good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now." Though this too may not perfectly coincide with modern manners, it exhibits a picture of the common practice in that country and in that age; and it led to a discovery of the whole mystery, and Jesus stood confessed the Son of God, the Lord of universal nature, the searcher of hearts, the ruler of elements, the friend and brother of mankind. "This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him." rents. Thus a punctilious attention to wash- | first drank of it himself, and then passed it ing the body could be reconciled to a de- round the table. In compliance with this liberate purpose of hardening the heart. custom, Jesus directed the first-fruits of this These copious and frequent ablutions ac- miracle to be carried to him to pass judgcount for the large provision of water made ment. He instantly perceives the difference, for the marriage feast. "There were set six though ignorant of the process; and in surwater-pots of stone, after the manner of the prise addresses himself to the bridegroom, purifying of the Jews, containing two or whose it was to prepare the entertainment, three firkins apiece." To pretend to ascer- and to defray the expense, in these words; tain the quantity, by the names of ancient"Every man at the beginning doth set forth measurement, would be nugatory and absurd. If the thing could be done, what profit would arise from it? Is it not well known that all the wisdom of the British legislature, though frequently exerted, has hitherto been unable to establish a standard of weights and measures for the southern division of this little island? The precise quantity is left in intentional obscurity, by the use of the indefinite expression two or three, it is sufficient for us to know that the supply was very considerable. The expenditure of water, at this advanced period of the feast, must have been great. Jesus determined to make those partially exhausted vessels the medium of his intended miracle. To have replenished the empty wine vessels might excite suspicion of collusion; but into water-cisterns for purifying, wine never entered, and therefore no doubt could arise. He, then, who could have transformed the bottom of a dry cistern into a fountain of water, or of wine, at his pleasure, commands the servants to "fill the water-pots with water. And they filled them up to the brim." Many and useful are the practical reflections which flow from this subject. Permit me to suggest some of them. 1. The religion of Jesus Christ embraces the whole circle of duty. Duties are of various orders and importance. Some are essential and indispensable, others are agreeable and ornamental; as in a well-constructed edifice there are parts absolutely necessary to its existence, and there are parts which might be removed indeed without affecting The miracle is already performed. By an the solidity and durableness of the fabric, unseen, unperceived energy; without a word but the removal would greatly impair its spoken, without a gesture, by a simple act elegance and beauty. So in the scale of of the will, plain water is instantaneously morals there are the weightier matters of the converted into wine of the finest quality. law, judgment, mercy, and faith; and there What dignified simplicity! what unaffected are obligations of an inferior order; though majesty! A fact so very extraordinary is highly important in the commerce of human narrated with no more pomp of language life; such as gentleness, courtesy, affability, than the most common process of nature. sympathy. Of both ranks of duty our blessed He now desires the attendants, hitherto the Lord set the happiest example. He mixed only witnesses of this wonderful change, to with mankind, he partook of their griefs and draw off some of the wine, and bear it to the their joys, he sat down at their tables, he asgovernor of the feast, at the moment when sisted at their nuptial festivity, he indulged the deficiency began to be felt. Thus every in the mutual endearments of friendship, he supply which comes immediately from the paid attention to little children, took them to hand of Providence is at once seasonable, his arms and blessed them. Disciple of Jesus, salutary, and excellent in its kind. What go thou and do likewise. Ill does it become comes through the channel of men like our-thee to be stately, and distant, and reserved, selves must of necessity have a mixture of their impurity and imperfection. and ungracious, when he was so meek and condescending. There are certain austere With us the master of the house is also Christians who will on no occasion, and on no the governor of the feast. It is his concern account, descend from the pinnacle of their to see that his friends be properly accom- dignity, and who render religion disgusting modated and supplied. But among the Jews to others by the harshness of their manners, an officer of this description was appointed and a severe, morose, ungainly deportment. to preside, whether elected by the company, named by the bridegroom, or constituted by public authority, whose business it was to pronounce a benediction on what was provided, and who, when the cup was blessed, This they cannot have learned of Christ, nor at his old school. Will they vouchsafe to take a lesson from the apostle Paul, who understood his own real dignity as well as any man? "Mind not high things, but conde scend to men of low estate." And I beg leave to add, from him: "Be not wise in your own conceits." Did nature changes, it becomes a deadly poison. 2. Jesus himself was all purity and per- 3. Every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: for "it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer." Whether therefore God supplies the good things of life in the ordinary course of nature, or by a special interposition of his almighty power, they are liberally bestowed, they are the bounty of a Father, to be used, to be enjoyed. When God placed our grand progenitor in the terrestrial paradise, the parental grant was large: "Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat;" but with one single reservation: 66 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." We are still on the same footing, in a world which has indeed ceased to be a paradise, but which, nevertheless, is still abundantly stored with every thing necessary, convenient, and comfortable for man. The grant is still as liberal: The good of the land is before you:" take, thou mayest freely eat, freely drink. But, mark the reservation, still indispensable as ever, eat, drink, in moderation, to the support and refreshment of the body, not its depression and derangement. To a certain bound this is cordial, salutary, nutritive: beyond, its 4. We have said that this and all our Saviour's other miracles were miracles of goodness: we now add, they were all disinterested. He here gave proof of sovereignty uncontrollable. It was exercised to supply the temporal wants of a few, and to minister to the everlasting consolation of myriads. But "Christ pleased not himself" What might not his power have commanded, of all that is exquisite on the earth, in the air, through the paths of the sea? But though an hungered, he will not command stones to be made bread for his own use; if he miraculously multiply a few loaves and fishes, it is to feed a starving, fainting multitude. If he makes the sea tributary, it is at one time to compensate the painful labour of poor men, who had "toiled all night and taken nothing," at another, to prevent of fence by paying his tribute money. Fish broiled on a fire of coals, and a morsel of bread, are the simple fare on which he and his disciples dine, even "after that he was risen from the dead.” “ Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head." "They that wear soft clothing are in king's houses;" His clothing was not worth dividing among a few of the basest of mankind: His raiment, his lodging, his fare were all of apiece. And is the servant greater than his Lord! To the poor the Gospel is preached, and to the poor the example is set, the example of contentment with a low condition, of meek submission to hardship, of superiority to the vanities and luxuries of this world, of selfgovernment, and self-denial. His modern disciples have been accused of love of ease and indulgence, of fondness for dainties and delicacies, of aiming at power and pre-eranence. If the imputation be just, it is to be lamented: and Christians of every rank and denomination are concerned, as far as in them lies, to do it away. If it be ill-founded, it must be borne, as part of the reproach of Christ; and his disciple must bear in mind that he is bound by the law and by the practice of his divine Master, not only to abstain from all evil, but from all appearance of evil. HISTORY OF JESUS CHRIST. LECTURE CXXIV. And he arose out of the synagogue, and entered into Simon's house: and Simon's wife's mother was taken with a great fever; and they besought him for her. And he stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. And immediately she arose, and ministered unto them. Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them. And devils also came out of many, crying out, and saying, Thou art Christ the Son of God. And he, rebuking them, suffered them not to speak: for they knew that he was Christ. And when it was day he departed, and went into a desert place; and the people sought him, and came unto him, and stayed him, that he should not depart from them. And he said unto them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also; for therefore am I sent. And he preached in the synagogues of Galilee.-LUKE IV. 38-44. THE religion of the Gospel is adapted to every possible condition of life, for it is adapted to the nature of man, who, with the variation of a few circumstances, is the same universally, and in every age. There is the difference of colour and speech, the difference of climate and soil, the difference of high and low, of rich and poor; but still it is man, with all his excellencies and imperfections, with all his capability of degradation and of improvement, with all his propensities to evil and to good. Christianity takes him up as he is, and undertakes to make him what he ought to be. "Can the Ethiopian change his colour, or the leopard his spots?" No, replies nature, I gave that colour, I painted those spots; but I cannot undo my own work. He that is black must, for me, continue black still, that which is spotted must be spotted still. But the grace of the Gospel unfolds a mystery which it is beyond the reach of nature to solve. It transforms that which was as scarlet into the whiteness of snow, what was red like crimson into the colour of wool. "Can these dry bones live?" Yes, at the word, and by the spirit of the Lord. Miracles like these the Spirit of Christ is exhibiting every day. Do we not see: O that the spectacle were more common! Do we not see loftiness of station united to lowliness of mind; a hard lot to a contented spirit; the fulness of this world to the exceeding riches of the grace of God? When the Son of God came for the salvation of a lost world, "verily he took not on him the nature of angels." But more wonderful still! he united the divine nature to the human, and thereby became at once an object of supreme adoration, and a familiar instructer. What he said and did as the Lord, "wise in heart and mighty in strength," we must ever contemplate at an awful dis tance, admiring, venerating what we cannot find out unto perfection, and which we are still more incapable of imitating. But in what he said and did as a man, we behold a pattern most amiably simple, most powerfully impressive, most consummately perfect. In vain do we look any where else for that steadiness and uniformity of character which alone can merit the distinction of being proposed as an example. Whom else can we with safety follow in every thing? In the most perfect of mere men, while there is much to respect and to commend, there is ever a something to blame and to regret; some fault of temper, some inconsiderateness of expression, some inconsistency of conduct. But in our divine Master all is estimable, uniform, and consistent. He presents one and the same character in solitude and in society, in the synagogue and in domestic retirement, at a marriage feast and before the tribunal; displaying a native dignity undebased by an infusion of insolence, condescension pure from servility, fortitude without ferociousness, sensibility without affectation, the sublimity of devotion with the perfect ease of friendship. In the last Lecture we attended this friend of mankind to the celebration of a marriage solemnity, and beheld him partaking of the pure delights of friendly and domestic intercourse, mingling with his kindred, and with the disciples whom he had chosen; and while he miraculously ministered to their wants, as the great Ruler and Lord of nature, we observe him, as bone of their bone, and flesh of their flesh, sympathizing in their joys, adopting their solicitudes, their wants, and expectations, and joining in their conversation. Thus he tacitly and obliquely reproves that haughty reserve, that unbending stateliness, that ungracions distance from men which must close. There is a season of retirement and repose as there is of labour and exertion. The duties of private friendship, of domestic devotion, the rights of hospitality, the care of the body, put in their several claims, which must be answered. Christ accord frequently attempts to pass for superior wisdom, sanctity, and importance. We pretend not to arrange the several events of our Lord's history in the exact order of time. The evangelists display them in an energetic simplicity far beyond the reach of art. There is in the word of God, if it be lawful to sayingly" arose out of the synagogue, and enso, a majestic irregularity that transcends tered into Simon's house." The accommo the control of rule; just as the surface of dations of a poor fisherman's hovel, on the our globe, with its mountains and valleys, shore of the lake of Gennessaret, could not its precipices and plains, its rivers and oceans, be very elegant. The fare provided by a defies the application of the straight line hard-working plebeian, doomed frequently to and of the compasses; and as the face of the toil all night long, without taking any thing, starry heavens present to the eye a mag-could not be very luxurious or delicate. But nificent assemblage of worlds scattered when a man gives you the shelter of his roof, about by a hand that rejects all measure- however mean, and a place at his board, howment by any standard but its own. Science ever homely, he does all that a prince can has indeed contrived artificial combinations do; and the difference is a paltry circumand arrangements both of the heavenly bo- stance or two, beneath the consideration of a dies, and of Scripture truths, but their native rational being. glory and magnitude are not reducible to But the house of Peter was, at this time, systems of human invention. It may be plea-not only the abode of penury, but likewise sant, and far from unprofitable, to ascertain dates, to unravel the chain; but it is surely of secondary moment. The actions and events themselves, and the evidence that they existed, are the great concern of the Christian world; but above all, the practical influence of those great truths on the hearts, the consciences, and the lives of men. the house of mourning, for "Simon's wife's mother was taken with a great fever." The sabbath had not been to her a day of rest, but of agitation and pain; and the distress of a sick-bed might probably be aggravated by reflecting on absence from the house of prayer, and from the comforts of the public worship of God. The value and importance Precluded from opportunities of being emi- of objects vary strangely, in our estimation, nently useful at Nazareth, through the envy as they are viewed through the medium of and unbelief of his townsmen, Jesus with-health, or of sickness, of pain, or ease. The draws from that city, not in anger but in sor-illusion of the world disappears, when the row, though a most cruel, ungrateful, and fever in the blood forms in the distempered atrocious attempt upon his life had been imagination, whirling orbs of perturbation, made by its unworthy inhabitants; and he and perplexity, and despair; or when, in cold proceeds to prosecute his labours of love at blood, conscience darts an anxious look into Capernaum, a city situated on the sea of Ga-the world of spirits. Very different is the lilee. From this place, it would appear, he aspect of the sabbath in the eye, and the was called to the adjacent town of Cana, to hour, of thoughtless dissipation, and when the celebration of the marriage; and that the son of dissipation is stretched on a bed solemnity being ended, he returns to Caper- of languishing. Then he "snuffed at it, and naum accompanied by the disciples whom he said, Behold, what a weariness is it? When had already chosen. Here we find this will the new moon be gone, that we may sell Teacher sent from God still indefatigably corn, and the sabbath, that we may set forth pursuing the great object of his mission, and wheat?" But how very different are the restill putting respect on the word and ordi- flections of "the days of darkness," of the nances of God. Behold him devoting the months of vanity," of the "wearisome day of sacred rest to useful purposes; em- nights," appointed, when the sleepless paploying the leisure and retirement from tem-tient is constrained to cry out, "When shall poral concerns which it afforded, in execu- I arise and the night be gone." "What fruit ting the benevolent office of instructing the had I then in those things, whereof I am now ignorant and guilty, in the way of life and ashamed, for the end of those things is death." salvation. We know from the general strain The visit of Jesus to Peter's family had of his public ministrations, and particularly more than one object in view. The friend from the portion of Scripture, which he re- of man retired to converse with men, the hearsed and applied in the synagogue at Na- master to instruct his disciples, the poor to zareth, that the things written concerning feed with the poor, the weary to repose with himself constituted the great burden of his the weary. The Son of God entered into the preaching: Scripture the source, Christ Je-house to manifest his glory, to display his sus the subject, the sabbath the season, the synagogue the scene. "Never man spake like this man." But the services of an earthly sanctuary 66 power, to exercise his benevolence in the miraculous relief of distress. Thus amply does he repay every token of affection bestowed on himself, or on one of the least of his brethren. Distress awakens sympathy. standing by her bed-side. He anoints the The children of the family cannot think of blind man's eyes with clay, and sends him to sitting down to eat bread, while the mother wash in the pool of Siloam; he cries with a of it lay in extremity. Filial tenderness had loud voice over the grave of his departed undoubtedly exerted itself to the uttermost. friend, "Lazarus, come forth." All demonThe poor scrip of the Galilean had, perhaps, strates the underived and independent, as been drained in purchasing medicine and well as the almighty power of God, whose cordial for his afflicted mother-in-law: though will is the sole and the supreme law, as to the this be none of the least of the evils which time, the manner, and the matter of the work. attend poverty, to behold the person whom There is a wonderful vivacity in the unwe love perish for want of advice and medi-affected conciseness and simplicity of the cine, for want of a cordial beyond the reach narration. He stood, he spake, he prevailed. of our means. As a last resource they lay" He rebuked the fever." Disease is here her case before Jesus: "and they besought personified, as susceptible of reprehension, him for her." Did he need to be importuned? and of voluntary subjection to authority, "and Was he difficult of access? Did his goodness it left her," as one who has encroached and flow reluctantly? No, but the intercourse intruded, and who feels and acknowledges between heaven and earth, between the Crea- the power of a superior repelling and casting tor and the creature is the confidence, the him out. prayer of distress meeting the benignity, the unremitting attention of the Father of mer-imperceptible in their progress. When the cies, who will be sought unto, that he may show himself gracious. 66 The transitions of nature are gradual, slow, ocean is roused into fury by the raging wind, it continues in a state of agitation long after the tempest has ceased to roar; but when Christ speaks the word, the effect is instantaneous and complete. "He arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm." When the fever has spent its force, and the crisis of convalescence has taken place, it leaves the patient feeble and languid, and it frequently requires a considerable length of time to restore both the body and the mind to the full exercise of their several functions; but when Jesus rebukes the fever, it not only in a moment departs, but the sufferer is at the same moment made perfectly whole: "And immediately she arose, and ministered unto them." As in creation so in Providence, he speaks and it is done, he gives commandment and it stands fast. "He is the Rock; his work is perfect" "And he stood over her, and rebuked the fever, and it left her." The miracle of turning water into wine was effected by a simple act of the will, without either gesture or speech, and the evidence of it rested, in part, on the testimony of the servants who had filled the pots with water. Here we have both gesture and speech, and the immediate and personal conviction of all who were in the house. In nothing is the sovereignty of Deity more conspicuously displayed than in the manner of his acting. It is so unlike human conjecture, that the pride of man is apt to be offended that Providence did not observe the mode which his sagacity had prescribed. Naaman the Syrian had settled, in his own mind, the whole process of the cure of his own leprosy. Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, The circumstance of her ministering to and strike his hand over the place, and re- her physician and the family, is striking and cover the leper." Not one iota of his con- instructive. It teaches us the proper use of jecture was realized. The prophet did not prolonged life, of restored faculties. They come out, nor assume the supposed attitude, are to be devoted to the honour of God, and nor pronounce the supposed invocation, but to the service of our fellow-creatures. They "sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and were deeply affected by her danger, they wash in Jordan seven times:" and pride is looked in anxious expectation to the return hurrying him away in a rage, to think that of her health, and they besought the Lord the rivers of Damascus should be postponed for it; she employs that precious gift in conto the waters of Israel. Thus while pro- tributing her best endeavours to promote their phecy has been successively fulfilling, the ease and comfort. What debt is so sacred event so ill accorded with prevailing opinion as that of gratitude? and what benefactor and expectation, that while the prediction has laid us under so many and such unspeakwas admitted, the accomplishment, however able obligations as He who gave us life, and coincident and exact, has been rejected. who sustains it, as He who died to redeem This divine sovereignty our blessed Lord exercises in performing all his mighty works. He wills water into wine. Now he rebukes the disease, and now speaks to the patient. He heals the feverous son of the nobleman, at the distance of Cana from Capernaum, and the feverous mother of Simon's wife us? We have here a beautiful and interesting view of human life. Every relation has its corresponding sphere of duty. The happiness of domestic society consists not in the interchange of great benefits, on signal occasions, but in the hourly reciprocation of the little offices of love, in kind looks, in kind |