the theocracy the administration of temporal CHAP. rewards and punishments in proportion to obedience or rebellion - a notion which, though, as we have said, by no means justified by common experience, and weakened by the growing belief in another life, nevertheless still held its ground in the general opinion. Sorrow, as in one sense the distinguishing mark and portion of the new religion, became sacred; and the curse of God was, as it were, removed from the afflictions of mankind. His own disciples, he himself, were to undergo a fearful probation of suffering, which could only be secure of its reward in another life. The language of Jesus confirmed the truth of the antisadducaic belief of the greater part of the nation, and assumed the certainty of another state of existence, concerning which, as yet, it spoke the current language; but which it was hereafter to expand into a more simple and universal creed, and mingle, if it may be so said, the sense of immortality with all the feelings and opinions of mankind. IV. versality. II. Nor was it to the different classes of the Jews Its unialone, that the universal precepts of Christian morality expanded beyond the narrow and exclusive notions of the age and people. Jesus did not throw down the barrier which secluded the Jews from the rest of mankind, but he shook it to its base. Christian morality was not that of a sect, a race, or a nation, but of universal man: though necessarily delivered at times in Jewish language, couched under Jewish figures, and illustrated by local allusions, in its spirit it was diametrically opposite to Jewish. However it might make some provisions suited only СНАР. Its original to the peculiar state of the first disciples, yet in its essence, it may be said to be comprehensive as the human race, immutable as the nature of man. It had no political, no local, no temporary precepts; it was, therefore, neither liable to be abrogated by any change in the condition of man, nor to fall into disuse, as belonging to a passed and obsolete state of civilisation. It may dwell within its proper kingdom, the heart of man, in every change of political relation in the monarchy, the oligarchy, the republic. It may domesticate itself in any climate, amid the burning sands of Africa, or the frozen regions of the North; for it has no local centre, no temple, no Caaba, no essential ceremonies impracticable under any conceivable state of human existence. In fact it is, strictly speaking, no Law; it is no system of positive enactments; it is the establishment of certain principles, the enforcement of certain dispositions, the cultivation of a certain temper of mind, which the conscience is to apply to the ever-varying exigencies of time and place. This appears to me to be the distinctive peculiarity of Christian morals, a characteristic in itself most remarkable, and singularly so when we find this free and comprehensive system emanating from that of which the main-spring was its exclusiveness. III. The basis of this universality in Christian principles. morals was the broad and original principles upon which it rested. If we were to glean from the later Jewish writings, from the beautiful aphorisms of other Oriental nations, which we cannot fairly trace to Christian sources, and from the IV. Platonic and Stoic philosophy, their more strik- CHAP. ing precepts, we might find, perhaps, a counterpart to almost all the moral sayings of Jesus. But the same truth is of different importance as an unconnected aphorism, and as the groundwork of a complete system. No doubt the benevolence of the Creator had awakened grateful feelings, and kindled the most exquisite poetry of expression in the hearts and from the lips of many before the coming of Christ; no doubt general humanity had been impressed upon mankind in the most vivid and earnest language. But the Gospel first placed these two great principles as the main pillars of the new moral structure: God the universal Father, mankind one brotherhood; God made known through the mediation of his Son, the image, and humanised type and exemplar of his goodness; mankind of one kindred, and therefore of equal rank in the sight of the Creator, and to be united in one spiritual commonwealth. Such were the great principles of Christian morals, shadowed forth at first, rather than distinctly announced, in condescension to the prejudices of the Jews, who, if they had been found worthy of appreciating the essential spirit of the new religion-if they had received Jesus as the promised Saviour - might have been collectively and nationally the religious parents and teachers of mankind. Such was the singular position of Jesus with regard to his countrymen, the attempt to conciliate them to the new religion was to be fairly made; but the religion, however it might condescend to Conduct of Jesus with regard to his coun trymen. CHAP. speak their language, could not forfeit or compro IV. Healing mise, even for such an end, its primary and essential principles. Jesus therefore pursues his course, at one time paying the utmost deference, at another unavoidably offending the deep-rooted prejudices of the people. The inveterate and loathsome nature of the leprosy in Syria, the deep abhorrence with which the wretched victim of this disease was cast forth from all social fellowship, is well known to all who are even slightly acquainted with the Jewish law and usages. One of these miserable beings the leper. appealed, and not in vain, to the mercy of Jesus.* He was instantaneously cured; but Jesus, whether to authenticate the cure, and to secure the readmission of the outcast into the rights and privileges of society from which he was legally excluded †, or more probably lest he should be accused of interfering with the rights, or diminishing the dues of the priesthood, enjoined him to preserve the strictest secrecy concerning the cause of his cure; to submit to the regular examination of his case by the appointed authorities, and on no account to omit the customary offering. The second incident was remarkable for its publicity, as having taken place Second miracle. * Matt. viii. 2-4.; Mark, i. 40— 45.; Luke, v. 12—16. I have retained what may be called the moral connection of this cure with the Sermon on the Mount; if the latter is inserted, as in St. Luke, after the more solemn inauguration of the Twelve, this incident will retain, perhaps, its present place, but lose this moral connection. See Luke, v. 12— 15. + I am inclined to adopt the explanation of Grotius, that "the testimony" was to be obtained from the priest, before he knew that he had been healed by Jesus, lest, in his jealousy, he should declare the cure imperfect. IV. in a crowded house, in the midst of many of the CHAP. scribes, who were, at this period at least, not friendly to Jesus.* The door of the house being inaccessible on account of the crowd, the sick man was borne in his couch along the flat terrace roofs of the adjacent buildings (for in the East the roofs are rarely pointed or shelving) and let down through an aperture, which was easily made, and of sufficient dimensions to admit the bed, into the upper chambert, where Jesus was seated in the midst of his hearers. Jesus complied at once with their request to cure the afflicted man, but made use of a new and remarkable expression, "Thy sins are forgiven thee,” which, while it coincided with the general notion that such diseases were the penalties of sin, nevertheless as assuming an unprecedented power, that which seems to belong to the Deity alone, struck his hearers, more especially the better instructed, the scribes, with astonishment. Their wonder, however, at the instantaneous cure, for the present, overpowered their indignation, yet no doubt the whole transaction tended to increase the jealousy with which Jesus began to be beheld. cans. The third incident‡ jarred on a still more sensitive The publichord in the popular feeling. On no point were all orders among the Jews so unanimous as in their contempt and detestation of the publicans. Strictly speaking the persons named in the evangelists were not publicans. These were men of property, not * Matt. ix. 2-8. Mark, ii. 1-12. Luke, v. 18—26. Or they may merely have enlarged the door of communication with the terrace roof. VOL. I. P † Matt. ix. 9.; Mark, ii. 13, 14.; Luke, v. 27, 28. |
