Chapter III: Part 3

A modern preacher would attach great weight to these considerations. As a rhetorician, he would be careful to choose the topics which are most likely to impress his immediate audience. There can be little doubt that among (what he would call) the types of the Old Testament, the scapegoat would seem to him far the most impressive. I am not drawing too much upon your reverence for the man who was 'more than a prophet,' if I ask you to believe that he may have had reasons, almost as good, for his course. Some of these we may see more clearly hereafter; one of them, I think, we may divine now. The disciples whom John was addressing had heard his call to repentance, had received his baptism of repentance. They had the sense of a sin close to themselves, _in_ themselves. To men who have this awakened consciousness, sin presents itself as a present burden; as such, the most ignorant, the most simple, feel it and speak of it. We often fancy that the conscience of poor men only responds to palpable pictures of future torments. Multitudes of religious tracts and books, Romish and Protestant, are composed upon this calculation; they are written _for_ the people. There is one English religious book written _by_ a man of the people, by one who had endured all possible anticipations of future misery himself, the habits of whose school would have led him to press them as the most powerful motives upon others. The genius of the book has been confessed of late years by scholars; its power has been felt by peasants in this land, and in all lands into the language of which it has been translated, almost since it issued from the writer's gaol. To what is the _Pilgrims Progress_ indebted for this influence? Certainly to the strength with which the feeling of evil, as an actual load too heavy to be borne, is brought home to its readers. It is the man groaning with the burden upon his back, whom rich and poor sympathise with, whom each recognises as of his own kindred, who is suffering something which is incommunicable, and yet which every other man is suffering from, or has suffered from, or should suffer from. So it is with the tinkers and ploughmen of England, when they are aroused out of their sensual sleep; so it was with the fishermen and publicans who were gathered about the Jordan. They knew they had a burden, an actual burden, upon them. John's baptism had given them a pledge and witness that it might be taken from them. Already it seemed to be lightened; sometimes they could think they were free from it. How could they be delivered from it altogether? To confess themselves to God was an infinite relief; they rose up happier men. But did the confession really ascend to God? Was it possible in deed and truth to approach Him? Was there nothing to intercept the communion? Was there any one who could interpret them to Him, and Him to them? Was there any one who knew what they were feeling? Was there any one who could bear the burden that was crushing them, not into an uninhabited land, but into the very presence of God? For was not this burden, after all, a sense of separation from a Being to whom they ought to be united, apart from whom they could not live? Had not the light which had come from Him into their hearts brought this discovery with it? The scapegoat contained, no doubt, a deep lesson to those who pondered it well; but it was not _this_ lesson--it was not one which those could take in who were feeling sin as an inward torment pressing upon their hearts. The Paschal _Lamb_ spoke of a deliverance from bondage; it spoke of a deliverance as coming from God; it spoke of an offering to God. The thoughts which the name suggested might not be distinct; they might be hard to reconcile with each other. But the cravings which it met, though importunate, were also apparently contradictory. It awakened hopes; the satisfaction of them might come hereafter.

But if John had merely spoken of an animal, let it have what associations with Jewish or with human feeling it might--let it be the aptest symbol in the world--the impression upon disciples who had been stirred in the inmost depths of their souls as his had been, would have been a very faint one. It was because he pointed to an actual Man, and said of Him, '_Behold the Lamb of God_,' that he spoke with power. Those who were suffering from a burden might desire to cast it upon God, might doubt if any one but He could sustain it. But who could understand their grief, who could feel its pressure, except a Man? All their sympathies and wishes pointed to a Man. Yet hitherto John had discoursed of a Light and of a Word. To that message their hearts had replied. It was that which had effected all the change within them. Was he now altering the tone of his preaching? Was he beginning to tell them of some one of whom they had not heard before? He removes that suspicion at once. The old sentence recurs again, but with a variation: '_This is He of whom I said, After me cometh a_ MAN _which is preferred before me; for He was before me_.' He goes on: '_And I knew Him not_.' This assurance jars with some of the thoughts which pictures that are dear to us have awakened in our minds. We can hardly separate the infant Christ from the infant Baptist. We feel as if the reverence expressed in the words, '_His shoe's latchet I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose_,' had begun in the earliest years of their sojourn upon earth, and had been maturing ever since. I rather fancy we weaken the effect which we might derive from the artist's symbols, by endeavouring to give them an historical value to which they can certainly make no pretension. It is not that these pictorial traditions are based upon passages in the other Evangelists, and that they are only at variance with St. John. St. Luke speaks of Jesus as being taken by His parents into Galilee after His circumcision. He speaks of John being in the deserts until the day of his showing to Israel. St. Matthew interposes the flight into Egypt between our Lord's nativity and His dwelling at Nazareth. Both surely favour, rather than contradict, the strictest interpretation of the saying, '_I knew Him not_.' I do not say that we are absolutely obliged to adopt that strictest interpretation. But we are, I conceive, obliged to conclude that no external acquaintance or relationship had the least effect upon John's knowledge of Jesus, in that character in which He was revealed to him at His baptism. The Apostle is evidently very anxious to impress us with _this_ conviction. Few as are the words of his old Master which he reports, these are emphatically repeated. It belongs, I think, to the very design of this Gospel, to show us that John came to testify, first, of the Light of the world, then of that Light as manifested. '_That He should be manifested to Israel_,' he says in the next verse, '_therefore am I come baptizing with water_.' That He might be revealed as what He is; that through His flesh the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father might shine forth; that the inward eye of men might be purged to behold Him in His true character and in His true relation to them,--this has been the end of my preaching, and of the outward rite that accompanied it.

'_And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon Him. And I knew Him not: but He that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, the same is He which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God._' That there should be an outward sign visible to the eye, a Dove lighting upon the head of a Man,--that there should be a Voice speaking to Him,--this is a great scandal to many readers and critics in our day. 'Are not these,' they say, 'the ordinary tokens of mythical narratives? Are they not what always awaken our suspicion in the records of the Old World or of the Middle Ages?' Yes, brethren, in the Old World and in the Middle Ages, men alike felt the need of outward signs to testify of inward realities. They felt it because they _were_ men, separated from each other by place, by customs, by language, by religion,--but alike in being men; alike in their conviction that there must be an outward world which they could see, and an inward world which they could not see. It is equally true that in the Old World and in the Middle Ages, the sensible thing was confounded with the spiritual, the sign was substituted for the thing signified; and that hence arose all kinds of superstition and idolatry. It is true, also, that in those days and in later days--in _these_ days most especially--people create for themselves a middle world, neither sensible nor spiritual, in which there are no signs, because there is nothing to be signified; in which there are only forms and abstractions of the intellect, some of which are distinguished as religious forms, some as ethical or philosophical, pleasant to the vanity of those who have need of nothing, and can keep themselves alive by talking and disputing, but vague, unreal, utterly tormenting to men who are seeking a home and a father. St. John does not dwell in this limbo of vanity. He is _like_ the writers of legends, in so far as he assumes that there are signs, and that there are realities which correspond to the signs. He tells us that when God was about to reveal the greatest of all realities to the spirits of men, He vouchsafed a sign of it which was discernible by the eye. He is _unlike_ the writers of those legends, in so far forth as they rested in signs, or forgot in the signs that which they denoted. The Dove is to him the sign of a Spirit, which would enable Him in whom it dwelt without measure, to rule his own senses and the world of sense. The Voice was a witness that a Man who had flesh and blood was really and actually the Son of God.

John the Baptist has still more to declare concerning signs, and that which they signify. He had baptized with _water_. The water had spoken in language clearer than any which can be put into letters, of cleansing, of purification. Those who had received it had come to it because they were sure that they needed the blessing of which it testified. They had come because they believed, more or less clearly, that God had ordained the rite, and that He alone could bestow the blessing. But the preaching of repentance for the remission of sins had made them aware that the evil was in a region which the water could not reach. Had it, then, been all a delusion? Was this rite, new at least for Jews, a mere phantasy, less powerful even than the rite of circumcision which had not prevented them from being treacherous to each other, and from blaspheming the name of God? Was the stern speaker of truth a mere mocker, trifling with the consciences which he had himself aroused? If his baptism was from himself, he was. If it was bearing witness of One who had come to men in past days, and given them power to become sons of God, the baptism was good because it was His sign and instrument. But the sign of what? Surely the sign of some process that was taking place in the spirits of men. And if so, would not that process be declared whensoever He was declared? Would not the baptism thenceforth be the assurance that a power adequate to the purification of that which was defiled, to the restoration of that which was decayed--adequate to the renewal of the whole man--was bestowed by Him who had in all times given those who received Him power to become sons of God? '_Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, the same is He which shall baptize with the Holy Ghost._'

'_Again, the next day after, John stood, and two of his disciples, and looking upon Jesus as He walked, he said, Behold the Lamb of God._' The words, '_which taketh away the sin of the world_,' are not repeated, at least not in the best manuscripts. They had been spoken once. Now the Lamb of God had been connected with a new and higher name. John had borne record that this was the _Son_ of God. All the dignity and wonder of the former title were attached to Him still. There was an awe about _this_ which must have made the disciples wonder, but yet which attracted them. '_They heard him speak, and they followed Jesus._' The story of their intercourse is most simple. There is no mysterious concealment; there are no surprising incidents. '_Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye? They said unto Him, Rabbi, (which is, being interpreted, Master,) where dwellest Thou? He saith unto them, Come and see. They came and saw where He dwelt, and abode with Him that day; for it was about the tenth hour._' What is there in such a record to detain us for an instant? Only _this_, brethren; it is the beginning of the history of Christendom, of the whole new world. This meeting of these two men--one of whose names we do not know, the other whom we do know to have been a Galilæan fisherman--with Jesus of Nazareth is the first step in a movement which has in some way or other changed the life, polity, relations of mankind. If it is so, we may consider with ourselves, in some quiet hour, _why_ it is so? Perhaps we may find some other explanation than that which St. John gives--that the Man to whom these disciples came was the Light of men, and that He proved, by contact with those who had least light of their own, that He was _their_ Light. Or perhaps we may find that interpretation, on the whole, the best: and then we shall not seek further, but lay that to heart.

The three next verses bring us a step further in the history; they are still of the same character. '_One of the two which heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, He said, Thou art Simon, the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone._' We found how hard it was for the Pharisees to make out a conception of the Christ, though they pored continually over the Scriptures, and had a series of interpreters to assist in divining the sense of them. And here this unlettered fisherman--unlettered probably in the strictest sense--boldly tells his brother that he has found the Christ. He is sure that he has. He can bid him come and see whether it is a mistake. 'What fanatical confidence!' every scribe would have exclaimed--nay, did exclaim--as soon as he learnt what these fishermen were believing. Should not most of us say the same if we spoke our minds? For what had Andrew to convince him? He had seen none of the miracles upon which we say the evidence of Christ's mission rests. We may be sure that he had not heard Jesus say that He was the Christ; for He scarcely ever did say so. And on what, then, was his faith grounded, that faith which England has accepted for somewhat more than a thousand years? I do not know, unless the Light of the world made him feel that He was the Light of the world--unless the King of men made him feel that He was his King. But I also do not know, brethren, upon what your faith and mine is founded--on what the faith of all the men that have believed during the last eighteen hundred years has been founded--upon what the order and civilization of all the earth has been founded, except it be upon that same revelation of a Light and of a King, which made Andrew say these words to his brother Simon.

And now He who has received this name from a disciple, bestows a name upon a disciple: '_Thou art Simon; thou shalt be called a Stone_.' The creatures were brought to the first Adam, that he might say what was the name of each. If this was the second Adam, He could say to any one of His human creatures, 'That is thy name; understand by it what is the work I have given thee to do.' Simon Peter, after many perplexities and falls, did learn fully the meaning and force of his new name. He declared to the Jews at Pentecost, he declared to Cornelius the heathen, that Jesus had been proved to be both Lord and Christ. A society of Jews and Gentiles grew up which recognised Jesus as its Corner-stone. Lest they should fancy that he or any mere man could be a rock or resting-place for them, he wrote an Epistle specially to show that his Master is the Corner-stone, elect, precious, on which men are builded together a spiritual house; that such a spiritual house cannot be overthrown; that any spiritual house which is built on any weaker foundation, which has any other stone or rock, must be destroyed.

'_The day following Jesus would go forth into Galilee, and findeth Philip, and saith unto him, Follow me. Now Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found Him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph._' Philip does not go in search of the Lamb of God, as those did who heard John speak. Jesus is said to find him, and to speak the words, 'Follow me,' which he obeys. The effect is the same as in the former case--only Philip is, perhaps, a little more courageous: he speaks confidently of this as the Person to whom all the holy men of old were pointing. He speaks so even while he makes the offensive announcement, 'He is Jesus of _Nazareth_, the son of Joseph.' From what place the new teacher came, was nothing to the young disciple. He had proved Himself to him to be the King over his heart. Whose son He was called was nothing. In the most living sense He must be what John had called Him--the Son of God. Hereafter doubts and questions might arise upon these points; the Prophet's words respecting the city of David might have to be reconciled with this apparently Galilæan origin of the new Teacher; explanations might be given respecting His parentage. For Philip all this was premature and unnecessary. The deepest knowledge must come first; the other would follow when it was wanted.

The same truth forces itself upon us still more mightily in the answer of Nathanael to his friend: '_Nathanael said to Philip, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see_. _Jesus saw Nathanael coming to Him, and saith of him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile! Nathanael saith unto Him, Whence knowest thou me? Jesus saith unto Him, Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig-tree, I saw thee. Nathanael answered and saith unto Him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel._'

Nathanael, who was apparently a Galilæan, might not have the same prejudice against Nazareth which would have been natural in an inhabitant of Judæa. But there is another prejudice, often hinted at by our Lord, which is quite as hard to overcome. Can a prophet appear in _our_ neighbourhood, close to us? Must he not come upon us from some more sacred region? The Galilæans, who were despised by others, must have learnt to despise themselves. All their habits of mind must have prepared them to expect that Jerusalem, or some place near it, would be the seat and birthplace of the great King. There was, therefore, at least as much ground for doubt and unbelief in this man's mind as in that of any learned scribe. Nevertheless he comes, and he is hailed a genuine Israelite, an Israelite without guile. The first title might seem only to claim the dweller in any part of Palestine as of the same stock, a true child of Jacob; but that which is joined to it marks out the man himself as a wrestler with God--one who had sought to purge his soul from deceptions--one who believed that God desired truth in his inward parts, and would make him to know wisdom secretly. It was a wonderful commendation; but what was the warrant for it? Till then Nathanael supposed that his face had not been known to the speaker; how much less his heart. _Had_ they met for the first time? Had he never sat and kneeled beneath the fig-tree, the favourite place of secret devotion to the pious Israelite? Had he never wrestled for light to himself, for blessings to his country? for the scattering of its worst enemies--which were also his own--covetousness, pride, falsehood? for the revelation of its promised Deliverer? '_There, before Philip called thee, I saw thee_;--I had conversed with thee.' Nathanael heard and wondered; there was no more debating within him about Galilee or Judæa, Nazareth or Bethlehem. A flood of light was poured into his soul, not through chinks and apertures in the prophetical oracles, but from the clear heaven where God dwelt. 'Rabbi, Thou art He whom I have sought after with cries and tears, that none but Thou hast known of. Thou hast often been with me before. I behold Thee now. Thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel.'

And then came a promise and assurance of a mightier blessing, of a fuller revelation hereafter to him, and to multitudes unborn, '_Because I said, I saw thee under the fig-tree, believest thou? Thou shalt see greater things than these. And He saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man_.'

'Faithful and true Israelite! the vision to thy progenitor who first bore that name shall be substantiated for thee, and for those who trust in me in lonely hours, through clouds and darkness, as thou hast done. The ladder set upon earth and reaching to heaven,--the ladder upon which the angels of God ascended and descended,--is a ladder for thee and for all. For the Son of Man, who joins earth to heaven, the seen to the unseen, God and Man in one, He is with you; through Him your spirits may arise to God,--through Him God's Spirit shall come down upon you.'

DISCOURSE V.

THE MARRIAGE FEAST.

[Lincoln's Inn, 4th Sunday in Lent, March 2, 1856.]

JOHN II. 11.

_This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth His glory; and His disciples believed on Him._

The word '_Miracles_,' which our translators have adopted in this verse, gives little trouble to a reader. He thinks of some singular, glaring effect, which makes men wonder, and which they can refer to no known principle. That effect he calls a miracle. To produce astonishment is the immediate object of him who works it; to convince those who see it, and those who are told of it afterwards, that he is not subject to ordinary laws, and has the power of setting laws aside, is his ultimate object.

Such thoughts, I say, are suggested naturally enough by the word Miracle. It is otherwise with the word '_Sign_' (Σημεῖον), which St. John uses himself. That word is simpler in sound than the other, but it gives rise to a longer and more troublesome inquiry. Outward display, the excitement of wonder, departure from rule, have no necessary or natural connexion with it. The name drives us to the question, 'A sign of what?' And all these qualities--supposing they were present in the sign--would not help us to answer the question. In the case before us, the act of turning water into wine--in which the miracle is supposed to consist--cannot be separated from the other parts of the narrative: together they constitute the sign. And to find the signification of the sign, we must have recourse to the first chapter of the Gospel; we must ask St. John himself to tell us why he has introduced it, and how it bears upon the subject of the history.

'_On the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there._' On the third day, no doubt, after the events which we were speaking of last Sunday. What were those events? A preacher who had drawn crowds by his word, who had attached to him some devoted disciples, had spoken of One mightier than he, who was coming after him, but had been before him. He had pointed to a certain man. He had said of Him, '_Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world_.' He had said that he came baptizing with water, on purpose that this person might be manifested to Israel as the Son of God, who would baptize with the Holy Ghost. Two of those who heard these words, we are told, followed Jesus. They invited others, saying that they had found the Christ. One or two more Jesus Himself called to come after Him.

What expectations were these men likely to form of their new Master? All their deepest impressions had been received from John. Would not He whom John declared to be greater than himself exhibit all His characteristics in a higher degree? They had first seen Jesus in the desert. Might not that be His favourite home? Would not He be more of a solitary, more of an ascetic, than His predecessor? Would not He, whose origin was said to be heavenly, be more withdrawn from the things of earth, than the man who said he was not worthy to unloose the latchet of His sandal? This was a reasonable supposition. There was another, which would strike many as even more reasonable. The Christ was associated with thoughts of royalty. He might be the very reverse of John; not one who could converse familiarly with disciples; not one who could speak words of friendly admonition to publicans and soldiers; but one who would walk aloft, asserting the dignity of His descent, claiming to rule the people, impatient of even seeming to belong to them.

On the third day came a sign which showed how far either of these expectations corresponded to the truth. There was a marriage in Cana of Galilee, and Jesus was sitting there beside His mother. This is the appearance He made to those disciples who had heard Him described by such magnificent titles,--to those disciples who had learnt to look upon the desert life, the life that is withdrawn from all family relations and sympathies, as the specially holy and prophetical life. And yet it is clearly no august regal marriage which is taking place at Cana. A homely, rustic wedding,--one in which there is feasting and merriment, but no pomp. To this He is bidden; and those fishermen who had joined Him are bidden too. They are called His disciples. They had but lately seen Him or known Him, but they are already fast bound to Him. As His disciples they go with Him, not into a far-off desert, but to a wedding-feast in a little town.

Here is surely the sign of a change,--a change the very reverse, perhaps, of what we were looking for. We are coming nearer to the common earth, to those bonds which connect the inhabitants of earth with each other, to those which touch all earthly feelings and earthly interests. The next incident surely does not weaken this impression. The wine at the feast is said to have failed. We might easily have formed some vague notion of a festival that was different from all others, marked by no vulgar events; at least we might have wished that these should be kept out of sight--that we should not be informed of them. St. John, the divine, the theologian, does not indulge us in this wish. He is determined that we should understand it to have been an ordinary wedding-feast, at which men drank as at others. '_The mother of Jesus saith unto Him, They have no wine._' Whatever meaning we may discover in the words when we know who spoke them and to whom they were spoken, they are plain words, the announcement of the plainest fact. Some interpreters suppose that Mary only intended to say, 'Let us withdraw, that the deficiency may not be apparent.' I like their honesty, their determination to find the simplest sense they can; but if we consider what _must_ have been the intercourse between Mary and her Son for so many years; if we remember that a crisis had come in His life, which must have appeared to her the fulfilment of all her expectations concerning Him; if we remember that He was now gathering about Him a set of disciples; it surely is most reasonable to suppose that these words expressed her desire that He should, and her belief that He would, put forth some unwonted power which had been latent in Him hitherto. The old Scriptures told how Elisha had used his divine powers for the relief of ordinary necessities,--to heal, for instance, the waters which might have poisoned the sons of the prophets. Was it strange that a devout reader of these Scriptures should think that her Son might prove He had divine endowments in like manner? It belongs to the very nature of a woman, to the finest part of her nature, to think that power is best exerted in individual cases, for individual needs. What we are apt to regard as too mean and minute occasions for a divine might, she measures by a wiser and more loving rule. The distinctions of little and large are forgotten, as they ought to be, when the Eternal is in question. The most blessed of women ought to have exhibited this tendency in its highest degree. In doing so, she was not degrading Him whom she loved and reverenced most; she was judging rightly for what ends His powers on earth would nearly always be put forth.

But yet there _was_ a weakness in this feminine eagerness. There was a thought that a mere circumstance or necessity could determine the exercise of an internal energy. And this is what He appears to rebuke in the next sentence. '_Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come._' A comparison of this passage with one in the seventh chapter of our Gospel, in which Jesus uses a similar expression to His brethren when they urged Him to go up to the feast at Jerusalem that He might make Himself known openly, shows that He designed to tell His mother that no events or outward motives could decide when it was right for Him to do a work,--that the Spirit which He had received without measure was regulating His acts--that He must be always doing His Father's business. Such an intimation, conveyed to the one who in all this world knew Him best, who had most inward sympathy with Him, was no discouragement to her faith,--rather was certain to awaken it. The power would come forth, not in obedience to her call, but to a more lofty, more divine, impulse. She could say, therefore, to the servants, without hesitation or anxiety, '_Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it_.'

I believe, my brethren, that all these passages in the story just as much belong to the sign, are quite as essential elements of it, as anything which follows. Nothing can be more simple or brief than the passage which comes next. '_There were set there six water-pots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece. Jesus saith unto them, Fill the water-pots with water. And they filled them up to the brim. And He saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it. When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was: (but the servants which drew the water knew:) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom, and saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now._' It cannot have escaped you how carefully St. John informs us that not even the ruler of the feast, the taster of the wine himself, knew whence the wine came; he merely makes an idle, merry observation about it. Most of those who sat round him were probably just as ignorant and as little concerned about the matter as he was. The servants may have wondered at what they saw; but their wonder had so little to do with the intention of the act that the Apostle does not stop to notice it. Very little, then, of the notion which we affix--honestly and etymologically affix--to the word _miracle_ has any application here. There was no effort to produce surprise; if surprise was produced, it led to no conviction. Not one of those who tasted the water that was made wine, _simply on that ground_ believed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God.

What, then, was signified by this act? What force lay in it? I can only beg St. John to tell us. He says, '_This beginning of signs did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth His glory; and His disciples believed on Him_.' What glory did He manifest? In all fairness and reason, we must again consult the writer of the words about the sense which he puts upon them. He had said, '_And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth_.' I said, when we met with this passage in the last chapter, that it was evidently the text of the whole Gospel. The Gospel would either show how the Word made flesh manifested His glory to those among whom He dwelt, and how that glory was as of the only-begotten Son full of grace and truth, or it would fail of its purpose, it would belie its name. Of the Word it has been said before, '_that all things were made by Him: that in Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of men_.' The manifestation of His glory, we might surely then expect, would include a manifestation of Him as one who exercised creative power, as one in whom the Life that quickens all things dwells inexhaustibly. One might expect that this Life, if it was exhibited upon _things_, would still be in some very remarkable sense an illumination of _men_. But one would be certain that that illumination _could_ not be outward to the eye. As life is internal, as all its movements and operations are secret, though its effects are so palpable; so the Light which proceeds from this Life--that which is emphatically the Light of _men_, as distinguished from mere animals--must be light penetrating into the inner being, filling the heart, reason, and conscience, scattering darkness in _them_, preparing _them_ hereafter,--since the Light is not put into any one to be hid under a bushel, but to be set upon a candlestick,--to show forth what had so marvellously affected and changed them, to the world.

Now, if we consider the sign in Cana of Galilee with these thoughts in our minds,--which we have not invented for ourselves, but derived straight from the Evangelist,--I cannot doubt that all its different aspects will come out very harmoniously before us.

The first aspect of it is that which is brought before us in our own Marriage Service. Christ is said to have 'adorned and beautified the holy estate of matrimony with His presence and first miracle that He wrought in Cana of Galilee.' This has been the conclusion at which the reason of the most thoughtful men has arrived, and to which the instinctive feeling in all has responded. If Jesus was the Word made flesh, if the order of the world was established by Him, then His acts upon earth would be done for the purpose of vindicating this order. By them He would claim it as His. By them He would say that it did not belong to the evil one. Marriage, as one of the fundamental parts of this order, as one of the earliest institutes of humanity, as one that had suffered most from abuse, would be one of the first over which He would assert His dominion. And because the ordinance is one in which all are interested, we should look for the assertion to come in some distinct and yet very general way; not, I mean, in a broad proclamation, or in a maxim which is forgotten speedily or frittered away in the application to each individual instance; not again in some case clothed with circumstances that take it out of the common range of cases, not the wedding of a king or of a saint, but one of which every peasant as well as every king might say, 'This tells me to whom _I_ must look to bless my wedlock, because He is the Author of it.'

Then, again, that part of the story which refers to the mother of Jesus becomes, I think, clearer when we contemplate it in this light. Romanists are puzzled by it, Protestants exult in it, because it seems to put a kind of slight upon the Virgin. But Protestants and Romanists agree that Jesus had a divine Father and a human mother. If this act was one of the manifestations of Him as the Son of God, can anything be more natural or consistent than that it should be introduced by words which declare that He could not be in subjection to any earthly authority, while yet the act itself was an act of ministry to even the commonest necessities of the sons of earth? Is not this apparent contradiction the accomplishment of His work, the exhibition of Him in His complete character? He will _not_ be the servant of His creatures, not even of His mother; He obeys the Will, which all are created to obey. He _will_ be the servant of His creatures: He is come into the world for that end. He is doing the will of His Father when He is stooping to the lowest of all.

But if this be our judgment of two parts of the sign, it must, I think, greatly modify, if not alter altogether, the apprehensions which we have formed of the third part, that which concerns the turning of the water into wine. We cannot regard the main characteristic of the marriage and the marriage-feast as being their commonness, their similarity to what is going on in every part of the world--to what is going on among ourselves; and then make the essence of that which our Lord did at the feast consist in its uncommonness, in its unlikeness to everything that is done elsewhere--to everything that is done among ourselves. We must abandon one habit of feeling or the other. Which we shall abandon depends, it seems to me, upon the strength or the weakness of our faith in St. John's assertion, that in Him who sat at that feast was life and that all things were made by Him. If we take those words literally, if we suppose the Evangelist to mean what he says, then we must assume that what happened then was but an instance of the working of a universal law. We shall conclude that all living processes--be they slow or rapid, be they carried on in the womb of nature or through the intervention of human art--have their first power and principle in Him, that without Him nothing could become that does become. Such a belief undoubtedly carries us into great depths and heights. It increases the wonder with which we regard every dynamical discovery. But it does not interfere with any discovery. It gives solemnity and awfulness to the investigations of science. It forbids trifling in them. It stimulates courage and hope in them. It makes all superstitious dread of them sinful. The Word, who is the Light of men, will Himself teach those who seek humbly and diligently to enter into those operations of life of which He is the first Mover.

But there are other thoughts connected with this word _Life_, which it is impossible to sever from it in any case, and which suggest themselves more directly than any others when the subject is a wedding-feast and the turning of water into wine. Life has a relation to joy, which is as close as the relation of death to sadness. Our minds become confused upon this point. We talk of the burden of life. We talk of death as delivering us from this burden. But these are careless expressions, against which the conscience of man rebels. The Scripture is in harmony with the conscience. It speaks of our carrying about with us a burden of _death_ from which we need to be delivered. If it ever speaks of the moment of departure from the world as a moment of deliverance, it is because, as the poet says, 'Death itself there dies.' In creating the wine, then, which is said in the old Scriptures to make glad the heart of man, which had been a symbol of joy as well as of life to the heathen--the symbol of high inspirations even when it was actually acknowledged to be the cause of the lowest animal degradation--the Son of Man was claiming to be the Giver of all joy, to be the Redeemer of all joy, even in its humblest earthliest forms, from that which had made it base and inhuman. In what sense the Source of Joy was also the Man of Sorrows, St. John will tell us in due time. There is something which binds this very story of the feast at Cana to His deepest sorrow. Mary has not appeared before in this Gospel; she never appears again till we meet her beside the cross. She knew that a sword was to pierce through her soul, at the very time when she was asking her Son to prove Himself the Lord of nature and the Giver of delights to man. One work did not interfere with the other. He could not be really the Word made flesh unless He fulfilled both.

And now, then, we may understand why we are told so expressly in the text that '_He manifested forth His glory, and that His disciples believed on Him_.' Who were these disciples? One of them must have been that Andrew who told his own brother Simon, '_We have found the Christ_.' One would have been that Philip who said to Nathanael, '_We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and the Prophets, did write_.' One would have been that Nathanael who said, '_Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel_.' Not one of these had received a sign or a miracle to impart to them these convictions. The witness of John concerning the Light, met by the witness in their own hearts, the manifestation to those hearts that Jesus was the Light of whom they had heard,--this was their preparation for the marriage-feast and for what passed there. Because they _had_ acknowledged Jesus and _had_ become His disciples, with a feeble, imperfect, confused knowledge of course, but with a desire of the knowledge which they should receive from continual converse with Him; _therefore_ the sign of the water being made into wine had a meaning for them which it had not for others; _therefore_ it was to them a manifestation of His glory; _therefore_ it gave them a belief in Him, as answering to John's testimony, which they had not had before. An outward exercise of power strengthened their belief in a power which lay entirely beyond the region of their senses. They were sure that a sign had been given them that He who blesses marriage, He through whom all things live, He from whom all men derive their light and joy, was actually dwelling among them.

I have been the more careful in considering this subject, my brethren, because St. John records it as the _beginning_ of the signs which Jesus did. It is not recorded in the other Evangelists. It is told here as if the whole scene had come back to the mind of the old Apostle; as if he had been at that feast, and felt himself transported there again from his chamber at Ephesus. I think there must have been a reason why that day was brought again to his remembrance, why he was enabled to describe it so briefly yet with such distinctness. People in that age, as we know from St. Paul's Epistles, as we might have guessed if we had not this decisive information, were prone to set great store by the powers which had been bestowed upon the Church to manifest the presence of the Holy Spirit within it. From magnifying the powers, they had passed, by a natural process, to magnify the outward effects of these powers; then, to exult in them because they were strange and peculiar. St. Paul had urged the Corinthians to remember that all gifts were bestowed for use, and not for show; that it was better to speak five words which could be understood and might be profitable, than to speak a thousand words in an unknown tongue, unless it were interpreted. In spite of these exhortations, the _sign_ was no doubt gradually losing itself in the _miracle_. The unseen Presence, which could not be recollected without a sense of awful responsibility, was far less thought of than the display which could be made in the eyes of the ignorant. Whenever such a temper begins to prevail, we may be sure that tricks, impostures, lies in the name of Christ and of God, will spread rapidly; the spirit of falsehood will creep into the heart which has confessed its allegiance to the Spirit of truth. Ephesus, we know from the Acts of the Apostles, had been a favourite home of the magician and the enchanter. In the first fervour of their belief in Him who is the way and the truth and the life, the Christians had burnt their books and abjured their lying trade. But St. Paul, as he told the elders of the city, dreaded that after his departure grievous wolves might come in among them. There was no sheep's clothing these wolves were more likely to wear than this. Reverence for Christ's miracles might be made an excuse for practising all old heathen arts and enchantments in His name. How suitable a work for the aged disciple of Christ to lay his axe to the root of this deception! How fitting a thing was it for him to say, 'You talk of the miracles of the Christ. I remember the first of them all. I remember what it taught me then, what it teaches me still. It was not an enchantment; it was not a wonderment. It was a sign of His presence in whom is all grace and truth, who was manifested that He might put down all falsehoods whatsoever, and who will put them down at the last.'

It was the beginning of signs. I do not say that our examination of it will save us from the trouble of examining each new sign as it comes before us. By rigorously adhering to that name, as St. John does, we assume that each has a signification of its own. We shall find them all very different from this in their circumstances, in some of their internal characteristics. But I believe that if we follow out the line of thought into which I have endeavoured to lead you this afternoon, and if we make St. John's first chapter the expounder of his object in every subsequent narrative, we shall be delivered from innumerable difficulties by which the study of miracles generally, and of each particular miracle is beset. To those who tell us that a Church which can work miracles is a true Church--to those who speak of miracles done with a serious purpose in former days, or of miracles done for the amusement of men that crave for some new thing in our days--we may make the same answer. The Scriptures teach us to care for no miracles except so far as they are signs. Of what are your miracles signs? Do they signify that the Word who was made flesh is not continually acting in the affairs of men now? If so, they contradict those signs which we confess to be true signs, those which have signified to us and to our forefathers that all life is in Him, that all light is from Him. Or _do_ they say this? Then they say what every marriage is saying just as clearly; what our ordinary food and wine, what the growth of trees and flowers, what the plough of the husbandman and the laboratory of the chemist are such pledges of as your miracles can never be. God may perform wonders to break the chains of sense, to make us aware that He is always at work. We are sure that He will not enact wonders to rivet the chains of sense upon us, to turn away our thoughts from Him to some low earthly agent. Only a wicked and adulterous generation seeks for such wonders, for such signs. The signs which will be given to it, if it does not repent, are signs of fire and of blood, the slaughter of the first-born, the cry in the Temple, 'Let us depart.' But if we receive the beginning of signs which Christ gave us in Cana of Galilee, all common things will become sacraments of His presence. The husband and the wife will confess that He has united them. We shall receive the water and the wine both as His gifts. He will drink the new wine with those who come at His bidding to give thanks for the blood which He poured out for the redemption of the world.

DISCOURSE VI.

THE CLEANSING OF THE TEMPLE.

[Lincoln's Inn, 5th Sunday in Lent, March 9, 1856.]

ST. JOHN II. 16.

_Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise._

The first three Gospels have been sometimes called the _Galilæan_ Gospels; the fourth, the _Jerusalem_ Gospel. The distinction would be a very false one, if it implied that our Lord's relation to Jerusalem was not present to the minds of the earlier Evangelists, or that St. John overlooked His relation to Galilee. In the ninth chapter of St. Luke's Gospel, we are told that Jesus set His face to go to Jerusalem. All the chapters which follow refer to events which took place in that journey, and contain discourses relating to the end of it, and to the city itself. In the thirteenth, we hear of His sending a message to Herod, that a prophet could not perish out of Jerusalem; in the nineteenth, of His looking down upon Jerusalem and weeping over it. The climax of the narrative, not only of St. Luke, but of St. Matthew and of St. Mark, is the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, to be hailed as a king, to die as a malefactor. On the other hand, St. John presents his Master to us in the midst of Galilæan disciples. He carefully omits any allusion to the birth at Bethlehem; he records the first manifestation of His power and nature as given at Cana.