He Himself never rated His miracles highly. "Greater works than these shall ye do," He said to His disciples. But He never said, "Greater words than these shall ye speak," or "Greater thoughts than these shall ye think." He knew that the needs supplied for the moment would recur, that the sicknesses would come back worse, and that the bitterness of death was not past. But it was natural that He should do miracles. Would He have been God manifest in the flesh if He had journeyed deaf, and bound, and helpless through the evils and distresses of humanity? This was impossible, and therefore miracles were done. But signs and idle wonders He indignantly declined to perform. Of works of mercy there was a plenitude, but He refused to work wonders which would merely gratify a vacant or transient curiosity. To create belief, not to raise - astonishment, was His object; and the works He did were enough to make unbelief without excuse. It is incomplete to say that the miracles justify belief in Christ, and it is equally incomplete to say that it is belief in Christ that makes miracles credible. Christ comes before us as a whole-His person and His work. It is impossible to separate the two, and we believe in the whole-that is, in both. CHAPTER VIII. The Teaching of Christ. "Never man spake like this man.” "O holy Truth, whene'er Thy voice is heard, A Though oft inaudible Thy gentle word, While we regard not. Take me from the thrall Into Thine inner shrine and secret hall." ISAAC WILLIAMS. POINT always noticed by our Lord's hear ers was, that His teaching differed from that of all others: "Never man spake like this man." He spoke like a man, and yet no man ever spoke like Him. The criticism of those who left Him after hearing one of His sermons was, "Not as the Scribes." Whether the teaching was good or evil they might not be able to say, but of this at least they were sure, that it was different from the teaching they had been accustomed to hear. The double thread of divinity and humanity is to be traced also in the teaching of Christ. He spake with authority. It was this that first struck the people as marking Him out as different from the Scribes. The Scribes always made appeals to others. They quoted traditional interpretations, and sought to win the assent of their hearers by appealing to those who had gone before. But Jesus appealed to His own authority: "I say unto you." The Scribes were aware of the opposition their statements might excite, and of the silent resistance with which men are always prone to meet any unfamiliar truth, and they took the usual means to anticipate and master that resistance. They employed authority, argument; and if these failed, the fortress might be captured by appeals to passion. But with Jesus it was different. He appealed to no prejudice; He made no concession to passion. He spoke as one who knew that He possessed the truth, and that the truth had a welcome prepared for it from of old within obedient hearts. For the most part He did not argue; and although it is true that an Eastern discourse is generally a collection of loosely connected sayings, resembling in its en tirety not a living organism, but a heap of jewels, each beautiful in itself, and that this is so with Christ's, yet that is not the whole. When He says, "Believe in me," "Follow me," "I am the truth," "Verily, verily, I say unto you," He is speaking with the sublime certainty of one who knows that, as a divine teacher, He has a right to the empire and assent of every soul of man. It is true that He refers to the Bible; but in His references He, as it were, stands above it, and sets His seal upon it, even when He has claimed its sanction for His own words. The prophets effaced themselves by appealing to God, whose witnesses they were, and prefaced their words by "Thus saith the Lord." He spoke the most startling truths, and offered no certificate but that of His own authority. And as He was the authoritative teacher, so He was the commander He never gave advice. He did not say, "If you please:" His words were imperative; they were law; they were guarded by the most awful sanctions; to disobey them was to incur the risk of eternal ruin. The difference between law and advice is one appreciable measure of the difference between Christ and human teachers. This was what men needed then, and need now. Those who of men. believed in Him first were weary of debating; they were not sure of their own power to thread labyrinths of reasoning, or resist appeals to passion, and they craved for a solid foundation on which they might build the hopes that were dear as life. So it is still. In the time of health and prosperity, men may delight in speculation and inquiry; but when the great shocks and overthrows of life come, men seek something that will uphold them, that will enlighten them as to what lies beyond the deep darkness of the grave. The search for truth, so fascinating once, becomes weary when men have little time and no heart to pursue it, and the eternal realities are near. Then the truth itself is sought, the truth that knows its responsibilities, its frontiers, its consequences. Doubts only make a man impatient, while he is met and satisfied by the vast claims of Him who asserted that Himself was the Christ. Instead of chafing at the immense assumption involved, he is thankful then that the words of Christ are so calmly assumed, so sublimely imperative. Yet Jesus spoke as a man, for with all these claims He fell back upon God's word. He did not profess to be able to dispense with it, but fed upon it, put His trust |