The Triumphant Entry.
“And when they draw nigh unto Jerusalem, unto Bethphage and
Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, He sendeth two of His disciples,
and saith unto them, Go your way into the village that is over
against you: and straightway as ye enter into it, ye shall find a
colt tied, whereon no man ever yet sat; loose him, and bring him.
And if any one say unto you, Why do ye this? say ye, The Lord hath
need of him; and straightway He will send him back hither. And
they went away, and found a colt tied at the door without in the
open street; and they loose him. And certain of them that stood
there said unto them, What do ye, loosing the colt? And they said
unto them even as Jesus had said: and they let them go. And they
bring the colt unto Jesus, and cast on him their garments; and He
sat upon him. And many spread their garments upon the way; and
others branches, which they had cut from the fields. And they that
went before, and they that followed, cried, Hosanna: Blessed _is_
He that cometh in the name of the Lord: Blessed is the kingdom
that cometh, _the kingdom_ of our father David: Hosanna in the
highest. And He entered into Jerusalem, into the temple; and when
He had looked round about upon all things, it being now eventide,
He went out unto Bethany with the twelve.”—MARK xi. 1-11 (R.V.).
Jesus had now come near to Jerusalem, into what was possibly the sacred
district of Bethphage, of which, in that case, Bethany was the border
village. Not without pausing here (as we learn from the fourth Gospel),
yet as the next step forward, He sent two of His disciples to untie and
bring back an ass, which was fastened with her colt at a spot which He
minutely described. Unless they were challenged they should simply bring
the animals away; but if any one remonstrated, they should answer, “The
Lord hath need of them,” and thereupon the owner would not only acquiesce,
but send them. In fact they are to make a requisition, such as the State
often institutes for horses and cattle during a campaign, when private
rights must give way to a national exigency. And this masterful demand,
this abrupt and decisive rejoinder to a natural objection, not arguing nor
requesting, but demanding, this title which they are bidden to give to
Jesus, by which, standing thus alone, He is rarely described in Scripture
(chiefly in the later Epistles, when the remembrance of His earthly style
gave place to the influence of habitual adoration), all this preliminary
arrangement makes us conscious of a change of tone, of royalty issuing its
mandates, and claiming its rights. But what a claim, what a requisition,
when He takes the title of Jehovah, and yet announces His need of the colt
of an ass. It is indeed the lowliest of all memorable processions which He
plans, and yet, in its very humility, it appeals to ancient prophecy, and
says unto Zion that her King cometh unto her. The monarchs of the East and
the captains of the West might ride upon horses as for war, but the King
of Sion should come unto her meek, and sitting upon an ass, upon a colt,
the foal of an ass. Yet there is fitness and dignity in the use of “a colt
whereon never man sat,” and it reminds us of other facts, such as that He
was the firstborn of a virgin mother, and rested in a tomb which
corruption had never soiled.
Thus He comes forth, the gentlest of the mighty, with no swords gleaming
around to guard Him, or to smite the foreigner who tramples Israel, or the
worse foes of her own household. Men who will follow such a King must lay
aside their vain and earthly ambitions, and awake to the truth that
spiritual powers are grander than any which violence ever grasped. But men
who will not follow Him shall some day learn the same lesson, perhaps in
the crash of their reeling commonwealth, perhaps not until the armies of
heaven follow Him, as He goes forth, riding now upon a white horse,
crowned with many diadems, smiting the nations with a sharp sword, and
ruling them with an iron rod.
Lowly though His procession was, yet it was palpably a royal one. When
Jehu was proclaimed king at Ramoth-Gilead, the captains hastened to make
him sit upon the garments of every one of them, expressing by this
national symbol their subjection. Somewhat the same feeling is in the
famous anecdote of Sir Walter Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth. And thus the
disciples who brought the ass cast on him their garments, and Jesus sat
thereon, and many spread their garments in the way. Others strewed the
road with branches; and as they went they cried aloud certain verses of
that great song of triumph, which told how the nations, swarming like
bees, were quenched like the light fire of thorns, how the right hand of
the Lord did valiantly, how the gates of righteousness should be thrown
open for the righteous, and, more significant still, how the stone which
the builders rejected should become the headstone of the corner. Often had
Jesus quoted this saying when reproached by the unbelief of the rulers,
and now the people rejoiced and were glad in it, as they sang of His
salvation, saying, “Hosanna, blessed is He that cometh in the name of the
Lord, Blessed is the kingdom that cometh, the Kingdom of our father David,
Hosanna in the highest.”
Such is the narrative as it impressed St. Mark. For his purpose it
mattered nothing that Jerusalem took no part in the rejoicings, but was
perplexed, and said, Who is this? or that, when confronted by this
somewhat scornful and affected ignorance of the capital, the voice of
Galilee grew weak, and proclaimed no longer the advent of the kingdom of
David, but only Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth; or that the Pharisees in
the temple avowed their disapproval, while contemptuously ignoring the
Galilean multitude, by inviting Him to reprove some children. What
concerned St. Mark was that now, at last, Jesus openly and practically
assumed rank as a monarch, allowed men to proclaim the advent of His
kingdom, and proceeded to exercise its rights by calling for the surrender
of property, and by cleansing the temple with a scourge. The same avowal
of kingship is almost all that he has cared to record of the remarkable
scene before His Roman judge.
After this heroic fashion did Jesus present Himself to die. Without a
misleading hope, conscious of the hollowness of His seeming popularity,
weeping for the impending ruin of the glorious city whose walls were
ringing with His praise, and predicting the murderous triumph of the
crafty faction which appears so helpless, He not only refuses to recede or
compromise, but does not hesitate to advance His claims in a manner
entirely new, and to defy the utmost animosity of those who still rejected
Him.
After such a scene there could be no middle course between crushing Him,
and bowing to Him. He was no longer a Teacher of doctrines, however
revolutionary, but an Aspirant to practical authority, Who must be dealt
with practically.
There was evidence also of His intention to proceed upon this new line,
when He entered into the temple, investigated its glaring abuses, and only
left it for the moment because it was now eventide. To-morrow would show
more of His designs.
Jesus is still, and in this world, King. And it will hereafter avail us
nothing to have received His doctrine, unless we have taken His yoke.
The Barren Fig-Tree.
“And on the morrow, when they were come out from Bethany, He
hungered. And seeing a fig-tree afar off having leaves, He came,
if haply He might find anything thereon: and when He came to it,
He found nothing but leaves; for it was not the season of figs.
And He answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit from thee
henceforward for ever. And His disciples heard it.”
“And as they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig-tree
withered away from the roots. And Peter calling to remembrance
saith unto Him, Rabbi, behold, the fig-tree which Thou cursedst is
withered away. And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in
God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall say unto this
mountain, Be thou taken up and cast into the sea; and shall not
doubt in his heart, but shall believe that what he saith cometh to
pass; he shall have it. Therefore I say unto you, All things
whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye have received
them, and ye shall have them. And whensoever ye stand praying,
forgive, if ye have aught against any one; that your Father also
which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”—MARK xi.
12-14, 20-25 (R.V.).
No sooner has Jesus claimed His kingdom, than He performs His first and
only miracle of judgment. And it is certain that no mortal, informed that
such a miracle was impending, could have guessed where the blow would
fall. In this miracle an element is predominant which exists in all, since
it is wrought as an acted dramatized parable, not for any physical
advantage, but wholly for the instruction which it conveys. Jesus hungered
at the very outset of a day of toil, as He came out from Bethany. And this
was not due to poverty, since the disciples there had recently made Him a
great feast, but to His own absorbing ardour. The zeal of God’s house,
which He had seen polluted and was about to cleanse, had either left Him
indifferent to food until the keen air of morning aroused the sense of
need, or else it had detained Him, all night long, in prayer and
meditation out of doors. As He walks, He sees afar off a lonely fig-tree
covered with leaves, and comes if haply He might find anything thereon. It
is true that figs would not be in season for two months, but yet they
ought to present themselves before the leaves did; and since the tree was
precocious in the show and profusion of luxuriance, it ought to bear early
figs. If it failed, it would at least point a powerful moral; and,
therefore, when only leaves appeared upon it, Jesus cursed it with
perpetual barrenness, and passed on. Not in the dusk of that evening as
they returned, but when they passed by again in the morning the blight was
manifest, the tree was withered from its very roots.
It is complained that by this act Jesus deprived some one of his property.
But the same retributive justice of which this was an expression was
preparing to blight, presently, all the possessions of all the nation. Was
this unjust? And of the numberless trees that are blasted year by year,
why should the loss of this one only be resented? Every physical injury
must be intended to further some spiritual end; but it is not often that
the purpose is so clear, and the lesson so distinctly learned.
Others blame our Lord’s word of sentence, because a tree, not being a
moral agent, ought not to be punished. It is an obvious rejoinder that
neither could it suffer pain; that the whole action is symbolic; and that
we ourselves justify the Saviour’s method of expression as often as we
call one tree “good” and another “bad,” and say that a third “ought” to
bear fruit, while not much could be “expected of” a fourth. It should
rather be observed that in this word of sentence Jesus revealed His
tenderness. It would have been a false and cruel kindness never to work
any miracle except of compassion, and thus to suggest the inference that
He could never strike, whereas indeed, before that generation passed away,
He would break His enemies in pieces like a potter’s vessel.
Yet He came not to destroy men’s lives but to save them. And, therefore,
while showing Himself neither indifferent nor powerless against barren and
false pretensions, He did this only once, and then only by a sign wrought
upon an unsentient tree.
Retribution fell upon it not for its lack of fruit, since at that season
it shared this with all its tribe, but for ostentatious, much-professing
fruitlessness. And thus it pointed with dread significance to the
condition of God’s own people, differing from Greece and Rome and Syria,
not in the want of fruit, but in the show of luxuriant frondage, in the
expectation it excited and mocked. When the season of the world’s
fruitfulness was yet remote, only Israel put forth leaves, and made
professions which were not fulfilled. And the permanent warning of the
miracle is not for heathen men and races, but for Christians who have a
name to live, and who are called to bear fruit unto God.
While the disciples marvelled at the sudden fulfilment of its sentence,
they could not have forgotten the parable of a fig-tree in the vineyard,
on which care and labour were lavished, but which must be destroyed after
one year of respite if it continued to be a cumberer of the ground.
And Jesus drove the lesson home. He pointed to “this mountain” full in
front, with the gold and marble of the temple sparkling like a diadem upon
its brow, and declared that faith is not only able to smite barrenness
with death, but to remove into the midst of the sea, to plant among the
wild and stormswept races of the immeasurable pagan world, the glory and
privilege of the realized presence of the Lord. To do this was the purpose
of God, hinted by many a prophet, and clearly announced by Christ Himself.
But its accomplishment was left to His followers, who should succeed in
exact proportion to the union of their will and that of God, so that the
condition of that moral miracle, transcending all others in marvel and in
efficacy, was simple faith.
And the same rule covers all the exigencies of life. One who truly relies
on God, whose mind and will are attuned to those of the Eternal, cannot be
selfish, or vindictive, or presumptuous. As far as we rise to the grandeur
of this condition we enter into the Omnipotence of God, and no limit need
be imposed upon the prevalence of really and utterly believing prayer. The
wishes that ought to be refused will vanish as we attain that eminence,
like the hoar frost of morning as the sun grows strong.
To this promise Jesus added a precept, the admirable suitability of which
is not at first apparent. Most sins are made evident to the conscience in
the act of prayer. Drawing nigh to God, we feel our unfitness to be there,
we are made conscious of what He frowns upon, and if we have such faith as
Jesus spoke of, we at once resign what would grieve the Spirit of
adoption. No saint is ignorant of the convicting power of prayer. But it
is not of necessity so with resentment for real grievances. We may think
we do well to be angry. We may confound our selfish fire with the pure
flame of holy zeal, and begin, with confidence enough, yet not with the
mind of Christ, to remove mountains, not because they impede a holy cause,
but because they throw a shadow upon our own field. And, therefore, Jesus
reminds us that not only wonder-working faith, but even the forgiveness of
our sins requires from us the forgiveness of our brother. This saying is
the clearest proof of how much is implied in a truly undoubting heart. And
this promise is the sternest rebuke of the Church, endorsed with such
ample powers, and yet after nineteen centuries confronted by an
unconverted world.
The Second Cleansing Of The Temple.
“And they come to Jerusalem: and He entered into the temple, and
began to cast out them that sold and them that bought in the
temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the
seats of them that sold the doves; and He would not suffer that
any man should carry a vessel through the temple. And He taught,
and said unto them, Is it not written, My house shall be called a
house of prayer for all the nations? but ye have made it a den of
robbers. And the chief priests and the scribes heard it, and
sought how they might destroy Him: for they feared Him, for all
the multitude was astonished at His teaching. And every evening He
went forth out of the city.”—MARK xi. 15-19. (R.V.).
With the authority of yesterday’s triumph still about Him, Jesus returned
to the temple, which He had then inspected. There at least the priesthood
were not thwarted by popular indifference or ignorance: they had power to
carry out fully their own views; they were solely responsible for whatever
abuses could be discovered. In fact, the iniquities which moved the
indignation of Jesus were of their own contrivance, and they enriched
themselves by a vile trade which robbed the worshippers and profaned the
holy house.
Pilgrims from a distance needed the sacred money, the half-shekel of the
sanctuary, still coined for this one purpose, to offer for a ransom of
their souls (Exod. xxx. 13). And the priests had sanctioned a trade in the
exchange of money under the temple roof, so fraudulent that the dealers’
evidence was refused in the courts of justice.
Doves were necessary for the purification of the poor, who could not
afford more costly sacrifices, and sheep and oxen were also in great
demand. And since the unblemished quality of the sacrifices should be
attested by the priests, they had been able to put a fictitious value upon
these animals, by which the family of Annas in particular had accumulated
enormous wealth.
To facilitate this trade, they had dared to bring the defilement of the
cattle market within the precincts of the House of God. Not indeed into
the place where the Pharisee stood in his pride and “prayed with himself,”
for that was holy; but the court of the Gentiles was profane; the din
which distracted and the foulness which revolted Gentile worship was of no
account to the average Jew. But Jesus regarded the scene with different
eyes. How could the sanctity of that holy place not extend to the court of
the stranger and the proselyte, when it was written, Thy house shall be
called a house of prayer for all the nations? Therefore Jesus had already,
at the outset of His ministry, cleansed His Father’s house. Now, in the
fulness of His newly asserted royalty, He calls it My House: He denounces
the iniquity of their traffic by branding it as a den of robbers; He casts
out the traders themselves, as well as the implements of their traffic;
and in so doing He fanned to a mortal heat the hatred of the chief priests
and the scribes, who saw at once their revenues threatened and their
reputation tarnished, and yet dared not strike, because all the multitude
was astonished at His teaching.
But the wisdom of Jesus did not leave Him within their reach at night;
every evening He went forth out of the city.
From this narrative we learn the blinding force of self-interest, for
doubtless they were no more sensible of their iniquity than many a modern
slavedealer. And we must never rest content because our own conscience
acquits us, unless we have by thought and prayer supplied it with light
and guiding.
We learn reverence for sacred places, since the one exercise of His royal
authority which Jesus publicly displayed was to cleanse the temple, even
though upon the morrow He would relinquish it for ever, to be “your
house”—and desolate.
We learn also how much apparent sanctity, what dignity of worship,
splendour of offerings, and pomp of architecture may go along with
corruption and unreality.
And yet again, by their overawed and abject helplessness we learn the
might of holy indignation, and the awakening power of a bold appeal to
conscience. “The people hung upon Him, listening,” and if all seemed vain
and wasted effort on the following Friday, what fruit of the teaching of
Jesus did not His followers gather in, as soon as He poured down on them
the gifts of Pentecost.
Did they now recall their own reflections after the earlier cleansing of
the temple? and their Master’s ominous words? They had then remembered how
it was written, The zeal of thine house shall eat Me up. And He had said,
Destroy this temple, and in three days I shall raise it up, speaking of
the temple of His Body, which was now about to be thrown down.
The Baptism Of John, Whence Was It?
“And they come again to Jerusalem: and as He was walking in the
temple, there come to Him the chief priests, and the scribes, and
the elders; and they said unto Him, By what authority doest Thou
these things? or who gave Thee this authority to do these things?
And Jesus said unto them, I will ask of you one question, and
answer Me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these
things. The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or from men?
answer Me. And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If we shall
say, From heaven: He will say, Why then did ye not believe him?
But should we say, From men—they feared the people: for all verily
held John to be a prophet. And they answered Jesus and say, We
know not. And Jesus saith unto them, Neither tell I you by what
authority I do these things.”—MARK xi. 27-33 (R.V.).
The question put to Jesus by the hierarchy of Jerusalem is recorded in all
the synoptic Gospels. But in some respects the story is most pointed in
the narrative of St. Mark. And it is natural that he, the historian
especially of the energies of Christ, should lay stress upon a challenge
addressed to Him, by reason of His masterful words and deeds. At the
outset, he had recorded the astonishment of the people because Jesus
taught with authority, because “Verily I say” replaced the childish and
servile methods by which the scribe and the Pharisee sustained their most
wilful innovations.
When first he relates a miracle, he tells how their wonder increased,
because with authority Jesus commanded the unclean spirits and they
obeyed, respecting His self-reliant word “I command thee to come out,”
more than the most elaborate incantations and exorcisms. St. Mark’s first
record of collision with the priests was when Jesus carried His claim
still farther, and said “The Son of man hath authority” (it is the same
word) “on earth to forgive sins.” Thus we find the Gospel quite conscious
of what so forcibly strikes a careful modern reader, the assured and
independent tone of Jesus; His bearing, so unlike that of a disciple or a
commentator; His consciousness that the Scriptures themselves are they
which testify of Him, and that only He can give the life which men think
they possess in these. In the very teaching of lowliness Jesus exempts
Himself, and forbids others to be Master and Lord, because these titles
belong to Him.
Impressive as such claims appear when we awake to them, it is even more
suggestive to reflect that we can easily read the Gospels and not be
struck by them. We do not start when He bids all the weary to come to Him,
and offers them rest, and yet declares Himself to be meek and lowly. He is
meek and lowly while He makes such claims. His bearing is that of the
highest rank, joined with the most perfect graciousness; His great claims
never irritate us, because they are palpably His due, and we readily
concede the astonishing elevation whence He so graciously bends down so
low. And this is one evidence of the truth and power of the character
which the Apostles drew.
How natural is this also, that immediately after Palm Sunday, when the
people have hailed their Messiah, royal and a Saviour, and when He has
accepted their homage, we find new indications of authority in His bearing
and His actions. He promptly took them at their word. It was now that He
wrought His only miracle of judgment, and although it was but the
withering of a tree (since He came not to destroy men’s lives but to save
them), yet was there a dread symbolical sentence involved upon all barren
and unfruitful men and Churches. In the very act of triumphal entry, He
solemnly pronounced judgment upon the guilty city which would not accept
her King.
Arrived at the temple, He surveyed its abuses and defilements, and
returned on the morrow (and so not spurred by sudden impulse, but of
deliberate purpose), to drive out them that sold and bought. Two years ago
He had needed to scourge the intruders forth, but now they are overawed by
His majesty, and obey His word. Then, too, they were rebuked for making
His Father’s house a house of merchandise, but now it is His own—“My
House,” but degraded yet farther into a den of thieves.
But while traffic and pollution shrank away, misery and privation were
attracted to Him; the blind and the lame came and were healed in the very
temple; and the centre and rallying-place of the priests and scribes
beheld His power to save. This drove them to extremities. He was carrying
the war into the heart of their territories, establishing Himself in their
stronghold, and making it very plain that since the people had hailed Him
King, and He had responded to their acclaims, He would not shrink from
whatever His view of that great office might involve.
While they watched, full of bitterness and envy, they were again
impressed, as at the beginning, by the strange, autocratic, spontaneous
manner in which He worked, making Himself the source of His blessings, as
no prophet had ever done since Moses expiated so dearly the offence of
saying, Must we fetch you water out of the rock? Jesus acted after the
fashion of Him Who openeth His hands and satisfieth the desire of every
living thing. Why did He not give the glory to One above? Why did He not
supplicate, nor invoke, but simply bestow? Where were the accustomed words
of supplication, “Hear me, O Lord God, hear me,” or, “Where is the Lord
God of Israel?”
Here they discerned a flaw, a heresy; and they would force Him either to
make a fatal claim, or else to moderate His pretensions at their bidding,
which would promptly restore their lost influence and leadership.
Nor need we shrink from confessing that our Lord was justly open to such
reproach, unless He was indeed Divine, unless He was deliberately
preparing His followers for that astonishing revelation, soon to come,
which threw the Church upon her knees in adoration of her God manifest in
flesh. It is hard to understand how the Socinian can defend his Master
against the charge of encroaching on the rights and honours of Deity, and
(to borrow a phrase from a different connection) sitting down at the right
hand of the Majesty of God, whereas every priest standeth ministering. If
He were a creature, He culpably failed to tell us the conditions upon
which He received a delegated authority, and the omission has made His
Church ever since idolatrous. It is one great and remarkable lesson
suggested by this verse: if Jesus were not Divine, what was He?
Thus it came to pass, in direct consequence upon the events which opened
the great week of the triumph and the cross of Jesus, that the whole rank
and authority of the temple system confronted Him with a stern question.
They sat in Moses’ seat. They were entitled to examine the pretensions of
a new and aspiring teacher. They had a perfect right to demand “Tell us by
what authority thou doest these things.” The works are not denied, but the
source whence they flow is questioned.
After so many centuries, the question is fresh to-day. For still the
spirit of Christ is working in His world, openly, palpably, spreading
blessings far and wide. It is exalting multitudes of ignoble lives by
hopes that are profound, far-reaching, and sublime. When savage realms are
explored, it is Christ Who hastens thither with His gospel, before the
trader in rum and gunpowder can exhibit the charms of a civilization
without a creed. In the gloomiest haunts of disease and misery, madness,
idiotcy, orphanage, and vice, there is Christ at work, the good Samaritan,
pouring oil and wine into the gaping wounds of human nature, acting quite
upon His own authority, careless who looks askance, not asking political
economy whether genuine charity is pauperisation, nor questioning the
doctrine of development, whether the progress of the race demands the
pitiless rejection of the unfit, and selection only of the strongest
specimens for survival. That iron creed may be natural; but if so, ours is
supernatural, it is a law of spirit and life, setting us free from that
base and selfish law of sin and death. The existence and energy of
Christian forces in our modern world is indisputable: never was Jesus a
more popular and formidable claimant of its crown; never did more Hosannas
follow Him into the temple. But now as formerly His credentials are
demanded: what is His authority and how has He come by it?
Now we say of modern as of ancient inquiries, that they are right;
investigation is inevitable and a duty.
But see how Jesus dealt with those men of old.
Let us not misunderstand Him. He did not merely set one difficulty against
another, as if we should start some scientific problem, and absolve
ourselves from the duty of answering any inquiry until science had
disposed of this. Doubtless it is logical enough to point out that all
creeds, scientific and religious alike, have their unsolved problems. But
the reply of Jesus was not a dexterous evasion, it went to the root of
things, and, therefore, it stands good for time and for eternity. He
refused to surrender the advantage of a witness to whom He was entitled:
He demanded that all the facts and not some alone should be investigated.
In truth their position bound His interrogators to examine His
credentials; to do so was not only their privilege but their duty. But
then they must begin at the beginning. Had they performed this duty for
the Baptist? Who or what was that mysterious, lonely, stern preacher of
righteousness who had stirred the national heart so profoundly, and whom
all men still revered? They themselves had sent to question him, and his
answer was notorious: he had said that he was sent before the Christ; he
was only a voice, but a voice which demanded the preparation of a way
before the Lord Himself, Who was approaching, and a highway for our God.
What was the verdict of these investigators upon that great movement? What
would they make of the decisive testimony of the Baptist?
As the perilous significance of this consummate rejoinder bursts on their
crafty intelligence, as they recoil confounded from the exposure they have
brought upon themselves, St. Mark tells how the question was pressed home,
“Answer Me!” But they dared not call John an impostor, and yet to confess
him was to authenticate the seal upon our Lord’s credentials. And Jesus is
palpably within His rights in refusing to be questioned of such
authorities as these. Yet immediately afterwards, with equal skill and
boldness, He declared Himself, and yet defied their malice, in the story
of the lord of a vineyard, who had vainly sent many servants to claim its
fruit, and at the last sent his beloved son.
Now apply the same process to the modern opponents of the faith, and it
will be found that multitudes of their assaults on Christianity imply the
negation of what they will not and dare not deny. Some will not believe in
miracles because the laws of nature work uniformly. But their uniformity
is undisturbed by human operations; the will of man wields, without
cancelling, these mighty forces which surround us. And why may not the
will of God do the same, if there be a God? Ask them whether they deny His
existence, and they will probably declare themselves Agnostics, which is
exactly the ancient answer, “We cannot tell.” Now as long as men avow
their ignorance of the existence or non-existence of a Deity, they cannot
assert the impossibility of miracles, for miracles are simply actions
which reveal God, as men’s actions reveal their presence.
Again, a demand is made for such evidence, to establish the faith, as
cannot be had for any fact beyond the range of the exact sciences. We are
asked, Why should we stake eternity upon anything short of demonstration?
Yet it will be found that the objector is absolutely persuaded, and acts
on his persuasion of many “truths which never can be proved”—of the
fidelity of his wife and children, and above all, of the difference
between right and wrong. That is a fundamental principle: deny it, and
society becomes impossible. And yet sceptical theories are widely diffused
which really, though unconsciously, sap the very foundations of morality,
or assert that it is not from heaven but of men, a mere expediency, a
prudential arrangement of society.
Such arguments may well “fear the people,” for the instincts of mankind
know well that all such explanations of conscience do really explain it
away.
And it is quite necessary in our days, when religion is impugned, to see
whether the assumptions of its assailants would not compromise time as
well as eternity, and to ask, What think ye of all those fundamental
principles which sustain the family, society, and the state, while they
bear testimony to the Church of Christ.