k

i Mark vi. 6; Luke xiii. 22. k Num. xxvii. 17.

tion; for when had such a number of miracles, so great and so affectingly beneficent, been performed in a few hours?— the curing of the profluvious woman, the raising the daughter of Jairus to life, the restoration of sight to two blind men, and the ejection of an evil spirit, in the course of one afternoon! To which Jesus immediately added many more; for it is added, "he went about all their cities teaching, &c., and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.”

Verse 34. He casteth out devils through the prince of the devils.-This was said upon the cure of the dumb demoniac just mentioned, from which it would appear that the Pharisees of Capernaum first invented this hypothesis, to excuse their unbelief, and pervert the people; or, according to others, the whole case may have been deliberated upon by the Pharisees of Jerusalem, and the sect every where have been instructed to apply this solution to those instances of clear and unequivocal miracles, the occurrence of which could not be denied. It will be seen in the sequel how our Lord refuted this blasphemy against the Spirit of God. Here it is sufficient to remark, that those who were bent upon rejecting Christ and his doctrine were obliged either to give up their opposition, or to take refuge in some theory, however absurd, to account for the miraculous evidences of it. This is the constant resort of unyielding pride and determined infidelity to this day. Yet even this was overruled for the benefit of

future times. The very objection so often repeated, and by the Pharisees generally urged, admitted the facts of the miracles. It followed also from the very view of the case they so perversely took, that the conduct of Christ in performing his mighty works, and the nature of the works themselves, were subjected to the severest scrutiny of his fiercest enemies, who yet were obliged to admit a supernatural cause, though they wickedly brought in the agency of Satan. Unmoved by these reproaches, this base ingratitude of returning evil for good, our blessed Lord makes his second tour of Galilee, preaching "the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every manner of sickness;" thus, says Bishop Horne, "leaving behind him, wherever he went, the warmth of a fervent charity, the light of evangelical truth, and the fragrance of a good report of something done for the benefit of man and the glory of God."

Verse 36. He was moved with compassion on them.-This is perhaps better than Campbell's translation, which is simply "he had compassion on them," though there is great truth in his remark, that critics often hunt after imaginary emphasis, through the obscure mazes of etymology." The word comes from oλay xvov, used in the New Testament only in the plural, Tа σñλayxvα, which signifies the chief intestines, the heart, liver, &c.; and as the heart was considered the seat of the kind affections, so the word is used for compassion, love, mercy. It is, how

ever, employed when no particular emphasis is intended; so that we are to collect the degree of the emotion rather from the circumstances of the case or in some adjunct, than from etymology. Here it is evident that our Lord was influenced by a strong emotion of compassion, as the whole passage shows. He viewed the multitudes that followed him as sheep neglected by their shepherds, the false and vain and worldly Jewish teachers, and therefore eacλvμevol, or as Griesbach reads, cokvλμevoi, exhausted by fruitless wanderings in search of food, and ερριμμένοι, scattered, and therefore exposed to every danger. In these figurative expressions he manifestly refers to the spiritual condition of these eager multitudes, not to their being faint and dispersed through the fatigue of following him, an interpretation which destroys all the force of the context. The body of the people had been kept in ignorance, or had only been taught great errors; yet they had hung upon his lips, heard with interest and astonishment his heavenly doctrine, and glorified God on account of his miraculous works, instead of ascribing them like the Pharisees to Satanic agency. Here then was a hopeful prospect among a population utterly neglected by their pretended shepherds, fainting for want of true spiritual food, and exposed to danger because "no man cared for their souls." These were the considerations which awoke the strong and melting compassions of the Son of God; and he turns therefore to his disciples, and in equally beautiful and impressive figurative language, drawn from another source, addresses them, and engages their prayers in their behalf: the harvest truly is plenteous, but

the labourers are few; pray ye therefore, &c. The numerous ears of corn standing thick in the fields represent the multitudes destitute of instruction, yet ripe for it; and the labourers, cpyala, the reapers, are diligent ministers who gather in the harvest into the garner of the church: the Lord of the harvest is God himself, who alone has the power to send forth such labourers; to displace them when remiss and to send others; and without whose authority and commission every man is but a busy and mischievous intruder : and the sending forth the labourers indicates the constraining "necessity" which is laid upon them to urge them to their task; for though the word is sometimes used, as John x. 4, with no idea of coaction, yet it has usually a strong sense, and may justify some of our earlier versions, which render it "that he will THRUST forth labourers into his harvest ;" that is, by his powerful influence upon them, awakening their zeal and inflaming their charity. Authority and efficacy are thus implied on the part of the master; a deep sense of the importance of the work and of their unworthiness and unfitness

for it, on the part of the servants. It is under such moving views that we are taught still to regard the destitute portions of mankind; and for the increase of true labourers we ought always to be directing our prayers to the "Lord of the harvest," recognising his authority, but also appealing to his merciful purposes as to our race at large. Very strikingly connected are this exhortation of our blessed Lord, and his own proceeding, in the solemn appointment of his apostles, as recorded in the next chapter.

a

CHAPTER X. Verse 1. Twelve disciples. They had before followed him under the character of disciples; but were now expressly made APOStles. The word signifies a messenger, any one sent by another for any purpose whatever. In Herodotus it signifies a herald; and in a still higher sense it is used, like the Hebrew bw, for a legate or ambassador. It is a word of dignity, but only according to the character of the sender, the message, and the person sent. In the highest sense it is applied to Christ himself, who is the Apostle and High Priest of our profession;" in the next degree it is given to the twelve apostles of Christ, to whom St. Paul was afterwards added; then, in 2 Cor. viii. 23, Titus and other brethren are called "apostles of the churches," where it is rendered "messengers" in our translation. "The apostles of Christ," and "the apostles of the Lamb," are phrases which seem not to have been used but with reference to "THE TWELVE and ST. PAUL. Some, indeed, think that the title was, in its higher sense, applied also to Barnabas and other distinguished founders of the Christian faith; but this does not so clearly appear. Many fancies have been built upon the number of apostles being limited to twelve, and allusions have been found in the circumstance to the twelve patriarchs, the twelve spies, the twelve stones in Aaron's breast-plate, the twelve fountains found by the Israelites in the wilderness, the twelve oxen which supported Solomon's molten laver, &c. &c., for all of which plausible or absurd reasons have been given; but the best use to be made

* Or, over.

of such speculations is to teach us the necessity of interpreting scripture with sobriety; for the whole charm of such discoveries of mysteries in the number twelve is dissipated when we recollect that in fact, after St. Paul was called, the number of the apostles of equal rank and dignity, by whom the foundations of the Christian Church was laid was not twelve, but thirteen. If any reason at all can be assigned for the number of twelve being first fixed upon, it appears to have beer with reference to their being first sent only to "the lost sheep of the house of Israel," to prepare a spiritual Israel for Christ, before the formal calling of the Gentiles. Their number was therefore that of the twelve tribes, who were mingled in one population after the return from the captivity, the genealogies of Levi and Judah only being preserved with much care with reference to the priesthood and the Messiah.

But when the Gentiles were to be called, one was added to the number, not to exclude the rest from ministering to the Gentiles, but to give a strong sanction to the doctrine of the equality of believing Gentiles and believing Jews, with which St. Paul was specially charged.

He gave them power, &c.-This is the grand distinction between the miraculous powers of Christ and those of his apos tles. The one was inherent in himself, the other was expressly communicated by him, and was never employed but as his power, not as theirs who exercised it. The distinction, before noticed, will here again be remarked between CASTING OUT UDclean spirits, and HEALING all manner of sickness; " so that possession is excluded

expressly from the class of sicknesses and diseases.

Verse 2. Now the names of the twelve apostles.-The order in which some of these became disciples may be thus collected from the different Gospels. Andrew, Peter's brother, and John, having been disciples of the Baptist, first joined themselves to Christ; then Andrew fetched his brother Peter, and spent the rest of the day with our Lord. The next day Philip was called, and Nathanael, generally supposed to be Bartholomew. But these returned to their occupations, and when the call was given which implied that they were to give up themselves wholly to be trained to the ministration of his doctrine, Peter was first called, (see Lukev. 3—10,) then James and John, and probably Andrew at the same time. The call of Matthew is also distinctly related; but of the special calling of the others we have no account, save that the whole twelve are here enumerated together. The catalogues are not formed with reference to rank and dignity, but to order only; for if rank had been implied, the catalogues would have exactly agreed in the Gospels and the Acts; yet Peter is in them all named first, and Judas Iscariot last; Peter as having been, in fact, first called to the office of the ministry, as noticed above, whilst Judas is very naturally put last as the traitor, unless indeed he was the last called.

Peter.-To Simon the name of Peter was given, in Syriac Cephos, in Greek Пelpos, from welpa a stone, the first main stone laid upon the foundation corner-stone, which is Christ himself, who is also the top corner-stone, or "head of the corner."

Verse 3. James the son of Alphaus.—To distinguish him from James the brother of John, both the sons of Zebedce. Alpheus is from, which is pronounced Alpha, or Cleophi; hence this Alpheus is called Cleopas, Luke xxiv. 18.

Lebbæus, whose surname was Thaddeus. Judas, or Jude, was called Lebbeus, from Lebba, a town in Galilee, to distinguish him from Judas Iscariot. Judas, in Syriac, is Thaddai.

Verse 4. Simon the Canaanite.-From the Hebrew Np, zeal, whence St. Luke calls him, by interpretation, "Simon Zelotes ;" a name given to him, as some thought, for his zeal and piety, but others, from his having belonged to a sect called Zealots, because of their zeal for the law, and their instant execution of it, without waiting for authority. This was called "the judgment of zeal." But it is doubtful whether this sect appeared so long before the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans, when their fanatical zeal is specially recorded by Josephus. Certainly he was not a Canaanite, in the sense of being a descendant of Canaan.

Judas Iscariot.-The town of Carioth, in Judah, is the most probable derivation of the cognomen of the traitor.

Men more influential for their rank, and more eminent for learning, our Lord might have called. Centurions and rulers of synagogues had believed on him, and Nicodemus, a Jewish doctor, at an early period, became his disciple; but the whole work was to be manifestly of God, and it was to be demonstrated as much above the reach of human wisdom to plan, as of human influence to promote. 'Plain integrity," says one very justly,

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"and honest simplicity, were the qualifications which Christ sought; and he found them more easily in the fishing vessels of the Sea of Galilee, than in the banqueting-r -rooms or splendid houses on the shore." In fact, all that was in the first instance wanted was men of character, to state facts; men of simplicity, to report the doctrines they had been taught, and as they had been delivered to them; and men of holy courage, willing to suffer and to die for the truth. When languages were wanted, they received them by special gift; and when they were called to dispute, "a mouth and wisdom" were given to them for the occasion. Thus they were kept immediately dependent upon their Master, even after he had ascended to heaven, unbiassed by the speculative taste which all the learning of that day tended to form; and they were thereby the fitter channels through which to convey the water of life in the same purity with which it had issued from the FOUNTAIN itself. One, indeed, and but one, proved false; but, happily for the world, he betrayed his Master before he could betray his cause, to the establishment of which his treachery was made signally subservient.

Verse 5. Way of the Gentiles, &c.That the apostles on this mission were forbidden to go to Gentile nations or among the Samaritans, in deference to the prejudices of the Jews, or in the least degree to give sanction to their notions of superiority over the heathens or semi-heathens with whom they were surrounded, is a very unfounded notion, and is wholly inconsistent with that spirit of charity and kindness to the whole world which so often breaks forth in the discourses of our Lord himself. This mission of the twelve, as appears by the foregoing chapter, proceeded from Christ's deeply excited compassion for the neglected and perishing condition of the Jewish people; so that their degradation and misery,

not their fancied superiority, were implied in it. Christ, indeed, was sent first and principally to the Jews, and so were his apostles; and the reason was obvious. Christianity was to be built upon the foundation of the Old Testament, as the same dispensation perfected. No other people had been placed in such a course of training to receive it; and either the Jews, who held the prophecies of this new dispensation, and certain principles common both to the new and to the old, must be convinced of the truth of Christ's claims and doctrines, or be reasonably silenced by appeals to what they held sacred, before Christianity could be proposed to any distant nation with hope of success. The kind affection of our Lord to his country-for among his other illustrious human virtues he has shown us what a pure and ardent patriotism really is-would impel him to seek first the salvation of his own people; but the design was higher than this. The gospel system had been yet but imperfectly announced, and indeed was incomplete, as wanting the facts of the great sacrifice, the resurrection, the ascension, and the priesthood of its Founder, by all which, many important prophecies were yet to be accomplished; and the time, therefore, was not come for its being propounded to Gentile nations, who did not admit the preliminary and preparatory dispensation of the Old Testament. Yet before Christianity received its perfect form, and was stamped by the hand of its divine Author with its final seal, an opportunity for effecting great good presented itself among the Jews. John the Baptist had, by his preaching, produced a great impression upon the people, and led them to expect the immediate appearance of Messiah: now, the office of the apostles, to be sent forth in different directions, was to declare that Jesus was that Messiah; to work miracles in his name, in order to prove it; to relate his