bidden had refused to taste". Antioch was a city of the country to which this woman belonged; and the news she would carry of her benefactor, might perhaps have been providentially designed to contribute to the subsequent success of Paul and Barnabas in that place.

Nor did Christ disdain to employ missionaries, who were sent before his face to make ready as it were for his own teaching. One whom he had dispossessed of the unclean spirits, had desired leave to accompany him, that he might continue to enjoy the benefit of his instructions. But Jesus had other views in the transaction, and intended to make him useful in procuring for himself and his disciples a favourable reception among those very neighbours to whom the demoniac in his former state had been a terror or a temptation. 'Jesus suffered him not; but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee.'

7 Mark, vii. 27.

Instead of sending him away with his customary injunction to tell no man,' he expressly commissions him to magnify the glory of his cure, and to tell abroad among the heathen the mercies of which he had been a partaker. We read accordingly, that when he began to publish in Decapolis what had befallen him, all men did marvel", More than a year seems to have elapsed before our Lord went himself into those parts; but his messenger had been so diligent in making him known, that the people were disposed to regard him with greater reverence and expectation; and no sooner had he entered their territory, than they brought unto him another object of compassion, remembering his former miracle, and in hope of witnessing a second display of his power 9.

In the same manner our Saviour reaped the fruit of John's ministry long after the personal exertions of his forerunner had been suspended by Herod's violence. When our Lord withdrew

8 Mark, v. 19, 20.

• Mark, vii. 31.

into the principal scene of John's labours to escape from the malevolence of the Jews', the in

1

habitants of the country, who remembered the Baptist's testimony, and observed, that 'all things that he spake of this man were true, improved the season of his stay among them to such good effect, that many believed on him there.' Thus did the seed, though long buried, spring up, and the faithful preacher of repentance, while dead, yet spoke for the honour of his master, and the gathering unto him of such as should be saved.

A circumstance is recorded by St. Matthew, which, at first sight, appears at variance with our Lord's usual readiness to teach, but which perhaps may be explained by considering it in connexion with the present subject.

The Evangelist says, that when Jesus saw great multitudes about him, he gave commandment to depart unto the other side of the sea of . Tiberias. On other occasions, when a more

I John, x. 40.

2 Matt. viii. 18.

than ordinary desire to hear him was evinced, he continued, without regard to his own fatigue, and preached the word without intermission. Why then did our Lord depart from his custom in this instance, when it might have been imagined he would have availed himself of the numbers who were gathered together to spread the knowledge of his kingdom? The most reasonable way of accounting for this singularity is to suppose, that however promising to human judgement, such an opening might have appeared, there were circumstances which our Lord's acquaintance with the secrets of the heart enabled him to see would render it unfavourable; he had probably taught them as much as they could then receive and digest, or they were indisposed to profit by his further instructions ; and thus the benefit they might derive from a more gradual delivery of the truth, would have been lessened or prevented altogether, had he proceeded at that time to lengthen his dis

course.

Perhaps too we might have thought it would have been his frequent practice to have joined,

when in the midst of his disciples, in one common and united prayer to his heavenly Father. Yet we find no record of any such custom-no intimation that he thought them yet ripe for bearing part with him in so solemn and intimate a communion with God as such a fellowship in religious worship would have presupposed. On the contrary, it was from the disciples themselves, that the first request to be taught how to address the throne of grace proceeded.

Lord,' said they, teach us to pray.' And although he had with him only three witnesses of his agony in the garden of Gethsemane, yet he three times left them at a little distance while he went away farther, and prayed alone, that if it were possible the cup might pass from him. At another time he constrained his disciples to put to sea without him, and went up into a mountain apart to pray; and when the evening was come, he was there alone 3.

It was not till he was on the point of leaving the world, that when he uttered his

3 Matt. xiv. 22, 28.