of this same Apostle, "words whereby thou and LECT. all thy house shall be saved;" and as our Lord XXVIII. Himself saith," If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death":" the words which, though to the stubborn a stumbling-block, are to the believer precious, as the means of his salvation, whereon he feeds, whereby he lives. And those words which first beget in us the Divine life, and sustain it unto life eternal, "all the words of this life"," are the words of Christ: for He is the keeper and the dispenser of this treasure; "and out of His fulness have all we received, and grace for graced"

So attentively then had this true-hearted one regarded those words, so entirely hearkened to His saying, that while the murmurers were asking contemptuously, "Is not this the son of Joseph ?" his confession is, "Thou art the Son of the living God." Yea, by that faith which is "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen," he stamps it with an emphasis, declaring affectionately for himself and for his brethren, "We believe and are sure." There are things indeed we may not yet understand; Thou dost sometimes speak to us in proverbs: but one thing we know; yea, of this we are well assured; proof enough hast Thou given of this; that Thou art the Christ, the promised Messiah, the Son of the living God: Thou hast the words of life, for Thou art the Son of the living God. So Martha is described to us, farther on in this

a Acts xi. 14.

c Acts v. 20.

b ch. ix. 51.

d ch. i. 16.

ech. xiii. 7.

fch. xvi. 29, 30.

LECT. Gospel, saying unto Jesus, "Yea, Lord; I believe XXVIII. that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which

should come into the world." Our Lord, it has been well remarked, had in the foregoing discourse assured eternal life to His followers; these disciples fastened on that plain saying, and therefore resolved to stick to Him, when the others fastened upon the hard saying, and therefore forsook Him. Though we cannot account for every mystery, every obscurity, in Christ's doctrine, yet we know in the general that it is the word of eternal life, and therefore must live and die by it for if we forsake Christ, we forsake our own mercies1.

And how does the Lord receive this confession of His faithful one? Not here, as elsewhere, with a "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona1;" for Peter's confession there is not in the terms of his answer here. There it was simply, "Thou art the Christ:" here it is, "We believe that Thou art the Christ." And the Lord who commended him in that instance for that he uttered a distinct truth, sends him and them to reflection in this. For he and they had yet to learn a deep lesson. The Lord was now upon the subject of His cross and passion. He knew what was coming upon Him and upon them. This Apostle had judged too favourably of one of his colleagues, too sanguinely even of himself. He deemed not that one would prove traitor, the other coward; that Judas should yet betray, and Peter even deny

ch. xi. 27. "Fidem in J. C. tuetur, quamquam rationes resurrectioni nondum percepisset."

à Henry.

iMatt. xvi. 15-17.

his Lord.

Therefore Christ saith, to send them LECT. to self-examination and sobriety, "Have not I XXVIII. chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?” He puts it in the form of a question, to rouse them to some sense of the great things He had done for them already. Have not I chosen you the twelve? selected you out of the whole company of my disciples, made you a special band, to be always near me; promoted you to the most honourable places in my kingdom'? and yet for all this one of you is a devil, a deceiver, a false accuser, a traitor; one of you even who have been so honoured, and blessed with such opportunities. How does this aggravate his defection! one of you, so far from being won by all that I have done for him, so far from becoming indissolubly attached to me, is a very devil"; resembles that "father of lies" and "murderer from the beginning";" professing to be a friend, is but a deadly enemy; of his father the devil, and the lusts of his father he will do. And the Evangelist adds the dishonoured name of the man who

wrought the shameful deed. The Lord spake not of them all; but there was one who did eat bread with Him, and yet lifted up his heel against Him°. It was Judas. And our Evangelist specifies him more particularly; for the name was a common one among the Jews, being borne also by another apostle, a very different character, and by others too of the disciples. It was

κ τοὺς δώδεκα.

Est igitur aliqua electio, ex qua aliquis potest excidere." Bengel. "Non solum sibi malus, sed etiam aliis periculosus." Bengel.

nch. viii. 44.

ch. xiii. 18.

P ch. xiv. 22. Luke vi. 16.

LECT. not the brother of James, but the son of one
XXVIII. Simon, called Iscariot from the place of his birth,

being a native of Kerioth, a town of Judah,
Judas of Kerioth. He it was who was about
to' betray his Master into the hands of wicked
men, and of whom the Lord spake beforehand :
ravening wolf in sheep's clothing; whited
sepulchre; fitter to be reckoned among those
covetous and hypocrites to whom he sold his
Master than with the "twelve." How much is
implied in that short sentence, "being one of
the twelve!" It is a very solemn irony. One
of those who witnessed His miracles, heard His
discourses, companied with Him, walked with
Him, sat with Him in the fishing boat on that
Galilæan sea, sat at His frequent board.
a fall was here! From that height of favour to
this depth of degradation! For he was numbered
with the twelve, and had obtained part of this
ministry the ministry and apostleship from which
Judas by transgression fell, that he might go
to his own place". "From all blindness and hard-
ness of heart, good Lord deliver us."

9 Josh. xv. 21. 25.

· οὗτος γὰρ ἤμελλεν αὐτὸν παραδιδόναι. ν. 71.

What

Acts i. 17. 21.

LECTURE XXIX.

DIVERS OPINIONS CONCERNING JESUS.

JOHN vii. 1-13.

THE preceding chapter, containing the account LECT. of the miracle of the loaves and the remarkable XXIX. discourse which followed, must be regarded as an episode in the main story: for the opening words of the present chapter are connected not with the last, but with the one before".

After the events therein narrated, the healing of the impotent man beside the pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath day, and the circumstances connected with that miracle, our Lord left Judæa because the Jews were seeking an opportunity to slay Him, and sojourned awhile in Galilee ; where, amongst other events, those recorded in the last chapter took place. He now avoids exposing Himself to the hostility of the Jews, because His hour was not yet come. And though He might otherwise, by supernatural means, have

a "But it will not follow from this that ch. vi. is not in its right place: it contains an independent memoir of a miracle and discourse of our Lord in Galilee which actually happened in the interval, and only serves to shew us the character of this Gospel as made up of such memoirs, more or less connected with one another, and selected by the Evangelist for their higher spiritual import, and the discourses arising from them. I would understand this verse as merely carrying on the time from ch. v. and ch. vi. and its contents as introductory to the account of Jesus not going up at first to the feast." Alford.

b vv. 19-25. ch. v. 16-18.