the lame to walk; and there are commentators of note who think, that he not only restored the use of limbs, but even the limbs themselves ". In four instances he restored life itself: the ruler's child, just after she had expired-the widow's son, as he was carried to be interredLazarus, when he had lain in the grave four days—and, lastly, that act which set the seal to his mission, he raised himself. Inanimate objects, the wind and the waves, obeyed him, and evil spirits submitted to his command, and left those they had possessed at his bidding. Some persons he cured on their own petition, others on that of their friends. No distinction was made between rich and poor; the only exception is, that his miracles were never worked to gratify unbelievers. In subservience to their grand design, Isaiah xxxv. 5. the confirmation of his mission, they had a secondary object, the alleviation of misery. If the condemnation of the barren fig-tree, and the destruction of the herd of swine, be urged as exceptions, I answer, that the first was neither an interference with private property, nor an injury to the community, and conveyed to his own age, and as recorded to all, a warning which, properly improved, will save many souls from destruction. The other he did not command but permit, and it is no greater impeachment of his goodness, than the existence of moral evil is of the justice of God's providence. It proves beyond the power of confutation the reality of demoniacal possession; as such it answers still a most important end, and it produced, though not immediately, a beneficial effect upon the inhabitants of the district in which it was wrought.

To three of his miracles (John ix. 1-7. Mark vii. 32. viii. 23.) it is objected, that he made use of an external application; but the reason of this departure from his ordinary mode, seems to have been because he required faith in the

P This is the sense given by Elsner and Wetstein to xvλad, which we rendered maimed, and is distinguished from xwλod, with which it is joined. Matt. xv. 31.

1 Graves's Essay on the Character of the Apostles and Evangelists.

person to be relieved. Thus we are told, that he did not many mighty works at Nazareth because of their unbelief; and of many whom he cured, he first made an enquiry as to their faith in his power. For this purpose our Saviour used such an application as was best calculated to make an impression on the senses the men possessed unimpaired, antecedent to the miracle, and such as led them to observe, that he was about to interpose in order to perfect the organs which were defective. Thus a deaf man can judge of the intentions of another only by seeing what he does. Such an one, therefore, our Lord took aside from the multitude, that he might fix his attention on himself, and then he put his fingers into his ears, and touched his tongue, thus signifying to him that he intended to produce some change in these organs; he then looked up to heaven, at the same time speaking, to signify that the change would proceed from a Divine power exercised at his interposition. The same purpose was answered by the application of clay to the eyes of the man born blind. It assured him, that the person who anointed them was the sole author of the cure. Had the ground of his assurance been less full and circumstantial, he could never have silenced so unanswerably the captious objections of the Pharisees. We may be confirmed in believing this to have been the design of these external applications, by observing, that they were used in no instance except those of blindness and deafness; and still more, by observing, that it does not appear that any of these three men had any previous knowledge of our Saviour. It was therefore necessary to fix their attention to himself. When the blind man at Capernaum, (Matt. ix.) and those near Jericho, (Matt. xx.) applied to be healed, it was with a declared conviction of his power. Here, therefore, a less remarkable external application was sufficient; as they professed their belief, he only required that this profession should be sincere. "Believe ye that I am able to do this? They said unto him, Yea, Lord. Then touched he their eyes, saying, According to your faith be it unto you. And their eyes were opened." Matt. ix.

PART III.

20. Jesus commences his public ministry, by driving traders out of the temple. John ii.

FROM Cana, Jesus, with his five disciples, his mother, and brethren, went down to Capernaum, which seems, whenever he was stationary, to have been his home; but he now stayed there not many days, according to Mr. Greswell no more than seven, as he was desirous of commencing his ministry at Jerusalem at the passover, when it would be filled with worshippers not only from Judæa, but from all the countries in which the Jews were dispersed. This was probably the year 28 of the Vulgar æra, and 780 of Rome, and literally the acceptable year of the Lord, the thirty-third Jubilee, reckoning from the first sabbatical year after the second division of the conquered lands by Joshua, 1589 before Christ, and the feast fell on the 9th of April. The miracle of Cana was wrought rather to gratify his mother, and to confirm the faith of his disciples, than as a public sign to his nation, which he chose to give during the feast at Jerusalem. This we learn from St. John, whose account is previous to that of the earlier Evangelists. The miracles he wrought there were probably numerous, but they are mentioned only generally; we are told, however, that the consequence was, that many believed on him as the Christ, but most of them probably entertained carnal and worldly hopes, and had no conception of the spiritual nature of his sovereignty, because he did not commit himself unto them, knowing them as the Searcher of hearts. Acts i. 24. Rev. xi. 23. But first he took possession of his house, the temple, and commenced his ministry by purifying it from the mercenary traders who sold the animals used in sacrifice, and who, for the convenience of worshippers, exchanged money within its precincts. He nearly closed it with a similar act, (Matt. xxi.)

N

which must not be confounded with this, which is recorded by John alone. On that occasion, when being about to be offered up reserve was no longer expedient, he referred to Isaiah's prophecy, (lvi. 7.) " It is written, My house shall be called an house of prayer for all nations." He now calls it his Father's house, in a sense higher than that in which it could be used by those who were only God's children by adoption, and which was suitable to no one but the Messiah; and that he was so understood, is plain from the interrogation, By what right or authority doest thou these things? Jesus did not spring from Levi, but was of another tribe, Judah, of which no man gave attendance at the altar, (Heb. vii.) it must therefore have been as the proprietor of the temple, as the God of Israel, to whose service it was dedicated, that he drave from it those who had polluted it. The Jews required of him a sign from heaven to justify this assumption of authority, but he refers them enigmatically to a sign from earth, his crucifixion by them, and resurrection on the third day. This they misunderstood literally, but he spake, we know, of his own body, in which dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead, Col. ii. 9. σwμatis, really, not typically, as in that temple made with hands, and which was therefore better entitled to the appellation than that material fabric. He was not understood by his disciples any more than by his enemies, till his meaning was explained by the event; but they applied to him the words in which David, as a type of the Messiah, says, "The zeal of thy house has eaten me up," Psalm lxix. 8. understanding by it, the ardent desire which now led him to purify the temple from the abuses that disgraced it. Yet this zeal, however ardent, was tempered with discretion; the sheep and bulls he drave before him, but he only ordered the dove-sellers to remove their cages, as he did not wish to injure them by the loss of their property. His enemies treasured up the saying, and brought it as an accusation against him on his trial; but their malice was defeated, as they contradicted themselves in reporting it; one saying, "I am able to destroy the temple

of God, and to build it in three days," Matt. xxvi. 61; the other, “I will destroy this temple made with hands, and in three days I will build another made without hands." "Make not, he said, my Father's house a house of merchandize." The last time his reproof was, " You have made it a den of robbers," which seems to imply, that they were not only covetous, but dishonest. It was the court of the Gentiles that was given up to them, and it would be difficult for the proselytes, who were not allowed to come nearer, to make it a house of prayer, amid the talking of the traders, and the noise of the cattle. By this act he restored the whole to its original use, and marked, as on other occasions, that the time was at hand, when God should be worshipped in spirit and in truth. These mercenary traders must have been numerous, especially at the passover, when a multitude of worshippers were assembled; yet Jesus, a man in humble life, and hitherto little known, without influence, without attendants, or arms, except a scourge made at the moment out of the ropes with which the cattle were confined, drove them all before him, though pride, covetousness, and resentment, disposed them to resistance; but their consciences made them timid, and his majesty overawed them. The antithesis is striking, for he contrasts the holy use for which the temple was designed, with their gross profanation of it; and it is the more impressive, since the two clauses are brought from their own prophets, Isaiah, and Jeremiah vii. 11. His reference to the latter was calculated to alarm these self-righteous worshippers, since it declares, that unless they amended their ways, "the Lord would do unto this house as he had done to Shiloh, where he set his name at the first"."

a The speech in which Josephus, War, v. 9. endeavoured to persuade the inhabitants of Jerusalem to surrender, is a striking comment on this chapter of Jeremiah and our Lord's declaration. "The temple itself is become the receptacle of all crimes, and this divine place is polluted by our own countrymen, while it is reverenced by the Romans. And after all this, do you expect Him whom you have treated so impiously to be your supporter?"