LECTURE IV.

S. LUKE XVII. 4.

I have glorified thee on the earth; I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.

WHEN the sceptre had almost departed from the Jewish people, and a foreign power, that knew not God, deposed his high-priests, exacted tribute from his people, and watched with an austere vigilance their worship and their dealings, men's eyes began to fail for looking so long and so vainly for the Prince and Deliverer promised by their prophets. At such a time Jesus of Nazareth was born into the world; and the wonders that accompanied his birth attested, to those who knew them, that he was sent from God, and that his coming concerned the interest of the Jews and of all mankind. A twofold character was impressed upon his life from the beginning; the weakness of man and the glory of God were dealt out to him without

measure. On the one hand, the mother, a weary wayfarer in a strange town, lays her newborn infant in a manger, because there is no room in the inn, and presently flees with it into Egypt for fear of the cruelty of Herod the king, who sought its life. With these signs of human weakness began the life of him, who afterwards was "led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil," as any man is tempted, who fled from the plots of his enemies, as men flee, who felt and showed a man's compassion on the hungry, and a man's love for his friend, and a human indignation and grief at the hardness of men's hearts, who let fall warm tears of human sympathy at the graveside, who in his agony seemed to shrink from that cup which yet he knew it was his Father's will that he should drink. So far the Gospels unfold to us the life of a man; no one wondered to see him at the marriage in Cana of Galilee; Nicodemus came to him by night without any preternatural awe or terror, to open out his doubts and difficulties; Lazarus and his sisters numbered him as one upon the list of their friends; it seemed to John the Evangelist no profane or perilous familiarity to lean

a Matt. iv. 1.

upon his breast at supper. But, on the other hand, his birth, which was not after the manner of men, caused the king to tremble on his throne; wise men from the East, the firstfruits of the Gentiles, were directed to the manger where he was, and laid their tribute before it, as if it were a royal seat; an angel brought to the shepherds the glad tidings of great joy that a Saviour was born unto them. The spirits of the principal actors in this history were stirred by the Holy Spirit; and Mary and Zacharias, Simeon and Anna, declared, in words of prophetic insight, the counsels of God. A life so marvellously begun was marked by mighty signs and wonders to the end. The weak limbs received strength, eyes and ears were opened, the tongues of the dumb were loosened, food was increased in the wilderness for the hungry multitudes, the dead maiden rose from her bed and the widow's son from his bier, and Lazarus from his sepulchre, in order that all might see that here was one whose power was boundless as his love was wide and deep; that one who could command the wind and sea, and even arrest the subtle agent that waits to decompose every living body into its primitive dust, was akin to the Almighty Father,

who made wind and sea and life and death. Hard as it is to admit that one who walked in streets and markets with finite creatures like ourselves was the only-begotten Son of the Infinite God, our blessed Lord asserts his claim to this dignity in words that admit of no escape. He declares that he and the Father are one'; that he is in the Father as the Father in him; that he came down from heaven to do the Father's will"; that "God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life;" that all judgment is committed unto him, the Son, even all things are delivered unto him. When the Jews persecuted him for working a miracle on the Sabbath-day, he "answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." What claim could be bolder, what upon the low views then prevalent could be more blasphemous, than that a man should claim the right to work upon the Sabbath-day, because God the Father sends forth the sun, and lights up the stars, and bids the birds sing, and the lions roar after their prey, upon that day as upon others? To defend himself by pleading d Ib. vi. 38. e Ib. iii. 16.

b John x. 30.

• Ib. xiv. II.

f Ib. v. 17.

the example of God the Father is surely, as the Jews understood it, to make himself equal with God. And those words, at which some have been offended,-"My Father is greater than Is,❞—are a strong evidence, when rightly weighed, for the divine nature of our Redeemer. There can be no comparison without a likeness; and the difference between the highest and purest finite nature and the nature of God himself, between a creature and the Creator, is so vast, that no common term can comprehend them. No man says, gold is more precious than stubble, or the rocks are firmer than the sea, or the man is wiser than the gibbering ape; yet these apparent contrasts almost appear identities by the side of the monstrous comparison- the Almighty, Eternal, Omniscient Spirit is greater than the creature he has made with the breath of his mouth! But in fact the words in question have no such meaning. "If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I." They would rejoice, because at present the Father is exalted high in heaven, and the Son is bowed in humiliation upon the earth; they would rejoice, if they loved him, that he was

g John xiv. 28.