pene inan by whom the Son of Man is betrayed . Then Judas which betrayed him, answered and said, Master, is it I? He said unto him, Thou hast said. So too with regard to the rich man whose foible was worldly mindedness, the trating knowledge of our Saviour enabled him to speak at once to the point, and put his character to a decisive test. It soon appeared that our Lord knew the young ruler well; talked to his thoughts, as we do to each other's words, and that he was not so zealous to do what Jesus should recommend, as he was forward to inquire like one determined to do something great and extraordinary'.' The effect of these searching addresses to the hearts and thoughts of his hearers is discernible in the discovery of character produced by the ministration of Christ. It was said of him by Simeon, This child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be spoken against, that the thoughts of many 9 John, vi. 71. Matt. xxvi. 24, 25. hearts may be revealed. The prophecy was fulfilled in the offence taken at his doctrine when 'from that time many of his disciples went back, and followed no more with him. It was fulfilled also when the unworthy motive of the people was detected who sought him, 'not because they saw the miracles, but because they did eat of the loaves, and were filled3.' Nor does it derogate from the real efficacy of Christ's preaching, that so small a part of the Jewish nation yielded to its power, and received the engrafted word with meekness. There is a mental deadness, an incapacity to receive impressions on certain subjects, which is well represented in Scripture by the image of an hard and beaten wayside path, and well exemplified in the obstinacy of Jewish unbelief. Take the Jew of the present day, and he will exhibit the same example of moral insensibility which was evinced by his forefathers under the ministry of Jesus. Place before him in all their minute and 2 John, vi. 66. D D 3 John, vi. 26. particular details, the circumstantial incidents of the birth and life and death of the child of promise and the man of sorrows, predicted in his own Scriptures. Show him the inconsistencies and contrarieties of character, apparently impossible and irreconcileable, which meet in the person of Jesus, and of him alone,-show him the historical exactness with which the events of his ministry are foretold not in vague and general terms, such as the wisdom of a lying prophet would have selected, but in language often unequivocally, sometimes exclusively referring to Christ. Show him the gradual revelations by which the nature of the Messiah was unfolded, new features being added by each successive prophet, features which could neither be borrowed nor deduced from what had previously been declared, till it was finally announced that the seed of the woman, who forty centuries before had been appointed to bruise the serpent's head, should spring from the line of David in the village of Bethlehem. Take 4 See Is. liii. Ps. ii. 12. cx. 1. Ps. ii. 7, compared with Acts, xiii. 33. xvi. 10. Acts, ii. 13. the very chapter and the line of argument, by which Philip was enabled to convert the Æthiopian eunuch, and which has been blessed to the conviction of an illustrious infidel of our own country 5,-open and allege to him, as the manner of Paul was in the synagogues, that Christ must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead,-testify to him with St. Peter, that "to him give all the prophets witness,'-or, after the sanction of still higher authority, like our Lord to the two disciples going to Emmaus, expound to him in all the scriptures the things concerning Christ, beginning at Moses and the prophets.' He will still maintain that the hope of Israel is not yet come, and amid the fulness of light, and the completion of prophecy, and the concurrence of evidence which has proved satisfactory to the most wise and inquiring among men, he will hold fast to his judicial error, will tread under foot the good seed, will declare in his outcast condition among all the nations of the earth- we look for another.' 5 See Burnet's Life of Lord Rochester. But though in such quarters the effect of an earthly ministry, however closely pressed on the conscience, and applied to the particular case, be sometimes not apparent, the practice of our Lord determines the conduct that ought to be pursued. The very hardness of the soil implies a motive for increased exertion, and renewed culture. Why else is Paul to plant, and Apollos to water, and God to give the increase, if it were not that the use of such metaphorical language supposes the existence of latent energies and capabilities of fruitfulness, which labours earnestly directed and attended by the divine blessing, may rouse into activity. Why else have we line upon line, and precept upon precept, here a little, and there a little, except it is that the most impenetrable and unpromising state may find its proper seed time, and its proper measure of productiveness. It is, therefore, essential to the success of a Christian ministry, that public teaching be followed up, wherever it is practicable, with the private and individual inquiry — Do ye |