LECTURE. ON THE DETAILS AND RESULTS OF THE PUBLIC THIS introductory discourse will be occupied with a few remarks on our Lord's ministry, the perfect exemplar of that ministry, to prepare you for which is the great object of this institution, on the annual labours of which we are under auspices peculiarly favourable once more entering. These remarks will be founded on the concluding paragraph of the twelfth chapter of the gospel by John (v. 37-50); and you will find it an advantage to open your Greek New Testaments at that place, and keep them open during the lecture. The rejection of Jesus Christ by the great body of his countrymen, the Jews, is a fact which, at first view, may seem to throw suspicion on the justness of his claims to a Divine mission, as indicating that the evidence adduced in their support did not serve its purpose with those to whom it was originally presented; and who, in some points of view, were placed in circumstances peculiarly favourable for forming a correct estimate of its validity. It may be supposed, that had the proofs of his Divine mission and Messiahship been as strong and striking as the friends of Christianity represent them, the prejudices of the Jews, powerful as they unquestionably were, must have given way before them; and the believers of his doctrines have been at least as numerous as the witnesses of his miracles. Such a supposition, though plausible, argues, on the part of its supporters, imperfect and incorrect views of the human constitution, intellectual and moral, in its present fallen state, as well as ignorance or misapprehension of the facts of the case under consideration. That the evidence which our Lord adduced, in support of his claims, was not invincible, is satisfactorily proved by the fact of his rejection by his countrymen; but this character of resistibility, the evidence in favour of Christianity, possesses in common with the evidence of all the principles of natural and revealed religion, in common, indeed, with the evidence of much historical and all moral truth. I know of no obligation under which the Divinity can be considered as lying, to accompany any revelation he may be pleased to make with such a kind or measure of evidence as shall compel the assent of all to whom it is addressed. It is surely enough if it bring along with it such a kind and measure of evidence as is sufficient to satisfy the candid enquiring mind; and he who is aware of the nature, extent, and power of human depravity and Jewish prejudice; of the spiritual, pure, and humbling character of the doctrines of Jesus; of the entire revolution in character and conduct, in thought, feeling, and action, which the enlightened and cordial reception of these doctrines involved; and of the serious sacrifice of worldly interest, in every view of it which such a reception inferred, on the part of the Jewish believer-will by no means be surprised that, in opposition to the strongest evidence of a moral kind, many of his countrymen should have rejected him; and will rather be disposed, with the writers of the New Testament, to trace it to supernatural influence, that any of them in these circumstances cordially received him. Though to an intelligent, well informed, reflecting mind, there is thus in the rejection of our Lord by the great body of his countrymen nothing unaccountable, and, indeed, no thing wonderful but that depth of moral depravity which it implies, of which we may well say, "Were not this common, would it not be strange? the Jews, in reality, having done nothing but what any portion of unregenerate men in any country or any age would have done, if placed in similar circumstances; yet still to superficial thinkers, and the great majority of mankind belong to that class, the fact of our Lord's rejection by his countrymen does wear the appearance of a formidable objection against the divinity of his mission; or, at any rate, against the sufficiency of the evidence by which his claim to such a mission was sought to be established. On such persons the satisfactory argument, the outline of which we have just traced, can make little impression. They have neither the information, nor the habits of thought, that are requisite to master it; and in many cases they are little disposed to devote to their acquisition the necessary time and mental labour. To such persons it may, perhaps, be of more use to turn their attention to the palpable and demonstrable fact, that the rejection of the Messiah by the great body of his countrymen was the subject of very distinct prediction by the Old Testament prophets; and that therefore the universal reception of Jesus by the Jews, which they insist on as the most satisfactory evidence of his Divine mission, would have been, in the circumstances of the case, clear proof that he was not, that he could not be, he who, though come in the name of the Lord to save, was to be "despised and rejected of men," "a reproach of men, and despised of the people." What they hold to be necessary to prove his Divine mission, would have, indeed, completely disproved it. Numerous are the passages in the volume of the book of prophecy, in which the Messiah is represented as a sufferer, a sufferer from his own countrymen; and therefore no conclusion can be more direct than this:-Had Jesus not suffered, suffered from his countrymen, he could not have been the Messiah. Thus, what at first view to superficial minds seems a presumption against Christianity, on close examination assumes the form of a conclusive argument in its favour. When the heathens in the first ages of Christianity, urged, as they probably did, the unbelief of the Jews as an objection against the truth of that religion, its primitive teachers had but to point them to the Old Testament prophets, and say, ""Thus it was written, that Christ should suffer;" and had he not suffered, had he not thus suffered, we should have had one argument fewer that he was indeed the Christ; nay, we should have wanted the means of giving symmetry and completeness to our moral demonstration, that in Jesus "we have found him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write." The answer would have been a satisfactory and unanswerable one, and the reply is as appropriate to the modern sceptic or infidel as to the ancient heathens. It may well appear strange and lamentable, that when the Messiah came to his own territories,1 his own people did not receive him, and that his wonderful and gracious miracles made so little impression on them; but the more strange an event is, it is the more surprising that it should be predicted; and the exactness of the fulfilment of the prediction, tends the more to remove every suspicion of imposture from a considerate mind. It is a striking consideration, that, in their very rejection of Jesus Christ as the Messiah, his unbelieving countrymen were unconsciously furnishing additional evidence that he was indeed the person they denied him to be. What a wonderful illustration of the Psalmist's devout reflection, "Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee!" I have been led into this train of remark by noticing that the Evangelist John, in that interesting paragraph to which I am about to call your attention, finds in the Old Testament predictions, respecting the rejection of the Messiah by his countrymen, an antidote to such suspi cions, as the fact of our Lord's rejection, taken by itself, might not unnaturally suggest; and shows that what seemed fitted to shake into dissolution the whole magnificent fabric of our Lord's claims, in reality but settles it more immoveably on its solid foundation. The paragraph, though an unusually long one, has one subject the ministry of our Lord. It brings this ministry before our minds in its details and in its results: its details, in the message he delivered, and the credentials he presented; the claims he made, and the vouchers he exhibited; the doctrine he taught, and the evidence he gave of its truth-its results, in the hardened disbelief of the great body of his countrymen, and the cowardly silence of the small minority who were constrained inwardly to admit the justice of his claims, and the force of the evidence in their support; the first of these strange results, the hardened unbelief of the multitude, being accounted for by that blindness of mind and hardness of heart which had been the subject of Old Testament prophecy; and the second, the dastardly concealment of conviction, on the part of a portion of the better informed and upper classes, by that worldly-mindedness which leads men to prefer the suggestions of interest to the dictates of conscience, and the praise of men to the approbation of God; while in both these results, so melancholy in themselves, so threatening in their aspect, to the final success of the Christian cause, and so different from what we might have been disposed to anticipate, is found, when viewed in the light of ancient oracles, a corroboration of the claims which they seemed calculated to invalidate. This is the substance of the paragraph, and the remaining part of the lecture will be occupied in the development of the various important thoughts which are folded up in the abstract I have endeavoured to give of its contents. The paragraph itself is of a peculiar, I had almost said unique, structure and character. Lord's public ministry is closed. verse immediately preceding our text. The history of our It terminates in the The account of his |