But is not this
fragmentary character of each of these four
separate accounts just what we might have
expected, considering the time and manner
of the events narrated, — the obscure light,
the women coming, it may have been singly,
or in different groups by different routes, the
surprise, the terror, the running in and out,
to and from the city — all this within the
compass of an hour or two ? Which one of
the spectators or actors in these busy and
broken movements, if asked afterwards to
detail what occurred, but might have given
an account of it differing from that of all the
others ? And if any two of these indepen
dent sources of information were applied to
or made use of, how readily might apparent

MARY MAGDALENE. 49
contradictions emerge upon the face of the
narratives that were afterwards preserved.
We do not know from what particular
sources Matthew, Mark, and Luke derived
their information. This special interest,
however, attaches to the narrative of John, —
it is partly that of an eye-witness, and part
ly drawn, we cannot doubt, from what was
told him by Mary Magdalene herself. Over
looking the part taken by all the other
women, John confines himself exclusively to
her. Even as our Lord himself singled her
out from among the women who had minis
tered to him, to make to her his first appear
ance after his resurrection, so does the be
loved disciple speak of her alone while he
details to us the incidents of that wonderful
manifestation. We feel as if a great injustice had been
done to Mary Magdalene, in identifying her
with the woman who was a sinner, who
anointed the Lord's feet with ointment, and
wiped them with the hairs of her head.
The name of that woman is not mentioned
Resurrection. Q

50 APPEARANCE TO
in the record of the incident m which she
took so prominent a part. The incident oc
curred not in Magdala but at Nain. It was
after Christ had left Nain that the first men
tion of this Mary meets us in the gospel
narrative : "And it came to pass afterward,
that he went throughout every city and vil
lage, preaching and showing the glad tidings
of the kingdom of God; and the twelve
were with him, and certain women, which
had been healed of evil spirits and infirmi
ties, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom
went seven devils, and Joanna the wife of
Chuza, Herod's steward, and Susanna, and
many others which ministered unto him of
their substance." Named thus along with
one whose husband held an important office
in Herod's household, named as one of those
who ministered to our Lord of their sub
stance, Mary Magdalene does not appear to
have been a woman of a low or poor condi
tion. Neither have we any right to ground
upon the fact that seven devils had been
cast out of her, the conclusion that she had

MARY MAGDALENE. 51
been a woman of depraved or dissolute hab
its. Satanic possession carried then no more
evidence along with it of previous immoral
ity, than insanity would do now among our:
selves. But whoever, whatever this Maiy was,
she was, as we have already seen, one of the
latest at the sepulchre on the evening of the
burial, and now she is one of the earliest at
that sepulchre on the morning of the resur
rection. Perhaps, more eager than the rest,
she had hurried on before, and entered the
garden alone. A quick glance, that waited
not to catch even the sight of the angel's
form, had shown her that the entrance was
open, and the sepulchre empty. Over
whelmed with sorrow at the sight ; waiting
not to hear the angel's intimation that He
had risen ; leaping at once to the conclusion
that hostile hands had rifled the sacred
tomb, her troubled fancy picturing to her
the indignities to which that form, beloved
even in its lifelessness, might have been sub
jected, — Mary hurries back to the city.

52 APPEARANCE TO
She seeks the house to which John had car
ried the mother of our Lord. She finds
there both John and that other apostle,
whom a strange attraction has drawn now
to John's side. She has but breath enough
to say, " They have taken away the Lord,
and we know not where they have laid
him." Her eagerness of alarm passes, by
sympathy, into the hearts of the two apos
tles. They arise to run out together to the
sepulchre. John's lighter footstep, quicken
ed by his more ardent, more unburdened
love, carries him soonest to the spot ; but, at
the entrance, his deep and reverential spirit
holds him back in awe. He stops, and bends,
and looks into the grave. Peter, of slower
step, and still labouring, it may have been,
under the burden of self-reproach, is behind
John in the race ; but, bolder or more impet
uous, he stops not at the door, but, passing
John, goes at once into the sepulchre. He
draws his brother apostle after him, the one
never dreaming of the influence he thus
exerts, the other as little thinking of the in-

MARY MAGDALENE. 53
fluence he obeys. Both are now within,
and have leisure to look round upon the
place. There the linen clothes are lying,
with which Joseph and Nicodemus had
swathed the body, and there, not loosely
flung upon them in a disordered heap, but
carefully folded up in a place by itself, lies
that napkin which Mary herself may have
helped to bind around the thorn-marked
brow. Who had arranged them thus?
Was it the hand of the great Sleeper him
self, on his awakening within the tomb ? or
was it some angel's hand that took the death
garments, as they dropped from around the
risen one, and thus disposed them? Who
ever did it, there had been no haste ; all had
been done calmly, collectedly. Neither
earthly friends nor earthly foes had done
it: the one would not have stripped the
garments from the body ; the other would
have been at no pains so carefully to arrange
and deposit them. Peter, as he looks, is
amazed, but his amazement shapes itself into
no connected thought ; he departs wondering

54 APPEARANCE TO
in himself at that which had come to pass.
John's quieter and deeper reflection suggests
at once the idea that what has taken place
is not a removal, but a reanimation of the
body. An incipient faith in the resurrec
tion forms within his breast ; a faith ground
ed, not as it might have been, and should
have been, on what he had already read or
heard — for as yet neither he nor any of the
apostles knew from the Scripture, nor be
lieved from Christ's own word, that he must
rise again from the dead, — but grounded
simply on what he saw, and especially upon
the singular condition which the interior of
the sepulchre displayed. That rising faith,
John kept to himself; he never boasted that
he was the first of all the Twelve to believe
in the resurrection. Perhaps, his first pub
lic mention of the fact was when, so many
years afterwards, he sat down to write that
Gospel which bears his name.
The brief inspection of the empty sepulchre
over— there being nothing more to see or learn
¦ — John and Peter return silent and sad to

MARY MAGDALENE. 55
their own home. Mary Magdalene had fol
lowed them, as best she could, in the running
out to the sepulchre ; but she does not join
them in their return. Two evenings before
(when all but she and the other Mary had
left the tomb into which she had seen the
body borne for burial), she had clung to it
to the last, and this morning she clings to it
Btill. The Master whom she had lost, had
rendered her the greatest of services; had
been to her the kindest and best of friends.
Her grateful love had clung to him while
living ; and now this love, living in her sor
row, makes her cling, even when John has
left it, to the spot where in death he had re
posed. Mary Magdalene, standing alone
weeping thus before the empty sepulchre,
presents herself to our eye as the saddest
and most inconsolable of all the mourners
for the Crucified. As she weeps, she stoops
to take another look into the deserted place.
She sees a sight that might well have di
verted her from her grief — two angels sit
ting, the one at the head, the other at the

56 APPEARANCE TO
feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.
They say to her, "Woman, why weepest
thou ?" Did you ever read of a more ab
sorbing grief than that she, who was ad
dressed thus by angels, should have no sur
prise, no astonishment to spare ; but, as if
unheeding who they were that spoke to her,
should, out of the depths of her engrossing
sorrow, only be able to repeat what she had
said to Peter and John, varying the phrase
a little — claiming a closer property in the
departed — " Because they have taken away
my Lord, and I know not where they have
laid him." And she turns away, even from
an interview with angels, from converse
with those who may have had as their pur
pose in putting to her that question, to tell
her about her risen Lord. She turns away
even from them, to weep out, without fur
ther interruption, her most bitter grief.
But now, from other lips, the same ques
tion, " Woman, why weepest thou ?" salutes
her ear. She sees, but scarcely notices, the
person who thus speaks to her. He is not

MARY MAGDALENE. 57
directly before her, and she cares not to turn,
or make any minute scrutiny of his person.
Even had she done so, seeing him through the
veil of dropping tears, she might have failed
to recognize him. She cares as little, in fact,
about who this speaker is, as she had cared
about who those angels were. Taking him
to be one who did not need to be told why
she wept, who must know all about what
had happened — the gardener of the place —
she says to him in the simplest, most artless
way, "Sir, if thou have borne him hence,
tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will
take him away." She is willing even to be
lieve that it was with no unkindly purpose
he had been removed. Only let her know
where he is; and, all forgetful how unfit
her weak hands were for such a task, she
says, — I will take him away. ' If it be an
offence that he lies here in this rich man's
tomb, so near the holy city, I will bear him
away to some remoter burial-place, where he
may lie in peace, and where I may go and
weep at will over his grave.'
3*

58 APPEARANCE TO
Jesus saith unto her, "Mary." The old
familiar voice ! It can be only He who
names her so. Instantly — fully — the reve
lation of his living presence bursts upon her.
She turns, and forgetting all about the new
strange circumstances in which she sees him,
as if the former days of their familiar inter
course had returned, — she says, " Eabboni !"
and is about to clasp him to her arms. Je
sus stops the movement. " Touch me not,"
he says, " 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."
This check upon the ardour of Mary's affec
tionate approach in the first moments of re
cognition, we can only understand by reflect
ing upon the object of our Lord's sojourn
upon the earth for the forty days after his
resurrection. There is a mysteiy which hangs around this
singular period in the life of our Eedeemer.
Why did he tarry so long upon the earth,
when his work appeared to have been fin-

MARY MAGDALENE. 59
ished? What peculiar service did that
keeping empty so long his seat at his Fath
er's right hand render to his church and peo
ple ? During the first eight days, on the first
and last of which alone he showed himself
in Jerusalem ; was he treading unseen the
streets of the holy city, or haunting the
household of the loved family of Bethany ?
Their midnight hours ; did they see him once
again amid the dark shadows of Gethsema
ne, praying now, not that the cup might be
taken from him, but that the fruits of his
bygone passion might be gathered in ? The
Sabbaths of these days ; did they see him
entering again the Temple, passing behind
the rent veil into the Holy of Holies,
quenching with his unseen hand, and that
for ever, the fire that had burned above the
mercy-seat? During the weeks which fol
lowed, was he wandering an unseen specta
tor over the scenes of his earthly ministry ;
revisiting Nazareth, re-entering Capernaum,
where most of his mighty works had been
done, looking in with kindly eye upon that

60 APPEARANCE TO
nobleman's family, all of whom had be
lieved in him ; going out to Cana, casting a
passing glance at the dwelling in which the
first of his miracles had been performed;
lingering for a moment by the gate of the
little city of Nain, blessing once more, as he
passed, the widow and her recovered child ?
It is an idle task, perhaps, for fancy to
picture where or how those forty days were
spent. But it is not an unprofitable ques
tion for us to put to ourselves, what ends
could his lingering so long on earth have
served? It cannot be supposed that the
mere object of affording proof enough that
he was still alive, would have detained him
here so long. That could have been done in
two days as well as forty. Besides, had
that been the main object of his delay, why
did he not appear oftener in a more open
and public manner than he did ? Neither
can it be imagined, that it was for the pur
pose of continued and enlarged intercourse
with his disciples. The fewness and short
ness of the interviews with them preclude

MARY MAGDALENE. 61
that belief. He was seen by them but ten
times in all ;* five of those appearances oc
curring on the day of his resurrection ; and
four of them, those to Mary, to Peter, to
James, to the two disciples, having more of
a private than of a public character. Out of
the forty days there were but six on which
he held intercourse with any human being,
and in those six days he did not give
more than as many hours to fellowship with
those to whom he showed himself. How
brief, too, generally, and abrupt the meet
ings that made up the hours which were so
employed ! In the twilight of the garden ;
in the dim-lighted upper chamber ; in the
grey dawn of the lake side, he appears,
speaks but a few sentences, and vanishes as
mysteriously as he had appeared. All be
tokens a studied effort to stand aloof, to
shun all close, prolonged, familiar inter
course. What impression was all this stu
died distance and reserve fitted to make up
on the minds of his disciples ? Put your-
* See Appendix B.

62 APPEARANCE TO
selves into their exact position at this time ;
remember that not one of them before his
death had risen to any thought or belief in his
divinity ; that from all their earlier earthly
notions of him they had to be weaned ; that
after days and years of the easiest compan
ionship with him, they had to be raised to
the belief that it was the very Lord of heav
en and earth with whom they had been
holding converse ; yet, that belief was to be
so formed within them, as not to militate
against the idea of his true and proper hu
manity. See, then, what an important part
in the execution of this needful, but most
difficult task, must have been fulfilled by
his mode of dealing with them during the
forty days.
For, let us only conceive what should
have happened, if one or other of the two
alternatives had been realized; if at once,
after a few interviews, sufficient simply to do
away with all doubt as to his resurrection,
Jesus had passed up into the heavens, never
to be seen again on earth; let us imagine

MARY MAGDALENE. 63
that the descent of the Spirit had immedi
ately thereon ensued ; that the day of Pen
tecost had followed immediately on the day
of the resurrection; that the eyes of the
apostles had thus at once and fully been en
lightened, and the great truth of their Mas
ter's Godhead had been flashed upon their
minds ; the danger undoubtedly would have
been that, seen in the blaze of that new
glory, shining thus around his person, the
man Christ Jesus had been lost, the human
ity swallowed up in the divinity ; nor would
it have been so easy to persuade those men
that, ascended up on high, seated at the
right hand of the Father, he was the same
Jesus still — a brother to them as truly as
when he lived among them, equally alive to
all human sympathies as when he walked with
them by the way, or sat down with them in
the upper chamber.
Take, again, the other alternative; that
after his resurrection, Christ had immedi
ately resumed and continued — even let us
say for no longer a time than these forty

64 APPEARANOE TO
days — the exact kind of life that he had led
before, returning to all his old haunts and
occupations; spending a day or two with
Lazarus and his sister at Bethany ; travelling
up through Samaria, and sitting wearied by
the well's mouth, as before ; living in Peter's
wife's sister's house, dining with Pharisees;
crossing the Lake in the fishing-boat ; com-
panying with multitudes on mountain-sides ;
living and acting outwardly in every respect
as he had done before — would not such a
return on his part to all the old familiarities
of his former intercourse, have had a ten
dency to check the rising faith in his divin
ity; to tie his disciples down again to a
knowing of him only after the flesh ; to give
to the humanity of the Lord such bulk and
prominence as to make it in their eyes over
shadow the divinity ? Can you conceive a
treatment more nicely fitted to the spiritual
condition, to the spiritual wants of those
men at that time, than the very one which
the Lord adopted and carried out — so well
fitted as it was, gradually, gently, without

MARY MAGDALENE. 65
violence (as is ever the mode of his acting
in all the provinces of his spiritual empire),
to lead those disciples on from their first
misty, imperfect, unworthy ideas of his per
son, character, and work, on and up to clearer,
purer, loftier conceptions of Him ? In what
better way could a faith in their Master's di
vinity have been super-induced upon their
former faith in him as a man, a friend, a
brother, so that the two might blend to
gether without damage done to either by
the union ; their knowledge of him as hu
man, not interfering with their trust in him
as divine; their faith in him as God, not
weakening their attachment to him as man ?
With this key in our hand — a key which
unlocks much of the mystery of our Lord's
conduct throughout those forty days — let us
return to Mary in the garden. She sees
Jesus alive once more before her. She hears
him as of old call her by her name. He is
hers, she thinks again ; hers, as he had been
before ; hers, not to be torn from her again.
All the warmth of those former days of

66 APPEARANCE TO
familiar friendship filling her glad heart, she
offers him not the homage of a higher wor-
ship; but, addressing him as he did her,
" Eabboni," she says — my own, my old, my
well-loved Master ! She makes some gesture
as of embracing him. Gently, but firmly,
our Lord repels the too warm, too human,
too familiar approach. "Touch me not,
Mary." ' You think of me as given back to
be to you the same exactly that I was before.
You are mistaken; our relationship is
changed ; our method of intercourse must be
altered ; you must learn to think of me, and
to act towards me, differently from what you
ever did before ; I am here, but it is only for
a short season ; I am on earth, but I am now
on the way to my Father ; my home is no
longer with you and the others here below,
it is there with my Father up in heaven ; still
shall I feel to you, and all the others, as
tenderly as I ever felt, not ashamed even to
call them still my brethren. Touch me not,
then, Mary ; stop -not to lavish on me an af
fection that has in it too much of the human,

MARY MAGDALENE. 67
too little of the divine; but go to my
brethren, and say unto them, I ascend to my
Father, and to your Father, and to my God,
and your God ; my Father and my God in a
sense in which he is not and cannot be yours ;
but your Father and your God in a sense in
which he could not have been yours had I
not died and risen, and been on my way now
to sit down with Him on the throne of glory
in the heavens.'

1H.

It was towards evening ; the day was far
spent when the two disciples reached Em-
maus ; yet there was time enough for them,
after they had dined, to return by day-light
to Jerusalem (a distance of about seven miles,
a two or three hours' walk) and to be pre
sent at that evening meeting, in the midst
of which Jesus was seen by them once more.
It must have been between mid-day and sun
set that the journey to Emmaus was taken.
Of the two travellers, the name of one
only has been preserved ; that of Cleopas,
generally believed to have been a near rela
tion of Christ — the husband of the Virgin
Mary's sister. It was not, however, the close
ness of the relationship to Jesus which won
for him the privilege of that strange conver
sation by the way. Had nearness of rela-
* Luke xxiv. 13-33.
(68)

THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS. 69
tionship had anything to do with the matter,
there was one surely to whom, above all
others, we might have expected that he
would appear on the day of his resurrection.
Yet neither on that day, nor on any of the
forty days he spent on earth thereafter, does
Jesus seem to have made any special mani
festation of himself to his mother, or indeed
to have taken any individual notice of her
whatever. Her name does not once occur in
the record of this period of our Eedeemer's
life. It looks as if with that kindly, son
like notice of her from the cross, Jesus had
dropped the recognition of the earthly rela
tionship altogether, as one not suitable to be
carried into that kingdom to whose throne
he was about to ascend.
And as it was nothing in their outward
relationship to Jesus, so neither was it any
thing in the personal character, position, or
services of these two men which drew down
upon them this great favour from the Lord.
They had occupied no prominent place
beside the Saviour in the course of his min

70 THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS.
istry. They had exhibited no peculiai
strength of attachment to him, or to his
cause. Had Peter and James and John
been the travellers, it would not have been
so remarkable that he should have given
them so many of the hours of that first day
of his resurrection life ; more hours, in fact,
than he ever gave to any two disciples be
sides ; nay, so far as we can measure them,
more hours than he gave to any other
interview of that period, — perhaps as many
as were spent in all the other interviews to
gether, for generally they were very brief.
What was there in these two men to entitle
them to such a distinction ? They were not
apostles, nor were they of any great note
among the seventy. Our Lord's first words
to them may perhaps help us to understand
why it was that he joined himself to them.
He had been seen walking beside them, so
close as to overhear somewhat of their con
versation. But they are so intent upon the
topic that engrosses them, that they notice
not that a stranger has overtaken them, and

THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS. 71
been in part a listener to their discourse.
At last, in manner the easiest and most nat
ural, least calculated to give offence, expres
sive at once of interest and sympathy, Jesus
breaks in upon their discourse with the in
quiry, "What manner of communications
are these that ye have to one another, as ye
walk and are sad ?" That sadness, who can
tell what power it had in drawing the Man
of sorrows to their side ? It was to Mary,
weeping in her lonely grief; to Peter,
drowned in tears of penitence, — that he had
already appeared. And now it was to these
two disciples in their sorrow that he joins
himself: so early did the risen Saviour as
sume the gracious office of comforting those
who mourn, of binding up the broken heart.
But in Mary, Peter, and these two disciples,
three different varieties of human grief were
dealt with. Mary's was the grief of a grate
ful and affectionate heart, mourning the loss
of one beloved ; Peter's was the grief of a
spirit smitten with the sense of a great of
fence committed ; the grief of the two disci-

72 THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS.
pies was that of men disappointed, per
plexed, thrown into despondency and unbe
lief. It is especially noticed that it was
while they communed together, and reasoned
with one another, that Jesus drew near to
them. There was much about which they
well might differ and dispute. The yield
ing of their Master to the power of his ene
mies, and his shameful crucifixion two days
before, — how could they reconcile with his
undoubted pretensions and power, as a
prophet so mighty in words and deeds?
This one, that other saying of his, pointing
to a future, never now, as they fancied, to be
realized, what could they make of them?
Had Jesus himself been disappointed, de
ceived; had he imagined that the people
would rise on his behalf, and prevent his cru
cifixion? That might have been, had he
not so often shown that he knew all that
was passing in men's hearts. Could he, then,
have been ignorant how the multitude of
Jerusalem would feel and act ? There was
truth, too, in what so many of them had

THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS. 73
flung reproachfully in his teeth, as he hung
upon the cross : He had saved others, why
did he not save himself? What a confused
heap of difficulties must have risen up be
fore these two men's eyes as they reasoned
by the way ! And then besides, there was
what they had just heard before they left
the city, — the report of some women that
they had gone out, and found the sepulchre
empty, and had seen angels, who told
them that he was alive. They, indeed,
might easily have been deceived ; but Peter
and John had also gone out. It is true they
had seen no angels, nor had any one, that
they had heard of, seen the Lord himself.
But the sepulchre had been found empty.
The women were right so far ; were they
right also in what they said about the an
gel's message ? Could Jesus actually be
alive again ? We wonder that these two
men could have left the city at the time
they did; we wonder at this perhaps the
more because we know that, had they but
waited an hour or two longer, they would

74 THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS.
have had all their doubts resolved. It is
clear enough, however, that neither of them
had any faith in the resurrection; and as
clear that they were dissatisfied with their
unbelief — altogether puzzled and perplexed.
Ignorant, they needed to be taught ; deeply
prejudiced, they needed to have their preju
dices removed. For hours and hours, for
days and days, they might have remained
together without clearing up the difficulties
that beset them. But now, in pity and in
love, the great Enlightener himself appears
— appears in the garb of a stranger who
joins them by the way. They do not at
first, they do not all through the earnest
conversation which follows, recognise him.
In reading the accounts of all the differ
ent appearances of Christ after his resurrec
tion, the conviction seems forced upon us,
that some alteration had taken place in the
aspect of our Saviour, enough to create a
momentary hesitation in recognising him,
yet not enough after a close inspection, to
leave any doubt as to his identity. In the

THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS. 75
garden, Mary Magdalene was so absorbed in
her sorrow, so utterly unprepared to meet
the living Master — she looked so indirectly,
with such a heedless glance at the stranger,
whom she took to be the gardener — that we
do not wonder at her failing to see at first
who he was. So soon, however, as her
name was uttered, and she turned and fixed
that steadier look upon the speaker, the re
cognition was complete. To the women by
the way, to whom next he showed himself,
his very salutation revealed him, and left
them no room for doubting that it was he.
They held him by the feet, too, for a mo
ment or two, as they worshipped, and got the
evidence of touch as well as sight to assure
them of his bodily presence. That evening,
in the upper chamber, the disciples were as
sembled. They could not be taken by sur
prise. They were prepared by the reports
of Mary Magdalene, of the women, of Pe
ter, of the two disciples from Emmaus, to
believe that he was alive ; yet when Jesus
stood in the midst of them, they supposed

76 THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS.
that they had seen a spirit; so troubled
were they at the sight, so incredulous
were they even as they looked at him, that he
had to say to them, " Why are ye troubled
and why do thoughts arise m your heart ?
Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I
myself; handle me, and see, for a spirit hath
not flesh and bones as ye see me have ;" and
still further, to remove all doubt, he asked
that some meat should be presented, and he
took the piece of broiled fish and the honey
comb, and did eat them in their presence.
It may have been the sudden apparition of
Christ in the midst of them, while the doors
of the chamber remained unopened, which,
in part, begot the belief that it was a spirit
that stood before them ; but that there was
something too in the changed appearance of
their Master, which helped to sustain that
belief, is evident, from what is told us of his
next appearance by the lake side of Galilee.
John's quick eye and ear recognised him
from the boat ; but when they had all land
ed and gathered round him, " None of them,"

THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS. 77
it is said, " durst ask him, Who art thou ?
knowing that it was the Lord." Whence the
desire to put such a question, but from a pass
ing shadowy doubt, and whence the doubt
but from some change in his appearance?
When afterwards, on the mountain which
he had appointed, Jesus showed himself to
above five hundred brethren at once, they
saw him, and worshipped ; but some, it is
said, doubted, — those, let us believe, who
saw him then for the first and only time, and
on whom the sight seems to have had the
same effect that it had in the first instance
on nearly all who witnessed it. It seems to
us the best, if not the only way of account
ing for this, to suppose that the resurrection
body of our Lord had passed through a
stage or two in its transition from the natu
ral into the spiritual body ; from its condi
tion as nailed upon the cross, to its ethereal-
ized and glorified condition as now upon the
throne ; the flesh and blood which cannot
inherit the heavenly kingdom, still there,
yet so modified as to be more plastic under

78 THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS.
the power of the mdwelling spirit, less sub
ject to the material laws and conditions of
its earlier being, the corruptible on its way
to the incorruptible, the mortal putting on
the clothing of immortality. And that
strange, half spiritual appearance which the
risen Lord presented, may it not have served
to further the great end that our Lord had
in view throughout the forty days, namely,
to wean the minds of his disciples from
their earlier, lower, more human conceptions
of him, to a true faith in his mingled hu
manity and divinity?
There was, however, something special, I
believe, in this instance of the two disciples
travelling to Emmaus. They might not
have recognised him, as, clothed perhaps in
the garb of an ordinary traveller, he put his
first questions to them by the way; but
when he assumed the office of their in
structor, and, showing such intimate ac
quaintance with the Scriptures, made their
hearts burn within them, as he unfolded
their new meaning, must they not many a

THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS. 79
time have turned on him a very searching
look, wondering as they looked, who this
strange teacher possibly could be? Yet
were two or three hours spent in that close
and earnest conversation, without their once
suspecting that it was the Lord. How
accurately does this accord with the differ
ing statements of Mark and Luke ! Mark
distinctly tells us that he appeared to them
in another, in a strange form, — a form differ
ent from that in which they had seen him
previously. He appeared to them, as to all
the others, somewhat changed in aspect ; but
had that been all, they would speedily have
recovered from their first surprise, and ere
many minutes would have identified him.
For a reason, however, hereafter to be allud
ed to, our Lord purposely concealed himself
till his work of instruction was completed,
and drew a veil of some kind over their
eyes, which hindered their discovery of him
by the way.
He comes to them as an entire stranger ;
such as they might naturally have met upon

80 THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS.
the road, and it is as a stranger that through
out he converses with them. " What man
ner of communications," he says, " are those
that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and
are sad ?" Little need, thought one of them
(his own deep interest in them leading him,
perhaps, to exaggerate that felt by the gen
eral community) — little need of asking such
a question. Of what could any two men
leaving Jerusalem, only two days after that
crucifixion had occurred — of what else than
of it, and him the Crucified, could they be
talking ? " Art thou only," says Cleopas, " a
stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known
the things which are come to pass there in
these days ?" And the stranger says to him,
What things ? Thus it is, by questions need
less for him on his own account to put, but
very useful to them to answer, that Jesus
draws out from them that statement, which
at once reveals the extent of their ignorance
and incredulity, but, at the same time, the
amount of their belief, the strength of their
attachment to Christ, and the bitterness of

THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS. 81
that grief which the disappointment of their
expectations regarding him had created. A
stranger though this man is to them, they do
not hesitate to confess their faith in Jesus of
Nazareth as a prophet mighty in words and
deeds; obnoxious as they know the now
hated sect to be, they do not hesitate to ac
knowledge themselves openly as disciples of
this persecuted and now crucified Nazarene,
though the hope they once had, that he
should have been the Eedeemer of Israel,
they must confess themselves to have relin
quished. Nay, 30 far as the kindly and
sympathizing inquiry of this stranger won
for him a way into their confidence, that, as
if he must be interested in all that concerned
the discipleship of Jesus, they tell him what
certain women of their company, and certain
others of themselves, had reported about the
sepulchre. The stranger's end is gained. The wound
has been gently probed ; its nature and ex
tent revealed ; and now the remedy is to be
applied. He who had asked to be informed,
4*

82 THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS.
takes the place of the instructor; he who
had been reproached for his ignorance, re
proaches in his turn. " O fools, and slow of
heart to believe !" Slow of heart, indeed,
and difficult to convince had they been, who,
after such explicit declarations of his own
beforehand, that he should be delivered up
to the Eulers, and suffer many things at
their hands, and be crucified, and rise again
the third day, had nevertheless remained so
obstinate in their incredulity. Truly the re
buke was needed. Yet how faithful are the
wounds of a friend ; he wounds but to heal ;
he rebukes the unbelief, but instantly pro
ceeds to remove its grounds, even as he rose
from his slumber in the storm-tossed fishing-
boat, first to rebuke the disciples for their
unbelieving fears, and then to quiet the
tempest, which had produced them. The
one great, misleading prejudice of the dis
ciples had been their belief that the path of
the promised Messiah was only to be one of
triumph and of glory. To rectify that error,
it was only required that they should be

THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS. 83
made to see that the predicted triumph and
glory were alone to be reached through the
dark avenues of suffering and of death. " O
fools, and slow of heart to believe all that
the prophets have spoken : ought not Christ
to have suffered these things, and to enter
into his glory? And beginning at Moses
and all the prophets, he expounded to them
in all the Scriptures the things concerning
himself." Either Christ, then, is not him
self to be believed — in which case it were
useless to hear and read anything about him
— or in those Old Testament Scriptures
there are to be seen everywhere prophetic
fingers pointing forward to Him. To search
those Scriptures, and to find little or nothing
there of Christ, little or nothing to show how
it behoved him to suffer, and then to enter
into his glory, is to handle them after a very
different fashion from that in which they
were handled by our Lord himself.
It is not likely that these three travellers
had a copy of the Old Testament in their
hands. It was not by reference to chapter

84 THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS.
and verse, that the exposition of the Saviour
was conducted ; it was by no minute criticism
of words and phrases, that the conviction of
these wayfaring men was carried. They
were familiar generally with the Scriptures.
One or two of the leading prophecies about
the Messiah, such as that first one of God
himself in paradise, as to the seed of the wo
man and the serpent ; such as that of Moses
as to the raising up of a prophet like unto
himself; such as that of Isaiah, when he saw
his glory, and testified beforehand of the suf
ferings by which that glory should be pre
ceded and entered; such as that of Daniel
about the Messiah being cut off, but not for
himself — Jesus may have quoted. But not
alone from direct and specific prophecies —
from the paschal lamb, and the smitten rock,
and the serpent of brass, and the blood-
sprinkled mercy-seat, but from the whole
history of the Jewish people — from the en
tire circle of types and ceremonies and sacri
fices, did Jesus draw forth the materials of
that wonderful exposition by which, for two

THE TOURNEY TO EMMAUS. 85
hours or so, he kept those listening men
hanging upon his lips. As we think who
the expounder in that instance was, and
what the materials of his exposition, how
natural the expression, — Would that I had
heard all these things concerning Christ
illustrated by Christ himself! But have
we not the substance of that exposition, as
much of it as is needful for us to have, pre
served in the writings of the New Testa
ment, and may we not be sure that if we
believe not them, neither would we be per
suaded though one rose from the dead, as
Jesus that morning had done, and should
teach us even as he taught those two disci
ples? There was something indeed peculiarly,
sublimely interesting in that two hours'
walk and talk of these three men on the
way to Emmaus. Had you been on that
road that day, had you met those travellers
as they journeyed on, beyond the earnest
ness of their conversation with one another,
you would have seen nothing remarkable

86 THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS.
about them, nothing to make you turn and
look back upon them as they passed. Two
of them are men in humble attire, travelling
in the humblest fashion, returning to one of
the humblest village-homes: and the third,
there is nothing about him different in ap
pearance from the other two; nothing to
keep them from conversing with him as an
equal, one with whom the most unrestrained
familiarity might be used. Yet who is He ?
He who that very morning had burst the
barriers of the grave ; he in honour of whose
exit from the tomb angels from heaven had
been despatched to watch at the foot and at
the head of the sacred spot, where in death
his body had for a time reposed; he who
was now upon his way to enter into that
glory which he had with the Father
before the world was, — Incarnate Deity
fresh from the conflicts and the victories of
the garden, the cross, the sepulchre. It is
literally God walking with men, men walk
ing, though they knew it not, with God
History tells us of earthly sovereigns strip

THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS. 87
ping themselves at times of all the tokens
and trappings of royalty, for the purpose of
mixing on equal terms with the humblest of
their people; but history never told, and
imagination never pictured, a disguise, an
incognito like this. But why was this dis
guise adopted, and, in this instance, so long
preserved? Why, instead of doing as he
did with the eleven, first manifesting him
self, and then opening their understanding
to understand the Scriptures, did he keep
himself unknown all the time that the work
of exposition was going on ? May it not
have been to obtain such a simple, natural,
easy access for the truth into those two men's
minds and hearts, as to give it, even when
unsupported by the weight Of his own per
sonal authority, a firmer and securer hold ?
Whatever may have been its more special
object as regards the two disciples, wonder
ful indeed was that condescension of our
Lord which led him to give so many hours
of his first resurrection-day to this humble
office. Many a proud scribe in Jerusalem

8S THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS.
would have recoiled from it, have deemed it
a waste of his precious time, if asked to ac
company two such humble men, and spend
so much of one of his Sabbaths in instruct
ing them out of the Scriptures. The Divine
Eedeemer himself thought it not a task too
lowly ; and by devoting, in his own person,
so much of that first Christian Sabbath to
it, has he not at once left behind him a pat
tern of what all true and faithful exposition
of the sacred Scriptures ought to be, even
the unfolding of the things touching a once
crucified, but now exalted Saviour ; and has
he not dignified, by himself engaging in it,
the work of one man's trying, at any time,
or in any way, to lead another to the knowl
edge of the truth as it is in Jesus ?
It was with heavy hearts that the two
disciples had left Jerusalem ; and had all the
journey been like the first few paces of it,
it had seemed a long way to Emmaus. But
they are at the village now, and the road
had never appeared so short. Had they
imagined they could be there so soon, they

THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS. 89
would have lingered on the road. And now
this stranger, whose discourse had so be
guiled the way, and made their hearts so
burn within them, makes as if he would go
farther. Emmaus, it would seem, is not his
resting-place. But how can they part from
him? How may that conversation, which
has shed such a fresh light into their under
standings, such a new hope into their hearts,
be prolonged ? They invite, they urge him
to remain. He gives, he makes the oppor
tunity for their constraining him to be their
guest. He acts as he had done with the
two blind beggars; with the disciples in
the storm ; with the Syrophenician woman.
He suffers violence to be used with him;
and then, when he has brought out all the
strength of desire and affection towards him
in the earnest entreaty, he yields to the ur
gency he had himself excited. The two
disciples constrain him, and he goes in ap
parently to abide with them. They have
him now, as they think, with them for the
whole evening ; and what an evening it shall

90 THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS.
be, when, supper over, the conversation of
the wayside may be renewed ! The humble
table is quickly spread. This is the home,
it has been thought, of one of the two dis
ciples, and he whose home it is prepares to
do the duty of the host. That duty is taken
out of his hands. The mysterious stranger
takes the bread; he blesses, he breaks, he
gives. Who but One could bless and break,
and give in such a way as this ? The scales
fall from the disciples' eyes. 'Tis he, their
own lost but now recovered Lord and Mas
ter. Let hiTn wait but a moment or two,
they shall be clasping him, as Mary would
fain have done, to their hearts, or, falling
down, as the women did, and worshipping
at hia feet. Time is not given them. He
reveals himself, and disappears. This mo
ment known by them, the next vanishing
from their sight.

IV.

When they left Jerusalem on the after
noon of the first day of the week, the two
disciples had intended to remain that night,
perhaps permanently, at Emmaus. The
Paschal Sabbath over, they had resolved to
return to their village home, — to their old
way of living, burying, as best they could,
their expectations disappointed. But the
conversation by the way, the manifestation
in the breaking of bread, that revealed and
vanishing presence of their risen Lord, altered
the whole current of their thoughts and acts.
They could not stay at Emmaus. Late as it
was, they instantly arose and returned to
Jerusalem. How quickly, how eagerly would
they retrace their steps ! What manner of
communications would those be that they
* Mark xvi. 13, 14 ; Luke xxiv. 33-49 ; John xx. 19-23.
(91)

92 THE EVENING MEETING.
would now have with one another; how
different from those which Jesus had inter
rupted; the incredulity turned now into
faith, the sadness into joy ! The stranger
who had made their hearts burn within
them, on their way out to the village, he too
was traversing at the same time the road
they took on their way back to Jerusalem.
But he did not join them now ; he left them
to muse in silence on all they had seen and
heard, or to add to each other's wonder,
gratitude, and gladness, by talking to one
another by the way. Their hearts were now
full of the desire to tell to the brethren they
had left behind in the city all that had hap
pened. On reaching Jerusalem, they get at
once the opportunity they so much desire.
A meeting of the apostles, and of as many
others as they could conveniently call to
gether, or could entirely trust, had quietly,
somewhat stealthily convened ; — the first, we
may believe, since the Thursday evening
meeting in the upper chamber. And where
but in that same chamber can we imagine

THE EVENING MEETING. 93
that this Sunday evening assembly gathered ?
The doors were closed against intruders, but
these two well-known disciples from Em
maus are easily recognised, and at once ad
mitted. In what an agitated, conflicting
state of thought and feeling do they find
those assembled there ! They had all heard
the reports of the women and of Mary Mag
dalene ; but they say little or nothing about
them ; perhaps give them little credit. But
there is Peter, whom no one can well dis
trust, telling all the particulars of his inter
view, and carrying the conviction of so many,
that they are joyfully exclaiming: "The
Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to
Simon." But this is not the general, not at
least the universal state of sentiment. The
two disciples tell their tale, but it falls on
many an incredulous ear. They are as little
believed as the women and Mary Magdalene
had been. They are trying all they can, by a
minute recital of how Jesus had been known
of them, to remove the incredulity, when
suddenly, silently — coming as a spirit com-

94 THE EVENING MEETING.
eth, casting no shadow before him (the
doors not1 opening to let him in), no sight
nor sound giving token of his approach —
Jesus himself is in the midst of them, and
his " Peace be unto you," stills at once the
conflicting conversation that had been going
on. The manner of this appearance may have
been wholly miraculous and supernatural, or
it may have been partly or wholly due to
those new properties with which the resur
rection body of the Saviour was endowed.
Upon this difficult topic I have already said
all it seems needful or perhaps possible to
say. We must leave it clothed with the
mystery which surrounds it. No mystery,
however, hangs round the kindly, conde
scending manner in which Jesus proceeds to
deal with the terror which his sudden ap
pearance had created. He points to his
hands, his feet, his side, — to the marks of
those wounds that told of his recent death ;
marks which it pleased him that his resur
rection body should still bear ; marks which,
it would seem from the apocalyptic vision,

THE EVENING MEETING. 95
were not to be effaced even from that glori
fied body which he carried to the throne;
marks which that form is to wear for ever,
the only visible memorials that are to sur
vive of the great decease accomplished at
Jerusalem. Jesus asks them to handle him ;
an invitation which it is difficult to say
whether they accepted or not. He shows
them his hands and his feet ; and while yet
they believe not for joy and wonder, he seeks
still further to remove their incredulity, by
showing them that he has still the power,
though no longer the need, of partaking
with them of their ordinary food. He eats
of the fish and of the honeycomb. Doubt
now gives place to conviction, fear to be
lieving joy ; a joy so fresh, so full, that it in
turn begins to shake the new-born faith.
How true to nature all this rapid succession
of conflicting sentiments. Now at last, how
ever, that little company of disciples has
settled into a condition fitting it to listen,
and Jesus returns to the subject that had
engrossed the conversation on the way out

96 THE EVENING MEETING.
to Emmaus; to this larger, more influential
audience he unfolds the testimony that
Moses, the Prophets, the Psalms — all the
three divisions into which the Scriptures of
the Old Testament were classified by the
Jews — rendered to his Messiahship; dwell
ing particularly upon the topic most suited
to the existing condition of their thoughts,
how, in accordance with all that had been
beforehand declared and signified, it behoved
him, as the Christ, to suffer and then to
rise again the third day. " Then opened he
their understanding, that they might under
stand the Scriptures." Wherever, therefore,
in the writings of any one of these Christ-
taught men they refer an important passage
of the Old Testament to the Messiah, we
may conclude that they had for doing so
the direct and authoritative sanction of our
Lord's own interpretation.
But his Messiahship, his death, his resur
rection, were not matters in which they
alone, their nation alone, were interested.
Now that the needful work of suffering and

THE EVENING MEETING. 97
death was over; now that the wonderful
exhibition at once of the sacredness of the
Divine law, the holiness of the Divine char
acter, the deep unutterable love of God, had
been given — now, wide over all the world,
were repentance and remission of sin to be
proclaimed in his name ; and they, the men
to whom Jesus was then speaking, were to
be the witnesses, the heralds, the preachers
of this large and all-embracing gospel of
peace on earth, and good-will, on God's
part, towards all the children of men : The
first and earliest hint this of the nature and
the extent of their great commission; a
hint which they did not then understand,
which they did not understand even under
the enlightening and quickening influences
of the day of Pentecost. So far their under
standing was opened, that they saw clearly
now that Christ ought to have suffered these
things, and then to enter into his glory;
but their understanding was still shut as to
that proclamation of God's forgiving mercy
and love, which now in the name of Jesus
Resurrection. 0

98 THE EVENING MEETING.
was to be borne abroad over the whole
earth. But though it was to be left to time, and
the after teachings of the Spirit, to lift them
out of their narrow conceptions of the Di
vine love to man, as if its outgoings were to
be limited to the pale of any one community
upon earth, still an initial impression of the
sacredness of their vocation as his disciples,
of the manner in which the duties of that
vocation could alone properly be discharged,
and of the blessed and enduring results
which were to follow in the train of that dis
charge, might be made upon their minds.
And this was the result which Jesus, in the
most striking and solemn manner, proceeded
now to bring about : the first step taken by
him in the gradual and slow-moving process
of qualifying them for that mission which
they, and all other disciples of the Saviour
after them, were to undertake and carry
out. Then said Jesus unto them again, " Peace
be unto you !" — His first greeting, in which

THE EVENING MEETING. 99
the same words had been used, they had
been too surprised and affrighted to listen
to, or take home. Now that their minds
had become more composed, that they had
settled down into a tranquil and joyful con
viction that it was indeed their risen Lord
who was in the midst of them, he repeats
the greeting ; repeats it that they might not
take it — though it was the common saluta
tion phrase he used, as meant merely to be
the usual greeting with which Jew met Jew
in the ordinary intercourse of life ; that they
might not take it as a mere expression of
good- will, a wish for their welfare ; but that
they might have their thoughts thrown back
upon what, three evenings before, he had
said to them : " Peace I leave with you, my
peace I give unto you: not as the world
giveth, give I unto you. Let not your hearts
be troubled, neither let them be afraid." He
had said so with the cross, with the sep
ulchre bsfore him. And now the peace
having been secured, and sealed by the
blood of the cross and the rising from the

100 THE EVENING MEETING.
sepulchre, with a new emphasis he says to
them, 'Peace, my peace, peace with God,
peace of conscience, the peace of pardon be
unto you ; take it as coming to you through
me ; enter into, and enjoy it as the fruit of
my passion, as God's free gift to you in me.
Let the quickening, the comforting assurance
that God is at peace with you, that you are
at peace with God, take possession of your
hearts; that, having tasted and seen that
the Lord is gracious, you may be prepared
for executing the high errand on which I am
about to send you forth, that of publishing
everywhere the gospel of this peace ; preach
ing peace by me to them that are afar off,
and to them that are nigh; — "For as my
Father sent me, even so now send I you." I
send you forth in my name, and I will qualify
you by my Spirit.' And having said so, he
breathed on them, and said, " Eeceive ye the
Holy Ghost" — an outward and expressive
symbol of the twofold truth, that dead,
motionless, useless for all the common work
of this earthly existence, as lay that dust

THE EVENING MEETING. 101
which the hand of the Creator moulded into
human form till he breathed into it the
breath of its natural life — so dead, motion
less, useless for the work of our Christian
calling do we all lie, till the breath of true
spiritual life be breathed into us by the
Holy Ghost. And as it was from the lips
of the risen Saviour that the breath pro
ceeded, which spread out upon the little
company at Jerusalem, so is it from the risen,
exalted Saviour that the Spirit comes, whose
life-giving influences spread over the whole
church of the first-born. But specially upon
this occasion was the breathing of Jesus
upon the disciples, and the gift which ac
companied that breathing, meant to indicate
that the mission on which Jesus was send
ing these disciples out — that of being wit
nesses for him — was one that could alone be
discharged by those who, through him, had
received more or less of that heavenly gift.
It was this impartation of the Spirit, which
was to form the one, indispensable qualifica
tion for the work : without which it could

102 THE EVENING MEETING.
not be done. We know, historically, that
it was but a very limited measure of this
gift which was actually, upon this occasion,
bestowed. The Holy Ghost was not yet in
his fulness given, because that Jesus was not
yet glorified. The more plentiful effusion
of this gift was reserved for the day of Pen
tecost. That Spirit, who was to convince of
sin, and to lead into all truth, began even
then, indeed, his gracious work in the minds
and hearts of these disciples, by convincing
them of their unbelief and hardness of heart,
and by opening their minds to understand
the Scriptures. This was but an earnest of
better things to come — a few sprinkled drops
of that fuller baptism wherewith they were
afterwards to be baptized ; but yet enough
to teach that it was by Spirit-taught, Spirit
moved men — by men in whose breasts the
heaven-kindled fire of the true spiritual life
had begun to burn — that the commission
Jesus had been giving could alone be exe
cuted. And let not those to whom Jesus is
now speaking, speaking as the heads and

THE EVENING MEETING. 103
representatives of the whole body of his true
followers upon earth; let them not think
weak as they are, powerless as they appear,
that, in going forth to proclaim in his name,
to every penitent transgressor, the free, full,
instant, gracious pardon of all his sins, they
are embarking in an ideal, unreal work — a
work of which they shall never know
whether they are succeeding in it or not.
'No,' says the Saviour; 'Partake of the
peace I now impart, accept the commission I
now bestow ; go forth in my name ; receive
ye the Holy Ghost to guide you ; announce
the news of God to sinners; proclaim the
remission of sins, and, verily I say, whoseso
ever sins ye thus remit, they are remitted ;
whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained.'
Such I take to be the real spirit and object
of these last words of Jesus, as spoken by
him to his disciples at this time; words
spoken to animate them in their after work
by the assurance that they should not labour
in vain ; that what they should do on earth
should be owned and ratified in heaven. It

104 THE EVENING MEETING.
were to misinterpret the incidents of that
evening meeting; it were to mistake the
simple, immediate, and precise object which,
in using them, our Lord had in view, to ex
plain these words, as if they were intended
to clothe the eleven apostles, and after them,
their successors or representatives — to clothe
any class of officials in the church, exclusive
ly, with a power of remitting and retaining
sins. Where is the evidence that, as origin
ally spoken, the words were addressed ex
clusively to the eleven ? There were others
present as well as they. " The two disciples,"
Luke tells us, "found the eleven gathered
together, and those that were with them."
These other members of the infant church,
with the two disciples, had the benediction
pronounced on them, as well as on the
eleven ; the instructions were given to them,
as well as to the eleven; the breath was
breathed on them, as well as on the eleven.
Had Jesus meant, when he spake of this re
mitting and retaining sins, to restrict to the
eleven the power and privileges conferred,

THE EVENING MEETING. 105
should he not by some word or token have
made it manifest that such was his desire ?
At other times he was at pains to single out
the twelve, when he had something meant
for their eyes and their ears alone. Is it
likely that at this time he would have
omitted to draw a line between them and
the others who were before him, had it been
to them that these closing words were ex
clusively addressed?
But we have another and still stronger
reason for not believing in any such restric
tion. Jesus had once before used words of
nearly the same import with those that are
now before us, and he had addressed them
to the disciples at large : " Moreover, if thy
brother shall trespass against thee, go and
tell him his fault between thee and him
alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast
gained thy brother. But if he will not
hear thee, then take with thee one or two
more, that in the mouth of two or three
witnesses every word may be established.
And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it
5*

106 THE EVENING MEETING.
unto the church : but if he neglect 10 hear
the church, let him be unto thee as an
heathen man and a publican. Verily I say
unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on
earth shall be bound in heaven ; and what
soever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed
in heaven. Again I say unto you, That if
two of you shall agree on earth as touching
any thing that they shall ask, it shall be
done for them of my Father which is
in heaven. For where two or three are
gathered together in my name, there am I
in the midst of them." The two concluding
verses, as well as the preceding context, con
tain the conclusive evidence, that it was not
to any select class or order of his followers
that Jesus said, " Whatsoever ye shall bind
on earth shall be bound in heaven; and
whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be
loosed in heaven" (Matt, xviii. 15-20).
We are not in the least disposed to doubt.
that while Christ speaks of the remitting
and the retaining of sins as pertaining to
the Church at large, his words cover the

THE EVENING MEETING. 107
acts of the Church in her organized capacity,
the inflicting and removing of ecclesiastical
censures through her office-bearers in the ex
ercise of discipline. Here, however, we have
two remarks to make : 1st, That it is only
so far as these acts are done by spiritual
men, seeking and following the guidance of
the Spirit, only so far as they are in accord
ance with Christ's own expressed will, that
they are of any avail, or can plead any heaven
ly ratification ; and, 2dly, That all the force
they carry is nothing more or less than an
authoritative and official declaration of what
that will of the Lord is. Neither in any
man, in any pope or any priest, in any com
munity, or in any ecclesiastical court, lies
the absolute, the independent, the arbitrary
power to absolve the sinner from his sins.
But did not he, we are asked, with whom
alone it is acknowledged that that power
rests, appoint the eleven as his earthly dele
gates, and in the commission here given
them, convey into their hands as such, that
power ? Just as little as in two other com-

108 THE EVENING MEETING.
missions given to two of the old prophets,
he handed over to them that power over
the kingdoms and nations of the earth
which we rightly believe and affirm, resides
alone in the hands of the Almighty. " Then
the Lord put forth his hand, and touched
my mouth : and the Lord said unto me, Be
hold, I have put my words in thy mouth.
See, I have this day set thee over the na
tions, and over the kingdoms, to root out,
and to pull down, and to destroy, and to
throw down, and to build, and to plant"
(Jer. i. 9, 10). " It came to pass also in the
twelfth year, in the fifteenth day of the
month, that the word of the Lord came
unto me, saying, Son of man, wail for the
multitude of Egypt, and cast them down,
even her, and the daughters of the famous
nations, unto the nether parts of the earth,
with them that go down into the pit " (Ezek.
xxxii. 17, 18).
Here, in terms not less distinct than those
in which Christ gives his disciples power
over the sins of men, to remit or to retain,

THE EVENING MEETING. 109
God gives to the two prophets power over
the nations to cast down and to destroy.
The true interpretation of the grant or com
mission is in both cases the same. In the
exercise of any power, inherent or delegated,
natural or acquired, Jeremiah and Ezekiel
were altogether impotent of themselves to
overturn a nation; in the exercise of any
power, original or conferred, personal or of
ficial, the apostles were just as impotent to
remove any sinner's guilt. The prophet's
function was limited to the denouncing of a
doom which it was for the hand of Jehovah
alone to execute. The Church's function is
as strictly limited to the announcing of a
pardon which it is for the grace of the hea
venly Forgiver alone to bestow. And if, in
executing that simple but most honourable
office of proclaiming unto all men that there
is remission of sins through the name of
Jesus, she teaches that it is alone through
her channels — through channels that priest
ly or ordained and consecrated hands can
alone open — the pardon cometh, she trenches

110 THE EVENING MEETING.
upon the rights and prerogatives of Him
whom she represents, and turns that eye
upon herself that should be turned alone on
bim. But it is the gracious office of the Church,
of every individual member thereof, of every
distinct community thereof, in the sense here
indicated, to absolve the sinner, to assure
him of the Divine forgiveness, to help him
to believe in that forgiveness. Wherever
the gospel of the grace of God is preached,
not generally, but pointedly, to an individ
ual man, and he is entreated and encouraged
to take hold of peace, to accept of pardon,
to trust in the mercy of Jesus, to believe in
the forgiving love of God, — then is that of
fice of remitting sins in the name of Jesus
undertaken and discharged. Two illustra
tive instances occur to us : the one public
and official, the other private and personal.
The first is that of the penitent offender at
Corinth, who was in danger of being swal
lowed up of overmuch sorrow. Assuming
that it lay with the Church to extend her

THE EVENING MEETING. _ 111
forgiveness to that offender, desiring to do
nothing upon his own individual authority,
claiming no exclusive power of priestly ab
solution, Paul invites the Corinthian believ
ers to deal tenderly, forgivingly with that
man, and to receive him back into their
communion, telling them that he was quite
prepared to go along with them in such
treatment of the penitent. "Wherefore I
beseech you," he says, " that you would con
firm your love toward him. To whom ye
forgive anything, I forgive also ; for if I for
gave anything, to whom I forgave it, for
your sakes forgave I it, in 'the person of
Christ." The great object was to make the
repentant one feel how wide, how generous,
how cordial and unreserved was the forgive
ness which the Church extended to him,
that he might all the more confidingly re
pose in that other sympathy, that other for
giveness, which, as far as the heavens are
above the earth, are above all the sympathy,
all the forgiveness of man.
Our other instance belongs to a late pe-

112 THE EVENING MEETING.
riod in the life of the beloved disciple. It
lies beyond the period embraced in the New
Testament history, but is well authenticated.
When the tyrant who sent John to Patmos
was dead, the apostle returned to Ephesus.
Engaged in a visitation of the neighbouring
churches, he saw in one of them a youth of
so attractive an appearance that he specially
committed him to the care and guardianship
of the bishop, or chief minister of the
church. The minister took the youth to his
own home, cherished him, educated him, and
at length baptized him. As he grew up,
however, the care of his guardian relaxed,
and he fell into the company of a band of
idle and dissolute youths, who plunged to
gether in a career of sin which led to the
committal of offences that exposed them to
the severest penalties of the law. Escaped
from all restraint, and forming his associates
into a band of robbers, the youth became
their captain, surpassing all of them in deeds
of violence and blood. Time ran on, and
the aged apostle once more visited the same

THE EVENING MEETING. 113
chuich. He asked about the youth, and
wept when he heard his story. He took his
way instantly to the district which the rob
ber-band infested, and was taken prisoner by
the outguard of the banditti. He neither
tried to fly nor offer any resistance to his
captors. " Conduct me to your captain," he
said to them ; " I have come for the very
purpose of seeing him." As soon as he
recognised the venerable apostle advancing
towards him, the captain would have
fled; but the apostle pursued him, crying
out, " Why dost thou fly, my son, from
me thy father — thy defenceless aged father ?
Have compassion on me, my son. Fear not,
thou still hast hope. I will intercede with
Christ for thee. Believe that Christ hath
sent me." The fugitive was arrested. They
met once more. The apostle entreated him ;
prayed with him ; solemnly assured him that
there was pardon for him at the hands of
Christ; and did not leave him till he led
him back again, and restored him to the
Church. In the manner of his restoring that

114 THE EVENING MEETING.
erring youth, the beloved apostle showed
how thoroughly he had imbibed the spirit
of his divine Master, from whose lips half a
century before he had listened to the words,
" Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remit
ted.'

V.

Was it his fault, or his misfortune simply,
that Thomas was not present at that first
meeting on the evening of the day of the re
surrection ? Clearly enough, we cannot charge
his absence with the same kind of neglect,
with which now a refusal to join in the or
dinary services of the sanctuary would be
loaded ; for no such services had then been
instituted, nor had any authority, human or
divine, as yet prescribed them. That eve
ning conference, hastily summoned under
the prompting of the strange incidents of
the day, was, in fact, the first of those as
semblings on the Lord's day which have
since become one of the established cus
toms of Christianity. But as no such cus
tom had as yet been established, Thomas
cannot be accused of violating it. The cir-
* John xx. 24-29. (115)

116 THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS.
cumstances, however, under which that con
ference was held, were so peculiar, the pres
sure which prompted it so urgent, that we
cannot imagine that any slight or fortuitous
impediment would have kept any one of
the eleven away. It may, therefore, have
been Thomas's extreme incredulity as to the
fact of the resurrection, the utter and blank
despair into which the death of his Master
had cast him, which indisposed him to join
the rest. If it were so ; if he kept aloof
from his brethren, as believing that no good
could come from their assembling ; that it
was all over with the hopes as to their Mas
ter which they had been cherishing ; that
they were mere idle tales which had been
circulating about his having risen from the
dead, — then, for his neglect of all that Jesus
had predicted about his death and resurrec
tion, and for his treatment of the testimony
of Peter and the other early visitors of the
sepulchre, he was amply punished, in losing
that sight of the risen Jesus given to the
others, and in his being left, for the seven

THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 117
days that followed, to the wretchedness of
uncertainty and doubt — an uncertainty and
doubt which would be all the bitterer, as
contrasted with the unclouded convictions
and new-born joy of his brother disciples.
Whilst they, lifted from the depths of their
despair, were congratulating one another on
the great triumph over death and the grave
which their Master had achieved, were
strengthening each other's iaith, and height
ening each other's joy, he, alone and discon
solate, was scraping together the scanty food
on which his incredulity might nourish itself.
In the course of that week, his brethren made
many attempts to rid him of his distrust.
But all in vain ; the more they insisted, the
more he refused. The -stronger they affirmed
the proof to be, the more inflexible became
his resolution to resist it. The particulars
of the manifold conversations and discus
sions which would, no doubt, go on between
them, are not preserved. All that is told
is, that he took and kept resolutely to that
position behind which he entrenched himself,

118 THE mOREDUTJTY OF THOMAS.
as he said, " 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." What
were the grounds, real or fictitious, upon
which this incredulity of Thomas rested;
and how came that incredulity to take such
a shape, and to embody itself in such a
declaration ?
Here, I think, by realizing distinctly the
actual condition of things, both as regards
the external circumstances which surrounded
him, and the jaundiced eye with which he
was disposed to look at them, we may con
vince ourselves that the incredulity of
Thomas was not due to any reluctai ice on
his part to believe in the resurrectiou, sim
ply because of its being a strange, a super
natural occurrence. In that age, and in that
country, this was a form of uhbolief al
together rare, quite unlikely to have been ex
hibited by Thomas, or any followei of Jesus
Christ. A belief in the supernatural was
general, almost universal. To withhold his

THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 119
belief in any occurrence, purely and solely
because it was miraculous, would have made
a man about as conspicuous then, as a be
lief in all the alleged miracles of ancient and
modern times would make a man conspicu
ous now. Between that time and this, the
world has undergone an entire revolution in
the state of its general belief, in the form of
its practical infidelity. Besides, even if there
had been a large leaven of Sadduceeism
working originally in the mind of Thomas,
he had already witnessed, in his attendance
upon Christ, incidents too extraordinary for
him to refuse credence to the resurrection
purely and solely on the ground of its sin
gularity. Neither he nor any others of the
Lord's disciples — unwilling, as they all were
at first, to believe that their Master was in
deed alive again ; difficult as they all were
of conviction on this point — would have ad
mitted their initial hesitation and incredulity
to have proceeded from any such source. It
was not the character of the event, it was
the nature of their precedent faith in, and

120 THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS.
their precedent expectations about, their
Master and his kingdom, which generated
the difficulty which was felt by them as to
believing in the resurrection. The true
fountain of their earlier incredulity lay
within, and not without ; in their prejudices
in regard to other matters, not in the nature
and circumstances of the resurrection. There
appears to me, therefore, to be a violence
done to historic truth, to the real state of
the case, when Thomas is taken, as he so
often is, as a type or early instance of that
unbelief, belonging rather to modern than
to ancient times, which staggers at all mir
acles, and is indisposed to admit anything
supernatural. Thomas's incredulity seems to have out
stripped that of all the other disciples.
They would not believe the Galilean women,
when they brought to them the first reports
of the resurrection ; but they had believed
when Peter told them that he had seen the
Lord, even before they saw him with their
own eyes. But Thomas will not believe,

THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 121
though to Peter's testimony there is added
that of the two disciples who went out to
Emmaus, and that of the whole body of the
disciples to whom Jesus had afterwards ap
peared. To what is this excess, this peculiar
obstinacy of unbelief on Thomas's part to
be attributed ? Was he the most prejudiced
man among them ; the man who clung most
tenaciously to his earlier ideas and pre
possessions, and would not let them go ? Did
those common elements of unbelief, which
operated in the breasts of the others as well as
in his, yet wrork in his with so much greater
force as to signalize him in this way, and
keep him standing out in his distrust for so
long a time beyond them ? There was one of
those elements which we have some reason
to think did work powerfully on Thomas. It
would be quite a mistake to conceive of
Thomas, because of his abiding incredulity,
that he was a cold, selfish, cautious, unsan-
guine, naturally misbelieving man, hard to con
vince of anything which lay outside the circle
of his own observations, or that did not touch
Resurrection. D

122 THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS.
or affect his own interests. Whatever in
origin and nature his scepticism was, it was
not the scepticism of religious indifference, nor
did it spring from a predisposition to doubt.
That the spirit of curiosity, of inquiry, was
strong in him, we may perhaps infer from
his breaking in upon our Lord's discussion
in the upper chamber, saying, "Lord, we
know not whither thou goest, and how can
we know the way ?" Fuller evidence that
he possessed and knew how to exercise the
critical faculty ; that he liked to search and
sift the evidence, and get at the real and
solid grounds for believing, shall meet us
presently; but we must dismiss from our
minds the idea that he answered in any way
to the description which Wordsworth has
given us of the man —
"A smooth-rubb'd soul, to -which could cling
No form of feeling, great or small ;
A reasoning, self-sufficient thing,
An intellectual all in all."
The only other notice of him in the gospel
narrative, besides the one already alluded

THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 123
to, and that in the passage now before us,
forbids us to entertain any such ideas of
Thomas's natural character and disposition.
Escaping out of the hands of his enemies,
Jesus had retired to Bethabara. To him, in
his retreat, the sorrowing sisters sent their
message: "Lord, behold, he whom thou
lovest is sick." The messengers were left
without an answer. But, after two days of
delay and inaction, Jesus abruptly says to
his disciples, without explaining anything of
the object of his visit, " Let us go into Judea
again." It seemed a fatal resolution; the
disciples try to turn their Master from acting
on it. "Master," they say to him, "the
Jews of late sought to stone thee, and goest
thou thither again?" Their Master then
tells of the reason for his going, and of his
resolution at all hazards to carry out his in
tention. Then, says one of the twelve, if
he will go, go to almost certain death, " let
us also go, that we may die with him." Had
the name not been given, had we not been
told which of them it was who so instantly,

124 THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS.
so warmly, so generously declared himself
ready to die with his Master rather than de
sert him, we should have said that it must
have been Peter who spake these words ; but
it was Thomas, to whom much of Peter's
ardour appears to have belonged. Upon
such a man, so ardent in his attachment to
his Master, we can readily believe that the
blow of the crucifixion came with a peculiar
ly stunning force. In proportion to the eag
erness of his hopes would be the blankness
of his despair; nor is it wonderful that,
sunk into the depths of that despair, he
would at first refuse to believe in the resur
rection. Still, however, attribute what
extra force we may to this one or that other
of the ingredients of the unbelief shown by
Thomas in common with his brethren, it
seems difficult to understand the pertinacity
of Thomas in standing out so long and so
stubbornly against all attempts of his
brethren to convince him. The great bulk
of them had believed before they had seen
the Lord. Why should that evidence, which

THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 125
was sufficient to carry their faith, not have
carried his ? Yes, but they all at last had
seen; they had seen, and he had not. In
that very distinction do we not get sight of
the secret bias by which the spirit of
Thomas was swayed over to an unwilling
ness to give credence to the resurrection, an
incredulity which, in self-justification, built
up those buttresses of self-defence, behind
which it finally entrenched itself, and from
which it would not be dislodged? The
others had seen him, and he had not ; why
should he be asked to believe on different
evidence from theirs ? He had been as at
tached a follower of Jesus as any of them.
Why should he be singled out, and left the
only one who had not seen his Master ? He
did not like, he did not choose, to be indebt
ed to others for the grounds of his believing.
He had just as good a right to ocular proof
as they had ; and, in fact, till he got it he
would not believe. The unwillingness that
his faith should be ruled by theirs, generated
a disposition to question the soundness of

126 THE INCREDULITY OF THOMA.S.
that faith. The Evangelist has given us
only the conclusion to which Thomas came,
the result of the many conferences with his
brethren, and to which he for so many days
so resolutely adhered. The very terms in
which he embodied this resolution enables
us to fill up the blank. Jesus had come
amongst them, the other disciples would tell
Thomas, suddenly, silently, — the door being
shut; they had not seen him till he was
standing in the midst. It was very like the
mode of a spirit's entrance ; very unlike the
manner in which one clothed with a solid,
substantial body would or could appear.
They confessed to Thomas that unless it
were the two disciples who had just come
in from Emmaus, all of them at first believed
that it was a spirit, none of them that it
was Christ : that he had himself noticed this,
and had corrected their first and false im
pression. He had eaten in their presence,
he had shown them the marks in his hands
and side ; he had said, " Handle me, and see ;
for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye

THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 127
see me have." Yes, but had any of them
accepted the invitation, had any of them
made such scrutiny of these marks, as to be
sure that they were not superficial ? They
could not say they had. Strictly interrogat
ed by one who was anxious to detect any
weak point in the evidence, they could not
deny that it was within the limits of the
possible that there might have been a mis
take ; that there was a difference, they could
not tell what, between the appearance of
their Master as they had seen him before
death, and as they saw him at the evening
meeting. Seizing greedily upon anything
which could possibly create a doubt, and
turning it into an instrument of self-justifica
tion, Thomas at last declares, "Except I
shall not only see in his hands the print of
the nails, but shall put my finger into the
print of the nails, and thrust my hand into
his side,- I will not believe." No small
amount of ingenious casuistry springing out
of wounded pride, an exaggerated feeling of
self-consequence working in a nature not

128 THE INOREDULITY OF THOMAS.
less strong in will than ardent in affec
tion. "I will not believe." 'And is it even
thus,' we feel disposed to make answer, ' that
thy hurt vanity hopes to redeem itself from
the fancied oversight ; is it thus that placed,
as thou thinkest, below thy brethren, by
not having got the same proof given them,
thou thinkest to set thyself right by putting
thyself above them, and declaring that that
proof may have been enough for them, but
is not enough for thee ? What right hast thou
to ask a kind or amount of evidence above
that which has satisfied all these thy bre
thren, and which would have satisfied any
one unbiassed by deep precedent prejudice ?
What right hast thou to dictate thus to
God, and to declare that thou wilt not be
lieve till the form of proof thou prescribest
be afforded? Thou wilt not believe — and
if thou dost not, who but thyself will be
the loser ? Hadst thou been in the hands
of man, in any other hands than those of so
gracious a Master, thou mightest have wait-

THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 129
ed long enough ere the proof was given,
which in such spirit was demanded.'
Seven days go past, and the apostles are
once more gathered together on the evening
of the second first-day of the week. Thomas
is with them now. What brought him
there ? Why, if he thought them wrong in
rejoicing over an event, in the reality of
which they had not sufficient reason to be
lieve, did he join himself to their company ?
Because, I believe, with all his assumed and
declared incredulity, he was not in his in
most heart such an utter unbeliever as he
would have others think he was. He had
taken up a position which it behoved him
to defend ; but I am much mistaken, if a
strong desire, an expectation, nay, something
even of a faith, that it was even as his bre
thren had told him, was not working latent
ly, yet strongly in his breast. We often
grievously err in this respect, in our judg
ment or representations of others. If a man
is known or said to be a covetous or an am
bitious man, we are too apt to make him all
6*

130 THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS.
covetousness or all ambition, and nothing
beside. And so Thomas, being obstinately
incredulous, we might imagine him to be ut
terly so. Not at all likely. There was room
in him, as there is in most men, for very op
posite and conflicting states of thought and
emotion. We believe, therefore, that it was
in a very mixed state of faith and feeling
that Thomas sat down that evening with the
rest. They have not sat long when again,
in the very same way in which he had come
before, Jesus enters and stands before them.
The general salutation over, and before
another word was spoken, he turns to
Thomas and says, " Eeach hither thy finger,
and behold my hands ; and reach hither thy
hand, and thrust it into my side : and be not
faithless, but believing." How sudden, how
unexpected the address ! Thomas knew
that for seven days none of the disciples
had seen the Lord ; none of them could have
reported to him the words that he had used.
Yet now are these very words repeated. It
is the omniscient Jesus ; it is his own well-

THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 131
loved Master who stands before him. In
stant within him is the rebound from in
credulity to faith, — to a far higher faith than
that simply in the reality of the resurrec
tion ; of that he has no doubt. He does not
what the Lord desires, and what he himself
desired before. He does not put his finger
into the print of the nails; he does not
thrust his hand into the side. Enough to
see that well-known form; enough to hear
that well-loved voice. That sight, those
words of Jesus, are sufficient to rebuke and
to remove his unbelief. In a moment his
doubts all flee; faith takes their place: a
faith purified, exalted, strengthened ; a faith
in the true divinity as well as in the true
humanity of his risen Lord ; a faith higher,
perhaps, at that moment than that to which
any of his brethren around had attained.
Adoring, believing, loving, the fervent, affec
tionate Thomas casts himself at his Master's
feet, exclaiming, " My Lord and my God !"
A. great advance here, we may well be
lieve, on all Thomas's earlier conceptions of

132 THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS.
his Master's character. And may we not
believe also that the bitter experience of the
preceding week, — the troubled exercises of
thought through which he then had passed,
the searchings of those Scriptures which it
was reported to him had been quoted and com
mented on by Christ himself, — had all been
secretly preparing him to take this advancing
step ; to believe that the Messiah of ancient
prophecy was a very different Being in char
acter and office from what he had before im
agined ; much lowlier in some respects, much
higher in others. And now, all at once, the
revelation of the Eedeemer's glory bursts
upon him as Jesus in person stands before
him ; and not only does all his former in
credulity die away, but on its ruins there
rises a faith which springs up all the higher
and stronger, because of the pressure by
which it had previously been kept in check.
Jesus knew how prepared Thomas was to
call him Lord and God. He then might be
asked to do what to Mary was so emphati
cally forbidden. " Touch me not," he said to

THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 133
her whose love to him had too much in it of
the earthly, the human, — too little of the
spiritual, the divine. "Eeach hither thy
hand," he said to Thomas. The invitation
may be safely given to him who is ready to
own the divinity of his Lord.
The title given him, conveying as it did so
distinct and emphatic a testimony to that
divinity, Jesus at once, as if it were his by
birthright, accepts. But though he refuses
not the tendered homage, he passes no such
approving judgment on him who presents it,
as he had formerly done upon Peter, when
he had made a like confession of his faith,
and Christ had called him blessed. Instead
of this, Christ administers now a mild but
effective rebuke: "Thomas, because thou
hast seen me, thou hast believed. Blessed
are they who have not seen, and yet have
believed." Christ could not mean by saying
so, to declare that he Avho believes without
seeing is more blessed than he who upon
sight believes; for that would exalt the
weakest believer now above the strongest

134 THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS.
believer of Christ's own age. The idea that
Jesus evidently intended to convey was this,
that of two kinds of faith equally strong,
that was to him a more acceptable, and to
the possessor a more peace-giving one, which
rested on reasonable testimony in absence
of personal observation, than that which
would not yield to such kind of evidence,
and demanded that ocular demonstration
should be given. It was, in fact, as addressed
to Thomas, a distinct enough yet delicate
intimation, that his faith had been all the
more acceptable to his Master if it had not
been delayed so long. But though this was
the primary meaning of the saying, it is not
without its bearings upon those who, like
ourselves, have not seen, and yet are called
to believe. The spirit of Thomas still lives
among us. Have we not often detected our
selves, thinking at least, if not saying, that,
had we lived in the days of Jesus Christ, —
had we seen what those disciples saw, — -we
would not have doubted as they did ; that,
give us but the evidence that they had, and

THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 135
our doubts would disappear ? We practice
thus a strange deception upon ourselves.
We transfer ourselves in fancy to those
scenes of the gospel history, carrying with
us all the ideas of our age, forgetting that
veiy different were the ideas of the men of
that generation, who, though they had the
advantage of the sight, had the disadvantage
of the prejudices of their country and their
epoch. So equalized in point of advantage
and of responsibility do we believe the two
periods to have been, that we may safely
affirm, that the men of this generation who
will not believe in the testimony of the ori
ginal eye-witnesses, had they been of that
generation, would not have believed though
they had been the eye-witnesses themselves.
He who now says, I will not believe till 1
see, would not, even seeing, have then be
lieved. Two closing reflections are offered. First,
Take this case of Thomas, his throwing him
self at once at his Master's feet, exclaiming,
My Lord, my God, as a most instructive in-

136 THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS.
stance of the exercise and expression of a true,
loving, affectionate, appropriating faith. It
is outgoing, self-forgetting, Christ-engrossed.
No raising by Thomas of any question as to
whether one who had been incredulous so
long, would be unwelcome when at last he
believed. No occupation of mind or heart
with any personal considerations whatever.
Christ is there before him; thought to be
lost, more than recovered ; his eye beaming
with love, his encouraging invitation given.
No doubt about his willingness to receive,
his desire to be trusted. Thomas yields at
once to the power of such a gracious presence,
unshackled by any of those false barriers we
so often raise ; the full, warm, gushing tide
of adoring, embracing, confiding love, goes
forth and pours itself out in the expression,
My Lord, and my God ! Best and most
blessed exercise of the spirit, when the eye
in singleness of vision fixes upon Jesus, and,
oblivious of itself, and all about itself, the
abashed heart fills with adoration, gratitude,
and love, and in the fulness of its emotion

THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 137
casts itself at the feet of Jesus, saying with
Thomas, My Lord, My God.
Second, Let us take this instance of our
Lord's treatment of Thomas, as a guide and
example to us how to treat those who have
doubts and difficulties about the great facts
and truths of religion. There was surely a
singular toleration, a singular tenderness, a
singular condescension in the manner of the
Saviour's conduct here towards the doubt
ing, unbelieving apostle. There was much
about those doubts of Thomas affording
ground of gravest censure, the bad morale
of the heart had much to do with them. It
was not only an unreasonable, it was a proud,
a presumptuous position he took up, in dic
tating the conditions upon which alone he
would believe. What abundant materials
for controversy, for condemnation did his
case supply ! Yet not by these does Jesus
work upon him, but by love, — by simply
showing himself, by stooping even to com
ply with the conditions so unreasonably and
presumptuously prescribed. And if, in kin-

138 THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS.
dred cases, when the spirit of religious in
credulity is busy in any human breast, doing
there its unhappy work in blasting the in
ward peace, waiving all controversy we could
but present the Saviour as he is, and get the
eye to rest upon him, and the heart to take
in a right impression of the depth and the
tenderness and the condescension of his love,
might not many a vexed spirit be led to
throw itself down befoie such a Saviour,
saying, Lord, I believe; help thou mine
unbelief.

VI.

Speaking to his disciples in the upper
chamber before his death, Jesus said to them,
"After I am risen again, I will go before
you into Galilee." On the morning of the
resurrection, the angel said to the first visit
ants of the empty sepulchre, " Go your way,
tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth be
fore you into Galilee ; there shall ye see him,
as he said unto you." And as they went to
execute this message, Jesus himself met
them, and said, " Be not afraid : go tell my
brethren that they go into Galilee, and there
shall they see me." Pointed so frequently
and emphatically to Galilee as to the chosen
district within which their Master was to
manifest himself, we might have anticipated
that the apostles would have taken their im
mediate departure from Jerusalem. They
* John xxi. 1-14. (139)

140 THE LAKE-SIDE OF GALILEE.
coidd not have done so, however, during the
Passover week, without being guilty of a
great offence against the religious feeling of
their fenow-countrymen. They stayed, there
fore, for these ten days still in the holy city.
This delay in proceeding to Galilee, had their
Master's sanction not indistinctly put upon
it, by his twice appearing to them collec
tively, whilst they yet lingered in the me
tropolis. And yet, upon the first of these
occasions, on the evening of the day of the
resurrection, Jesus said to them, " Behold, I
send the promise of my Father upon you :
but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until
ye be endued with power from on high."
How are we to explain the contradictory
orders upon which, given in the course of
the same day, they were called upon to act ?
Galilee had obviously, for some special
reasons, been selected by Christ as the region
in which some special revelations of himself,
after his resurrection, were to be given. Did
this spring from a strong desire to revisit the
scenes of his early life, the neighbourhoods in

THE LAKE-SIDE OF GALILEE. 141
which most of his wonderful works were
done? In solitude and concealment, shun
ning everything like frequent or continued
intercourse even with his own disciples,
Jesus was to spend forty days on earth, be
fore his ascension to the Father. Would it
have been unnatural, that he should desire
that the larger number of these days should
be given to regions hallowed to him by as
sociations such as human memory had never
before been entrusted with ? Or was it that,
as Galilee had absorbed the largest share of
his earthly labors, and had yielded to that
labor the largest fruits, so it was there that
the largest number of his disciples could be
congregated, and that the quietest and se
curest opportunity of meeting with them
could be had ? It was there, we know, that
he met the five hundred brethren ; perhaps,
it was there only that so many could have
been collected, or, being collected, could have
found a secluded and protected meeting-
place. Whatever the motives were which
prompted the Saviour to fix beforehand up-

142 THE LAKE-SIDE OF GALILEE.
on Galilee, and to announce it as his chosen
trysting-place for meeting with the brethren
at large, one can well enough see how desir
able it was that the apostles should be laid
under the double obligation — -first, of going
northward to Galilee, that they might share
in the benefit of the most public of all
Christ's appearances after his resurrection;
and, secondly, of returning to Jerusalem, as
to the place in which the promise of the de
scent of the Spirit was to be fulfilled, and
they were to be clothed with power from on
high to execute their great mission upon the
earth. Nearly two months were to elapse,
ere that baptism of the Spirit was to be
given. It might have been inconvenient or
dangerous for them to have spent so long an
interval idly, without occupation or means
of support, in the metropolis. But neither
were they to be suffered to return to their
old Galilean haunts without an intimation
being made to them, that it was in Jerusa
lem that their apostolic work was to make
its auspicious commencement. It is not

THE LAKE-SIDE OF GALILEE. 143
likely that the apostles saw this at the time
as we now see it, as they saw it afterwards
themselves. When they first left Jerusalem,
they had perhaps no small difficulty in hai
monizing the apparently conflicting instruc
tions which had been issued. One thing
was very apparent, that their Master in
tended to show himself to them in Galilee ;
and to Galilee, therefore, so soon as the Pass
over celebration was over, they retired.
One evening some of them are together by
the lake-side. Whether any of them had
ever thought of resuming their old way of
living, or had actually engaged in it, we do
not know. All, however, is, this evening, so
inviting; the lake looks so tempting; the
night, the best time for the fisher's craft, so
promising ; their old boats and nets so ready
to their hand — that one of them, the very
one from whom we should have expected
such a proposition to come (in whom the
spirit of his old occupation should be the
readiest to revive), Peter says to them, "I
go a fishing." The others say, " We also go

144 THE LAKE-SIDE OF GALILEE.
with thee." It was not a concerted meeting
this by the lake-side. The proposal is evi-
denty on the part of Peter a thought of the
moment, and it is agreed to in the same
quick spirit as that in which it is made.
The meeting, the proposal, the acquiescence,
all seem fortuitous, accidental. Yet was it
not all foreseen, all pre-arranged? An un
seen eye follows these seven men as they
embark, and watches them at their fishing
toil ; even the eye of him who was waitmg
for them in the morning by the shore, by
whose hand it was that the whole accidents
of that night and morning were regulated.
Even so let us believe, in regard to the most
casual occurrences which happen still to the
disciples of Jesus, that a providence as
special and as gracious as that of which these
seven men were the objects, is in them all,
and over them all, causing them all to work
together for their eternal good. Fitfully,
curiously, without art or fixed design of
ours, may the web of our destiny be woven,
the threads thrown at random together, no

THE LAKE-SIDE OF GALILEE. 145
orderly pattern apparently coming out of
their conjunction, and yet, of all that web
there is not a single thread whose place,
whose color, whose motion is not arranged
with infinite skill, so as to mould our
spiritual and eternal existence according to
its predestined plan. As we recall and re
view the past, we may trace up to some
trivial origin, some chance meeting, some ac
cidental conjunction of circumstances, our
present position, our present habits, our
present character. As we do so, we may be
disposed to ascribe all to a blind fate ; but
let this scene by the Galilean lake-side, and
many other incidents of a like kind which
the life of our Eedeemer supplies, be the
living proofs to us, that "chance also is
the daughter of forethought," that the min
utest details as well as the most momentous
incidents of our earthly history, are all un
der the constant guidance of our Eedeemer.
The disciples toiled all night ; it w as the
time most favorable for their work. These
seven men knew the lake well, every bay of

146 THE LAKE-SLUE OF GALILEE.
it where fish were most likely to be taken ;
and they were skilful at this craft. Yet,
though they did their best, and toiled all
through the watch of the night, they caught
nothing. Two years before, Peter had onco
been out all night with as little success, but
Peter had never seen so many practised
hands in a single boat toiling so long, and
toiling so fruitlessly. Had the remembrance
of that other night of like fruitless labor
been suggested to any of the seven? It
would not seem that it had. The morning
breaks upon the quiet lake, upon the wearied
boatmen, and finds them within one hundred
yards or so of the shore. There, upon the
beach, a stranger stands ; stands as any in
habitant of the neighbourhood might have
stood, who, having caught sight of the fish
ing-boat, and knowing how its occupants
must throughout the night have been en
gaged, wanting to be one of the first pur
chasers from them of the fruit of their toil.
One might have thought that the very sight
at such an early hour of a solitary figure up-

THE LAKE-SIDE OF GALILEE. 147
on the shore, would have awakened curiosity
in the hearts of the disciples, and that, as
they had been frequently and distinctly
told, it was here in Galilee they were to see
their Master again, it might have occurred
to them that it was Jesus. The very kind
and form of the question put to them, " Chil
dren, have ye any meat ?" — a question which
it appears much more clearly from the
original than from our English version, was
just the one which any stranger wishing to
become a purchaser of their fish might have
put — may have served rather to allay than
to stimulate their curiosity. It is certain, at
least, that they did not at first recognise
him. Having got an answer to his question ;
having been told that they had nothing in
the boat, Jesus said to the exhausted and
hopeless fishers of the night, " Cast the net
on the right side of the ship, and ye shall
find." They may have wondered for a mo
ment at an order of that kind being given ;
they may have thought that the stranger
had seen some indication of the presence of

148 THE LAKE-SIDE OF GALILEE.
fish in that direction, which had escaped
their eye. They may have had but little
faith that the new cast of their net would be
more successful than the many they had
made before. But what the stranger directs
can easily be done. They may try one last
throw of their net before they land. They
do so, and now at once they see that not
without a reason had the order been given.
Now, they find, that within the small enclo
sure which their net makes, such a multitude
of fishes is embraced, that they have dif
ficulty in drawing it through the water to
wards the land. And now it is that love
proves itself as quick of eye as it had already
shown itself to be swift of foot. When
Peter and John ran out to the sepulchre,
John outstripped Peter in the race. He
outstrips him also in the recognition. They
are together in the boat ; a strange attrac
tion binds the gentlest to the most forward
of the twelve ; and no sooner does it appear
that the last cast of the net, taken in obedi
ence to the command of him who stands up-

THE LAKE-SLUE OF GALILEE. 149
on the shore, is not only successful, but suc
cessful to such an extraordinary degree, than
the thought flashes into the mind of the be
loved disciple that it must be Jesus. " It is
the Lord," whispered John to Peter. The
Lord ! Thomas has taught them the expres
sion; they begin to speak of him as the
Lord. " It is the Lord," says John, and sat
isfies himself with saying so. And now once
again the characteristic difference between
the two men reveals itself: John the first to
recognize; but Peter the first to act upon
the recognition. At once believing that it
is as John has said, Peter, leaving it to the
others to drag the net to shore, flung himself
into the water. It was but a short distance
to the shore — about 200 cubits, 100 yards.
He was quickly beside the stranger; al
though it does not appear from the narrative
that he gained anything by his greater for
wardness of movement.
It is soon evident that it was not the
want of any supply out of their boat which
had led Jesus to put to them the question,

150 THE LAKE-SLUE OF GALILEE.
" Children, have ye any meat ?" On land
ing, the disciples find a fire of coals, and fish
already laid thereon, and bread at hand.
Who gathered these coals? Who kindled
that fire ? Whence came the fishes and the
bread? Mysteriously provided, the ma
terials for the morning meal are there, quite
independent of any supply which the last
draught of the net may produce. But
though all be ready for the weary and hun
gry fishermen, they must not leave their
own proper work unfinished. As they
gather in wonder around that fire to gaze on
him who has furnished this fresh food for
them, " Bring," said Jesus to them, " of the
fish which ye have now caught." As if re
minded, by this order, of his having failed
to take his proper part in the labour of
dragging the net to shore, Peter is now the
readiest to act upon this injunction. It is
he who lands the net; and not till the
fish taken in it have been secured and count
ed, does Jesus say to them, " Come and
dine." He takes the bread and the fish,

THE LAKE-SIDE OF GALILEE. 151
breaks and divides them among the seven.
Was the miracle of the mountain-side here,
on a smaller scale, again enacted? Was
there only food enough for one man there at
first, and did that food multiply as he blessed
(which we may assume he did) and parted
it among them? This at least is certain,
that he was known now not of Peter and
John alone, but of the seven, in the breaking
of the bread. They all know it is the Lord ;
yet none of them durst ask him anything
about himself, — a mysterious awe felt in his
presence sealing their lips. It is in silence
that this morning meal by the lake-side is
partaken of This, John says, was the third
time that Jesus had showed himself; not
literally the third time that he had showed
himself to any one, but the third time that
he had showed himself to the disciples col
lectively assembled in any considerable num
ber, after he had risen from the dead.
It had been by a miraculous draught of
fishes, like the one now before us, that, at the
outset of his ministry, Christ had drawn away

152 THE LAKE-SIDE OF GALILEE.
three at least of the seven now around him
from their old occupations, and taught them
to understand that in following him they
were to become fishers of men. Why was
that miracle repeated ? Because the lesson
which it conveyed was needed to be again
given and re-enforced. Had they been told
at first to go to Galilee without the hint of
a power to be given from on high, to be be
stowed at Jerusalem, they might have re
turned to their old neighborhoods, under the
impression that they were to abide there
permanently. And now that, bereft of the
companionship of Christ, deprived of the
means of support, if not driven by necessity
yet tempted by opportunity, they resume
their ancient calling, was it not needful and
kind in Jesus to interfere, and, by the repe
tition of that miracle, whose symbolic mean
ing they could not fail at once to recognise,
to teach them that their first apostolic call
ing still held good, that still the command
was upon them, "Follow me, and I will
make you fishers of men."

THE LAKE-SIDE OF GALILEE. 153
The two miracles, the one wrought at the
beginning, the other at the close of the
Lord's ministry, were substantially the
same. Eegarded as symbols or mute pro
phecies, they carried the same significance.
Yet there were differences between them, per
haps indicative that the one, the earlier mir
acle, was meant to shadow forth the first for
mation, the later miracle the future and final
ingathering of the Church. In the first in
stance, Christ was himself in the vessel ; in
the second, he stood upon the shore. In the
first, the order was a more general one:
"Launch out into the deep, and let down
your nets for a draught." In the second, a
more specific one : " Cast the net on the
right side of the ship." In the first, the
nets began to break, and the ship to sink ;
in the second, nothing of the kind occurred.
In the first, it was a great multitude of
fishes that were enclosed, of all sizes, we
may believe, and of all qualities. In the
second, it was a limited number of great
fishes which was drawn to land. It may be
7*

154 THE LAKE-SIDE OF GALILEE.
a fancy — if so, however, it is one that many
have had fond pleasure in indulging — to see
in these diversities, the distinction between
the present and visible effects of the casting
forth of the gospel net upon the sands of
time, and that landing and ingathering of
the redeemed upon the shores of eternity.
Treat this idea as we may — and great as are
the authorities which have adopted it, I own
to the disposition to regard it more as a
happy illustration than a designed symbol,
— the image is a scriptural one, that both
individually with Christians, or collectively
with the Church, the present scene of things
is the night of toil, through whose watches,
whether fruitful or not of immediate and
apparent good, we have to labour on, in
hope of a coming dawn, when upon the
blessed shores we shall hail the sight of the
risen Lord, and share with him in partaking
of the provisions of a glorious immortality.
The night is far spent ; that day is at hand.
Let our toil then be one of hope, and our
hope one full of immortality. And yet,

THE LAKE-SIDE OF GALILEE. 155
dark and often troubled though it be, has
not this night of our earthly sorrow shown
us orbs of light we might never have seen
by day ? What should we have known of
the Saviour had it not been for our sin;
what of his power to comfort, but for our
present sorrow? He is, indeed, the great
light of this dark world of ours. In his in
carnation we behold the earthly shining of
this light. And what shall we say of his
miracles, that long series of wonders done,
of which this one by the lake-side was the
closing one, but that they were the means
taken by him for the fuller shining forth of
that light which lighteth every man who
cometh into this world? Of the first mir
acle it is said in Scripture, and the saying
may bp applied to the last as to the first, to
them all throughout, — "this beginning of
miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and
manifested forth his glory." His glory as
the Son of the Father, stands forth exhibited
in these miracles, — there is a simplicity, an
ease, a dignity in the very manner of their

156 THE LAKE-SIDE OF GALILEE.
performance, which distinguishes him from
all other wonder workers. Moses must
plead hard, and struggle long in prayer
with God, ere Miriam is cleansed of her
leprosy. Elijah and Elisha must stretch
themselves upon the dead ere life comes
back again. Peter must say to the lame
man at the Temple gate, " In the name of
Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk."
These all act as servants in the name of
Another, who permits them upon rare occa
sions, to speak in their Master's name, and
to use their Master's power. But Christ, as
a Son in his own house, speaks in his own
name ; puts forth his own power. His
language to a leper is, "I will, be thou
clean ;" he touches the bier, the bearers at
the touch stand still ; he looks upon the life
less body, and saith, "Young man, I say
unto thee, arise." His word of power is
heard in the recesses of the rocky sepulchre :
" Lazarus, come forth."
But chiefly the glory, not of power, but
of goodness, of love, was manifested forth in

THE LAKE-SIDE OF GALILEE. 157
these miracles of Jesus. The miracles of
Moses were miracles of awe and terror;
wrought in rivalry of the colossal powers of
ancient heathenism, they were on a scale of
amplitude befitting their design, their chief
spheres external nature, the earth, the rock,
the river, the ocean, and the sky. Around
the miracles of Jesus, a milder, but richer
glory gathers ; their chief sphere, the region
of human life, man's sins, man's sorrows,
man's maladies, man's wants. It is divine
power acting as the servant of divine love,
which meets to gladden our eye. Nor is it
in these miracles alone of Jesus, that this
love and power in blended action are to be
beheld. It is not so much as outward evi
dences of the divinity of his mission, but
still more as exhibitions and illustrations of
his divine character, that we prize and love
to study these miracles of our Lord; and
their chief lesson is lost on us, if we fancy
that it was then only when he was working
them, that the divine power and the divine
goodness that lay in him were acting. That

158 THE LAKE-SIDE OF GALILEE.
power and love were everywhere, and at all
times going forth from him; and the only
true believer in love and power divine, is he
who sees them in every change of nature, in
every work of providence, in every minis
tration of grace, and who never fancies that
it is in the working of miracles alone that
the great hand and power of the Omnipotent
are to be beheld. The miracles are to be re
garded by us, not as stray specimens, rare
and exclusive manifestations of that unseen
Lord whom we adore, but as methods mere
ly which he has taken, suited to our igno
rance and to our indifference, to startle us
into attention, to make visible to us that
which ever lurks behind unseen, to quicken
us to that faith which, when once rightly
formed and exercised, shall teach us to see
God in all things, and all things in God.

vn.

The repetition of the miraculous draught
t>f fishes was nothing else than a symbolical
renewal of the commission given originally
to the apostles, intended to teach them that
their first calling to be fishers of men still
held good. There was one, however, of the
seven for whose instruction that miracle was
intended, whose position towards that apos
tolic commission was peculiar. He had
taken a very prominent place among the
twelve, had often acted as their representa
tive and spokesman. But on the night of
the betrayal he had played a singularly
shameful and inconsistent part. Vehement
in his repeated assertion that though all
men should forsake his Master he never
would, though thrice warned, he had thrice
over, with superfluous oaths, denied that
*Johnxxi. 15-23. (159)

160 PETER AND JOHN.
he ever knew or had anything to do with
Jesus. How will it stand with Peter if that
apostolic work has to be taken up again?
Has he sufficiently repented of his sin?
Will he not, in the depth of that humility
and self-distrust which his great fall has
taught him, shrink from placing himself on
the same level with the rest ? Does Jesus
mean that he should re-occupy the place
from which, by his transgression, he might
be regarded as having fallen ? Singling him
out when the morning meal by the lake-side
was over, Jesus said to him, " Simon, son of
Jonas, lovest thou me more than these, thy
brethren, my other disciples, do ? " What a
skilful yet delicate method, without subject
ing him to the painful humiliation of having
his former denials of his Master exposed and
dwelt upon, of testing and exhibiting the
trueness and deepness of Peter's repentance.
Will he repeat the offence; will he again
compare himself with the others; will he
again set himself above them ; will he renew
that boasting which was the sad precursor

PETER AND JOHN. 161
of his fall? How touchingly does his an
swer show that he perfectly understood the
involved reference to the past ; that he had
thoroughly learned its humbling lessons.
No longer any comparing himself with, or
setting himself above others. He will not
say that he loves Jesus more than they ; he
will not say how much he loves. He will
offer no testimony of his own as to the love
he feels. He will trust his deceitful heart
no more. But, throwing himself on an
other's knowledge of that heart which had
proved better than his own, he says : " Yea,
Lord, thou knowest that I love thee."
Our Lord's reply is a most emphatic
affirmative response to this appeal. It is as
if he had said at large : ' Yes, Simon Barjona,
I do know that thou lovest me ; I see too
that thou wilt make no boast of thy love ;
neither in that nor in anything else wilt
thou set thyself above thy fellows ; by the
pressure of this probe into thy throbbing
heart it has been seen how true and deep
thy penitence has been, how thoroughly it

162 PETER AND JOHN.
has done its work in humbling thee. And
now, that thou, and these thy brethren, may
know and see how readily I own and
acknowledge thee as being to me all thou
ever wert, I renew to thee this great com
mission; I reinstate thee in the apostolic
office, — " Feed my lambs ! " '
Peter was not asked a second time whether
he loved more than others; but as three
times he had been warned, and three times
he had denied, so three times will Jesus
reinstate, restore. Can we wonder that Peter
was grieved when, for the third time, the
general question, Lovest thou me, was put
to him ? It was not the grief of doubt, as
if he suspected that Jesus only half believed
his word, but the grief of contrition, growing
into a deeper sadness at the so distinct allu
sion to his three denials, in the triple repeti
tion of the question. With a sadder and
fuller heart, in stronger words than ever, he
makes the last avowal of his love : " Lord,
thou knowest all things, thou knowest that
I love thee."

PETER AND JOHN. 163
In the Greek tongue, the language in
which this conversation between Christ and
Peter is recorded, two different words are
used for the one translated love, two differ
ent words for the one translated feed, and
two different words for the one translated
sheep. We may believe that in that dialect
of the Hebrew which was spoken by Christ,
from which the Greek was itself a transla
tion (for we are to remember that only in
one or two instances have the actual words
spoken by Jesus been preserved), there was
some way of making the same distinction of
meaning which is expressed in the different
words for love, and feed, and sheep. It would
be quite out of place to go further here into
such a topic. The result is that Jesus first
asks Peter whether he cherishes to him a
love, spiritual, holy, heavenly; that Peter
declines using the term which his Master
had employed, and contents himself with
speaking of a kind of affection, simpler, more
personal, more human ; that Jesus first com
mits the feeding of the lambs to Peter, then

164 PETER AND JOHN.
the general guidance oi oversight of the
whole flock that he had purchased with his
blood; and that finally he returns to the
simple idea of feeding, as applied to this
whole flock.
Of more importance is it to notice (as sup
plying the room for this variety) the change
of image from that of the fisher to that of
the shepherd, as representing the apostolical
or ministerial office. Had it been solely as
fishers of men that Peter and his brethren
had been described, as the business of the
fisherman is to get the fish into the net, and
draw them safe to land, so it might be
thought that the one office of the spiritual
fisherman was to bring sinners to Christ, to
get them safe into his arms. A true yet
contracted idea of the scope and bearing
of the ministerial office might come thus to
be entertained. It is very different when
that office is presented to us under the idea
of a pastorate. A much truer, because amp
ler conception of its manifold privileges, re
sponsibilities, means, duties, objects, is thus

PETER AND JOHN. 165
acquired. Oversight, guidance, care, protec
tion, provision, these of the most varied
kind, as adapted to all the conditions, ex
posures, wants, of all the separate members
of the flock, are all embraced within the
function of the shepherd. But let us not
here fashion to ourselves a perfect ideal of
what the spiritual shepherd is, or ought to
be, and then imagine that each under-shep-
herd of the great Christian flock is bound, in
some degree, to realize, in his own person
and his own work, each separate attribute,
each separate mode or class of activities,
which go to constitute the model that we
have constructed. The work of the Chris
tian ministry was, in the apostolic age, al
most wholly evangelistic, aggressive. There
was not the call or the opportunity then for
the exercise of many of those gifts, which
came afterwards to be consecrated to the
cause of Christ, to the advancement of his
kingdom. Yet, even then, there was no one
fixed course, which all apostles, and all pres
byters, and all elders, and all deacons were

166 PETER AND JOHN.
alike called upon to follow. Had we the
lives and labors of all the twelve apostles
before us, I am persuaded that we should be
as much struck with the diversity, as with
the multiplicity of their operations. Very
different, as, in a single instance, we shall
presently see, were the characters, the dis
positions, the capabilities of the twelve men
whom the Lord himself selected as the first
propagators of his religion upon earth ; and
room was found for all these differences act
ing themselves out in the different spheres
of labor selected by, or assigned to them.
So is it, so should it be still, in the labor of
individual Christians, in the work of the
Christian ministry. God has scattered among
us a great variety of gifts, has set us where
a great variety of services may be rendered.
As there are many members in one body,
yet all have not the same office ; so neither
have all the true members of Christ's mysti
cal body the same office to discharge. " Let
not the hand then say to the eye, I have no
need of thee, nor the head to the foot, I have

PETER AND JOHN. 167
no need of thee." Let not those who are en
gaged in one kind of Christian work criticise
or condemn those who are engaged in an
other. Let each of us do the best we can
with the kind and amount of the talent in
trusted to us ; let each of us try to do that
which both naturally and immediately comes
to our hand, not judging one another ; " for
who art thou who judgest another man's
servant ? to his own master he standeth or
falleth," but not to thee.
There is, however, one common, universal,
indispensable qualification for all genuine
Christian work — a supreme, a constraining
love to Christ. Once, twice, thrice, is the
question, " Lovest thou me ?" put to Peter ;
and once, twice, thrice, no sooner is an affir
mative reply given than the injunction fol
lows : ' If thou lovest me, as thou lovest me,
then feed my lambs, feed my sheep.' And
the first, the second, the third pre-requisite
for all true feeding of the lambs, the sheep
of the Saviour's flock, is attachment to Him
self — a love to Jesus Christ running over

168 PETER AND JOHN.
upon all who, however weakly, do yet be
lieve in him. The want of that love, noth
ing can supply: not mere natural benevo
lence — that may lead its possessor to do
much to promote the happiness of others,
may win for him their gratitude and good
will, but will not teach him to labor directly
and supremely for their spiritual, their eter
nal good ; not the mere sense of duty — that
may secure diligence and faithfulness, but
will leave the work done, under its exclusive
promptings, sapless and dry — the element
not there of a warm and tender sympathy,
that best instrument of power. It is love-
inspired, love-animated labor, which Jesus
asks for at our hands. That we may be
able, in any degree, to realize it, let it be our
first desire and effort to quicken within our
souls a love to him who first, and so won
derfully, loved us ; the flickering and languid
flame in us, let us carry it anew, day by day,
to the undying fire that burns in the bosom
of our Eedeemer, to have fresh fuel heaped
upon it, to be rekindled, refreshed, sustained,

PETER AND JOHN. 169
expanded. To know and believe in the love
that Christ has to us, to feel ourselves indi
vidually the objects of that love, to open
our hearts to all the hallowed influences
which a realizing sense of that love is fitted
to exert — this is the way to have our spirits
stirred to that responsive affection to him,
which gives to all Christian service purity
and power.
"Simon. Simon," our Lord had said to
Peter before his fall, " Satan hath desired to
sift thee as wheat, but I have prayed for
thee that thy faith fail not ; and when thou
art converted " — converted, Jesus means here
not in the ordinary sense of the term, but
recovered, restored — "then strengthen thy
brethren." That strengthening of the breth
ren formed part of the shepherd's office, now
anew committed to Peter ; and what a lesson
had he got in the treatment which he had
himself received at the hands of the Chief
Shepherd, as to how that office should be
discharged ! The prayers, the warnings, the
look of love, the angel's message, the private

170 PETER AND JOHN.
interview, this conversation by the lake-side
— these all told Peter of the thoughtfulness,
the care, the kindness, the pitying sympathy,
the forgiving love, of which he had been the
object. Thus had he been treated by Jesus ;
and let him go and deal with others as
Christ had dealt with him.
So far in what Christ had spoken, whilst
there was much that was personal and pecu
liar to Peter, there was much also that had
a wider bearing. But now the Lord has a
word, which is for Peter's ear alone. " Whith
er I go " (he had said to him in the upper
chamber) "thou canst not follow me now,
but thou shalt follow me afterwards ;" and
Peter had said in reply, " Lord, why cannot
I follow thee now ? I am ready to go with
thee to prison, and to death ; I will lay
down my life for thy sake." These words of
the apostle, though sadly falsified the night
when they were spoken, still were to hold
good. Peter did follow his Master, even
unto death. He did lay down his life foi
Jesus' sake ; crucified, as his Lord had been.

PETER AND JOHN. 171
Knowing this, and knowing that he needed
all the encouragement which could be given
him, to fortify him to meet the martyr's
doom, not only will Jesus in that private in
terview in the resurrection-day wipe all his
tears away, and now in presence of his
brethren reinstate him in his apostolic office,
but he will do for him what he does for no
other of the twelve — he will reveal the
future so far as to let him know by what
kind of death it should be that he should
glorify God — -to let him know that the op
portunity would be at last afforded him of
making good the words which he too hastily
and boastfully had spoken. " Verily, verily,
I say unto thee, when thou wast young thou
girdest 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." The explanatory clause which
is introduced here, creates the impression
that there had been a break or interruption
of the discourse. From verse twentieth, it

172 PETER AND JOHN.
would appear, too, that Jesus had made some
movement of withdrawal. These two cir
cumstances combine in inducing the idea,
that when our Lord said to Peter, " follow
me," he meant simply that he should go
along with him as he now retired. If, how
ever, the words of the nineteenth verse were
spoken in immediate connection with, and in
continuation of what is recorded in the
eighteenth, then, in saying " follow me," our
Lord might have had in his eye the veiy
words of Peter about following him to
prison and to death, and have meant, in
using them, to say, 'When thou shalt be
old, and another shall seize upon thee and
bind thee as they seized and bound thy
Master in preparation for his crucifixion,
then Peter, follow me, through the Cross to
glory.' It is very difficult, owing to the briefness
of the gospel narrative, to picture to our eye
the scene which followed. Did Jesus, as he
said "follow me," arise to depart, and was
Peter in the act of following when he turned

PETER AND JOHN. 173
and saw John following also? Did John
mistake so far the meaning of Christ's word
and act, as to consider himself equally with
Peter called upon to follow ; or was it of his
own motion, and without any real or im
agined invitation that he was acting ? How
ever it was, Peter, his mind full of the many
thoughts that this pre-intimation of his death
had excited, turns and sees John by his
side. His own fate had been foretold ; what,
he wondered, would be John's. The be
loved disciple had once, at his suggestion,
put a question to their Master about the
others; now he will put a question about
John — a question of natural and of brotherly
curiosity, yet somewhat out of place. He
has resumed too rapidly his old position, and
his old hasty and forward ways. Jesus will
not become a fortune-teller, to gratify even a
friendly inquisitiveness. He puts a check
upon the unbefitting inquiry, and yet, singu
larly enough, even in rebuking, he answers
it. ' " If I will that he tarry, that he tarry
till I come, what is that to thee? follow

174 PETER AND JOHN.
thou me." Each man's path, as each man's
duty, is separate and distinct. What the
lot of another man may be, has nothing to
do with the regulation of thine individual
course. What is it to thee, Peter, whether
John's destiny shall be the same or different
from thine ? The thing for thee to do is not
to turn aside to busy thyself with his here
after, but to occupy thyself with the duty
that lies immediately before thee to dis
charge. What is that to thee ? follow thou
me.' But if I will that he tarry till I come :
Only imagine that Jesus was other than
divine, and how arrogant the assumption
here of his will regulating human destinies,
fixing the time and the manner of his dis
ciples' death ; Deity incarnate alone was en
titled to use such language : "If I will that
he tarry till I come." When John wrote
his Gospel, that saying of Jesus was not un
derstood. Some regarded it as implying
that John should never die. The beloved
disciple himself saw only so far into its
meaning, that it contained no direct asser-

PETER AND JOHN. 175
tion of that kind, but further he did not
then see. Perhaps afterwards, when he saw
all the apostles die out before, and witnessed
as only he did, the destruction of Jerusalem,
of which Christ had often spoken as identi
fied with his coming, — perhaps at that time.
forty years after the meeting by the lake
side, he remembered the words that his
Master had spoken, and wondered as he per
ceived how remarkably they were fulfilled.
Next to the absence of all notice of our
Lord's mother, few things are more remarka
ble, in the narrative of the period after the
resurrection, than the silence respecting
John. One of the earliest visitants at the
sepulchre, present at both the evening inter
views at Jerusalem, the disciple whom Jesus
loved is neither spoken of nor spoken to.
This is the only case in which he meets our
eye, and he appears here rather in conjunc
tion with Peter than with Jesus. In the
account of our Lord's ministry, though John
was frequently associated with Peter, it was
as one of the two sons of Zebedee, the tie

176 PETER AND JOHN.
to his brother James being then obviously a
stronger one than that to Peter. But from
the hour when the two entered together the
hall of the High Priest, a singular attraction
appears to have drawn these two men to
gether. The brotherly tie yields to one
which has become still stronger, and instead
of its being Peter and James and John, it is
now Peter and John who are seen constantly
in company with one another. This is all
the more singular, when one considers how
unlike the two were in natural character, in
original disposition.
John was born a lover of repose, of retire
ment. Left to himself, he would never have
been an adventurous or ambitious man.
Even in his very motion there had been
rest. Had he never seen the Saviour, he
would have remained quite contented in the
occupation to which he had been brought
up. To sit upon the sunny banks of that
lovely inland lake mending his nets, his eye
straying occasionally across its placid waters,
or lifted to the blue expanse above ; — to

PETER AND JOHN. 177
take his accustomed seat in his fishing-boat,
to launch out by night under these burning
heavens, and sweep over the well-known
haunts, would have been enough for him ;
he neither would have desired nor sought
for change. It may seem to militate against
this idea of John's character that he and his
brother were called Boanerges, the Sons of
Thunder. We are not told, however, the
reason why this title was bestowed on them,
— it may have been derived from something
peculiar in the father rather than in the
sons. Nor can we allow the bestowal of an
unexplained and ambiguous epithet to out
weigh the whole drift and bearing of the
gospel narrative, which speaks so much of
the meekness and modesty and gentleness
and retiringness of John. But let us not
confound John's yielding gentleness with that
spirit of easy compliance which shuns all
contest, because it does not feel that there ia
anything worth contending for. Beneath
John's calm and soft exterior there lay a
hidden strength. In the mean, vulgar strife
8*

178 PETER AND JOHN.
of petty, earthly passions, John might have
yielded when Peter would have stood firm.
But in more exciting scenes, under more
formidable tests, John would have stood
firm when Peter might have yielded. This
was proved on the night of the arrest, and
the day of the crucifixion. And there was
latent heat as well as latent strength in
John. As lightning lurks amid the warm,
soft drops of the summer shower, so the
force of a love-kindled zeal lurked in his
gentle spirit. The Samaritans might a thou
sand times have refused to receive himself
into their dwellings, and it had stirred no
resentment in his breast; but when they
contemptuously refused to receive the Master
to whom he was so ardently attached, it was
more than he could endure. He joined his
brother James in saying, " Lord, wilt thou
that we command fire to come down from
heaven, and consume them ?" — a solitary
outbreak of a sentiment but seldom felt, or
if felt, habitually restrained ; yet that single
flash reveals an inner region where all kinds

PETER AND JOHN. 179
of vivid emotions lived and moved and had
their being.
Nor let us confound John's simplicity
with shallowness. If it be the pure in
heart who see God, John's was the eye to
see farther into the highest of all regions
than that of any of his fellows. If it be
he that loveth who knoweth God — for God
is love, John's knowledge of God must have
stood um-ivalled. We reckon his as belong
ing to the highest order of intellect ; not
analytical nor constructive ; the logical
faculty, the reasoning powers, not largely
developed; but his quick bright eye of
intuition, which, at a glance, sees farther
into the heart of truth than by the stepping-
stones of mere argumentation you can ever
be conveyed. There were besides under
that calm surface which the spirit of the
beloved disciple displayed to the common
eye of observation, profound and glorious
depths. The writer of the Gospel and the
Epistle is, let us remember, the writer also
of the Apocalypse ; and if the Holy Spirit

180 PETER AND JOHN.
chose the human vehicle best fitted for re-*
ceiving and transmitting the divine commu
nications, then to John we must assign not
the pure deep love alone of a gentle heart,
but the vision and the faculty divine, the
high imaginative power.
Peter, again, was born with the strongest
constitutional tendency to a restless and ex
cited activity. He could not have endured
a life of monotonous repose. He was a
child of impulse ; he would have been a
lover of adventure. He was not selfish
enough to be a covetous, nor had he steadi
ness enough to be a successfully ambitious
man ; but we can conceive of him as in
tensely excited for the time by any distinc
tion, or any honour placed within his reach.
Had he never seen the Lord, one cannot
think of him as remaining all his life a
fisherman of Galilee ; or, if the natural
restraints of his position kept him there,
even in that fisherman's life he would have
found the means of gratifying his constitu
tional biases. Eager, ardent, sanguine, it

PETER AND JOHN. 181
needed but a spark to fall upon the inflam
mable material, and his whole soul kindled
into a blaze, ready to burst along whatever
path lay open at the time for its passage.
The great natural defect in Peter was the
want of steadiness, of a ruling, regulating
principle to keep him moving along one
line. Left to work at random, the excita
bility of such a susceptible spirit involved
its possessor often in inconsistency, exposed
him often to peril. We have, however, had
this apostle so often before us, that we need
not say more of him. Enough has been
said to bring out to your eye the strong
contrast in natural character and disposition
between him and John. Yet these were
the two of all the twelve, who finally drew
closest together. The day of Pentecost
wrought a great change upon them both,
and by doing so linked them in still closer
bonds. The grace was given them which
enabled each to struggle successfully with
his own original defects, and to find in
the other that which he most wanted. It

182 PETER AND JOHN.
is truly singular, in reading the earlier chap
ters of the Acts of the Apostles, to notice
how close the coalition between Peter and
John became. Peter and John go up to
gether to the temple. It is upon Peter and
John that the lame man at the gate fixes
his eye. After he was healed, it is said that
he held Peter and John, as if they were
inseparable. It was when they saw the
boldness of Peter and John that the mem
bers of the Sanhedrim marvelled. And
when they commanded them to speak no
more in the name of Jesus, it is said that
Peter and John answered and said, as if in
very voice as well as in action they were
one — (Acts iii. 1, 3, 11 ; iv. 13, 19).
Blessed fruit this of that all-conquering
grace of God, which lifts Peter above the
fear of reproach, and John above the love
of ease ; which brings the most timid and
retiring of the twelve to the side of the
most stirring, the most impetuous ; supply
ing a stimulus to the one — a regulator to
the other ; bringing them into a union so

PETER AND JOHN. 183
near, and to both so beneficial — John's gen
tleness leaning upon Peter's strength ; Pe
ter's fervid zeal chastened by John's pure,
calm love. In the glorious company of the
apostles, they shone together as a double
star, in whose complemental light, love and
zeal, labour and rest, action and contempla
tion, the working servant and the waiting
virgin, are brought into beauteous harmony.

vm.

The very fact that among those who saw
Christ upon the mountain side of Galilee,
there were some who doubted, convinces us
that more than the eleven must have been
present at the interview. For after his re
peated appearances to them in Jerusalem,
after his meeting with them, and eating with
them, and showing them his hands and his
side, and asking them to handle him, — that
any of the eleven should at this after stage
have doubted is scarcely credible. And
our impression of the incredibility of this
is deepened by reflecting that it was to a
place of his own appointment they now
went, and that for the very purpose of see
ing and conversing with him once more.
There are other and still weightier reasons,
* Matt, xxviii. 16-20.
(184)

the great commission. 185
which leave no ground for doubt, that the
appearance of the risen Saviour recorded
by St. Matthew— the only one which this
evangelist does record, and to which we may
therefore conclude that a peculiar import
ance attached — was the same with that to
which St. Paul refers, when he says, " After
that he was seen of five hundred brethren
at once, of whom the greater part remain
unto this present, but some are fallen
asleep." It was the will of Christ to show himself
alone after his resurrection, once, and once
only, to the whole collective body of his
disciples; to as many, at least, as could
conveniently be congregated at one time,
and in one place. It was in Galilee that
this purpose could best be accomplished.
There, and there only, could so many as five
hundred of his disciples be found, and
brought safely together. After the ascen
sion, when all assembled at Jerusalem that
the city and its neighbourhood could sup
ply, the number of them gathered there was

186 THE GREAT COMMISSION.
only one hundred and twenty. Hence, per
haps, one reason why, on the night before
his death, and on the morning of his resur
rection, the apostles were so repeatedly and
emphatically told by Christ himself, and
through the commissioned angel, that he
went before them into Galilee, and it was
to be there that they were to see him.
Their attention was thus fixed beforehand
upon an interview at which the most public
and impressive manifestation of their risen
Lord was to be made.
The necessity of the case required that
both time and place should be named before
hand, fixed by our Lord himself, by him
communicated to the apostles, by them an
nounced to others ; the tidings conveyed
abroad over Galilee, wherever disciples of
Jesus were to be found. One can imagine
what intense curiosity, what longing desire
to be present at such an interview, would
be kindled wherever the intelligence was
carried. In due time the day appointed
dawns. On towards the indicated moun-

THE GREAT COMMISSION. 187
tain side, group after group is eagerly press
ing; — the solitary one from some far-off
hamlet, the one of his family that has been
taken while the others were left, mingling
with the larger companies that Capernaum
and Bethsaida send forth. All are gathered
now. From knot to knot of old Galilean
friends, the apostles pass, assuring them that
this is indeed the day and the place the
Lord himself had named ; and giving a still
quicker edge to the already keen enough
curiosity, by telling of the strange things
they had so lately seen and heard at Jerusa
lem. What new thoughts about the Crucified
would be stirring then in many a breast !
A prophet, aU of them had taken him to
be; but if all be true that they now are
hearing, he must be more than a prophet ;
for which one of all their prophets ever
burst the barriers of the grave ? The Mes
siah, many of them had taken him to be ;
but now, if they are to retain that faith,
their former notions of who and what the

188 THE GREAT COMMISSION.
Messiah was to be, must be greatly changed.
A Messiah reaching his throne through suf
fering and death, is an idea quite new to
them. They ask about his late appearances,
and are lost in wonder as they hear how
few they have been, how short ; at what a
distance, even from the eleven, the risen
Jesus had kept ; what a studied reserve
there had been in his intercourse with them,
so different from his old familiarity. He is,
he must be, a Being other — far higher —
than they had fancied him to be. Is it
really true what they had heard himself
say, but had not fully understood, that he
was the Son of, the equal of the Father —
God incarnate ? Thomas tells them that he
fully believes so. The other apostles tell
them that he has opened their minds through
a new interpretation of the prophecies to
quite different notions about himseK and
his kingdom from anything they had hitherto
entertained. In what a very singular condi
tion of thought and feeling, as they try to
realize it, must that company of five hun,

THE GREAT COMMISSION. 189
dred brethren have been, which collected
on the mountain side, and stood awaiting
Christ's coming ?
At last the Lord appears : we know not
how ; whether bursting at once on their
astonished vision, without shadow of ap
proaching form or sound of advancing foot
step, seen standing in the midst ; or whether
seen at first far off, alone in the distance,
silently watched, as treading the mountain
side he drew nearer and nearer to them, till
at last he was by their side. However he
came, when they saw him, we are told they
worshipped : — with clasped hands, or on
bended knee ; some, like Thomas, with pro
found and intelligent adoration ; others with
a worship, heightened by wonder, somewhat
vague, but pure as the mountain air they
breathed. But some doubted — those who
saw him now for the first time after his
resurrection. Here, as in almost every first
interview of the kind, there was a doubt,
one speedily dispelled, whose natural source
we have already attempted to indicate.

190 THE GREAT COMMISSION.
" And Jesus came and spake to them,
saying, All power is given to me in heaven
and in earth." To whatever height of con
ception and belief the men of that company
may have been rising, upon whose ears these
words fell, as Christ's greeting to them in
the first, the only interview they were to
have with him after his resurrection, we
may be assured that they went much beyond
what they ever expected to hear coming
from those lips. Already they had wor
shipped, gazing in wonder on him, as one
who had come to them from the dead. But
what fresh subject for wonder now ; what
higher reason for worship now ? Power
they knew him to possess; power over
earth, and air, and water ; power over the
spirits of all flesh ; power even over the
demons of darkness. Power enough they
had attributed to him to set up an earthly
kingdom in front of all opposition, to crush
all its enemies under his feet. Such power
they were prepared to hear him claim, and
see him exercise. But they were not pre-

THE GREAT COMMISSION. 191
pared to hear him say, " All power is given
to me in heaven and in earth." Far above
all their former thoughts of him does Jesus
thus ascend, and, by ascending, try to lead
them up. It has been already suggested,
that one part of Christ's design in dwelling
for these forty days on earth, and in the
mode of conduct to his disciples which he
pursued, was gradually to lift their minds
from lower and unworthier thoughts of him
to a true conception of his divine dignity
and power ; and it confirms our belief in
this to find that in the greatest, the most
public, the most solemn manifestation of
himself which Christ at that time made, his
first declaration to the assembled five hun
dred was, " All power is given to me in
heaven and in earth !"
When first uttered, how many eyes were
fixed in wonder upon the man who spake
these words ! Eighteen hundred years have
gone past since then ; millions upon millions
of the human family have had these words
repeated to them, as spoken by the Son of

192 THE GREAT COMMISSION.
Mary ; have regarded them as honestly and
truly spoken; as expressing but a simple
fact. How could this have been ? How
could a man of woman born, who had lived
and died as we do, have been regarded as
other than the vainest, most arrogant of
pretenders, who said that all power in heaven
and in earth was his, had there not been
something in the whole earthly history of
this man which corresponded with and bore
out such an extraordinary assumption ? And
even such were the life and death of Jesus
of Nazareth. They have now been for cen
turies before the world, as the life and death
of one who claimed to be the eternal Son of
God, the equal of the Father ; of one who
said that as the Father knew him, so knew
he the Father ; of one who said that what
soever things the Father did, the same did
the Son likewise ; that the Father had de
livered all things into his hand; that all
power was his in heaven and in earth. And
no one has ever been able to show anything
in the character, the sayings, the doings of

THE GREAT COMMISSION. 193
Jesus Christ, inconsistent with such extraor
dinary pretensions ; all is harmony with the
claim, all goes to sanction and sustain it.
It seems to us that the simple fact that
there was a Man who lived for three-and-
thirty years in familiar intercourse with his
fellow-men, who yet, before he left the world
was recognised and worshipped by five hun
dred of his fellow-men as one who was guilty
of no presumption in saying, " All power is
given me in heaven and in earth ;" and who,
since that time, has been believed in by
such multitudes as God incarnate, goes far,
of itself, to sustain the belief that he was
indeed the Son of the Highest, and that it
was no robbery with him to count himself
equal with God ; for, only imagine that he
was no more than he seemed to be, a Jew,
the son of a Galilean carpenter, educated in
a village in the rudest part of Judea,- — that
such a man, being a man and no more, could
have lived so long upon the earth without
saying or doing anything which could belie
the idea that in him dwelt all the fulness of
Resurrection. *7

194 THE GREAT COMMISSION.
the Godhead bodily, appears to us to pre
sent far greater difficulties to faith than does
the doctrine of the Incarnation.
It is not so much, however, as one pos
sessed of it by original and native right,
that Jesus lays claim here to supreme and
unlimited power. He speaks of the " all
power in heaven and in earth " as " given,"
— given by another ; by Him whose law he
had so magnified, whose character he had so
glorified in his life and by his death. It
was as the fruit and reward of his obedi
ence unto death that he was invested by the
Father with unlimited authority and power.
One of the conditions of the everlasting
Covenant was that, crucified in weakness,
Christ should be raised in power ; that, on
account of his having suffered unto death,
he should be crowned with glory and honour.
And his first word to this company on the
mountain side is the first announcement
from his own lips, that, his great decease
having been accomplished, this condition of
the covenant had been fulfilled ; that he

THE GREAT COMMISSION. 195
had entered upon possession of the media
torial sovereignty. Constituted heir of all
things, the great inheritance had to be ac
quired, the kingdom won. The heir still
lingers for a season upon earth, but he is on
his way to the throne on which he is to sit
down, covered with glory and honour, angels
and principalities and powers being made
subject to him. Jesus indeed speaks here
as if he were already upon that throne. As
in the upper chamber, when the agony of
the garden and the sufferings of the cross
still lay before him, he spake as if the pas
sion were over, as if heaven had been already
entered, saying, " I have glorified thee on
the earth, I have finished the work which
thou gavest me to do. Father, I will that
those whom thou hast given me be with me
where I am ;" so here, on the mountain side,
he speaks as if the cloud had already carried
him away, — as if his feet were already
standing within the throne of universal
sovereignty, — as if, having raised him by
his mighty power from the dead, the Father

196 THE GREAT COMMISSION.
had already set him on his own right hand
in the heavenly places, far above all princi
pality and power, and might and dominion,
and every name that is named, not only in
this world, but also in that which is to
come ; had put all things under his feet, and
given him to be Head over all to the Church,
which is his body, the fullness of him that
filleth all in all.
It is from the lofty elevation thus attained,
it is as clothed with the supreme, limitless
authority and power thus acquired, that
Jesus issues the great commission to the
Church, Go ye therefore and teach or make
disciples of all nations ; or as you have it
in another evangelist, Go, preach the gospel
to every creature. A mission so comprehen
sive was as novel as it was sublime. Famili
arity with the idea blunts the edge of our
wonder, but let us recollect that at the time
when, in a remote Jewish province, gather
ing a few hundred followers around him,
Jesus sent them forth, assigning to them a
task which should not be accomplished till

THE GREAT COMMISSION. 197
every creature had heard the glad tidings
of sal vation in his name, and all nations had
been brought to sit under his shadow, — that
at that time the very idea of a religion
equally addressed to, and equally adapted
to all nations, equally needed by, and equally
suited to every child of Adam, was wholly
new, had never been broached, never been
attempted to be realized. There was no
form or system of idolatry that ever aimed
at, or was indeed capable of such universali
ty of embrace. The object of its worship
was either confined to certain definite locali
ties ; the gods of certain mountains, groves,
or streams, whose worship was incapable of
transfer ; or they were the offspring and
expression of some peculiar state of society,
whether savage or civilized, suited only to
that particular state or condition of humani
ty in which they had their birth and being.
It is true that in all the more educated
nations of antiquity, there were men who
soared far above the vulgar prejudices and
superstitions of their times, whose religion,

198 THE GREAT COMMISSION.
such as it was, had certainly nothing about
it of that confinement by which the popular
belief and worship were characterized ; but
if free thus from one kind of confinement,
their religion was all the more liable to
another. Unfitted for the many, it was by
eminence the religion of the few. Its disci
ples gloried in its exclusiveness. It would
have lost half its charm in their eyes, had
the people at large adopted it. But there
was no danger of that. It was essentially
unfitted for the multitude. Its votaries
would have laughed at the idea of trying
to convert even a single village to their
faith. Such, in the days of Jesus Christ,
in all heathen countries, were the multiform
idolatries of the many, the exclusive faith
of the few. In Judea, it was somewhat
different. Sacred books were circulating
there, in which, under dark prophetic sym
bols, hints were given of a future gathering
of all the nations under one great king and
head. But these hints were universally mis
understood and misapplied. Amid all the

THE GREAT COMMISSION. 199
confined and exclusive religions of that
period, there was not one more confined, or
more exclusive, than Judaism. Both soci
ally and religiously, the Jew of the Saviour's
time was one of the most shut up and
bigoted of the race. Everything about him,
— his dress, his food, his domestic customs,
his religious ceremonies, — marked him off
by a broad wall of separation from the rest
of the species. He gloried in this distinc
tion. He thought and spoke of himself
and his brethren as the elect of God, the
holy, the clean : the Gentiles were the dogs,
the polluted, the unclean. His attachment
to his religion, as a faith proclaimed exclu
sively to his forefathers, and bequeathed by
them as a national heritage to their children,
was intense. His faith and his patriotism
were one, and the deeper the patriotism
the narrower the faith. And yet it is among
this people ; it is from one who was brought
up in one of its wildest districts ; it is from
one for whom birth, position, education, had
done nothing in the way of weaning him

200 THE GREAT COMMISSION.
from the common prejudices of his country
men, making him in that respect different
from any other Jew ; it is from one who,
save occasional visits to Jerusalem, never
moved beyond the neighbourhood of a Gali
lean village, nor shared in the benefits of
any other society than it supplied ; — it is
from him that a religion emanates whose
professed object is to gather into one, within
its all-embracing arms, the whole human
family. The very broaching of a project so
original, so comprehensive, so sublime, at
that time and in those circumstances, stands
out as an event unique in the history of our
race. In vain shall we try to explain it on
the supposition that it was the self-suggested
scheme of the son of a Galilean tradesman.
The very time and manner of its earthly
birth claims for it a heavenly origin. Had
Jesus Christ done nothing more than this,
— set the idea for the first time afloat, that
it was desirable and practicable to frame
for the world a religious faith and worship
which should have nothing of the confine-

THE GREAT COMMISSION. 201
ments of country, or period, or caste, but
be alike adapted to all countries, all periods,
all kinds and classes of men, — he would
have stood by himself and above all others.
But he did more than this. He not only
announced the project, but he devised the
instrument by which it was to be accom
plished ; he put that instrument in its com
plete and perfect form into the hands of
those by whom it was to be employed.
Study the history of all other revolutions,
civil or religious, which have taken place
upon this earth, and you will find it to be
true of all of them, that the methods by
which they were wrought out, were at first
devised by different men and at lengthened
intervals, and afterwards perfected by slow
degrees. The men engaged in effecting
them had to feel their way forward ; had
ofter to retrace their steps ; had often to
cast aside an old instrument because it was
found to be useless, or because a new and
better one had been fallen upon in its stead.
It has not been so with the establishment
9*

202 THE GREAT COMMISSION.
and propagation upon the earth of the reli
gion of Jesus Christ. The instrumentality
employed here has been the same from the
beginning. It has never asked for, because
it never needed, improvement or change.
We have it now in our hands in the same
form in which it was put by Christ himself
into the hands of the first disciples of the
faith. . The experience of so many centuries
has detected no flaw, revealed no weakness,
provided no substitute. When Jesus said.
Go, make disciples of all nations, he an
nounced, — and that in the simplest, least
ostentatious way, as if there were no novelty
in the project, no difficulty in its execution,
as if it were the most natural thing in the
world that it should be taken up, as if it
were the surest thing that it could be car
ried out, — he announced the most original,
the broadest, the sublimest enterprise that
ever human hands have been called upon
to accomplish. And when he said, Go,
preach the gospel to every creature, he sup
plied, in its complete and perfect form, the

THE GREAT COMMISSION. 203
instrument by which it was to be realized.
And that simple gospel of the grace of God,
preached, proclaimed, made known among
all nations, to every creature, has it not
proved itself fitted for the work ? No na
tion can claim this gospel as peculiarly its
own. No class or kind of human beings
can appropriate it to themselves. It speaks
with the same voice, it addresses the same
message to the wandering savage and to the
civilized citizen, to the most abandoned re
probate and to the most correct and fas
tidious moralist. Its immediate and direct
appeal is to the naked human conscience,
to man as a sinner before his Maker. Wholly
overlooking and ignoring all other distinc
tions of character and condition, it regards
us all as on the common level of condemna
tion, under the sentence of that law which
is holy and just and good. To each of us,
as righteously condemned, it offers a free,
frill pardon through the death, an immediate
and entire acceptance through the merits and
mediation, of Jesus Christ. It presents the

204 THE GREAT COMMISSION.
means and influences by which a holy char
acter and life may be attained on earth, and
it opens up the way to a blissful immortality
hereafter. If, looking simply at the out
ward means employed, we were asked where
in lay the secret of the immediate and im
mense power which the Christian religion
at first exerted upon such multitudes of
men, we should say that it was in the call
it carried with it to every man, just as it
found him, to repent, and repenting, enter
into immediate peace with his Maker through
Jesus Christ ; in the assurance that it gave
of God's perfect good-will to him, his per
fect readiness to forgive and accept ; the
proclamation which it made that, by Christ's
death, every let or hindrance had been re
moved, and that every sinful child of
Adam was invited to enter into that rest
which Christ had provided for all who came
to him. Only think, when these tidings
were new, and when they were at once
heartily and cordially believed in, what a
wonderful revolution in man's inner being

THE GREAT COMMISSION. 205
they were fitted to effect ! Can you wonder
when, to a world grown weary of its follies,
its idolatries, its philosophies, its gropings
in the dark, its struggles to find the truth,
its passionate desire to know something of
that world beyond the grave, for the first
time it was told that God was not a God
afar off but very near at hand, for he had
sent his own Son into the world to make
such a revelation of him that it could be
said, Whosoever had seen him had seen the
Father also ; — it was told that a life beyond
the grave was no longer a matter of specu
lation, for Christ, the Son of the Eternal,
had risen as the first-fruits of a coming gen
eral resurrection of the dead ; — it was told
that access to God and to God's full favour
was no longer a thing of doubt and time
and difficulty, — to be reached, if reached at
all, through prayer and priests, and services
and sacrifices, — for a new and direct and
open way had been revealed by God him
self, through which any one might step at
once into his gracious presence, into the full

206 THE GREAT COMMISSION.
light of his reconciled countenance ; — it was
told that the forgiveness of all his past sin
was no longer a matter about which, to the
last moment of his life, a man was to be
kept hanging between hope and fear, for
through this man Christ Jesus there was
offered to all who would accept it, an instant
remission of all his sins ; — it was told that
poor, weak, tempted, erring, sinful, suffering
man had no longer to regard himself as an
alien, an exile from the world of the pure
and the blessed, frowned on by the beings,
the powers, he worshipped, his whole life
turned into a struggle by one or other kind
of propitiatory offerings to keep on some
thing like good terms with his conscience
and his God, for there was One who had
loved and suffered and died to save him;
a man bike himself, and yet a God ; a man
to pity, a God to protect ; a man to sympa
thize, a God to succour; whose presence,
companionship, friendship, were waiting to
cheer his path in life, and illumine for him
the dark valley of the shadow of death ; —

THE GREAT COMMISSION. 207
can you wonder that when, in all its sim
plicity and in all its fulness of comfort and
consolation, the gospel of the grace of God
was first proclaimed to sinful men, it was
hailed by thousands as indeed glad tidings
from the far country? Or, looking at the
Scripture records, can you wonder that the
three thousand who were converted on the
day of Pentecost, as they broke bread from
house to house did eat their meat with such
gladness and singleness of heart, praising
God ? Can you wonder, when with one ac
cord the people of Samaria gave heed to
the things spoken by Philip, preaching peace
by Jesus Christ, that there was great joy in
that city? Can you wonder, when the
Ethiopian treasurer had his eyes opened to
see who it was who had been wounded for
his transgressions and bruised for his iniqui
ties, and found in Jesus the very Saviour
that he needed, that he went on his way
rejoicing ? Can you wonder, when at An
tioch and elsewhere the Gentiles heard for
the first time all the words of this life, that

208 THE GREAT COMMISSION.
" they were glad, and glorified the word of
the Lord ?" Many and great indeed were
the hindrances which arose : slow often and
difficult the progress that was made. But
the way in which these hindrances generally
acted, was to cloud with some obscurity the
simple tidings of the love of God in Christ
to sinful men ; to close the door that his
grace had opened ; to fetter with this condi
tion or with that, the full reconciliation with
our Maker into which we are all invited at
once to enter ; more or less, in fact, to assimi
late the religion of Jesus to all the other
religions which have represented God's fa
vour as a thing to be toiled for through life,
and to be won, if won at all, only at its
close, — the Life itself to be passed in a sus
tained uncertainty as to whether it would
be got at last or not, — whereas it is the
distinction and the glory and the power of
the gospel of the grace of God, that it holds
out to us at the very first, as a gratuity,
which it has cost Christ much to purchase,
but which it costs us nothing to acquire, —

THE GREAT COMMISSION. 209
the forgiving, loving favour of the Most
High. It asks us to dismiss here all our
doubts and fears ; to know and believe the
love which God has to us ; to see in Jesus
one in whom we can undoubtingly confide,
who is absolutely to be depended on, in
whom it is impossible that too much confi
dence can be reposed ; who by every way that
love could devise, or the spirit of self-sacri
fice achieve, has tried to get us to trust alone,
unhesitatingly, habitually, for ever in him.
What is it — how often do we ask these
hearts of ours— what is it that keeps us
from welcoming such glad tidings ? What
is it which keeps these tidings from filling
our hearts with a full and continued joy ?
What is it which keeps us from trusting one
so entirely worthy of our confidence as Jesus
Christ ? Nothing whatever in the tidings ;
nothing in Him of whom the tidings speak.
Try if you can construct any form of
words better fitted than those which meet
you in the Bible, clearly and forcibly to
express the idea that God is now in Jesus

210 THE GREAT COMMISSION.
Christ most thoroughly prepared, is most
entirely willing, to receive at once into his
favour every repentant, returning child of
Adam, and that there is not a single man
anywhere, or upon any ground, shut out
from coming and accepting this pardon —
coming and entering into this peace. " Ho !
every one that thirsteth, come ye to the
waters. If any man thirst, let him come to
me and drink. Come unto me, all ye that
are weary and heavy laden, and I will give
you rest. God so loved the world, as to
give his only-begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in him might not perish, but have
everlasting life. The Spirit and the Bride
say, Come. And let him that heareth say
Come. And let him that is athirst come
And whosoever will, let him take the watei
of life freely." Any one — every one — all —
whosoever ; we know no other words which
could more thoroughly take in all, excluding
none. These, however, are but words. The
great thing is to get fixed in the mind and
heart that which these words point to and

THE GREAT COMMISSION. 211
express ; that the God whom we have
offended approaches us in love, in Christ,
assuring us of a gracious reception ; the em
brace of a Father's guiding, protecting arms,
and the shelter hereafter of a Father's secure
and blessed home.
" Baptizing them in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost." Our Lord's forerunner had adopted
the practice of baptizing those who desired
to be regarded as his followers. His bap
tism, however, was prefigurative and incom
plete. It was simply a baptism unto repent
ance. It was a faith only in the kingdom
as at hand that was required of those who
submitted to it. But the kingdom had
come. The day of Pentecost, on which it
was to be visibly erected, was drawing near.
Another higher and fuller baptism was now
to be proclaimed, and then begin to be
administered. Baptizing into the name, not simply in
the name, of the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost; that might mean no more

212 THE GREAT COMMISSION.
than performing the rite in the name, that
is, by the authority of God. The name of
God, we know, is the term commonly em
ployed in Scripture to indicate the character
and the nature of the Supreme. When the
expression meets us, then — the name of the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost — we
understand it as expressive of the one nature
revealed to us in the three personalities of
the Triune Jehovah. Now to be baptized
into that name is to be taken up into, to be
incorporated with him whose name is Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost. The term is expres
sive or symbolic, not of a mere outward and
formal acknowledgment or confession of our
faith in the Divinity, as he has been pleased
to reveal himself to us under that mysteri
ous distinction of a threefold personality;
but of an inward and spiritual union, com
munion, fellowship, with the Father, the
Son, the Holy Ghost. The Israelites were
all baptized unto Moses, and, as so baptized,
were taken up into, and incorporated with,
that spiritual community of which the Mo-

THE GREAT COMMISSION. 213
saic was an external, type. They did all
eat the same spiritual meat, and did all
drink the same spiritual drink ; derived all
their strength and refreshment from the
same spiritual sources. And even so are
all baptized into the name of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost, emblematic
of that oneness with each and all of the
three Persons of the Trinity, which the
Saviour had in his eye, when he prayed for
his own, " That they all may be one ; as
thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that
they also may be one in us." And that
same oneness through Christ with the Father
and the Holy Ghost, is it not equally if not
still more distinctly and impressively held
out to our view in the sacrament of the
Supper ? " The cup of blessing which we
bless, is it not the communion or common
participation of the blood of Christ ? The
bread which we break, is it not the commu
nion or common participation of the body
of Christ ? For we, being many, are one
bread and one body ; for we are all partak-

214 THE GREAT COMMISSION.
ers of that one bread." Closest, loftiest
most blessed of all fellowships, that to
which in Jesus Christ we are elevated, and
of which our participation of the two sacra
ments of the Church is the external sign.*
" Teaching them to observe all things
whatsoever I have commanded you." The
crowning glory of the gospel — of its procla
mation of a free and full justification before
God, alone through the merits of the Saviour
— is this, that it opens the way and supplies
the motive to a right and dutiful discharge
of all commanded duty. Enthroning Christ
in the heart, planting deep within it, as its
strongest and most constraining motive, a
supreme love to him, it produces an obedi
ence which springs not from fear, but from
love. " If ye love me," said Jesus to his
disciples, " keep my commandments." He
did not question or suspect the reality of
their love. He knew there was a kind of
love they all had to him. But that affection,

* For additional remarks on the two Sacraments, see Appen
dix C.

THE GREAT COMMISSION. 215
tender as it was, might not be strong ;
regarding him mainly in the character of a
companion or friend, it might fail to recog
nise him in the character of their Master,
their Lord, ' If ye indeed love me, then,'
says Jesus, to them and to us, ' let not love
die out in the mere feeling of attachment to
my person ; let it find its becoming and
appropriate expression in the keeping of my
commandments ; so shall it be preserved
from evaporating in the emotion of the
hour; so shall it be consolidated into a
fixed, a strong, a permanent principle of
action.' All love, even that of equal to
equal, if unexpressed, if unembodied, has a
strong tendency to decline; but if it be
love of a dependent to a superior, of a ser
vant to a master, the love which does not
clothe itself in obedience, becomes spurious
as well as weak. A bare acknowledgment
in words, or in some formal act of bare pro
fession of the fatherly or masterly relation
ship, — what is it worth if the authority of
the father be disregarded, the orders of the

216 THE GREAT COMMISSION.
master be disobeyed ? If we fail to regard
Christ as the Lord of the conscience, the
lawgiver of the life ; if our obligations to
be all and do all he has commanded be un-
felt ; if the love we cherish to him go not
forth into action, — such barren and unfruit
ful affection will not be recognised by him,
who hath not only said, " If ye love me, ye
will keep my commandments," but also,
" He that hath my commandments and keep-
eth them, he it is that loveth me." On the
other hand, if our love to Christ, however
faint and feeble it be at the first, has not
only an eye to see him and admire his
beauty, but an ear to hear him and obey
his word; if under the strong conviction
that to offer love without service to such a
Saviour as Jesus is, would be but another
variety of that mockery to which he was
subjected in the judgment-hall of Pilate;
if the sincere and honest effort be put forth
to obey the precepts he has given for the
regulation of our heart and life, — then shall
each fresh effort of that kind, however short

THE GREAT COMMISSION. 217
it fall of its destined aim, exert the happiest
influence upon the love from which it
springs, quickening, expanding, elevating,
intensifying it. Each new attempt to do
his will shall reveal something more of the
loveableness of the Eedeemer's character.
The loving and the doing shall help each
other on, till the loving shall make the
doing light ; and by the doing shall the
loving be itself made perfect.
And one marked peculiarity of the obedi
ence thus realized shall be this, that all
things whatsoever Christ hath commanded
will be attempted, at least, if not discharged.
" Ye are my friends," said Jesus, " if ye do
whatsoever I command you;" a test of
friendship very sad and hopeless in the
application of it, were it meant that whatso
ever Christ has commanded must be done,
up to the full measure and extent of his
requirement, before we could be reckoned
as his friends. Then were that friendship
put altogether beyond our reach. A test,
however, both true, and capable of imme-
Resurrection. X U

218 THE GREAT COMMISSION.
diate and universal application, if we regard
it as meaning that it is by the universality
of its embrace, and not by its perfection in
any one individual instance, that the obedi
ence of the Christian is characterized ; that
there shall not be one command which is
freely, wilfully, and habitually violated;
not one known duty which is not habitually
tried to be discharged. As ever then we
hope to be acknowledged as his friends, his
true and faithful followers, let us esteem
every precept he hath given concerning
everything to be right ; and let us give our
selves to the unreserved, unrestricted doing
of his will (Matt. v. 21, 27).
" Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the
end of the world." Jesus had spoken much
to his disciples about his departure from
them, about his leaving them alone. " I go
my way," he had said to them in the upper
chamber, " and none of you asketh, Whither
goest thou ? 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. I

THE GREAT COMMISSION. 219
came forth from the Father, and am come into
the world ; again, I leave the world, and go
to the Father. 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." It was in such an affec
tionate, sympathizing way that Jesus sought
beforehand to prepare the minds and hearts
of his disciples for the shock of his death,
the sorrow of his departure. For a little
while they did not see him ; he was lost in
the darkness of the sepulchre. Again, for
a little while, they did see him, on those
few occasions when he made himself visible
to them after his resurrection. Even, how
ever, on one of the earliest of these appear
ances, he seemed at pains to remove the
idea from his disciples' minds that he had
returned in order to abide. "Touch me
not," was his language to Mary, " 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." It was as one on his

220 THE GREAT COMMISSION.
way to the Father, tarrying but a little
while on the earth, that he desired during
the forty days to be recognised. But now,
when, in this great interview on the moun
tain side, he manifests forth his glory, takes
to himself his great power, announces the
universal sovereignty which had been put
into his hands as the Mediator, issues the
great commission upon which, in all ages,
his followers were to act, he closes by speak
ing, not of his approaching departure, but
of his continued, his abiding presence : " Lo,
I am with you alway, even unto the end of
the world." The Omnipotent reveals him
self thus as the Omnipresent also : ' Go ye
into all nations, Go to the farthest corner of
the habitable globe, but know that, go
where you will, my presence goeth with you.
Labour on, generation after generation, but
know that the time shall never come when
I shall leave you or forsake you. My bodily
presence I remove ; with the eye of sense
soon you shall see me no more ; but my
spiritual presence shall never be withdrawn ;

THE GREAT COMMISSION. 221
it shall abide with you continually, even to
the end of the world, till I come again, till
that time arrive when it shall no longer be
said that I wiU come to you to live with
you, — when I shall come to take you to
myself, that where I am there ye may be
also.' The richest legacy he could have left to
it is this promise of his abiding presence
with the Church. Looking at the Church
generally, at the church in any one country
or in any one city, any one section of the
church, — we may often wonder and be
afraid as we contemplate the difficulties she
has to contend with in going forth to exe
cute the great errand upon which she has
been sent. This is the light, however, in all
the darkness. All power has been given to
Christ in heaven and earth ; he has been
constituted Head over all things for the
Church. This headship over all the princi
palities and powers of darkness, this power
over all things in heaven and earth, shall he
not employ in helping onward the great

222 THE GREAT COMMISSION.
movement which is to give him the heathen
for his inheritance, the uttermost parts of
the earth for his possession ?
It is not indeed by bare might and power
that this great conquest of the world is to
be won. When Jesus says, All power is
given unto me in heaven and earth, he does
not add, Go ye therefore, and by the employ
ment of so much of that power as I may
please to communicate, subdue all mine ene
mies, uproot aE rival thrones, set up and
extend my kingdom. No ; but, Go teach
and preach, instruct, persuade ; the conver
sion of the world to me must be a thing of
willingness, and not of compulsion. They
must be taught ; for how shall they call on
him in whom they have not believed, and
how shall they believe on him of whom
they have not heard, and how shall they
hear without a preacher, and how shaE they
preach except they be sent ? As it is writ
ten, How beautiful are the feet of them that
preach the Gospel of peace, and bring glad
tidings of good things 1 But not only must

THE GREAT COMMISSION. 223
they be taught, the people must be made
willing in the day of the Lord's power, —
a power which shall work on them, not from
without but from within, drawing them to
himseK But how shall that power be
brought into full and living operation ? It
comes, it works according to our faith, in
answer to our prayers ; it comes through
the realizing of the presence of the Saviour ;
the pleading for the promise of the Spirit
to be fulfilled. Do we ask ourselves why
is it that so many hundred years have
roEed away since these words were spoken
in Galilee ; since the world was given by
him into the hands of his followers, to go
out upon it, and reclaim it unto God, and
yet so little progress has been made towards
the great consummation ; not half the globe
yet even nominally won ? The answer is
at hand: Our lack of faith; our lack of
prayer; our lack of efforts undertaken in
the name, and prosecuted in the promised
strength of the Eedeemer.
But this great parting promise of our

224 THE GREAT COMMISSION.
Lord is to be taken by us as addressed not
merely to the Church at large in her col
lective capacity, or as engaged in her pub
lic work of propagating the truth as it is
in Jesus. It is to be taken as addressed to
every individual Christian. " Behold," says
Jesus, " I stand at the door, and knock ; if
any man hear my voice, and open the door,
I wiE come in to him, and wiE sup with
him, and he with me." " 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." I wiE come ;
I and my Father wiE come. We wiE come.
Was ever such a plural used as that ! Who
is he who associates himself in this way
with the omnipresent and omnipotent Jeho
vah, who engages for the Father, and what
he engages for the Father undertakes equally
himself? We wiE come to him, not to pay
a transient visit, not as the wayfaring man
who turns aside to tarry but for a night.
We will take up our abode with him. To
have these words of Jesus realized in one's

THE GREAT COMMISSION. 225
daily, hourly life, to know and believe that
he is indeed with us, beside us, has come
to us, has taken up his abode with us, this
is our comfort and our strength. Nothing
short of this wiE do. No general belief in
all that Jesus was and did and suffered
here on earth, no belief in anything about
him, nothing but himself in Eving, loving
presence, seen and felt by us, as a presence
as real as that of the closest companionship
of life ; as real, but a thousand times closer,
a thousand times more precious.
How well he knows this who has said
and done so much to encourage his people
in all ages to realize his presence with them
in aE the stages of their earthly life ! A
famine drives Isaac from Judea. He halts
at Gerar, meditating a stiE farther flight.
The Lord appears to him and says to him,
" Go not down into Egypt ; dweE in the
land which I shaE tell thee of. Sojourn in
this land, and I wiE be with thee and will
bless thee." Let the patriarch but know
and feel that the Lord is with him, and no
10*

226 THE GREAT COMMISSION.
fear shaE drive him from the place which
that God hath appointed as his habitation.
Sleeping Jacob, lies with his head upon the
stony pElow ; the vision comes to him by
night ; the Lord speaks to him from the top of
the mystic ladder : " Behold, I am with thee,
and will keep thee in aE places whither thou
goest, and will bring thee again into this
land, for I will not leave thee tiE I have
done that which I have spoken to thee of."
Let Jacob but carry a sense of that presence
along with him, and his solitary path and his
fears of exile shaE be Eghtened, and that
future, so dark to him as he fled from his
father's presence, shaE be turned into bight.
It was a heavy task for hands Eke Joshua's
to undertake to be successor to such a man
as Moses. When that great leader of the
people died, how destitute and helpless must
Joshua have felt ! What a crowd of diffi
culties must have risen up before his mind,
as standing in the way of the invasion and
the conquest of Canaan ! But all his dis
couragements were met by that word of

THE GREAT COMMISSION. 227
Jehovah : " Be strong and of a good cour
age ; as I was with Moses, so shaE I be with
thee ; I wiE not fail thee nor forsake thee.
There shaE not any man be able to stand
before thee aE the days of thy life." Solo
mon had ahnost as difficult a succession to
fill as Joshua. It was no easy duty to take
David's place, and to carry out his great
design. But there was a way in which he
might have been strengthened for the task.
"E," said the Lord to him, "thou wilt
hearken unto aE that I command thee, I will
he with thee, and build thee a sure house."
And stiE, whatever be the peculiarities of
our lot in life, the nature of the duties we
have to discharge, the difficulties to contend
with, the trials to bear, the temptations to
meet, stiE it is the fulfilment of that most
gracious promise, I will he with thee, which
alone can bear us up, and bear us through.
Let us rest more simply and entirely on it,
trying, as we advance in life, to have more
and more of the spirit of the Psalmist, as
he looked out upon the future and said, " I

228 THE GREAT COMMISSION.
wiE fear no evil, for thou art with me ; thy
rod and thy staff they comfort me. Surely
goodness and mercy shaE foEow me aE the
days of my life; and I will dweE in the
house of the Lord for ever.'1

IX.

There are ten appearances of our Saviour
after his resurrection recorded in the New
Testament. So many as five of them oc
curred on the day of the resurrection : those,
namely, to Mary Magdalene, to the Galilean
women,f to Peter, to the two disciples on
their way to Emmaus, to the ten apostles
and others assembled in the evening within
the upper chamber. The sixth appearance
was to the eleven and the rest on the even
ing of the seventh day from that on which
he rose from the dead. The seventh —
spoken of by John as the third time that
he showed himself, inasmuch as it was the
third occasion upon which he had met with
them coEectively, or in any considerable num
ber together — was to the seven disciples by
the sea of Tiberias. The eighth was the
* Luke xxiv. 44-53 ; Acts i. 3-8. \ See Appendix D.
(229)

230 the ascension.
great manifestation on the mountain side
of GaElee. The ninth, of which we should
have known nothing but for the simple re
cord of it preserved in the fifteenth chapter
of the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians, was
to James the brother of the Lord ; and
finaEy, the tenth, on the occasion of the
ascension. There may have been other un
recorded appearances of our Lord. It is
nowhere said in the Gospels or Epistles
that there were none else besides the ones
related therein. But the nature of the case,
and the manner of the narrative, forces upon
us the belief that if there were any such,
they must have partaken of the character
of the manifestation to James ; having a
private and personal, rather than a public
object in view. But why, if his interviews
with his foEowers were so few, his inter
course with them so brief, so broken, so re
served, did Jesus remain on earth so long ?
Why were so many as forty days of an ex
istence such as his spent by him in this
way ? It may seem useless even to put a

THE ASCENSION. 231
question to which no satisfactory answer
can be given, inasmuch as, beyond the mere
statement that he afforded thereby many
infallible proofs of his resurrection, nothing
explicit is said in the Scriptures as to the
particular object or design of this lingering
of our Lord so long upon the earth. And
yet it is scarcely possible for us to forget,
or to fail in being struck by it, that this
period of forty days was one which had
already been signalized in the history of
redemption ; and looking at the other in
stances in which it meets our eye in the
Scripture narrative, we are tempted to put
the question, Was it as Moses was with
drawn from men, to spend these forty days
in fasting and prayer on the Mount with
God, as the fit and solemn preparation for
the promulgatiou of the Law through his
hands at Sinai ? Was it as Elijah was car
ried away into the wilderness, to fast and
pray there for forty days, to prepare him
for his great work as the restorer of the
Law in Israel? Was it as Jesus himself.

232 THE ASCENSION.
after his baptism, was led by the Spirit
into the wilderness, to fast there forty days,
and at the end to be tempted of the devil,
to fit him for that earthly ministry which
was to close in his death upon the cross ?
Was it even so that now, for another forty
days, our Lord was detained on earth, as
the suitable preface or prelude to his en
trance upon that higher stage of the media
torial work in which he is to sit upon the
throne, from henceforth expecting till his
enemies be made his footstool ?
Passing, however, from a topic which must
remain shrouded in obscurity, let us take
up the incidents of our Lord's parting in
terview with his apostles. They have re
turned from Galilee, and are now once more
at Jerusalem. There might have been some
specific instruction to that effect delivered
in private to themselves, or communicated
to them through James, which brought the
disciples back from Galilee to Jerusalem.
But we do not need to suppose that it was
so, in order to account for the movement ;

THE ASCENSION. 233
for let us remember that this period of forty
days was immediately preceded by the great
festival of the Passover, and foEowed by
that of Pentecost, both of which required
the presence of the apostles at Jerusalem.
It was not till the first of them was over
that they could well leave the Holy City,
and so you find them remaining there for a
week after the resurrection. And now the
promised and appointed meeting in Galilee
having taken place, the approach of the
second festival naturally invited their re
turn. However it came about, the fortieth
day after the resurrection saw the eleven
and their companions once more assembled
at Jerusalem. Christ's former meetings with
them there collectively had been in the
evening, in the closed chamber, where they
had assembled in secret for fear of the Jews.
This last one, though we know not when or
how it commenced, may have begun in the
same supper chamber already hallowed by
the former meetings, but it was obviously
at an earlier hour, and took place in the

234 THE ASCENSION.
broad daylight. The first, or earlier part
of it — that spent within the city — appears
to have been devoted to the renewal and
expansion of such instructions as he had
delivered to the two disciples on their jour
ney to Emmaus. We gather this from the
44th to the 47th verses of the 24th chapter
of St. Luke's Gospel. It is very natural
to read these verses in immediate connexion
with those which go before, and to regard
them simply as a continuation of the narra
tive of what occurred at that meeting on
the evening of the resurrection day. And
so indeed, in common with the majority of
readers, we were at first disposed to regard
them. By reading on to the end of the
chapter, however, you will at once perceive
that the narrator, without any note or mark
of time, has condensed into one short and
continuous statement aE that he had then
to say about the period between the resur
rection and the ascension ; omitting so en
tirely aE mention of any after day or after
meetings, that if you had had nothing but

THE ASCENSION. 235
this last chapter of Luke to guide you, you
might have imagined — indeed, could not
weE have thought anything else — that the
ascension had taken place on the very even
ing of the resurrection day. The same nar
rative, however, Luke has, in the first chap
ter of the Acts, filled up, and broken down
into its parts the brief and summary notice
with which he had closed his Gospel. And
it is when we compare what he says in the
one writing with what he says in the other,
that we become persuaded that the verses
from the 44th downwards of the last chap
ter in his Gospel belong to and describe,
not what happened in the evening inter
view on the day of the resurrection, but
what happened in the last interview of all
on the day of the ascension ; for you will
notice as common to the two accounts, the
peremptory injunction laid upon the apos
tles, that they were not to leave Jerusalem
till the promise of the Father had been ful
filled, and the baptism of the Spirit had
been conferred. Such an injunction would

236 THE ASCENSION.
not have been proper to the occasion of the
first interview in the upper chamber. They
were to leave Jerusalem, and in point of
fact did leave it, after that meeting, to see
the Lord in Galilee. According, however,
to the account contained in the Acts of the
Apostles, it was after the- command had
been given that they should not depart from
Jerusalem that Jesus spake to them of their
being witnesses unto him in Jerusalem, and
in aE Judea and in Samaria, and unto the
uttermost parts of the earth ; an announce
ment which corresponds with that contained
in the 47th and 48th verses of the chapter
in the Gospel, leading us naturaEy to con
clude that these verses relate to the final
meeting on the ascension day. We must
make a break somewhere in the chapter of
the Gospel; and it seems, on the whole,
much more natural and consistent to make
it at the end of the 43d than at the 48th
verse. Adopting, then, this idea, we have the
fact before us that, in the first instance,

THE ASCENSION. 237
when he met with the eleven in the course
of that day on which he was taken up into
heaven, our Saviour occupied himself with
showing them how needful it was that all
things that had been written in the law of
Moses and in the Prophets and in the Psalms
regarding him should be fulfiEed; with
showing them how exactly many of their
ancient prophecies had met with their fulfil
ment in the manner and circumstances of
his death ; with showing them how it be
hoved him to suffer, and through suffermg
to reach the throne of that kingdom which
he came to set up on the earth ; — at once
unfolding to them the Scriptures, and open
ing their minds to understand them. As
on the first, so now on the last day of his
being with them, this was the chosen theme
on which he dwelt ; this the lesson upon
which a larger amount of pains and care
were bestowed by our Lord after his resur
rection than upon any other. What weight
and worth does this attach to these Old
Testament testimonies to his Messiahship !

238 THE ASCENSION.
what a sanction does it lend to our searching
of their prophetic records, in the belief that
we shaE find much there pointing, in pro
phecy and type and figure, to the Lamb
slain before the foundation of the earth, the
Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins
of the world.
Our Lord's exposition of these Scriptures
could not have been wholly in vain. The
veil which had been upon the hearts of his
apostles in their former reading of the pro
phecies must have been at least partiaEy
removed. Their notions of a Messiah com
ing only to conquer, only to restore and
establish and extend the old Jewish theo
cracy, must have been materiaEy altered
and rectified. When, then, after all these
expositions of their Master, — after all the
fresh Eght he had thrown upon the true
nature of his kingdom and the manner of
its establishment, you find them coming to
him and saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time
restore again the kingdom to Israel ? it
could scarcely be that, ignoring all they had

THE ASCENSION. 239
just heard, and clinging stiE to their first
belief, they were inquiring about an imme
diate erection of that temporal and visible
kingdom which had previously so engrossed
their thoughts and hopes. Let us rather
belive that, accepting all which Jesus had
taught them, admitting now fuEy the idea
of a suffering and dying Messiah, their con
ceptions altered and elevated at once as to
the kind of kingdom he was to set up, and
the way in which that kingdom was to be
established and advanced, — building upon
these new foundations, their old spirit of
curiosity found now a new object on which
to fasten. They saw now the need there
was that Jesus should have suffered aE
these things ; but still there was a kingdom
which, through these sufferings, he was to
reach, a glory on which, when these were
over, he was to enter. Still there lay within
these prophecies, which their minds had now
been opened to understand, many a wonder
ful announcement of the part which Israel
was to take m the erection and consolida-

240 THE ASCENSION.
tion of the Eedeemer's empire upon this
earth. So much had afready been accom
plished by their Lord and Master. He had
been wounded for their transgressions,
bruised for their iniquities ; it had pleased
the Lord to bruise him and put him to
grief, — was he now instantly to see of the
travail of his soul ; to divide the portion
with the great, the spoil with the strong ?
Were nations that knew not him to run
unto him ; was he to be exalted as Gover
nor among the nations ; were all the ends
of the earth to remember and turn unto the
Lord, all the kindreds of the nations to
worship before him ; was his law to go
forth of Zion, and his word from Jerusalem ;
and were the nations, as it had been pre
dicted they should do in the latter days, the
days of the Messiah's reign, to be heard
saying, Come and let us go up to the moun
tain of the Lord, and to the house of the
God of Jacob ? — Lord, they say to him, with
some such thoughts floating vaguely through
their minds, wnt tnou at this time restore

THE ASCENSION. 241
again the kingdom to Israel ? Jesus, in
answering that question, does not blame,
does not rebuke ; says nothing that would
imply that they were radically wrong in the
hopes which they were cherishing ; that
there was no such kingdom as that they
were asking about. Nay, rather, does he
not assume that the kingdom was to be
restored to Israel; that the question was
only one as to time ; that it was here, in
their too eager haste and impatience, that
the error of the disciples lay ? " And he
said unto them, It is not for you to know
the times or the seasons, which the Father
hath put in his own power;" a somewhat
different declaration from that which Jesus
made when, speaking of the time of his
own second advent, he said, " Of that day
and hour knoweth no man, not the angels
of God," no, not even the Son in his charac-
acter as the great prophet and revealer of
the future to the Church, but the Father
only. But he does not say that he himself
was ignorant of the times and the seasons.
Resurrection. X J.

242 THE ASCENSION.
He only says that it was not for them, the
disciples, to know them. They were among
the secret things which the Father had
reserved and kept within his own power, to
reveal when and how and to whom he
pleased. Would that these words of Jesus
— among the last he ever uttered — had been
sufficiently pondered by our prophetic inter
preters in their pryings into the unknown
future which lies before us. Curiosity as to
that future is not unnatural. There are so
many things to make us desire to see things
otherwise and better ordered than they now
are. There Ee too on the pages of prophecy
so many things which remain yet to be ac
complished, such bright and glorious visions
of a coming period of triumph for the
truth, a coming reign of peace and virtue
and piety upon this earth, that we are not
disposed to quarrel much with those whose
eyes are turned longingly upon a future out
of whose pregnant bosom such great and
glorious things are to emerge. But we are
most imperatively bound to keep our curi-

THE ASCENSION. 243
osity here under that check which the hand
of the Eedeemer himself has laid upon it,
and to remember that he has told us of
many things which are yet to come to pass,
not that we might be able to predict them,
to specify beforehand the dates of their
arrival, but that when they do come to pass
we might believe.
But if that kind of knowledge which they
were seeking for was denied to the disciples,
another and better thing was to be given
them instead. They were to receive power
from on high to execute that great mission
upon which they were to be sent forth ;
that mission was to consist in their proclaim
ing everywhere repentance and remission of
sins in the name of Jesus ; and beginning
at Jerusalem as the centre, they were to go
forth, not as prophets of the future, but as
witnesses of the past, witnesses for Christ,
to carry the glad tidings abroad through all
Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the utter
most parts of the earth. Three things are
noticeable here :

244 THE ASCENSION.
1. The simplicity of the gospel message
as originally promulgated by Christ himseK.
Eepentance, a turning from all evil, a turn
ing with true and penitent spirit to God ;
remission of sins, the covering of all past
transgression by an act of grace on the part
of God ; the remission of sins, offered in the
name of Jesus, coming only, but coming
directly, immediately, fully, in and through
the name of him who is the one aU-preva-
lent Mediator between man and God; —
such was the burden of that simple message
which, in parting from them, Jesus com
mitted to his disciples to make known over
all the earth.
2. The wider and wider compass of that
sphere over which this message was to be
borne by them. Upon the universality of
its embrace, — its being a message for all
mankind, for men of every age and country,
character and condition, — we have afready,
in our last lecture, commented ; but let us
not overlook the fact as pointing to the true
order in which all evangelistic labours should

THE ASCENSION. 245
be prosecuted, that the apostles were to
begin at Jerusalem, to go throughout aE
Judea, to penetrate Samaria with the glad
tidings, and then to bear them on to the
uttermost parts of the earth. Whatever
else may have lain at the bottom of these
instructions, this at least is apparent, that
their own capital, their own country, their
own kindred, their own immediate neigh
bours, were first to have the tender made to
them. Are we wrong in interpreting the
direction of our Saviour as implying that
aE Christian effort should be from the cen
tre to the circumference ; should be so di
rected as to fiE the inner circles first, — the
circles of our own heart, our own home, our
own city, our own country ; and that if,
overlooking these, neglecting these, we busy
ourselves among the broader, wider, outer
circles, we are reversing the order and run
ning counter to the directions of the Master
whom we serve ? I shaE not venture here
to say how much better I think it would be
for ourselves and for others, for Christianity

246 THE ASCENSION.
and for the world, if, instead of embarking
in enterprises which fascinate by the wide-
ness of their scope, but upon which, just
because of that wideness, so much labour is
wasted, each man were to cultivate the little
sphere which lies more immediately around
him. 3. We notice the qualification for Chris
tian work, the baptism of the Holy Spirit
bestowing the needed power. The apostles
had a great commission given, a great task
assigned ; the wide world set forth as the
field of their future labours. But they were
not as yet prepared to execute this commis
sion, to take up this work. They were to
wait in Jerusalem ; to wait some days ; do
nothing but wait and pray and hope ; a
good and useful lesson in itself, subduing,
restraining the spirit of eager and impatient
seK-confidence — a lesson which is still in
force ; that pause, that period of inaction,
those ten days of stillness between the day
of the ascension and the day of Pentecost,
as full of instruction stiE to us as of benefit

THE ASCENSION. 247
originaEy to the disciples. And when the
baptism of fire at last was given, the want
ing element was supplied, said here by
Christ himseE to be power : " Tarry ye in
the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued
with power from on high." " Ye shall re
ceive power after that the Holy Spirit is
come upon you : and ye shaE be witnesses
unto me, both in Jerusalem and in aE Ju
dea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost
part of the earth." Not knowledge so much
was wanted but power ; a firmer grasp of
truth already known ; a stronger, deeper.
steadier attachment to a Saviour already
loved ; conviction, affection ripened into
abiding, controEing, enduring principle of
action ; power to be, to do, to suffer. Is
not that the very thing which in religion
we aE most need ; the very thing we feel
we cannot ourselves attain ; the very thing
which it requires the baptism of a heavenly
influence to bestow ?
But let us foEow Jesus to the mount
called Olivet. His closing counsels given,

248 THE ASCENSION.
he leads his disciples out of the city. Did
they, in open day, pass along through the
streets of Jerusalem? If they did, how
many wondering eyes would rest upon the
weE-known group of Galilean fishermen ;
how many wondering eyes would fix upon
the leader of that group — the Jesus of Naza
reth, whom six weeks before they had seen
hanging upon the cross at Calvary. Little
heeding the looks which they attract, they
pass through the city gate. They are now
on a weE-known track ; they cross the Ke
dron ; they approach Gethsemane. We lose
sight of them amid the deep shadows of
these olive-trees. Has Jesus paused for a
moment to look, for the last time, with
those human eyes of his, upon the sacred
spot where he cast himseE on the night of
his great agony, upon the ground ? Once
more they emerge ; they climb the hill-side ;
they cross its summit ; they are approach
ing Bethany. He stops ; they gather round.
He looks upon them ; he lifts his hands ;
he begins to bless them. What love un-

THE ASCENSION. 249
utterable in that parting look ; what untold
riches in that blessing ! His hands are up
lifted ; his Eps are engaged in blessing, when
slowly he begins to rise : earth has lost her
power to keep ; the waiting, up-drawing
heavens claim him as their own. An attrac
tion stronger than our globe is on him, and
declares its power. He rises ; but still as
he floats upward through the yielding air,
his eyes are bent on these up-looking men ;
his arms are stretched over them in the atti
tude of benediction, his voice is heard dying
away in blessings as he ascends. Awe
struck, in silence they foEow him with strain
ing eye-baEs, as his body lessens to sight,
in its retreat upward into that deep blue,
till the commissioned cloud enfolds, cuts off
aE further vision, and closes the earthly and
sensible communion between Jesus and his
disciples. That cloudy chariot bore him
away, tiE he was " received up into heaven,
and sat down on the right hand of God."
How simple, yet how sublime, how pa
thetic this parting ! No disturbance of the
11*

250 THE ASCENSION.
elements, no chariot of fire, no escort of
angels ; nothing to disturb or distract the
little company from whom he parts ; nothing
to the very last to break in upon that close
and brotherly communion, which is continued
as long as looking eye and listening ear can
keep it up. But who shaE tell us, when
these earthly links were broken, and that
cloud carried him to the farthest point in
which cloud could form or float, and left
him there ; who shaE teE us what happened
above, beyond, on the way to the throne ;
in what new form of glory, by what swift
flight, attended by what angel escort, accom
panied by what burst of angelic praise, that
throne of the universe was reached ? Our
straining eyes, we too would turn upward
to those heavens which received him, and
wonder at the reception which awaited him
there, tiE on our ears there falls that gentle
rebuke, " Why stand ye gazing up into
heaven ?" ' Think not with eyes like yours
to pierce that cloud which hides the world
of spiiits from mental vision. Enough for

THE ASCENSION. 251
you to know that this same Jesus shall so
come in like manner as ye have seen him go.'
This mild rebuke was given to the men
of Galilee upon the mountain top by two
men in white apparel, who stood beside
them, their presence unnoted till their words
had broken the deep silence, and drawn
upon themselves that gaze hitherto directed
towards heaven, but which had now noth
ing above on which to rest ; two angels,
perhaps the two who had watched and
waited by the empty sepulchre ; one of
them the same who in the hour of his great
agony had been sent to strengthen the sink
ing Saviour in the Garden, now stationed
here at OEvet to soften, as it were, to the
disciples the sorrow of this parting, to turn
that sorrow into joy. But how at that
moment, when they were discharging this
kindly but humble office, were the heavenly
host engaged ? Surely, if at the emerging
out of chaos of this beautiful and orderly
creation, those sons of God chanted together
the new world's birthday hymn ; surely, if

252 THE ASCENSION.
in that innumerable host above the plains
of Bethlehem, a great multitude of them
celebrated, in notes of triumph, a still better
and more glorious birth — the entire com
pany of the heavenly host must have struck
their harps to the fullest, noblest, richest
anthem that ever they gave forth, as the
great Son of God, the Saviour of mankind
— iis earthly sorrows over, his victories over
Satan, sin, and death complete — sat down
"that day with the Father on his throne, far
above aE principaEties and powers, and
every name that is named, not only in this
world, but in that which is to come. Did
these two angels who were left behind on
earth, who had this humbler task assigned
them, feel at all as if theirs were a lower,
meaner service ? No, they had too much
of the spirit of Him who had for forty
days kept that throne waiting to which he
had now ascended, that he might tabernacle
stiE a little longer with the children of men ;
nor were they ignorant of that word of his,
" Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least

THE ASCENSION. 253
of these my little ones, ye have done it unto

me."

" Why gaze ye up into heaven ? This
same Jesus shaE so come in like manner as
ye have seen him go into heaven." This is
not a final departure of this Jesus from the
world he came to save. That was not the
last look the earth was ever to get of him
that you got of him as the clouds covered
him from your view. He is to come again ;
to come in the clouds of heaven, with power
and great glory. But for that, perhaps the
disciples might have returned to Jerusalem
with sad and downcast spirits, as those from
whose head their Master had been for ever
taken away. As it was, they returned, we
are told, with great joy ; the sorrow of the
departure swaEowed up in the hope of the
speedy return. So vivid, indeed, was the
expectation cherished by the first Christians
of the second advent of the Lord, that it
needed to be chastened and restrained.
They required to have their hearts directed
into a patient waiting for that coming. It

254 THE ASCENSION.
is very different with us. We require to
have that faith quickened and stimulated,
which they needed to have chastened and
restrained. It is more with wonder than
with great joy that we return from witness
ing the ascension of our Lord. But let us
remember that though the heavens have re
ceived him, it is not to keep him there apart
for ever from this world. He himself cher
ishes no such feeling of retirement and sepa
ration now that he has ascended up on high.
I have spoken to you of his last words of
blessing which fell audibly upon fleshly ears.
But what are the very last words that in
vision he uttered : " He that testifieth these
things saith, Surely, I come quickly." Our
crowned Saviour waits ; with eager expect
ancy waits the coming of the day when his
presence shall be again revealed among us.
It may seem slow to us, that evolution of
the ages which is preparing all things for
his approach. But with him who says, I
come quickly, one day is as a thousand years,
and a thousand years as one day ; and as

THE ASCENSION. 255
soon as the curtain shaE drop on the last
act of that great drama of which this earth
is now the theatre, then, quick as love and
power can carry him, shaE the same Jesus
be here again on earth, — coming in like
manner as these men of Galilee saw him go
up to heaven. Are we waiting for that
coming, longing for that coming, hastening
to that coming ? Are we ready, as he says
to us, " Behold, I come quickly," to add as
our response, " Amen. Even so, come, Lord
Jesus !"

APPENDIX.

APPENDIX A.— P. 18.
As so closely connected with the subject of our
Lord's Resurrection, the author ventures to present
to the reader the following extracts from an unpub
lished course of Lectures on the 15th chapter of the
First Epistle to the Corinthians.
" Now, if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how
say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead 1
But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not
risen : and if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and
your faith is also vain. Tea, and we are found false witnesses
of God: because we have testified of God that he raised up
Christ ; whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.
For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised : and if Christ
be not raised, your' faith is vain ; ye are yet in your sins. Then
they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in
this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most
miserable. But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become
the first-fruits of them that slept." — 1 Cok. xv. 12-20.
St. Paul had learned that there were some among
the Corinthian converts to Christianity who affirmed
that there was to be no resurrection of the dead. A
belief in that resurrection has so long, so universally,
and so strongly been established in the breasts of all
(259)

260 APPENDIX.
calling themselves by the Christian name, — it is so
thoroughly recognised as an integral part of the
Christian faith, that we find some difficulty in con
ceiving that at any time any who professed themselves
to be believers in Christ should have doubted or de
nied it. Let us remember, however, that even among
the Jews, up to the time of the resurrection of our
Lord himself, the doctrine of the future general re
surrection of the dead had not been revealed with
such plainness as to prevent the whole sect of the
Sadducees from openly denying it. They accepted
the Mosaic revelation ; their title to be regarded as
holders of the Jewish faith was not questioned ; and
yet they repudiated the belief that the dead were to
rise again. Outside Judea the notion of a future re
surrection of all the dead was so novel and so start
ling, that we are not to wonder that a difficulty
should have been felt in admitting, or a disposition
displayed — even by those who otherwise lent a favor
able ear to the first teachings of Christianity — to re
ject it. In that broad Gentile world which the first
evangelists of the Cross invaded and sought to win
over to Christianity, there were two elements that
rose up in strong antagonism to the idea of the re
surrection of the dead. There was the materialistic
Epicurean form of infidelity — twin-sister of the Sad-
ducean spirit among the Jews — which refused to
listen to anything beyond what sense or conscious-

APPENDIX. 261
ness made known. This spirit was rife at Athens,
Paul had already found it there. The men of Athens
listened to him patiently enough for a time, till he
spake of the resurrection of the dead, when they
turned them mockingly and impatiently away : the
very notion of a future embodiment of that spirit,
which at death passed they knew not whither or into
what, being far too gross and too tangible for them
to receive. Then there was another and very oppo
site spirit, begotten in the school of Oriental specu
lation, with which the doctrine of the resurrection
came into the sharpest and most direct collision, —
the spirit of those teachers of the Gnostic philosophy,
who asserted that the source of all evil lay in matter ;
the source of all sin in the soul's connexion with the
body. With them, liberation from the body was
emancipation from all evil ; reunion with the body
would be a reduction of the soul once more into the
bondage of corruption. Many who cherished this
deep abhorrence of matter joined the Christian ranks,
and struggled hard to retain as much as they could
of their old impressions and beliefs in conjunction
with their new faith in Jesus Christ. Of such, in all
likelihood, were Hymeneus and Philetus, referred to
by Paul some years afterwards in his Second Epistle
to Timothy, as having erred concerning the faith,
saying that the resurrection was past already. Seek
ing to spiritualize everything, they said that the only

262 APPENDIX.
resurrection was the regeneration of the soul, the
moral renewal of the inner man of the heart, which
was already over with all who were made new men
in Jesus Christ.
Of these three leavens — the Jewish Sadducean, the
Greek Epicurean, or the Oriental Gnostic — it is im
possible now to tell which it was that had infected
at so early a period the Church of Corinth. We
have only the fact before us, that there were some
within that Church who said that there was to be no
resurrection of the dead. Otherwise they had re
ceived in all its simplicity and in all its fulness the
gospel that Paul taught ; he had not to complain of
them as having ever felt or expressed any doubt as
to that eternal life held out to them in Christ, neither
had they questioned the fact of Christ's own resur
rection as an incident in his history that had often
been recounted to them. But, animated by one or
other of the tendencies that have been already alluded
to, they had put away from them a Belief in the
general resurrection of the dead. They saw and felt
no inconsistency in doing so. They thought that
they could be as good Christians as ever, and yet
give up that one belief. They did not see how un
belief on that one topic would, if admitted and cher
ished, spread itself around ; how it went to sap and
undermine the entire fabric of Christianity, to over
turn the very trust and hope that they themselves

APPENDIX. 263
were clinging to. To convince them of all this, and
by working such conviction to eradicate the rising
error, is the main object of the apostle in the 15th
chapter of the Epistle. . .
You have a good specimen in the verses imme
diately before us of that rapid, condensed, impas
sioned kind of reasoning in which Paul so frequently
indulges. There were some at Corinth, he had been
informed, who, having made public profession of
their faith in Christ, were nevertheless disposed to
deny that there should be a resurrection of the dead.
At once the incompatibility of the general faith with
the particular denial rises before the apostle's thoughts.
This incompatibility he hastens to expose. Have
they thought — these deniers of a resurrection from
the dead — of all which that denial fairly and directly
involves ? Have they thought of the inconsistencies,
the absurdities, the incredibilities, that by necessity
and immediate implication flow out of it ? These he
presses on their regard, not in the way of laboured
or lengthened argument, but in brief emphatic de
clarations, well fitted~to confound as well as to con
vince, — to stir the conscience and the heart too, as
by the voice of a trumpet. I am very conscious how
much such a series of short, terse statements must
suffer by any attempt to expand them. But as some
accidental benefits may perhaps accompany the at
tempt, let us take up in order the fatal consequences

264 APPENDIX.
charged here by Paul upon a denial of the resurrec
tion of the dead.
Ver. 13. — " But if there be no resurrection of the
dead, then is Christ not risen."* The resurrection
of the dead and the resurrection of Christ are, in the
apostle's judgment, so inseparably connected, that
they must stand and fall together. If you believe
one, you must believe both ; if you reject one, you
must reject both. But how is this ? What is the
link of connexion between the two events that neces
sitates this common acceptance or common rejection
of them both ? What is it that makes it anything
like a direct and inevitable conclusion, from the dead
not rising, that Christ had not risen ? One can
readily enough see how that, if the resurrection of
the dead generally were denied upon the ground of
its strangeness, its undesirableness, its alleged impos
sibility, then it must be denied in every instance ; to
be consistent, you must carry your denial round the
whole circle of humanity, and take in the man Christ
Jesus with all the rest. More than this, however,
seems to be indicated here. The apostle points to
some other more hidden nexus or bond of union
between the two events that he so knits together,
than that of their being alike mysterious in their char
acter, alike difficult of accomplishment. As serving
to bring out to view what that nexus is, let us notice,
* Ver. 16. — " For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised."

APPENDIX. 265
that it is not of the resurrection of all the dead pro
miscuously, — it is of the resurrection of believers ;
it is of that resurrection unto life which involves the
deliverance of the soul at death from all the fruits
and consequences of its transgressions, and its reunion
afterwards with the body from which it was to suffer
a temporary separation ; it is of that kind of resur
rection, and of it exclusively, that the apostle speaks.
It was to obtain and secure for all true believers in
him the benefits and blessedness of such a resurrec
tion, that Christ both died and rose and revived.
He rose from the sepulchre on their account. He
rose, not as an isolated member of the human fam
ily, to whom it might be given to burst the barriers
of the tomb, whilst all the others remained within
its hold. Were no other connexion looked at as
existing between Christ and those who were to rise
again, than that of their being joint partakers of the
same human nature, it would be difficult to perceive
any great force in the argument, that if they were
not to rise, he could not have risen. There seems
no such tie existing between the entire membership
of the human family, as to shut out the possibility
that there might have been that one solitary instance
of a resurrection from the dead. But bring in the
idea of a vital union between Christ and his own ;
bring in the idea that he is the Resurrection and
the Life in this sense, that he that believeth in him,
Resurrection X £

206 APPENDIX.
though he were dead, yet shall he rise again, that
whosoever liveth by believing in him shall never
die ; bring in the idea that Jesus rose not from the
dead in his individual capacity, but as the head and
representative of all those whom he was to redeem
from death and ransom from the power of the grave,
— and then it is that a meaning and a force is given
to the declaration, " If they rise not, then is he not
risen." His resurrection, in its true significance, in
its great design, never can have taken place if it
draw not that other resurrection of all his people in
its train.
2. Ver. 14. — But " If Christ be not risen, then is
our preaching vain." It is an idle, empty tale, this
gospel that we have been preaching. You not only
deprive it of its closing convincing evidence, you
take out of it its very pith and morrow, if you cast
away from you the truth that Jesus rose again from
the dead ; for, is it not upon that rising of his to
God's right hand, as the accepted and prevailing
Mediator, that faith builds its hope of pardon and
acceptance before God ? Had our gospel stopped
here, that Christ died for our sins ; had we had no
thing more to tell you, than that he sank beneath
the load of our iniquities that pressed him down to
death, — where were there evidence to rebut the alle
gation that beneath that load he still was lying ;
where the proof that that death of his for our trans-

APPENDIX. 267
gressions, in the Father's judgment was sufficient,
and had by him been accepted as such ? It is that
rising again of the great Sin-bearer ; his triumphant
enthronement by the side of his Father in heaven,
which proclaims the sacrifice complete, the atonement
adequate. It is because it embraces this within the
glad tidings that it proclaims, that this gospel which
we preach is indeed a gospel whereon all may se
curely stand, and by which the very chief of sinners
may be saved. Vain, all-powerless as an instrument
of comfort would the gospel be, if it pointed only
to the death and the burial, the shrouded cross and
the sealed sepulchre, leaving the body of the Cruci
fied within that grave wherein man had never lain
before, but leaving it to share the common fate of
all the buried inmates of the tomb. And as vain in
that case would be your faith as was our preaching ;
vain, because wanting that solid substantial basis to
rest upon, which the resurrection of Christ supplies.
Take that foundation from under it, and then see
how unsettled and insecure your faith in Christ —
your faith in him as the Redeemer of the lost, the
Saviour of your soul — would be.
Ver. 15. — " Yea, and we are found false witnesses
of God ; because we have testified of God that he
raised up Christ : whom he raised not, if so be that
the dead rise not." False witnesses ; not mistaken,
deceived witnesses, but false witnesses, testifiers to

268 APPENDIX.
that which was not true, and testifiers to its being
true, themselves knowing it to be false. There was
here, as to that fact of the resurrection, no room for
mistake. It was a fact or it was a falsehood. Peter,
James, the Twelve, the Five Hundred, all said that
they had seen the Lord ; that he had spoken with
them, ate with them, showed them his hands and his
side — been at pains to prove to them that it was no
shadowy form of their own imagination, that it was
his true and real self, emerged from Joseph's sepul
chre, that they looked upon. Either all that was
true, or they were wilful, intentional deceivers, try
ing to palm a falsehood upon the world. Twenty
years had passed since the alleged event had hap
pened. These twenty years had sifted that testi
mony, had searched it more thoroughly than any
personal cross-examination, however rigorous. The
witnesses were numerous enough, scattered enough,
independent enough ; they had repeated their evi
dence often enough, and in circumstances varied
enough to have brought out any inconsistency, to
have detected any attempted collusion. Had any
signs or token of imposition ever been discovered in
any of them ? Could any motive for imposture be
conceived ? What had they made of it, what were
they ever likely to make of it, by proclaiming and
repeating it, that Jesus had risen from the grave ?
Yea, and among these men branded thus as false

APPENDIX. 269
witnesses, if Christ did not really rise, Paul himself
must be reckoned. That he should ever have such a
brand affixed to him, that he should ever once be
thought of as an impostor, a deceiver ; is there not
something in the very manner of Paul's speech here,
that tells us how monstrous to himself, and surely as
incredible to others, the very supposition seemed ?
So far as it is or can be a mere matter of human tes
timony, we would be willing to peril the whole fate
of Christianity upon the evidence of that one wit
ness, Paul ; that evidence as it lies before us in his
letters written at different times, from different places,
in different circumstances, to different persons ; so
frank, so full, so overflowing, the whole thought, the
whole heart of the man, so unrestrainedly poured
forth. Read these letters, and say, is it possible that
you could have got a man more thoroughly qualified,
by his intelligence and his clear-sightedness, and early
acquaintance both with the Jewish and Gentile faiths,
to decide upon the matter, — his birth, his education,
his position, his earthly prospects, all tending to
create a bias against and not in favour of the new
faith ? How are you to account for it, that there
upon the spot ; there within so short a time after the
crucifixion of our Lord ; there, with every means
lying open to him of examining into the truth of all
the facts and miracles of our Lord's history, such a
man became a convert to Christianity? We have

270

APPENDIX.

his own account of that conversion, an account which
if we accept as true determines the whole matter ;
but even setting that account aside, look at the after
life and labours, toils and sufferings of this man,
crowned at last with the martyr's death. How are
we to account for them on any other supposition than
that of the truth of Christianity ? If anything that
the other apostles testified as to the facts of the Sa
viour's life had been false, Paul must have found it
out ; and had he found it out, would he not have
been the first and the loudest in proclaiming it ? If
ever there was an honest seeker after the truth ; if ever
there was an ardent lover of the truth ; if ever there
was a devoted adherent to the truth, a man who would
do all and dare all to get at it, and would bear all
and sacrifice all rather than part with or deny it, —
that man was Paul. Can any one read his Epistles
with the shadow of a doubt as to his entire truthful
ness, earnestness, integrity of thought and purpose ?
Paul a false witness ! do we not now scout the very
idea of it as promptly and almost as indignantly as,
eighteen hundred years ago, when he first penned the
15th verse of this chapter, Paul scouted it himself.
" And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain ;
ye are yet in your sins." Those sins of yours Jesus
took upon him, made them virtually his own, bare
them in his own body on the tree. It was for those
sins he died ; died that he might redeem or deliver

APPENDIX. 271
you from all their bitter fruits, that he might ransom
you from the power of the grave ; but if he have
not risen, if death still hold him in its stiff and unre-
laxed embrace, if the grave still keep in its stern
custody that body which was wounded for your
transgressions, — then, brethren, the sting has not
been taken from the last enemy, the victory has not
been wrested from the grave, that death of Christ
has failed in realizing its predicted issue. Instead of
triumphing in your stead and on your behalf over
death, death has triumphed over him, leaving thus
your deliverance unaccomplished. And if so, then
are ye yet in your sins ; the whole weight of their
guilt still lieth upon you ; the whole burden of their
penalty remains yet to be borne. It is a strange, let
us even say, an incredible or impossible hypothesis
that Paul puts, that Christ should have taken on him
our sins, yet sunk beneath the burden thus voluntarily
assumed ; but do not the very form in which that
hypothesis is here presented, and the conclusion
drawn from the temporary assumption of its truth,
— namely, that in that case these Corinthian believers
would still be in their sins, — do they not necessarily
enfold within them the great truth that Christ's
death was designed to be a vicarious atoning sacrifice
whereby the whole guilt of all those sins that we
truly repent of, and truly lay by faith on him, was to
be lifted off us, removed by him ? Refuse that charac-

272 APPENDIX.
ter to the Saviour's death, and what meaning do you
leave to the language, what force to the reasoning
that the apostle here employs ?
The whole passage, indeed, now before us is
stripped (it seems to me) of significance, of cohe
rence, of all argumentative weight and power, if
such a sacrificial, a sin-bearing character, be not
attached to that great decease accomplished at Jeru
salem. You may convince yourselves of this by try
ing how the passage would read, how the inferences
it contains would hold upon any view of the death
of our Redeemer which rejects the idea of a true
and sufficient atonement having been thereby made
for the sins of the world.
Paul's object is to overset the unbelief in the resur
rection of the dead, by heaping one upon another
the conclusions to which, if fully and legitimately
carried out, that unbelief would lead. It would
involve, in the first instance, a rejection of the resur
rection of Christ himself, and the denial of that
resurrection would in its turn lead us to the conclu
sion that those who had been looking to the Saviour's
death for the remission of their sins had been looking
in vain, that they were yet in their sins. But a still
further and still sadder inference would follow, —
" Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ
are perished." Your dead in Christ, your fathers,
your brethren, who have fallen asleep resting for the

APPENDIX. 273
forgiveness of their sins in the completed and
accepted sacrifice, — What of them, what of their
present state, what of their eternal destiny, if Jesus
have not risen from the grave ? For them there
would be no future resurrection of the body. That
you, ye deniers of all such resurrection, may deem
no loss, as you desire it not for yourselves ; neither
may it pain you to think that your departed friends
shall not share in it. But, have you reflected upon
this, that if Jesus be not raised, and if that leave
you, the living who are trusting in him, with your
sins still on you, their guilt uncancelled, — it leaves
them, the dead, with their sins still on them in that
world into which they have passed ; it leaves them
lost, it consigns them to perdition, the second death
has come upon them, and from it who shall deliver ?
Such seems to have been the train of thought in the
apostle's mind, binding the 17th and 18th verses
together. The imagined perishing at last of those
who had fallen asleep in Jesus, that Paul here has
for the moment in his eye, could not have been their
annihilation at death, their ceasing then to exist ; for
how in any possible way of conceiving of it or
employing it, could the fact that Christ had not risen
from the tomb be made to draw after it the conclu
sion that those who had died trusting in the efficacy
of his atoning death, at that death ceased altogether
and for ever to have any existence ? It is a far
12*

274 APPENDIX.
worse, far darker fate than that of annihilation, that
the apostle points to as awaiting those who though
they had fallen asleep in Jesus, yet if he had not
risen are yet in their sins even when they so died.
Were the Corinthians then ready to harbour or give
any countenance to speculations and incredulities
which, driven to their last logical issues, would repre
sent their departed brethren as going down into the
dark valley with a lie in their right hand, and as
awakers on the other side of death to the terrible
consciousness that they had believed in vain ?
And truly, adds the apostle, if it be in this life
only that we have hope in Christ, if that hope be
doomed at death to perish, then we of all men are
most miserable. Not that the apostle is here calmly
instituting a comparison between himself and his
brother believers in Christ on the one hand, and the
rest of mankind on the other, and as the result of
such comparison, declaring that during this present
life he and they were unhappier men than the others,
the only thing to mitigate their greater misery the
hope they had in Jesus. We may say it boldly, that
even though it should turn out hereafter that all his
present faith and hope in Christ were vain, the true
Christian man is not more miserable, but all the
happier, for his faith and hope. We do not regard
the utterance of the 19th verse as a didactic state
ment to be logically analysed by us, but as a passion-

APPENDIX. 275
ate exclamation, bursting from the apostle's lips, on
the imagination starting up before his thoughts, that
for him no Saviour had risen triumphant from the
grave, for him no satisfying atonement had been
offered up on Calvary, that he and his fellow-believ
ers were yet in their sins, that all of them must
perish. If that be so ; if, says he, after all that I
have seen and felt of my great sinfulness before God,
— of my need of a Redeemer, — of the power and
preciousness of the death of Christ, — if after all that
I have given up, all that I have done and suffered
for him whom I have counted to be my resurrection
and my life, — you tell me now that it is in this life
only that my hope of acceptance and of the divine
favour through him can stand, then truly of all men
I am the most miserable. From that great hope
fling me down into that great despair, and you will
not find a man on earth so miserable as I. It light
ened my labours ; it comforted my griefs ; it bore
me through all my conflicts. I was thrice beaten
with rods, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a day and a
night I was in the deep ; but in all kinds of perils,
in weariness and painfulness, in hunger, thirst and
watchings, in fastings, in cold, in nakedness, so
brightly shone that hope within my soul, that I could
look back on twenty years so spent, filled up above
all common measure with all sorts of suffering, and
say, Our light affliction which is but for a moment,

276 APPENDIX.
worketh out for us a more exceeding and eternal
weight of glory ; for I reckoned that the sufferings
of this present life are not worthy to be compared
with the glory that was to be revealed. But now,
cut away from me that hope, fling me a sinful man
adrift on those troubled waters, quench all my lights,
put out that opening glory beyond the grave, — no
cross for me to steer by, no heavenly eternal rest to
reach, — in all the wide ocean was ever mariner in
such a wretched plight ?
But blessed be God, that cannot be done 1 Christ
hath risen ; it is not in this life only we have hope
in him. Instead of being of all men the most miser
able, of all men we are the most blessed. Christ
hath risen, and that rising of our Lord seals our hope
in him as sure, and points us to the heavenly place
that he has entered, as to the regions where in an
eternity of blessedness that hope shall be fulfilled.
Christ hath risen ; then they also which have fallen
asleep in him have not perished. He was dead, but
he is alive again, and they live witl him for ever
more. Christ hath risen, and ye are no longer in
your sins. He has taken them, he has atoned for
them, he has buried them far out of sight and reach
of the avenger ; as far as the east is from the west,
so far hath he removed them from you. Christ hath
risen ; and in rising left behind the pledge and token
that to them that are in him there is and shall'be no

APPENDIX.

277

condemnation ; for who is he that condemneth ? it
is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again,
who is even at the right hand of God, who also
maketh intercession for us.
The Lord is risen indeed : such we are told were
the joy-inspiring words with which each Lord's-day
morning, as they met for worship, the early Chris
tians were wont to salute one another. And when
we count over, as brought out in this wonderful
chapter, all the benefits and blessings the rising of
the Lord secured, could they, we ask ourselves, have
fixed upon a fitter phrase to express at once how
rich their heritage, how full their joy, how bright
their hope, how firm the foundation of their trust ?
Ver. 20. — Assume for the moment — so had the
apostle put it in the preceding verses— that Christ
has not risen from the dead : what would be the
issue ? An empty preaching, an empty faith, an
empty gospel, out of them their very core and sub
stance taken ; the living left in their sin, the dead
left to perish. Dark and dismal conclusions these ;
but conclusions to which one who otherwise is a
believer in Christ is shut up, if he let go his hold of
that great central fact — the resurrection of Jesus
Christ. But now, continues the apostle, take hold
of that great fact ; grasp it firmly as one of the best
substantiated events in this world's past history, and
then see what opposite conclusions — as bright and

278 APPENDIX.
comforting, as the others were dark and dismal-
follow from a belief in that event. That it involves
the certain, final, and glorious resurrection into life
of all those found in him, — this is what the apostle
proceeds so distinctly and emphatically to declare.
I shall not trouble you with any speculations ; still
less shall I offer you any dogmatic deliverance upon
the question how far the resurrection of the dead
generally is a fruit or consequence of the resurrec
tion of Christ. There are some who tell us that the
general resurrection of the dead is no part of the
remedial or mediatorial economy ; is in no sense the
result of the interposition of a Redeemer ; that if
Christ had not come at all, there would have been a
general resurrection of the dead, notwithstanding, —
the raising up of all to receive in the body the sent
ence of the second death. There are others who tell
us that the original curse was a curse of death on
the whole man, and that this curse, so long as it lay
unrepealed, could not allow of the body's resurrec
tion ; that without Christ, and apart from the
redemption of our nature effected by his death, there
would and could have been no resurrection ; that if
there had been no interposition on behalf of the
fallen, whatever had become of the souls of men
their bodies must have remained under the tyranny
of death. There is a link, they say, which unites
Christ with every individual of the vast family of

APPENDIX. 279
man, and that it is in virtue of this link, and of it
alone, that the graves of earth shall, at the last day,
yield up their dead.
It would not be difficult to suggest considerations
furnished upon general conceptions of the nature and
designs of the mediatorial economy, which might
seem to lend a strong support to one or the other of
these two views, and it would be still less difficult,
perhaps, to suggest difficulties which press upon
them both.
But are we asked or bound to make our choice
between them ? Are the materials in our hands to
come to any positive conclusion here ? Is it of any
practical moment to us to be able definitely to say
what would have happened to the inhabitants of this
earth, had no Saviour come, no redemption been
wrought out ? Men who think they so thoroughly
understand the principles of the Divine government,
the plans and purposes of the Eternal, as to be able
to determine what, in such an imagined state of
things, should have been the result, may pronounce
their verdict ; but for ourselves, we are content, on
this as on so many other points, to remain in igno
rance or in doubt ; confessing that, however clear
the light ma) be which the Scriptures throw upon
our present duty and our future destiny, as things
now are, it does not seem to us sufficient, nor do we
think it was ever meant, to let us so far into the

280 APPENDIX.
secret counsels of the Most High as to enable
us to decide upon such questions as the one now
referred to.
It might, indeed, at first sight, appear that the
verses which are now before us, deal with that very
matter of the connexion between the resurrection of
our Lord and the general resurrection of the dead.
The structure, however, of the entire argument of
this chapter ; the link by which its reasonings are
bound together ; its whole drift and issue, tell us
that it is with the resurrection of believers, and with
it exclusively, that Paul is dealing, and even here,
in these verses, however general be the terms that
sometimes meet us, we shall find, as we unfold their
meaning, that the same holds true.
But now is Christ risen, risen as the first-fruits of
them that sleep. The relation in which his resurrec
tion stands to that of all his people, is like to that in
which the first ripe grain, the first ripe fruits of
autumn, stands to that whole harvest of which they
form a part, and of which they furnish an earnest.
You bind up that first cut sheaf of yellow corn, you
pluck those first ripe grapes or olives from these
fruit-laden branches, and as you do so you count
with confidence, trusting in the stability of the laws
of nature, that the reaping process will go" on, and
the broad fields and vineyards of the land will yield
up their rich harvest stores. You see the Saviour

APPENDIX. 281
rise, and in that rising you behold the pledge and
promise of the rising of all who sleep in him ; the
resurrection of the entire body of his redeemed is
that great harvest-home of which his rising from the
dead is the first-fruits ; and trusting in the stability of
those laws by which the moral and spiritual govern
ment of the world is carried on, you count upon it
with confidence that he who raised up the Lord
Jesus shall raise up them also with him. In truth,
the pledge or promise is in this latter case the more
secure. Such a thing might happen in nature as
there being first-fruits with no harvest following ;
those genial influences of light and warmth beneath
which the fields gradually ripen, might at least be so
far interfered with or checked that the promise of
the first-fruits, if not utterly broken, might yet be
but imperfectly fulfilled. Not so with the processes
of ripening into that great spiritual harvest ; they
certainly shall go on ; no process of nature more
uniform or more inviolate than that by which the
resurrection of Jesus Christ provides for, embraces,
and secures the resurrection of all his followers.
Perhaps in using the term " first-fruits " here the
apostle had in his eye that Jewish ordinance.
" When ye be come into the land which I give unto
you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall
bring a sheaf of the first-fruits of your harvest unto
the priest : and he shall wave the sheaf before the

282 APPENDIX.
Lord, to be accepted for you ; on the morrow after
the Sabbath the priest shall wave it." Before this
offering of the first-fruits, no crop of the land could
be reaped ; it must not be touched, nor turned to
use till it was all first consecrated by this presenta
tion of the first-fruits by the priest within the temple,
before the altar. And this presentation was to take
place on the second day of unleavened bread, the
day after the Sabbath, the very day of the resurrec
tion of our Lord. Thus it was that in that old rite
of Judaism there passed before the eye a symbolic
representation of another and higher offering, that
made by our great High Priest when, within the
holy place not made with hands, he presented himself
before the throne, the first-fruits of the dead, an
offering accepted by the Lord, for all his people,
consecrating that buried dust of theirs as dear in the
Lord's sight to be quickened in due time, and gath
ered in to be laid up in the heavenly garner.

APPENDIX. 283

APPENDIX B.— P. 61.
It is interesting to compare the nine different
appearances of our Lord after his resurrection men
tioned in the Gospels, with the six alluded to by St.
Paul in the following verses : —
" For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also re
ceived, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scrip.
tures ; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third
day according to the Scriptures ; and that he was seen of
Cephas, then of the twelve ; after that, he was seen of above
five hundred brethren at once ; of whom the greater part re
main unto this presont, but some are fallen asleep. After that,
be was seen of James ; then of all the apostles. And last of all
he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time." — 1 Cob.
xv. 3-8.
We have here the earliest written account of the
resurrection of Christ, coming from the pen of the
apostle of the Gentiles between twenty and thirty
years after the date of the event. That account
derives an additional interest from its forming part
of the evidence direct and indirect furnished by the
writings of St. Paul as to the facts of the gospe*
narrative. As compared with other witnesses to the
truth of these facts, he assumes a separate and inde-

284 APPENDIX.
pendent position, declaring that he had himself seer
the Lord and derived his knowledge of his history
by direct revelation from himself.*
Of the six appearances of our Lord to which he
refers, we can identify four with one or other of
those recorded in the Gospels. As he appears to
place them in the order of time, the first two which
he mentions, those to Cephas and to the twelve, we
may regard as the same with two of the five men
tioned by the evangelists as having occurred on the
day of the resurrection. The other three of these
five, to Mary, to the women, and to the two disci
ples on their way to Emmaus, we may either suppose
that he was not informed of, or that, knowing them,
he passed them by, as happening to persons of com
paratively little note and less available for the object
he had in view. The appearance to above five hun
dred at once, we identify with the one on the Gali
lean mountain side. There are still two, however,
of those referred to by the apostle, of which no trace
is to be found in the gospel narrative — that to James
and that to himself. The latter could not be alluded
to in that narrative, which had nothing to do with
St. Paul's life and labours ; but the omission of all
reference to the former is sufficient to convince us
* See his account of the institution of the Supper, of which
he says, " I received of the Lord that which also I delivered
uuto yon."

APPENDIX. 285
that it was not the design of the evangelists to
narrate every incident in their Master's history ; but
such only as Divine wisdom directed them to select
and put on record for the instruction of the Church.

286 APPENDIX.

APPENDIX C— P. 214.
Baptism and the Lord's Supper are the two
corporate seals by which the Church signifies and
authenticates entrance into and continued member
ship in her communion. It is mainly by the use of
these that she preserves an outward and definite
form as a distinct and separate society. They have
served age after age to mark her off as a chartered
corporation, having rules of her own, bonds of union
of her own, objects of pursuit of her own, which
distinguish her from all human institutions, proclaim
ing her heavenly birth and foretelling her heavenly
destiny. But these seals are in themselves significant.
A corporation seal bears generally some emblem or
motto graven on it descriptive of the character and
object of the institution. And the seals of the great
Christian Institute have inscriptions on them rich in
meaning ; which, interpreted aright, tell us what the
chief truths are which the Church was appointed to
guard and propagate, and what the chief ends are
which she was set apart to realize. There stand out
pictorially represented here the great leading instru
ments put by their divine founder into the Church's
hands, and the great leading results which by the use

APPENDIX. 287
of these instruments she is to aim at and realize.
Both the Christian sacraments are confessedly and
conspicuously symbolic, that is, in each of them cer
tain visible material emblems are used, to represent
one or more of the great facts and truths of Chris
tianity. In conveying his will to us, in seeking to
impress the truth, upon us, God has not confined
himself to words — to mere verbal representation.
In the earliest ages, whilst the world was yet in its
rude infancy, easily affected, and of course easily
seduced, by what told at once and powerfully on the
senses, large use was made by the Divine Being of
signs and symbols. In a picture alphabet no incon
siderable portion of the Mosaic revelation was writ
ten ; nor has the charm of its picturesque expressive
ness expired. Still it is our delight to go back to
those ancient times, and study those ancient characters.
Large profit too as well as large pleasure attends the
task. Who has not felt his faith in Christ grow
clearer, his devotion to Christ grow deeper, as he
took his place in thought beside the altar on the
great day of atonement, and saw the shedding of the
blood, and the High Priest kindle at the altar fire
the incense, and felt the power of the solitude and
the silence in midst of which the one representative
ot the great Congregation paced with solemn step
across the space that separated the altar of burnt-
offering from the tabernacle, entered the sacred

288 APPENDIX.
building, passed by the shewbread table, lifted the
veil, was hid in the darkness, stood before the ark,
sprinkled with blood the mercy-seat, and bowed
before that strangely beautiful and lambent light by
which the gracious presence of the God of Israel
was symbolized ? In the Christian dispensation but
little use is made of the symbolic method. That
old scaffolding well nigh removed, the truth as it is
in Jesus appears in its naked simplicity and grand
eur, reposing upon its own firm foundations. It is
but a slight help that it borrows from the senses. It
addresses itself directly to the understanding, the
conscience, the heart of man ; of man as he has
been found in all ages, in all countries, in all condi
tions of slavery and freedom, of poverty and riches,
of barbarism or refinement. Compare the Christi
anity of the New Testament with any other religion
that has had a strong hold upon our race, and we shall
find that it stands distinguished from them all, by its
very slender employment of that species of instru
mentality which tells upon the senses and the imagi
nation. In the original institution, as it came out of
the hands of its divine founder, there are only in
5act these two rites, Baptism and the Lord's Supper,
which partake of that character, and even of them
we have to say that though taking advantage of our
susceptibility to be impressed more vividly through
the eye than through the ear, there is nothing in

APPENDIX. 289
them either to dazzle the rude eye or captivate the
cultivated imagination. True to her high character,
Christianity, even in stooping to take up the imple
ment by which superstition has led her millions
captive, takes it up in its very simplest form, and
uses it, to instruct rather than to dazzle.
Has the world ever witnessed religious rites which
had less in them fitted to attract the carnal eye than
the first baptisms of Christianity, effected with few
conveniences and little or no preparation ; or than
the simple supper in the humble apartment at which
the twelve sat down to break the bread and to drink
the wine of an ordinary meal ? We shall presently
indeed see that what these Christian sacraments
want of what we may call pictorial power is more
than made up by the rich, full, spiritual meaning,
which lies condensed in them. The naked, some
would even say, the severe simplicity which charac
terized them at their first institution, it has been
attempted to cover over and supplement ; and in
course of ages what a mass of superadded drapery
has been gathered round them ! Look at High Mass
as celebrated in a Roman Catholic cathedral — the
mitred bishop robed in richest embroidered silks, the
varied yet still gorgeous dresses of the priesthood
marshalled round him, the evolutions without end,
the marchings, the bowings, the crossings, the chant-
ings — the dumb yet brilliant show all going on within
Resurrection. I O

290 APPENDIX.
the railed enclosure, without one thing addressed,
except through the eye, to the multitude without, —
look and wonder that ever such a vast ornate super
structure could have been raised upon that incident
which occurred eighteen hundred years ago in an
upper chamber at Jerusalem.
Before, however, we proceed to read off the true
symbolic meaning of the Sacraments, let us notice
that there is still another service beyond that of
throwing a fresh attractiveness over them, which the
enshrining of spiritual truths in outward and sensi
ble signs effects. Truths treated in this way exist,
not only in a more expressive, but in a more enduring
form than it left to be transmitted either by written
record, or by oral tradition. They are better pro
tected from the influence of time and change. They
have greater tenacity of life, as is witnessed in the
descent of many a picturesque old custom or habit
from times as to which history and even tradition is
silent. What, then, were those truths of his religion
which Christ selected out of all the rest, to confer
upon them the exclusive privilege of being clothed
with the symbolic vest and covered with the symbo
lic shield ? In selecting them, would He not fix on
those whose superior importance entitled them to
that distinction ? In making and fashioning the
outward frames within which these truths were to
be permanently enshrined, would not those be

APPENDIX. 291
adopted which, of themselves and with least aid
from an interpreter, spoke out their own meaning ;
for, if destitute of such a natural language of their
own, they could but ill fulfil the object of their
employment ? Let us contemplate, then, for a few
moments, these two sacraments of Christianity, and
study their symbolic meaning — suffering them, with
out let or hindrance, to tell that meaning of them
selves, and not imposing on them any preconceived
meaning of our own. Dealt with in this way, the
first thoughtful glance that we cast upon these sacra
ments satisfies us that we have here certain significant
actions, as well as certain significant elements. It is
not the bringing out of a basin of water, and the
sprinkling or pouring out of that water anywhere or
anyhow which constitutes Baptism ; it is the ajDplica-
tion of that water in one way or other to a human
body. It is not the bringing forth of bread and
wine, and laying them upon the communion table ;
it is not even the breaking of that, bread, or the
pouring out of that cup which constitutes the Lord's
Supper. All of us would at once feel that, if the
officiating minister were to stop there, the main and
essential part of the communion service would re
main unperformed. What is done, then, with the
material emblem or element is of still greater import
ance — is still more significant than the material
emblem or element itself; nay, more, it is out of

292 APPENDIX.
these symbolic actions that the true, full, distinctive
meaning of the two sacraments, regarded as symbolic
exhibitions of divine truth,— the light in which at
the moment we are alone regarding them, — is to be
drawn. You apply water to a human body to wash
it ; and when, in admitting a new member to the
outward and visible communion of the Church, you
apply water to his body and so baptize him, this
surely typifies not any or every washing away of
inward spiritual defilement, but that particular cleans
ing of the human spirit from the guilt of sin which
takes effect when true entrance is made into the
spiritual kingdom of our Lord — the baptismal pas
sage into the visible society, being meant to shadow
out that great change effected, or rather that great
privilege bestowed, when, on passing into the in
visible society, the true Church of God, we have
redemption through the blood of Christ, even the
remission of sins, and rise to the new life of the
redeemed, forgiven, accepted in the Lord. Baptism
is the outward sign and token of that first act or
stage in the spiritual life which, as it can be but once
described at the period of the new birth or regenera
tion of the soul, so baptism is but once administered,
and that when the outward tie or link with the visi
ble communion of the saints is first formed.
Let us turn now to the ordinance of the Lord's

APPENDIX. 293
Supper. Bread is broken ; wine is poured out ; and
by a company assembled round a common table, that
bread is eaten, that wine is drunk. The mere figura
tive showing forth the Lord's death as a sacrifice for
sin is not and cannot be all that is meant to be sym
bolically represented here. Had that been all that
was intended, the emblems or elements used would
not have been peculiarly appropriate or expressive.
Putting aside for the moment the explanatory words
of institution, and looking simply at the rite itself,
and letting it, as we have said, speak out to us its
own meaning, who, from the mere spectacle of a
company sitting down and eating bread and drinking
wine together, could have gathered that the final
terminating object thereof was to symbolize the sad
and awful tragedy of the crucifixion ? Even if the
rite had been restricted to the breaking of a piece of
bread and the pouring out of a cup of wine, it
would have been but an inapt emblem of a death
such as that of Christ upon the cross. Long usage
has indeed connected together — rightly and properly
connected together — the ideas of the breaking of the
bread with the breaking of his body, the pouring
out of the wine with the shedding of his blood.
Surely, however, there is no original or natural
fitness which bread and wine possess to represent a
scene of suffermg and death. The Jew had a much
more lively figure of the death of Christ before his

294 APPENDIX.
eye in the slaying of an animal than the Christian
has in this sacrament, if the ultimate intention here
had been to show forth that death simply as a sacri
fice for sin. But it is the Lord's death, not in its
incidents of suffering, not in its general sacrificial
character, but as becoming, when believingly con
templated, the food, the inward source and support
of that spiritual life to which, in Christ Jesus, we
are begotten, that is here exhibited. In this sacred
ordinance — the doctrine of the cross, the doctrine
that the Son of God died in our room and stead, and,
by his death, has won for us life eternal — appears
not in its bare abstract form as a truth to be analysed
and demonstrated and defended. No ; but in that
far more important and practical light, of its yield
ing nourishment, refreshment, and strength to all
who truly and heartily receive it into believing
hearts. The bread and wine of this ordinance of
the Supper, as part of their symbolio office, point us
to the great death accomplished at Jerusalem, — an
office which one can easily conceive other emblems
might have served still more efficiently to execute ;
but beyond this they serve as no other emblems that
we can think of could so well have done, to hold out
that death of Jesus as doing for the spiritual life of
the soul what these elements themselves do for the
natural life of the body. As we look upon this use
of them as laid upon the communion-table to be par-

APPENDIX. * 295
taken of by all seated there, their silent language is,
" Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and
drink his blood, ye have no life in you." " I am the
bread of life ; he that eateth my flesh and drinketh
my blood hath eternal life. My flesh is meat indeed,
and my blood is drink indeed."
It is only when the idea is clearly apprehended and
vividly realized, that it is not divine truth in itself,
but that truth in its application and effects, as instru
mental in originating and sustaining spiritual life, that
the difference between the two sacraments comes
clearly out to view. The water of baptism, no less
than the bread and wine of the communion, speaks
of the shedding and sprinkling of that blood without
which there is no remission ; but the one ordinance
being meant to be significant of the divine life within
the soul at its commencement, points to that blood as
then made available for the removal of bygone guilt ;
the other ordinance, being meant to be significant of
the divine life in its continuance and advance, points
to the doctrine of the cross as made available all
through life for the believer's spiritual nourishment
and growth in grace. When you resolve, then, these,
the sacraments of our religion, into naked and bare
signs of certain facts and truths about the death of
Christ, which any man, or at least all men who have
historic faith in Christianity might unite in using,
you take out of them the very heart and soul of their

296 'APPENDIX.
significance ; you let them open their lips, but before
they have yet told half their meaning, you stifle their
voice, and strike them dumb. Still, however, whether
listened to or not, whether permitted to pour their
meaning into open ears, or have their utterance ham
pered and choked throughout all the bygone ages of
the Church, throughout all that strange fluctuation
of human opinion as to the words of the written
testimony — these two sacraments of the Church have
stood bearing their silent testimony to the double
object of Messiah's death, — that our guilt should be
washed away, and that afterwards there should be
sustained, advanced, invigorated, and perfected the
life of faith, and love, and dutiful obedience.
With these remarks on the general significance of
the two sacraments of the Christian Church, and their
connexion with each other, let us look a little more
particularly at the ordinance of baptism. And, in
the first instance, let us sum up the information, not
very voluminous, given regarding it in the New Tes
tament Scriptures. In the course of our Lord's min
istry, his disciples, we are told, made and baptized
more disciples than John ; but Jesus himself baptized
not. He permitted his disciples to practice a rite
which, as performed by them, had the same incom
pleteness and imperfection as that practiced by the
Baptist. It was not till after the resurrection that

APPENDIX. 21>4
our Lord instituted what is properly to be regarded
as Christian baptism.
On the day of Pentecost the excited multitude
said to Peter and the rest, " Men and brethren, what
shall we do ? Then Peter said unto them, Kepent,
and be baptized every one of you in the name of
Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall
receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise
is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are
afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall
call. Then they that gladly receive his word were
baptized : and the same day there were added unto
them about three thousand souls." During the per
secution against the church at Jerusalem, which arose
after the martyrdom of Stephen, they that were scat
tered abroad went everywhere preaching the word.
Then Philip went down to Samaria, and the people
with one accord giving heed to the things that were
spoken by Philip, and expressing with all appearance
of sincerity their belief, they were baptized, both
men and women, and among the rest Simon the
sorcerer, who soon afterwards gave but too patent
proof that with all his professions, his heart was not
right in the sight of God. The evangelist Philip
was commissioned soon afterwards on the lonely road
which led from Jerusalem to Gaza to join himself to
the Ethiopian treasurer of Queen Candace. He sat
with him in his chariot, and as they drove along
13*

298 APPENDIX.
expounded to him the chapter of Isaiah which he
happened to be reading. The Ethiopian, as he heard
believed, and so eager was he to be enrolled in the
new community of Christians, that seeing some pool
or stream of water by the way, he said to Philip,
" See, here is water ; what doth hinder me to be
baptized ? And Philip said, If thou believest with
all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and
said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
And he commanded the chariot to stand still, and
they went down both into the water, both Philip and
the eunuch ; and he baptized him."
After his conversion Saul was three days without
sight at Damascus ; a vision then appeared to a cer
tain disciple named Ananias, instructing him to go
and lay his hands on Saul that he might receive his
sight. Nothing is told as to who or what this Ana
nias was ; we know only that he was not one of the
twelve ; nor was he a presbyter or elder, for no one
had as yet been appointed to that office. In the vision
which appeared nothing was said to him about doing
anything more than laying his hands upon Saul that
he might receive his sight ; nevertheless, so soon as
Saul received his sight, he arose and was baptized by
Ananias. When Peter went down to Cesarea and addressed
the company assembled in the house of Cornelius,
the Holy Ghost fell on them that heard his word, con-

APPENDIX. 299
ferring some of the gifts bestowed on the day of
Pentecost, for they heard them speak with tongues,
and magnify God ; and when Peter saw that, he said,
Can any man forbid water, that these should not be
baptized ? and he commanded them to be baptized,
not administering the rite himself, but committing
the administration to the disciples who had accompa
nied him from Joppa. At Philippi, the heart of Lydia
was opened, and not only was she baptized, but her
household. At Philippi, the jailer was roused by
the midnight alarm ; arrested in his meditated act
of suicide, called for a light, came trembling into the
prison, then had the glad tidings proclaimed, Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,
and thy house ; and be called out all his household,
and they too heard and believed, and straightway
upon the spot he and all his were baptized. On the
occasion of Paul's first visit to Corinth, Crispus, the
chief ruler of the synagogue, and many of the Corin
thians, hearing, believed, and were baptized. Very
few of these baptisms were performed by Paul him
self ; he acted as Peter did at Cesarea, — he committed
that duty to Silas or Timothy, or some of those who
were with him. So little impression had the mere
act of baptism made upon Paul's mind, that a few
years afterwards, writing to the Corinthians, the
apostle said, " I thank God that I baptized none of
you, but Crispus and Gaius. And I baptized also

300 APPENDIX.
the household of Stephanas : besides, I know not
whether I baptized any other. For Christ sent me
not to baptize, but to preach the gospel."
At Ephesus, Paul met with certain disciples who,
though they had been baptized unto John's baptism,
had neither received the Holy Ghost, nor heard of
the Pentecostal effusion. Under the apostle's direc
tion these were rebaptized in the name of the Lord
Jesus, — a sufficient proof that the two baptisms were
different ordinances, the one temporary, the other
perpetual ; the one preparatory, the other final.
Such is the amount of the information contained
in the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles.
In the Epistles the only allusions to the ordinance
are the following : — " Know ye not, that so many of
us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized
into his death ? Therefore we are buried with him
by baptism into death ; that like as Christ was raised
up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so
we also should walk in newness of life. For if we
have been planted together in the likeness of his
death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrec
tion." — (Romans vi. 3, 4, 5.) " For by one Spirit
are we all baptized into one body, whether we be
Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free ; and
have been all made to drink into one Spirit." — (1 Cor.
xii. 13.) "For as many of you as have been bap.
tized into Christ have put on Christ." — (Gal. iii. 27.)

APPENDIX. 301
" One Lord, one faith, one baptism." — (Eph. iv. 5.)
" In whom also ye are circumcised with the circum
cision made without hands, in putting off the body
of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ :
buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are
risen with him through the faith of the operation of
God, who hath raised him from the dead." — (Col. ii.
11, 12.) "The like figure whereunto even baptism
filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience
doth also now save us, (not the putting away of the
toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ."
— (1 Peter iii. 21.) These and an obscure passage in
the 15th chapter of First Corinthians about being
baptized for the dead, embrace all the notices of this
ordinance in the New Testament from which any thing
can be gathered as to its nature and significance.
With these statements of the New Testament
before us, what then are the conclusions to which we
are naturally conducted ?
1. As to the persons by whom this ordinance is
to be administered. In front of the facts that Christ
himself never baptized ; that the apostles are seldom
related to have done so ; that Philip, who so largely
engaged in the service in Samaria, held only the
appointment of a deacon, the official duties of which
position in the Church had reference to the charge of
the contributions of the Church ; that Ananias is not
known to have held any office ; and that the brethren

302 APPENDIX.
who accompanied Peter, and by whom the first Gen
tile converts at Cesarea were baptized, were private
members of the Church : with these plain facts be
fore us, we cannot surely attach exclusively the right
and privilege of administering baptism to any order
or class of office-bearers in the Church. Wherever
the Church has had time and opportunity to mature
and reduce to fixed and orderly arrangement her
methods of worship and government, it is not only a
legitimate but a useful and becoming thing that this
ordinance of baptism should be administered by those
set apart to the office of the ministry ; but that no
other baptism than that so celebrated is a valid one,
following the light which the history of apostolic
times affords us, we cannot say. Should a sudden
and dangerous illness seize either an infant or an
unbaptized adult who had a strong desire, and was
in all respects a suitable subject for the rite, should
no clergyman be at hand, and in prospect of speedy
dissolution, should a private Christian do for the
dying child or the dying adult what Peter's attend
ants did for the household of Cesarea, who would be
prepared to say that that was not a good and valid
baptism ?
2. Again, as to the time and mode and place of
baptism, so great a variety of practice is presented
to us in the sacred narrative as to leave us at perfect
liberty to follow whatever course in these respects,

APPENDIX. 303
consulting for the order and general good of the
Church, may suggest itself as the most appropriate.
We can scarcely doubt that at least partial immer
sion was at first the general practice. Jesus and the
Baptist, Philip and the Eunuch went down into the
water and came up out of it, — processes of descent
and emergence which the apostle employs in two of
the passages already quoted as illustrative of the be
liever's death to sin and life to righteousness, the
burial with Christ, the rising again together with
him. John baptized at ^Enon, near to Salim, because
there was much water there, — a reason which
would not have been a valid one had our present
practice of sprinkling been followed by the Baptist.
On the other hand, it is inconceivable that the 3000
who were baptized on the day of Pentecost could
have each gone through the same ceremonial with
our Lord himself or with those who were baptized
by John in the Jordan. And it is perhaps still less
conceivable that within the precincts of the prison-
house at Philippi any means of immersion should
have been available for that hasty and midnight
baptism. Nor is any likeness or uniformity of time, or place,
or circumstance observed. Now you have it in the
house, now by the river, now on the road-side. Here
to thousands, there to families, again to individuals ;
now it is in an assembly where spectators are looking

304 APPENDIX.
on ; now it is when none are present but the baptizer
and the baptized ; by night, by day ; in public and
in private ; in all kinds of ways, by all kinds of per
sons, in all kind of places, were those first baptisms
of the Christian Church conducted. A sublime sim
plicity of ritual observance here, which overlooks the
outward mode, and concerns itself alone with the
reality and significance of the rite !
3. We touch, however, a more difficult question
when we ask, Who are the persons to whom, accord
ing to the original character and design of the ordi
nance, and in accordance with the original practice
of the Church, this ordinance should be administered ?
On the very face of the narrative it appears that
baptism was the initiating rite by which members
were to be admitted into the Christian society. Al
most all societies which are organized with any degree
of completeness and have any great and definite
objects to realize, have some established mode of
admission ; and as it was natural that this spiritual
society, the Church, should have such a door of
entrance, it pleased its Divine founder to appoint
baptism to be that door. At first, and when the
society was in process of formation, gathering its
members out of the Jewish and heathen communities,
in the midst of which it had its birth, it was obvi
ously required of those admitted by that door that
they should make a credible profession of their faith

APPENDIX. 305
in Christ ; such faith constituting the essential ele
ment of that character to be possessed and exhibited
by all true members of the Church. Baptism was to
be administered, therefore, — could only with a mean
ing and purpose be administered, to adults who made
such profession. But what exactly did baptism do
for them ? what spiritual benefit did it confer ? was
there any grace or gift of the Holy Spirit attached
necessarily and invariably to this way of admitting
new members into connexion with the visible Church ?
It is to such baptisms as these, the baptisms of adults
of the first converts to Christianity, that the passages
I have already quoted from the New Testament par
ticularly apply. It is in such baptisms as these that
the full virtue or efficacy, whatever we may conceive
that to be, which the rite possesses, was realized.
Now are there not, it may be asked, such strong
expressions used regarding it in the New Testament
as to forbid the idea that it was nothing more than
the outward and visible sign of membership attached
to those received into the Christian fellowship ? Is
it not said, that it is he that believeth and is baptized
who shall be saved ? is it not said, that we must be
born of water and of the Spirit before we can enter
the kingdom? Is not the water of this baptism
spoken of as the washing of regeneration ? Now, in
answer to such questions as these, we have two
remarks to offer : —

306 APPENDIX.
1st. Whatever spiritual benefit may, in the instances
we have now before us, have been conveyed by bap
tism, it could not have been that described in Scrip
ture as the regeneration or new birth of the soul ;
for, in every case in which the baptism was rightly
celebrated, that change had been effected before this
baptism took place. Repentance towards God and
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, in the realizing of
which within the soul its regeneration takes place —
these were to precede the baptism. Unless we are
prepared to say, that baptism was itself the instru
ment of conversion — that those who beforehand had
not been true believers were made so in and by that
washing with water — we must repudiate the idea of
regenerating grace accompanying the ordinance.
2d. The language employed regarding baptism
appears to us to be perfectly warranted — to have a
natural and sufficient meaning attached to it, though
we regard baptism simply as the external bond by
which membership in the Church was symbolized.
We are called upon, not only individually to believe,
but to confess that faith before men, and to do so by
connecting ourselves with others of a like mind and
a like heart. In these circumstances it comes as fitly
and appropriately to be said, He that believeth and
professes openly his faith, as that, He that believeth
and is baptized, shall be saved. No one, however,
would put a mere profession of faith in the same

APPENDIX. 307
category with the faith itself; no one would regard
the profession as occupying the same place or stand
ing in the same relation to the salvation that the faith
does ; no one would say that the profession was as
vitally, essentially, necessarily connected with the sal
vation as the faith was. It might happen that the
circumstances should be such that no time or oppor
tunity of professing was given. In such a case the
faith alone, without the profession, would surely be
enough. Now the being baptized is but a more
striking, more solemn, more formal way of making
that profession. We should not, then, confound the
faith and the baptism any more than we should eon-
found the faith and the confession ; nor are we
obliged, nor are we warranted by any phraseology,
however strong, employed in Scripture, to represent
V.he one as having any more vital or essential connex
ion with the salvation than the other has. And here,
too, it might happen — and in those apostolic times
we know it did happen — that when there was genu
ine faith, there might be no fit time or opportunity
for being baptized, as was the case with the thief on
the cross. We surely could not say that the faith
failed in its great object because of the absence of
its appropriate external sign ? Taking baptism again
as the outward sign and seal that the person on whom
it was affixed had made the great spiritual transition
from death to life, from unbelief to faith, had passed

308 APPENDIX.
out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom af
God's dear Son, we but proceed according to the
ordinary usages of language, by which the sign and
the thing signified are often identified, the expressions
denoting each interchanged with the other, when we
say of every true believer, that he was buried by
that baptism into Christ's death, and rose out of that
baptism into newness of life, without believing that
the baptism was either the efficient cause, or the
divinely constituted instrument by which that great
inward spiritual result was wrought out in the soul.
It is in such a sense as that, and in no other, that we
conceive of baptism as having to do with the regen
eration or renewal of the soul by the Holy Ghost.
We regard it in fact as nothing more than the
Church's corporate seal, by which, in obedience to
Divine command, she authenticates the admission of
members into her communion, by that visible signa
ture conferring on them a title to a participation in
all her outward privileges. The use of such seal is
of great importance ; it gives visibility and definite-
ness to the Church as a chartered corporation ; it
marks it out age after age as a spiritual society separ
ate from the world, having principles of life, bonds
of union, objects of pursuit which are all her own —
a kingdom among this world's kingdoms, yet owning
a higher birth, and aiming at a higher destiny. And
to him upon whom that admission token is impressed,

APPENDIX. 309
and who is truly that which this token describes, one
Mashed from his sins in the laver of regeneration,
baptism is an entrance within a hallowed circle of
new influences, new relationships, new companion
ships, into a region where a clearer light shineth, and
a purer, heavenlier air is breathed.
We can detect no mystic, occult spiritual power
and energy belonging by divine appointment to this
initiatory rite of Christianity ; we can point to no
single separate spiritual benefit which here and here
only is conveyed ; we can describe no inward spirit
ual change which by this instrument, and by it ex
clusively, is realized. Were baptism what so many
affirm and believe it to be, the divinely appointed
channel along which the regenerating grace of the
Spirit specially, if not exclusively, descends, how
could St. Paul have spoken of it thus ? — " I thank
God that I baptized none of you, but Crispus and
Gaius ; lest any should say that I baptized in mine
own name. And I baptized also the household of
Stephanas : besides, I know not whether I baptized
any other. For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to
preach the gospel."* If baptism were a regenerat
ing rite, how could Paul have been so thankful that
he had baptized or regenerated so few ? Was it not
sorrow rather than joy, regret rather than thankful-
* 1 Cor. i. 14-17.

310 APPENDIX.
ness, that the retrospect should have awakened in his
breast ? In one sense it was not true that Christ
had not sent the Apostle to baptize. He was acting
under the great commission which enjoined the ob
servance of this rite ; but just because of the place
given to baptism in that commission, all the more
emphatic is the testimony here borne by St. Paul to
its secondary character, its comparative unimportance.
So inferior, so subordinate a thing did baptizing, as
compared with the preaching of the gospel, appear
in his eyes, that it had no glory by reason of the
glory that was more excellent, and therefore he could
say, " Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach
the gospel." But is it to be said that we degrade
this rite, or strip it of all high significance, when we
look upon it as that sacred bond which binds each
member of the mystical body of the Son of God to
that great spiritual commonwealth, founded on divine
promises, guarded by divine power, endowed with
divine energies, invested with divine privileges — that
Zion of God, of which such glorious things have
been spoken, to which pertain the adoption, and the
glory, and the giving of the gospel and the service
of God, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit ?
Why, then, do we baptize infants ? No express
mention is made of infants in the command of Christ
which instituted this rite ; no distinct case of the

APPENDIX. 311
baptism of infants is mentioned in the sacred narra
tive. Are we not acting, then, without a divine war
rant ? are we not contradicting the inherent nature
and design of this ordinance when infants are bap
tized by us ? If it be true, as we are distinctly
taught it is, that in the spiritual commonwealth of
the Church baptism takes that place which in the
Jewish commonwealth was occupied by circumcision,
each being the initiatory or admission rite of the so
ciety, then it will at once appear that there is scarcely
an objection to the baptism of infants which might
not with equal weight be urged against the circum
cision of infants. In the earliest period of Judaism
the adult Abraham received circumcision, a sign and
seal of the righteousness of faith which he had when
yet uncircumcised, just as in the earliest ages of the
Church the adult Christian received baptism, a sign
and seal of that faith which he had being yet unbap-
tized. Afterwards the children of those originally
circumcised as adults were to be circumcised in
infancy ; yet Paul testifies to every man that is cir
cumcised that he is a debtor to do the whole law.
Now, might it not with as much reason have been
asked, How can an infant take on it that obligation
to obey the law of Moses, as, How can an infant
make profession of faith in Christ ? The Covenant
of the Law was established with the Jewish people
and their children after them, and so the sign and

312 APPENDIX.
seal of that covenant which undoubtedly in its full
express signification could be verified only on an
adult, came, nevertheless, to be impressed on an
infant, God dealing with the Jews in this covenant
not merely as separate individuals, but as families.
Shall we believe it of that new and better covenant
which was established upon better promises, that it
was narrower in its spirit, more limited in its reach ?
Could that multitude whom Peter addressed on the
day of Pentecost, whom he urged to come forward
to be baptized on the very ground that the promise
was to them and to their children, well believe that
the baptism thus offered to them was yet to be denied
to their little ones ? Once that it was perceived that
the new rite of baptism took the place of the old rite
of circumcision, would not the universal Jewish in
stinct prompt the practice of having their infants
with themselves baptized ? And even among the
Gentile converts, would not the universal parental
instinct act in the same way ? Were the Corinthians
taught by Paul that the faith of one parent made
even the children of that family holy, and was that
outward holiness to be deprived of its appropriate
symbol ? Were those, of whom the early converts
of Christianity heard that Jesus himself once took
up one of them into his arms and blessed it, and said,
Of such is the kingdom of heaven — were they to be
excluded from all outward and visible connexion with

APPENDIX. 313
that Saviour, and to stand in no nearer relation to
him than the children of the heathen around ? Placed
in this view, and looking upon the rite of baptism as
I believe they did, it is very difficult to believe that
the first Christians did not claim it for their children,
or that that claim was refused. True, there is no
express command to baptize infants as well as adults,
but neither is there any express command to admit
females as well as males to the table of the Lord ; if
it be the absence of such specification in the words
of institution that is gone upon, women might be
debarred from the one sacrament as rightfully as
infants from the other. True, there is no express
command, but neither is there any express prohibi
tion ; and taking the whole circumstances of the case
into account, it seems to us that a positive prohibition
would have been far more needed to prevent the
practice of infant baptism than a positive injunction
to originate it. True, we have no distinct mention
of an infant being baptized, but we are to remember
that at the first and for some time no instance of the
separate baptism of an infant co uld occur ; and con
sidering the narrow space which the New Testament
narrative covers, the omission of any reference to
infant baptism is not remarkable. It is rather re
markable, on the other hand, that among the few
recorded cases the baptism of so many as four Chris
tian families should have been recorded, — those of
Resurrection. 1 4

314 APPENDIX.
Lydia, the Philippian Jailer, Cornelius, and Stepha
nas, — in which families there may have been some of
tender age. We cannot, indeed, prove that there
were infants in any of these four households. We
cannot by any clear and certain instance prove that
infant baptism was an apostolic institute, was the
general or universal practice of the apostolic age, but
neither is there any proof on the other side, any evi
dence that infants were not then baptized ; and we
are disposed to think that the burden of the proof
lies not with those who follow the practice of infant
baptism, but with those who repudiate it. We have,
however, one strong fact to urge. About a hundred
years after the death of Christ, historic traces present
themselves of infant baptism ; not as an innovation,
as only partially prevailing, as in many quarters ob
jected to, but as the general practice of the Christian
community. And we know that, from the third cen
tury down to the fifteenth, it was the universal cus
tom of the Christian Church. Could this well have
happened, if it had been set up at first in direct oppo
sition to the practice of apostolic times ? Still, with
all these considerations to urge in behalf of infant
baptism, we would plead for it as a practice which
the spirit of the divine command, and the genius of
the Christian institute, allow us to observe, rather
than a custom which the letter of the command
obliges us to follow. There are those who, as you

APPENDIX. 315
well know, cannot go with us even thus far, and who
do not feel at liberty, without more express sanction
than, as it seems, the Word of God contains, to do
what seems to them to contravene the very nature
and desire of the ordinance. Of our difference with
such we shall only say that it never should have been
magnified into one of such weight and importance,
that the Church of Christ should have divided there
upon into separate communions ; for if the Church of
the apostles, acting under immediate guidance from
heaven, was taught to tolerate within its bosom
diversity both of opinion and practice as to the rite
of circumcision, we might well have learned to toler
ate diversity of opinion and practice as to the rite of
baptism. We cling with fondness, however, to the baptism
of infants. It seems to us a beautiful and impressive
spectacle that Christianity should be seen thus bend
ing over the cradle and claiming the new-born babe
for Him who died for sinners, and for that blessed
and glorious immortality which he hath opened up
for us beyond the grave. Her presence there, her
voice of love and hope, how comforting to those into
whose weak hands the care from birth of a young
immortal has been committed ! In presenting his
child for baptism, a Christian parent undertakes a
weighty responsibility ; that responsibility would rest

316 APPENDIX.'
on him the same whether his infant was baptized or
not ; but a burden, too heavy for his unaided spirit to
bear, does it not largely help him to bear when he is
permitted from the very first, and in this sacred rite,
to commit his offspring to the covenanted mercy of
God in Christ ? It is as a privilege rather than a
duty that we would have you bring your infants to
the baptismal font, grateful to Him who suffers his
holy name to be named so early over them, and cast
ing this your greatest care on Him who careth for
you and yours.

APPENDIX D.— P. 229.
It would reduce by one the number of the appear
ances, should the theory of Ebrard be admitted, that
the appearance to Mary Magdalene was not a separate
one from that to the other women ; but we are not
prepared to believe this.

INDEX

PASSAGES REFERRED TO IN THIS WORK.

Jftattfjeto.

IAP.
VERSE.
PAOE.
BOOS.
CHAP.
VERSE.
PAGE.
BOOK.
2
1-12
65
Earlier Years.
16
30-81
281
Ministry Galilee.
2
13-28
89
ii »
16
1-12
278
ii ii
3
1-12
131
» D
16
13-19
295
n n
3
13-17
158
11 11
16
20
155
Close Ministry.
4
1-11
179
n ii
16
21-28
314
Ministry Galilee.
4
12-22
379
n ji
17
1-13
336
n n
4
18-22
43
Ministry Galilee.
17
9-27
1
Close Ministry.
4
23-25
379
Earlier Years.
17
20
16
ii n
23-25
394
» n
17
22-27
21
n n
24
1
Ministry Galilee.
18
1-35
21
n ii
4
25
65
ii ii
19
1
167
ii ii
5
64
31 11
19
1-26
292
ii ii
6
64
it n
19
2
173
n ii
6
14-15
40
Passion Week.
19
27-28
319
n ii
7
64
Ministry Galilee.
20
17-19
319
Ministry Galilee.
8
2-4
1
n n
20
17-34
313
Close Ministry.
8
23-34
151
n i»
21
1-11
1
Passion Week.
9
9-17
43
»i ii
21
10-17
255
Earlier Years.
9
15
59
n »
21
12-17
19
Passion Week
9
16-17
60
11 n
21
14
32
ii n
9
18-26
84
11 11
21
19
36
n if
9
33
151
i> n
21
23-46
36
n n
9
35-38
192
11 n
21
43
63
ii it
10
192
n i»
22
1-22
56
it it
10
40-42
242
Passion Week.
22
28-33
77
ti it
11
104
Ministry Galilee.
22
34-46
95
ii tt
11
16-19
111
11 n
23
111
ti it
12
1-14
21
n n
23
34
120
n it
12
22-50
151
n ii
24
147
ii tt
12
23
154
n 'i
24
21
160
n it
12
24
174
Close Ministry.
24
29^4
166
ii »
12
30
36
ii n
25
147
n it
13
1-15
171
Ministry Galilee.
25
1-13
180
n tt
13
151
n ii
25
14-30
199
it it
14
13-33
213
ii »
25
31-34
221
n it
14
23
43
Close Ministry.
25
35-46
238
it it
14
35
232
Ministry Galilee.
25
44
182
n ii
15
1
90
Last Day.
26
1-19
255
ii 'n
15
1-28
259
Ministry Galilee.
26
6-18
334
Close Ministry.
15
2
42
Close Ministry.
26
21-25
274
Passion Week.
15
29-39
278
Ministry Galilee.
26
26-29
300
it it .
18

INDEX.

:hap
TERSE.
PAGE.
BOOK.
CHAP
. VEBSE.
PAOE.
BOOK.
26
36-46
320
Pas6ion Week.
27
81-34
169
Last Day.
26
47-56
9
Last Day.
27
35-87
195
n
ii
26
67-76 .
36
27
47-50
276
n
26
69-68
63
27
61-54
297
ii
11
26
74
46
27
61
860
ii
11
27
12-13
114
27
62-66
21
Eorty Days.
27
15-23
139
28
1-6
21
ii
11
27
26-30
139
28
16-20
184
n
11
iflarlt.
1
1-8
131
Earlier Years.
9
41
242
Passion Week.
1
1-31
21
Ministry Galilee.
10
1
167
Close Ministry.
1
9-11
168
Earlier Years.
10
1
173
ii
Ii
1
12-13
179
>i n
10
1-27
292
51
11
1
16-20
43
Ministry Galilee.
10
2-52
313
11
ii
1
21-39
379
Earlier Years.
10
82-84
319
Ministry Galilee.
1
27-28
390
ii n
11
1-11
1
Passion Week.
1
35
43
Close Ministry.
11
11
13
n
II
1
36
389
Earlier Years.
11
12-19
19
n
11
1
40-16
1
Ministry Galilee.
11
18
33
ii
11
1
45
9
n n
11
20-38
36
ii
11
2
1-12
1
n n
11
33
47
ii
11
2
14-22
43
11 1!
12
1-12
36
ii
11
3
6
287
Close Ministry.
12
13-17
66
ii
II
3
8
66
Ministry Galilee.
12
18-27
77
ii
11
3
22
174
Close Ministry.
12
26-27
89
n
11
3
22-30
151
Ministry Galilee.
12
28-37
96
n
11
3
23
156
n n
12
38-40
111
ii
II
4
151
ii ii
12
41-44
126
6
1-20
151
n n
13
147
5
22-43
84
n ii
13
25-87
166
6
7-30
192
ii ii
14
1-17
255
6
14-16
114
Last Day.
14
3-9
334
Close
Minis trv.
66
21
30-52
214 213
Ministry Galilee.
14
18-21
274
Passion Week.
6
51-52
226
ii ii
14
22-56
300
n
ii
6
54-56
232
14
82-42
320
n
n
7
1-30
259
14
37
325
ii
n
7
31-37
278
14
43-50
9
Last Day.
8
1-26
278
14
63-66
63
,,
ii
8 .
31-38
314
ii ii
14
64-72
36
,,
n
8
34
328
Ministry Galilee.
14
64
77
n
it
9
1
314
n n
14
67
38
ii
it
9
2-13
335
•i n
15
38-34
264
n
ii
9
9-32
1
Close Ministry.
15
35-37
275
n
it
9
10
321
Ministry Galilee.
15
39
297
ii
n
9
30
318
n ii
15
42-46
323
n
n
9
30-31
21
Close Ministry.
16
7
36
n
it
9
33-41
21
ii ii
16
13-14
91
Forty Days.
INDEX.

319

iiAc.

CHAP.

TERSE.

PAGE.

BOOK.

0HAP.

TERSE.

PAOE.

BOOK.

1

1-18

131

Earlier Years.

11

14

174

Close Ministry.

1

26-56

1

n n

11

14

163

Ministry Galilee.

2

1-20

20

ii n

11

14-54

151

n ii

2

21-28

44

n n

11

29-42

173

Close Ministry

2

40-62

110

n ii

11

53-54

180

ii ii

3

21-23

158

ii n

11

58-54

165

Ministry Galilee

4

1-13

179

n n

12

1

173

Close Ministry.

4

16-31

360

ii ii

12

35-40

184

13 11

4

35

389

n ii

12

50

183

11 11

4

36-37

390

n n

13

10-17

21

Ministry Galilee

4

40

392

n n

18

22

173

Close Ministry.

4

42-44

879

n n

13

31-32

114

Last Day.

5

1-11

43

Ministry Galilee.

14

1-6

21

Ministry Galilee

6

12

4

n n

16

14

180

Close Ministry.

5

12-26

1

n n

17

11-37

292

n n

5

15-16

9

ii n

18

15-27

292

n n

5

27-30

43

ii ii

18

31-33

183

n it

6

12

43

Close Ministry

18

31-34

319

Ministry Galilee.

6

17

65

Ministry Galilee.

18

35-43

313

Close Ministry.

6

17

68

n n

19

11-28

199

Passion Week.

6

20-49

64

n n

19

29-44

1

n n

7

1-10

321

Earlier Years.

19

45-48

19

ii n

7

11-17

84

Ministry Galilee.

19

48

33

n n

7

21

107

n n

20

1-19

36

n n

7

36-50

133

n n

20

2-10

313

Close Ministry.

7

39

140

n n

20

9

50

Passion Week.

8

22-39

151

n ii

20

20

61

ii u

8

41-56

84

n n

20

20-26

56

ii n

9

1-9

192

ii ii

20

27-40

77

n n

9

7-9

114

Last Day.

20

34-36

86

ii ii

9

10-17

213

Ministry Galilee.

20

45-47

111

ii n

9

16

160

ii n

21

1-4

126

ii n

9

18

299

ii n

21

5-36

147

n ii

9

22-27

314

n ii

21

25-36

166

n n

9

26

831

n ii

21

37

19

n n

9

28-36

335

n n

22

1-30

255

ii n

9

37-45

1

Close Ministry.

22

15-18

265

ii it

9

43-50

21

n n

22

19-20

300

n ii

9

45

321

Ministry Galilee.

22

21-23

274

n n

9

51

165

Close Ministry.

22

39-46

320

•
n ii

9

51-52

167

n ii

22

47-53

9

Last Day.

9

61-62

145

ii n

22

52

12

n n

10

1-24

145

n n

22

64-62

36

ii ii

10

26-29

211

n n

22

56

38

ii ii

11

1

44

n n

22

59

60

ii n

11

1-13

229

ii n

22

60

46

ii it

320

INDEX.

CHAP TERSE.

222323
23
23
28

66-71 1-4
4-12
13-16
20-23
28-43

7863
90
114139139
195

BOOK.
Last Day.

CHAP.

TERSE.

PAOE,

BOOK.

23

27-82

169

Last Day.

23

46

275

n ii

23

47-49

297

u n

23

66

850

n n

24

13-33

68

Forty Days

24

38-49

91

n n

24

44-53

229

n ii

3 u tm.

66777788
999
10101010

29-51 30-88 1-12
12-21 1-21
14-1610-1446-64 1-47
16-18 16-18
21-40

1-21
22-7139-56 70 1
1-9
11-52 26-2612-61
12-59 14
39-41 1-89 16
27-28
37-38

207168231255
302 274266
296 266321
340 21 80
287
267 81
330
213232
267259
170 3966 81
267 75
9421
116
116 119

Earlier Years.

Close Ministry.
Earlier Years.
Close Ministry.
Earlier Years.
ii n
Ministry Galilee.
Last Day.
Close Ministry
n n
Last Day.
Earlier Years.
Ministry Galilee.
ii n
Close Ministry.
Passion Week.
Close Ministry.

Last Day.
Close Ministry.

Ministry Galilee.
Close Ministry.
Ministry Galilee.
Close Ministry.
Earlier Years.

10
10 11
11 111212121213
13131414
1718181818
181919 1919
19191920
20
20
21
21
21

89-42 40
1-27
22-64 58
1-8
12-18 19
20-86 1-20
10-11
21-35 1129
28-39 2-11
15-27 17
19-24
19-24 1-16
20-2225-27 28-3031-87
33-353^42 1-18
19-23
24-29 1-14
15-17
15-28

248 170248
272 84
334 1
19
126
255
280 274 830 175 90

139195
228275 297
323 850 4591
115
139 36
169

Close Ministry.

Last Day.
Close Ministry.
Passion Week

Earlier Yean.
Passion Week.
Last Day.

Forty Days.

Last Day.
Forty Days.

INDEX.

SUBJECT. VOLUME.
Annunciation, The  Earlier Tears
Anointing at Bethany  Close Ministry ,
Apostolate, The Calling to  Ministry Galilee
Apostolic Confession at Csesarea-Philippi . . . Ministry Galilee
Ascension, The  Forty Days .
Baptism, The  Earlier Years
Betrayal and the Betrayer, The  Last Day . .
Brethren, Christ and His  Close Ministry
Burial, The  Last Day . .
Capernaum, Discourse in the Synagogue . . . Ministry Galilee
Capernaum, First Sabbath in  Earlier Years
Christ David's Son and David's Lord .... Passion Week
Coming of the Kingdom, The  Close Ministry
Darkness and Desertion  Last Day . .
Daughters of Jerusalem Weeping  Last Day . .
Day of Judgment, The  Passion Week
Decapolis, The Circuit through  Ministry Galilee
Disciples, The First  Earlier Years
Divorce, The Question of  Close Ministry
Doctors, Christ among the  Earlier Years
Embassy of the Baptist, The  Ministry Galilee
Evening Meeting, The  Forty Days .
Emmaus, The Journey to  Forty Days .
Feast of Tabernacles  Close Ministry.
Flight into Egypt, The  Earlier Years
Forerunner, The  Earlier Years

PAGE. 1
339 45
299247 168 9
39
358
236 385 104
294254173
221278 216
295 119
104 9168
66 98
131

322

INDEX.

SUBJECT. VOLUME.
Galilee, First Circuit of  Earlier Years
Galilee, Lake, Side of  Forty Days . .
Gethsemane  Passion Week .
Great Commission, The  Forty Days . .
Great Invitation, The  Ministry Galilee
Greeks Desire to See Jesus  Passion Week .
It js Finished  Last Day . . .
Jerusalem, Incidents in Last Journey to ... . Close Ministry .
Jerusalem, Triumphant Entry into  Passion Week .
Jesus at Jericho  Close Ministry .
Jesus the Light of the World  Close Ministry .
Jesus the Resurrection and the Life  Close Ministry .
Jesus Weeping over the City  Passion Week .
Judas, Exposure of  Passion Week .
Lawyer's Question, The  Passion Week .
Little Children Brought to Him  Close Ministry .
Lord's Prayer, The  Close Ministry .
Lord's Supper, The  Passion Week .
Magi, Visit of the  Earlier Years
Mary and Elizabeth  Earlier Years
Massacre of the Innocents  Earlier Years
Miracles, The First  Earlier Years
Miracles, Jewish Nobleman and Roman Centurion Earlier Years
Miracles, The Pool of Bethesda  Earlier Years
Miracles, Healing of the Leper  Ministry Galilee
Miracles, Healing of the Paralytic  Ministry Galilee
Miracles, Raising of the Widow's Son .... Ministry Galilee
Miracles, Raising of the Ruler's Daughter . . . Ministry Galilee
Miracles, The Stilling of the Tempest .... Ministry Galilee
Miracles, The Demoniac of Gadara  Ministry Galilee
Miracles, Feeding of the FiTe Thousand .... Ministry Galilee
Miracles, The Walking upon the Water .... Ministry Galilee
Miracles, The Syro-Phcenician Woman .... Ministry Galilee
Miracles, Cure of the Man Born Blind .... Close Ministry .
Miracles, The Raising of Lazarus  Close Ministry .
Miracles, The Ten Lepers  Close Ministry .
Miracles, The Fig-tree Withering Away .... Passion Week .
Miracles, The Barren Fig-tree  Passion Week .
Miracles, Attendant on the Crucifixion .... Last Day . . .
Mission of the Twelve  Ministry Galilee
Mother of Our Lor.l, The  Last Day . . .

INDEX.

323

Nativity, The  Earlier Years .
Nazareth, The Synagogue of  Earlier Years .
Nazareth, Thirty Years at  Earlier Years
Nicodemus, Conversation with  Earlier Years
Parables, The First  Ministry Galilee
Parables, The Good Shepherd  Close Ministry .
Parables, Of the Persean Ministry  Close Ministry .
l'arables, The Good Samaritan  Close Ministry .
Parables, The Two Sons, and the Wicked Hus
bandmen  ; . . Passion Week .
Parables, The Marriage of the King's Son . . . Passion Week .
Parables, The Ten Virgins  Passion Week .
Parables, The Talents  Passion Week .
Penitent Thief, The  Last Day . . .
Persea, Last Journey through  Close Ministry .
Persaa, Our Lord's Ministry in  Close Ministry .
Peter and John  Forty Days . .
Peter's Denials, Repentance, and Restoration . . Last Day . . .
Peter, Rebuke of  Ministry Galilee
Pharisaic Traditions  Ministry Galilee
Pharisees, The Collision with  Ministry Galilee
Physical Cause of the Death of Christ .... Last Day . .
Prophecies on Mount Olivet, The  Passion Week
Resurrection, The  Forty Days .
Resurrection, Appearance to Mary Magdalene . . Forty Days .
Resurrection, Question of the Sadducees as to . . Passion Week
Sabbath Breaking, The Charge of  Ministry Galilee
Sermon on the Mount, The  Ministry Galilee
Strife as to Who should be Greatest  Close Ministry
Temple, Presentation in  Earlier Years
Temple, The Cleansing of  Earlier Years
Temple, The Second Cleansing of  Passion Week
Temptation, The  Earlier Years
Thomas, The Incredulity of  Forty Days .
Transfiguration, The  Ministry Galilee
Transfiguration, Descent of the Mount of . . . Close Ministry
Trial before the Sanhedrim  Last Day . .
Trial, First Appearance before Pilate  Last Day . .
Trial, Second Appearance before Pilate .... Last Day . .
Trial, Appearance before Herod  Last Day . .
Tribute Money, Payment of  Close Ministry
Tribute Money, Question as to  Passion Week

324 INDEX.
SUBJECT. VOLUME. PAOE.
Washing of the Disciples' Feet, The  Passion Week . . .. 266
Widow's Mite, The  Passion Week ... 126
Woes Denounced upon the Pharisees, The . . . Passion Week . . . Ill
Woman of Samaria, The  Earlier Years . . . 807
Woman Who was a Sinner, The  Ministry Galilee . . 188
Young Ruler, The  Close Ministry ... 802
Zebedee's Sons, Request of  Close Ministry ... 818