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reason of their unbelief was in themselves, in the absence of that teachable and obedient heart which hears and follows the voice of truth, as the iron follows the magnet. "But ye believe not, because ye are not of My sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me." I know them-I know not only who they are, but what they are. "I know them-their inmost hearts. I know their sins and their follies; but I know, too, their longings after good. I know their temptations, their excuses, their natural weaknesses, their infirmities, which they brought into the world with them. I know their inmost hearts for good and for evil. True, I think some of them often miserable, and poor, and blind, when they fancy themselves strong, and wise, and rich in grace, and having need of nothing. But I know some of

them, too, to be longing after what is good-to be hungering and thirsting after righteousness, when they can see nothing but their own sin and weakness, and are utterly ashamed and tired of themselves, and are ready to lie down in despair, and give up all struggling after God."* And these sheep follow Him. And because they do so, they shall not miss of their aim. "I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. My Father, which gave them to Me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father's hand. I and My Father are one." One in counsel and

* Kingsley's Good News of God, pp. 251, 252.

determination-one in power and will-because one in Nature.

"Then the Jews"-well understanding what these words implied-"took up stones again to stone Him. Jesus answered them, Many good works have I showed you from My Father: for which of those works do ye stone me?" What an appeal! What an appeal! "The Jews an

swered Him, saying, 'For a good work we stone Thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that Thou, being a man, makest Thyself God.' Jesus answered them, 'Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods ?* If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken; say ye of Him, whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?" " Our Lord seems to waive for the moment the question of His essential dignity, and to take His stand on His official character. In a lower sense, princes and governors had been called gods in Scripture. The Lord said to Moses,† "See I have made thee a god to Pharaoh ;" therefore they ought not to have been so much shocked if He, who was so specially consecrated and commissioned of God, should appropriate the name given to inferior delegates. He then again appeals to His works. "If I do not the works of My Father, believe Me not. But if I do, though ye believe not Me"-though ye do not take Me on My word— "believe the works; that ye may know, and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in Him.” This was

Ps. lxxxii. 6.

+ Gen. vii, I.

in their eyes but an enhancement of the crime. "Therefore they sought again to take Him: but He escaped out of their hand, and went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at first baptized; and there He abode." It was plain that He could not remain in Jerusalem without danger to His life; and, as there was yet some time to elapse before the Passover, when the Lamb of God should be slain, He saw fit to withdraw from the rebellious city in which He would otherwise have spent these last precious weeks, and betook himself to a lonely country district.

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SECTION XIII.

CHRIST'S RETREAT BEYOND JORDAN-REQUEST OF

THE DISCIPLES.

JOHN X. 40-42; MATTHEW xix. 1, 2; MARK x. 1; LUKE xi. I.

ND [He] went away again beyond Jordan into

there He abode."

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* Three distinct occasions occur when, partly from the hostility, partly from the excitement, of the popular mind, Christ was compelled to retire into the less-frequented parts of Palestine.. The first of these occasions was when John was beheaded, when many of the disciples turned away from Him-when the first approach of His end dawned upon them-after the feeding of the multitudes on the sea of Galilee. The eastern shores of the lakethe limits of the Holy Land towards the west, on the boundaries of Tyre and Sidon-and far away to the north, the villages of Cæsarea Philippi-for this period of His life and for no other, are seen in the Gospel narratives. The second occasion of such danger is that mentioned in the Fourth Gospel-when He encountered the same hostility at Jerusalem as He had before encountered in Galilee. And here again the scene of His retirement is in accordance with what

...

When St. Matthew records our Lord's final departure from Galilee, he says, "And it came to pass, that when Jesus had finished these sayings, He departed from Galilee, and came into the coasts of Judæa beyond Jordan." St. Mark chronicles His journey in nearly the same words. "And He arose from thence and cometh into the coasts of Judæa, by the farther side of Jordan." But St. Luke, as we have seen, speaking apparently of the same period, says that "He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem." St. John's Gospel seems to supply the means of reconciling this apparent discrepancy. His narrative shows us that Jesus did indeed go to Jerusalem with the apparent intention of spending the rest of His time there, but that He was forced from it by the tumultuous violence of the people, which threatened to bring His earthly career to an end before the time fixed in the counsels of His Father. He therefore withdrew for a season from the neighbourhood of the capital, in which religious parties so fiercely raged, and retired to a wild and comparatively solitary place, where John at first exercised his

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might have been expected. What the northern and western mountains of Galilee were to that province, Peræa and the Jordan valley were to Judæa. "Beyond Jordan" "He abode,"- -or at Ephraim,' the high village on the outskirts of the hills of Benjamin, "near" and "overhanging" the wilderness of the Jordan, continued with His disciples, "walking no more openly among the Jews." And with these notices in St. John agrees the statement in St. Matthew's Gospel, that in the last period of His life, before His final entrance into Jerusalem, He "came into the coasts of Judæa beyond Jordan,' and with both of these statements agrees the narrative of all the four, which makes that final approach to have been-not from the usual northern road through Samaria-but from Jericho."-Stanley's Sinai and Palestine, pp. 411, 412.

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ministry. Here it was where He had first been announced by the Baptist as the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world-and here He came when that Lamb was already set apart to be offered. Here He had been proclaimed as the Son of God, and hither He withdrew when assailed for blasphemy because He said He was the Son of God. How long He was here left to retirement, we cannot say, but it would seem not long, for St. Matthew says that great multitudes followed Him; and He healed them there." As when John was preaching in these parts, there "went out to him Jerusalem and all Judæa, and all the region round about," so our Lord, though removed for the present from the great centres of Jewish life, was yet not so far out of reach as to preclude the resort of those "common people," who ever heard Him gladly." St. John says, that many resorted unto Him, and said, John did no miracle" as Christ had done-" but all things that John spake of this man were true”—He had proved greater, more powerful, more full of grace and truth, than John himself-" and many believed on Him there."

For the details of this sojourn beyond Jordan, and of the many who there made acquaintance with the Saviour, we must have recourse to the synoptical Gospels, and chiefly to St. Luke. And first we must

recount an incident, the time of which is not particularly marked, but which may very probably have taken place when first our Lord came into this neighbourhood, before the great resort of the people had begun. And it came to pass, that, as He was

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