Walk. This was just what the man was never able to do as we gather from the text.

10Immediately. Our Lord's words always effect what they mean. This is the grand principle to be observed in interpreting any categorical proposition which He utters.

16. Proptereà persequebantur Judæi JESUM, quia hæc faciebat in sabbato.

17. JESUS autem respondit eis: Pater meus usquè modò operatur, et ego operor."

16. Thereupon the Jews 'persecuted Jesus, because he did these things on the sabbath.

17. But Jesus answered them: 10 My Father worketh until now; and I work.

The process by which Our Lord brought the Jews to the announcement of His Divinity is well described here by His beloved disciple. He volunteers to cure a poor man, on the Sabbath, and tells him to bundle up his carpet bed and walk away with it. Carrying loads was specially forbidden on the Sabbath (Exodus xx. 8. Jeremiah xvii. 21), and the Pharisees were astounded. This poor fellow did not know who it was that cured him, and he would not disobey Him.

Our Lord is found out, and called to account for the order. His answer is grand.

The Sabbath is made for men. My Father never rests, and neither do I. The spheres move in their courses, nature continues to produce her fruits, the rivers continue to flow, the tides do not cease to ebb and flow as usual, the sun rises and sets. If my Father or I rested all this would cease, and the world would come to chaos and confusion.

One day in the week is chosen to make you turn to God, not by idleness and sin, but by prayer and works of charity. Also lest the poor slaves might be worked to death.

1The Sabbath.-It was a great Sabbath, also the first day of the Pasch, corresponding with Holy Saturday now.

2It is not lawful.-They wanted to stop the man from his duty in order to lie down as if uncured, or leave his bed there to be stolen by some beggar or other.

3He that made me whole.-I don't know who he was, but I know he was a man of God, and I shall do what he told me.

4Who is that man ?-They seem to have known very well. Instead of praising God for the cure of the poor man, they want to find an excuse for persecuting Jesus.

Went aside. He went away until the excitement should reach its height, and until the nimble man with his bed under his arm should have all the priests, Scribes and Pharisees in a tumult of indignation.

"In the temple.-The man went in to thank God for his cure.

Sin no more. This was the object of all Our Lord's cures and labours -to take away sin, and to prevent its committal.

Told the Jews.-Not to injure Our Lord, but to have Him glorified

and celebrated.

Persecuted. Our received Greek version has "tried to kill him," which does not seem clearly to be an interpolation.

10 My Father worketh until now, and I work.-This was the grand confession of His Divinity. This was never forgotten, and from this day forward His life was sought.

21. Sicut enim Pater suscitat mortuos et vivificat, sic et Filius quos vult vivificat.

22. "Neque enim Pater judicat quemquam, sed omne judicium dedit Filio,

23. "Ut omnes honorificent Filium sicut honorificent Patrem : qui non honorificat Filium non honorificat Patrem qui misit illum.

21. For as the Father raiseth up the 'dead, and giveth life; so the Son also giveth life to whom he will.

22. For neither doth the Father judge any man: but hath committed all judgment 8to the Son:

23. That all men may honour the Son, as they honour the Father. He who honoureth not the Son, 10honoureth not the Father who hath sent him.

As soon as the leading Scribes, Pharisees, and others find out the author of the miracle, and the apparent violation of the Sabbath, they call Him before them.

Here He stands arraigned, in His simple unpretending dress of a Galilean peasant, before these great exponents of the law with their solemn robes and broad phylacteries. They imagine they will wither Him.

With the grand mien, which He could assume, He repeats His equality with the Father. He shows it from the impossibility of one doing anything unknown to or unlike the other, a harmony of power and unity of love exist between them. The great functions which God alone could do-"I will do" he seems to say, "in such a manner that you shall be astounded, but not converted. I shall forgive sins, raise the dead to life (both these interpretations are given of verse 21) and shall sit in Judgment upon you and every member of the human race." announcements fairly annihilated them.

These

1To Kill Him.-They had heard of His deeds in Galilee which John has not recorded. They begin to find an excuse.

2Equal to God. This they understood better than the Arians, and this He confirmed by His wonderful discourse.

3Of Himself. Not for want of power; but because of the impossibility of separation. They are so much one that two can only be predicated of them relatively and personally.

In like manner.-There is a figure here as if the Son learnt of his Father and became equal to Him in handicraft.

Which himself doeth.-The knowledge of God is the existence of the Son and this knowledge common to both, make their opera ad extra common to the three persons of the Trinity, though attributable to one or other.

Wonder, but not believe.-Pitiful wretches.

"Dead. . . . life.-The sum of opinions on this verse is, that Our Lord means physical and moral resurrection, now and hereafter.

To the Son.-Because the Son abased Himself, and He has His day in store when those who despise Him will see Him assert Himself, to their

cost.

Son . . . . Father. This is the beginning of the difference between the good and the bad.

10 The denial of honour to the Son is the denial of honour to the Father, and therefore matter for eternal condemnation.