V. CHAP. any other day; there is no period of rest to Him whose active power is continually employed in upholding, animating, maintaining in its uniform and uninterrupted course the universe which he has created. The free course of God's blessing knows no pause, no suspension.* It is far from improbable that the healing waters of Bethesda occasionally showed their salutary virtues on the Sabbath, and might thus be an acknowledged instance of the unremitting benevolence of the Almighty. In the same manner the benevolence of Jesus disdained to be confined by any distinction of days; it was to flow forth as constant and unimpeded as the Divine bounty. The indignant court heard with astonishment this aggravation of the offence. Not only had Jesus assumed the power of dispensing with the law, but with what appeared to them profane and impious boldness, he had instituted a comparison between himself and the great ineffable Deity. With one consent they determine to press with greater vehemence the capital charge. Second defence of Jesus. The second defence of Jesus is at once more full and explicit, and more alarming to the awe-struck assembly. It amounted to an open assumption of the title and offices of the Messiah, the Messiah in the person of the commanding * If the sublime maxim which was admitted in the school of Alexandria had likewise found its way into the synagogues of Judæa, the speech of Jesus (my Father worketh hitherto, and I work), in its first clause appealed to principles acknowledged by his auditory. "God," says Philo, " never ceases from action, but as it is the property of fire to burn, of snow to chill, so to act (or to work), is the inalienable function of the Deity." De Alleg. lib. ii. V. and fearless, yet still, as they supposed, humble CHAP. Galilean, who stood before their tribunal. It commenced by expanding and confirming that parallel, which had already sunk so deep into their minds. The Son was upon earth, as it were, a representative of the power and mercy of the invisible Father, of that great Being who had never been comprehensible to the senses of man. It proceeded to declare his divine mission and his claim to divine honour, his investment with power, not only over diseases but over death itself. From thence it passed to the acknowledged offices of the Messiah, the resurrection, the final judgment, the apportionment of everlasting life. All these recognised functions of the Messiah were assigned by the Father to the Son, and that Son appeared in his person. In confirmation of these as yet unheard of pretensions, Jesus declared that his right to honour and reverence rested not on his own assertion alone. He appealed to the testimony which had been publicly borne to his character by John the Baptist. The prophetic authority of John had been, if not universally, at least generally recognised; it had so completely sunk into the popular belief, that, as appears in a subsequent incident, the multitude would have resented any suspicion thrown even by their acknowledged superiors on one thus established in their respect and veneration, and perhaps further endeared by the persecution which he was now suffering under the unpopular tetrarch of Galilee. He appealed to a more decisive testimony, the public miracles which he had wrought, con V. CHAP. cerning which the rulers seem scarcely yet to have determined on their course, whether to doubt, to deny, or to ascribe them to dæmoniacal agency. Finally he appealed to the last unanswerable authority, the sacred writings, which they held in such devout reverence; and distinctly asserted that his coming had been prefigured by their great lawgiver, from the spirit at least, if not from the express letter of whose sacred laws they were departing, in rejecting his claims to the title and honours of the Messiah. There is an air of conscious superiority in the whole of this address, which occasionally rises to the vehemence of reproof, to solemn expostulation, to authoritative admonition, of which it is difficult to estimate the impression upon a court accustomed to issue their judgments to a trembling and humiliated auditory. But of their subsequent proceedings we have no information, whether the Sanhedrin hesitated or feared to proceed; whether they were divided in their opinions, or could not reckon upon the support of the people; whether they doubted their own competency to take so strong a measure without the concurrence or sanction of the Roman governor-at all events no attempt was made to secure the person of Jesus. He appears, with his usual caution, to have retired towards the safer province of Galilee, where the Jewish senate possessed no authority, and where Herod, much less under the pharisaic influence, would not think it necessary to support the injured dignity of the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem; nor whatever his political apprehensions, would he entertain the same sensi Difficult position of the Sanhedrin. tive terrors of a reformer who confined his views CHAP. to the religious improvement of mankind. of the V. low him Galilee. But from this time commences the declared hos- Hostility tility of the pharisaic party against Jesus. Every pharisaic opportunity is seized of detecting him in some party. further violation of the religious statutes. We now perpetually find the Pharisees watching his foot- They folsteps, and, especially on the Sabbath, laying hold into of every pretext to inflame the popular mind against his neglect or open defiance of their observances. Nor was their jealous vigilance disappointed. Jesus calmly pursued on the Sabbath, as on every other day, his course of benevolence. A second and a third time, immediately after his public arraignment, that, which they considered the inexpiable offence, was renewed, and justified in terms which were still more repugnant to their inveterate prejudices. The passover was scarcely ended, and with his disciples he was probably travelling homewards, when the first of these incidents occurred. On the first Sabbath after the second day of unleavened bread, the disciples passing through a field of corn, and being hungry, plucked some of the ears of corn, and rubbing them in their hands, eat the grain.* This, according to Jewish usage, was no violation of the laws of property, as after the wave-offering had been made in the temple, the harvest was considered to be ripe: and the humane regulation of the lawgiver permitted the stranger, who was passing through a remote district, thus to satisfy his immediate wants. But it was the Sab * Matt. xii. 1-8.; Mark, ii. 23-28.; Luke, vi. 1-5. New viola- tion of the V. CHAP. bath, and the act directly offended against another of the multifarious provisions of pharisaic tradition. The vindication of his followers by their master took still higher ground: it not merely adduced the example of David, who in extreme want had not scrupled, in open violation of the law, to take the shewbread, which was prohibited to all but the priestly order, and thus placed his humble disciples on a level with the great king, whose memory was cherished with the most devout reverence and pride; but distinctly asserted his own power of dispensing with that which was considered the eternal, the irreversible commandment, he declared himself Lord of the Sabbath. Rumours of this dangerous innovation accompanied him into Galilee. Whether some of the more zealous Pharisees had followed him during his journey, or had accidentally returned at the same time from the passover, or whether by means of that intimate and rapid correspondence, likely to be maintained among the members of an ambitious and spreading sect, they had already communicated their apprehensions of danger and their animosity against Jesus, they already seem to have arrayed against him in all parts the vigilance and enmity of their brethren. It was in the public synagogue in some town which he entered on his return to Galilee, in the face of the whole assembly, that a man with a withered hand recovered the strength of his limb at the commandment of Jesus on the Sabbath day.* And the multitude, instead of being inflamed by *Matt. xii. 9-14.; Mark, iii. 1-6.; Luke, vi. 6-11. |