CLXXXI. THE SAME SUBJECT continued. St. Luke vii. 47-50. Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven. And they that sat at meat with him began to say within themselves, Who is this that forgiveth sins also? And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace. The Lord does not extenuate her sin. Her sins, He emphatically says, were many. But while the proud Pharisee dwelt on this, He against whom she had sinned, the Divine Creditor Himself," who measures life by love," preferred to dwell on the love which proved the penitence of this humbled debtor to His mercy. The Pharisee in one respect had, it might be, less to reproach himself with, less to be forgiven in one particular, than this penitent. As he had in this one point less sense of sin, so had he less of love; like the elder brother in another parable who, proud of his own virtue, has less love to a forgiving father than the penitent prodigal has. But shall we therefore continue in sin that Grace may abound? Ask the true penitent if he would for all the world abuse that mercy to which he owes so much. So He absolved her. And every true penitent may have the comfort of knowing that his sins are as surely forgiven when the Minister of Christ pronounces in his Master's name the sentence of absolution, as if he had heard this assuring word from Christ Himself. Some however here cavilled. They did not dare utter their thought aloud, but the Lord could hear the murmur of their hearts. Yet, undismayed, He turns again to this penitent. He commends the faith which saw 1 The Christian Year, First Sunday after Christmas, and Sunday next before Advent. 2 Rom. vi. 1, 2, 13–15, 17, 19, 21, 22. "He who thinks that less love is due from him because he has sinned less, little understands the nature of sin, or of that mercy which preserves us from it."-Quesnel. in Him more than the Pharisee could see, which saw in Him more than a prophet; the faith which produced such fruits of penitence and love. Here was a saving faith, raising her out of the mire of sin in which once she lay wallowing; restoring her to a life of usefulness on earth, and to the hope of heaven. The Divine, large-hearted creditor bids her go in peace; and, no longer disturbed by the sense of that debt which He has cancelled, to make henceforth what return of love she can. CLXXXII. JOURNEY THROUGH GALILEE. St. Luke viii. 1-3. And it came to pass afterward, that he went throughout every city and village, preaching and shewing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God: and the twelve were with him, and certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils, and Joanna the wife of Chuza Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto him of their substance. We have here a record of what may be called a Missionary tour through Galilee. Thus our Lord went through town and village. The outlying places were not overlooked. These were the glad tidings He proclaimed, that the Kingdom of God, the Church of Christ, was come; that Satan should be dispossessed of the dominion he had usurped over the souls and bodies of men; that all who would submit themselves to God and obey His laws, should have a share in a Kingdom beyond all the expectation of the people of the Jews. On this journey He was accompanied not only by the Twelve, as the band of Apostles is now called, but by certain holy women who had been healed by Him of evil spirits and infirmities, of maladies which affected both mind and body, weakening them and depriving them of health and strength. Some of these who thus testified their gratitude to their Deliverer by ministering to Him of their substance, and even accompanying him, according to the custom of the country,' from place to place, are here mentioned. Mary of Magdala, so called to distinguish her from others of that name. Her infirmities were the direct effect of demoniacal possession. No fewer than seven evil spirits, in an age when the inhabitants of hell seem especially to have infested the earth, opposing the coming Kingdom of God, had taken possession of this poor woman's frame. She seems to have been a person of some distinction, a woman of substance; and when healed, she devoted herself to her Divine deliverer. Another is mentioned, Joanna, a woman well known as wife or widow of an important officer in the court of King Herod. Would the sacred historian have ventured to mention this, which might so easily have been confuted, had it not been a fact? The Church of God, of which our own is a branch, is founded on the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the head corner-stone. He hinted, as it were, that scheme which they afterwards worked out. So we find an Order of Widows or Deaconesses in the early Church.3 Another lesson too, the Lord, who may now be ministered to in the person of His servants and of His poor, by thus accepting in the days of His flesh the service of His creatures, has here left us. It has been adopted by our Church among the Sentences at the Offertory-"Let him that is taught in the word minister to him that teacheth in all good things." " 4 CLXXXIII. THE PHARISEES BLASPHEME. St. Matthew xii. 22-30. Then was brought unto him one possessed with a devil, blind, and dumb: and he healed him, insomuch that the blind and 1 See Grotius ad loc. 2 Collect for St. Simon and St. Jude's Day. Eph. ii. 19-22. 1 Tim. v. 9, 10; Rom. xvi. 1; 1 Cor. ix. 5. Suicer ad verb. Bing- dumb both spake and saw. and said, Is not this the Pharisees heard it, they said, This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils. And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand: and if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand? And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? therefore they shall be your judges. But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you. Or else how can one enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad. And all the people were amazed. son of David? But when the It was this sudden making of the dumb to speak which seems chiefly to have struck the bystanders and moved their wonder. They had no clever theory to account for it, like the Scribes 2 and Pharisees, who seem to have come down from Jerusalem 2 to Galilee on purpose to annoy our Lord. They recall that passage of the Prophet who had noted this among the signs of the Messiah's coming,3 "Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing." And they naturally inquire, "Is not this the son of David," the promised Christ? But those who should have been their leaders misled them. They could not, like modern unbelievers, deny the miracle; but, as on another occasion, they blasphemously attributed it to an absurdly impossible cause. When the Pharisees heard this constant inquiry of the unprejudiced people, they tried to cast contempt upon Him, and even to represent Him, who expelled evil spirits, as in league with the chief of evil spirits those invisible enemies of man who have molested 1 St. Luke xi. 14. Alford notes that though the narrative is given by St. Luke "later in our Lord's ministry," it is given "without any fixed situation or time." St. Mark iii. 22. 3 Is. xxxv. 5, 6. 4 St. Matt. ix. 32-34. The blasphemy of the Pharisees was thus repeated and systematic. him from the time of Adam's fall-with "the prince of the power of the air." They did not dare to face Him when they thus spake blasphemously against Him; but He knew their thoughts, and called them unto Him, and in a short parable confuted their folly; showing that if, according to the accepted maxim, two parties oppose one another, they cannot be said to be in league together. Division tends to desolation. Such a plan as they imagine would not strengthen the Kingdom of Satan, and can it be imagined that He would connive at what would only weaken it? Another argument He condescends to employ. If, admitting for the sake of argument, that it is even as you say, you must by a parity of reasoning attribute the power you claim for your disciples to the same source. They will not thank you for such explanation. The argument now takes the form of a dilemma. They cannot escape from one or the other of these conclusions, neither of which would they be willing to admit. If (absurd as the supposition is) Satan is cast out by his own connivance, then must your own children, who claim a power of exorcism, be under Satanic influence. But if (which is the only alternative) they are cast out only by the Spirit of God, then it must be admitted that the Kingdom of God, the reign of the Messiah, is come. For (and here our Lord. again opens His mouth in parables) Satan had not been thus vanquished unless Christ had come. He is the stronger than the strong. This is a conflict in which there is no neutrality. It is a question of for or against. If not allies, 1 Eph. ii. 2; vi. 12. Beelzebub signifies the chief of those that fly, i.e. that hover round like the fowls of the air, "like birds of evil wing."Gen. xv. 11; St. Matt. xiii. 4, 19. 2 St. Mark iii. 23. These are meant here by children. 1 Ki. xx. 35. This is no admission that they were actually expelled. 4 "God permits those who, out of a spirit of envy and contradiction, oppose the truth, to fall into manifest contradictions themselves... We must take care that envy does not make us condemn that in one, which we 6 approve in another."-Quesnel. 5 St. Luke xi. 20; Ex. viii. 19; xxxi. 18; Deut. ix. 10. "The destruction of the Kingdom of Satan is a proof and an effect of the incarnation. Christ, by freeing the bodies of the possessed, shows plainly what He came to do in the soul."Quesnel. Is. xl. 10; xlix. 24, 25; liii. 12; Col. ii. 15. 8 There is no contradiction here to that other saying in St. Luke ix. 50. "There He is speaking of one who was with them in spirit though not |