Many interpreters have been very anxious to rescue the original word, which we have given by "well drunk,” from involving aught of excess, as though, did it imply that, we must necessarily conclude that the guests at this marriage festival had already drunken too much, that this was one of the temulenta convivia, which St. Cyprian speaks of as too often disgracing a marriage*, with all the difficulties, of Christ being present at such an abuse of God's gifts, and, stranger still, ministering by his divine power to a yet further excess. But there is no need of such anxious dealing with the wordt. The ruler of the feast is but alluding to the corrupt customs and fashions too current among men, not to aught which was necessarily going on before his eyes-nay, to something which certainly was not so, for such the Lord would have as little sanctioned by his presence, as he would have helped it forward by a wonder-work of his own. The speaker does no more than refer to a common practice, and in so doing, notices its cause, namely, that men's palates after a while are blunted, and their power of discerning between good and bad lost; and that then an inferior wine passes current with them, as it would not have done before. There is no special application to the guests present,—except in the minds of them who would mar, if by any means they could, the image of a perfect Holiness, which offends and rebukes them.

Of a piece with this is their miserable objection, who find the miracle incredible, since, if the Lord did not actually minister to an excess already commenced, yet, by the creation of "so large and perilous a quantity of wine," (for the

same use of "small." Perhaps "poorer" would be the nearest word. Pliny in like manner (H. N., 1. 14, c. 14,) speaks of the meanness of some, qui convivis alia quam sibimet ipsis ministrant, aut procedente mensâ subjiciunt. * De Hab. Virg., c. 3.

† Augustine indeed goes further than any, for he makes not merely the guests, but the ruler of the feast himself to have "well drunk" indeed. The Lord not merely made wine, but, he adds (De Gen. ad Litt., 1. 6, c. 13) tale vinum, quod ebrius etiam conviva laudaret.

quantity was enormous *,) he would have put temptation in men's way;—as though the secret of temperance lay in the scanty supply, and not in the strong self-restraint! In like manner, every gift of God, every large abundance of the vineyard, might be said with equal truth to be a temptation, and so in some sort it is, (compare Luke xii. 16,) a proving of men's temperance and moderation in the midst of abundancet. But man is to be perfected, not by being kept out of temptation, but rather by being victorious in temptation. And for this large giving, it was only that which we should look for. He, a King, gave as a king. No niggard giver in the ordinary bounties of his kingdom of nature, neither was he a niggard giver now, when he brought those his common gifts into the kingdom of his grace, and made them directly to serve him there. (Cf. Luke v. 6, 7.)

But these words, "Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now,” setting forth, as in the letter they do, only a trivial practice of a poor worldly economy, have oftentimes had a higher meaning found for them. It has been excellently noticed how these very words may be used for the setting forth the dif ference between the manner and order of the world's giving

* The Attic μeτpntýs (= ßádos = 72 ¿éσrai = 72 sextarii) = 8 gallons 7.365 pints, imperial measure; so that each of these six vessels, containing two or three μεтρηTαí apiece, did in round numbers hold about twenty gallons or

more.

+ Calvin answers the objection excellently well: Nostro vitio fit, si ejus benignitas irritamentum est luxuriæ; quin potius hæc temperantiæ nostræ vera est probatio, si in mediâ affluentiâ parci tamen et moderati sumus. Cf. SUICER'S Thess., s. V. oivos. It is instructive to notice the ascetic tone which Strauss takes, (Leben Jesu, v. 2, p. 229,) when speaking of this Luxuswunder, as he terms it, contrasted with that which he assumes when he desires to depreciate the character of John the Baptist: but truly he is of that generation that call Jesus a winebibber, and say that John has a devil; with whom that which is godlike can in no form find favour. Some of Woolston's vilest ribaldry (Fourth Discourse on the Miracles of our Saviour, p. 23, seq.) is spent upon this theme.

and of Christ's giving. gave utterance to a far larger and deeper thought than he meant. The world does indeed give its best and its fairest at the beginning, its "good wine" first, but has only baser substitutes at the last. "When men have well drunk," when their spiritual palate is blunted, when they have lost the discernment between moral good and evil, then it puts upon them what it would not have dared to offer at the first,coarser pleasures, viler enjoyments, the swine's husks. world is for them that worship it, even as that great image which the Babylonian king beheld; (Dan. ii. 31;) its head, indeed, may shew as fine gold, but its material grows ever baser, till it finishes in the iron and clay at the last. And so it comes to pass that

The man, not knowing what he did,

"To be a prodigal's favourite, then, worse lot!

A miser's pensioner,"

The

this is the portion of them that have entered on the service of sin and of the world. But it is very otherwise with the guests of Christ, the heavenly bridegroom. He ever reserves for them whom he has bidden "the good wine" unto the last *.

Thus H. de Sto Victore (De Arc. Morali, 1. 1, c. 1): Omnis namque homo, id est, carnalis primùm vinum bonum ponit, quia in suâ delectatione falsam quandam dulcedinem sentit; sed postquam furor mali desiderii mentem inebriaverit, tunc quod deterius est propinat, quia spina conscientiæ superveniens mentem, quam prius falsò delectabat, graviter cruciat. Sed Sponsus noster postremò vinum bonum porrigit, dum mentem, quam sui dulcedine amoris replere disponit, quâdam prius tribulationum compunctione amaricari sinit, ut post gustum amaritudinis avidiùs bibatur suavissimum poculum caritatis. Corn. à Lapide: Hic est typus fallacia mundi, qui initio res speciosas oculis objicit, deinde sub iis deteriores et viles inducit, itaque sui amatores decipit et illudit. An unknown author (BERNARDI Opp., v. 2. p. 513): In futurâ enim vitâ aqua omnis laboris et actionis terrenæ in vinum divinæ contemplationis commutabitur, implebunturque omnis hydriæ usque ad summum. Omnes enim implebuntur in bonis domûs Domini, cum illæ desiderabiles nuptiæ Sponsi et sponsæ celebrabuntur: bibeturque in summâ lætitiâ omnium clamantium Domino et dicentium; Tu bonum vinum servâsti usque adhuc. I know not from whence this line comes,

Ille merum tardè, dat tamen ille merum;

but it evidently belongs to this miracle.

In the words of the most eloquent of our divines, "The world presents us with fair language, promising hopes, convenient fortunes, pompous honours, and these are the outside of the bowl; but when it is swallowed, these dissolve in an instant, and there remains bitterness and the malignity of coloquintida. Every sin smiles in the first address, and carries light in the face, and honey in the lip, but when we have well drunk,' then comes that which is worse,' a whip with six strings, fears and terrors of conscience, and shame and displeasure, and a caitiff disposition, and diffidence in the day of death. But when after the manner of purifying of the Christians, we fill our waterpots with water, watering our couch with our tears, and moistening our cheeks with the perpetual distillations of repentance, then Christ turns our water into wine, first penitents and then communicants-first waters of sorrow and then the wine of the chalice; . for Jesus keeps the

best wine to the last, not only because of the direct reservations of the highest joys till the nearer approaches of glory, but also because our relishes are higher after a long fruition than at the first essays, such being the nature of grace, that it increases in relish as it does in fruition, every part of grace being new duty and new reward*.”

The Evangelist expressly, and, as it would seem, pointedly, excludes from all historic credit the miracles of Christ's infancy, of which so large a crop is to be found in nearly all the apocryphal Gospels. For, of course, he would not say merely that this was the first miracle which Jesus did in Cana, but that this miracle in Cana was the first which he did; it was for him the "beginning of miracles." The statement is not unimportant, nor unconnected with one of the main pur

* J. TAYLOR, Life of Christ. With this may be fitly joined that exquisite poem, with which every one is familiar, in The Christian Year, that upon the second Sunday after Epiphany, suggested by this miracle, the Gospel of that day, and which is the unfolding of the same thought.

suæ.

+ Thus Tertullian (De Bapt., c. 9,) calls it, prima rudimenta potestatis And this day has been called Dies natalis virtutum Domini,

poses with which the Gospel of St. John was written, which was to repel and remove all unreal notions concerning the person of his Lord,—notions which nothing would have helped more to uphold than those merely phantastic and capricious miracles, favourites, therefore, with all manner of Docetic heretics,-which are ascribed to his infancy*.

But in this work of his he "manifested forth his glory," | words that could be used of no lesser than the Son; for all others would have manifested forth the glory of another, but he his own. And this, because the word "glory" is to be taken emphatically; it is not merely his excellent greatness, but his divinity: for the glory (dóça) is a divine attribute; it is comprehended and involved in the idea of the Logos as the absolute Light: as such he rays forth light from himself, and this effluence is "his glory." (John i. 14; Matt. xvi. 27; Mark viii. 38.) This "glory" during the time that the Son of God sojourned upon earth, for the most part was hidden; the covering of the flesh concealed it from men's eyes: but in this miracle, this work of his power, St. John would say, it broke through this its fleshly covering, and manifested itself to the spiritual eyes of his disciples; they "beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father†.' And as

*This statement of St. John has ever been used in the Church as a decisive testimony exclusive of all these; thus by Epiphanius, (Hær., 51. § 20,) from whose words it would appear that some Catholics were inclined to admit these miracles of the Infancy, as affording an argument against the Cerinthians, and in proof that it was not at his baptism first that the Christ was united to the man Jesus. And Euthymius (in loc.) finds in St. John's words a distinct purpose on the part of the Evangelist to exclude all wonders that were recorded as going before. St. John, he says, iσrópnσev avtò, Xenσιμεῦον εἰς τὸ μὴ πιστεύειν τοῖς λεγομένοις παιδικοῖς θαύμασι τοῦ Χριστοῦ, Cf. CHRYSOSTOM, Hom. 16; 20; 22 in Joh.; and THILO, Cod. Apocryph., p. Lxxxiv, seq.

+ The Eastern Church, as is well known, counted the Baptism of Christ, being his recognition before men and by men in his divine character, for the great manifesting of his glory to the world, for his Epiphany, and was wont to celebrate it as such. But the Western, which laid not such stress on the Baptism, saw his Epiphany rather in the adoration of the Magians, the first