far common that it might also be predicated of the other.* It is quite true that had not the two natures been indissolubly knit together in a single person, no such language could have been used; yet I should rather suppose that "Son of man" being the standing title whereby the Lord was well pleased to designate himself, bringing out by it that he was at once one with humanity, and the crown of humanity, he does not so use it that the title is in every instance to be pressed, but at times simply as equivalent to Messiah.

Having said this much to the gainsayers, he turns to the poor man with the words, "Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house," in his person setting his seal to all the prerogatives which he had claimed; so that this miracle is eminently what indeed all are, though it is not equally brought out in all, "a sign," an outward sign of an inward truth, a link between this visible and a higher and invisible world. "And immediately he arose, took up the bed,§ and went forth before them all," they who before blocked up his path, now making way for him, and allowing free egress from the assembly.

Concerning the effects of this miracle on the Pharisees, the narration is silent, and this, probably, because there was nothing good to tell;but of the people, far less hardened against the truth, far more receptive of divine impressions, we are told "they were all amazed, and glorified God;" altogether according to the intention of the Saviour, praising the author of all good for the revelation of his glory in his Son. (Matt. v. 16.) There was a true sense upon their part of the significance of this fact, in their thankful exultation that God "had given such power unto men." Without supposing that they very accurately explained to themselves, or could have explained to others, their feeling, yet they felt rightly that what was given to one man, to the Man Christ Jesus, was

* See Cyril of Alexandria, in CRAMER's Catena, in loc.

+ Kpáßßaros=grabatus (in Luke, kλivíðɩov) a mean and vile pallet used by the poorestoкíμπovs, dokávτns. It is a Macedonian word, and was entirely rejected by Greek Purists. (See BECKER's Charikles, v. 2, p. 121.) In relation to this, Sozomen tells a curious story of a bishop in Cyprus, who, teaching the people from this scripture, and having to repeat the Lord's words, substituted σкíμжоvs for кpáßßaros, and was rebuked by another bishop present, who asked him if the word which Christ used was not good enough for him to use.

Compare Isaiah's words, (xxxv. iii. LXX,) when he is recounting the promises of Messiah's time: Ίσχυσατε, χεῖρες ἀνειμέναι, καὶ γόνατα παραλελυμένα.

§ Arnobius, (Con. Gen., l. 1, c. 45,) speaking generally of Christ's healings, but, of course, with allusion to this, magnifies the contrast of his so lately being carried on, and now carrying, his bed: Suos referebant lectos alienis paulo antè cervicibus lati.

given for the sake of all, and ultimately to all-that it was indeed given "unto men;”—that he possessed these powers as the true Head and Representative of the race, and therefore that these gifts to him were a rightful subject of gladness and thanksgiving for every member of that race.

X.

THE CLEANSING OF THE LEPER.

MATT. viii. 1-4; MARK i. 40-45; LUKE v. 12-16.

Ir is said in one place concerning the apostles' preaching, that the Lord confirmed their word with signs following. (Mark xvi. 20.) Here we have a very remarkable example of his doing the same in the case of his own. For, according to the arrangement of the events of the Lord's life which I follow, and according to the connection of the events as it appears in St. Matthew, it is after that most memorable discourse of his upon the Mount, that this and other of his most notable miracles find place. It is as though he would set his seal to all that he has taught ;—would approve himself to be this prophet having right to hold the language which there he has held, to teach as one having authority. He had scarcely ended, ere the opportunity for this occurred. As he was descending from the mountain, "there came a leper and worshipped him," one, in the language of St. Luke, "full of leprosy," so that it was not a spot here and there, but the disease had spread over his whole body: he was leprous from head to foot. He had ventured, it may be, to linger about the outskirts of the listening crowd, and now was not deterred by the severity of the closing sentences of Christ's discourse, from coming to claim the blessings which at its opening were proclaimed for the suffering and the mourning. Here, however, before proceeding to treat more particularly of this cure, it may be good, once for all, since the cleansing of lepers comes so frequently forward in the Gospel history, to say a few words concerning that dreadful disorder, and the meaning of the uncleanness which was attached to it.

* Jerome (in loc.): Rectè post prædicationem atque doctrinam signorum offertur occasio, ut per virtutum miracula præteritus apud audientes sermo firmetur.

And first, a few words may be needful in regard of a misapprehension, which we find in such writers as Michaelis, and in all indeed who can see in the Levitical ordinances little more for the most part than regulations of police or of a board of health, or at the best, rules for the well ordering of an earthly society; who will not recognize in these ordinances the training of man into a sense of the cleaving taint which is his from his birth, into a sense of impurity and separation from God, and thus into a longing after purity and re-union with him. I allude to the common misapprehension that leprosy was catching from one person to another; and that they who were suffering under it were so carefully secluded from their fellow-men, lest they might communicate the poison of the disease to them; as in like manner that the torn garment, the covered lip, the cry, “Unclean, unclean," (Lev. xiii. 45,) were warnings to others that they should keep aloof, lest unawares touching the lepers, or drawing into too great a nearness, they should become partakers of their disease. A miserable emptying this, as we shall see, of the meaning of these ordinances.* All those who have examined into the matter the closest are nearly of one consent, that the sickness was incommunicable by ordinary contact from one person to another. A leper might transmit it to his children,† or the mother of a leper's children might take it from him; but it was by no ordinary contact transferable from one person to another.

All the notices in the Old Testament, as well as in other Jewish books, confirm this view, that it was in no respect a mere sanitary regulation. Thus, where the law of Moses was not observed, no such exclusion necessarily found place; Naaman the leper commanded the armies of Syria, (2 Kin. v. 1,) Gehazi, with his leprosy that never should be cleansed, talked familiarly with the king of apostate Israel. (2 Kin. viii. 5.) And even where the law of Moses was in force, the stranger and the sojourner were expressly exempted from the ordinances in relation to leprosy; which could not have been, had the disease been contagious, and the motives of the leper's exclusion been not religious but civil, since the

Even Michaelis, greatly as he loves to find a trivial explanation for each ordinance of the Mosaic law, yet allows (Mos. Recht., v. 4, p. 255,) that this cannot have been the object of these; but explains them as warnings to all other men lest they should unawares come on so disgusting a spectacle as the leper would present. But Scripture neither flatters nor knows any thing of such hard-hearted sentimentalities as these. Rather the poet expresses the true feeling which it would bring about in us, when he exclaims,―

"But welcome fortitude and patient cheer,
And frequent sight of what is to be borne."

See ROBINSON'S Biblical Researches, v. 1, p. 359.

danger of the spreading of the disease would have been equal in their case and in that of native Israelites.* How, moreover, should the Levitical priests, had the disease been this creeping infection, have themselves escaped the disease, obliged as they were by their very office to submit the leper to such actual handling and closest examination? Lightfoot can only explain this by supposing in their case a perpetual miracle.

But no; the ordinances concerning leprosy had quite a different and a far deeper significance, into which it will be needful a little to enter. It is clear that the same principle which made all that had to do with death, as mourning, a grave, a corpse, the occasions of a ceremonial uncleanness, inasmuch as all these were signs and consequences of sin, might in like manner, and with a perfect consistency, have made every sickness an occasion of uncleanness, each of these being also death beginning, partial death-echoes in the body of that terrible reality, sin in the soul. But instead of this, in a gracious sparing of man, and not pushing the principle to the uttermost, God took but one sickness, one of these visible outcomings of a tainted nature, in which to testify that evil was not from him, that evil could not dwell with him; he took but one, with which to link this teaching, and that it might serve in this region of man's life as the substratum for the training of his people into the recognition of a clinging impurity, which needed a Pure and a Purifier to overcome and expel, and which no method short of his taking of our flesh could drive out. And leprosy, which was indeed the sickness of sicknesses, was through these Levitical ordinances selected of God from the whole host of maladies and diseases which had broken in upon man's body; to the end that, bearing his testimony against it, he might bear his testimony against that out of which it and all other sicknesses grew, against sin, as not from him, as grievous in his sight; and the sickness itself also as grievous, not for itself, but because it was a visible manifestation, a direct consequence, of the inner disharmony of man's spirit,

* See all this abundantly proved in pp. 1086-1089 of the learned dissertation by Rhenferd, De Lepra Cutis Hebræorum, which is to be found in MEUSCHEN'S Nov. Test. ex Talm. illust., p. 1057. He concludes his disquisition on this part of the subject with these words: Ex quibus, nisi nos omnia fallunt, certè concludimus, præcipuis Judæorum magistris, traditionumque auctoribus nunquam in mentem incidisse ullam de lepræ contagio suspicionem, omnemque hanc de contagiosâ leprâ sententiam, plurimis antiquissimisque scriptoribus æquè ac Mosi planè fuisse incognitam. Compare the extract from Balsamon, in SUICER'S Thes., s. v. 2ɛñрós, where speaking of the customs of the Eastern Church, he says, "They frequent our churches and eat with us, in nothing hindered by the disease." In like manner there was a place for them, though a place apart, in the synagogue.