regret; some fault of temper, some inconsiderateness of expression, some inconsistency of conduct. But in our divine master all is estimable, uniform and consistent. He presents one and the same character in solitude and in society, in the synagogue and in domestic retirement at a marriage feast and before the tribunal; displaying a native dignity undebased by an infusion of insolence, condescension pure from servility, fortitude without ferociousness, sensibility without affectation, the sublimity of devotion with the perfect ease of friendship.

In the last lecture we attended this friend of mankind to the celebration of a marriage solemnity, and beheld him partaking of the pure delights of friendly and domestic intercourse, mingling with his kindred and with the disciples whom he had chosen; and while he miraculously ministered to their wants, as the great ruler and Lord of nature, we observe him, as bone of their bone, and flesh of their flesh, sympathizing in their joys, adopting their solicitudes, their wants and expectations, and joining in their conversation. Thus. he tacitly and obliquely reproves that haughty reserve, that unbending stateliness, that ungracious distance from men which frequently attempts to pass for superior wisdom, sanctity and importance. We pretend not to arrange the several events of our Lord's history in the exact order of time. The evangelists display them in an energetic simplicity far beyond the reach of art. There is in the word of God, if it be lawful to say so, a majestic irregularity that transcends the control of rule; just as the surface of our globe, with its mountains and valleys, its precipices and plains, its rivers and oceans, defies the application of the straight line and of the compasses; and as the face of the starry heavens presents to the eye a magnificent assemblage of worlds scattered about by a hand that rejects all measurement by any standard but his own. Science indeed has contrived artificial combinations and ar

rangements both of the heavenly bodies, and of Scripture truths, but their native glory and magnitude are not reducible to systems of human invention. It may be pleasant, and far from unprofitable, to ascertain dates, to unravel the chain; but it is surely of secondary moment. The actions and events themselves, and the evidence that they existed, are the great concern of the christian world; but above all, the practical influence of those great truths on the hearts, the consciences, and the lives of men.

Precluded from opportunities of being eminently useful at Nazareth, through the envy and unbelief of his townsmen, Jesus withdraws from that city, not in anger but in sorrow, though a most cruel, ungrateful and atrocious attempt upon his life had been made by its unworthy inhabitants; and he proceeds to prosecute his labours of love at Capernaum, a city situated on the sea of Galilee. From this place, it would appear, he was called to the adjacent town of Cana, to the celebration of the marriage; and that solemnity being ended, he returns to Capernaum accompanied by the disciples whom he had already chosen. Here we find this Teacher sent from God still indefatigably pursuing the great object of his mission, and still putting respect on the word and ordinances of God. Behold him devoting the day of sacred rest to useful purposes; employing the leisure and retirement from temporal concerns which it afforded, in executing the benevolent office of instructing the ignorant and guilty, in a way of life and salvation. "We know, from the general strain of his public ministrations, and particularly from the portion of Scripture, which he rehearsed and applied in the synagogue at Nazareth, that the things written concerning himself constituted the great burden of his preaching Scripture the source, Christ Jesus the subject, the sabbath the season, the synagogue the scene. "Never man spake like this man,"

But the services of an earthly sanctuary must close. There is a season of retirement and repose as there is of labour and exertion. The duties of private friendship, of domestie devotion, the rights of hospitality, the care of the body, put in their several claims, which must be answered. Christ accordingly " arose out of the synagogue, and entered into Simon's house." The accommodation of a poor fisherman's hovel, on the shore of the lake of Gennessaret, could not be very elegant. The fare provided by a hard-working plebian, doomed frequently to toil all night long without taking any thing, could not be very luxurious or delicate. But when a man gives you the shelter of his roof, however mean, and a place at his board, however homely, he does all that a prince can do; and the difference is a paltry circumstance or two, beneath the consideration of a rational being.

But the house of Peter was, at this time, not only the abode of penury, but likewise the house of mourning, for "Simon's wife's mother was taken with a great fever." The sabbath had not been to her a day of rest, but of agitation and pain; and the distress of a sick bed might probably be aggravated by reflecting on absence from the house of prayer, and from the comforts of the public worship of God. The value

and importance of objects vary strangely, in our estimation, as they are viewed through the medium of health or sickness, of pain or ease. The illusion of the world disappears, when the fever in the blood forms in the distempered imagination, whirling orbs of perturbation, and perplexity, and despair; or when, in cold blood, conscience darts an anxious look into the world of spirits. Very different is the aspect of the sabbath in the eye, and the hour, of thoughtless dissipation, and when the son of dissipation is stretched on a bed of languishing. Then he "snuffed at it, and said, Behold, what a weariness is it? When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn, and the

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sabbath, that we may set forth wheat?" But how very different are the reflections of "the days of darkness," of the "months of vanity," of the "wearisome nights," appointed, when the sleepless patient is constrained to cry out, "When shall I arise and the night be gone." "What fruit had I then in those things, whereof I am now ashamed? for the end of those things is death."

The visit of Jesus to Peter's family had more than one object in view. The friend of man retired to converse with men, the master to instruct his disciples, the poor to feed with the poor, the weary to repose with the weary. The Son of God entered into the house to manifest his glory, to display his power, to exercise his benevolence in the miraculous relief of distress. Thus amply does he repay every token of affection bestowed on himself, or on one of the least of his brethren. Distress awakens sympathy. The children of the family cannot think of sitting down to eat bread, while the mother of it lay in extremity. Filial tenderness had undoubtedly exerted itself to the uttermost. The poor scrip of the Galilean had, perhaps, been drained in purchasing medicine and cordial for his afflicted mother-in-law: though this be none of the least of the evils which attend poverty, to behold the person whom we love perish for want of advice and medicine, for want of a cordial beyond the reach of our means. As a last resource they lay her case before Jesus: " and they besought him for her." Did he need to be importuned? Was he difficult of access? Did his goodness flow reluctantly? No, but the intercourse between heaven and earth, between the Creator and the creature is the confidence, the prayer of distress meeting the benignity, the unremitting attention of the Father of mercies, who will be sought unto, that he may shew himself gracious.

"And he stood over her, and rebuked the fever, and it left her." The miracle of turning water into

wine was effected by a simple act of the will, without either gesture or speech, and the evidence of it rested, in part, on the testimony of the servants who had filled the pots with water. Here we have both gesture and speech, and the immediate and personal conviction of all who were in the house. In nothing is the sovereignty of Deity more conspicuously displayed than in the manner of his acting. It is so unlike human conjecture, that the pride of man is apt to be offended that Providence did not observe the mode which his sagacity had prescribed. Naaman the Syrian had settled, in his own mind, the whole process of the cure of his own leprosy. "Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord, his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper." Not one iota of his conjecture was realized. The prophet did not come out, nor assume the supposed attitude, nor pronounce the supposed invocation, but " sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times :" and pride is hurrying him away in a rage, to think that the rivers of Damascus should be preferred to the waters of Israel. Thus while prophecy has been successively fulfilling, the event so ill accorded with prevailing opinion and expectation, that while the prediction was admitted, the accomplishment, however coincident and exact, has been rejected.

This divine sovereignty our blessed Lord exercises in performing all his mighty works. He wills water into wine. Now he rebukes the disease, and now speaks to the patient. He heals the feverous son of the nobleman, at the distance of Cana from Capernaum, and the feverous mother of Simon's wife standing by her bed side. He anoints the blind man's eyes with clay, and sends him to wash in the pool of Siloam; he cries with a loud voice over the grave of his departed friend, "Lazarus, come forth." demonstrates the underived and independent, as well

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