how commonly sin is contemplated in Scripture as a moral blindness (Deut. xxviii. 29; Isai. lix. 10; Job xii. 25; Zeph. i. 17), and deliverance from sin as a removal of this blindness (Isai. xxix. 18; xlii. 18; xliii. 8; Ephes. i. 8; Matt. xv. 14); and we shall at once perceive how fit it was that He who was 'the Light of the world' should often accomplish works which symbolized so well that higher work which He came into the world to accomplish.

And when Jesus departed thence' from the house of Jairus, Jerome supposes; but too much stress must not be laid on the connexion in which St. Matthew sets the miracle, nor the conclusion certainly drawn that he intended to place it in such immediate relation of time and place with that other which he had just told-two blind men followed Him, crying and saying, Thou Son of David, have mercy on us.' Their faith was tried, though not so rudely as was that of the Syrophoenician woman at a later day. Not all at once did they obtain their petition; but the Lord seemed at first rather to withdraw Himself from them, suffering them to cry after Him, and for a while paying no regard to their cries. It was only when He was come into the house,' and the blind men came to Him' there, so testifying the earnestness of their desires and the faith of their hearts, that He yielded to them the blessing which they sought; nor even then, until He has first obtained a confession of their faith from their own lips. Believe ye that I am able to do this?' He asks; and only after they, by their Yea, Lord,' have avouched that they had faith to be healed, do they obtain their boon. Then indeed He touched their eyes,' and that simple touch was enough, unsealing as it did for them the closed organs of vision (cf. Matt. xx. 34). On other occasions He uses as conductors of his power, and helps to

:

1 Calvin Re igitur et verbis examinare voluit eorum fidem: suspensos enim tenens, imo præteriens quasi non exaudiat, patientiæ ipsorum experimentum capit, et qualem in ipsorum animis radicem egerit fides.

the faith of those who should be healed, some further means, -the clay mingled with spittle (John ix. 6, 7), or the moisture of his mouth alone (Mark viii. 23). We nowhere read of his opening the blind eyes simply by his word, although this of course was equally competent to Him. The words which accompany the act of grace, 'According to your faith be it unto you,' are instructive for the insight they give us into the relation of man's faith and God's gift. The faith, which in itself is nothing, is yet the organ for receiving everything. It is the conducting link between man's emptiness and God's fulness; and herein is all the value which it has. It is the bucket let down into the fountain of God's grace, without which the man could never draw water of life from the wells of salvation; for the wells are deep, and of himself man has nothing to draw with. It is the purse, which not in itself making its owner rich, effectually enriches him by the treasure which it contains.1

'And Jesus straitly charged them, saying, See that no man know it. But they, when they were departed, spread abroad his fame in all that country' (cf. Mark i. 45). It is very characteristic, and rests on very profound differences between them and us, that of Roman Catholic interpreters almost all—I am aware of no single exception-should rather applaud than condemn these men for not adhering strictly to Christ's command, his earnest, almost threatening,2 injunction of silence;-that the teachers in that Church of willworship should see in their disobedience the irrepressible over

1 Faith, the opуavov Anπtikóv, nothing in itself, yet everything because it places us in living connexion with Him in whom every good gift is stored. Thus on this passage Chemnitz (Harm. Evang. 68): Fides est instar haustri gratiæ cælestis et salutis nostræ, quo ex inscrutabili et inexhausto divinæ misericordiæ et bonitatis fonte, ad quem aliter penetrare non possumus, haurimus et ad nos attrahimus quod nobis salutare est. Calvin (Inst. iii. 11, 7): Fides etiamsi nullius per se dignitatis sit, vel pretii, nos justificat, Christum afferendo, sicut olla pecuniis referta hominem locupletat.

2 Ενεβριμήσατο αὐτοῖς. Suidas explains ἐμβριμᾶσθαι = μετὰ ἀπειλῆς ἐντέλλεσθαι, μετ' αὐστηρότητος ἐπιτιμᾶν.

flowings of grateful hearts, which, as such, were to be regarded not as a fault, but a merit. Some, alas! of the ancients, Theophylact, for instance, do not shrink from affirming that the men did not disobey at all in publishing the miracle; that Christ never intended them to observe his precept about silence, but gave it out of humility, being the better pleased that it was not observed.' But among interpreters of the Reformed Church, whose first principle is to take God's Word as absolute rule and law, and to worship God not with self-devised services, but after the pattern which He has shown, all, so far as I know, stand fast to this, that obedience is better than sacrifice, though the sacrifice be intended for God's special honour (1 Sam. xv. 21). They see, therefore, in this publishing of the miracle, in the face of Christ's prohibition, a blemish in the perfectness of their faith who thus disobeyed; a fault which was still a fault, even admitting it to have been one which only grateful hearts could have committed.

1 Thus Aquinas (Summ. Theol. 2a 2*, qu. 104, art 4): Dominus cæcis dixit ut miraculum occultarent, non quasi intendens eos per virtutem divini præcepti obligare; sed sicut Gregorius dicit 19 Moral., servis suis se sequentibus exemplum dedit, ut ipsi quidem virtutes suas occultare desiderent, et tamen ut alii eorum exemplo proficiant, prodantur inviti. Cf. Maldonatus, in loc.

9. THE HEALING OF THE PARALYTIC.

MATT. ix. 1-8; MARK ii. 1-12; LUKE V. 17-26.1

HE account of St. Luke would leave us altogether in

THE

ignorance where this miracle of healing took place; but from St. Matthew we learn that it was in his own city,' by which we should understand Capernaum, even if St. Mark had not named it, for as Bethlehem was Christ's birth-place, and Nazareth his nursing-place, so Capernaum his dwellingplace. We have, therefore, here one of the 'mighty works' with which at a later day He upbraided that greatly favoured but impenitent city (Matt. xi. 23). And it came to pass on a certain day as He was teaching, that there were Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by, which were come out of every town of Galilee, and Judæa, and Jerusalem. It may have been a conference, more or less friendly upon the part of these, which had brought together as listeners and spectators a multitude so great that all avenues of approach to the house were blocked up; there was no room to receive them, no, not so much as about the door;'2 and thus for later comers no opportunity, by any ordinary way, of near access to the Lord (cf. Matt. xii. 46, 47). Among

1 Chrysostom (in Matth. Hom. 29) warns his hearers against the confounding of this miracle of healing with that of the impotent man at Bethesda, and then finding discrepancies between the one narrative and the other. The confusion, one would think, is so little likely to occur as hardly to be worth the complete refutation which he gives it. It is found, however, in the apocryphal Evangelium Nicodemi (see Thilo, Cod. Apocryph. vol. i. p. 556).

2 Τὰ πρὸς τὴν θύραν, scil. μέρη = πρόθυρον, vestibulum, atrium.

these were some bringing one sick of the palsy. Only St. Mark records for us that he was borne of four;' he and St. Luke the novel method which they took to bring him whom they bore within that circle of healing which ever encompassed the Lord: When they could not come nigh unto Him for the press, they uncovered the roof where He was; and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay.' They first ascended to the roof; for, in Fuller's words, love will creep, but faith will climb, where it cannot go;' yet this was not so difficult, because commonly there was a flight of steps on the outside of the house, reaching to the roof; in addition to, or sometimes instead of, an internal communication of the same kind. Such every traveller in those parts of southern Spain which bear a permanent impress of Eastern habits will have seen. Our Lord assumes the existence of such when He gives this counsel, 'Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house' (Matt. xxiv. 17), he is to take the nearest and shortest way of escaping into the country: but he could only avoid the necessity of descending through the house by the existence of such steps as these.' Some will have it that the bearers here, having thus reached the roof, did no more than let down their sick through the grating or trap-door, already existing there (cf. 2 Kin. i. 2), or at most, enlarged such an aperture, till it would allow the passage of their sick man and his bed. Others, that Jesus was sitting in the open court, round which the houses in the East are

2

1 The same must have existed in a Roman house. A witness, whom it is important to preserve from being tampered with, is shut up in the chamber adjoining the roof (coenaculum super ædes),—and, to make all sure, scalis ferentibus in publicum obseratis, aditu in ædes verso (Livy, xxxix. 14; cf. Becker, Gallus, vol. i. p. 94).

2 Shaw, for instance, quoted by Rosenmüller (Alte und Neue Morgenland, vol. v. p. 129). He makes To μécor to signify the central court, impluvium, cava ædium. And so, too, Titus Bostrensis (in Cramer Catena): Εἴποι δ' ἄν τις ὕπαιθρον εἶναι τόπον, εἰς ὃν διὰ τῶν κεράμων κατεβίβασαν τὴν κλίνην τοῦ παραλύτου, μηδὲν παντελῶς τῆς στέγης ανατρέ Varres. But against this use of siç rò μérov, or rather for the common one, see Luke iv. 35; Mark iii. 3; xiv. 60.